High roller takes a hammering

09/30/2009

The fortunes of mysterious high roller 'mantonas', who returned to the nosebleed tables at Full Tilt Poker this week after a two month absence and was up around $200 000, took a bad turn in recent clashes that have left the still unidentified online player down over half-a-million dollars.

The NLHE and PLO virtual tables at Full Tilt delivered excitement in spades with some 16 pots worth over $200 000, 67 pots between $100 000 and $200 000, and an incredible $14 million or more changing hands.

Mantonas won the biggest pot of the night at $284 000, but that did little to stem the haemorrhage of his bankroll in exchanges with Tom Marchese, Aaron Jones and Tom Dwan.

According to MarketPulse, other big losers on the night were Phil Ivey (down around $300 000) and Marchese (out-of-pocket to the tune of $60 000). Happiest man at the tables was Aaron Jones, who made an estimated $350 000 profit.

In other action, Dwan and Ilari Sahamies clashed in a $500/$1 000 PLO heads up which generated some $3.7 million in bets and saw Dwan emerge $150 000 up.