The final leg of the first season of the 25/25 Series in Yorkshire from 18-20 July finished with a flourish. A field of 174 entries created a £34,800 prize pool, with winner Stuart Allen taking home £5,660.
There were 43 survivors who returned for day two at the Grosvenor Casino in Bradford playing for the 17 prizes on offer. Flight A chip leader Lee Vause was the man out in front at the start of the day with 393,000 chips, followed by Mark Hawks (276,600), Bash Ali (235,400) and Mohammad Hariri (204,400), with Barry O'Shea (175,400) completing the top five.
Of those only Vause and Ali made the final table, where both were involved in a five-handed deal with Stuart Brownson, Allen and Matthew Howes which saw each player taking home £5,100.
With £560 on top for the winner, it was Allen who scooped it after a hard-fought heads-up battle with Vause.
The final hand saw a flop of JD-3D-6D at which point all the chips went into the middle with Vause holding AS-KD and Allen the QD-JC for top pair.
With both players having draws to the flush, Vause needed an ace, king or any diamond to put him in front but the 4S on the turn offered no reprieve and the QS on the river simply confirmed Allen's supremacy.
Vause led the way going into the final table with a stack of 890,000, followed by Allen on 670,000, Brownson with 600,000 and Ali with 550,000.
Next was Theodoros Drekolias (362,000), then Lala Box (355,0000), Ishvarbhai Patel (350,000), Alan Alderson (280,000) and Howes (255,000).
Having gone into the final table as the short stack, Howes could be proud of finishing third after he moved all-in from the button for 550k with Vause calling from the small blind and Allen reluctantly folding the big blind.
Howes' pocket tens appeared to be in good shape against Vause's K-Q until the diamond flop came K-2-9, with Vause now having top pair and the QD as insurance. An ace on the turn and seven on the river, neither diamonds, meant Howes was out in third place.
Ali exited in fourth after the action folded to him and he raised from the small blind with KS-QS, only to see Vause shove over the top of him with pocket kings. Ali called but there was no help for him and he went to the rail in fourth.
Brownson was the first of the dealmakers to leave, running his AS-4S into Allen's AH-KC pre-flop, with the board helping neither player.
Box was the one to miss out on the deal after she shoved in the cut-off for 400k with pocket nines and ran into Ali with aces.
Drekolias exited in seventh, Alderson in eighth and Patel was the first of the final nine to be knocked out.
25/25 Series Bradford
1 Stuart Allen £5,660
2 Lee Vause £5,100
3 Matthew Howes £5,100
4 Bashir Ali £5,100
5 Stuart Brownson £5,100
6 Lala Box £1,430
7 Theodoros Drekolias £1,150
8 Alan Alderson £970
9 Ish Patel £840
