In the June 6th running of the Full Tilt Poker $750,000 Guaranteed, it was a UB.compro that came out on top. Longtime PocketFiver Adam RoothlusLevy banked $102,000 after chopping heads-up with Full Tilt Poker player MrsNights, who walked away with $111,000. A total of 3,286 players entered the $215 buy-in tournament, creating an overlay of nearly $100,000. PocketFives.com caught up with Levy at the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) to talk about his big Sunday.
Following the departure of online poker pro Brent bhanks11 Hanks in third place for $52,000, Levy and MrsNights forged a two-day deal. Levy explained why he’d consider chopping up the prize pool despite his perceived edge at the tables: “In the big scheme of things, it’s my own bankroll and that $50,000 pay difference between first and second place is pretty large. I thought I was better than he was, but he wasn’t bad. I just figured we’d play for $10,000 and see how it goes.”
He’ll now carry the momentum into the 2010 WSOP, where he finished 51st in Event #5, a $1,500 No Limit Hold’em tournament, for $8,500. Levy’s top performance in Las Vegas came by virtue of taking 48th in the 2008 Main Event for $135,000. On any momentum boost that the $750,000 Guaranteed could provide, Levy told PocketFives.com, “It can’t hurt. Having a nice win like that and everyone saying congratulations has been cool. I’ve been more confident. It also helps me focus on the WSOP. I had won so much money online and had slacked a bit and not been as focused. I paid for that over the second half of 2009. Now, I am focused.”
Levy sat down with PocketFives.com in the new Bad Beat Bar, one of the major additions to the 2010 WSOP setup at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Also new this year is poker in the Rio Pavilion, which was formerly the site of the annual Gaming Life Expo. Levy gave his take on the 2010 WSOP layout: “The Amazon Room is the Day 2 and final table room and the cash games are out of there. I like it and it’s pretty different. The changes are good. On the $1,000 event days when there are a lot of people around, they also switch one of the women’s bathrooms to a men’s bathroom.”
Levy’s largest online cash came back in 2007, when he took second in a Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) Two-Day Event for $387,000. He signed with UB.com in September 2008 and promptly final tabled the World Poker Tour (WPT) Festa al Lago for $266,000. Like many members of the online poker community, Levy now has his sights set on a WSOP Main Event title: “It would be great to make a deep run. The Main Event has a great structure and you want to try to play it the lowest variance route. There are so many good situations you can get in, so you should just be patient.”
Last August, Levy won the PokerStars$55 rebuy for $38,000 and in March took down the Full Tilt Poker $75,000 Guaranteed for $18,000. In May 2009, Levy final tabled a €5,000 No Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event held during the European Poker Tour (EPT) Monte Carlo Grand Final for $67,000.
You can play with Levy and sponsored pros like Billy Patrolman35Kopp, Bryan badbeatninja Devonshire, and Eric basebaldyBaldwin at the CEREUS Network site UB.com, which happily accepts players from the United States. In case you missed it, here were the results from the June 6th running of the Full Tilt Poker $750,000 Guaranteed:
1. MrsNights – $111,019
2. Roothlus – $102,019 (Roothlus)
3. Bhanks11 – $52,500 (bhanks11)
4. HoodedZebra – $41,400 (HoodedZebra)
5. schappuscha – $31,050 (schappuscha)
6. LotusDeLex – $23,025
7. rimmer27 – $17,250 (rimmer27)
8. threat89 – $13,500 (lookoutdudes)
9. Senichkin – $10,050