Poker News

The Full Tilt Online Poker Series, otherwise known as FTOPS, is one of the most popular tournament series online. It features millions of dollars in guarantees and attracts some of the largest player pools for online tournaments.  Last week, Full Tilt Poker announced that FTOPS XVI would be played from April 23rd to May 2nd and the MiniFTOPS XVI series would be held from May 7th to 16th.  Between both tournament series, FTOPS XVI will see over $25 million guaranteed.

FTOPS XVI will kick off on April 23rd and feature $18 million over 30 events.  There will be knockout, shootout, turbo, and super turbo events, including a Two-Day Event that will have a prize pool guarantee of $2 million, while the Main Event for the FTOPS XVI series will have a prize pool of $3 million.  Each event will feature a Full Tilt pro that will act as the official host for the tournament.  As of now, the assignments for the Full Tilt pros have not been announced on the Full Tilt Poker website.

The first weekend of the series will have three events every day on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  On Friday, the first event will be a $200+$16 No Limit Hold’em tournament with a $750,000 guarantee.  The next event will take place four hours later, a $310+$12 No Limit Hold’em Super Turbo 6max with a $300,000 guarantee.  Friday’s action concludes with Event #3, a $200+$16 Limit Hold’em 6max event featuring a $150,000 guarantee.

Saturday, April 23rd will have three hotly contested events starting with Event #4, a $500+$35 Pot Limit Omaha 6max tournament with a $400,000 guarantee.  Two hours later, players can join Event #5, a $100+$9 No Limit Hold’em Rebuy tournament that sports a $600,000 guarantee.  The final Saturday event has yet to have an announced game type, but has a posted guarantee of $250,000.

The first Sunday of FTOPS XVI will feature a combined $2.55 million in prize pools.  At 14:00 ET on April 25th will be a $120+$9 No Limit Knockout tournament with a huge $800,000 guarantee.  Shortly after will be Event #8, which is a $500+$35 No Limit Hold’em Heads-Up tournament that has a half-million dollar guarantee.  The big Sunday wraps up with Event #9, a $300+$22 No Limit Hold’em tournament that will have the first nine-figure guarantee of the series at $1.25 million.

The very next day, will see another nine-figure guarantee with Event #12, a $1,000+$60 No Limit Hold’em 6max tournament with a $1.25 million prize pool.  Another million-dollar prize pool will be played on Wednesday, April 28th with Event #18, a $300+$16 No Limit Hold’em 6max Rebuy.

Saturday, May 1st might be May Day in some countries, but for a handful of players it’ll be a huge payday thanks to the $2,000+$100 No Limit Hold’em Ante from the Start Two-Day Event.  The prize pool for this mega event is set at an amazing $2 million, making it the second richest tournament of FTOPS XVI.

The final Sunday will see two nine-figure tournaments, starting with Event #28, a $240+$16 No Limit Hold’em Knockout 6max tournament with a $1 million guarantee.  Things will wrap up with the Main Event, set to be a $600+$40 buy-in No Limit Hold’em tournament that will sport the largest prize pool of the series at $3 million.

As is customary for all FTOPS, Full Tilt Poker will reward everyone who makes the final table of any event a limited-edition FTOPS jacket.  Players who win an FTOPS XVI tournament will receive the jacket, along with a gold FTOPS jersey and a slick gold jersey avatar for use at Full Tilt Poker tables.  The player who finishes atop the FTOPS XVI Leaderboard will be awarded a custom Full Tilt Poker avatar and a prize package that includes entry into all FTOPS XVII Events except for the Two-Day event.  That prize package is estimated to be worth in excess of $9,000.

This time around, there will also be an FTOPS Tournament of Champions.  After the FTOPS XVI series has concluded, FTOPS winners from the past year will compete.  The winner of this exclusive tournament gets a 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event prize package.

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