FTOPS XIII Recap

Another Full Tilt Online Poker Series has come to an end, and another batch of players are a whole lot richer. One such player is FTOPS XIII Main Event winner, Matthew Waxman (aka Poligraph), who in addition to runner-up Inoriisss, bested the likes of Lauren Kling, Kameron McRay, and James Obst for the $453,663 top prize. This isn’t Poligraph’s first FTOPS win either, as he won Event #15 in FTOPS XII. He also made it to the final table in Event #56 of this year’s FTOPS.

The biggest money winner, however, was Jake Toole who claimed $453,687 for his victory in the two-day $2,500 NL Holdem event. Full Tilt Poker Pro Brian Hastings came in second.

The 13th Full Tilt Online Poker Series kicked off with a $1 million guaranteed event hosted by recent WSOP bracelet winner Vitaly Lunkin. And the first winner of FTOPS XIII was Deception Pt who chopped the final pot for a $107,518.60 win.

Chopping the pot (or deal-making) has become quite popular in online poker as of late. The final pot in Event #10, with $1.5 million guaranteed, was chopped as well, earning winner t1ger $189,318.58.

One of the deep finishers in the 2009 WSOP Main Event, Billy Kopp, took down his first-ever FTOPS event with a win in #21, the Razz Event, for nearly $40,000.

A pleasantly surprising hit in the FTOPS XIII lineup this year was the Ante Up For Africa charity tournament, hosted as always by Don Cheadle. This go-round, the poker community raised $50,000 for the charity that serves humanitarian causes, currently in Darfur.

The Mini-FTOPS XIII is next, starting Septemeber 9 and promising a $3 million total guaranteed prize pool.