The Nightly Turbo: Phil Galfond Wins $1 Million from Viktor Blom, MiniFTOPS Results

January 14, 2013

PokerNews Staff

Viktor Blom was the talk of the poker world last week after he profited more than $4 million in eight days at Full Tilt Poker. But is the heater over? We'll bring you that story, plus results from the MiniFTOPS, in this edition of the Nightly Turbo.

In Case You Missed It:

A winner was crowned at the 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event on Sunday. Bulgarian Dimitar Danchev outlasted a field of 987 to capture the title and the $1,859,000 first-place prize.

The final table was set at the PCA $25,000 buy-in High Roller. Shaun Deeb led a stacked remaining field of eight.

Didn’t get a chance to sweat all of the big online tournaments this weekend? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered in this week’s edition of the Sunday Briefing.

The 2012-13 World Series of Poker Circuit Bicycle Casino Main Event played down to 13 players on Sunday. Recent WSOPC ring winner Nathan Bjerno led a tough field that included Joe Tehan and Nam Le.

How did Jeff Sarwer transition from a chess prodigy to a poker pro? Find out that and more in the latest Seat Open.

Galfond Crushes Blom

Viktor "Isildur1" Blom won more than $4 million on Full Tilt Poker in the first eight days of 2013. It was a rush we hadn't seen in a long time at the high-stakes online poker tables, and Blom admitted on Twitter that he was on the "sickest run of cards ever."

But as the popular saying goes, all good things must come to an end.

Blom gave back $1.7 million of his profits over the weekend, including more than $1 million to his friend Phil "OMGClayAiken" Galfond. According to HighStakesDB.com, the two superstars went to war Sunday afternoon playing three tables of $200/$400 pot-limit Omaha. Galfond catapulted out to a $400,000 lead after just 200 hands, at which point Blom requested that they move to $300/600 with "run it twice" enabled. Once again, Galfond raced out to a huge lead, taking $415,000 in less than 200 hands. After taking a short break from PLO, Blom returned later in the day to take another crack at Galfond and struck out again by handing over more than $370,000.

During his 11-hour session, Blom also faced off against recent PCA Super High Roller champ Scott "mastrblastr" Seiver, as well as high-stakes regulars "SallyWoo," "cottonseed1," and Ben "Sauce1234" Sulsky. Despite massive losses on Sunday, Blom is still the biggest online winner of 2013, but Galfond is quickly creeping up on his Swedish comrade.

For a closer look at Blom's losses, be sure to check out the Online Railbird Report later this week. HighStakesDB.com also has more on Blom's session against Galfond.

MiniFTOPS Results

Full Tilt Poker's MiniFTOPS XXI continued over the weekend with seven more events on the 35-tournament schedule. With 18 events in the books, this series has surpassed the halfway point and already handed out more than $2.2 million in prizes.

Among the big winners during the weekend was "Canadiense," who bested more than 17,000 entries in Event #18 to claim a MiniFTOPS avatar and $73,000. The biggest buy-in came in Saturday's $55 No-Limit Hold'em Heads-Up event, which drew 1,024 players to double its guaranteed prize pool. "Ludabaksy" took it down after agreeing to a heads-up deal with "pavels4444," who took the lion's share of the chop ($7,350).

Here's a look at the winners from the weekend:

Event	Buy-in	Entrants	Winner	Prize
Event #12: No-Limit Hold'em Six-Max	$20+2	4,442	Benderovic	$11,113
Event #13: 2-7 Triple Draw Six-Max	$30+3	764	Rokep02	$4,928
Event #14: No-Limit Hold'em Heads Up	$50+5	1,024	ludabaksy	$6,884
Event #15: Pot-Limit Omaha Six-Max Triple Chance	$30+3	1,887	sweetlips6	$10,396
Event #16: No-Limit Hold'em Rush	$20+2	3,289	NotsoHidden	$12,169
Event #17: No-Limit Hold'em Knockout Multi-Entry	$12+1	20,837	kunsch	$30,655
Event #18: No-Limit Hold'em Multi-Entry	$30+3	17,119	Canadiense	$73,000

The MiniFTOPS action resumed Monday with three more tournaments: Event #19 ($26 Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo Knockout); Event #20 ($109 No-Limit Hold'em Six-Max 2x Chance); and Event #21 ($22 No Limit Hold'em Turbo).

The series culminates on Sunday, Jan. 20, with the $75 Multi-Entry Main Event, and we're excited to announce that we will be giving away 100 Main Event tickets to our valued PokerNews readers. An exclusive freeroll will take place on Saturday, Jan. 19 at 13:00 ET, so be sure to keep reading the Nightly Turbo to find out the password!

Qualify for the Aussie Millions!

The Aussie Millions Poker Championship kicks off this week, and Crown Poker is gearing up for the massive series by running several satellites to a number of exciting events.

On Sunday, Crown Poker gave away a $20,000 Aussie Millions Poker Championship package, plus 18 Aussie Millions Main Event seats during qualifiers. More than 150 players were already registered for the Main Event as of Sunday. Tournament officials are expecting the first-place prize in that tournament to reach $2 million.

For the complete schedule of Aussie Millions satellites and events, check out AussieMillions.com. And keep it locked in to PokerNews.com when our live coverage of the Aussie Millions Main Event begins on Sunday, Jan. 27!

Harry Reid Tied to Bribe Accusions

An interesting story is developing out of Utah involving U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Jeremy Johnson, a man tied closely to the illegal payment processing of online poker sites like Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Johnson accused John Swallow, Utah’s new attorney general, of attempting to set up a bribe payment from Johnson to Reid to impede a Federal Trade Commission investigation into I Works, one of Johnson's many companies that allegedly scammed consumers out of $275 million. Johnson claims that Swallow helped set up a $600,000 payment from Johnson to Reid, and emails between Johnson and Swallow published in The Salt Lake Tribune this week seemed to back Johnson's statement.

Reid's camp denied the allegations on Monday.

"Senator Reid has no knowledge or involvement regarding Mr. Johnson’s case," said Reid spokesperson Kristen Orthman in a statement. "These unsubstantiated allegations implying Senator Reid’s involvement are nothing more than innuendo and simply not true."

Last year, Johnson was accused of hiding the $51.4 million he earned processing online poker payments in the U.S. by moving funds through a variety of shell companies. Although his involvement in the Black Friday case has been widely unreported, Johnson is alleged to have formed a company with Chad Elie called Elite Debt, and then facilitated millions in online poker transactions using Elie's ties to PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker and Johnson's relationship with SunFirst Bank in Utah.

We'll have more on this story as it develops. Until then, read the full report at The Salt Lake Tribune website.

Randy Lew Live Multi-Tabling at the PCA

At last year's PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, Team PokerStars Online's Randy "nanonoko" Lew set a Guinness World Record by playing the most online poker hands ever recorded in eight hours while making a profit. In case you missed it, we were there to witness the insanity.

How could he possibly top that achievement? How about multi-tabling heads-up against five players in a live setting? PokerNews' Kristy Arnett was there to catch some of the action.