My adventure in the grand final trial ended abruptly after only forty minutes. I had built my initial starting stack of 2012 up to around 3000 when I found myself looking at KK in my big blind. There had been a raiser and two callers so I put in a decent size raise. The initial raiser maskaras63 then shoved and I decided to call but he was holding AA and no king arrived on the board to save me.
By the time the first break arrived there were 651 players left. Our leader was the dizzer on 29k followed distantly by Pepper Army on 16k with a host of players on around the 14k/15k mark.
The next hour saw us lose two thirds of the remaining players and by the time the second break had arrived we were down to 214 players. johnohammer now led the way with 40k followed by groi_x on 37k and early leader the dizzer with 36k.
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During the third hour another 133 players dropped to the wayside and at the third break just 81 players were left fighting for those six Vegas packages. johnohammer still led the way and had moved onto 89k with Alexchess63 on 73k and Highball12 on 72k.
At the fourth break the field had been whittled down to just 36 players. ZyZH had now taken up the running on 185k followed at a distance by howmuchgoes on 115k and patr23 on 110k.
The fifth break left us tantalisingly close to the final table with only twelve brave and by now weary players remaining. Ad Astra was now our chip leader with 338k tailed closely by PauloPavlou on 305k and AlexChess63 on 290k.
Twenty minutes later we had lost two more players and we were at the final table where six of our players would be walking away with those fabulous Vegas packages. The standings were as follows:-
PauloPavlou 355k
johnohammer 341k
ire68 336k
roper007 270k
Ad Astra 252k
AlexChess63 236k
kipsterfan 206k
Franki_09 143k
Dashukkkkkk 126k
bigmolt75 91k
In the very first hand of the final table johnohammer took out Dashukkkkkk JJ v A9 which meant that was the second time Dashukkkkkk had come agonisingly close to winning a package in these trials. Shortly afterwards kipsterfan doubled up off ire68 99 v AQ leaving ire68 with rubble. Next hand ire68 was out in ninth when AlexChess called his small shove form the BB with 62 having been priced in. ire68 held QT but a six on the flop sealed his fate.
Franki_09 was the next to fall, he tried to make a steal shove with 67 from the cut off but unfortunately for him found johnohammer on the button with JJ who snap called. A high board saw Franki leave in eighth.
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We were now on the bubble and the chat box was filling up with excited talk about Vegas but one unlucky player would have to miss out. Unfortunately for bigmolt75 he was destined to fill that role. He had shoved with A7 and kipsterfan called with TT. An ace on the flop must have had bigmolt bouncing in his chair but a cruel ten on the turn snatched it away from him and sent the pot kipster's way.
So congratulations to our six noble winners johnohammer, roper007, kipsterfan, AlexChess63, Ad Astra and PauloPavlou who had battled away for over six hours. They all win the five star Vegas packages and entry to WSOP event 59 and I look forward to meeting all of them out there!
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