Mark Attard loses to a paired King
5:47 pm in Interviews, Live Poker, Poker News, Portomaso Casino by Etienne Licari
Mark Attard - Malta Poker Dream
Mark Attard started off the day with just over 100,000 chips but he busted out of the tournament after 2 hands that his hurt his stack and ended his tournament prematurely.
We caught up with Mark as he shared with us the last moments of his Malta Poker Dream experience.
MA: I’m disappointed as I came here today with high hopes, as everyone knows I was the first Maltese Player in the tournament as regards to chip count, but as Poker goes, I got a bad hit and ended up bleeding really badly. Usually strong opponents always raise when they have something strong, but I encountered a different play – kind of a strange hand. I had 4 7 and I had to play because I was on the BB, nobody raised and I hit 2 pairs on the flop.
A 2 pair with 47 cannot be thrown away so I had to bet, a player raised and I had to call, then he went allin with 40k and I called it. He showed 44 so he hit trips against my 2 pairs.
With that I went down to 30/35k and then, I waited and waited, till I changed the table and was on the button with A2. I pushed and found the Bb on AK. I hit the 2 and he hit the K, he absorbed all my stack, and that was the end of my tournament.
MPE: What can you tell us about the competition you faced?
I got out in the same stage as I did at my last international tournament. I’ve come to the realization that the disadvantage of the Maltese players who are not professional players, is that when you play for many hours you don’t remain as focused as Pros do – We just don’t have the stamina – this is one of the drawbacks for us Maltese who work compared to the pros. We don’t remain 100% focused. I chilled, and relaxed as much as I could yesterday but what can you do? I will keep on playing Poker no matter what. Having said that, I have my full time work too.
People who win tourneys like this one usually leave their job. This will never happen with me. Everyone knows I work in local football industry. Even though I love poker I wouldn’t give up football for poker, nor would I give up the MFA, or, my TV career or journalism for Poker!
Poker helps me to relax, at night instead of going out, I prefer to play poker. Sometimes I play online, I don’t play that much, I don’t think its as much fun as live poker, plus, if you get a bad beat you can end up breaking your laptop!
MPE: What were your overall impressions of the Malta Poker Dream tournament
This was a nice tourney, in a beautiful hall in the best and nicest hotel in Malta. The organisation is perfect! They even got Manuela Arcuri and personally I think that she’s one of the most beautiful girls in the world.
I hope more tourneys of this kind keep taking place in Malta. I would suggest though, that instead of hosting 1 satellite before the tournament starts, that the casino host much more tournaments, so we can see a much higher participation rate from the Maltese players. Let’s face it, not many Maltese players can afford to pay €1,100 to participate in a tournament, so more satellites will definitely help to increase the local participation rate.
Related posts:
