The second freeroll of Betfair Grand Prix IV went down on Monday evening, 10 December, with 640 eager players assembling to do battle.

Seven PokerPlayers turned up for duty, with vital 5 point bounties on offer for knocking out darklord5, derbyred, Dicey, HillyFish, K_Unknown, MrSmiles and Shafty78.

The tourney started well for most of the PokerPlayers, with darklord5, Dicey and K_Unknown in particular inflating their stacks in the opening stages.

There were however two notable early busts with last year’s Mini-League winner Shafty78 and Dicey exiting in quick succession.

First to go was Dicey, in 476th position, who was less than happy: “I got off to a good early start, pushing up to 3,500 in the first level or so. Unfortunately I got crippled for most of my stack when one punter decided to call for all of his chips on the turn with K-Q on Queen-high board. He hit a King to beat my pocket Aces – only to say ‘I only called because it was you Dicey’”

“He obviously knows that I run colder than an skinny-dipping Eskimo. I was finally KO’d by Viking47 whose A-K spiked against my J-J shove. I run sooooooo good!”

Next knock-out was Shafty78 who fell in 464th place to Pandaboy. An uncharacteristically early departure, for the the normally deep-going PokerPlayer.

Darklord5 was having a steady tournament, picking up chips with A-Q, Q-10s hitting a flush, a couple of A-K’s, and a double up with Kings against Queens. The highlight though was definitely persuading the table that he had folded Aces pre-flop to an all-in bet. As if.

Derbyred perished next, having received no cards all night, before finally pushing with A-Qo after being isolated by Mad_Marky who had A4s, which made a flush.

It was Hammerman who did for K_Unknown, with the PokerPlayer Editor again bemoaning his bounty status, saying: "I always manage to land on a table where everyone will call me for my bounty whatever I do, unless I’ve got Aces, in which case everyone folds.”

“I raise with A-J, get called by the BB, flop is 7-J-7, I pot, he puts me all-in, I call and he has 7-10.” So there you have it – if you’re on his table next time, he’d prefer it if you didn’t call his raises!

With blinds now up around 200/400, it was survival poker for darklord5 and MrSmiles. MrSmiles never really got going and finally succombed to m4tth3w in 188th.

Darklord5 was just about ticking along OK, before losing half his stack pushing T-T too hard preflop before seeing a A-Q-x board.

From there he managed to double up with A-10, after his all-in was called by a bounty hunting big stack, to just about keep him alive.

At this stage of a tourney with a small stack it’s all about picking your spots. Finding K-7s in the big blind and seeing the herbie-uk on the button move all-in on a likely steal, it was time to make a stand.

The call felt OK, and herbie-uk showed Q-10, but the higher card wasn’t enough, despite improving to four to a flush on the turn. It was the Queen on the flop that did the damage and darklord5 was ejected in 110th.

One PokerPlayer left in. HillyFish had been quietly swimming about his business for most of the night and now found himself with around 11K in chips and a sight of the money, with Betfair paying the top 63 spots.

And make the money he did, finishing in 57th place, but more importantly taking maximum Mini-League points.

Grand Prix III winner DerbyRed still sits atop the PokerPlayer Mini-League, but there were good gains for HillyFish and MrSmiles.

Congratulations to bulldozerD who won the Freeroll, after 5 hours and 12 minutes of play, who now has automatic qualification for the Live Final. Second was BlueDeans, who rockets onto the leaderboard with 35 points.

Well played all, and see you at the next freeroll in the New Year on 7 January, it’s a turbo – so expect some fireworks!

Final results:
1. bulldozerD
2. BlueDeans
3. Philtee
4. Nicko72
5. Teazz
6. Fattycow
7. jonese
8. Fm2005
9. Kinslufc1
10. AntSartan