From: "Dave"
Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 08:04:05 -0400
Subject: [BARGE] BARGE 2007 - next virgin report


Sitting in Chicago during 2nd delay of my connector flight to LV. Reading my
Full Tilt book as have not really played a "real" tourney in recent memory
yet have signed-up for four in the next 3 days. Woman sitting beside me asks
if I play poker - turns out her husband won a NLHE bracelet at the WSOP this
year - thought I was wearing one at first glance. I will keep this watch
forever. Shake her hand for good luck - must be a good omen.

Finally land and my taxi driver is.a retired cop from NY/NJ who points out
all the good strip clubs. No cursing though - maybe the brother of the guy
who drove David Heller? Check-in at the Nugget. Anxious. WTF is an
introverted, travel-hating guy with no game to brag about doing walking into
a "poker conference" (my wife's term)? Too late now - must find Mecca. Oh
cool - electric sky. Find the poker room at Binion's - from the first second
Carol at the desk is great. How about some 4-8 Omaha/8 so I can have played
once sans mouse before the CHORSE tourney tomorrow? Sitting in 5 minutes,
new table opening. Ah.newbie begins to settle in, gets chips, gonna play a
game I've got lots of time on and that paid for my trip.

BARGE'rs sit.
Game now HORSE.
Dealer almost ready to deal first hand.
Game now dealer's choice.
Okie dokie.How strange could it get?

ABC (ok.pretty straightforward)
Badugi (ok.read the name once)
2-flop Juarez (you gotta be kidding me.)
Hold 'em (wait...funny..no one makes it Hold 'em)
However, had a great time.
And I'm not just saying that b/c of my Ac-2h-3s-4d Badugi.
Costs me about $30 for the session, and with tips, that might mean
break-even poker.

Must sleep - gonna need cracker-jack timing for CHORSE I just know it.

Next morning Ron introduces the rest of team Virgin - from their steely eyes
I can see we're going deep. Thankfully the doofus playing Omaha treads water
with the best. My intro to "the Chic" and his 53 railbirds - never had so
much fun watching and folding. With the team demanding last hand action I
river a truly ugly 7 low on the final hand for a quarter of a 4-way pot.
What? We made money? SWEET!

Great moment: tourney director doing the CHORSE cashouts to determine the
winner.
TD: "What team?"
Player: "Team Moosecock"
TD: Doesn't even look up from her forms.
I think I like Binion's.

Stud Shootout - just play ABC, see how it goes. Staying out of trouble, gain
a few chips, very nice. A few levels in I start with 3 hearts, catch a pair
on 4th, another heart on 5th. Why is she still betting? Make a beautiful
Queen-high flush on 7th. My chips decide to migrate over to the Ace high
flush corner of the table. All-in with K-J-7 - my 5th street was a 4. My
Kings+Jacks lose to trip 4's.
I hate stud games.

More dealer's choice, more good times. It's funny that the locals are not
lining up for this game. Too many happy people?
Hand of the night was a ten in razz that takes it down.
I love stud games.

TOC doesn't start until 11am, so getting to bed by 4:00am is gravy.

TOC day - after starving yesterday I have just enough time to grab a muffin
before getting to Binion's.to find a no BARGE'rs. Well that's disconcerting.
Even if it started at 10am it is a limit tourney right - how fast did those
blinds go up? What's that? Follow the stairs past the broken escalator? Oh,
cool - Benny's Bullpen and a room FULL of people. I'm dreaming of busting
out and recreating Sheiky's exit from the main event after being busted by
Matusow - I'll be punching the door by about 12:30pm given my affinity for
limit games.  I'm on table 2 and make the first break up a few chips.
Playing ABC poker, picked-up enough chips to offset the blinds. Not much in
the way of bust-outs yet. At some point David "Meeee" arrives at my table.
He's working out a list of names on a envelope - ah, this foggy symposium
thing. They've made money the last two years. I ask about how it works, but
we're still playing, and I still don't get it. Do I want into their group?
Sure! I'm behind my "loss per day" budget so I'll chip in for $100 I figure
I won't see again, but I'll corner one of them and get this thing explained
to me.

Between 11am and 3:45am only three hands stand out for me and I think
Matt(?) was the victim of two of them. With A25T in LO/8 I raised and
heads-up see a flop of 3-T-T. I check raise in hopes of getting one more bet
- but he must have something we get all the way to the river (another ten)
to double me up. The other two hands were in Stud - the first vs. Matt was
Aces-up vs. a scary board; the third I started with 3 hearts and by 5th
street had Aces-up and it held up. Tick tock tick tock - we're closing on
3:45pm and not only am I alive, I have over 20k chips when I think the
average stack is around 15k.
I LOVE stud games.

