There are three Full Tilt Poker series for Russia and Ukraine: one in July, one in September, and one in November. Each series is a week long and takes place in Kiev. July and September feature Main Events that cost $1.5k, and the Grand Final in November features a $2.5k buy-in. The total prize pool across the three events is estimated at $1,000,000.
For the chance to play poker in Ukraine, you can win your seat for one of the series by playing Direct Qualifiers online. They are scheduled for 10:00 EST on Sundays and Wednesdays for $150+$13. The tournament on Sunday has a five seat guarantee, and the Wednesday version awards a minimum of three seats.
If you win your seat in a Full Tilt qualifier, you also get Academy Lessons from Russian pros Vitaly Lunkin and Nikolay Evdakov.
If you can’t afford to pay $163, there are freeroll tourneys available. Every day there are three Round 1 freerolls to choose from. The maximum field for each freeroll is 1k people, so you’ll want to sign up as soon as registration opens. The top 10% will receive tickets to the weekly Final Round Freeroll.
You can play for one of five live event tickets if you make it to the Final Round Freeroll on Thursdays at 11:00 EST. You could potentially win your entire buy-in for a Main Event in Kiev without risking a single cent!
All poker sites are required to post T&Cs, and Full Tilt is no different. Winning a satellite seat on their site means wearing their gear throughout the course of the tournament. You have to be a minimum of 18 years old, and picture ID is necessary for proof.
It is also important to realize that Full Tilt’s satellites do not include any funds for traveling or hotels. You must take care of these yourself. You are also only permitted to win one seat via online satellites. If you play satellites even after winning a seat, you cannot win again and will not be compensated.
FTOPS XX Main Event Results
Full Tilt is still running their multi-annual FTOPS, now for the twentieth time. With no American players to pad the field, the guarantees have been a little lower, but this was the still the place for the most talented tournament pros to showcase their skills.
The Main Event was a great success, thanks in no small part to the use of Full Tilt’s Multi-Entry format. As the name suggests, this tournament allowed players to pay the $640 buy-in multiple times. It’s certainly a sensible strategy. Just replace the lost portion of your customer base with extra money from your remaining players. All-in all the buy-ins pushed the prize pool up to $2,799,600. Well past the $2.5 million guarantee that Full Tilt had lying in wait.
Although many of the big U.S. names were noticeably absent, a large number of Red Pros from the rest of the world showed up play No Limit Hold ‘em. With bigger bankrolls than the average grinder, these players are also well placed to take advantage of the multi-entry format, so it was no surprise to find so many of them in the money. The following sponsored players all cashed: Felipe Mojave, Fabian Quoss, Rui Cao, Peter Jeffen, Mike McDonald, Bruno Stefanello, Luigi Kwaysser, and Martin Kabrhel.
Felipe Montanegro made it just inside the top 100 in 93rd, behind James Dempsey and Yongsuk Chang in 88th and 87th respectively. At the very top of the Team Full Tilt tree were Pass Lefrancois in 31st and a second instance of Bruno Stefanello in 21st.
It would take a good 15 hours before the champion could be crowned and not before a 4-way deal had been struck at the final table. The foursome of paranoik333, WHOPPWHOPP, Towelfish, and ArielBahia divvied up the money, with no player receiving less than $278,393.51.
The player with the most FTOPS XX experience, paranoik333, ended up in 4th place. He cashed earlier in the series in Event #20 and looks like a good tip for future successes. WHOPPWHOPP ended his run in third place, ahead of Towelfish in 2nd, who grabbed the largest share of the prize pool.
That left ArielBahia as the FTOPS XX Main Event champion, collecting $346,696.49 for his troubles, along with a set of FTOPS XXI buy-ins and a boat-load of Full Tilt swag.
FTOPS XX Main Event final table payouts were as follows:
1 – ArielBahia – $346,696.49
2 – Towelfish – $366,792.88
3 – WHOPPWHOPP – $279,393.51
4 – paranoik333 – $288,774.00
5 – CupcakeThePig – $137,180.40
6 – antesvante – $95,186.40
7 – Nora80 – $64,390.80
8 – youreamaniac – $44,793.60
9 – shevliak87 – $30,795.60
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