FTOPS Poker Tournament

Multi-entry online poker tournament results in record number of players at this Sunday’s FTOPS Main Event

The poker calendar is going full throttle and now all eyes are now intensely focused on the Full Tilt Online Poker Series Main Event which commences this Sunday. Even before the first virtual hand has been dealt the excitement has reached fever pitch as we wait to hear what the final prize pool total will be.

Initially set at a guaranteed $3 million, the prize pool is expected to at least double after a record number of players registered for the event. Because the $640 buy-in tournament for what will be the 19th FTOPS is a Multi-Entry event, players can register up to six times. This has resulted in more than 3,100 entries already registered for Sunday’s main event, and a number of hours still to go before registration closes.

Multi-entries for the tournament’s $300 buy-in event topped 11,000, creating a prize pool that doubled from the original guaranteed figure of $1.5 million to over $3 million. With this is mind, some industry pundits are predicting that the prize pool will actually triple, with an online survey of players claiming that 40% of 230 questioned believed that the Main Event will generate a prize pool between $5 million and $7 million. Almost 30% think that the prize pool will fall between $7 million and $9 million and 3% believe it will eclipse $12 million.

The Main Event, which will be hosted by Full Tilt Professional player Erick Lindgren will kick off at %.00pm ET on Sunday. Also scheduled for Sunday is a $240 No Limit Hold’em Six Max Knockout hosted by Canadian pro Peter Jetten, one of the newest signings to the Full Tilt Team. The event begins at 2:00pm ET and has a guaranteed prize pool of $1 million.

The Two-Day $2,000 No Limit Hold’em Six-Max event that begins on Saturday will conclude on Sunday. More than 1,000 players began the tournament and 91 will return when the event commences at 2:00pm ET. The winner will walk away with $432,012.

Despite all the excitement, it is unlikely that the FTOPS Main Event will eclipse the current record, set by the 2010 Poker Stars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) Main Event, which had a final prize pool of $12,215,000. That event featured a $5,200 buy-in with 2,443 entries and was won by Tyson “Potterpoker” Marks for $2,278,097.