Antes Up meets Mark MacMahon

Antes up caught up with serial online qualifier Mark MacMahon before he heads off to Vegas to play in the WSOP main event. This is the third event that he has qualified for online, previously he has competed in the World Heads Up in Barcelona and the Paddy Power Irish open. All these wins came on Paddy Power’s poker site and cost Mark a total of approximately $100. So far there have been no cashes in these big events but is it going to be third time lucky?

Antes up: Mark, well done on your recent results, we believe you have been cashing in some non satellite events as well, tell us about these recent results and how confident does that make you going into the World Series ?

Mark: Well Mike, you have just caught me at the peak of form. I have had a very good run for the last two weeks after taking a forced break from the game for a month whilst on a work assignment in Washington DC. Online I have won both the $99 re-buy and $100 freeze-out tournaments on Paddy Power and have also cashed in the top 4 in a couple of other events. Last week, I followed my good finish in the ‘Pokerevents’ Red-Cow event for Euro 1200 with a victory in the Fitzwilliam Card Club’s WSOP satellite event, taking home Euro 9000 for my efforts. In those two weeks I have made over Euro 14000 from poker so I am feeling very confident in my game in the run up to the World Series.

Antes up: So you are making waves on the Irish poker scene at the moment, but how long have you been playing poker, who introduced you to the game and what is your most satisfying poker result?

Mark: Inspired by Andy Black’s documentary ‘Million Dollar Deal’, which I saw about 5 years ago. Watched a lot of poker on TV (Late Night Poker) and started playing regularly in the Merrion and Fitzwilliam Card clubs in Dublin about 2½ years ago.

In terms of poker results, my most satisfying results would have to be my two WSOP satellite wins, especially the win in the Fitzwilliam last week as I believe I really played my best game ever in that event. I was also very happy with my first heads-up encounter in Barcelona, which I won very convincingly.

Antes up: Let’s talk about the forthcoming World Series. First of all if you were a bookmaker what odds would you give yourself? As a comparison what odds do you think Daniel Negreanu should be?

Mark: I am not a betting man but I’ll try to guesstimate for you
I am one out of 6000 players in that event. I think I am better and have more live experience than about 1/3 of those players so I would say 4000-1.

I would put Daniel Negreanu on about 400-1, although he doesn’t seem to playing so well of late.

Antes up: Have you tried to prepare in any special way for this event or are you treating it like any other poker tournament, albeit with 6000+ runners?

Mark:A lot of the skill is in maintaining your concentration for long periods of time against a strong field. I have therefore been trying to play as many big live events over the last couple of weeks as I possibly can. I ‘m not going to dwell too much on the magnitude of the World Series while I’m there. I’m just going to worry about whatever table I am on at the time and try to play my own game.

Page 2