Historical Valencia

Valencia a paradise of sun, sea, and yes, those delicious oranges! And of course a weekend that will be long remembered by this gang of PokerRoom.com players! Some top notch Poker action on the Saturday evening saw DoggyP75 win this round and a shot at some serious cash in Vienna later on in the year.

DoggyP75

So how did the weekend go down? Well it’s slowly coming back to the blogger but after meeting all the players at the fabulous Hotel Vinnci, it was time to whisk them away for a serious good time. We hit La Pepica whose customers have included Hemingway and Spain's royal family, can’t be a bad place to start huh? following it off by some serious clubbing at Discoteca Animas till the wee hours of the morning.

La Pepica

Moegusta enjoying the paella

Discoteca Animas

Discoteca Animas

The next morning with some being more tired than others it was off to the races. The famous Circuit Ricardo Tormo would be our stop this time on the WTCC calendar, located just outside of Valencia the players were again treated to some very very special treatment thanks to our friends at EuroSport and of course the great folks at WTCC.

Circuit Ricardo Tormo

Once again the whole gang got to enjoy themselves with their very own special VIP viewing section, here they could kick back, enjoy the open bar, and savor the gourmet buffet and take in all the excitement of the racetrack.

A short walk from the VIP area was the awesome PokerRoom podium where the poker school was all set up. The players could mingle with other race goers and a few games of poker soon sprang up thanks to our friends over at PokerMania.

The whole gang at the PokerRoom tent: Arrumador, Tamariz, Grinch1974, DoggyP75, Swinney, Marky_Crash, Jockdave, Moegusta

So you get two cards each...

Next for a few laps the guys instantly became pro race car drivers that is in the virtual world and raced it out against each other in the official branded WTCC racing simulator game. Exciting stuff but to be honest probably best to stick with the Poker guys!

Keep rolling...rolling...rolling...

Jockdave "erm where does this bit go?"

Next up was a quick tire change challenge, where the players got to see what it was like to work in the pit lane by changing a tire on a real WTCC sports car. Just like on the poker table the guys got to go heads up against each other seeing who could swap his tire the quickest.

Marky_Crash pro poker player and part time mechanic

Arrumador: "I will f**!@ crush Marky_Crash!

Then it was time to hit the track and take in the ‘Green Mile’ that’s where the cars get placed into their starting positions. As the teams are frantically working on the cars before the big start we got the chance to be right there in the thick of the action right on the track getting some pretty cool photos with the teams, the drivers and the pit crews and they loved it…

The Green Mile

A real pit stop!

Jörg Muller

Just like DoggyP75 another winner this weekend!

The Green Mile staring : DoggyP75, Swinney, Jockdave and Arrumador

Thumbs up to PokerRoom.com!

After a hard day at the tracks it was time for dinner again. Again no expense was spared by PokerRoom.com taking the players to the Submarine Restaurant at Oceanogràfic which is like something out of fricking James Bond villain’s secret underground lair, with the restaurant placed in the middle of a giant basin of the Aquarium at the Oceanogràfic museum. Yes that’s right it’s underground, underground and with walls of glass, so that you can see the fishes, stingrays and baby sharks swim by!

Outisde the Oceanogràfic

Submarine Bar at Oceanogràfic

Submarine Restaurant at Oceanogràfic

Club Picadilly...wow what an eye opener....

In da club...

A fantastic meal later, some singing and dancing, and some merry singing on the way home, the hotel Vinnci was happy to tell us that Marky_Crash’s missing luggage had arrived!

Oh well better late than never huh Mark?

Start playing the race trophy today!

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And that would be DoggyP75, to be honest they both played an incredible game but there can only be one winner here of course, no deals or splits here I´m afraid. Tamariz made an aggressive all in call one hand into heads up and it just wasn´t to be this time. Tamariz was hold 10,9 and DoggzP75 with A4, the cards come up with 546QA and the Aces have it, clean and easy and that´s poker, well it is tonight at least!

DoggyP75

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It´s seems like a night of repeats, we just saw Arrumador holding A8 and Tamariz.with A7, both go all in and heres what happened next: K7J29, sevens have it of course and now it´s heads up.

Arrumador

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Well we´re losing them thick and fast now guys. One more down and this time it´s Jockdave turn. He’d been looking a little light on chips for a while now and push came to shove for him when he had to push with 98 and arrumador had AJ and no one hit.

It seems that we´re repeating the same story over and over again and AREZ_ONE raises an interesting question, should we report in a live manner where we give regular updates, hence a live blog, or would you all prefer just a regular review of the tournament? Neither is right or wrong I believe but this blogger finds the live blog solution dynamic and exciting and hopefully entertaining, what do you guys think? Do we understand blogging, what could we be doing better?

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And now we have to say bye bye to the Grinch1974 the second woman of our of grand tournament.

Being only her first live Poker tournament it has to be said that Grinch1974 did very very well, but alas it just wasn’t to be when she was beaten in a very similar situation to our previous knock out. This time it was between Grinch with a J10 and DoggyP75 with K10 and that´s the only difference between the two. Oh well, just like Grinch said in her post exit interview “I had a lot of fun” well we´re sure glad you did!

