From: TIGER123@aol.com Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2003 19:09:16 EDT To: barge@barge.org Subject: [BARGE] tiger's 4140-word barge2003 trip report [from memory only - no notes] monday - beginnings this is the fourth year that mitch "bfb" and i have attended barge together. i'd been to two earlier barges, so we've got the routine down to a science by now. the limo is on time (as usual), mitch has a few frantic last-minute business problems to resolve (as usual), but we still get to the airport in plenty of time to have a couple beers before the flight (as usual). i'll leave it to you, dear readers, to keep your own tally of the beer and scotch units we consume during the week. our flight from new york's laguardia airport takes us to charlotte, north carolina, where we have a one hour layover. during the flight, the young woman next to me is reading "people" magazine, and I borrow it to read the (ahem) article on annie duke. when we land, mitch and I kill half an hour chatting, and decide to grab a quick bite to eat at the nearby ranch1 chicken emporium. as we're finishing our meal, mitch notices that there isn't anyone standing around at our gate. christ! have we missed our flight?? ack!!! we make a mad dash for the gate and manage to convince the attendant to open the gate for us (apparently, they had not yet closed the plane door - if they had, we'd still be sitting in north carolina!). the flight to vegas is uneventful, and we land at mccarran around midnight. a quick shuttle to dollar rent-a-car yields the surprising information that our reservation for a standard-size car really means a reservation for a standard-size sport utility vehicle. i feel the same way about suvs as i do about speed chips: i hate 'em! };) nevertheless, we're downtown, checked in, unpacked, and seated in a wild and crazy 4/8 hold 'em game in the poker room by 1:30 am. i win a couple stacks of gray, mostly from a maniac black guy to my right who will bet and raise on just about anything. curiously, most of the time when he is called, he (truthfully) announces, "i need help!" he doesn't get it very often. we're plus a few beer units, and decide to book it for our first night. tuesday - acclimation mitch has rented a laptop for the trip and wants to log on before breakfast. ok. we'll meet in the poker room in a few minutes. i find my li'l baby bro' nolan dalla in a 4/8 hold 'em game where there's an empty seat. nolan introduces me to warren schaefer, director of poker operations. both nolan and warren like to bet and raise without looking at their cards - lol! i was still days away from the much-anticipated "must drink" game, but nolan and warren were making me feel quite welcome! espn is filming some additional footage for their wsop television series, and I chat with mike sexton for a few minutes. finally, after more than two hours after I left mitch, he arrives at the poker room with the following story: as he was setting up the connections for his laptop, the phone in the room came apart. when the maintenance guy finally arrived, he spent ten minutes swearing at becky behnen's refusal to replace the ancient phones in the hotel. we pick up our name tags and have breakfast in the coffee shop. numerous bargers arrive at various times in the day. about 17 of us decide to do a "non-smoker" at tony roma's in the fremont. our gang includes nolan, keith fichtemeier, patrick milligan, walter hunt, tony goldstein, lou krieger, bob ogus and a few others. lou asks bob an innocent question about why he got out of the book publishing business and bob is good for a full 45 minutes of stories about comic books, book stores and related information. the entire table is spellbound. wtg bob! back to the binion's poker room, where i manage to lose a few hundred in a few sessions of 4/8 hold 'em and (i think) 6/12 hold 'em. north shore mike is in the game, as is his friend murray. many laughs. many beer units. many scotch units. several people inquire about my plans for the scotch tasting. time for bed. wednesday - limit hold 䴝em the limit hold 'em tourney is to start at noon. i'm already holding a pair of aces, since my seat assignment is seat 1, table 1. :) dave loeffler is to my immediate left, slandrum in seat 7, barry tanenbaum in seat 8, and andy hughes in seat 10. in the first or second hand, there's an early raise and i make it three bets with a big suited ace. an ace flops, and i win the pot with a bet. good start. :) nothing exciting happens, and i've got a slightly larger than average stack at the first break. i don't really remember much about the tourney, except that i played two critical hands, both times holding K7 of spades. the first time, I raise the blinds from late position. slandrum re-raises from the little blind and another player calls. the flop is the ace of spades, another spade and an unrelated card. i don't remember the action, but i'm all-in on the turn, a spade comes on the river, and slandrum wins a few chips from the other player. i triple-through. :) i am moved to another table, and take the only big blind to the left of tom hummel. It's passed to him and he raises. i re-raise with pocket sevens and am called. flop is 979 and tom loses a big pot to me. as soon as I sat down next to him, he had taken out his hand-held pda and was punching buttons on it. as i was stacking the pot, i say to him that this isn't really a good time to ask, but does he have any pictures? he smiles at me, 'cuz he knew what i wanted. he shows me