The Poker Lab Rat

The weekly $250,000 Guarantee event at Full Tilt Poker brought 1,726 players to the virtual tables, with a total prize pool of $345,200 and 153 players making the cash.

‘Jennez’ had a huge lead as final-table play began, sitting on a stack of over 1.8 million chips that was three times the second-place total of ‘Tourbillon.’

‘oldtimerxc’ was first one out when his pocket tens fell to the A-Q of ‘dinosaurjr,’ when a queen flopped and no other help arrived. A double knockout occurred next, when, with blinds of $12,000/$24,000, Jennez opened for $74,000 from under the gun with Q-J of clubs, ‘baller11782′ pushed over the top for $223,000, with A-Q, and Tourbillon, who had dropped a sizeable portion of his chips a few hands earlier, found pocket kings and pushed his last $252,000 in as well.

Jennez made the call and flopped a flush draw when the flop came 8c-Ac-4h, and a club four on the turn made Jennez’s flush. A heart five on the river missed Tourbillon’s redraws, and Tourbillon was out in seventh, with baller11782 claiming eighth.

Jennez’s hot streak continued, when he found a three-out nine of the river to knock ‘JOSEYY’ to the rail in sixth.  Jennez stayed aggressive, and though he doubled up ‘Evode’ a few hands later after getting involved with 10-8 on a 9-9-A board, he knocked out Evode a few hands later with winning quad 5’s.

‘MisterNiceGuy,’ who had managed a five-out river survival of his own earlier at the table, lasted until fourth, when he pushed all-in on a flush draw that never made it home which meant three players remained.

Four hands later, that became two, as Jennez again worked his magic. With blinds at $20,000/$40,000, dinosaurjr pushed a last $226,000 in, backing K-Q of hearts, and Jennez called with an unsuited 8-7. A seven flopped, the final board read 4-7-9-3-4, and Jennez entered heads-up play with a 2:1 margin over cardno. 

The heads-up battle lasted nearly 90 hands - and about 60 minutes - before the final hand saw each player throw repeated tease bets at the other, and after the turn the board showed 8-3-9-6 with three clubs.

Finally, Jennez raised enough to induce cardno’s all-in call, with cardno holding 9-8 for top two pair. However, Jennez had the A-8 of clubs for the nut flush, leaving cardno dead to three outs on the river. The spade three that arrived wasn’t one of them, and Jennez claimed the wire-to-wire win.

Final standings:
1st ($74,218): Jennez
2nd ($48,328): cardno
3rd ($34,951.50): dinosaurjr
4th ($28,047.50): MisterNiceGuy
5th ($21,160.76): Evode
6th ($15,534): JOSEYY
7th ($10,010.80): Tourbillon
8th ($7,249.20): baller11782
9th ($5,133.13): oldtimerxc

If you want to get in on the online poker action then play at FullTilt Poker or read our onsite review of FullTilt Poker at PokerLabrat.com.
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