He reached the final table right in the middle of the pack, although not having the greatest seat, with 2 or 3 big stacks on his left. There were a fairly quick couple of ladders and they were down to 8 handed, Ahurazor still floating between 5 and 6 of 8, getting the occasional open through but with his stack fluctuating between 25-30bbs, there wasn’t a huge amount of play. Due to his stack size and the stacks around him, he changed his style slightly and became a 3 bet jam/4bet jamming machine! 3bet jamming on the guy on his right and 4 bet jamming on the chip leader who he knew was very wide on his 3 bets.

Another few players fell by the way side, during which Ahurazor chopped a pot where he 3bet jammed on the chip leader with AJs, to see his opponent call with AJ also and they split the chips.
Unfortunately the structure on Microgaming at this point raises the blinds by 50%, so the number of BB’s Ahurazor had kept dropping, giving him less and less room for manoeuvre. 6 handed our Hero was down to 18bbs, opened 77 in 2nd position and the chip leader on his direct left 3 bet. The Hero thought for a while and due to the dynamics decided to jam, to see his opponent snap fold and scoop a very nice pot.

The pattern of the FT remained quite similar throughout, mainly due to the poor structure, Ahurazor waiting for spots to re-shove and get bets through without a showdown, and it was working, the stacks became all quite similar and 6handed he was 2/6. A further ladder saw him pretty much equal first of five and then he called off a 10bb button jam with A10, his opponent holding 98o, the A flopped and that was that, down to 4 handed with Ahurazor and the guy on his direct right holding around ¾ of the chips left in play, with the other two players, dwindling on or around 10BB’s. It became 3 handed very quickly and this is where the play became a lot more ‘cat and mouse’, with the pay-out structure determining that ICM became a fairly big factor in each player’s decision.

Unfortunately at this point, Ahurazor arguably had the worst of it, he had the big CL on his right and the shorter stack on his left, with the shorter stack looking to shove fairly wide on opens and the big stack, knowing that with the short stack still in, Ahurazor would be a lot less likely to mess around, opening a lot, with ICM, it became a bit of a nightmare to hold on to his chips. Fortunately though, the way it was going, the two other players would get in to it themselves and sure enough they did, only for the short stack to double, making things all very even again.

There was a 5 minute break shortly after the short stack doubled and it all became very even and when the player came back, the blinds had been upped and it now was really a bit of a lottery, with no player having more than 30BB’s! Ahurazor’s stack had started to dwindle slightly, as it was very difficult to get his chips in, but just as he felt he was becoming desperate the button opened and Ahurazor jammed to see his opponent snap call. His opponent held 44, but somehow Ahurazor held 99 and held to double and get right back in to it! Shortly after this his two opponents clashed in consecutive hands and finally one of them was knocked out in a flip and Ahurazor was Heads up, all be it with a 3-1 chip deficit, but that last ladder was worth €6k, so not all bad!

When Heads up play started, there was a bit of a dynamic with his opponent as Ahurazor had 3 bet jammed and 4bet jammed on him a few times during the final table but as it was still fairly shallow, it wouldn’t have too much of an impact. The action was happening quite quickly, as his opponent was acting within seconds every time, so it was hard to keep up! Ahurazor was pretty much raising every button and his opponent was walking him occasionally, so he was picking up chips most orbits. Ahurazor grabbed the chip lead when they got it in pre and his AQ held up v KJ and now the rail was fairly confident that the win would follow too. And so it seemed, as after a another few minutes, they got it all in pre with Ahurazors A10 leading v his opponents J9s. The flop was T 7 3, a good one we thought, until the turn brought the killer 8 and we were drawing dead!! So the chip lead swung again and it became a case of one or the other either shoving or walking from the button, eventually Ahurazor calling off with QJ to see it chopped up, as his opponent held QJ too.
Our hero now only had 12-13bb’s and shoved K6s from the button, to see his opponent call with K8s and unfortunately hold! Sigh……..but a great performance and a great score, nice work Trent!

In other news this Sunday, the only other FT’s of note were Puggy and Beej in the Party 20K speed, coming 7th and 5th respectively, both losing huge all ins pre with AJ, Puggy v the chip leaders TT and Beej, blind v blind v 34o!!

A pretty good Sunday thanks to the Ahurazor and again congratulation’s. Who will it be next!?

The first win came in the Party $99 10k Gtd that starts at 12am UK time. It ended a pretty barren run for theBeej, having not won a tournament in a couple of weeks. He made the final table with his stack right in the pack and there was no stand out chip leader. Another Ally, Ahurazor, also made the FT but was to fall short, when his AJ couldn’t get there v his opponents AK, to finish in 9th place. Beej on the other hand won a key flip for a timely double up and then another hand when he had his opponent dominated, to take the chiplead 5 handed. He never looked back from this point and bossed the final stages, the only key hand coming 3 handed, when he got it in in a cooler spot with AT v AJ, the flop came T T x though and bricked out to send his opponent to the rail and increase his already big chiplead. Heads up didn’t last long and Beej took down the win for $3.4k.

