Markus Hofstätter's blog

Day 3 European Pool Billiard Championships Zagreb (Straight Pool Finals)

This year was the first year I had the opportunity to see the wheelchair players.
I saw some great matches and cant wait to see the next ones.

Straight pool quarter finals:

We saw a lot of exciting games thins finals.
In the quarter finals I saw David Alcaide playing against John Blacklaw. The “black law” was fighting against David, but lost. On the second table Andreas Roschowsky played against Nick Van Den Berg.Nick had a great start and Andreas was sitting for a long time. But after a mistake from Nick, Andreas came back to the table and it looked like Nick will not be able to resume his run. Andreas was focusing on every single ball, it was one of the most exciting matches today. He froze his cue ball two times to the rack after the break and escaped once with a very tough kick shot. Sadly he lost at the end 118 to
125. Congratulations to Nick for a great game.

Semi finals:

I had one of the best places in the semi finals, I was sitting between two nice girls (Handan and Anna)
and in front of me Jasmin played Kynthia Orfanidis. Jasmin did not play her best game, but she won @
the end. Gerda played Anja Wagner outside, so I was not able to see this match.
David Alcaide defeated Nick Van Den Berg and Artem Koshovj had some great runs against Huidji See. His game looked so easy like everybody could have done that. Congratulations for this game !!

Finals:

David Alcaide against Artem Koshovj. After Is saw Artem winning agains Huidji, I thought nobody can stop this boy today. But I forgot that David Won against Nils with a 125 balls run And he did similar thing with Artem. Congratulations David for a great win !!!! (125:3)

On my left side I saw Gerda against Jasmin.
Again Jasmin was not happy with her game, but Gerda also did some unusual mistakes.
And Jasmin did the same as in she semi finals, she fought like hell. And won at the end 75 to 19.
Congratulations Jasmin your revenge this year.

After the finals I went for dinner with Sagi….lol it was a very long walk thru Zagreb until we found a resturante ;-)

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Click the small picture to open the gallery:
(For all the guys who are in Zagreb, I have a printer with me and can bring prints on the next day. Just tell me the picture number.)

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Second day European Pool Billiard Championships Zagreb (The Journey)

Friday morning I was supposed to start my journey to Zagreb. I woke up early and recheckt my laptop
because the screen was flickering on the evening. Now the screen did not flicker anymore it was just
black. I was not that scared because I have a backup laptop. On this one the screen was working perfect
but it started to freeze (ok I have not used it for more than a year….)
Now I was really not happy. I phoned a lot of my peeps and finally Markus helped me out, thanks pal !!!

So instead of 6am I left Austria @ 11:30 am. Driving to Zagreb was easy and after a tiny traffic jam and some searching for the hotel I made it. I arrive at about 4:30 at the tournament arena.
I felt a little like coming home because I saw a lot of friends.
You know I was tired and stressed from this day but you guys made me happy again ;-)

The (most) usual suspects won their matches, lets see what happens today.

Please support this website:

Click the small picture to open the gallery:
(For all the guys who are in Zagreb, I have a printer with me and can bring prints on the next day. Just tell me the picture number.)

Be sure to order the next issue of the Touch Magazine:

10 Ball tournament in Siebenbrunnengasse Vienna

Today I played in a 10 Ball tournament and had the opportunity to test my new lens.
(Canon EF 70-200mm 2.8 L IS II USM)
I did not perform well today but my new lens did.

It is much sharper then the previous version. (you can see the pores of every face under 100% view)
The IS is one stop faster compared to the old version. It was really no problem to shoot with 1/40 sec @ 200mm with my 7D(only possible on sitting peeps). The rest of this pics I was shooting between 1/80 and 1/125sec (because the players are also moving ;-) ). I am not sure if the focus is really faster. I just can tell you it is very fast.

So now to the main question who a lot of you guys is asking themselves.
Should I buy the old version or the new version. I just think if you own already the old version, there is no need to upgrade (only if you have to much money)
New buyers: If you have the money, go for the new one. The quality is prime like.
If you want to save money wait some more days until the previous lens gets cheaper (or buy a used one). You will save a lot of money and you get a very fast zoom lens with IS.

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