Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 12:52:48 -0500 From: Edmund Hack Subject: RktSci Trip Report First things first: Many thanks to Peter and Chuck for taking two bad beats, but playing a superb short stack game into a big, big win. (A key skill According To Phil G.) Many thanks to the Venetian Poker Room staff and management. Good service, with a smile. Can't ask for much more. I vote to keep BARGE there next year. Also, having good beer available at the tables is a major plus. Now for the report: I was one of the "Mormons" on the sign up list, having two female significant others attending with me - my wife Maryann (a.k.a. The Good Doctor) and my 74.96 yo mother, Lucy. Non-BARGE stuff: Arrived Wednesday. We stayed at the Aladdin, which is in the middle of being redone as Planet Hollywood. Had a good beat at checkin. I'm in the Starwood frequent stay program from work, so we bypassed the longish check-in line and got my room upgraded to a strip view mini-suite for free! Mom had to make do with a normal strip view room. We had some good times at the Aladdin. The buffet, though in temporary quarters, has high quality food, though not as extensive in selection as Bellagio and Rio. Worth going to. The VP is good for the Strip, and the Good Doctor's action got us RFB. Ate at Commander's Palace at Aladdin - good food, great Nawlins service. One of the waiters was from NOLA and we swapped stories about the meals we had eaten in town. The Brennans will be reopening the flagship store soon. Went to Ka at MGM. Best. Cirque. Show. Ever. I played a morning tourney at Aladdin on Thursday, placing 5th of 35 for a net of $83. Later that night I played in a $1-2 $200 buyin NLHE game and cashed out $110+ one hour later. Would have stayed, but the game broke. Props to Russ and Scott for their book. Reading just 50% of it has been enough to make me a winner in low limit NL games. I found all the $3-6 and $4-8 HE games (MGM, Venetian, Bellagio) to be softer than before and had some good results. Thank you to televised pocker for their help in stocking the aquaria. I also played a noon tourney at the Venetian, made a bad call to get crippled, got out at about 50% of the field. We had a good beat leaving at McCarran, as my mom needs a wheelchair for long walks (two mechanical knees.) We bypassed the huge line at SWA for bag check and were immediately handled by the skycaps. Bad beat later as flight was 90 minutes late leaving. BARGE events: TOC tourney Busted out in mid 60s. Reconfirmed that I suck at stud and Omaha. Gotta get on Mason's chimp training program to cure the latter. (Old hands will know what I mean.) The end of the tourney for me was a hoot, though. In the Omaha round I was crippled and needed to find a hand to go all in on, but couldn't. Got blinded to T300 just as we flipped to HE with T1000/500 blinds. Didn't get a hand worth playing - not one was a top half vs. random hand. Just as my big blind comes, the table breaks and I hope to get a few more hands to catch fire. I end up at a table with Sabyl to my immediate right and Gavin and Perry F. to my left. Great. Mega-tough table that has big stacks. Oh well. Then I find I am the big blind. O.K. All in for T300. Folded to Sabyl, who calls. She has Q-small. Sigh. I flip over - Kings! I double up. Post small blind, have stack of T100. Folded to me, I have Q6 (suited, IIRC). Push in T100 more. Nice lady in BB has Q4. (Don't remember her name because I suck at remembering names and was still dazed by the previous hand.) I'm dominating! I win! Now have T1200 on button. Folded to me, I have A6 off. I push all in. SB folds, Gavin calls T200 in BB. He has J4. IIRC, I'm about 60% to win. Alas, he pairs 4 and IGHN. Still, it was great fun and all the table was pulling for me. One of the best pocker experiences I've had. Thanks! Significant Others Holdem The Good Doctor and Mom played. Maryann had a great time last year and was willing to play again. Mom has watched a lot of poker on TV, we have watched together, and I've given her commentary as we watched, so I signed her up. She was very nervous about playing. She had a blast. The Good Doctor was 7th and Mom was second!. She is very proud of her plaque and it will go up on the wall of her condo next to a "Woman of the Year" award she got for her work in helping start a shelter for abused women and