The final table of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) Event #5 looked a little like a football huddle, as it featured a trio of former FTOPS jersey winners in the form of Yuval “yuvee04″ Bronshtein, Steve “UFman2″ Burkholder and Deception Pt. With such a star-powered group, you would think the event was a test of No Limit Hold’em prowess, but in reality it was a $200 +$16 buy-in Stud Hi/Lo even that drew a small but tough crowd of 555 players.

Several of the No Limit Hold’em tournament regulars decided to take a break from their game of choice and change it up with a little Stud Hi/Lo and it worked out well for several of them who advanced to the late stages of the event. Clayton “Clayton_27″ Newman (35th), Michael “benvo123″ Benvenuti (23rd), Ryan “HITTHEPANDA” Franklin (21st), Grayson “The_Dean221″ Nichols (14th) and Mike “WiscoMurray” Murray (10th) were just a handful of the players who made the money but fell short of the final table.

The turnout generated a prize pool of $111,000 with $26,307 going to the eventual winner along with the coveted jersey. The aforementioned trio know a little bit about the bragging rights that come with a gold jersey. Deception Pt won the opening even of FTOPS XIII and UFman2 won his jersey back in February of this year during FTOPS XI. The player with the most FTOPS final table experience, including a previous victory in Stud Hi/Lo was Yuval “yuvee04″ Bronshtein, who was going for his impressive 4th FTOPS jersey last night.  Oh, and if that wasn’t a tough enough lineup, Shawn “Shawnzjones” Grant, who won the Stud Hi/Lo SCOOP event this past spring, was also in the mix:

Seat 1: kobeallst (294,304)
Seat 2: Yuval “yuvee04″ Bronshtein (246,167)
Seat 3: Will “WB123456789″ Barr (209,058)
Seat 4: pinishe45 (128,937)
Seat 5: Deception Pt (280,346)
Seat 6: dannymien (286,934)
Seat 7: Shawn “Shawnzjones” Grant (351,578)
Seat 8: Steve “UFman2″ Burkholder (410,676)

Shortly after the early elimination of “pinishe45” in 8th place, Yuvee04 made their best efforts to double, first getting it all-in with buried eights against Deception Pt’s buried aces on 4th street and making trip eights on 5th street to take the high hand and rake half the pot. The very next hand they got it all-in once again, this time with a pair of jacks and four to a diamond flush against the trip eights of UFman2. There would be no split pot the second time around, as neither player would make a low and UFMan2’s eights full of aces were more than enough to eliminate yuvee04 in 7th place.

A buried pair of aces would be the demise of Shawnzjones. There was action on every street as Shawnzjones’ board ran out (AA) 3J9Q to Deception Pt’s (46) 53T2. They got the last of Shawnzjones’ chips in on 6th and he was drawing dead against the six-high straight of Deception Pt and out in 6th place.

That hand kickstarted a rush for Deception Pt that put him within just a few thousand chips of the big stack at the table, UFman2. Their luck would quickly sour though, as they were forced to fold several raised pots on later streets and eventually found themselves with less than 100,000 chips. He would vent his frustration in the chat box:

Deception Pt: i dont play a whole lot of this but i dont think i can run much worse

Deception Pt then proceeded to get all-in on 3rd street four hands in a row only to chop the pot every time. After folding a couple of hands, Deception Pt got it all-in once again and got called by both UFman2 and “kobeallst.” Deception Pt was able to make trip queens by 7th street, which were enough to triple up to a workable stack size.

The very next hand “dannymien” would try to double up with rolled up fours and got plenty of action from “WB123456789,” who picked up trip deuces on 4th street. The last of dannymien’s cips went in on 6th street when he had the best hand with just one card to come. While 7th was a blank for dannymien, WB123456789’s final card was a second five, giving him a full house and the pot as well as eliminating dannymien in 5th place.

Play paused briefly for the final four to entertain the idea of a chop, but the discussions were short-lived and final table way got back underway in a matter of minutes. The break must have done some good for Deception Pt, as they suddenly went on a huge tear after play resumed, picking up several big hands including a monster pot in which they made trip aces against UFman2’s trip kings. In a matter of minutes Deception Pt went from short stack to chip leader with over 1 million chips to their name.

The chip lead would not last for long though and the stacks eventually evened out, save for UFman2, who plummeted from chip leader to short stack thanks to a hand in which kobeallst made a seven high straight and a six low to scoop a big pot. UFman2 would hit the rail in 4th place a little while later when his A27 failed to materialize into a hi or lo hand and lost out to Deception Pt’s pair of kings.

After UFman2’s performance, the top three players reached a deal that gave just over $17,000 to WB123456789, just under $18,000 to kobeallst, $18,625 to Deception Pt and set $2,000 aside for the winner. Once the deal was done, WB123456789 put in a little request to one of his opponents:

WB123456789: just sit out deception u already have a gold jersey

Deception Pt did not oblige and continued to add to their stack instead. They eliminated kobeallst in third place after making a flush to best kobeallst’s split aces and took a more than 4-1 chip advantage into heads-up play. Deception Pt chipped away at WB123456789 for a little while and dealt a fatal blow to their opponent when WB123456789 picked up split sevens against Deception Pt’s 569. Deception Pt was able to hit nothing but low cards from 5th street on to make the wheel, while WB123456789’s sevens remained unimproved. WB123456789 would have to settle for second place, while Deception Pt claimed their second gold jersey of 2009 in addition to $20,625.55.

Here are the complete results from the final table of FTOPS XIV Event #5:

1st: Deception Pt ($20,625.55)
2nd: Will “WB123456789″ Barr ($17,344.26)
3rd: kobeallst ($17,974.19)
4th: Steve “UFman2″ Burkholder ($7,548.00)
5th: dannymien ($4,662.00)
6th: Shawn “Shawnzjones” Grant($3,219.00)
7th: Yuval “yuvee04″ Bronshtein ($2,442.00)
8th: pinishe45 ($1665.00)

Related posts:

1. FTOPS XIV Events #20 & #21: UFman2 Wins Another One Earlier this series, Steve “UFman2″ Burkholder had an opportunity to...
2. Online Poker: “Deception Pt” Opens FTOPS XIII With Win The 13th installment of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series...
3. FTOPS XIV Main Event: Zhivago2 Tops Record-Setting Field The FTOPS XIV Main Event promised participants it would have...
4. FTOPS XIV Event #4: “Kiv56″ Hits Six Figure Score Friday’s Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) action kicked off...
5. FTOPS XIV Event #2: “RhymesWOrange” Sounds Like a Winner The latest poker trend of 7 and 8 Game rotations...