2 Malta Poker Open package winners on XLBet.com
XLBet.com ran their third online qualifier for the Malta Poker Open holiday package on Sunday, the 19th September 2010.
After a long battle of three way action, it seemed just right, that a pair of pocket aces held up and become the winning hand sending two more Danish XLBet players on a luxury poker trip to Malta!!
13 Players were ready to start battling for the two guaranteed €1700 packages on Sunday night – 3 of whom had qualified from the €40 satellite earlier Sunday and the rest had bought their way into the € 215 tournament – having a super overlay of €800!
The players were mainly Danish based, with a couple of Danes residing in Malta and a Dutch player who kicked off in a fast pace using their 2500 starting chip stack aggressively. It was not long before 3 players were sent to the rails and a final table was set up 25 minutes into the game.
The first player who left the final table was one of the stronger Maltese based players, whom despite having a stronger starting with A6 against Unee12´s A3, had to see a 383 flop ruin his tournament dreams.
These 9 players stayed at the table until first break and we saw a great display of survival by Junkie1212 against several all inns. Shortly into next level, two players got knocked out and the lonely Dutch guy foufoulegrande was the man to catch up with for the six remaining Danish players.
30 minutes later foufoulegrande had two Danes less to battle against and things really started to get interesting – the two lucrative seats waiting for the top two finishers were getting closer and any move could prove to be decisive.
Standing at level 11: Blinds were 125-250 with an ante of 25 chips.
The chip count stood at:
CrashJack1: 8,652
Xxsem: 6,592
Foufoulegrande: 6,525
Z8Guldgraveren: 5,545
Viskehesteren: 5,285
Short into level 11, Z8Guldgraveren (whom actually participated in Malta Poker Face off event in the spring, placing second place on Dragonara Casino), and Viskehesteren ended in a classic coin flip preflop – but Z8Guldgraveren´s pocket 10s got even stronger on a 10,2,7 flop, and Viskehesteren´s AK was last hand he played.
Shortly after Foufoulegrande´s stack left him no other choice than to call, after being challenged with a 3x betted preflop by Xxsem. Xxsem showed AJ and the board didn’t improve Foufoulegrande´s A8, sending him out and a 3 way Danish battle was lined up.
A few hands later, the tournament could have been over, when Z8Guldgraveren (44) andCrashJack1 (K10) went all in preflop, and a 2,5,Q flop left CrashJack1 well behind, but a 10 on the turn changed everything, and suddenly all 3 players had almost same amount of chips.
These 3 final contestants battled for almost 45 minutes, with CrashJack1 slowly building a large chiplead, which let to him having more than half the remaining chips and well covering his two fellow competitors – at this point only one more player had to be knocked out for the tournament to come to a close.
CrashJack1(AA) did what he could to get Z8Guldgraveren (94)caught by slowplaying, but actually ended up getting caught himself, when Z8Guldgraveren got two 4´s and a 9 on the board to improve his hand. Two hands later these two players got into an All-in battle once again, and this time CrashJack1 had the last laugh with his 10´s holding up againstZ8Guldgraveren´s J8.
But the smile only lasted for a short while, when Z8Guldgraveren (AA) and CrashJack1(K2) were both all in, and with the aces holding up Z8Guldgraveren and Xxsem could put their arms in the air celebrating the top two finishes.
Next week it could be you, as XLBet once again guarantees seats to Malta Poker Open on Sunday. Check out the schedule for the satellites here Qualify for the Malta Poker Open 2010
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