Singer Captures $25,000 Heads-up Championship on Full Tilt

Full Tilt's first-ever $25,000 Heads-up Championship, featuring the largest buy-in ever for an online heads-up tourney, saw a familiar name take the title on Sunday. Full Tilt pro David Singer claimed the title after defeating Emil "whitelime" Patel to win the the $560,000 first-place prize. Patel's runner-up showing was worth $320,000.

The semifinals and finals of the heads-up event were head on Sunday after four rounds of play on Saturday's Day 1 trimmed the starting field from 64 to four. Singer defeated Brain Hastings in one of Sunday's semifinals, while Patel held off recent NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship finalist Andy Bloch in the other. Hastings and Bloch both received $168,000 for their showings.

The four other quarterfinalists who cashed in the event were Dani "Ansky451" Stern, "mischiefofmagic", "mastrblastr", and "FinddaGrind", an account frequently rumored on poker forums and unofficial sites to be played by Patrik Antonius. The event boasted plenty of star power, with Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey, Erik Seidel, Erick Lindgren, Cory Carroll, David Benyamine, Tom Dwan, Isaac Baron and Chris Ferguson, who also hosted the event, among those taking part.

The event serves as a major bridge between online series for Full Tilt, which recently wrapped up its popular FTOPS VIII series and next week will launch its new Mini Series of Poker.