the pda, which has an image of his new kid standing at a keyboard. :D i win a few more pots and am moved to another table. we're down to two or three tables, and i'm in pretty good shape. then came the hand with crunch daniels. he had pocket aces on one hand, and won a pot. on the very next hand, he had an AQ and won a pot. on the very next hand, i raised in late position with the K7 of spades, and he re-raised me. No, i didn't expect him to hold pocket aces again, so i raised him when a king flopped. he re-raised all-in and i called. by the end of the hand, there was a seven on the board, so i got to keep the "i busted crunch at barge 2003" t-shirt that he had put into the pot with the rest of his chips. sorry, steve. i now have a big stack, and soon thereafter we're down to the final table. i'll take a moment here to say a few words about jan holubowicz, who was the tourney director for all four of our tourneys. jan is a very nice young man, who knows his job as well as any i've seen. how did this kid learn so much so fast? he worked his ass off; he was johnny-on-the-spot at all times; his decisions and rulings were fast, fair and correct (and you *know* that this rules nit is gonna notice *that*!!); and he's got excellent people skills. it now has been disclosed that jan was only a temporary employee of the horseshoe, and that he is based in los angeles. so it goes. as we all know, the final table of our tourneys was held at the same table used as the final table for the 2003 wsop. lemme tell you: it's **really cool** to sit at this table with the other finalists and to be introduced one-by-one by nolan using his hand-held mike. keith fichtemeier had kicked ass throughout the tourney, and he and i were the chip leaders at the start. last year's barge no-limit champ mike mcbride is on my right, and ming lee (a player for whom I have tremendous respect) is two seats to my left. walter hunt, on my immediate left, is first to bust out. a few hands later, i raise and am called by connie kellers. i make top pair on the flop. she sings out "raise!!!" and as soon as i hear the tone of her voice, i know that i'm toast. i fool around for a few seconds before I muck. nice hand. };) keith is busting people out left and right, and we're soon down to five. at this point, I make my biggest mistake in the tourney. short stack steve pierce is all-in for the big blind and it's passed around to me in the little blind. i've got an offsuit queen-little and i muck. i now understand that I need nothing more than two random cards to call in this spot. ok. i've now learned my lesson. but steve busts out soon thereafter, and so does shelly louie (who really is a funny guy!), and we're now down to three! i have the button and am under the gun. i've got a suited AQ and raise. keith mucks and mike mcbride re-raises from the big blind. i call. the flop is Q 7 5 rainbow. mike checks and i bet. mike check-raises me. my entire world comes to a dead stop. it takes me a few minutes, but i finally understand that mike can only have a few hands here: pocket aces, pocket kings, pocket queens, pocket sevens or pocket fives. and every single one of these hands beat me. i muck, and mike shows his presto. :) keith busts mike out soon thereafter, and it's head-to-head. ieith is a very tall, very skinny guy, and i'm neither. we are at opposite ends of the table, but stand up to shake each other's hand. when we begin, he's got a very big chip lead. i manage to crawl back a little (keith later told me that i had actually caught up to even), but i can't do anything and i ultimately have to pay off the $10 all-adb last-longer bet. wtg keith!! one curious note: the *only* hand i lost at a showdown was the final hand of the tourney! mike's third place won him $1040, a special barge chip and a plaque. my second place won me $1390, a special barge chip and a plaque. keith's win resulted in a payoff of $1740, a special barge chip and a beautiful trophy. there was one problem here. we got paid in chips, rather than in cash. when we went to the cage to cash the chips, the cage refused to honor their own brown ($1000) chips!!! floorman emeritus (and good guy extraordinaire) tony shelton had to make a special trip to the cage to explain how we had acquired these chips. wtg tony!! we are all very glad that tony was called back to the horseshoe for this barge! :) when the excitement is over, keith, ming lee, mitch and i head over to the plaza station for some dinner at their cafe. good company, good conversation and (surprisingly) good food (mostly mexican). and keith picks up the check! so i take care of the tip. :) back to binion's where i lose a few more stacks of gray at a wild and crazy 4/8 hold 䴝em game. lots of people ask me about the scotch tasting. i have passed on the team chorse competition, but next year, i intend to field a "team speyside"!!! many laughs. many beer units. many scotch units. i book it and go to bed. thursday - the hurricane i have passed on the history of poker tourney. however, i do have a plan for the early afternoon. as many of you know, i have recently purchased a home in the atlantic city area - that'll be my weekend place for a few more years until i decide to quit working, sell my apartment in new york city for a ridiculous sum of money, and move there permanently. i have dedicated one wall of my new living room to my poker career. i've framed the various poker articles i've written, and hung them on the wall, together with the various poker plaques