A night that had Allies going deep in a number of tournaments ended in 2 Major final tables, but , nothing better than a 7^th left the rail wondering what might have been.

The first Ally to reach the ft was Benwa in the Stars 100r. Prior to the ft, he had received several bad beats, one that basically crippled him, but like a true pro he ground it out and developed a stack again and got to the final table sitting 6/9. One player at the ft was being particularly aggressive so it was a case, for Ben, of biding his time, picking the right spots to shove and to pick up ladders when he could. Two players fell by the way side and if Ben could get one double the feeling was he would be in with a great chance.  At this point 2 of the players had a significant chip advantage; one of whom had been making some fairly glaring bet sizing errors and this player (on Ben’s direct right) open limped the cut off and with 11bb’s and Q9, Ben decided to shove and hopefully pick up a nice pot without a showdown. However, the BB woke up with 77 and Ben couldn’t hit, giving him a 7^th place finish and $10k to boot. Nice score, great grind and unlucky in the end Ben!

The other Ally to make a major ft was Merge, who continued the Allies’ good form in the iPoker major. Olly quietly went about his business accumulating chips, making the money with around an average stack. He went from 150k to 400k by winning a couple of pots without showdown, but his big hand was with around 20 left. The c/o opens, 9 handed, the sb shoves for around 25bbs (400k) and Olly wakes up with QQ in the bb, he makes the call for all his chips and holds v the sb’s AJs to go to 900k. He got to the final table sitting 5/10 and in pretty good shape, but unfortunately was extremely card dead and had a horrible seat which made opening light almost impossible. He also missed at least 3 ladders early at the ft, which as well as being annoying, certainly cost him some money.  The hand that could have changed everything was @ 20/40k, loose guy min raises utg, Merge decides to shove KQ from the c/o with 20bbs and the nit at the table wakes up with QQ on the button. The flop came all blanks but the turn was the beautiful K of clubs, booms echoed around the rail only for them to be silenced immediately,  as the guy proceeded to hit his 1 outer on the river, the final Queen ending Merge’s hopes and sending him to the rail in 7^th place along with $6k for his efforts. Horrible run out Olly, but your time will come, unlucky! Merge also finished 18^th in the Microgaming major eventually shoving K6hh with 10bbs from the c/o and being called by AQhh and AA, so it was pretty much gg before any more cards were dealt!

There was very little else to wright home about from the Allies, although chazmanchaz had another, oh so nearly night, with quite a few deepish runs in some big tournaments, including the Stars 500 and the Microgaming major and a 20^th place finish in the gruelling 848 major. Chaz is now off to play the APPT Macau and I’m sure I speak for all the Allies when I say, all the best, we’d like a big live score please!

During the week it was a good run for Hammyhole, with 2 wins and a second,  the wins coming in the Party 7.5k for $3k and the Micro 20k for 6k Euros, grabbing the second in the Euro daily, also for $3k. Jim_jimothy got back in to the winners circle this week too by shipping the Merge for $3k……nice work fellas!!