Barcelona

pokertroll

Not a bad start for me in Barcelona,
I've been drawn against against one of the Betfair qualifiers - his name escapes me at the moment. At least its not a known player. Will be playing on Wednesday at 5:30 local time which is the very last slot for the first round.

I haven't got much more info - I think the full list will be published some time tomorrow.

NickyOD

Good luck. Take it down.

The home page is here but I don't know if they'll be posting the first round results on it.

http://www.worldheadsuppoker.com/headsup/index.php

roryc

good luck

Doc Farrell

good luck kiddo

Lafortezza

What kind of preparation did you put in for this Mark?

pokertroll

lafortezza wrote:

What kind of preparation did you put in for this Mark?

Played a lot of heads up games over the last month online - did quite well - generally for 50 or 100 Euro.
This tournament is a very different beast, though, with some games lasting up to 3 hours,

Still I don't really feel all that well prepared for it - I'll just give it my best shot.

One problem that I have is that I was working in the USA for the last while so didn't get much practice in.

DeVore

Whens your first game? Any live (or semi live) coverage?

DeV.

Hitman Actual

Best of luck, Mark... and isn't Barcelona where David O'Callaghan won the 'Open' last year? A good omen, hopefully.

Waylander

DeVore wrote:

Whens your first game? Any live (or semi live) coverage?

DeV.

The whole event was on one of the sky channels (Challenge, I think ) last year, but I think it was on well after the event was over.

BigDragon

Best of Luck Mark.

Maybe being under prepared is just as good as being over prepared (ie burnt out!) .... if you know what I mean.

ionapaul

Good luck Mark! Watch out for pickpockets and avoid the seafood paella at all costs

Dub13

Best of Luck

pokertroll

BRACKET 1:
Angel Blanco v Jonathan Sullivan
Ivo Donev v SAT1
Pascal Perrault v Rumit Somaya
Roy Brindley v Luke Smith
Carlos Massana v Xuyen Pham
Dave Ulliot v Alex Leviev
Boudet Patrice v Stephen Pearce
Carlo Citrone v Daniel Larsson
Luca Pagano v Albert Ashanki
Charles Mailhot v Simon Trumper
Martin Cedercrantz v Jean Postmus
Ross Boatman v Ram Vaswani
Peter Gunnardon v Frank Blumlein
Paul Hersleth v Tom Brady
John Kabbaj v Marco Monica
Mickey Wernick V Michael Hewitt

BRACKET 2:
Mark Bannin v Dave Colclough
Paul Zimber v Noah Boeken
Jose Forcada v Bruce Atkinson
Manuel Durin v Makus Lehman
Raul Paez Corral v Ben Battle
Alexander Kravchenko v Vladimir Troyanovsky
Willie Tan v John Huckle
Phil Shaw v Barny Boatman
Woody Deck v Sargon Ruya
Mark Bartlog v Richardo Gryco
Patrice Bouget v Pouya Majd
Colin Gerrard v Jamie Sharrat
Nicu Simcelescu v Manuel Garcia
Dan Simcelescu v Dave Gardner
Mathias Wilkens v Henry Bull
Andreas Hagan v Peter Troejborg

BRACKET3:
Rob Hollink v Derek Baxter
David Slowik v Daniel Steine
David Leigh v DaMatrix
Rino Mathis v Jeff Kimbler
Paul King v Hans Eskilsson
Gary Collins v Ben Grundy
Chris Sokrati v Michael Keiner
Sean MacMahon v Jac Arama
Christian Engblom v Peter Eichardt
Isabelle Mercier v Steve Vladar
Brian Benedon v Frej Rutenskold
Howard Plant v Bengt Sonnert
Santiago Terrazas v Guosen Chen
Padraig Parkinson v Joe Beevers
John Falconer v Kevin O'Connel
Anthony Lelouche v Romain Feriolo

BRACKET4:
Bruno Fitoussi v Santiago Planas
Jin Cailin v Erik Forsberg
Cui Guogun v John Cunningham
Gary Chatterton v Ali Osman
Peter Abela v Rosa Massimiliano
Julian Thew v Per-Werner Svenson
Jatinder Singh v Paul Gamhart
Robert Binelli v David Mahmood
Jim Goodwin v Mark MacMahon
Zhang Luzhe v Chris Evans
Bill Edler v Michael Thuretz
Paul Jackson v Maurice O'Connor
Lothar Landauer v Mattias Backstrom
Simon Nowab v Khayam Ezzat
Mark Foster v Kate Szeremeta
Rory Liffey v Andrew Kinsmann

DeVore

oh man... thats some lineup!!

