O-Poker

I've had a busy few weeks and have been slacking when it comes to updating the blog. I'm also getting sick, not Hoy sick, but still sick with a very sore throat. I sound a little like an 80 yr old lady that has been smoking for 70 years, only with a deeper voice.

I'm really liking the FTOPS this time around even though I've only played one FTOPS event (the $216 turbo last night - no luck). This is the first FTOPS series since the Full Tilt started using Tourney Dollars (T$) which allow you to win a satellite and unregister for T$. I have played a ton of these and have stockpiled quite a few T$. It is funny, but I have to stop myself from spending the T$ recklessly. I almost jumped into the $1k FTOPS tourney on Monday night because I had more than enough T$ in my account. I had to force myself not to register. The T$ are basically the same thing as cash, but FTP charges a 5% premium to convert them back to cash. If I had converted all my T$ to cash then I probably wouldn't have been considering jumping into a $1k tourney that wouldn't end until I was supposed to be at work. I can see how this is a good thing for the high stakes mtts and sng guys. They will get more people jumping into their games thanks to T$. Think about a random guy that won a sat to the FTOPS Main Event, but has plans that day. He might unregister from the FTOPS ME and decide, "I'll just play a $535 sng instead. Heck the $535 is free money since I won it in a sat. I mean I was going to play the FTOPS ME for $500. What's the difference in playing a $500 sng?" Maybe they will convert it to real cash and bring it to the 6 max NL tables. (Fingers crossed.)

I hadn't seen a tourney that you couldn't unregister from for T$ until this morning. They put up the $25k HU Championship tourney and it says in the lobby and the lobby of every satellite to the tourney, "You can not unregister from this or the $25k final." and "NO UNREGISTERING." It doesn't look like it would be very +EV to play, especially with the list of players that are already signed up:

Chris Ferguson
Phil Ivey
Andy Bloch
Erik Seidel
Gus Hansen
Howard Lederer
John Juanda
Brandon Adams
Brian Hastings (Stinger)
Cole South (cts)
David Benyamine
David Oppenheim
Huck Seed
Nick Schulman
Peter W Jepsen (not sure who this red pro is - too lazy to look it up)
Taylor Caby (green plastic)
durr
SteveSung
the guru 11 (westmenloAA/mr menlo)
OMGClayAiken
trex313 (dang's brother ?)
pr1nnyraid (krantz)
whitelime
Genius28
ActionJeff (future American Idol winner?)
garet777 (don't recognize the name, but probably should?)
AndyMcloed (not the 12 yr old)

Sounds like a soft field. I'm going to sign up today. Seriously, why even play a sat to this?

Who would you want in your 1st round?

Who do you think has the best shot of winning in this field?