The Full Tilt Online Poker Series XI kicked off on Feb. 4 with the first event hosted by Howard Lederer. With a buy-in of $216, 6,275 entrants created a hefty prize pool of $1,000,000, and the lucky first place finisher “MuckDucks” got the best of it, winning $216,512.60.
Some familiar names to cash in the debut event were Trond Eidsvig in 329th place for $514.55, Danny Ryan in 425th for $425.60, and the host himself, Howard Lederer in 697th for $326.30. 738 players made the money.
The winners of the following eight events were: “ramagem” ($61,404), “AsMetzmagnyAs” ($27,503.34), FTOPS X main event winner Va Shon “Julian Verse” Watkins ($45,927), “TOPTEN” ($44,327), “NoPasaran” ($95,648), “The Universe112” ($140,358.39), “Chancew” ($168,517.84), and “Luie Sojo” ($115,884).
Event no. 10 hosted by John Phan had 5,325 entrants and a prize pool of $1,500,000. “gboro780” took home the motherload, finishing in first for $275,600.70. Some big names who took home $654.98 for finishing further down the line were Vivek Rajkumar who busted in 325th and Ben Roberts who came 341st.
“darrenelias” was next on the list to win an event, taking home a not-too-shabby $126,544; “bigdogpckt5s” took down the $500 + $35 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. event for $75,572.50 after beating off 702 opponents; “daCav04” slaughtered a larger field of 2,528 players in event no. 15 for $99,582.98; and then “jaxx23” followed suit taking home the first prize of $37,628 in the next event.
Event no. 17 saw 1,091 players and a prize pool of $1,000,000. “UFman2” was the lucky champ earning a whopping $245,696.40. Mike Matusow scraped the money in 115th out of 120 paid places — He still made a profit however with $1,767.60.
Some of the most recent winners were “Str8Forward” ($27,944.40), and “vadka” ($63,105).
With the focus returning to poker from romance after St. Valentines day, it’s time to get down to business. The penultimate event of the Series kicks off today at 2 p.m. (ET). Irishman Andy Black will host the $120 + $9 buy-in no-limit hold’em knockout tournament, which has a guaranteed prize pool of $750,000.
Then at 6 p.m. (ET) World Series of Poker Europe main event champion John Juanda hosts the event everyone has been waiting for — the FullTilt.com Online Poker Series XI main event — with a whopping prize pool of $2,500,000.
Only time will tell who the new champion will be. Check back at Card Player to find out.