With 35 left we break for the symposium - thanks heavens, I'm REALLY
starving. Hmmm.oysters and some sort of cake-like thingy. The sushi reminds
me why I love steak so much.

Symposium was fun to watch. For the first time it sunk into me the level or
organization involved - with the bidding and all the record keeping there
were a lot of folks working hard to make this fun for everyone. I also get
into a 2nd virgin bidding squad with Scott and Chris so with that many
horses in the NLHE field (and having had someone finally explain the whole
thing to me vewwy, vewwy, slowly) I figure I HAVE to make money, right? Also
get to meet Wil Wheaton so now I can bust out of the TOC and still be the
envy of all Canadians. Now that we're old friends maybe next year I can ask
him if the rumors about Tasha Yar leaving the series because she caught him
"getting counseling" from Deanna are true.

Afterwards I run back across to Binion's. The ladies at the lunch counter
get a good laugh out of me asking for a "normal" sized sandwich. I take my 3
pound ham & cheese upstairs and get enough into me so that I've got some
blood sugar before we sit down again. We finished level 9 and the NLHE
started - it seemed like people were dropping like flies. I was making good
decisions, protecting my chips, but I wasn't going to back into the money. I
was saying out loud "it's no-limit now - don't forget and make a dumb bet."
Almost immediately I get KQ in the SB and "RAISE". To 4k. Wait.my SB was 1k.
Perfect - I just min-raised the BB (Mickdog I believe). He sees my "math is
hard" face and pushes for 11k. I call his donkey move and my KQ gets cracked
by his AA.  After avoiding this all day I've cut my stack to about 12k and
we're not in the money yet.  Then like magic the bubble breaks.and seemingly
so does my calm. Now I'm nervous and trying to slow things down so I don't
make a mistake. Folds to my SB again and with A6o I want the blinds and
antes. "I'm all-in." - bad sign if the BB's chips beat mine into the middle?
Fortunately his AQ is no match for the skillfully flopped 6 and I double
through. Apologies to Super Steamer.

A woman on a short stack pushes for about 40% of my stack and it folds to my
BB. 8d9d is not a monster, but I've already told myself I'm playing to win
so I call - and the poker gods smile again with a 9 on the board. I'm afraid
I don't know who I should be apologizing to for that one.  Then the cards
start falling from the sky. In the next few laps, including getting to the
final table, I see JJ, QQ, QQ, KK, AK. Poker is hard.  For whatever reason,
by the time we're down to 9 the nerves are gone and I'm just enjoying
myself. This is all icing on the cake for me. Then probability took a
vacation.

Goldiefish and JP see a flop of x-6-6. All-in, call (not sure which way).
Goldiefish: A-8
JP: A-6
Final board: x-6-6-8-8.
Ouch.  I know JP is still in at this point but I cannot see him as he is
sitting on the far side of Goldie's stack.

Later Bob (I think) got all-in and three of us called and checked it down.
Board: A-Q-A-Q-9.
Bob had K-x and took it down with King high to quadruple up. Another
everyday hand.

There were also a couple of miracle straights

The end came pretty quickly for me once we were down to four. Kenny had been
pushing a lot, but always with something. With three left I think we were at
level 16 (5000/15000, 2000 ante) and I had about 70k. Goldie folded, Kenny
pushed (having me well covered) and I called with QdJd. Kenny had Ah-4x. My
dream card 9h on the river made me a straight.but being the 4th heart, it
was second best. If I had pondered this kind of finish in the past, it would
have been the money and the rush that I would have predicted. But in
real-time, my memory is of a bunch of people watching, the jokes were
continuous, and it was just pure fun. I wish poker was always this way.

Wow - twelve hours after starting I'm downstairs cashing in the chips. I
went back to the hotel room and changed and tried to decide what to do.
Let's shake things up - back to Binion's for some dealer's choice.  Got to
play with pokerchimp (Shari)  and Sabyl and for a brief moment I'm thinking
to myself "hey, I can play with these folks. And I have a chip with
Mordecai's picture to prove it."  Another long session of mayhem at dealer's
choice and this time I actually make money. I'm happy paying for the
entertainment, so being paid to enjoy myself is gravy.