Ones that particularly caught my eye were:

Padraig Parkinson v Joe Beevers

John Falconer v Kevin O'Connell (good mates!)

Ross Boatman v Ram Vaswani (two mobsters!)

Every second name there is a well known player or pro, good luck Mark, thats a tough field!

DeV

NickyOD

So which Mark is Mark?

ionapaul

The one who's playing 'Diamond' Jim Goodwin*




*made up the Diamond part, though that would be a pretty cool name...right?

pokertroll

Bracket 4
Jim Goodwin v Mark MacMahon

BTW Sean is no relation - he just happens to be another MacMahon who qualified on Paddy Power. He has only been playing poker for about a month and has been drawn against Jac Arama! What a good draw that is as it should be a very even match.

NickyOD

pokertroll wrote:

Bracket 4
Jim Goodwin v Mark MacMahon

BTW Sean is no relation - he just happens to be another MacMahon who qualified on Paddy Power. He has only been playing poker for about a month and has been drawn against Jac Arama! What a good draw that is as it should be a very even match.

Oh man Jac Arama, that's nasty. You can never know what that jamming station has. "Do you have a pair?" "No 8 high"

roryc

how much does it cost to enter? (if you didnt win a ticket)

what would the prize fund be like?

pokertroll

roryc wrote:

how much does it cost to enter? (if you didnt win a ticket)

what would the prize fund be like?

2k+reg entry

128 players limited = 256k prize fund

100k first prize.

Live updates available here

PPP-Pit Boss

I think leslie neilson said it best ala airoplane...
"good luck, we're all counting on you..."
"good luck... we're all counting on you..."

..... "good luck. We're all counting on you..."

;0)
Mark keep us informed please! PPP's star ! :0)

dropsy

Just spoke to Mark - he won his first round game today...nice work Mark. I'm sure you'll post details as soon as you can.

ionapaul

Congrats Mark - keep it up

pokertroll

ionapaul wrote:

Congrats Mark - keep it up

Yeah delighted to be through.
The game went very well.
I played super agressive and my opponent was quite passive, The old Mike Caro book worked a charm as there were a couple of times when I read my opponent for strength and folded the likes of AJ on the flop - i think he hit a set of kings but I was having none of it.
At the break I had a 6500 to 3500 advantage..
The hand of the game was when I callled a raise with Q10 OS.
We both checked and on the turn I had an open-ender of sorts..
The board was AJ97 - any K 0r eight would give me a str8.
My opponent who was extemely tight bet 400. i decided to re-raise to 800 as I had managed to get him off some dangerous boards previously and assumed he would fold. He called and I hit a K on the river to get the nut str8,.
With the nuts i was first to act and raised to 1400 after some hesitation(I like overbetting with the nuts)

He called with his 2 pair and and I had a 9k to 1k advantage. Soon afterwards he went all-in with QJ and i callled with A7 and it stood up.
Had a great night tonight - still very drunk after drinking with timfoils brother Graham Thew, MilkyBarKid and Richard Gryko - Loving barceona for now - hopefully thursdays game against Luzhe Zhang (who the f* is that?) will go well.

Will keep you all updated, Mark.

Fandango

Well done! Great to hear and hopefully you can go all the way!

Krusty_Clown

Bst of luck in the next game Mark..
Luzhe Zhang - ranked 119,750 in the world.. Beat him and you'll move up to 119,749th.

NickyOD

Fandango wrote:

Well done! Great to hear and hopefully you can go all the way!

He's a limit specialist, which most likely means he is totally fearless and aggressive. He won't be anything like that tight ass Goodwin.

