The first event of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series kicked off on Friday, February 9, and it took all of a few hours for the first PocketFiver to capture a win. Josh “gilbertology” Pollock, who plays on Full Tilt under the name “jpo123,” took down the $216 No Limit Hold’em event for a blistering $70,729.60. Nearly 2,000 players entered the first event and Pollock outlasted them all. The very next day, this rising poker star finished 26th in Event #2 of the FTOPS. “I was like, oh my God, I can’t believe I won,” said Pollock. The story of his win is truly remarkable. The final table bubble lasted quite some time, so when final table play came around, the blinds were artificially high in comparison to everyone’s stacks. Entering the final table, Pollock was 8th in chips, though six of the nine stacks weren’t that much more than he had. “It was almost all pre-flop poker because of the big blinds, so I’d say it became a pretty tight table,” explained Pollock. His strategy was to steal a blind per round and, after two eliminations, he found himself sixth out of seven remaining players.
Pollock picked up a few decent hands, pushed all in each time, and no one looked him up. Suddenly, he found himself third in chips using this strategy. With six players left in the first event of the FTOPS, two players busted out when pocket tens and big slick lost to the big stack’s A-Q when a queen hit. The short stack would then be eliminated, leaving Pollock with 380,000 chips, BigBukkinChickn with two million chips, and Pugnacious23 as the big stack with three million chips. A large chip deficit would need to be overcome in order for Pollock to secure victory and a Full Tilt gold jersey avatar.
After doubling up early on three-handed when is 6-8 made a straight, Pollock continued his aggressiveness: “Every hand I was in, I raised all in.” By this time, his friends were on the rail cheering on Pollock when one player whose game he greatly respects gave him the following piece of advice: “Put the pressure on them. Make them make the tough decisions.” Pollock took this to heart: “Instead of raising three times the big blind with a big stack, I continued to play all-in poker when I was in a hand.”
Eventually, BigBukkinChickn would knock out Pugnacious23. The former had 3.6 million in chips to Pollock’s 2 million. It did not take long for the fireworks to happen heads up. With BigBukkinChickn having just knocked out the former big stack and Pollock’s aggressive strategy, “The very first hand heads up, I had 7-7. He raised from button with A-10d, I re-shoved, and he called. I won and now I had a two to one chip lead.” The final hand of the tournament saw Pollock shove over the top of BigBukkinChickn’s pocket fives with K-J and a little less than a two to one chip lead. A king hit the flop and the turn and river were no help to BigBukkinChickn, and Pollock walked away victorious. The top 20 finishers of the first event of the FTOPS are listed below:
So what does a recent graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park do with $70,000? “I had already planned a trip to Las Vegas during the first weekend of March Madness with some of my friends, so I told them I’d upgrade our accommodations from the Sahara.” Pollock considers himself a full-time poker player and, after graduation, “wasn’t too excited about getting a job in the engineering field.” Who is? In addition to poker, Pollock also enjoys basketball, billiards, and photography using his brand new digital camera. Growing up, Pollock wanted to be a sports writer like his idol Mike Wilbon, whom he met two years ago at Atlantic Video, where PTI is filmed each day.
This was not Pollock’s first taste of victory. He had a win on PokerRoom in October for $15,000 and followed that up with a win in the Bodog $70,000 Guaranteed tournament for $17,500. The $70,000 FTOPS win was far and away his largest cash to date.
“My goal now is to get the overall FTOPS points award. I am first with 249 points. GB2005 won last year with 300, so one more top 50 and it’s looking good.” We wish Pollock and all PocketFivers the very best of luck during the FTOPS and beyond.
Canada
United Kingdom
Costa Rica
Australia
Mexico
Denmark
Russian Federation
Sweden
Brazil
Germany
