From: "Hee, Nolan" Subject: [ESCARGOT] A long Trip Report from the Beach Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 16:23:11 -0800 Long Beach that is. It was truly great seeing the gang again. Every year, I meet so many new people and we always have the best time. One memorable meeting was with NSM. I am sort of star struck, so when I met North Shore Mike, it totally made my day. He's like a guy you read about all the time, and then to meet him in real life? Well, that's just what ARG events are all about I guess. Thursday night. PLHE and PLO high. Great games. Too bad, there's only about 5 times a year when you can actually play these tournaments. I'd figure that there really aren't too many players who are dominant in these disciplines, so I'm banging away. You've got a lot of play with T1000 in starting chips and blinds at only 10/15. Unfortunately, I pick a table with Mr. Ploink diagonally opposite my seat 2 position. He's such a jerk. Won't let me steal any pots. Gosh, how do you expect to win if you can't steal some free pots every once in a while? Have a real hand? Everyone knows that real hands are impossible to make. Not only is he defending his blind, he's also check raising my T50 bet into T400 pots for the full amount! Tough, tough, tough. On my right is the reigning WORLD CHOWAHA CHAMP. Of course I didn't know he'd become the WCC, but he sure did play like a winner. He's a big hitter with big brass ones. Thank gooseness I was on his left. Pete, it was a pleasure watching you play. ADB Fold 'em is on my left. Now I'm cooked. AiYahhhhh. If it wasn't for those two lion dancers I hired to distract everyone, I don't think I would have made it past the break! A few rounds go by and Sabyl is moved to our table, almost perfectly in between Ploink and myself. Sabyl's chips go into the pot several times while I'm almost just watching time go by. It seems almost like 15 minutes since I've played a hand. Hmmm. Not giving too much action just yet until I find 4 beautifully uncoordinated blanks that can only make one straight, but it does have a suited 7 and 5. Time to see a flop and reap the rewards of deceptive starting hand play! The flop literally runs over me with three cards that hit one of mine! I've got a pair of sevens. Better yet, I've also got a flush draw with my 7 and 3 of hearts. I check, being in the small blind and wanting to trap someone for all of my chips. Of course, if anyone bets, I've only got enough for an all in call. Sabyl doesn't disappoint. She bets and clears the field to me and I call and cross my fingers, toes, legs, and hair. It isn't because I need to use the bathroom so badly, nor that I believe in luck, it's just that I really want the poker gods to see me respecting their power. I bang the flush on the turn and score enough chips to mosey over to the final table. The final table starts off uneventfully. I don't pick up any hands until I get pocket rockets in the small blind. I raise all in and Sabyl calls me with K4o. Flop comes 443. She turns her hand over and I say good hand. I turn over my hand and mysteriously, those beautiful aces turned into a Jack and a 3 that weren't even suited. Stranger yet, someone went back in time and removed my pre-flop raised and turned it into a limp! Crazy stuff maynard. Anyway, I took the bubble losers walk and vowed that my aces will one day hold up. A big congratulations to Adam, Sabyl, and Mary who were all at one point short chipped. Hats off to great comebacks and solid play. Friday night. Unfortunately, I didn't take off of work like the smarter SoCal residents. Ellis Starks and I (Team Universal) take a short scenic tour through Compton, Long Beach, and then what I believe was Lakewood before turning around to actually go in the direction of the Bike. We arrive at our destination just as the tournament begins. I get seated in the front on the left of Mad "But Really Quite Calm" Mary, two to the left of her friend who just intimidated my stack with her aggressive calls, three to the left of Ron "Table Share" Nutt who all but busted me, four to the left of someone who I have blanked on, but who quickly turned into Jerrod "Chip Factory" A., 5 to the left of previous night's 2nd place finisher Sabyl C, 6 to the left of Chuck "Best Seller" Humphry, and 7 to the left of JP "CPoker Guru" Masser. Obviously, I forgot someone in there. Sorry 'bout that.. Pretty uneventful. Hosts of bad beats which is funny because I thought that I could only GIVE them and was immune to getting them. Not today. The only good bad beat I gave was an instance when some bug got up my arse and I opened with the 64c. JP and I were heads up. I was quite mezmorized by the lone