For those that don't know who Ali Mallu is, then where the 'eck have you been?? Ali, as portrayed in TightEnd's recent article 'Method or Madness?' (click here to view) is one of the country's, nope - in fact Europe's most dangerous and unpredictable players. Forever keeping your updating team on the edge of their seats, Ali is capable of virtually anything, as I will prove with the following three hands witnessed last weekend at the Luton UK Open.
Hand 1
During the early (ish) stages of the £1,500 Main Event, tikay tugs on my shirt and demands I take note of hand that just occurred - and, although tikay has a tendancy to grab me if someone nicks the blinds, this was one hell of an eye-opening hand.
Eric Barker raised to 600 preflop, Tony 'tikay' Kendall called with his Pocket Sixes, and Ali Mallu made it an intimidating 3,600.
Eric moved all-in for another 4k, Tony folded, and Mallu called.
Eric flipped A-K and Mallu showed...
... 8-3 off!?
4 clubs on the board and Mallu takes it down with the 3 of clubs.
Eric Barker is sent packing, quite probably mumbling those immortal words as he approaches the carpark - "I was Mallued..."
Hand 2
After building up an impressive 250k plus stack (the chip lead by a country mile), mainly due to demolishing various player such as Barry Neville (A-K vs A-Q) and Lloyd Greensite (2-2 vs A-J), Mallu is beginning to look invincible and a dead cert for top honours, until, that is, he redefines the term 'maniac'.
Here is the live update report courtesy of a certain Beagle:
Mallu has just gone a bit loco and doubled David Courtney up to 207k.
Courtney raised preflop, Mallu stuck in a chunky reraise from the small blind and Courtney moved all-in.
Courtney turned over Bullets, whilst Mallu revealed the bewildering hand of Qc-8d
Board = 7d-4h-4d-Kd-9c
Courtney can't quite believe his luck, adrenalin still visible in his shaky hands as he stacks his newly attained mountain of chips.
Mallu, meanwhile, is ruing his error in judgment as he looks down at his now dwindled stack of 156k.
Hand 3
But, as you may expect, Mallu doesn't always hold a bag of spanners, from time to time, he seems to find a monster, and often, non-surprsingly when you consider the previous hands, he finds a caller.
One of those times came on the final table when Ali found those Pocket Cowboys... yeeeeehaaaaaa.
In a battle of the blinds encounter, Luke Patten (right) ends up all-in preflop with A-4 suited against Ali's Kings. An Ace on the board and that's all she wrote for Mallu who finished the tournament in 6th place.
It's a funny old game sometimes...