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Oh dear oh dear, everyone’s favorite is out, yes that’s good old Markey_Crash. Taken down by DoggyP75 with nothing more fancy than a pair of 8´s compared to Markys AcKs, back and fore they went with nothing coming on the flop, the turn or the river to help either of them. A real coin flip and DoggyP75 winning big. Oh well that´s poker, thanks for making it a great weekend Marky hey we might even see you in Brno though right?

Marky_Crash

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We just had a blind raise from 300/600 to 400/800 and that’s all the excitement we have at them moment. A lot of tight play by everyone here tonight, this could be a very long night like holdemsurfer points out!

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Here we go....

Marky_Crash: 8675

Grinch1973: 5000

JockDave: 4375

Arrumador: 6600

Tamariz: 8025

DoggyP75: 7325

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Well we just lost another one, this time it was between the two ladies swinney and Grinch1974. It went down like this with Sweeney with 97offsuit on the small blind of 200. Mia with AQ raises, pushing Sweeney to be committed and makes her go all in pre flop, we 10, 6 and X come up with Sam having the gut shot and ten outs but just not getting there. Swinney we hope you had a good time and hope to see you in the near future.

Swinney

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Just to explain that this is being written as a blog in the NewsRoom Blog section…and not as a forum discussion hence why every time a new post is commented on it starts a new thread. Writing it via the blog system is the best way to report but we are sorry if its annoying that you can´t all reply to the same thread like you wished for...but hey that´s the point of blogging. Hopefully you’re enjoying it as much as we are.

Anyway meanwhile back to the game just saw a very very nice hence played out between Arrumador and Swinney. Arrumador is holding 77, Swinney calls with AK, the flop 7 xx, Arrumador bets 1500, Swinney goes all in and Arrumador quickly calls. Turn gives us nothing and so does the river letting Arrumador double up very nicely indeed.

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All in! Oh Yeah! Oh no!

So we just saw DoggyP75 go all in with 4550 in chips and holding 99, and right after so did Moegusta with AK and 1625 in chips. A show down saw 75429 with 9 being the kicker and Moegusta taking the early bath. It always sucks to be the first to go and this was no exception!

Moegusta

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We just saw a very interesting hand go down between Marky and Moegusta. Swinney was sitting on JJ and bets 400. Marky calls and is holding AQ, Moegusta with an AK calls. The flop brings 2, 10 and Q. Marky bets 400, Moegusta calls and Swinney wisely folds. The turn brings us a Ten, Mark up to 500, and Moegusta calls. The river brings an 8, which sees Marky push up to 750 and we see Moegusta call with an optimistic AK giving Marky about 4500 in chips.

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The players are on their first break now, no big stories to speak off but they all seem to be enjoying themselves shall we say. Heres the chip count for you all:

Seat1: Marky_Crash : 5025
Seat2:moesgusta : 4075
Seat3:Grinch1974 : 4325
Seat4:jockdave : 4125
Seat5:arrumador : 3900
Seat6:swinney : 4825
Seat7:Tamariz : 7025
Seat8:DoggyP75 : 5850

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Blinds are now up to 50/100, DoggyP75 and Tamariz are catching some really good cards and ruling the table. Tamariy won the biggest pot of the night so far of 2500 when he hits his Ace high flush on the river to beat DoggyP75 holding his 10 high flush.

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First hand dealt and what a hand! Tamariz is holding Ad Kd and raises to 250, Grinch1974 calls and out comes the flop with A, J, 7, Grinch1974 bets and Tamariz raises to 800 where after Grinch folds.

Tamariz : This could be an interesting game for sure!

By the way readers doesn´t Tamariz look like someone famous? We´re just trying our best to figure out who, any suggestions anyone?

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So we’ve just been having a little bit of a dry run here, the players are looking a lot more relaxed it has to be said. They’re used to the bright lights and the cameras in their faces now and are just waiting to get started for real.

On a side note it’s great to see two female players here today. We’re currently hiding out in the control room managing to get the inside scoop of what’s happening. Just for you here’s a snap shot of the control board:

The Control Board

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The guys are in their places now, the lovely make up ladies from EuroSport are just finishing making some of them even prettier and the tournament director Thomas Lamatsch is prepping them all for how the tournament will go down. Starting chip stack is 5000, with 25/50 for 20 mins.

The seating line up is looking like this for now....seat1:Marky_Crash, seat2:moesgusta, seat3:Grinch1974, seat4:jockdave, seat5:arrumador, seat6:swinney, seat7:Tamariz, seat8:DoggyP75. Wish them luck it should be a good one all, and we should be starting any second now.

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And so we´re sitting here ready for the start of the tourney. The Eurosport crew is working their magic, just making some last minute preparations to the set and lighting. Soon they’ll be doing a preparation game of about half an hour just to make sure everything is working for them.

