From: "Paul McMullin" Subject: [BARGE] how I won the Barge Blackjack tournament by betting small... Five years ago, I read a book (I think called "Tournament Strategy", I think by Wong) that pointed out that Blackjack, Craps, Keno, and Roulette tournaments are really only marginally about those respective games - they're really about manipulating your position relative to the other contestants so you win. I expected my opponents to be putting pressure on with relatively large bets from the start, and hoped that if they were successful, I'd have time to catch up with them, so in all three rounds I started out betting small. We started with 500 in "tournament-use-only" chips, and were required to bet at least 10 and at most 500 on any every hand. Round one: we seemed to be starting with an unfair advantage over the other tables - we only have 4 players (two advance) while all of the other tables have 5 or 6 players. I point this out to Chuck Weinstock when it looks like everyone has taken their places and they're about to start, and he arranges to move Patti Beadles from a table with 6 players to our table. -EV move for me, but it seemed right in the spirit of "fair play" that defines Barge events. The cards are in the air, and my "bet small to start" strategy proves to be a winner as the dealer starts with 3 consecutive blackjacks and an ace up on the fourth hand (with I think a 9 down) to considerably reduce the stacks of the three "bet large to start" players at our table. One of them was out on the fifth hand, another was out on the seventh hand. Down to three players, I had about 450, Patti had around 400, and Deiter was in trouble with under 200. It was clear that Patti and I could continue betting small until Deiter successfully doubled back up to challenge us - he was betting around 100 each hand, and losing alternate hands. Not many hands went by before he bet everything and lost, and Patti and I were into the second round with about 400 and 525 chips respectively - we didn't get to the "two minutes to go/count down six hands" endgame. Walking around, I saw that at some tables you had to have doubled or tripled the initial 500 chip stack to be in contention to advance. Round two: we "random draw" for seats at four tables with four players each table, one advancing from each table. I decide to "bet small to start" again, and again see the "bet big to start" players crash and burn. Dave Croson and I are head-to-head when they start the count down, with somewhere around 900 or so chips each [he had me marginally out chipped]. With only two hands to go, he bets around 350, and I'm middled. He'll be betting last on the last hand, and I won't have any move to make, so I bet MAX on this next-to-last hand. No waiting, I get Blackjack, and Dave has hard 13 [dealer has 6 or something like that showing]. No problem, he acts first, and doubles down for less - enough to out pace my natural if he wins, but leaving only 200 or so if he loses. He clears the first hurdle when he catches a 3 for 16, and I make a subtle error by not doubling down on my natural for enough to stay ahead of him if the dealer busts and he wins the hand - there are lots of cards I can catch that I win and Dave loses, and I keep pace when the dealer busts and we both win... But the dealer saves me by hitting to some total like 18 - I've got over 1500 and Dave has less than 200 and I advance to the final round without having to doublethink the last hand against someone who studies arbitrage situations all the time. Round three: again we random draw for 4 seats, and I get third position. All four players are "in the money" - 4th pays about 105, third around 325, second around 625, and first 1075. Three of us play fairly conservatively and watch Steve Jacobs double through early to about 1250 or so within 6 hands... but he kept playing big to lock us out, and seemed to lose every time he placed a bet that would do so. With four players, they were dealing two rounds, and in third position I was betting last on every other second round - I decided to step up my bet whenever I liked the deck (I wasn't counting, but was watching for "live aces" and bet 200 or so every time I was last to act and at least three aces were left after the first round). I managed to win almost all of my bigger bets while the other players were losing theirs, and with about 5 minutes left before the countdown I managed to bet 500 in last position with a nice deck trying to lock the rest of the table out, and lost to come back to an average position again. I made a few more 200-300 chip bets as the countdown started, but couldn't win two in a row, and started the last hand with about 2nd place in chips (we were ALL below 600 but I don't think anyone was below 300 or so) and first to act. I split my chips into two