My tournament started slowly as usual but I did manage to last longer than the previous two weeks if not by much! After 45 minutes I found myself with 1300 of my 2012 starting chips and three bet them all in with 77. The original raiser called my shove with AQ and hit the mandatory Ace on the flop and my personal tournament was over.
15 minutes later it was time for the first break and the 562 starters had been trimmed down to 306 with JJ82_x leading the field with an impressive 18k stack. JJ82 managed to get to the final table last week but narrowly missed out on the big prize and was obviously hoping to go one better this week.
The second hour of the tournament saw nearly as many players fall by the wayside. By the time the second break was upon them only 103 players were still alive. Milla1999 led the way with an imposing 48k with Zverg on 35k and the rest of the field at least a further 10k behind.
Click here to see how Trial Four was won.
Another 65 players were eliminated during the next hour and at the third break there were 38 players still in the battle for Vegas. tipper2001 had taken over the running on 72k. He was closely followed by Alandmark on 65k, Milla1999 on 64k and M.A.M.73 on 63k with several players on 50k plus.
The tension was mounting and the play was becoming tighter and only 19 players were lost during the fourth hour. At the fourth break of the 19 remaining players Milla1999 had fought his way back into the lead with 197k. This left him well clear of crystal8888 on 11k and tipper2001 on 106k. The other 16 players all held 80k or less.
Another 20 minutes later and another 9 valiant players had been knocked out leaving us with a final table as follows:-
Milla999 252k
bojangles111 240k
PauloPavlou 156k
pla71num 118k
crystal8888 104k
Zverg 67k
LOCO-7- 60k
smic223 58k
_faceless_ 54k
lebrocco 20k
First hand into the final table saw Pla71num double through Milla1999 AK v A3. Pla71num a couple of hands later eliminated lebrocco when his AA crushed lebrocco's 99 and we lost our first final tablist. smic223 was the next player to fall when his K9 was dominated by Zverg's K 10. Zverg then took a step backwards as he doubled up crystal8888 when his A9 missed against 10 10.
milla1999 then went into overdrive and in quick succession removed LOCO-7- AK v A9 and _faceless_ AJ v 10 10 where a flopped Jack saw him move onto 430k. Pla71num got in on the action also and knocked out PauloPavlou KQ v 33, the flop of KK7 certainly helped!
bojangles111 then started to take over the table, winning a couple of big pots off Milla1999. He then took the long time front runner out of the tournament 55 v AQ. All the chips went in on a Q57 flop and his set of fives was easily enough.
Click here to meet the trial three winners.
Zverg was now short stacked and despite doubling up once he was condemned to fourth when he clashed pre flop with bojangles AK v Q9, the board helped neither player so bojangles won with Ace high.
The final three players were all getting quite aggressive with lots of pots taken down on three bets pre flop. After around 15 minutes the final clash happened, bojangles called crystal8888's shove with A4 and showed the hand of the night 10 10. The board brought no aces and poor crystal8888 finished third.
So congratulations to our two worthy winners bojangles111 and Pla71num who both win the fabulous Vegas packages after nearly six hours of poker. I look forward to meeting both of you out there.