children. Banquet Good food - I thought it was better than most of the GN meals in years past. Great speech by Phil, definitely the best since the Bishop. Phil - thanks for agreeing to be mom's friend! You are a gentleman and a scholar. And there are so few of us left. (See - working on my mad overrating skilz.) Also, she was glad to hear of your charity work - see the end of the report. NLHE tourney Well, I've now played in 15 in a row, placing 2nd in '92 and 5th this year. It was a long drought, no doubt caused by my low skill levels in NLHE tourneys. I really enjoyed having David Huberman next to me for a long stretch. You are also a gentleman and a scholar. I think I played the best poker of my life. The week before BARGE we were on vacation on South Padre Island and I took Harrington's tourney books and re-read Vol I and finished Vol II. IMHO, these two books are the best written tournament books ever. The discussion of M and Q helped me understand how to think about the game. (Haven't read Vol III yet. Need to study more.) I also have been playing some low limit sit-n-gos, Sunday Satellites, and the 180 player tourneys on Poker Stars for practice. Both of these, combined with the Aladdin and Venetian tourneys I played had me ready to try to not make the mistakes (e.g. falling in love with AQs) that had caused me to usually exit in the middle to top 1/3 of the pack. I'm not one to remember lots of hands in detail. Right now my mental energy at the table is spent on trying to focus on my game and what's going on at the table. Anyway, I only made one bad call that I can remember. There may have also been a few bad laydowns, but that's pocker. One major suckout was when I was short stacked. Foldem came in first for the pot, I reraised all in, all in behind me, call by Foldem. Foldem has 10s, I have 8s, other stack has Qs. Ruh-roh. However, "I am a luck player, a powerful suck^H^H^H^Hwinning force surrounds me", and I turn an 8 for a set and win. Sorry guys. Anyway, after some card droughts interspersed with some good cards and good flops, I find myself at the final table. Players get eliminated, I lose some chips, win a few. At dinner break, we have David Heller with 227k, Bingo and I with 70k, Nut-Z and Mordecai with 30k stacks. I enjoy the banquet and come back to play. I get a walk in the blinds, Mordecai doubles up against Heller and my final hand comes up. Un will be reporting on what he saw at the table, but here is "The Rest of the Story" from MY perspective. (HCYCMWT DYKWIM not in play here.) I have about T80k. With blinds and ante my M is 2ish, effective M is 1. I have to pick a hand and go. Yes, I could try to wait for Nut-Z to get blinded out, but he might double up like Mordecai did. Mordecai pushes all in. I have ATc. He had doubled up earlier with K6o, IIRC, a gutsy and correct play, so he is ready to go with anything decent also. My thoughts went like this: - a high pair and I'm way behind - Ax, Kx or Qx and I could be ahead - middle pair has slight advantage to him - small pair is a coin flip - could be a bluff as we were pretty conservative players - ATs is a pretty good hand when I have about 8-10 more to come before blinding out - yes, I've lost first in vigorish, but I've a legitimate hand - Bingo and NutZ have smaller stacks and would need pretty good cards to call from the way they have been playing (and with 2 others all in with near equal stacks) - David had just lost a good chunk to Mordecai and seemed upset, so he might need good cards to call also - I have two of those pretty good cards the others would need - I need chips I call. He had a pair of 3s, no clubs. Coin flip. I don't improve, I'm out. Saddenz. Constructive criticism of my decision welcome. Final Thoughts The last 5 years have been hard for Mom. She had two knee replacements, one in 2001 and one in late 2002. In March 2003, my dad fell ill and spent the next 6 months in ICU, passing away in September 2003. Her mother died in 2003 also. In the summer of 2004, Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy and chemo. There have been estate and tax issues, and selling of the family home is in progress. On the plane home, she said: "This is the best time I've had since Dad died." Thanks to all that made that happen. Edmund "RktSci" Hack p.s. we will ALL be back next year, and ALL intend to make final tables again!