The second event in round two saw the remaining seven Suspects parade their identities in Napoleons Casino in Sheffield for the £750 main event of the Winter Festival. John, Simon and Stuart arrived earlier in the week to test out the local competition in some of the other festival events. John made a final table in Wednesday night's competition and Thursday's was won (chopped 4 ways) by ex-Eastenders actor Michael 'Don't call me Beppe' Greco.
The other four Suspects were rounded up on Friday afternoon and shortly after 8pm the 64-runners event got underway. John and Stuart shared the same starting table, as did Jen and JP and the verbally sparring pair of James and Simon, who picked up their table chat as they left it after event 6. Here is a snippet of their conversation:
James: 'Hello fish'
Simon: 'Mug'
James: 'seafood'
Simon: 'hot drink holder'
James: 'Fancy my big blind do ya?'
Simon: 'I've as good as got it already, but keep yer grubby paws off mine'
James: 'yeah right'
Simon: 'Come and get it and see what happens'
James: 'how many Unsusual Suspects points you got then?'
Simon: '#@*%*#% t'internet players...'
Meanwhile newcomer Ricky found himself on a table with WSOP bracelet winner Lawrence Gosney, 'Mad' Marty Wilson and John Hewston, to name a few. Simon very nearly exited when his pocket 3s came up against pocket Js held by James but a 3 on the river kept him in the game a bit longer and prolonged the mutual ribbing. However, he was still short stacked and was knocked out shortly thereafter, as the 7th place finisher of the Suspects. Stuart was next to go and can consider himself very unlucky as his 88 looked good against 55 on a flop of 478. However a 6 on the turn gave his opponent a straight and the 2 on the river was no help. Jen, with about 8,000 left got her chips in with AK versus AQ but a queen hit the board, sending her out of the competition as the 5th place Suspect.
Ricky's debut live event in the contest was going well, having dodged the bullets of the more experienced players on his table, but holding AK on a flop of AKT he could not get away from this hand and sadly his opponent held QJ for a straight. No further aces or kings fell on the turn or river and without any disgrace Ricky was our 4th place finisher.
JP had been playing a pretty solid game and had riled the likes of Lawrence Gosney on more than one occasion with his audacious all in reraises, but it was one such preflop reraise too many when the WSOP bracelet winner called JP's AJ with pocket 8s. The gamble paid off for Lawrence and JP was out soon after in third place, once again finishing earlier than he should have done, but picking up 7 valuable points on the way.
So, John and James were still left in as the night drew to a close and it was unfortunate for James that the last hand of the day would be the one which sent him out of the tournament. A few hands earlier he had taken on a smaller stack with pocket jacks only to find his opponent holding kings. It was not too much longer before James found himself all-in again, this time with pocket queens, but the very same player once again turned over the royal cowboys and an extremely disappointed James was out, having 'bubbled' in 11th place when on the verge of making the first major final table of his poker career.
After a couple of trademark cups of tea John headed straight back to the hotel for some shut eye to prepare for the following afternoon's final.The final got underway shortly after 3.30pm and included Michael 'Don't call me Beppe' Greco in his 2nd consecutive final as well as the very respected and experienced Blackpool pair Alan McClean and Ali 'Do-lally' Mallu. John had average chips and although the deck was running cold for him, he held on well until the field was reduced to four. He can be considered unfortunate to have come up against pocket 9s two hands in a row, first holding AK, then KJ. No improvement on either hand and John finished fourth overall in the tournament, picking up winnings of £4,300 and 16 Unusual Suspect points for his efforts.
James, John and JP now have a comfortable gap to the rest of the chasing pack, but with three events left in round 2, there's still plenty of points up for grabs, so nobody can be ruled out of contention yet. The next event is at 8.30pm on Wednesday 9th November, a $15 PL Freezeout on Blue Square Poker.