Best of Luck Mark. Enjoy.

Shortstack

Well done Mark, you must be drunk. Graham is Timfoil! His brother is Julian!
If you end up playing him then watch out he is a nightmare...

pokertroll

LOL-yes Mike, I was drunk when I wrote that post! - It was Julian, of course!

TimFoil

thanks for clearing that up ss, i was starting to revel in the kudos.... if you do end up drawing Julian my advice is to get him giggling - once he starts he cant stop, his game goes to pot, blatent reads all over the place - what a mess. in the meantime well done, looking forward to your anhialation of the next carbon blob...

ionapaul

Do the 2 round matches take place today?

pokertroll

ionapaul wrote:

Do the 2 round matches take place today?

Yes - not sure what time so I'm gonna hit the casino for 15:30 just in case. I think I'm on at 17:30 again

If I do win I will most likely be up against actionjack in the next round.
Julian is also in my bracket so I would face him sooner rather than later.

Waylander

Great result in the first round Mark. Good luck in R2.

careca

Great stuff Mark. Keep it going.

Hitman Actual

Yeah Mark, well done, and best of luck in R2.

pokertroll

Just finished my second game against Luzhe Zhang and it didn´t go according to plan.

I started reasonably well and built up a lead of about 1k after 10 minutes. It was difficult to get chips out of Zhang whilst at the same time he was also quite aggressive. My profit had been made on blind steals and a bluff re-raise on the flop with ace high.

One thing that kind of bothered me about my seating position was that the railbirds standing directly behind me could possibly see my hole cards. Yesterday when I was watching Jac Arama´s game, I could see his cards(not very pretty) from the rail. Obviously I was doing my best to protect my cards but I was still worried by the fact that there was a chinese contingent directly behind me.
This leads into this crucial hand which was the start of my downfall. I called a min raise with Q7 on my big blind (blinds 100-200, 10k starting chips)

Flop was JJ8 and I checked. Zhang bet out for 300. I re-raised to make it 1300 to go (hoping to get him off the hand obviously)
It looked like he was going to fold as he was thinking for quite a while ,but Keira my girlfriend, who was sitting behind me, heard a woman speaking quite loudly in Chinese from the rail and gesturing towards my hand. Now I don´t know what she said but Zhang decided to call. I wasn´t aware of what was going on and hopefully Zhang wasn´t either but it just makes me wonder.
Turn was a rag and I bet out again for 1300 (mistake again maybe but he has got to have something good to call I´m letting him know that I have a J - or maybe he knows already that I have nothing). Zhang called. The board straighted up when the river brought a 7 but I now had a pair.
I bet 1000 and Zhang went all-in. I simply couldn´t call and had lost a big pot. I reckon he had 9-10 the way the hand was played or maybe he had hit a pair - I don´t think he had a J.

I got back up to about 8K but never really saw any decent hands for the whole time I was there.
Now the downward spiral started. Have you ever played against somebody who just always has that slightly better kicker or makes his runner runner flush or who hits their higher pair on the river when you have called their bluff already with top pair, or who beats your 2 pair when the board pairs and he has an ace kicker with his pair. Yes, it was one of those days. He was hitting everything. I would raise with A10 and he would call with 6-4, board would be JJ4J2 which aint to bad for A10 but he of course had the boat and could milk a small amount of chips out of me.

The next big hand I lost was when I had a 10 , and hit a 10 on the flop. There was 3 spades on the flop but they were all below 10. Afraid of the flush draw, I bet 1k. Turn was a low non-spade. I bet 1500 and he called again. I think he has a high spade and am just praying another spade doesn´t hit on the turn. The turn brings the Q of spades and I know I am now well behind. I check and Zhang raises to 2k so I have to fold. He shows K8 off suit with the K of spades of course.

Down to about 2.5K now, the blinds were 150-300 so it was make a move time. I saw absolute crap from then onwards - the likes of 9-3,7,3,3,2,4,2 and got whittled down to 1500.

He raised my big blind and I re-raised all-in to with pocket 5s. There was a bit of a delay whilst the TV Cameras etc had to be moved over to my table but the 5s stood up against his AJ.

