Phil Tom WSOP WinnerThe 2008 WSOP Event #11 is now in the books and the winner is Phil Tom, father to Scott Tom, a former Absolute Poker executive and founder whose name came under scrutiny during the Absolute Cheating Scandal. Scott Tom is rumored to be the person behind the PotRipper account which had access to player’s hole cards.

As absolutedectives.com had previously revealed:

“AP was started by Scott Tom and a few Ivy league friends back in 2003. Phil Tom and the other fathers of these kids bankrolled the venture, and Absolute Poker was born. Phil Tom is Scott Tom’s FATHER, not his brother. The IP address that this ‘other’ account was logged in from was traced to the home cable modem of Scott Tom, CEO of Absolute poker. scott@RivieraLtd.com is apparently the CEO, and is also the owner of account POTRIPPER. Scott Tom is also apparently the owner of the STEAMROLLER account”

Phil Tom admitted to a media member after the victory that he was in fact Scott Tom’s father.

Final Table Recap

Phil Tom was one of the lesser know players at the start of the final table even though he finished 38th at the 2007 WPT Championship, for $77,000 and 30th place at the $5,000 Mixed event earlier at this year’s WSOP. His final table competition included Thomas “Smokey” Roupe who has cashed in two previous WSOP events, Leo Wolpert who’s already cashed in 3 events this year, cashed in 3 events last year and is known at online poker forums as “Superflous Man.”, Timothy “Tmay420″ West who cashes for $181K in 2006 Five Diamond World Poker Classic, but is known better for his online poker accomplishments where he has over a million in tournament winnings and Sirous Jamshidi who has over $1 million in WSOP winnings coming from his fourth place finish in the 2007 $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship and 16th place finish in the 2006 Main Event. While these players all have impressive resumes it’s the player we’ve not mentioned yet, Greg “FTB” Muller who was the most known player at the final table.

Greg Muller is a Full Tilt Poker sponsored pro who plays under the name FBT, short for Full-Blown-Tilt. He is a former professional hockey player turned poker pro who came into this event with dozens of high stakes cashes including a runner up finish in the 2007 WSOP, totaling over $700K.

This final table was a bit unique as it featured just six players rather than the standard nine handed final table, and all players start off with the same, 1 million, starting chip count. With all the players starting even and being fairly deep stacked for 10K/20K starting blind level it was expected it would be a long night.

Greg Muller got off to the best start gaining 2 million chips during the 35 hands with Tim West being the first player to become short stacked. He’d get back into it quickly when he doubled up courtesy of his AK outracing Muller’s pocket nines on final table hand #39. It would look like Phil Tom would be the first player to go as after 50 hands of play he was down to 450K chips, but Muller would end up doubling up the short stack again when Phil Tom pushed his 340K remaining chip in on final table hand #61 and his AQ was good enough for a double up against Muller’s AT.

It was not for lack of opportunity as there were several all ins and short stack double ups previously, but it would take till final table hand #104 till the first elimination of the night occurred. On this hand Thomas Roupe pushed his short stack all in preflop with ten-seven suited and was called and eliminated by Leo Wolper’s Ace King. Wolper would take out Tim West five hands later in a bit pot where all in preflop West showed pocket nines and Wolper tabled pocket Kings.

Another pair versus pair situation would cause the night’s third elimination. This time it was on final table hand #116 where Sirous Jamshidi had the misfortune of his pocket jacks finding Phil Toms pocket aces.

Phil Thom would go on a Potripper like rush on final table hands 119 to 124 where he’d win 6 consecutive pots, the biggest was hand #123 which played out like this:

Phil Tom raised to 130K on the button and Greg Mueller called. The flop came 4h 8c 6h and both players checked. The turn was Ad and Mueller checked. Tom bet 200K. Mueller check-raised to 400K and Tom called. The river was Kh, both checked and Tom showed online poker’s strongest hand (not usually as good live) Ks 7c and Muller mucked.

It had been 45 hands since a player had been eliminated and the players agreed to take a one hour dinner break at which time the chip counts were:

Phil Tom — 3,165,000
Greg “FBT” Mueller — 1,999,000
Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert — 845,00

Fourteen hands after the break Wolpert would be eliminated in 3rd place thanks to an unlucky river. On this hand Wolpert moved all in on the small blind with K2 and Greg Mueller called with K3. This obviously would most likely be a split pot, and when the first four cards came Qh-As 8h 5d the chances of anything but a split pot where unlikely. The river however was 2h sending ‘Superfluous Man’ to the rail in 3rd place.

When heads up play started the chip counts were:
Phillip Tom: 3.4 million
Greg Mueller: 2.6 million

Heads up play lasted 17 hands, with Phil Tom taking a big pot early on, then picking up several small pots wearing Muller down. On the 14th heads up hand Muller would double up but it would be too little too late. The final hand played out like this:

Mueller limped and Tom checked and both again check on a flop of 9d Jh 3c. The turn was 5h Tom bet 150K, Mueller raised to 350K and after a bit of a delay Tom put Mueller all in and Muller quickly called.

Mueller Js 8d
Tom Ad Jc

Both players had tabled top pair but Tom was in a commanding lead with top kicker. The river was the Kd and Muller became the events runner up and Phil Tom had won his first WSOP bracelet in the $5K buy-in shoot out event.

Event 11 $5,000 NLHE Shoot out Final Table Results

1st - Phil Tom - $477,990
2nd - Greg “FTB” Mueller - $298,638
3rd - Leo Wolpert - $187,812
4th - Sirous Jamshidi -$118,440
5th - Tim West - $63,450
6th - Thomas Roupe - $38,070

Story Updates Below

Update: This 2+2 thread included a quote from cardplayer which read “That is not to say that Tom didn’t deserve the bracelet. According to an onlooker, Tom played “absolutely ideal poker,” and the shootout format suited his strengths. The railbird continued with, “his raises and reraises worked so often, it was almost as if he could see everyone’s cards.”

The funniest part is how Card Player who is one of the biggest shills for Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet managed to poke fun at the situation without reporting the facts as it would clearly expose their own companies willingness to work with shady online poker rooms.

Funnier update: Our source for the fact that Phil Tom is the same Phil Tom that is POTRIPPER’s daddy was a first hand account, but in searching 2+2 on the topic we found this post

“It is in fact Scott Tom’s dad. He was on my left for a second and he introduced himself to howard lederer and I caught his name and asked him about it. When he said he was I told my buddy who was sitting at the other end of the table who said “oh, so that’s the dad of the guy who robbed us of all that money, SWEET!” It was pure gold.”