From: "Dave Horwitz" Subject: Quick does BARGE I even took notes this year planning to actually write a proper trip report. When I got home I found 3 lines (of which I can make sense of only 2) followed by a fourth what wasn't completed... Oh well. I think obsessive-compulsive indulgence may be mutually exclusive with proper note taking. We start out with the normal delayed AA flight. Seems that this particular flight on this particular day is always delayed -- mechanical problems and the plane is still on the ground in LV. This year was different though in that they put us on an America West flight to leave only 45 min. later. No problem (probably because I didn't know of America West's track record). Same 1 hour wait at Alamo that everybody else experienced. Did everybody use PriceLine? Alamo upgrades us from a full size car to a Blazer for same price! What a deal. Actually the "charge to credit card" on the Alamo receipt that I got when returning the thing was less than what PriceLine said was pre-charged to my CC. Am I going to get a credit? Check in smoothly at Binion's. Get BARGE badge at Pocker cage. YES!! *my* "ic" designation on the badge is in lower case indicating my membership in the SOOPER SEECRET inner circle. The other 2 "IC" designated BARGERs are probably still unaware of the SOOPER SEECRET inner circle. I immediately play various pocker for about 20 hrs. straight. Due to this (and the fact that I'm old and fat) what follows may or may not be in order or accurate. A good part of the first stretch involved playing PL heads-up with Patri. Patri had nowhere to go since his room partner had the room in his name and wasn't showing up until the next day. Besides, I have a suspicion that Patri is almost as obsessive-compulsive as I am. I would gradually grind out a couple of hundred lead and then lose it all back due to some large hand suck out :) Case in point, Patri makes foolish flop bet with top trips, I catch inside straight on turn and put him all in with over the top raise, Patri catches case J on river... Note #1: Lee Jones in ToC. I'm 2 to Lee's left? with AQ maybe. Board looks sort of scary (can't remember but I still had top pair with A kicker). Lee CHECK/RAISES turn with pocket under-pair to the board... naturally I called. I must say that Lee has put major work into suppressing his facial tells... Two years ago I pointed out (OK, so I tapped) that whenever somebody puts a bit of pressure on him -> what's-his-face in The Mask immediately comes to mind. Last year, Lee countered by just covering his face with his hands whenever he had to think and this year he just clamped down with his teeth on his thumb. Monte said he threw in an extra raise one time just for the entertainment. (Its really not *that* bad Lee). Note #2: Quick qualifies as an official Schmengie club member. Actually, I think if they dug up the archives on IRC I'd have a lock as schmengie leader. This must have also been in the ToC (I didn't last long enough in the HoP to take any notes). Somehow I've accumulated the large stack at the table. Many others with a few times the BB. I proceed to double up most of them by repeatedly putting them all-in when they were in the blinds. I really did have quality hands while doing this. So now I'm sort of steamed and decide to take one last shot at Monte (who I'm pretty sure was in the BB or had at least limped in). I've got A2s(black) and Monte has maybe 2 or 3 times the BB. Anyway, I get him all in and the flop comes down all red Q,Q,8. I turn over my hand and Monte shows A8o, oops. Using the "force" I suck out running 2s for the win. ta-dah. I feel bad for Monte so I offer to buy him a drink (knowing there is no Stoli). Note #3: something about Bozo having rolled up 8s, my making a straight and Bozo catching the case 8. Trying to think why I would write that down? Maybe it was the hand I busted on. By the way, why does everybody make note of the hand they busted out on? Just as often as not it was some previous hand that crippled them and their actual busting out is pretty much a non event. Never understood that. Its kind of like which speeding ticket caused you to lose your license? was it the first one or the third one? MAIN EVENT: I played good! Well, I did until I made the small mistake that allowed Nick to make a huge mistake -- then again, Nick went on to the final table. Actually I probably wouldn't have lasted anywhere as long as I did if it weren't for a dealer "mistake". We'll get to that shortly. I have improved my tournament play a lot over the last 5 years (I only play tourneys at BARGE). The year of the first Quick Bet I learned that being table cop is probably not such a good idea in a freeze out tournament. Was it Larry Peters? that brought that cowboy friend of his. Guy was coming in for a raise most every hand and betting large on the flop to take down many pots. I decided that he shouldn't be able to just run over this very passive table and called with some marginal trash (Qxs where x was small). Flopped top pair and raised all in after his normal flop bet. He called! with a small pair and paired his other small card later. I tied some other hapless player for 2nd out of the tournament (no, I didn't have a Quick Bet with the first player out). The next couple of years I managed to suppress my sheriff urges but still played the medium suited connectors and such that I so love to trap with in large bet ring games. A couple of years of that and I realized that I never had much of a stack left when the blinds started to be noticeable after a couple of increases. So I'm getting pocket pairs and stuff like AK and AQs with enough frequency that I'm able to steal blinds along with a couple of pots on the flop and don't feel the need to play anything else due to running out of patience. On the button I get JJ and its folded to me. I make the requisite raise of about 2x the BB. Charles Haynes in the SB comes over the top. I think about how well I've been playing and the tremendous amount of restraint I've applied to play only good hands, along with the fact that I've showed a number of my pocket pairs and decide that Charles just might have a large hand. I fold. Huge laydown for Quick! Later I'm in mid to late pos. and do the 2x raise thing with pocket 9s. Charles raises large again! Small internal battle ensues and Table Cop is finally beaten into submission and I fold. I ask Charles "just what do I have to do to be allowed to play my pocket pairs?". Charles tells me "don't raise". I ask about the JJ incident and Charles tells me he had QQ... sure. Soon