2 hands later, I am all-in on the river with a 9 high flush. Zhang calls with a 10 high flush and It was curtains for me.

Am disappointed with It but just didn´t get the breaks today. As Paddy Taxi, says ´Thats Poker´

NickyOD

It's unfortunate the level of luck involved but that's the nature of HU sometimes. When you've got too great player's with a lot of balls it usually comes down to something very marginal indeed. Shrug, move on, get drunk! Well played Mark.

Daithio

Unlucky Mark,
It doesn't really sound like you did much wrong though. The flush was harsh but I suppose you really want them calling for 1500 with only 1 card to come, you're going to win 5 times out of 6. At least you made it through the first round anyway, good luck with the other tourneys you'll no doubt be playing in, talk to you in the fitz when you're back.
Dave

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

hard luck - was exciting following the progress of the tournament though - which none of us probably would have done if you hadn't been in it!

Doc Farrell

I don't want to make a deal of it but someone commenting behind you in a foreign language on a hand you're in is completely out of order. If a rail bird had have refered to your cards then the game is seriously compromised.
Anyway, at least you didnt pay 2 grand and u got to hang out in Barcelona with some better than average players.
So well done, hard luck and roll on the WPT.
Cheers, d.

ionapaul

Hard luck Mark, hope you enjoy the trip nevertheless.

BigDragon

Well done anyway fella. Representing the homeland is a good feeling???

Hitman Actual

Hard luck Mark, but at least you have the Big One to look forward to! Hopefully that will go more to plan.

pokertroll

Played the 500 freezeout today. There were 189 runners with a starting stack of 3k. Was playing at the same table as Ross Boatman and Rob Hollink for a while. Didn´t see many great hands at all and ended up pushing allin for 1500 with pocket 5s and the blinds at 150-300. In this spot, I really needed to double through to have a chance of progressing so was just hoping that anything but an overpair would call me. I got past everybody but the big blind who had AK and proceed to hit two kings on the flop. A very enjoyable tournament, though, but again I didn´t get enough breaks.

There´s quite a few bars near the casino so I have got to know quite a few of the name players since getting here. Devilfish actually knew my name which surprised me . He came up to me in the bar and said ´Hi Mark´ which was weird as I´d never met him before - I think he´d been watching one of my games before. He is some party animal - he was singing on the stage in the bar last night and also tried to rob my girlfriend at one stage.

So thats it from Barcelona - I won´t be back in Dublin for a couple of weeks as I´m back working in Washington.

Off-topic
BTW, does anybody know an easy way of removing a virus from a PC. I have my work laptop with me (Windows Server 2003) and left it plugged into the network over night. When I woke up in the morning, I could hear a bit of activity - the ´puter sounded very busy indeed, which worried me. I assumed the ´puter hand some firewall installed as it is a work ´puter.

The first symptom was that both my browsers firefox and IE were hijacked.
This didn´t worry me too much as I thought I could install some spyware
removal software and get it back up and running.
After rebooting, it turns out I have a boot-sector virus as it just doesn´t start up in any mode.
I don´t have any OS cds with me but would like to be able to salvage as much as possible before I hit the states.

Any gurus, here know the best approach to take? It will be quite embarassing arriving in work with an infected PC on Monday so I´m hoping to get it fixed before then. I will be in dublin tomorrow evening and would pay for help in sorting this out.

henbane

If you have access to another pc, download an AV boot diskette and run that. Quick google took me here and I'm sure you could find similar. Why is server 2003 on a laptop?

Doc Farrell

I had a virus that needed talking to. The pro linked his laptop to mine, then read my laptop as an external hard drive of his and cleaned it that way. Sorry, I have no idea how. Maybe if you go to the AVG website they might be able to help you. Their free anti-virus software is the most up to date.
Nasty.

Hitman Actual

Hey Doc, AVG wont be any use against a boot sector virus. The AV boot diskette is the best way to go, although it's a while since I had to do anything like that (circa 1998, I think!)

PPP-Pit Boss

Unlucky Mark sounds very disconcerting. Well played to get as far as you did!