If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try Again Next Week
Dec 3, 2007
Time is starting to run out if you’re looking to book a spot on Team PokerRoom.com for the Aussie Millions, and it showed in Saturday’s turnout for the online finals, as the field was a whopping 65 players strong. That meant that not only would one player take down a $20,050 trip package for the 2008 Aussie Millions, but that second place would pay out nearly $8,000!
No one had plans to finish second, though, especially with a strong field that included former Team PokerRoom.com member such as dj_stiff, xx Black1, Ovoman, whassup x, Wieringen, THEASH, and AKplus.
dj_stiff (who cashed for over $50,000 at the recent WPT North American Championship at Niagara Falls) got off to a fast start, sitting 2nd in chips at the first break, barely trailing magyartaho1 for the chip lead. By the second break it was TheBrain001 leading the pack, with bigman693 and darkomaniacs rounding out the top three.
Because of the big turnout, the top nine spots paid, so the final table also served as the bubble. Here were the standing when the final table was set:
TheBrain001 50,291
barte 44,930
CURPET1 19,900
agent6 15,224
Payaso llI 14,839
scottygum 12,585
uralbomber 9,904
darkomaniacs 9,845
Wieringen 8,997
dj_stiff 8,485
Payaso llI seemed destined to be the bubble boy, all-in with Ac 10c versus agent6’s Jh Jd, and the board of Qh 5c 8c 9h seemed ready to send Payaso llI home. The Jc on the river, though, gave him new life, as it filled in his gutshot straight (painfully, too, as it gave his opponent a set of jacks as well), knocking agent6 out on the bubble.
Wieringen and scottygum would finish 9th and 8th, each collecting a $650 + $50 ticket to a future finals for their efforts, while uralbomber would bow out in 7th ($577 + a ticket), CURPET1 in 6th ($791 + a ticket), and dj_stiff in 5th ($919 + a ticket).
TheBrain001 still held the chip lead at that point, which only grew larger when he knocked out darkomaniacs in 4th, with darkomaniacs moving all-in pre-flop with Ad Kd and TheBrain001 making the call with 3h 3s, which held up to bounce darkomaniacs out in 4th ($2,267 + a ticket).
TheBrain001’s run would end there, though, as he’d eventually exit in 3rd at the hands of barte, collecting $4,770 + a ticket for his third place finish. That set up a dead-even heads-up match, with barte holding about 96,000 chips versus Payaso llI’s 98,000.
barte would be making a repeat appearance in the final two, as in last week’s finals he also made it to heads-up action but was unable to overcome Team PokerRoom.com veteran gbpoker, with barte ultimately finishing second.
This time it was a different story as barte got out to a big lead and quickly had Payaso llI on the ropes. barte nearly delivered the knockout with 5d 5c on a board of 4d 7c 6d, but Payaso llI’s Qs Qc held up in the end to double him up and keep him alive.
barte kept steadily chipping away, though, and finally took home the top prize when a very short-stacked Payaso llI was forced to move all-in pre-flop with 8c Qs and barte’s Kc 2s was enough to take it down and eliminate Payaso llI, who collected $7273 + a ticket for his runner-up finish.
Congrats to barte for reserving his spot on Team PokerRoom.com for the 2008 Aussie Millions, as persistence (and some great poker play) definitely paid off for him. If you’re still looking to book your own spot on Team PokerRoom.com, don’t delay, as there are just two online finals remaining for the Aussie Millions, both running on December 8th.
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