From: Andrew Prock Subject: [BARGE] Tripping through Vegas Shorter than last year, because I know how boring I really am :) Sabyl, JP Massar and I all rode down together moderate traffic, getting into Vegas just in time to go to bed. The next day, in lieu of playing poker, I went to the programmers birds-of-a-feather meeting. This turned out to be quite the geek-fest. The discussion was very lively, and several times, the discussion seemed to splinter and reform in a strage chaotic manner. Overall, it was a lot of fun talking about poker code (and related issues) with other people who have a lot more experience than I do playing poker or coding. The HOP was generally fun, I don't remember much of the event, but I did get dealt two pat flushes, which helped propel me to 5th place. Oh, and I was the proud victim of Dan Goldman's 19-way straight flush draw, which developed into a full blown "steel wheel". Why on earth did I bet-call kings-up after the draw? The Mirage buffet was fine for someone who doesn't eat meat, but I made a serious miscalculation with respect to the NL tournament. I was going to try and weasel my way into last table added by joining the wait list, but unfortunatly my table was never called so I was stuck playing in the 20/40 hold'em till IT happend. IT was THE BEST GAME EVER!!! And yes, it was THAT good. I only lost 30 big bets. It was a 40/80 game built around an older fellow who seemed to have more money than he knew what to do with. So he would just bet, raise, and call his way to the river with about half his hands. There was also the added bonus of having Norm MacDonald (from Saturday Night Live) in the game. I guess he was a regular New York player, as his companion recognized Scott Byron from back east. He was also a great guy to have on your right, very loose very agressive. At least Iceman won back all the money I lost to Norm. Unfortunatly, he wouldn't give it back to me :) The most memorable hand during BARGE was a hand that I only saw the tail end of. It was 1-2 pot-limit omaha and I watched dumbfounded as stack after stack went into the pot on a flop of 89T rainbow. Aparently Michael Maurer had raised preflop with something like KQJx (with one suit?). It turned out that *both* Michael and Brian Goetz had the nut straight, Quick had the second nut straight, and the "local fish" had top set. All told the pot was large enough to be equivalent to a $23,000 pot in a 10/20 blind game. Unfortunatly for all those drawing from behind, the straights held up and Brian chopped the main pot with Michael. All of the HUGE side-pot going to the preflop "maniac". Somewhere in there, I played in a stud shootout tournament. I think I came in last. I suck at stud. Somewhere else in there, I played in the TOC tournament. I busted with one hand left in the stud round. I suck at stud. Somewhere else in there, I came in last in the Chinese poker tournament. I suck at stud. The no-limit tournament started out quite docile. Our table was fairly conservative, and no one seemed to be willing to risk their chips. In fact, the fisrt player to leave our table was Lou Krieger -- who didn't bust out, but was needed elsewhere for table balancing purposes. It seems that our table now had TOO MANY players. aiYAH! Of course, while geeking out with Pete Segal about computer graphics, I was also loudly complaining about two things: 1) Jan Pierce was seriously holding over me. It seemed like every time I entered a pot she would come over the top, pushing me out, like the little boy I was. 2) No one at our table was busting. Meaning while other tables accumulated chips, ours was growing less and less "chipful". Needless to say, things changed. Within two hours, I had busted all but two of my original table mates: Lou (who had escaped during table balancing) and Pete (who I think was playing the "I know that Andrew is a luck-bucket" strategy). After the no-limit hold'em event ended, I had to admit it is true: "I am a luck-bucket". What follows is a sample of beats I put on people throughout the tournament. I'm sure that there are others, but these seem the most memorable to me. The first hand is what I held, and the second hand is the one that made the mistake of running into my mega-rush. 75s vs JJ Michael Patterson 22 vs 55 Peter Secor JJ vs QQ Nolan Dalla J2s vs A6s Jan Pierce A2o vs 99 Jeff Jennings Of course, other people gave *me* beats as well. The most memorable being Gavin Smith's KK sucking out on my T8s, when he hit his 41 out draw to beat my turned pair of tens. I was also in the "odd" position of being at the same table as the man who very graciously gave me a ride back to the bay area. I was faced with the very real quandry (especially considering my massive luckfest) of possibly busting the one man who held my fate in his very hands :) Luckily Deiter and I were able to avoid holding good hands simultaneously and we had a pleasant ride (modulo very nasty traffic) back to the land of plenty. There was also quite a bit of socializing and other fun to be had. Last year at BARGE, I felt some strange compelling need to play poker 24 hours a day -- some might say I'm a bit obsessive-compulsive. After spending a year playing more poker than in all the previous years of my life, it was a lot easier to let the games continue without me, and have more fun meeting people and doing things more social than blowing off all my chips to the vegas locals. I had a great time chatting it up at the 1-2 PL tables, at the banquet, and during the Vegas tour. Another highlight was hanging out in Tiger's room learning the in's and out's of 'briney', 'cheesy', and 'band-aid' Scotches. In the end it was a great time, with great people, and totally worthwhile. I even managed to eek out a small poker win despite running headlong into the "Norm MacDonald Show". woohoo ! - Andrew