Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:00:10 -0700 From: Jeff Deitch Subject: [BARGE] Trip Report "Hi, I'm Blofeld. Long time listener, first time caller" :) 7th BARGE, 1st trip report. Committed myself to not being a slacker this year! Tuesday: First bad beat of BARGE. Found out Thursday that I would have to wake up at 4:30am to fly to LA for a meeting Tuesday morning. Wonder how this will effect my play in the Badugi tourney that night? Oh yeah, I suck at poker, no real effect. Was back in Vegas by 3, ran some errands and was downtown by 6:30. Say hellos to friends old and new then sit down to play. Badugi was fun, played decent but couldn't make enough hands to cash. Tuesday tourney cash streak ended at one! Busted out around 11pm and had no thoughts but getting home and to bed! I skip Wednesday's at BARGE. Because a) I dont play lowball and b) BARGE is unfortunately not a vacation for me and I have to find SOME time to work. May have to look at this closer next year. Thursday: This day was a toss-up for me right till the very end. I debated for months as to whether my time (and money) would be better spent flying to Berkley for the Thurs night Phish show at The Greek with Michael Hunter or staying in town for CHORSE/sushi/bourbon. BARGE won, but after looking at the set list and talking to Michael, I'm still not sure if I made the right decision or not. Even so, Thursday was AWESOME. I played the Omaha slot on Team Jam which is comprised of members of my syndicate and did reasonably well. Which is to say, I didn't cost my team any money. As a team, we didn't do as well, but still only lost 10 bucks a piece. This was my first time playing CHORSE in a few years, mostly because I usually chose to work instead, but having my ipad and mifi made working between rounds of playing no problem at all. I'll most likely play again next year. Following CHORSE is my absolute favorite meal of the year. When else to you get to have family style sushi with 50 of your friends? Food was spectacular as usual as was all the wonderful saki that Ben brought. Thanks again Asya and Ben for putting this together. Any BARGEr who can even slightly tolerate sushi and has missed this meal must come next year, we need to move the line back under $40! Sushi is only about 5 min from my house, so I run home for a couple hours of digestion before heading out to Dan and Sharon's. I arrive around 8, still completely stuffed on sushi and wondering how I will ever even think about eating a plate of BBQ. That all changed as soon as the lids came off! As soon as that smell hit me, I couldn't help but grab a plate of ribs, brisket and chicken and start to pig out AGAIN. While eating we had a wonderful Guyanan rum tasting which went great with the BBQ. Outside for the Cuban Cohiba my cousin had given me in celebration of the recent birth of my son. Great conversation as always with many people, but extra thanks to Goldie and Bob O for listening and helping me talk through some idiosyncrasies with my business. Back inside for the wonderful bourbon tasting. If you are even a marginal fan of bourbon, Dan puts on a great tasting, taking you all the way from low cost/widely available to high cost/hard to find and across the full spectrum of tastes. Extra thanks to Rodney for bringing the bottle of Jefferson. That was really special. Dont remember, or care, what time I finally got home and to bed! Final analysis: Glad I stayed home for BARGE ... I've seen Phish dozens of times! Friday: TOC! I suck at this event, never made it to the second break before. Bad Beat: I get out of the house a little late and miss the first level. Good beat: It was STUD and I suck at stud even more than I suck at other games! Good beat: The seat two to my left is empty when I arrive and remains so for at least two more levels. Bad Beat: When it gets filled, it's with Grapes! I have some other very good players at my table including Dieter (on my immediate left), Adam B., Mr. Raise, Fell and David KLUCK-man (more on the emphasis later), but did manage to survive to our table breaking, even with Adam having rolled up Jacks the same hand I had rolled 9s, and had around an average stack when it did. Second break came and went and I was feeling pretty good about my prospects. Many more hands, things still going ok and wow, it's time for the symposium! Really? I made it this far? Something must be terribly wrong with this picture. Skipped the symposium in order to get something to eat knowing that my syndicate had it under control. Made it upstairs for the board meeting, like the direction. Then back downstairs for the continuation of TOC. Reality finally caught up with me especially after I got moved back to a table that included Prock and KluCKman and I busted in 28th. Still felt really great to make it that far in the TOC. Was being pulled in two directions because part of me really wanted to jump right into a poker game while the other part of me wanted to get my ass home and to bed to try and catchup from the night before. Having two kids under the age of 16mos, I know a lot about sleep or the lack thereof and in particular how not to miss an opportunity to catch up on some. So I went home and was out like a light. Saturday: The BIG day! Get to my table and lo and behold who's on my immediate