From: rmitchcoll@aol.com (RMITCHCOLL)
Date: 14 Nov 2001 03:11:17 GMT
Subject: Marge Trip Report--Long

Its hard to believe Marge 2001 held as always at the Biloxi Grand Casino is
already over. This year my trip started out by meeting Grant (drfish) in the
Tampa airport. I thought we were degenerate gamblers but we have nothing on the
four old ladies waiting for the same Airtran flight as us. I stepped away from
our seats to make a phone call and when I get back Grant has moved my stuff so
these ladies can play some poker while they wait. I hope they call me soon to
play in their home game, Tampa is really a poker wasteland. And speaking of
degenerate gamblers, the first friends I see at the Grand are Arty and Bill
checking into the hotel. Arty and I exchange a few jokes at Bills expense and
its on to the Poker Room. Walking into this room is like coming home. Toni is
taking names at the podium. Ed, Terry and Chuck are already accumulating chips
at the 10-20 game. As I walk around handing out Badges most of the dealers say
hello to me by name and let me know how glad they are that Marge is back in
town. This is absolutely the friendliest poker room I have even played in. Even
the locals make eye contact and nod...they seem to genuinely enjoy our annual
visits. I walk over to say hello to my dad and see something I have never seen
before. He has a lot of chips in front of him. This was to be a continuing
theme this weekend, he seemed to win at every table he played at. This is quite
a change from Sarge 2000 when Bernie won the Johnny D award for most flops seen
regardless of position. His award hangs proudly at his apartment but his game
seems to have improved drastically. This fact was borne out when he finished
12th in the PLO tourney having never played Omaha High or any Pot Limit before.
Great job Dad! 

Wednesday night was the Oldbear Pre Marge dinner at the Beau Rivage Brew Pub.
20 of us had good conversation, reasonably good food, and absolutely horrible
service. Rick Farver spent quite a bit of time explaining his thoughts on
duplicate poker tourneys. Since I am not a bridge player, I dont see the allure
but he seems to feel very strongly that it would be fun. I told him he should
try to set one up as an un-official event at Marge 2002. Thanks to Oldbear for
setting this evening up. It was back to the Grand for more poker and more
arriving friends. My trip reports are usually devoid of poker hands and this
one will not be any different. To me Marge is about conversations and
rekindling friendships. Thursday was the first of our events, the Pot Limit
Omaha High Tourney. Others have already written about the friendliness of Tony
Collins and his staff, but it is worth repeating. From the welcoming banner to
Tonys personally going around to each table to say hello, everything in this
room shouts class. As usual, Debbie Manuel runs an awesome tourney. The Grand
usually has daily tourneys that have 15 minute rounds with quickly escalating
blinds. Their normal 80 person tourney is over in 4.5 hours. Our events have 30
minute rounds with much slower blinds. The PLO tourney had 57 players and took
over 6 hours to complete. Debbie was cheerful and efficient the entire time and
no discussion of deals took place. ARG events are about winning and not about
the money. We welcomed our guest speaker Barry Shulman to Marge by crowning him
winner of this event. He accumulated chips early on and played very
aggressively to keep his lead all the way to the end. My one regret is keeping
Debbie up so late that she missed her daughters rocket launch (school project).
Sorry Debbie. Friday was the Grand Daily Limit HE tourney. First time Margin,
Al-Z, took home first place. This is the second year in a row that a Marger has
won this event. Last year Ice was the winner. Al-Z continued his hot play by
making to to heads up with my partner Steve Jewett in our TOC style tourney on
Friday Night. Steve made an unbelievable call with 77 with a board of KQJ9x to
catch AL-Z in a stone cold bluff with 64s that missed a 4-flush on the river.
This crippled Al and Steve won a few hands later. Steve went from first out on
Thursday to Last out on Friday. 

Saturday morning was our NLHE tourney, won last year by Adam Bachrach. Allnight
Adam proved that was no fluke by winning his second in a row. The best poker
player in the Brabec family took second place in her second Tourney ever. Sheri
moved her chips well all tourney, including when she took most of my chips
early on with her QQ vs my AK and a KQ8 flop. I held on until there were 2
tables left and Ed "Jeremiah Johnson" Barrett ended my day. I called his all in
preflop with AQ. He had A9. The 9 on the flop sent me home just out of the
money. As he had the 3 previous events, Rick "DaVoice" Charles called the final
table for the entire room. Fich, Nutz and ADB Timmy handled the FanCast
broadcast with Barry Shulman doing commentary. His main criticism was many
players were folding heads up preflop when the pot was offering them a chance
to triple or quadruple up. He said that you need to put yourself in a postion
to get lucky if you want to win a tourney. He discussed this at length during
his talk Saturday night at our Awards Mixer. We had food, drinks and fun.
Foldem handed out special MP3 discs for the winners in addition to the trophies
and plaques. All weekend long we had to witness one hideous spectacle. Rich
Charles was shamelessly lobbying for a spot on the ADB team. It was truly sad
to see such a nice man drink so much just to achieve this dubious reward. But
his efforts werent for naught. The ADBs led by Bill, Peter, Fich, Arty and
Timmy let us watch ADB DaVoice get made. ADB Pain celebrated this joyous moment
in the usual ADB manner....he was passed out in his room after an all night
poker/drinking session. WTG Pain. Barry Shulman was very entertaining in his
talk. He discussed Cardplayers role, the future of poker, the GCA, ARGes, and
mainly tournament poker. He was gracious, funny and honest. I found him to be a
breath of fresh air with his opinions. I think he really enjoyed himself and I
am sure Marge will not be the last of his ARGes. Margers did themselves proud
by raising 1200$ for local charities in memory of Ken "Robbie" Roberts. Ken was
an original Marger who passed away this summer. He was missed but his spirit
will remain with us. I want to single out several Grand Poker Room employees
joined us for drinks. They included Treva who kept the lists moving all weekend
 Cincere Mason the swing shift supervisor who held 3 tables open for us when
the lists were yeah long. We used these tables for Chowaha, Baby PL, and 4-8
C-HORSE. She even made an announcement to the room that Marge is only here one
weekend so dont complain. No one did as far as I can tell. Trina and Anette
also showed up. They are 2 of the fine dealers at the Grand. Anette has gone
from the best chip runner to one of the best dealers since last year. Of course
Debbie and Tony were also there. Marge could not happen without their full
support. Congratulations to Jon Averill, the Grand Graveyard supervisor. He
played in our events this year and finished second in the Best All Around. Jon
is a longtime RGPer and a great guy. Finally congratulations to the Best All
Around winner, Gary (...) Phillips of the Gold Strike Casino in Tunica. It was
nice finally getting to meet him. I also had the honor of playing alongside his
wife Karen in the TOC.

No trip report would be complete without a little whining about a bad
beat...sort of. After helping the wife pack up on Sunday night I went down to
play another hour or so. I was up around $65 in a 4-8 O8 half kill game when I
picked up JT23 in the BB of a killed pot. 6 people called the $6 kill before a
late position player raised. I called and then the pot was reraised behind me
and capped 8 ways. The flop was JT4 rainbow. It was 2 bets on with 6 players
still in. The turn was the beautiful J. 3 of us saw the river for 2 bets. An
Ace on the river killed my hand when the other guy showed AAxx to crush my
boat. The pot was H000ge. Instead of winning a 300+ pot, I am down 20
bucks...sure, I know...the best hand won...but it still sucked. Teach me to
play a piece of cheese like JT23.

Thanks again to everyone who helped make Marge 2001 a success. See you next
year!

Randy Collack