What a gathering at the Magical Miyagi Tour last time, when we played the fifth event of our series. Magical it sure was, playing a full ring poker game (10 handed, only Uncle Fil and the burned out Fabster were absent) in surreal circumstances.

Event 5 will go into our poker history as a key event of our series, as it was a huge graveyard. With Aces expanding his lead by running and catching like a rottweiler in kindergarten, and a large amount of points being sucked out of the ranking by freelance poker star Silent Barry, the leaderboard lost most of its tension. The only player next to Aces who could be satisfied about the turn of events is Quattro Cane-Iz, who succeeded to reach a Steady As A Rock Rating of 33.3% (winning 300 big blinds by playing 9 hands), a percentage never shown before in poker history.

No suprise, as all the other players were playing far below their level. For example the Pseudo Pro. First he shoves all-in with KJ against Cane-Iz, who was playing his first hand of the evening and showed him AK (at that moment Cane-Iz’ SAAR Rating was at it’s highest peak, that is 100%). Subsequently he picks Silent Barry to fire two gigantic bluffs at. Obviously, Barry didn’t even blink with his eyes and calls twice, quietly raking in a gazillion chips. With those chips, he became the new chipleader, after an already traditional first hour-lead of the Fat Kid.

The Iranian Dutchman and online grinder Gust9999 helplessly saw their chips being robbed by Aces, who first catched his 12th ‘one time’ river of the series against Grinder, after which he accidentally flopped a set of queens on a AQK board versus the Iranian Dutchman’s AK. Grinder managed to recover by winning a big pot against Cane-Iz, which would become the only hand Cane-Iz lost after a showdown. The Iranian Dutchman also had a comeback hand (T8 vs 98 on a 88xxT board) against freelance player El ‘Regrinder’ Frisco, who was thrown in a big depression after this hand. But he donked most of it away after Magical Miyagi supplied him with magical drinks.

So basically only me and Miyagi remained to fight against Aces and prevent him from winning the series after five events already. But I was already handicapped from the start, suffering from heavy throat pains. The only thing I could do was smoking, hoping it would go away, but this was ofcourse preventing me from playing my A game. It was Miyagi himself who gave me the final blow in a big pot. After the river, he clearly cheered because of this final card. At that moment, I was (just like the rest of the table) convinced that Miyagi hit the straight. But then he talked me into a call by saying that his brother fucks like a horse, which I thought was very suspicious. Too bad for me, his straight was helemaal completed.

But also Miyagi was very unlucky during the evening, trying to play a solid game but getting discouraged after lots of bad beats. One example was The Event Hand (half an hour before closing time), with a four way all-in between the Pseudo Pro, Cane-Iz, the Fat Kid and Miyagi. But Miyagi’s 42 didn’t hold up, resulting in another win for Cane-Iz. In the new rankings, Aces has a huge advantage on the rest now, having collected 300 points. But we’re only half way and I can’t believe this is a final: five events left, including a deep stack one, a PLO event and the Final Table with extended time.

Leaderboard (total points+latest result):

1. Aces  300 (+153)

2. Quattro Cane-Iz 78 (+60)

3. Iranian Dutchman   43 (-15)

4. Gust9999   42 (+27)

5. Fabster   -5

6. Uncle Fil   -22

7. Pseudo Pro   -29 (-70)

8. Biscotti   -115 (-28)

9. Miyagi   -160 (-160)

10. Fat Kid   -175 (-75)