From: BretONNN@aol.com Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2003 15:23:59 EDT To: barge@barge.org Subject: [BARGE] Maverick Uber Trip Report Without a doubt, my funnest BARGE yet. I arrive at Binions Sat morning after a brisk 3hr drive from LA and get myself seated in a 10-20HE game while I wait for the NL HE Tourney to start. There's only about 1.5hrs till the tourney, but that doesn't keep me from getting 3 AQ's to make a hand and still get beat by the time the tourney starts. I sit down at my assigned table and immediately notice Crunch on my left and Howard Lederer a couple seats to his left. Coincidence? Let's have a poll. It takes exactly two hands into the tourney before Crunch and I move all-in against each other. Crunch only had T100 invested in the pot and makes an amazing all-in call against since it's so early in the tournament, he must have known I flopped a straight. Unfortunately, Crunch also flops 2nd nut straight and we chop. A few hands later, I get AA and move in preflop. Amazingly, another person calls me this early in the tournament apparently unable to lay down KK and my aces clobber him. I make it over halfway through the tourney before I notice the blinds are really going up fast and I find myself with AQo in the SB with only the BB left. I move in and unbelievably the BB calls and rolls over AA. Yikes. I flop a gutshot draw but can't convert and my stack us nearly demolished. I muck the next 7 hands until I post the BB with almost my entire stack and find myself up against ANOTHER AA and I'm out of the tourney. Being out of the tourney isn't so bad as Binions knows how to spread the most insane $10-20 game I've ever seen. Crunch had busted out of the tourney just before I did and is there when the game starts undoubtedly taking pleasure by sitting on my immediate left again. It's not long before Crunch gives me the best advice I heard during BARGE...isolation plays don't work at BARGE. Crunch practices what he preaches, too, demonstrating this by calling 4 or 5 bets cold preflop with 73o and dragging down a HUGE pot. Wait...I heard he plays tight? No...he plays the same trash I do...if not trashier. Several trashy hands of my own and a playmate at the table later, I am on a huge rush...although, it's hard to concentrate on my game always having to play against a set..if ya know what I mean. Luckily, the playmate party is about to begin and I get to leave the table up around $600...which should have really been around $900 had Crunch not snapped off several sets of mine. Notes on the party- Perry "the baiter" Friedman loves talking about his favorite hobby. Also, very humorous was having Chris Ferguson sitting down next to me, saying "hi", then going anxiously quiet as he sat there playmate photo in hand waiting for his opportunity to slip into line and get some face time with the playmate. A note to Nick Behnen on the banquet- Not to sound ungrateful, because as a tightass, I appreciate comps and this comp was well presented indeed. But, when I hear the words "surf and turf" my palate begins to delude itself with memories of steak and lobster. Subsequently, it's mildly disappointing to be served a plate sporting a piece of stew meat and two shrimp. It doesn't matter though as I'm about 8 heinkens into this and am having fun meeting so many new and old BARGers. The speaker was mildly entertaining as it was interesting to see how he viewed various strategies. However, an endless parade of interjections calling for repeated standing ovations was very droll and I found myself taking catnaps only to wake up to Linda Johnson staring me down repeatedly....hope I wasn't snoring. Afterwards, I find that Pete Secor has suspiciously cancelled the Mav PL game. Pete gives me a total bullshit answer as to why...I hear rumor that there's also some allusion to my pulling out. Eventually, I hear rumors that Ploink lobbied Secor to cancel the game. Jeolous of me again, eh, Ploink? Anyways, we still manage to scrap together the exact same PL game...only instead of being at the top of the list, I'm now at the bottom, but eventually get a seat. This game is tight, but vicious with Prock potting it at will. I get up a couple hundred and then take two monsterous beats flopping K's and T's only to be drawing dead against KK and then flopping the bottom end of a straight against Jaeger who had raised preflop. The only card he could have to beat me was a 9...and only once all night had I seen him play a hand with something as small as a Ten. Topping this all was Ploink sitting there without any chips and being potty mouth as usual about it all. However, the worm was about to turn....thanks to Ploink himself. I get dealt AK and reraise a preflop raise. Ploink reraises me moving all-in and I immediately call rolling over my AK. Ploink rolls over QQ. There isn't many things more priceless than watching Ploinks expression as I river an ace busting ploink out of the game with his girlfriend watching. He was in such a hurry to leave, he was reaching for his remaining chips...which didn't exist anymore. I pointed out to Ploink the way to the ATM machine and sent him on his way. Pointer for Ploink- Had you paid any attention to my preflop raises, I was so tight, you could have easily put me on only AA, KK, or AK. So, at best, you were up against AK and HOPING to roll the dice with me. Now, Ploink, you can go ahead and hope to play craps against me all you want, but you should seriously consider the $1-5 Stud game at the Luxor if you aren't going to bother to think out even the easiest of preflop concepts. You go home now. Now the game ends before Ploink gets me all the way back to even for the session and the only game left is a PL Chowaha game. I've never played Chowaha and thusly immediately welcomed to the game. Chris Ferguson is on my right and sitting down with his entire chip castle. I have to reach around his stacks to fish my cards each hand to the point I catch Chris taking counts of his racks. Note to Jesus: I'm the LAST person anyone at BARGE would allow to poach your racks. Before long, I start catching hands and Sabyl isn't giving me credit for anything and repeatedly pays the retail price for seeing my hands. Note to Sabyl: Having never played this game, you could have probably infered I'd only bet the Nuts until I got comfortable with the game. This game breaks and I find myself a winner for the session, but still having the hunger for more I sit down at the $4-8 Omaha hi game. This is by far the easiest game this trip as locals wear their tells openly whining and bitching at river cards which make me reflex bet into them with garbage and take down huge pots without even a showdown. Next thing I know it's some time the next day and I have Andrew Prock asking me if I'd been there all night. Very guilty, I stutter.."uuuuh...." and Andy says "Just say "yes", Bret" I soon decide maybe 36 hours of poker and 7+ racks is enough and go to my hotel...oops..I forgot to check in yesterday. I go to registration and explain what happened and, unbelievingly, they even upgrade me to a suite. Ah....4 hours of solid sleep and I'm ready to hit the town for a few more hours before I drive home. I stop by the Palms just to see what it looks like and instinctively walk towards the word "Poker" on the wall. I take a look at the low limit room and am suprised to find Paul Phillips waiting for a seat in the $2-4 HE game. His bleached hair is now brunette and he's wearing normal guy clothes now....what a man will do to cover up his sexuality. I find out he's marrying his fiance this fall. I wish him all the luck. Any woman that can convert a man back into a hetero must be quite a catch. It turns out that they are going to the ghost bar and waiting for a pair of pants to show up for one of the party to meet the dress code. I sweat Paul's action a few minutes learning about "cross booking" and a little theory on the Martingale system which Paul P just used successfully to make a dime and pay for dinner. I soon tell everyone I have to get back to the real world. Andy bloch reminds me that vegas IS the real world. Regretfully, successfully, I end my trip and resume my life of daily drudgery... Maverick ________ Thanks to PokerStars, Paradise Poker, and Quiotix Technologies for their generous sponsorship of BARGE 2003.