Day 2 - IPC 10k Freezeout

Before I begin detailing Day 2, a quick apology for not having done the customary FB updates and tweets. The Blackberry was acting up and didn't allow me to send out any updates. Hopefully the situation should be sorted by tonight.
So after the madness of the huge field from Day 1, we were fairly certain Day 2 would give us a pretty decent turnout as well. The turnout would be lower than the 5k tourney but that was to expected given that the higher buy-in would keep some of the low stakes players away. Still a field of 80 was what we were expecting and eventually we managed to get 78 players for the IPC 10k Freezeout.

Since we had less than 80 players, we did not require the additional tables which were setup on the higher level. The action took place in the poker room only and at just past 9 pm we were off. The action was a lot more focused on Day 2 due to the higher stakes involved but we still lost 2 players within 15 minutes of the tournament starting off. There were a few more dropouts within the first one hour but then the action settled down with players battling it out for the big prizes.
We were down to half the field within 4 hours and then the extended blind levels kicked in to slow the dropout rate even more. This was a particularly important phase of the tournament as many of the short stacks were starting to feel the heat as far as the increasing blinds were concerned.

We ended up with our players for the final table by the 9th level of the blinds. The final table on Day 2 was slightly different as we had two players sharing the chip lead going in. This how the final table looked with each player's chipstack given as well:-

• Seat 1 - Masood S (Mumbai) - 23,000
• Seat 2 - Sameer R (Mumbai) - 78,000
• Seat 3 - Prabhat S (Panchkula) - 38,000
• Seat 4 - Kevin N - 13,000
• Seat 5 - Nitesh M (Bangalore) - 74,000
• Seat 6 - Mahesh K (Bangalore) - 78,000
• Seat 7 - Akshat D (Mumbai) - 39,000
• Seat 8 - Seshank S (Hyderabad) - 22,000
• Seat 9 - Susmit P (Mumbai) - 26,000

Once again Bombay players made up about half the table and importantly we had two 'repeat offenders' from last night. Akshat and Seshank make an impressive back-to-back final table appearance. Just goes to show what good solid poker will do for you. Of course to make through a field this big you also need that slice of luck which Akshat managed to score to get to the final table. This evening there would be only 8 payouts made so somebody on the final table would be the bubble boy. That someone turned out to be Seshank. Despite not making the money an impressive showing for the man from Hyderabad.

Play went on for another 90 minutes before we reached three way action with Nitesh (185,000) and Prabhat (150,000) with Sameer rounding off as the shortstack with just over 50,000 in chips. Players traded a few hands trying to get back in the groove after the break taken. As play went on, the hand played between Nitesh and Sameer proved to be a critical one. Blinds were 4000-8000 with Sameer on SB and Prabhat on BB. Nitesh moved all-in from the button and was called down by Sameer while Prabhat got out of the way. Nitesh showed Kc 5c which was dominated by Sameer's Ah 9s. The flop opened up two 9s for Sameer who won a very healthy pot. All 3 players now had fairly even stacks. Play goes on till Nitesh's all in is called by Prabhat who A Q hits hard with both hole cards pairing up and Nitesh finishes up in 3rd place.

Headsup play started halfway into the level where the blinds were 4000-8000. Prabhat had about 270000 chips and Sameer about 120000. A few hands were traded up and down with not much movement in chips. Sameer then went on a bit of a heater taking down about 4 pots in a row uncontested. At this point he moved into the chiplead but only by a slight margin of about 30,000 chips. The final hand of the tournament had Sam on the button limping in to complete the big blind with blinds at 5000-10000. Prabhat checked and the flop opened up to show 2s 3d 5s. Both players checked the flop and the turn was 6s. Sameer bet the pot and Prabhat thought about it long and hard before he moved all-in which was insta-called by Sameer. Cards opened up to reveal Prabhat's 10 6 o/s brutally crushed by Sameer's 4d 8d who made the nut straight on the turn. Prabhat had no outs and was drawing dead which meant the Sameer was the big winner of the night!

Prabhat, Sameer and Nitesh

There were huge cheers from many players of the Bombay contingent when Sameer was announced as the winner of the IPC 10k Freezeout after just under 7 hours of action. A very commendable performance by first runner-up Prabhat who played a solid game to take 2nd place. Players gave positive feedback on the way the game was run and everyone including the players' friends and spectators alike had a good time.
It was a fantastic night with some great poker action and our final event, the IPC 20k Freezeout is to start in less than 4 hours time. Still hoping to get the Blackberry going in order to provide more updates when we're at the venue. Since the turnout tonight will be the lowest amongst the three tourneys, I hope to put up more frequent updates on Twitter and Facebook.

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Till tomorrow...