Regular readers of my weekly blog of the trials will not be surprised to learn that I once again failed to make the first break. I got no decent cards for the first 30 minutes and then the magical AA arrived on my screen. I raised and only the BB called. A 974 flop looked pretty safe to me, after he checked I bet the pot and he instantly shoved on me. I thought I must be ahead and called only for him to show 44 and it was goodnight from me!
By the time the first break had arrived nearly another 400 players had joined me on the rail with 436 remaining. Chip leader was lynliss with 20k followed in second by Shakey Joker on 17k.
Over the next hour the players were still falling at an alarming rate and by the time the second break was upon us there were 138 players left. lynliss still led the field on 46k and was being tailed by Gtanios on 45k and Antstar on 42k.
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During the third hour another 92 players dropped by the wayside and at the third break 46 players remained in contention. bagara1234 had now hit the lead with a stack of 114k with 7-sang running second on 95k. Early leader lynliss was still in contention in 5th on 71k.
As usual the fourth hour is where players tighten up a bit as the prizes start to loom on the horizon. At the fourth break 14 players were still fighting for those two precious packages. DawiPL was now the chip leader with an impressive 256k and his closest pursuers were xthedocx on 215k and Bartek G on 191k. A good friend of mine Dr Darren had moved into contention during this hour so I sent him an encouraging tweet on twitter only for him to be out in 18th five minutes later. After being tweeted as a jinx I won't be doing that again!
Twenty minutes later we had lost another four players and had reached the final table where the standings were as follows:-
DawiPL 480k
xthedocx 222k
Bartek G 190k
Xfoggy71x 176k
7-sang 166k
amilive 122k
MaitoWales 105k
Icajm08 92k
Gtanios 74k
ClausDK456 44k
Within 5 minutes of the final table starting we had lost two players. amilive eliminated Icajm08 88 v QT, all the chips went in on a T87 flop. Then xfoggy71x took out Gtanios AJ v A8 where a jack on the flop killed off any hope Gtanios had.
It all went quiet for a while and then three fell in quick succession. DawiPL KO'd ClausDK456 AJ v AQ, after calling Claus's pre flop raise the AJ9 flop was ideal for Dawi and all the chips hit the middle. 7-sang next hand dismissed Bartek G to the sidelines when his KQ held v Bartek's KJ. Within a couple of hands xfoggy71x removed amilive, foggy called amilive's preflop raise and the flop came K97, amilive bet again and foggy called. The turn brought a jack and amilive pushed all his chips in with AK which was insta-called by foggy with J9 and with no help on the river amilive was dead!
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At this point MaitoWales started to make his move first doubling up off foggy AQ v 88 and then eliminating 7-sang AK v A9 where a king on the flop sealed 7-sang's fate. This was quickly followed by the fifth break where with four left the chips were as follows:- DawiPL 618k, xfoggy71x 486k, MaitoWales 450k and xthedocx 121k.
The four remaining players started the sixth hour of the tournament on 5k/10k blinds with a 1k running ante. It wasn't long before we lost xthedocx, he shoved from the button with A2 but found MaitoWales in the BB with QQ and the board brought no ace or a miracle flush/straight and thedoc finished fourth.
The last three players all had quite similar stacks now and for the next twenty minutes chips were passed back and forth with seemingly no-one willing to take a big risk with the prize so close. MaitoWales seemed the most aggressive with lots of small pre flop raises. Eventually this strategy bore fruit when he drew DawiPL into a big confrontation. Pre-flop both players put 30k in the pot and then another 50k went in on the turn and the board was T9K7T. Dawi thought his QQ was good and called Maito's shove but Maito was holding KT for a full house and Dawi was left with just 50k in front of him. Next hand it was game over, foggy delivered the fatal blow when a 9 on the river paired up his 98 to beat Dawi's 77 and condemn him to third place!
So congratulations to MaitoWales and xfoggy71x who both win the five star packages to Vegas and entry to WSOP event 59. I look forward to meeting both of them out there.