The action heated up on the $300/$600 No Limit Texas Holdem tables on Full Tilt the other night, as the high stakes regular Brian Townsend known as ‘sbrugby’ matched up against famous poker pro Phil Ivey. The pair battled it out for over 600 hands in the space of 4 hours, exchanging huge six-figure pots along the way. Both players chipped at each other’s stacks throughout the night, but Ivey came out on top, lifting $411K from Townsend’s bankroll.
‘sbrugby’ has become quite popular with the railbirds on Full Tilt, as he regularly locks horns with some of the biggest names in the game for ridiculously large amounts of money. He has been playing for a few years and has managed to work his way up from the lower limits to the stakes he currently plays at now. But don’t be fooled by this one big loss, as Townsend is a very solid winning player and this is just a bad day at the office for him.
Although Ivey came out on top by the end of the night, there were a few pots that swung out of Townsend’s favour due to bad luck with the cards. In one hand the players were all-in at the turn, with Townsend favourite to win holding Kh Kd on a board of 2h 7c 6h 9d, against Ivey who had 8h 9s for top pair with an open-ended straight draw. The river came the 5s, which helped Ivey to complete his straight draw and take down the eventual $111,396.50 pot.
The biggest pot however came slightly later in the night, and was almost an exact replay of the hand above but with the cards switched around in Townsend’s favour. Again both players were all-in on the turn, with Ivey holding Kh Kd this time on a board of 3c 8c 7h 6d, with Townsend holding 5s 6s for 3rd pair with an open-ended straight draw. This time the cards fell in Townsend’s favour, as the 9c came giving him the straight to beat Ivey’s overpair. Although Townsend scooped up the huge $233,584.50 pot, it wasn’t enough to save him from losing around seven full buy-ins to Ivey by the end of the night.
These high stakes games are always great fun to watch, and you can usually see these top names in heated heads-up battles over on Full Tilt for sometimes hours at a time. It’s interesting to try and work out what hands each of them could possibly have, but often they are thinking on such a high level it is pretty hard to guess. But nonetheless, you should head on over to FT tonight and watch some big names and big pots for the great entertainment it provides.