equal piles so I could split Aces or 8s, planning to make a desperation split of 10 or 9s, and to double down anything I couldn't split unless everyone else's hand and bets made my decisions moot. Steve stalled for nearly a minute before making his bet, and apparently bet less than I had put out. No waiting, I got blackjack on the last hand (but with only 1/2 of my chips out)! If I had been "all-in", the payoff on the natural would have clearly locked everyone else out, but since I was only getting 1.5x1 on 1/2 of my stack, it wasn't enough to ensure first place... and as it was, I had to play first, and I don't think that I had enough to lock up second (but I'm not sure) - anyway, thanks to the discussion with Croson the previous round, I had already prepared my "double/split the last hand" strategy, and I interrupted the dealer from starting to count off my stack for the natural payoff to shove in the rest of my chips to double down. The floor person confirmed that I was allowed to do this in a tournament, and off came a 9 (again, the dealer was showing a stiff). I don't actually remember the other hands at the end, but my 20 was enough to win, and Steve couldn't double/split his hand for enough to keep pace with me, and I won the event by around 75 or so. It turns out that Patti had put all but 6 of her chips out for her last hand, and I could have doubled down for all but 15 or 25 to still get the win if I won, but snare third place in the cases where my double down lost and Patti lost too. I think that there are several Barge people that can do this sort of final position stuff in their heads, but I'll only get it right by getting into these positions a number of times and working them out in the shower the next morning. Anyway, it was fun, the people cheering the last table made it exciting, and I got a Barge purple chip and enough cash to cover three years of Barge tournament entry fees for my efforts. [Side note - I understood that they were giving WSOP jackets to the winners of the Barge poker tournaments, so on my way out on Sunday morning, I successfully angled one from the poker room manager. Thanks Binions! I'll wear it proudly!] -prm From: "Paul McMullin" Subject: [BARGE] Hmm... lets check the videotape! What was probably the most interesting exchange for me at Barge was during the stud shootout. I have played a couple of days of stud in Atlantic city, and chopped all of the money 3-ways in the AtLarge Stud tournament a few years ago playing a super-aggressive "I-don't-really- understand-stud-so-I'll-just-get-as-many-of-my-chips- into-the-middle-whenever-I-play-a-hand-and-see-if-the- dealer-pushes-me-the-pot" strategy. Not enough stud to really know much about what various patterns of betting mean to people who really play the game. I also have not played enough one-table satellites to really understand them. So I decided to really open up in the stud shootout. On one hand, I had the bring-in with the 2 of diamonds; it was folded around to Dieter on my right with a jack up, and he completed. I think that it was $10 bring-in and $25 to complete. I had 3-5 of hearts down, and I think that the upcards that got folded were something like 3 7s, two 10s, and a 9, mostly black, so my small trash was "completely live" for straights and my two flush was working. I decided to call the extra $15, figuring that if I caught the magic 4h, I'd get aggressive and see if I could win a big pot. Fourth street brought me something like the 8d and some apparent brick to Dieter - he bet, and not having caught my "magic card", I quietly folded. I was looking up at the time I was folding my hand, and Sippy did a visible doubletake! As I said, I don't play much stud, and had been concentrating on playing aggressively and looking for situations to get lucky without really thinking about how stud is really supposed to be played - powerful hands and scary boards! As soon and I saw Sippy's doubletake, I realized I had made some sort of error, and decided to review the hand and see if I could figure out what caused Sippy to wince... I had called a "completion" in a heads-up situation - hmm, most of the upcards had been black, and I had folded two diamond upcards - yikes! Sippy had put my call of the completion on a "flush draw", and the fourth street card had matched my apparent suit. I had folded what should have been a "scary board". I confirmed this with tiger at dinner Saturday night - that bring-ins that call completions often do so with flush draws. Amazing what you can learn from watching others watch you at Barge! It is fun to play with people that know what they're doing, and also know what you're SUPPOSED to know to be doing. Thanks Sippy! Another cheap stud lesson. 200 or more tournaments with you, and I'll probably know 1/2 of what I'm supposed to know! -prm