As you may or not know we´re actually reporting live from the side of the track which on one hand is awesome as were right where the action is but on the other hand is a royal pain to keep you guys’ up to date. And so that’s why we’ve been running into so many technical hiccups so please please accept our apologies for the delays and lack of photos for now, but they will come we promise!

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Good afternoon everyone this is Billy McKloski finally checking in from Sunny Valencia. A few technical hick ups but we're here now. PokerRoom has been in this marvelous city for about a day soaking up its atmosphere and taking in all it has to offer before spoiling our players to the same treatment. But before we meet them lets get up to speed and start off this blog with a very quick peek around the city.

Our hotel the fantastic Vinnci Hotel.

The Lobby.

The Church.

Same cack, just a different city.

The wheels on the bus go round and round....

Yes Senior you can't miss it....honest...

The winner of tonight’s poker game wins a spot to the final in Vienna and of course a chance at some serious cash, the loser gets this in their bed....just kidding guys…

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Marky_Crash needs no introduction to most NewsRoom readers, as the PlayerMod and Pokah regular (7135 posts and counting) is a regular at both the tables and the message boards, crushing his opponents and encouraging discussion in equal measures.

It's his success at the tables, though, that's the focus here, as he's off to Valencia, Spain to take part in that leg of the Poker Race Trophy competition, hoping to land himself a seat in the $500,000 Guaranteed finals to be held in November in Austria. We caught up with him to get his thoughts about poker, his chances in Spain, and a host of other topics:

"I've been playing poker for just over 18 months now and play mostly online. I've only played a few times live so far at the local casino and at last year's WSOP but hope to start playing a lot more live poker soon.

I play a large mix of stakes/games, mostly Omaha hi/lo cash games but also NL HE cash games and some sit n go games and recently a lot of O8 multi table tournaments. Stakes vary from .25 PL to $5 PL and $1/$2 to $5/$10 limit and $1 - $2 NL HE; for multi table tourneys I mostly play $20 and upwards.

I found it fairly easy to get motivated for the SnG leaderboard for the trip to Spain as 1st place was guaranteed a seat and I think this is a very good promotion PokerRoom is running with a very nice prize at the end of the road. I'm trying very hard to get my seat in Austria and obviously a trip to Valencia and the WTCC has to be good. The blog for Brazil made it all look very appealing.

I'm planning to try just as hard for the Czech leaderboard and the others as I want as many chance as possible of getting a seat in the Austrian final and there are a nice bunch of regulars who play them so they are usually fun games anyway.

I played last year's WSOP OH8 event which I qualified for through PokerRoom. This was my first big event and although I didn't cash I was happy with my performance. It was a tough table I had with Johnny Chan and Marcel Luske and I was pretty card dead, however I got Chan's chips all in twice and had him drawing almost dead but both times he managed to sneak a split pot on the river. Then I made a move on Luske and had the best hand but he had amassed a tower of chips and could afford to call slightly behind to try and bust me which he did.

A typical poker day for me would be to wake up around midday, have some breakfast and several coffees and catch up on any happenings in the forum, check my emails, etc. Then a long stint at the tables with a movie on in the background.

If I get off to a great start for the day then I will usually knock off early and go out for a meal or a few drinks; if not then I usually grind it out and play as long as needed. I know a lot of people advise a break from the tables if things aren't going great but I usually work rightly or wrongly in reverse to that and hate to leave a session down for the day and this seems to work for me personally.

Away from the poker tables I like a round of golf but haven't played anywhere near as much as I'd like to have recently as poker has took up a lot of my time; hopefully this summer I can fit a good few games in."

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Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen Billy McKloski reporting here for PokerRoom.com and we’re off! Off to the races that is! Our next stop on the WTCC circuit is Valencia in sunny Spain and what a promising start so far with line up looking like this:

DoggyP75 from Finland, arrumador from Portugal, Grinch1974 from Finland, moesgusta from Switzerland, from the UK we have swinney, jockdave and Marky_Crash and last but not least Tamariz from Spain who probably won’t be jetlagged then I guess.

More to come so stay tuned!

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The engines are beginning to overheat on the old Leaderboard front. Mrstree is well and truly tearing it up with 189 points, but certainly not untouchable. Mrstree is followed closely by Maximaxcold who is currently on 172 points. Now there appears to be players at the top of the Leaderboard who are not seeing too much in the way of Daylight, clearly this event is too good to miss.

Here's a quick run down of how the Leaderboard works:

The winner of the Leaderboard automatically wins a seat to the Semi-Final in Spain.

2nd-10th place will qualify for an exclusive tournament where first prize takes a seat at the semi final in Spain.

11th-60th place will qualify for an exclusive tournament where first prize takes a seat at the semi final in Spain.

So grab your place in the Leaderboard top 60 and you could win one of three seats up for grabs in Valencia, Spain.

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After Brazil it's Spain. And things should really start to heat up now as the winner of the Leaderboard automatically wins a seat to the Semi-Final in Spain!

Who'll be crowned king of the Race Trophy for Spain? You'll just have to wait and see. Stay tuned for more from the Poker Race Trophy blog! For more info on qualifying make sure to visit the race trophy page.

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