Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:23:35 -0700
From: Rodney Chen
Subject: [BARGE] Part 1.


Saturday June 12th.  

Land at McCarran and start the ritual.  Grab rental car (upgraded to convertible
when Vegas is below 90F, score!), then head to the bank to grab my bankroll,
then head to the Venetian.  No wait.  I'm not headed to the Venetian.  I'm 
headed to Binion's.  Camera in tow.

Recon time.  If I can make BARGE, it starts a couple months early.


Tuesday August 3rd.  

See ritual above.  This time I do find myself sitting down in the Venetian poker
room at an 8-16 holdem game until a 2-5 NL seat opens up.  Play one hand to a 
flop, KQs with nut flush/nut straight flip that didn't get there against 3   
others.  All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.

So a rack minus 2 stacks of green chips from said hand wanders over to the 2-5
game.  The first 20 hands almost put me to sleep.  I actually saw multiple
times where it was a 5+ way limp, and checked through the flop and turn.  This
may be the most boring game in Vegas.  Being a must move table, I'm 
disappointed.

Then comes the Change We Can Believe In.

New player sits down on two to my right.  Starts a story about his mother in law
winning the lottery.  Yeah.  Then starts stacking-off every hand with a pair
or an ace in it.  Well then, game on!

We jump ahead to the NL tournament.  JK is moved to our table with the iPad.
Table breaks shortly after.  Table is sad.  No, the definition of sad is having
my name called to the main game.

It's Badugi time!  

You want to know how I learned badugi?  We'll go back a few years to an evening 
in Mountain View, California.  I'm at Patri Friedman's home game, back when he 
played the Big Game at the Bellagio during the WSOP.  I've never played a triple
draw game before.  We're playing pot limit.  I guess I enjoy new experiences.

So having it as a Tuesday game is awesome.  Starting table was ok, kept at par
throughout the tournament, until that table broke.  Then get moved to table 1,
and promptly get dealt trips, a straight flush, and all similar nonsense.  
A single hand might cause me to enter a treatment facility: Dealt (A2)3x, 
received (A2)23, then (A2)A4, and ... (A2)22.  

Disappointed to be dispatched 10 from the money, but I was distracted by some 
major fires burning at the day job and ended up working on that mess into
the morning hours.


Wednesday August 4th.

More issues at work.  Why do I bother taking vacation days?  Oh wait, I'm 
maxed out so it'll go to waste anyway.  Work hard, play hard! 

I finally am able to get over to Binion's and get in a few hours of Chinese 
poker.  2 card flop, 2-7 with a autobug in the middle to start.  Get great
hands, then start giving it back.  We all decide to switch to badugi in the 
middle.  Now I'm really spewing with some awful hands that had some great
flops up top, but couldn't set a better back hand.  Finally able to grind 
back, and the very last hand my grin got wider when I tabled my straight
flush against Grapes' quads.

Single.  Draw.  SoCal.  Lowball.  Vitriol.

Every year I enter.  Every year after I bust I say I will skip it next year.
Yes, I gravitate towards games that don't get played very often, but ugh.
8 times I had 4 to a 6 or wheel.  Every time I received a worse card or 
wheel pair.  There's my tournament.

I figure this conversation happens at every table at some point in the 
tournament about 5 levels in.  

  "Has anyone seen the bug?"

The one who admitted it at my table said that having the bug in your hand
spelled doom on the draw.  I am in complete and total agreement.

I head back to the fishbowl, and one of the second best games is breaking.
We crowdsource a binglaha game immediately.  My stack gets dinged early
when Hime is proxying Schmuckbox's stack and his made hand holds up against
a nut flush nut straight draw.  More redraw fail against Ploink made hand, 
more nut nut miss miss.  

You know those times where your Group 1 hands in hold'em have you down a 
couple racks then you play J4 offsuit that has no business winning against
5 other players?  Grapes raises preflop against Ploink and I.  I have a 
2nd best low, and a crappy straight, and Grapes opens for $60, Ploink is in
and I shove for a touch above $150 with a rebuy ready to go.  It somehow 
gets him off his winning hand, giving me half the pot.  Grapes declares 
he's gunning for me.  I love my ITO.  Sadly, my hands dry up before I 
could break even or get into more fireworks with the table, since I figured
this is the peak of the gamb0l I'll get in this week.

...

(per essere continuato)

Rodney