club on the flop. Thinking that this would be a good time to go runner runner and "feeling" that winning feeling, I took one off on the flop. The turn brought a messy offsuit card, but it opened my hand up to a 2 way straight which other people like to refer to as "suckout time". I check and JP bets 100. I call because I want to lay the hammer on the river. The river comes and fills my bottom pair of fours with a 6 kicker. Amazingly, it looks good enough to bet which is precisely what I do. JP calls very quickly leading me to believe that he has my 4 at least outkicked. I turn over my hand and say "beat this". JP proceeds to muck his hand. I am about to rake the ! pot when JP reaches for his cards and says in very slow motion "noooooooo". You should have been there. Everyone else at ESCARGOT was playing at normal speed except for our table. Somehow, the world just slowed to a crawl at that instant and we were frozen in time. JP had accidentally tossed the winning hand when he misread my hand for a straight. I didn't know what had just happened, but if there were ever a case for playing a Jedi mind trick, this was the time. I put our chips to good use by spraying them all over the table like it was Chinese New Years or something. Only problem was that there were no lion dances on this night, only better poker players. Congrats Russ. Nice to see your name up in lights (again). Saturday morning. I plan on leaving the house 30 minutes before the start of our NL shootout to Match Play event. I'm on my way up the 405 heading toward the 710 freeway and catch a glimpse of those LA Freeway signs -- you know -- the ones that nobody looks at except if you don't live in LA. This particular day at this particular hour, I actually see that it says North 710 ramp closed -- Use Santa Fe Exit. I then proceed to take the Long Beach Blvd. exit because that's how men get around. We shoot first and ask questions later. I proceed to see more lovely orange cones in front of the 710 on-ramp on Long Beach Blvd. than 20 MTA workers could put around a hole in the middle of your street during rush hour and find out that maybe Santa Fe was a good way to get to the 710. I tool around the side streets of Long Beach and notice a driving range with an on-ramp to the 710. Wow, I'm here. No I'm not. 710 closed. 405 open. I am actually back on the 405 at the EXACT place that I would have been a mere 9 minutes earlier had I just stayed on the freeway. I keep driving and sure enough, there goes the Santa Fe exit. Of course, I am driving past it and can't get off due to the raised median, so I take the next exit and backtrack through residential streets that don't exactly lead you to believe that city planners know what they are doing. I work my way towards the 710 and find the Santa Fe exit. I'm desperately looking for detour signs that point me to enlightenment. Of course, I don't see any signs. I glance at my watch and see that it's 10:45am. I've got lots of time. The Bike is 15 minutes away and I'm already on the road. I proceed to follow the 710 on side streets that run parallel to it, going north, knowing that I'm at least heading in the right direction if not on the right road. Slowly but surely, I will get there. I'm still driving and something strange happens. The road starts turning towards the right. Ok, now I'm headed towards the freeway. Hmmm. Now the road is turning right again. I'm heading in the wrong direction. The road is turning right again. I'm headed back to the Santa Fe Exit. After I waste another 10 minutes, I slowly but surely make my way to the 710 on-ramp going NORTH!!!! Driver, take me to the Bike please! I make a mad call to the Bike via cell to ask them to lock up a seat. I get there in time, sprint to the registration desk, and get funny looks from the floor. Guess they've never seen someone out of breathe. I take my seat to the left of Mr. Ed Pizzaman. I'm two to the left of North Shore Mike. Three to the left of a gentleman who I didn't have the pleasure of meeting. Four to the left of Adam and 5 to the left of Pete the Chowachamp. Incidentally, I alway see people as being to my right because that way, I've got position. Woohoo! By the time I get there, Pete is extremely short stacked and I pick up AK and rake in a huge pot. I proceed to give it right to the Pizzaman with a pre-flop raise, top pair, and a bad read. There is a struggle and I suck out on Adam to make it heads up with Ed. We play for a while and I ended up getting lucky and taking the winners bracket. First match is against Goldie. I've never played on the same table as Goldie, so this would be interesting. I make a few nice reads and flop a few monsters. Didn't really