An up and down day for the Allies produced a plethora of final tables and some decent size cashes but we were left with a feeling of what might have been! Several of our players produced deep runs in Majors, two of them reaching the same final table, but none were able to hit the heights they would have been aiming for.

One of the better night’s came from the Visionary. A couple of deep runs on Stars were the back bone of his evenings work, taking an agonising 30th place in the Second Chance. But his main runs came on Microgaming in the 100k Gtd and the Ongame 25k. In Microgaming from around 50 left he never left the top 10, accumulating nicely, but was however playing in to the chip leader at times, making it harder to get opens through. His stack remained similar with around 20 left, as another Ally joined his table in the form of chaz_man_chaz. Both of the Allies were up and down during the final two tables, both losing chips but then being able to chip back up and finally make the final table in 8th and 9th out of 10. Unfortunately Neil was first to bust at the final table, opening AQ utg off 18bbs, getting called by the BB. The flop was 9 high with no draw and the action went check, check. The turn brought an 8 and the BB led out, Neil decided to jam on this bet thinking that he was likely to lead at most turns, but unfortunately his opponent made the call and his K9 held, to send Visionary to the rail. Chaz was able to ladder one more time but then fell in 8th place getting slightly desperate and shoving K2s, turning a flush draw v 99, but getting no help on the river.

Visionary fared slightly better in the Ongame 25k, but with two tables left his stack remained between 9 and 12 bbs’s, unable to find spots to get his chips in. However a very timely triple up came when he jammed K8o and got called by 99 and AQ, and after flopping his King, holding, to see the chips pushed towards him and allow him breathing space to make the final table. When he reached the final table there were a couple of ladders fairly quickly, and he was able to win a couple of pots, again alleviating the pressure of being shorter stacked. I spoke to NeilMc after his day’s play to ask him about a few particular spots and how he doubled up at this point and his response was quite matter of fact: “I don’t do doubles, I do uncontested pots!” Needless to say that is how he got to HU play, in the process knocking out everyone’s favourite perennial limper, Simpson 555! Unfortunately, he couldn’t take this form in to heads up play, maybe it was because he was following his own mantra and not willing to ‘double up’, either way he grabbed 2nd for a tidy $5.2k!
Chazmanchaz couldn’t find any other FT’s during his session but was unlucky not to go deeper in a couple of Stars tournaments, taking 30th in the Sunday Warmup and 25th in the Stars 6 max. Chaz seems to be knocking on the door at the moment and it seems like it has to be matter of time before a big win on a Sunday.
Another Ally who finished strongly after a less than average start was Bobafett. He made several final tables late in the day and the only thing that was missing was a ‘W’! His first final table came in the $109 20k on Party where he took 5th for a surprisingly large $2.7k! His 2nd FT didn’t bear the same fruit, taking 6th in the Party 20r for $800. His last 2 tournaments became the 848 Hurricane and the Ongame 100 Canadian, and both bore better finishes. He was in the top 5 stacks in the Hurricane from a long way in but lost a big pot just prior to the FT to cripple his stack down to 10bb’s.
He was able to get a timely double at the final table and with 6 left began to shove on quite a lot of opens to bolster his stack, surviving a few more ladders and knocking out the 3rd place finisher to get to HU. He had the better of things to begin with, but lost a fairly big pot in which he had to fold on a dangerous river card and then lost A6 to A5, to his opponents flush, to finish 2nd for $2.1k.
His final hoorah was in the 100 Canadian where he grabbed another 2nd place finish for a further $1.2k, losing heads up after getting it in with 33, only to be up against 44 and it was GG! A pretty good night on the whole for the Fettmeister!

There were a few other Allies with opportunities this week with Sufur going deep in the Champion Chip again and also the Mega deepstack on 848, but those runs coming to an end in around 50th place.

Good stuff on the whole from the Allies and with more wins early this week, we all wait with baited breath as to who may go deep next Sunday!