The final heat was being hosted by Jon, round Derek's house !
With only four players, all of whom could reasonably be ranked as "tight", you would think it would start out a tense, tentative match... and in the main you'd be right ;-)
The first few levels saw a lot of unraised pots and first bet taking it down. There was some aggression though, Derek raised 150 and got two callers. The 8-7-3 flop didn't look promising, but Jock leads with 100 bet and Derek re-raised... but all folded and Derek took a reasonable size pot down uncontested. Then we see Jock raise to 100 and Jon re-raising to 300 , only Jock called. The Q-T-4 sees Jon check then re-raise to 1000 when jock bets. The 2 turn doesn't seem to help anyone, but Jock calls Jon's 1000 bet. The 9 on the river sees Jon ship all-in but Jock folds and shows A-J, Jon shows Q-Q so Jock made the right decision, although it left him with only 2175 chips left
We get to level 4 and see Jock raise to 200 and get called by Jon. The Q-9-5 flop also sees a bet from Jock and call from Jon and with not many chips left the K turn sees a bet and call, then 8 on river which follow see Jock all-in and Jon calling. Both have two pair, but Jon was lucky enough to have the higher two pair which he hit on the river !
We are now down to three players and are on the first break. Jon has 7800 chips, Darren 4800 and 3400 to Derek
The next couple of levels are cautious with lots of limping and folding to a bet. There are some hands where it all suddenly starts to happen, for example at level 6 all limp to see T-4-2 flop. All check then an 8 comes on the turn, at which point Jon bets but all call. The 2 of clubs on the river makes a flush possible but the 700 bet from Darren gets a call from Derek. Darren has A-3 clubs for the flush against Derek's tip 2's ! Derek is down to 700 chips
Couple of hands later see's Jon raised to 700 with Derek on the blind, so has to call with Q-9 but Jon has K-9 and takes Derek out.
We are now heads up and Jon has 9300 to Darren's 6700 chips
The chips go back and forth with more raises pre-flop but more caution on the flop. In an unraised pot, both check the 5-5-2 flop and the 2 on the turn The 7 on the river sees Darren bet 1000 into the 2000 pot but Jon calls... Both have an A so the pot is split !
Level 7 sees a lot of caution and not much in the way of big pots, but Jon is being whittled down. He goes all-in pre-flop with K-QQs and gets called by Q-3o so takes the 9000 pot and we're nearly all square again !
at the break before the last level, the chips stacks are 8000 each so can't be more evenly matched !
It quietens down for a few hands, but this time Darren is being whittled down. Then Darren goes all-in with A-2 and gets called with Jon's K-J The A holds up and Darren is dead even again at 8000 each
The next hand goes to Jon, then Darren gets all-in with 6000 Jon thinks, then calls with his J-8s and is doubtless happy to see Darren with T-6o Unluckily Darren hit's and takes the pot leaving Jon 4000 chips
Then Jon is all-in with A-5 against Q-8 and without improvement this time, Jon immediately gets back to 8000
It was never going to last long, but it was 15 minutes into the last round before we saw a final decisive battle. Jon went all-in with A-K and got called by K-J leaving Darren needing a bad beat, but the luck wasn't with him and Jon took the victory.
From a slow start, the game certainly built up to a fascinating and exciting finale, so well worth watching. Roll on the Semifinals
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