The Railbird Report: Back in Time with Ted "profbackwards" Forrest

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Sep 22, 2016 7 min read Last updated Sep 23, 2016

"If you're not willing to risk everything, you limit your upside as a poker player." --Ted Forrest

With the story out that Ted Forrest owes money to casinos in Vegas, the rumor that Forrest, the legend, is back in the limelight after quite a long stint is not making any headlines.

While the latest about his debts owed to The Wynn and The Mirage are anything but exciting, all other tales about him read like an action thriller with anecdotes that sound too ridiculous to be true. Go buy The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time to read all about his battle with Andy Beal. There are countless stories about Ted Forrest's crazy prop bets. Today we dabble a little bit into his online adventure that started almost a decade ago.

"profbackwards"

It's rumored Forrest already played on PokerRoom.com (first a standalone site, then part of the Ongame network and later owned by Bwin) and Full Contact Poker (an Ongame skin before it moved to Digital Poker Network, later sold to PokerStars). How much he won or lost will remain a mystery as Forrest himself never talks about it and no one was keeping score back in the day.

What is known is that Ted Forrest played under the moniker "profbackwards" on Full Tilt Poker. When the online tracking site HighStakesDB started to keep records on all the online action back in 2007, Forrest was already dipping his toes into the online games.

At first, no one had any real idea who the man behind the account was. The pool of players eligible to play the stakes that "profbackwards" was playing wasn't big enough back then. A new anonymous at the highest stakes was either a well-known live pro trying online poker for a change, or an already established online player using a new screen name. Today, a player like "Isildur1" can pop up out of nowhere and remain anonymous for some time, but back then the general public found out who was who soon enough. It wasn't for long before railbirds all over the world knew it was Ted Forrest playing; it just had to be the way he was chatting to other players at the table.

Forrest did well from the get-go, playing the biggest stakes and playing the biggest names in poker. The biggest pot he ever played was back in 2007 when he faced off against Brian "sbrugby" Townsend in a five-handed $400/$800 pot-limit Omaha game. After "thehustlah408" and "cmynuts" had folded, Ted "profbackwards" made it $800 from the button. Small blind Brian "sbrugby" called; big blind "CaseyAtTheBat" (rumored to be the late Chip Reese) folded.

The flop came J?4?6? and Townsend bet out pot ($2,000). Forrest called. The Q? on the turn saw Townsend bet $6,000. Forrest raised to $18,800 and called the shove for the $52,862 total that followed. Townsend showed Q?K?4?4? for bottom set. Forrest tabled A?6?3?6? for a higher set and the nut flush draw. The river 7? was a blank (running it twice wasn't introduced yet back then) and the $117,524 pot went to Forrest.

After a good start in 2007, Forrest lost a bit over the months to follow. He didn't frequent the games, but every now and then, he did show up out of nowhere to battle with all the big names. Forrest's biggest sessions took place in 2009 when he dominated high stakes online.

When Forrest tried the $1,000/$2,000 7-Game at the start of 2010, his upswing came to an abrupt halt. Forrest lost $500,000 in a matter of days. He won small in the weeks to follow, only to drop another half million in January of 2011.

"profbackwards" would never be seen online again. Three months later, Black Friday happened. Full Tilt Poker went under not much later. When Full Tilt Poker returned under the Amaya umbrella, "profbackwards" wasn't one of the returning players.

This Week's Biggest Pots Online

Action slowed down a bit this week. The biggest game that ran was a $200/$400 PLO game with the biggest pot consisting of a mere "207" big blinds.

1) Jens "Jeans89" Kyll?nen Wins a $82,919-Pot (207 big blinds) versus "Aron0621"
^{($200/$400 PLO 6-Handed)}

Action folded to Kyll?nen in the small blind and he raised to $1,600. Big blind "Aron0621" three-bet to $5,200 and Kyll?nen called.

With the pot now at $11,200, the flop came 3?Q?4?. Kyll?nen checked his option and his neighbor answered with a bet of $3,238.50. Kyll?nen check-raised to $20,510.50 and "Aron0621" pushed all in. Kyll?nen called for $34,240 total.

The enormous cooler had Kyll?nen as a dog with his combination of draws. The current nuts, the top set "Aron0621" had, was in the lead, but not by much.

The 5? on the turn saw Kyll?nen hit his flush. The 8? on the river was a blank and Kyll?nen collected the pot.

2) "Katya_18" Wins a $80,200-Pot (201 big blinds) versus "1nvoker"
^{($200/$400 NLHM 5-Handed)}

From the cutoff, "Katya_18" opened for $1,000. Big blind "1nvoker" made the call and the two of them saw a flop heads up.

"1nvoker" checked on 7?K?9? and "Katya_18" continuation-bet $1,097.50. "1nvoker" check-raised to $3,648.60 and "Katya_18" called, growing the pot to almost $10,000.

The Q? fell on the turn and "1nvoker" bet a hefty $7,783.60. "Katya_18" called to grow the pot to $25,000.

With the 7? completing the board, "1nvoker" shoved for $27,567.80. "Katya_18" made the call holding K?Q? for top-two. "1nvoker" mucked the 10?8? he had bluffed with.

3) "Aron0621" Wins a $80,160-Pot (200 big blinds) versus "bajskorven87"
^{($200/$400 PLO 6-Handed)}

"bajskorven87" raised the button to $1,360 and big blind "Aron0621" three-bet to $4,240. "bajskorven87" called to create an $8,800-pot.

The flop came J?Q?9? and "Aron0621" checked. "bajskorven87" bet just about pot ($8,637) and "Aron0621" check-raised to $34,548. "bajskorven87" shoved for $35,680 and "Aron0621" added the $1,132 needed to call.

The two ran the turn and river only once and "Aron0621"'s hand held up. The 7? on the turn and 5? on the river were blanks and with the straight, "Aron0621" won the hand.

Online High Stakes Action Last Week

Dutch player "Cobus83" tops this week's Top 10 of biggest winners, banking almost $150,000 over just 752 hands. The biggest loser this week is Dani "supernova9" Stern, losing $123,943 over 671 hands.

The 2016 Leaderboard

The 2016 leaderboard hasn't changed this week. It's still Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky leading the pack now with over a million in earnings for the year. Viktor "Isildur1" Blom is still down the most, despite winning online this week.

_{The above top three biggest winners and losers in online poker for 2016 and the top 10 biggest winners and losers online for the last week only consist of PokerStars accounts that haven't opted out with HighStakesDB.com.}

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