Betfair Grand Prix IV, Freeroll 8, 7 April

Entrants: 967
Buy in: $0
Prize pool: $1,000

Final results:
1. runadrum
2. Wallaceee19
3. Sweenoo
4. scottie666
5. sinner01
6. art3003
7. MSK
8. TomekWWA1
9. strahinja
10. FingersIW

Freeroll 8 of Betfair Grand Prix IV attracted the biggest field in the history of the series with 967 runners, and the action was turbotastically fast and loose.

With the Leaderboard looking incredibly tight, winning the freeroll now represents most players’ best chance of making the live final.

OK, the extra numbers may have been down to the password being posted on a certain forum, but PokerPlayer would like to say thanks to our regulars, the magazine readers, for your patience – and just to say, we are working on a solution to get the right people playing in these tournaments.

On with the action. This tournament was a turbo, 2,000 chips with five minute levels, and the two of the PokerPlayers certainly didn’t hang about.

First to go was darklord5, with all guns blazing. An early triple up with 10-10 hitting a set meant he had enough chips to tailor his play to opponents and chipstacks.

That approach lasted, oh, maybe two minutes with the fateful (or should that be hateful?) A-K his downfall. First up, darklord5’s A-K flopped an Ace, but GoonerDel’s 10-9 made a Full House by the River, and then a shove with Big Slick in the Small Blind was called by K-K in the Big, and J-J in middle position.

No Ace appeared, with the loser7’s Jacks making a straight on the River. So that was that, darklord5 out early doors in 835th.

Dicey went soon after, continuing the theme, his A-K losing out to Queens. As always he had an excuse: ‘The most eventful thing to happen to me was being locked out of my flat before the tournament started, having to play from a mate’s flat where his ‘double-tap’ touch pad kept thwarting me.’

derbyred and K_Unknown followed in 632nd and 616th respectively, with an under-the-weather K_Unknown playing ‘like a man with a bad cold’.

He continued: ‘Eventually ran A-Q into A-9 and 10-10, and the worst hand won, getting a Nine on the flop and another on the turn’.

‘I normally congratulate bounties, but seeing as there’d been a pot-committing raise from under the gun followed by an all-in from in the next seat, his all-in call on the button was truly woeful and didn’t deserve to get rewarded with extra points’. Ouch.

That left Shafty78, KillHill and HillyFish to push on, and push on they did. Shafty78 eventually fell in 210th position, the curse of A-K striking again. Up against A-J, the Jack spiked on the River. Typical

So that left KillHill and HillyFish to play on, although by their own admission, by this stage they were paying more attention to the tournament leaderboard than the actual poker with PokerPlayer Mini-League points at stake.

It was the aquatic one that won that battle, clinging on, while running his stack down to less than one big blind before exiting in 98th, with KillHill departing seconds earlier in 100th.

It was grim stuff, and as KillHill confirms: ‘He'd gone all-in on his table, I had him out-chipped about 8-1, so there was no need for me to shove all-in on the button with Qs-8s, which would have been fine, had a player on Steve's table not had connection problems.

‘So even though the action on my table started later than Hilly's, I bust out first in 100th (Evo61313 was the beneficiary of my suicide). It just goes to show, evil plans are very much over-rated’.

Wise words indeed. The tournament sped on without the PokerPlayers however, with the Final Table convening almost two hours after kick-off.

Congratulations to PokerPlayer regular and all-round nice guy runadrum for winning the tournament, your place at the Live Final is now secured. Two Freerolls remain, with the second a deepstack spectacular – don’t miss them.