The first Full Tilt Online Poker Series, which kicked off in August, 2006, was wildly successful. Its very first event, a $216 no limit tournament, attracted 2,000 players and set the tone for one of the most successful online tournament series in history. In November, 2006, Full Tilt Poker could not resist; the second Full Tilt Online Poker Series, or FTOPS, kicked off, attracting the top online tournament players on the Net plus thousands of fish, each looking to strike gold in one of the richest online poker tournaments ever held. The Main Event of FTOPS II attracted nearly twice the 1,468 players who attended the Main Event of the first tournament series, manifesting not only the popularity of Full Tilt as an online poker destination, but of the influence of the poker boom as a whole. At the end of the $535 no limit hold’em Main Event that attracted 2,449 players, Spiked walked away with nearly a quarter of a million dollars and a gold Full Tilt Poker jersey.
Spiked beat out the second largest tournament field in FTOPS history, trailing only the 3,010 players who made up the second event of FTOPS II. He beat out dmkai3 heads up, who took home a not-too-shabby $137,878.70. Showing in the event was soxfan1985, who finished in third place for $90,245.65. Dewey123333 captured fourth place, taking home $72,000.60 for his troubles; not bad for a fourth place payday in one of the largest online poker tournaments in history! The final player to cash for over $50,000 in the FTOPS II Main Event was bballer88, who pocketed $54,490.25. Rounding out the final table were luffiii (who finished sixth), inter27 (seventh), THE__D__RY (eighth), and CaseyTheKid (ninth). The latter took home $27,600 in Event #3 of FTOPS I; he cashed for $17,143.00 in the FTOPS II Main Event.
As we’ve seen in editions of the FTOPS and World Championship of Online Poker tournament series, the poker pros and sharks come out for the lower buy-in no limit hold’em events. In Event #2, a $216 no limit tournament, a whopping 3,010 players entered, meaning the prize pool topped $600,000. A big payday was in store for the winner and all eyes were squarely focused on joskins, who cashed for $107,788.10, the largest non-Main Event cash of FTOPS II. Squirrely1 finished in second and saw $65,618.00 in cash coming his way. The top eight players took home over $10,000 in cash as their reward for beating out several thousand hungry poker players. They included set888s (third for $42,742.00), SuburbanSpade (fourth for $33,411.00), Can You Tell (fifth for $24,983.00), JazzyCFC (sixth for $18,481.40), The Reaper4 (seventh for $13,846.00), and arsenal46 (eighth for $10,836.00). A__theKevlar__2, who has captured second in the $1,000 Monday tournament on Full Tilt Poker for nearly $60,000, cashed in the event along with online poker superstars HoosierAlum, lucky seven, PearlJammed, and PXFACTOR.
One of the best spectacles of FTOPS II was the No Limit Hold’em Six-Max tournament, which saw a showdown of one of the best online poker players in the world, Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy battling ctx97 heads up. In the end, JohnnyBax was bested, sending ctx97 home with $63,840 and a gold jersey. All was not lost for JohnnyBax; the World Series of Poker bracelet winner cashed for $42,134.40.
There were over 11,000 total buy-ins in the second FTOPS, setting the stage for the third installment of Full Tilt Poker’s marquee tournament series, which would expand to 10 total tournaments.