A relatively poor show from the Allies in general this week, culminated in only a few final tables, with Merge and the Visionary recording the best results.

The Visionary got his FT in a Salzburg satellite on Ongame. There were 8 seats for the live tournament that will take place in Salzburg at the end of January and the Visionary was in a great position lying 2/12, allowing him to almost fold to gain a seat. They reached the FT of 10 players fairly quickly after being 12 handed but this was where the whole field tightened up massively. The bubble was a big one, the $3600 package obviously everyone’s goal and at this point ICM became a huge factor in everyone’s play. 10 and then 9 handed lasted for what seemed an eternity and NeilMc although initially in a great position, slowly became part of a tight nit pack, hovering around 10-20bb’s waiting for that final player to bust! There were a couple of hands that NeilMc had to shove, including AA, where the objective was getting the opposition to fold and hearts were in mouths at those points, but finally the 9^th player busted, leaving the 8 remaining players booking their flights to Salzburg in January…….congratulations NeilMc and good luck in Austria!

Merge made 2 FT’s this week, the Canadian 100 and the 109 $25k on iPoker. Renowned as one of the longest tournaments in the schedule, the 25k can be pain stakingly slow at times but Merge got a stack in it early this week and then remained in around the top ten until the Final table. He went in to the FT with an average stack and bided his time to get his chips in in the right spot. That spot came with 8 left, when he got his chips in with AK v AJ but unfortunately couldn’t hold and had to leave very unsatisfied.
Prior to the iPoker FT though, there was better news, with Merge able to take advantage of his 2^nd 100 Canadian FT of the week, by shipping it, also for the 2^nd time this week and taking $2k for his troubles. Great work and although he will be disappointed with 8^th in iPoker, this win will surely soften the blow!

Rivalling the iPoker 25k for ‘longest tournament’ in the schedule is the 848 100k on a Sunday and this week Puggy82 took a stab at it, hoping to keep his good recent run on Sundays going. He got a stack in it fairly early on and giving Puggy82 chips in a tournament with that good a structure is almost a deadly combination. He then went about accumulating chips at regular intervals and was never outside the top 10 from 100 left, he won a few big pots with players shipping incredibly wide on him, but also getting unlucky a couple of times too, not allowing him to really break free. With 40 left, he opened AT and got flatted by a big stack on his left, it folded to the BB who moved all in for around 15bb’s. Puggy thought and then moved in himself, only to see the flatter snap call and show AA! The BB had KQ but it didn’t matter with the board proving no help for either him or Puggy, sending them both to the rail. It definitely left a sour taste, Puggy telling me after that it was a mistake and obviously rueing the fact that in this tournament, being deep with chips is a big chance of a score!

After a day like this the Allies will be looking to next Sunday and the week leading up to it to make up for what was a disappointing weekend! Roll on next week!