left, Dieter! AGAIN! Who does these seat assignments anyway? :) I was at a very fun table that had Nick and Nolan at it as well. We weren't fortunate enough to have JK at our table so we were all playing to bust out Carol in order to claim the massage! Nolan wasn't exactly thinking about this when she called his all-in and, in what was a quintessential BARGE moment, Nolan exited the tourney. If the words "Nolan, you're not going to like this" could have come out of my mouth fast enough upon seeing the 3 in the door they would have. The two aces hidden below it were revealed quickly and the eruption began. Why do these things always happen to Nolan? He's a great guy and does so much for us and the poker community. It's just unfair. But it is BARGE! :) Somewhere along the way I busted Nick and was the recipient of a signed copy of his book. Thanks Nick and sorry about busting you. Blah blah blah, lots of hands, continual checking on Goldie's status, moved to fun table with Bill Chen and Andy Bloch (Andy had a picture of Bill's face on his ipad and it was being held in front of whomever just shoved so you were always faced with a decision to call Bill, even if you were Bill) , getting short stacked and then ... the worst mental poker mistake of my life. Yes, yes, besides sitting down in the first place. I'm in the big blind with about 8 bb left, it's folded to Scott Samarel on the button, he raises (of course), SB folds and the first card I see is an ace. Knowing full well that Scott is raising with just about anything there, I pick up my stack of chips and move it into the middle while uttering the words ... wait for it ... I CALL. There was no question about it, complete disconnect between the hands and the mouth and I sit there knowing I've just made a huge error. I pair my kicker on the flop, put the rest in and of course Scott calls with the same pair and a flush draw. I think he had J6h or something like that and freely admitted he would have folded to my shove. Needless to say, he hit the flush and IGHN. To add insult to injury, I walk over to pay Goldie and he busts while I'm on my way there! I know exactly how to drown that pain. Hey Bart, wanna go get a pizza and pitcher with me? I'm pretty sure that falls into the same category of question as "Is the sky blue" and "Does Jeff suck at poker". For those who didn't know or take advantage of it, in Bennys Bullpen you can get a 16" 1-topping fairly decent pizza and a 60oz pitcher of beer for $10. It's a hell of a deal and Bart and I enjoyed it thoroughly. This is only about 3 hours before the banquet which is an absolute non-factor for guys of our size. With about 2 hours to go we get another table of dealers choice going and one local joins us. Somehow, the local ends up getting to pick the first game and this guy chooses Razz. Who the eff sits down and chooses Razz? We all thanked him and prayed for the round to go quickly. I'm up next and hadn't played any Oklahoma yet, so that was my call. Local gets up before the first hand is dealt and exits the room, I think he was down about $20 and no longer excited about playing in our DC game. The rest of us played until it was time for the banquet. Banquet was great, enjoyed time with Schmengie (excuse me, ADB Schmengie) and his lovely wife as well as Lenny and shit guys, sorry, I'm too high to remember who else was at our table right now and I'm trying to wrap this up before the wife gets home! Barrys speech was interesting. I don't get to play live poker much these days, so there wasn't a lot I could incorporate, but I always appreciate hearing different points of view. Omahalic brought a new reindeer game with him and I couldn't wait to give it a try. Roll 3d6 before every hand to determine which of 16 games you are playing. Big bet games weighted less (3,4,17,18), more popular games in the middle. It was a blast although the same few games did seem to come up far too often. With a few adjustments, 16-game mix is going to be my new reindeer game of choice. David Kluchman sat next to me to start the game and this is when I learned that his name is in fact pronounced KluTCHman, not KluCKman. Now I have no idea what Ellis Island reject convinced this man's ancestor that ch without a t sounds the same as ch with a t, but thats the American language for ya! Sorry, David for mispronouncing your name for the last few years. As you might tell from my own last name, I can relate to the problem. Anyway, we played the 16-game until around 3am which used to be the hour at which the pussies quit playing but looking around the room it was more empty than full and I decided to call it quits for the night, another best BARGE evah in the books! A toast to the many absent friends who didn't make it this year. You were all missed and we hope to see you back next year! One last story to relate: I was walking by the poker room podium at one point when I overheard the brush telling two tourists that we were the Businessmans Association blah blah blah, I was cracking up for days about that one. Thanks to Rodney who continues to be the hardest working man in the room while the tourneys are going on and yet still manages to make final tables! Thanks to Peter, Nick and Mickdog for putting on another excellent time. I appreciate your hard work and dedication more than I could ever express.