i've won. and i've surrounded them with my chip collection! for some reason, i don't have any vegas chips. so, once the tourney begins, i leave the horseshoe to walk around downtown in order to collect as many $1 chips as I can. unfortunately, i picked the one afternoon when vegas was struck with the biggest damned rainstorm to have occurred in the last six years! ack!!! at each casino, i find the cashier's cage, usually buried in the bowels of the casino (the golden nugget is an exception - their cashier is near one of the entrances). i walk up to the cashier, place a $1 bill on the counter, and ask, "may I please buy a $1 chip?" the clerk invariably smiles, opens her rack, picks up a handful of $1 chips, and gives me the best one. i invariably thank her for this. however, at the el cortez casino, the clerk gives me a chip without looking. i give it back, and ask her to find a nice one. she shakes her head. "we ain't got none!" so i buy thirteen $1 chips and one $1 gaming token from the gold spike, and it's back to binion's. after mitch busts out of the tourney, we make our first foray away from downtown. we stop at the gambler's book club and pick up a few volumes, and then stop at the gambler's general store, where we pick up a few assorted doo-dads. my favorite is a "bluff" button, that i will certainly throw into the pot when i next hold the nuts..... we hit the mirage by late afternoon and are seated in a 6/12 hold 䴝em game. the guy to my immediate right is a well-dressed asian who doesn't know very much about hold 䴝em. he limps and i raise with a slick. he calls. flop has an ace and two treys. he check-raises me, and i three-bet. he calls. turn is a rag. check, bet and call. river is a king. check, bet and call. i win. two orbits later, he limps and i raise with a slick. he calls. flop has an ace. he check-raises me, and i three-bet. he calls. turn is a rag. check, bet and call. mitch exclaims, "i've seen this movie before!" river pairs the turn. check, bet and call. i win. :) two orbits later, he is in the little blind and no one has called. he limps without considering a chop (i'm not sure that he knew of this procedure). i see two rags and check. flop has an ace. he checks and i bet. when he just calls, i know that i will win this hand so long as i continue to bet. sure enough, i bet the turn and he calls, and he mucks when i bet the river. i win. :) i'm up almost a stack of reds, and mitch hates the game. we find george wattman and decide to do "in and out burger" for dinner. if you've never been to one of these places, then you've missed something. it's the best damned burger and soda for less than $5 in the entire world! and we're back downtown. i'm in a wild and crazy 4/8 hold 䴝em game (are there any other kind?), and many people ask me about the scotch tasting. shoo! I brought some scotch, but not nearly enough for the dozens of folks who have made inquiry. what am I gonna do? i lose a few stacks of grays. ross poppel steps up next to me, and points to a chip buried somewhere in my stack. he says to pull it out and put it in my pocket. ross, who's a *real* chip collector, has noticed a gray chip made from some special mold, which is in pretty decent shape. yup. that one's a keeper. scottro and i make a $20 last-longer bet for the tourney tomorrow. many laughs. many beer units. many scotch units. book it and bed. friday - toc tourney and scotch i suppose that i could have had a better lineup for the toc tourney. tom mcevoy is on my immediate left, and goldiefish is beyond him. ming lee is two seats beyond, right before patti beadles. but i'm not worried. the other five players at my table are total fish and have no chance whatsoever. yeah, right, sure. i only last slightly longer than two hours. i win one omaha/8 pot when i flop a wheel in the big blind, and can't get the original raiser to bet the turn. and i raise in late position with presto in hold 䴝em, and manage to make a flush on the river to win the hand. lol.....the five fish at my table have all the chips when i bust out....lol jan fisher busted out right before me. we had previously made plans to have dinner with linda johnson, but our early exits might be assuaged by a good meal. the two of us pick up barry tannenbaum and head over to the sports bar at main street station casino for a late lunch. we have a delightful time, and barry picks up the check! :D mitch has left to have dinner with a friend, so i sit down in a wild and crazy 4/8 hold 䴝em game. after a few hours, i'm down a few stacks of grays and decide that the time has come to open the bar. i pick up, and find adam bachrach, patti beadles, oz, kevan garrett and murray (north shore mike's friend). we spend a pleasant hour or two in my room sampling some single malts. i had brought five highlands and an orkney, patty had brought a lagavulin and a brora, and kevan had brought an unidentified islay. wonderful! i go back downstairs with the remains of my sample of a 15 year-old 121 proof highland park single barrel single malt. i sit down in a wild and crazy 4/8 game next to sharon goldman, the wife of the pokerstars guy. sharon tells me that she's in the running to become an adb'er. i grin and let her sample the scotch. i give the rest of it to kevin un, who's in a nearby pot-limit game. i lose a few stacks of grays. many laughs. many beer units. many scotch units. someone (marc gilutin, perhaps?) stops by to ask me if i had tasted that wonderful scotch that kevin had in an old water bottle. yes, marc. it's *my* scotch! i book it and go to bed. saturday - no limit hold 䴝em tourney, et cetera i hadn't been registered for the no-limit hold 䴝em tourney (as you must know by now, "i don't play hold 䴝em!"). but mitch and i were treated to breakfast by george wattman and ross poppel, so i decided to extend the good vibes by seeking an entry in place of a cancellation. chuck weinstock advises me that i have now become benny behnen and will play his chips. i pay my $80 buy-in and leave a fin in the drum for dealer tokes. i line up (with all the rest of the boys) to get an autographed photo of playmate jill ann spaulding and a $50 add-on to my paradise poker account. and i find my table. whaddya know? here's my new friend sharon goldman to my immediate right, last night's second place finisher gillian groves across the table, and jill ann two seats to my left. barry kornspan and scottro are also at the table. scott reminds me of our last-longer bet, so i have to pull out a jackson and give it to him. so it goes. jill ann has her little dog on her lap the entire tourney. the dog sits quietly, occasionally licking jill's wrist. which one of you horny studs didn't want to be the dog? but jill doesn't do much in the tourney, and pretty soon, she's all-in in the big blind. it's folded to me on the button and i see an ace. i raise it to get rid of barry, and then realize that jill has a $100 bounty on her pretty .... uh.... um ..... head. i flop an ace and i've busted her. at the break, i find chuck weinstock and thank him for the seat. he says that i should pay him. i say, "ok. you've got ten percent!" he smiles and shakes his head - he was only kidding. i smile and shake my head. i wasn't. we finally agree that the ten percent of the bounty should be included in the dealer toke pool. :) so that's where it goes. i didn't do much in this tourney, but managed to outlast scottro. unfortunately, he didn't remember making a $20 last-longer bet for this tourney - and neither did anyone else. lol..... i soon found my favorite hand, pocket nines, while under the gun. you can look it up in google. pocket nines have been my favorite hand for many years - long before this was the favorite hand of everyone's least favorite wsop champ. i raise all-in about 2.5 times the big blind. uh, oh. the little blind wakes up with rockets and i'm history. so it goes. at the cocktail party, i learn that mitch has busted chris "jesus" ferguson whem mitch had pocket jacks and chris had AJ. they flopped a jack and chris was gone. mitch gets the idea that he might like chris to autograph a chip. i reach into my trusty bad and give him one, together with a pen. mitch returns, beaming. chris was quite willing, but opted to sign one of the memorial wsop chips bearing his likeness. that'll happen later. i palm a wedge of "tiger" brand gruyere cheese, to be used as a card protector in the upcoming 4/8 must-drink horse game. i've managed to use my influence to get mitch and i seats at one of the two reserved tables at the front of the room. our dinner companions are peter "foldem" secor, nolan "darkside" dalla, linda johnson, jan fisher, chuck weinstock and the evening's featured speaker, howard lederer. i tell howard that we had met once, long ago. he didn't really believe me until i dropped the right name (sonny mendoza) and the right tourney (no-limit hold 䴝em with three built-in parimutual bets held at a residential hotel in gramercy park, new york city). howard gave an excellent presentation. his two main points concerned (1) what he called the "offensive check" and (2) his version of my basic hold 䴝em philosophy: "if your hand isn't worth a raise, it probably isn't worth playing at all!" (In fact, i had actually insisted that adam bachrach write this down two nights earlier!). after the banquet, i am seated in the main game of the 4/8 must-drink horse game. i lock up my seat and go to the cage to buy four racks of grays. so do mitch, goldiefish, warren sander and chick natkins. however, the other players at the table arrive without chips. it seems that both the poker cage and the main cage have run out of gray chips. but it's tony shelton the rescue!! tony uses his good offices to convince the cage to pull out a few thousand of absolutely spanking brand-new unused gray chips!! new chips at the horseshoe? who wouldda thunk it? wtg tony!! "floor toke!!!" i didn't need ross poppel to tell me to pocket one of these..... i don't remember all that much about the game. i took the job of keeping the dealers' toke buckets and every dealer made at least $130 per down. i drank at least six or seven bottles of heineken and at least six or seven stiff shots of dewar's scotch. i was very, very drunk and didn't learn that i had actually won money in the game until i woke up the next morning..... sunday - endings leaving barge is a bittlesweet time. what kind of cantankerous curmudgeon doesn't have a good time at barge? but all good things come to an end, and it's time to leave. :( many thanks and many more thanks to chuck weinstock and peter secor for making this barge the best ever! many thanks and many more thanks to our sponsors! next year, i will have a formal, well-organized scotch tasting, perhaps by subscription only. perhaps I might even get a sponsor? on any event, i plan to field a "team speyside" in the chorse competition. any early volunteers? i can't wait. tiger ________ Thanks to PokerStars, Paradise Poker, and Quiotix Technologies for their generous sponsorship of BARGE 2003.