RioMata Wins MiniFTOPS Main Event

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A three-way chop ended matters on Sunday in the Mini Full Tilt Online Poker Series(MiniFTOPS) Main Event. The $75 No Limit Hold’em tournament attracted a massive starting field of 14,396 entrants and went toe-to-toe with the final day of play in the PokerStarsSpring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP). A total of 1,890 players finished in the money, led by Tim RioMataClark (pictured at right), an Oregon native who walked away with $124,000 after a three-way chop. Clark defeated Full Tilt Poker member zavor4ik heads-up.

Clark has been on a tear in the last two months online. He final tabled the Full Tilt Poker $150 rebuy for $14,000 in late April and won the Full Tilt $30,000 Guaranteed on March 4th for a cool $7,300. On April 20th, Clark came out on top in a $55 No Limit Hold’em event on Full Tilt for another $5,100.
He only has three live cashes to his name in the Hendon Mob database; all three are wins. Clark took down a $200 HORSE tournament during The Grand Poker Series at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas for $6,700 in 2008. In March 2010, he brought home the bacon in a $200 Pot Limit Omaha tournament as part of the World Poker Challenge in Reno for $2,900.

His largest live cash came four days later, when Clark won a $2,000 No Limit Hold’em event for another $57,000. The latter tournament featured a final table that included “Captain” Tom Franklin and World Series of Poker (WSOP) Circuit gold ring winner Tyler Martinez.

Landing in fourth place in the MiniFTOPS Main Event was Triple Crown winner Callum c-biz-kid Ford. The Aussie walked away with $52,000, his largest online poker cash to date. Ford won the PokerStars $80,000 Guaranteed in February for $27,000, two months after coming out on top in the Full Tilt Poker $75,000 Guaranteed for $21,000.

Taking sixth in Sunday’s tournament was Colombian Mayu Roca marroca5Uribe (pictured at left), who won the Sunday Mulligan in January for $59,000. In November, he final tabled the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up for $51,000 and took seventh in the $2,500 Two-Day event held as part of FTOPS XV in February for $44,000. Landing in the seventh spot was Blair blur5f6 Hinkle, a WSOP bracelet winner. Hinkle is one-half of the only set of siblings ever to win bracelets in the same year.

Rounding on Sunday’s MiniFTOPS Main Event final table was Germany’s maximumenergy, who cashed for nearly $10,000. Here’s how the final table of the $75 tournament panned out:

1. RioMata – $124,220 (RioMata)
2. zavor4ik – $105,444
3. Converse18 – $100,505
4. c-biz-kid – $52,401 (c-biz-kid)
5. babu1969 – $37,286
6. MURIBE – $26,705 (marroca5)
7. blur5f6 – $19,147 (blur5f6)
8. smarthawk998 – $14,108
9. maximumenergy – $9,976 (maximumenergy)

Clark scored some much-needed points for his team as part of the FTOPS and PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) contest. His squad includes CompleteDonk, DoylesRoomBrunson 10 member Chris moorman1Moorman, P0KERDUUDE, and playchipgod. At the time of writing, however, the team sits in 14th overall in the competition with just under 200 points. Read community reaction to the contest in a thread in Poker Discussion.

Visit Full Tilt Poker for more MiniFTOPS results.