Full Tilt Poker is the online poker room where most of the high stakes action on the Internet takes place. HighstakesDB tracks the betting at Full Tilt Poker on a hand to hand basis and compiles the results into the biggest winners and losers every month.
Phil Ivey tops the list of winners for August 2010 with just over $2 million against his name, which is way ahead of the next poker professional at Full Tilt Poker. If things continue this way then Ivey can cross more than $20 million in life time winnings in September. For someone who started out only in October 2006 this is a huge feat. Ivey crossed the $5 million mark in September 2008, the $10 million mark in April 2009 and the $15 million mark in November 2009. And all this is at Full Tilt Poker only. The biggest single pot won by Ivey was of $832,940 in November 2009.
Numbers two and four on the August 2010 list are jungleman12, real name Dan Cates, and durrrr, real name Tom Dwan. Cates has won $1.1 million in August at Full Tilt Poker and Dwan has won $0.7 million. Cates and Dwan make an interesting combination because they have a challenge going between them, which is popularly called The Durrrr Challenge 2. The first challenge, between Dwan and Patrik Antonius, went into hibernation after 19 months of slow paced progress because Antonius is so far behind that he has no hope of catching up. Fortunately for poker fans the second Durrrr Challenge has started at a brisk pace and 10% of the slated number of games has already been completed. As things stand now, Dwan is down by half a million dollars but it is early days. Fans are hoping that this contest will not become one sided and slow down to a snail’s pace. Dwan started playing at Full Tilt Poker in November 2006, about the same time as Ivey. However Dwan has had a volatile life with maximum cumulative winnings at $8 million in April 2010. He is currently at $5 million.
The biggest loser in August 2010 is Gus Hansen at $2.9 million. Like someone at a poker forum remarked, Full Tilt Poker should change his password and forget to tell him.
Great as Phil Ivey’s achievements are, there are many in the poker fraternity who would feel that Ivey has not yet done enough to deserve a poker room named after him. But the Aria Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas thought otherwise and decided to open a private high-stakes poker room named after the iconic player.
The inauguration is set for May 21, 2010, and it promises to be a classy affair. The invitation reads “Aria Resort and Casino, the heart of CityCenter, is revealing our exclusive new high-limit poker room, The Ivey Room. To commemorate this special occasion, you are on the Dean’s List to compete in this prestigious event.” The prestigious event is a $1 million invitational freeroll. The festivities begin on May 21 with a cocktail reception. The tournament will be held on May 22. The highlight of the event will be a heads-up between the tournament winner and Ivey for $250,000, which will take place immediately after the tournament in The Ivey Room. Added attractions are bounties on special players. Ivey will have a bounty of $100,000 and other players will have bounties totaling $200,000.
Ivey is known as much for his off-the-tables achievements and perhaps those contribute more towards his popularity. He was recently on the cover of Cigar Aficionado. Ivey’s penchant for prop bets is well known and rumor has it that he has placed the biggest prop bet in the history of poker. He bet Howard Lederer $5 million that he will add two more WSOP bracelets to his tally of seven within two years. Those who think this is a tough ask would be reminded that Ivey won two bracelets last year itself. I am betting that Lederer will be down five million by July 2010.
Cardrunners is one of the most popular and successful online poker training resources. One of its mainstays has been co-owner and lead instructor Cole South. In a poker blog at the Cardrunners website South has written that he will be leaving the company this month, both as an owner and as an instructor. South was quick to point out that there are no differences between him and the other owners of Cardrunners and leaving the company has been a heart-wrenching decision for him. At the age of 22, South has been trying to juggle three full-time occupations for the last one year and has not been able to do justice to any of them. He is a student of economics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and he wants to complete his degree and therefore he could not leave this out. He is also a professional poker player and finally an instructor at Cardrunners. He is an instructor because of his excellence as a poker player and giving that up would mean giving up both vocations. Therefore the axe has fallen on Cardrunners.
One can’t say for sure what his colleagues at the Full Tilt poker tables will think of this decision. Bereft of the pressures of work at Cardrunners South is bound to hit them hard. By mid-February this year South was the biggest winner, up by nearly $3 million in cash game earnings. In March he dropped almost $2.5 million to Tom Dwan, Ilari Sahamies and Isildur1. So maybe South wants to focus on the nosebleed stakes and send a signal that he is still the kind of cash games player that earned the respect of his peers.
In the poker blog that South has titled “Moving On and Good Luck” he gets sentimental about his stint with Cardrunners. He writes, “My favorite part about being here has been the people and the community. I’ve been lucky to make great friends with Taylor, Andrew, and everyone else involved with the business. … I want to give a special thanks to all of the members of Cardrunners for making learning and teaching poker fun. Good luck.”
I came accross this hand from the $300/$600 Pot Limit Omaha game on Full Tilt Poker. Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies was playing against Cole South for a massive pot and made one seriously HERIOC call. I don’t know how he makes this call…
According to one railbird, Ziigmund wrote in the chat: “You have 45 or 56, so im gonna call u with this” before turning over just a pair of 8’s.
Fortunately for him it paid off big this time and he raked in a $240k+ pot.
Here is a hand from Tom “durrrr” Dwan’s Million Dollar Challenge (Sponsored by Full Tilt Poker) where Dwan lays down a sick beat on Sammy George with poker’s worst hand: 72 offsuit. Dwan even starts the hand off by telling George that he is holding a 72. Prior to the game starting, the two made a side bet that if anyone won a hand from the other while holding a 72 the other would have to pay the winner $10k. So, in an attempt to make an easy 10k Dwan put almost half a million dollars on the line… without giving too much away, check out the video here:
Sammy George never recovered from this hand, and in the end lost a total of $750,000 to Durrrr.
Full Tilt Poker is the online poker room where most of the high stakes action on the Internet takes place. HighstakesDB tracks the betting at Full Tilt Poker on a hand to hand basis and compiles the results into the biggest winners and losers every month.