I have the BB again and look down to see JJ again! Charles had limped (I think). Millions of calculations later I crack and decide that I'm might end up jamming with this one. What's the chances he has me beat in this situation twice? Yea, yea, independent events are independent events until they happen to you a couple of times in a row... But first I'm going to do a bit of Hollywood. Folded to me. I look at cards, look up at Charles, look back at cards, look up at Charles and say "so I'm not supposed to raise with these?", look back at cards and pretend to be thinking. [dealer mistake coming...] Look up again AND THERE IS A BOARD!!! Aiyahhhh! I look at the dealer and say "I was thinking of raising! I haven't acted yet!". Dealer says "Well, we waited a long time and you didn't say time". Ok fine. Board has K,rag, *J*. So I make requisite 2~3x BB raise and Charles comes over top for all his chips (and mine). The call is much easier to make this time :) and I double through. Charles actually had rockets this time. I seriously don't know what I would have done if I hadn't gotten to see the board. I had planned to ham it up a bit and make a slightly larger raise pre-flop. I honestly don't know if I would have called for all of my chips at that point. Remember I did fold earlier in the same situation. I still had about an average stack and have learned that all-in calls are fairly serious things. Hand that crippled me. Blinds are 500,1000. After the blinds are out I have about 5500 and Nick to my left has 4000? Folded to my SB and I have QJs. I figure I can pick up the BB with a standard raise since Nick would only be left with a few chips. I raise to 2500 straight. Nick thinks for a bit and pushes all-in. I'm stunned but have no choice but to call being committed to the pot at this point. Nick says "I didn't want you to do that" and flips over T6s. Catches T on turn and I'm crippled. So I'm thinking that Nick made a bad play trying to push me off my hand when I've already committed to the pot. After thinking this a few thousand times it finally dawns on me that *I* allowed him to make this mistake. Since my intention was to steal the BB I should have raised the amount of his stack and eliminated his calling with anything less than a large hand. I think the fact that I had a medium strong hand complicated things to where my feeble brain had a blow-out. Oh well... The good news is that this was most likely the very last weakness in my tournament game. Next year is a lock! QUICK BET RESULTS! (hope this formats - used fixed size font) Booked Won Lost Net $5 bets: 12 7 4 $ 15 $10 bets: 21 15 5 $100 $15 bets: 3 3 0 $ 45 $20 bets: 31 23 9 $280 total# 67 48 18 total$ $935 $690 $250 $440 I'm pretty sure that I paid everybody that won and I'm pretty sure that everybody who lost paid me with the exception of Murph... Ok, if you're still sore about the pizza I stiffed you for a couple of years ago we'll call it even. I don't think Joan Schmengie played and Artie couldn't make it. The lowball games were a blast. Yes I managed to snow on a kill pot with trip Aces. Yes we managed to tilt Mike Z. Yes I won some of Wiesenberg's chips (didn't cash them, saved as souvenirs). NewJane, you're a wonderful lady. My wife, especially, and I really enjoyed your company at the banquet. Leaving was exciting. We stopped to buy some of those "light art" pictures at a shop in the Stratosphere on the way to the airport. This took a bit longer than expected. The valet took forever to retrieve the car. Then we couldn't figure out the exit for Alamo and decided to go to the airport and go from there. THERE ARE 2 TERMINALS! Run by the first one and don't see American Airlines. We see American Eagle but not AA. Go to terminal 2 and find its all international?. Back to terminal 1 and figure out that AA is listed as American just above American Eagle... heh, anybody might see it as just one airline listed there. Its about 45 min before departure so I drop everybody off there and tell them to block the door or whatever it takes at the gate and head off to find Alamo. I remember seeing SaveMor or something like that when we came in so I drive up and down the street with Hertz on it looking for Alamo. 40 min to departure. Ask at SaveMor and the guy tells me its way on the other side of the tunnel. As crummy as a rental blazer is they can approach 100 mph. As promised the Alamo check in takes less than 5 min. 30 min to departure. Go to wait for the shuttle which has just unloaded on the other side of the drive. Look around and realize that I'm surrounded by a crowd of tourists with kids and loads of baggage. Doesn't look good and naturally, there aren't any cabs at a car rental place. They dink around with the bus on the other side and finally pull around to our side. I wrestle with some fat ladies and knock a couple of kids down to slip the driver $10 and tell him my plane leaves in 20 min. He says I think you'll be OK and springs into action. He's ripping luggage onto the bus and hustling the people up the stairs. Bus is about 3/4 full when he hollers "Thats all folks. We're full. You'll have to catch the next shuttle.", slams the door and floors it. Luggage was rolling around on the floor and women were making startled gasps and grabbing for hand holds as we went over the speed bumps and flew around corners. Shuttle busses can go almost as fast as rental blazers. Driver gets on PA as we approach the terminal and says "AA if you go down this sidewalk by the cab line on the other side of the road, take door 10 inside, go up the escalator and head for the D gates you'll save a good 5 min.". Thanks Alamo shuttle driver. I get to the gate just in time to follow the last passengers through the loading door. There are only 2 annual events I look forward to and BARGE is one of them. (The annual golf pilgrimage to Myrtle Beach for 14 rounds in 7 days is the other). I hope I didn't seriously piss anybody off this year. I tend to enjoy "sparring" with people and no sleep combined with excessive obsessive-compulsive gambling and drinking tends to blow the safety latches (actually any one of the above by itself could do it). For those of you wondering, Mike is one of the very few people (3) I can spar with without worrying about safeties at all... then again its possible he's hated my guts for years. Thanks to Chuck and Mike as always. What a horrendous task. What a seamlessly smooth outcome. Sorry that the lighter didn't work. I didn't get Chuck anything 'cause I don't think he has any vices. We'll figure something out next year. -Quick