This Sunday the Allies relied mainly on the Visionary once again for any excitement and drama, going deep in several tournaments and booking his place in yet another live event in the process!
He reached 3 final tables, two of them Turbo’s and had one other deep finish in the 848 50k gtd.

His 1^st final table came in the new 848 $200 10k Turbo where he came 6th  for around $700  , losing with 55 v TT for a big pot. His 2^nd final table came on Bwin and was the 10kgtd Venice Final. He got to 3 handed play without too many scares and as with most of the final table, it was quite deep, allowing him to use his superior skills to manoeuvre the chips in his favour. The player on his left had most of the chips when they got to 3 handed, but this slowly changed as chips exchanged hands fairly readily and Neil was able to get stuck in to most pots, in and out of position. He had to remain patient as it became clear quite quickly, that it was not in his best interests to bluff his two opponents, but it was however important to try to get the most value out of his strong hands, which he did a couple of times with over pairs to the board. He entered HU play after a long stretch of being 3 handed, with the chip lead and a strong feeling of inevitability about it, however nothing is for certain and he had to approach it with due care and consideration. He duly booked his place in Venice after 15 minutes of HU play, he had whittled his opponent down to under 20bb’s and got his hand to hold over his opponents, to ship the $10k package, great win Neil and good luck in Venice!

The Party turbo was the scene for his 2^nd best result of the evening, finishing 2^nd for $6k, coming through a fairly solid final table, just to be pipped for the win by Pokerccini. When the players got to the final table, the stacks we’re quite even and obviously quite shallow, and with the number of solid players on show, it was always going to take a little bit of good fortune and good timing to finish in the top 3. Neil received his little bit of good luck, getting there a couple of times in standard spots and was able to ride this luck to a very tidy second place finish, to add to his other good scores for the evening.

His final deepsih run came in the $200 $50k gtd new tournament on 848, which has an early start and a great structure, allowing the better players to rise to the top and is a great addition to our Sunday schedule.
He got a stack in it fairly early on and while he was obviously deep in a couple of other tournaments, he was treading water slightly. He won a couple of key hands in the mid stages to give his stack another, much needed boost. The tournament itself can draw out, like the major on the same site, due to the structure and as the tournament got deeper, Neil’s stack started to fluctuate between 20-30bb’s and he was looking for spots to either shove or 3 bet shove. He got a couple of opportunities to do this and was able to keep his head above water, but as the tournament got down to 2 tables, he lost a big pot with K9dd, in which he raised pre, the bb calling, flopping a flush draw, turning the flush but his opponent leading the river on a paired board giving Neil a difficult decision, eventually deciding to shove his remaining chips, to see his opponent holding J5, for flopped 2 pair and rivered boat, sigh! His stack couldn’t recover from this point and was sent to the rail in 16^th place.  Good night all round for the Visionary, leading the way for the Allies yet again!

There wasn’t a lot of action elsewhere on the tables for the Allies, there were a few other cashes in majors and chazmanchaz had some good runs going on Stars, and was top 5 stack in the Sunday Million for long periods before he got it in with nut flush draw v QQ and couldn’t get there to be crippled……sigh!

There is always next week for the Allies and hopefully we can continue the good start to 2012!