After a nap it's time for the NLHE tourney. Figure I'll see if yesterday's
"walk softly" strategy can work again. I figure everyone will start slow.
Hand #1: AA vs. QQ - all-in, call. First elimination. Anomoly? Hardly -
welcome to the table of doom. People were turning over so fast we couldn't
keep track. Seats 3,4,5,7,8 probably churned through 5 people each by the
break. In isolation, moving 2,000 chips to 3,500 by the break is great. But
with Marlin the grim reaper sitting on my left with something in the
neighborhood of 25k it was not a relaxing seat. Saw one of the strangest
hands ever when Marlin got the right odds to call a flop bet holding 7-2o
and with nothing but a gutshot - paired his deuce on the turn and AK burned
to the ground with no pair on the river. At one point a devilishly handsome
older gent replaced one of the dead bodies. He was playing well and I
finally saw his name tag. Hey, it's that Pickels guy from RGP - cool. Wonder
how he'll do?  Mercifully they broke our table soon after the next break.
Now my stack was dormant, but at least I wouldn't have 25k to my left. Maybe
I'll get a softer seat. Get to my new seat on a table that seems to have 6k+
per stack. Oh, and pokerchimp to my left. So much for relaxing. After
blinding down a bit I finally got my monster. Two beautiful deuces. Push
into the big stack's obvious bully bet (Michelle I think? - probably has
nothing) and she calls with AQ (or she has a very good hand). Q on flop.
Wait.I don't go bust, I make final tables!! Sigh - I think I was out in the
75-80th ballpark. But I did outlast that donk that filled-in for Andy Bloch.

The Banquet was a lot of fun. Gavin may not be a practiced public speaker,
but he's a natural. He spoke well, and showed no mercy responding to the
hecklers. I also thought the Q&A was pretty cool - both the poker and
non-poker questions were interesting.  The roast was a bit "inside" but
there were also lots of laughs. Gotta give Wil props for the Mos Eisley
line.

Seemed I was about the 83rd name on list for the dealer's choice, so after
milling about with the herd I ended up in Chowaha SnG. Obviously I still
have much to learn as I somehow went out 6th or 7th.  One interesting bit
was seeing a guy that would be my age or less, with the 70's porn 'stache
and a sleeveless t-shirt bull his way into the room to play his first ever
poker tournament.  I caught myself feeling all superior to this guy because
he'd never played before - which I think is pretty much the height of ego.
He could very well appear at BARGE down the line - after-the-fact I wish I'd
told him "good luck" and hope he enjoyed his first taste.

Sunday I think the lack of food (or at least vitamins.) and sleep were
catching up with me. After checking-out I wandered over, didn't see anyone I
knew, and jumped into the 2pm tourney. Tried playing a little "Marlin" poker
but no one wanted to fold, and the flops just were not kind. Finally got it
all-in vs. a guy as 2:1 favorite on the turn. Guess I'll win the next two. I
needed some Tylenol and a nap so I grabbed a cab to the MGM Grand. Check-in
took forever, then after hiking the 2.3 miles to the room - it was not
made-up. 2.3 miles later I'm back at the desk - but she took pity on me and
gave me a buffet comp, so that was nice. Room, nap, some good food, and
jumped into a 1-2 NL game. Doubled-up early through some truly awful
players.then as is my habit stuck around too long and eventually it was a 6
or 7 handed game with no soft seats and gave it all back and more. The
friendly guy who broke me the first time when my trip 10's couldn't compete
with Aces-full turned out to also be from Ottawa so I made a new contact
that will hopefully give me a shot to get my money back at home. I finally
got the message about "time to quit" when my flopped set of Jacks were mild
underdogs to a flopped set of Kings. 

>From there it was only a 12-hour trip home as the thunderstorms in Chicago
added 3-4 hours to the trip. Sitting on the plane waiting for a gate to open
for 70 minutes was a real highlight.

So now my super-sweet TOC 3rd-place plaque is on my mantel reminding me that
yes, I am a poker god (3rd class).

Thanks to everyone. I can only imagine the time and effort required from the
organizers. I hope the fun you folks have at the actual event is worth the
stress during the proceeding months. All the details - the location, the
accounting, the registrations, the prizes - and whatever else I'm blissfully
unaware of - thank you all.

I have signed-up for a Haiku course and am looking up ways to improve liver
function for next time. I'm also questioning everything about my so-called
"game" which hopefully is a good sign. Already trying to figure out my
"win-rate-per-month" so that I can have afford next year's trip. I've also
started trolling for future virgins attendees in hopes of convincing more
people to go.

Last thing to do will be to order the "Tilting the locals since 1991" shirt
now that I've watched it happen. :)

Thanks everyone for the great experience

Dave "BronzeDodger" O'Grady