In last month’s Full Tilt Online Poker Series, or FTOPS, Sam siolaIola (pictured) scored big in a $109 Pot Limit Omaha Rush with Rebuys tournament, coming away with the jersey and a $131,000 cash prize. The field numbered just over 1,000 and Iola bested a talent-rich final table that included 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) November Niner James Akenhead, a Full Tilt Red Pro. Iola owns the 51st spot in the PocketFives.com Online Poker Rankings and sat down with us to recap his first FTOPS jersey.

Three events after his FTOPS victory, Iola nearly made it a double feature, but finished second in a $163 No Limit Hold’em with Rebuys tournament for another $121,000. Iola told PocketFives.com that the timing couldn’t have been better: “It was kind of absurd timing because for the few weeks prior, I had been playing a lot more cash than MTTs. The games had been pretty big, up to $100/$100 Pot Limit Omaha live and $100/$200 online, but I was just getting murdered. I was starting to question my confidence and then boom, two FTOPS runs.”

What went right for Iola over that two-day span? He told PocketFives.com, “I feel like I was very focused and was doing some stuff sizing-wise that other people weren’t taking advantage of. I don’t really want to get specific, but I think I’m better than almost everyone I talk to at managing to risk the fewest number of chips to reap the highest reward and playing very small ball-ish with my 3bet and 4bet sizings.” Iola won the Monthly PLB title on PocketFives.com in November 2009, amassing over 3,200 PLB Points.

The final table of the FTOPS Pot Limit Omaha Rush event included players like Akenhead, Brent Astrolux85Roberts (pictured), and longtime community member Kenny Hixx Hicks. Iola gave us his take on the final group of nine: “I play a fair amount of cap/shallow Pot Limit Omaha cash and the Rush tournament worked very similarly early and in the middle, where it was almost entirely about pre-flop hand selection and evaluation of equity against other ranges. I felt like I had a big edge at that point as well as later on when the stacks were deeper, although the good players like Roberts are tough to deal with regardless of stack sizes.”

At the 2010 WSOP Main Event final table, Iola could be found on stage in the Penn and Teller Theater railing fellow PocketFiver Joseph subiime Cheong (pictured). “I’ve been friends with him for the better part of this year,” Iola explained. “I’ve talked through as many hands with him as anyone else. He’s a really cool dude and obviously very good at the poker.”

Cheong dropped most of his stack in one of the most talked-about hands of the final table after 6betting all-in before the flop with A-7 and running into the pocket queens of Jonathan Duhamel. On the move, which occurred during three-handed play for the largest pot in WSOP history, Iola opined, “I’m pretty neutral on it. I can understand justifications for a lot of different lines in that spot and think all of them are valid in some ways. Basically, Joe got there by crushing people via sheer aggression and there was no reason to not err on the side of aggression in a spot that I feel is very close.” Cheong and Iola met at the L.A. Poker Classic.

The final table of the FTOPS $163 No Limit Hold’em with Rebuys event, in which Iola finished second, included the likes of Annette Annette_15Obrestad, Matt berkey11Berkey (pictured), and Louisiana’s timkrank, the eventual winner. Iola recalled, “I thought it was a much tougher final table. I tried to pick my spots well and just play my game. I can’t stress how well I ran overall. I had less than 100 big blinds during the last three hours.”

To close our interview, we asked Iola what the top poker story of 2010 was. While other interviewees have focused on the WSOP Main Event final table, Iola turned to the online poker world for his answer: “It has to be Isildur1. I respect people who just want to play higher and higher cash games.” Will we be seeing an Iola/Isildur1 confrontation down the road? “Maybe,” Iola admitted. “I’ve been playing mostly $25/$50, but $200/$400 would be a bit of a jump.”

Check out our complete FTOPS XVIII final table results.