get to hang out too much. The cards ran over me and I was able to pick large chunks from Goldie's stack when it was at the 15-30 level. Couldn't say that I had much to do with the win except for sitting back and letting it happen. Second match was against Mr. Lou Krieger. Lou and I did battle 3 years ago in ESCARGOT II at Crystal Park. I remembered his style from then and was totally surprised when he switched gears on me for this match. I totally didn't expect Lou to play as many hands as he did. It was refreshing. It was even more refreshing getting him to go all in when he held top pair and I held middle set. Third match is the match for 2nd place. Johnny D is a great player and my vote for the BAAP. Johnny and I did a quick little dance in which I was petting the green for most of the time. I was like a boxer who came out all pumped up in the first round and took a shot to the jaw, then another, then a hook, then a jab, then a jab, and then a mysterious Foreman jab that sent me to the mat. It was masterful how systematically Johnny took me apart. I was a little upset, but would have another shot if I played well. Fourth match put me up against Steve Pierce. Steve and I played on last year's final table for the limit HE event. Steve is tough. He's also got a good image. I tried to spar with Steve which led us to a dead even match by the time it got to the 50-100 level. A few hands later, it was time to get my gamble on. I pumped Steve's 100 BB with A3o and Steve pushed all in. I called and Steve failed to hit a K or a J to double up. Great match Steve. Fifth match is my nemesis and Universal team-mate Ellis Starks. Ellis has to be one of the best NL heads up players in this tourney. Ellis and I swung piles of chips at each other, almost forgetting that we could use 5's and 25's. They should have just given us both two $500 chips each. Anyway, Ellis took me down like the eliminator that he is and IGHN. I actually didn't GHN because I wanted to sweat Ellis and Johnny D's match. It was short and Johnny made quick work of Ellis by catching a flush on the river to best the straight that Ellis made on the turn (but failed to bet). This made for a nice long break before the banquet. The banquet was great as usual. Barry gave some great tips and advice from the real world. It sure is nice to have people share so openly while we just sit back and suck it all in. I for one am very appreciative. Thank you sir. Once everyone kisses and says goodbye, it's to the hotel across the street we go! We strike up a Chinese Poker game playing deuce to seven in the middle with no bonuses. JP is kind enough to sort of help me along as I'm in dire need of help. I manage not to foul any of my hands and Mr. Bob swings on over to join in and set every single hand correctly on his first time ever playing this game. Sabyl kills us in this style and we manage to pluck a few bucks back in normal Chinese before JP bids us adieu. Thanks for the help JP. It sure was fun and next time, I'll bring the rule book so I don't have to ask so many questions. I'd like to say it was the liquor that was doing all the talking, but I only had two Long Island's, 4 beers, and several shots of Glenfiddich and Tres Generaciones, so I don't think alcohol was a factor. WooHoo, off to my first Chowaha experience. Ok, so you've got to use two cards. I slowly caught on and paid the price by calling with my trip 5's (losing to a flush) when there were 2 5's and 2 3's on my board. I also found out how hard it is to bluff at this game as the BAAP Johnny D snaps my Ace high "missed nothing because I never had anything except position and an arm that keeps betting" whiff. Congrats to Pete the Chowachamp for a job well done. After Chowaha, there were only about 8 of us left. We spread a NLHE tournie that NSMike and I chopped. I don't even know how it happened, but I think I sucked out. We then staggered over to the Bike to eat something while sitting in a 3-6 HE game. I splashed many more chips around and forgot to eat. We called it a night (day) and headed for the parking lot. The intense heat of the morning sun really blinded us as we thoroughly thought it was only about 3 in the morning. It turned out to be closer to 9 in the morning. It was the night that we didn't want to end. It was the best of times. ESCARGOT roooled! Can I pre-register for next year? Thanks to the organizing crew and the people at the Bike for all their hard work to make this a first class event and keeping us all in good spirits. Special props to Russ for having to answer questions in the middle of his NLHE match play tournament. He may have been the BAAP if he didn't organize. Well, there's always next year!