Freeroll 1

It was the biggest collection of wiseguys ever seen outside of a Queens, New York deli on a muggy Wednesday evening. A capacity field of one thousand sharpshooters lined up to take their shot at the first freeroll of the new PokerPlayer Grand Prix 5 season, in association with Betfred Poker. Also with their heads on the chopping block were five PokerPlayers themselves – PPkidunknown, PPdicey, PPShafty78, PPWrighty and your very own PPRossyo – all carrying precious five-point bounties on their heads.

A $1,000 prizepool was on the line, with first place paying a whopping $500 and, more importantly, an automatic seat into the live grand final, where $10,000 will be up for grabs along with the respect that comes from being crowned Da Godfather.

With 2,000 starting chips and 15-minute blinds, things started off at a steady pace as jabs were landed without any real damage. Everyone knew they could be in for a long night with a thousand players to get through and with the blinds starting at 10/20 there was no need for any early shenanigans.

That didn’t stop strategy editor (and self-proclaimed ‘King of the Satellite’) Nick ‘PPWrighty’ Wright from making a misjudged move early on though. With the blinds at 50/100, PPWrighty was sitting on 1,200 when he saw five limpers call around to his big blind. Like the feverish online tiger he is, he shoved all-in with his 5s-3s and happily watched four people fold until the last limper masterdogen12 made the call with Q-J. No low cards came and that was the end of him.

As the owner of a PokerPlayer Mini-League medal in Grand Prix's past, much is expected of PPShafty78 in this Grand Prix. Last night was not his night, though despite a decent start that got him into the 3,000s. With the price of play rising, PPShafty78 moved in for his last 11 big blinds with Q-J in late position and got snapped off by littledd22 with A-9. That was all she wrote for PPShafty while his opponent scooped the bonus points.

It was a frustrating evening for PPdicey aka Rick ‘The Rage’ Dacey. Marred by connectivity issues, he never really got going before he was forced all-in on his big blind. From there, he went on to suffer the indignity of being eliminated by former PokerPlayer-er Chris ‘darklord55’ Marais. No doubt the taunting emails will be flying this morning.

At one point in the tournament I, PPRossyo, was having serious visions of glory and ultimate office bragging rights as I successfully chipped up to 10,000 early on. I was helped by a string of desperate calls looking to claim my bounty however. First, I shoved with pocket jacks and got a guy to call off his entire stack with pocket threes. And then it got even better as I picked up the beloved jacks again and was called by a raggedy ace this time which failed to suck out on me.

Just as my big-stack bully routine was gathering steam though, I was chopped down to size in a blind vs blind battle. The small blind raised to 900, I shoved (with twice his stack) holding pocket nines and was called by the annoyingly slightly better 10-10, which held up. In new medium-stack mode, I opened Ah-Kh UTG to 825 and found jimsimmo shoving his sizeable chips into the middle. Sensing I was way ahead of his optimum shoving range compared to the size of my ‘M’ (or something like that) I snap-called and was delighted to see his slightly unorthodox holding of A-6. Great! Two sixes on the board later and the laptop was angrily shut down as my Grand Prix debut ended in anticlimax.

Our heroic leader Dave ‘PPkidunknown’ Woods was the last surviving PokerPlayer, finishing in a creditable 232nd place. Getting short, he pushed all-in with an open-ended straight draw on the flop only to be called by jhsch161, who had middle pair. The straight failed to materialise and it was left to the regular schmoes to duke it out for the first title of the season.

The honours eventually went to renwick1970, who fully deserves his spot in the live grand final after outgunning this huge field of players.

The full leaderboard will be online very soon and make sure you join us for Freeroll #2 on Monday, November 24, 8pm. After the incredible turnout for this one, you’d be a fool to miss out and not take your shot at becoming a made man (or woman).