Barcelona

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!