St Patrick’s Day was the occasion for the sixth Freeroll of the fourth Betfair Grand Prix, and the finishing positions posted by some of the PokerPlayers suggested that not a few had been on the Guinness.

Monday evening’s freeroll saw 707 punters take part, including eight PokerPlayers, some of whom played a lot more poker than others.

First to go was ‘cash game specialist’ MrSmiles in 530th place, who’s A-K got shot down by Jacks; followed by darklord5 in 466th.

It was a completely forgettable perfomance from darklord5. Not a single premium holding arrived in the 40 minutes he was in the tournament. It was tough going with Q-J suited and a measly pair of Deuces both raised off pots.

Ace, Jack in the hole was the nearest he got any success. A standard raise was met by a big re-raise, so the A-J went into the muck as well.

darklord5 was completely unable to win a pot, and the run of raggedy cards forced his play to become more and more passive.

The end came with an all-in shove for just over 1,000 chips as the blinds hit 50/100. A-8 of clubs was called by PL-Lady’s J-9 of clubs.

No clubs arrived on the Flop, but a Jack did, and another turned up on the River. Sayonara. Worse still for darklord5, the rest of the table went on to congratulate PL-Lady on the ‘nice call’. Nice call? Oh well at least darklord5 got his money in ahead.

Next to go in quick succession were KillHill in 429th and derbyred in 409th.

KillHill perished soon after she raised it up with K-K and got a couple of callers. The 8-8-Rag flop looked good enough for a value bet, but more so for the rather aggressive person who'd bafflingly called with A-8 off suit. She managed to stick around for a few more hands before running Eights into achilles00's Queens.

derbyred’s exit was more straightforward, no bad beat story here, as he pushed A-Q into A-K, simple as that.

These woeful early exits were compounded by the efforts of HillyFish and Dicey who gave up the ghost in 317th, and a slightly more respectable, 225th.

As Dicey put it: “I lost the classic tourney race of A-K to Q-Q and hit Broadway for good measure (unfortunately that’s not good enough to beat Queens full). Despite some very early bossing, I never really got going and had been surviving through thievery alone.”

That left K_Unknown and Shafty78 still in. The former was unable to amass enough chips for a serious challenge, and he was despatched in 176th by eggo2, with his favourite hand T-Jd. K_Unknown’s lucky holding doesn’t run so well against Queens unfortunately.

Putting all of this mediocrity into the shade however was the performance of Shafty78, stung into action after slipping down the PokerPlayer Mini-League, who went deep, very deep, to finish in 10th position.

The reigning PokerPlayer Mini-League champion was denied a final table appearance by JAMIACA78, whose Q-8 outdrew Shafty78’s K-Q all-in pre-flop.

A superb performance all told, banking 15 Mini-League points, which sees him rocket to the top of the ladder, clear by one point. He means business and will not relinquish his crown without a fight.

Special congrats to JAMIACA78 who, after knocking out Shafty78 went on to win the Freeroll and book his seat at the Live Final.

Final results:
1. JAMIACA78
2. Nicko78
3. chpbooks
4. JohnnyHo..
5. Walker05
6. TwistedNuts
7. chunderos
8. eggo2
9. Dolmen