£500+£50 NLHE Freeze-Out Main Event, 20th – 22nd June (day 2)

Ten online qualifiers were among the players returned for the start of the final day at 3pm. Average chip count was 46,000, but with 8 players on less than 30,000 the action started early. Within 35 minutes we were down to 45, and 41 by the end of the tenth level. Finally on level 14 we had our final nine with James Dempsey and Dave Maudlin on just over 480,000 chips.

Final Table Chip Counts

Short-stack Trevor Pearson was first to fall, followed by Teesside’s Dave Maudlin, on his third final table in two years, while Jamie Reeve flew the flag for internet qualifiers, coming in seventh. Rana Gurnam and Rickie Vedhara went over the next 90 minutes as play slowed up; however Michal Punn and James Dempsey went in quite quick succession to leave Neil Blatchly and Marcus Farthing heads-up, the latter leading 1.34m to 1.15m in chips. After just two hands Marcus was crippled when Neil called his all-in and hit a 8-high straight, and then very soon after he rivered a 7 and his A7 v AT was good enough to take first place, the title, over £34,000 in cash and a bonus seat to the December Grand Final.

Entries: 249

Added. £5,000

Total: £124,500