The second win and the first of his nightly double came in the 848 Monsoon. He got to the final table with a sizeable chip lead and won two big flips to extend this and cruise to heads up play. His opponent made a good fist of it however and it took 40 minutes for Beej to win that final hand, when AJ held v J8 and allowed him to scoop the $1.6k 1st prize.

The final win of the 3 and the second of the night came in the $108 Ongame Canadian. Beej reached the final table quite low in chips and had to bide his time before getting a double up with KK. However ladders were few and far between for the first 20 minutes and most of the players’ stacks began to dwindle, making it more of a crapshoot. He was able to remain patient though and get his money in in the right spots, and, get lucky when he needed to in order to get to 3 handed play. From there on in though it became a lot easier, with more chips and 2 very passive opponents the win was never in doubt and 5 minutes later Beej took it down and scooped the $1.6k prize.

He now joins Fett at the top of the MatchBall leaderboard with 3 a piece…….who will be next to trouble the MatchBall scorers?!

With 30 left, JarethtGK, as Jason is known on Ongame, was never outside the top 5 stacks, constantly pressurising the smaller stacks at his table, and as most of them were playing scared at this stage of such a big tournament, he was getting a lot of joy out of this tactic.

With around 20 players left Jason got in to what turned out to be quite a disgusting spot pre flop! JarethtGK opens utg off a big stack with QQ, a known bad player flats off ~25bbs in mid and the BB, who Jaret had been battling with on and off 3bets. This isn’t the nicest spot as it is, so Jaret decided to flat with his Queens, only to see the bad player jam the last of his chips in on a 4 bet and then to make matters worse, the BB, who is also a big stack and has Jaret covered, 5 bet clicks it back!! After throwing up a little, Jason composed himself, thought about his options and decided to take a calculated risk, knowing that he was very likely good v the known bad player and that the big stack could just be trying to isolate the bad player, so he jammed his remaining chips in, the BB folded fairly quickly and he was HU v the bad players AJ. The flop was good, all low, but the turn brought the Jd, which along with the Jack brought his opponent a flush draw and a whole load more outs, but the river was a brick and JarethtGK scooped a monster pot!
This hand was quickly followed by getting AA and knocking out another opponent to take the chip lead and he would alternate between that and 2nd place until the final table was decided.
The final table was a mix of fairly solid players and pretty poor players and the stack sizes ranged from monster stacks nearing 100bbs (one of whom was Jaret!) to 10bb stacks.
As with most major FT’s, the early stages were quite cagey, with most players vying for position, but after 10-15 mins there was a quick rush of bust outs, giving Jason a few great ladders up the pay scale, and thinning the field, with a few of the decent players being knocked out too.

There were a few hands that Jaret played at the final table v the Big CL, one where he called two streets on a K high board and then raised the river with AK when his opponent had KQ and called his 3x raise. But then 3 handed, called a double barrel with A5s only to have to fold when the river bricked, which knocked him back slightly.
The next hand of any note that he played, unfortunately was the hand that saw him knocked out, when he jammed ~20bb’swith A6o blind v blind on the big stacks open, who called it off with a9 and held to send JarethtGK to the rail in third but with a $20k consolation prize! Great effort from Jason and a score for us all to aspire towards!

Other action from the Allies came mainly from Jim_Jimothy in the 848 $200, where he came 14th. His stack was very up and down with 2 tables left and he got in to a bit of a battle with the 2 guys on his right, 3 betting, 4 betting and 5 betting In certain spots. He won a big pot with AK v JJ to get up to 370k but then lost a few smaller pots to drop down to around 200k. At this point he 5b jammed 55 in to his opponents AA and could not hit a spade or a 5 on the river and was sent to the rail in a disappointing 14th place……unlucky Justin, the tide will turn soon!!
Ahurazor got a 27th place finish in the iPoker major and I couldn’t write an article without mentioning Fett, who took 2nd in the Canadian 50 for $1k!

Not a bad week for the Allies and congrats again to JarethtGK!!

The first of his two recent MatchBalls was started off, by winning ‘his’ tournament, the ‘FettMax’, which is the Microgaming 10k Gtd 6max, for €3k. The second win, and his biggest of the six, came when he won the 20k Gtd on Party for $13.3k on a Sunday, which was made even more amazing for the love hate relationship he had with the site, namely that he hated them, and they loved his money!
He completed the set, to go joint top of the leaderboard by shipping yet another Micro tournament, this time the 5k Gtd 2nd chance for €2k…..a great way to start the year and he would now be looking to take the lead on his own!

He took the lead no more than a week later, by winning his 3rd Matchball and doing so in 2 days and technically a 24 hour period!
His 1st win came in the Ongame $100 Canadian Daily for $1.6k, a great tournament and a mainstay in the Allies’ late night schedule. The 2nd and 3rd wins came the very next day, the first of which was in the early Ongame $100 Turbo, which he took down for $1.5k. His last win, to complete the MatchBall and take the lead in the MatchBall race, came on Microgaming again and yet again it was the 5k Gtd 2nd chance, again for €2k.

Truly great stuff at the start of this year from Paul, setting the standard for all of us to follow……long may it continue!!

MatchBall Leaderboard Click Here!!