Subject: Wes Goes to SARGE From: wesley_tilley@yahoo.com (Wes) Newsgroups: rec.gambling.poker Date: Fri, Mar 8, 2002 7:58 AM Message-ID: <144c6ca0.0203080758.56ef2add@posting.google.com> Wes Goes to SARGE [Warning: Long-Winded diatribe from a poker-starved newbie] Once again, I almost feel guilty for having so much fun. Many thanks to Steve and Randy and the people at the Horseshoe who made all this happen. I won’t recount my poker history again. You can see my previous “Wes Goes to…” at: Vegas: http://groups.google.ca/groups?hl=en&frame=right&th=1788464c0bbc804b&seekm=36a7fbe2.10186548%40news.flash.net#link1 ATLARGE: http://groups.google.ca/groups?hl=en&frame=right&th=16c2b923ffa8d45f&seekm=370A121D.FD68D4C1%40americasm01.nt.com#link1 St. Louis: http://groups.google.ca/groups?hl=en&frame=right&th=94ed3beac99fafb6&seekm=144c6ca0.0112141302.73fdfef2%40posting.google.com#link1 Foxwoods: http://groups.google.ca/groups?hl=en&frame=right&th=a91952ee55e41b4d&seekm=8nhbea%24enj%241%40nnrp1.deja.com#link1 MARGE: http://groups.google.ca/groups?selm=144c6ca0.0111150840.32b45e59%40posting.google.com&output=gplain Other places I’ve played, but didn’t write a report (that I can find): Vancouver, Calgary, Chicago, Wendover, Blackhawk, San Diego, Tampa, and Kansas City. Now on to SARGE: I had never met “AlwaysAware” before, but we were scheduled to arrive at about the same time into Memphis and Steve was going to pick us up. Perhaps this was an omen, but things didn’t work out. My flight was 4 hours late. Unable to hook up with anyone else, I rented a car (sir, we’re out of everything, would you mind taking that PT Cruiser out front?) and headed for Tunica. No offense to the PT Cruiser owners, but I felt like a pimp pulling up to the Gold Strike. I jumped into a 4-8 game with some SARGErs as quickly as I could get a seat. I don’t remember anything spectacular about the game that night, other than meeting or re-meeting many fun ARG people. I played the regular Nooner tournament on both Thursday and Friday and did pretty badly in both. The SARGE satellites were also quite fun, even though I never came all that close to winning anything. The Limit Holdem event on Thursday night was the only one I placed in, thanks primarily to “the hand”. I suppose my new reputation as the Rock of Gibraltar was not fully in place yet. Anyway, we are semi-late into the tourney when I find AA UTG. I raise. “AlwaysAware” (perhaps not always) is sitting to my immediate right in the blind and re-raised after it is folded around. OK, I re-raise and she calls. Joan is a scary player who had mixed it up a lot more than I had at that point and was playing very well. Flop is A-2-x (I can’t remember the x). She bets and I raise (??). She calls (??). OK, at this point, I figure she must have the case A. Turn is a 2, giving me the top full. She checks (??) – she either has nothing or has turned the ultimate bad beat to trap me with quad 2’s(?). OK, I’m so confused at this point that I also check, but that probably turned out for the best. The river is the case A, I have made quads. She checks and I bet the last of my chips and she calls (??). She has JJ. I think we both brain-locked at different points in this hand. When I get a hand like this one, I tend to go on autopilot. I need to learn to slow down during the hand as much as I’m patient enough to wait for it. But, in this case, I can’t complain with managing to get all my chips in the middle during a limit tourney with quads. I never made much of anything else, although it was great fun at the final table as 3 of the smaller stacks (me included) lasted for the better part of 30 minutes and just would not go away. My last hand was against CookieJohn in the SB (me BB). He puts me all in with 64s and I wake up with A6s (different suits obviously). By the turn, we both have 2 pair and I’m ahead but I get flushed on the river. Oh well, 4th place is good enough for me and I have a hand to remember for a while. Side note: I’ve made quads twice in my life – both times in an ARG tourney against women with dark hair. Yooner? The ROE tourney was Friday. I had never played Razz or Stud/8. SteveJ had mailed me the Ray Zee book a few weeks prior and that’s all I had to go on. I learned as I went and observed some “interesting” play, especially in Razz. Anyway, I make it to the final table without ever being all-in. I end up the shortest stack and need to make a hand soon, but I am sitting on the Omaha/8 button while we play the other two games. I decide that I can survive until that game and then I’ll make my stand with one of the 4 “free” hands I’ll get in Omaha. This brilliant line of thinking had me throw away (A2)8 to Lin Sherman’s raise (with a 6 showing) during a Razz round. I think this was a bad mistake. I would have been pot-committed, but that was probably the hand to go with. I do make it to the Omaha round and go in (and out) with A238 (not suited). Just before the one of the tourneys, I sit down in a 4-8 O/8/Kill ring game just so I can hang around with Steve, Randy, and I bunch of other ARGers. Half-pots were being toked. Needless to say, the deck absolutely sledgehammered me. I’m sitting with the Kill button with T-9-8-2 (now there’s a premium hand), and the board reads T-9-8-2-x. 4 pair g00t. I win something like $300 in 30 minutes. The nice thing about playing at a mostly SARGE table is that 0/8 doesn’t play at the speed of Ontario maple syrup in February. Randy and I played the same game at another time and were both tilting just waiting to fold. The NoLimit tourney was last. By now, people were beginning to make comments about my hand selection. “Hey Wes, are those cobwebs on your chips?” was my favorite. I decide to really loosen up and play hands like AQ and JJ ;^) I doubled through with AA again, and manage to accumulate a pretty hefty stack. But, the best part of this tourney was watching Rich Barrett and his dad. Rich gets moved to our table early on with T125 left. As soon as he doubled through to 250, I tell him he’s going to win the tournament. When he doubles again with 77 against my AQ (told you I loosened up), I re-iterate my prediction. I could just tell how focused he was on playing well. Of course, he had to have some luck to get through this many times, but he wasn’t going out without a fight. Of course, he won the event. Ed Barrett also did very well. It seemed like he had a big hand a bunch of times, including the unfortunate chip spill incident at the final table. Joan and I tangled again at the final table with my KK against her AQ and IGHN when the Ace magnets work their magic. I finished 4th, 7th, and 8th in the 3 events. I really appreciate all the compliments from people about how well I did. I still consider myself quite the newbie and this was a big shot of confidence. That being said, I still lack the “changing gears” part of the tourney game that is necessary to make the top spots where the real prizes are. I netted $44 dollars out of these 3 lonnggg efforts. If I was playing for the money, I would have been better off busting early a couple of times to try to move up higher just once. Abe and I did sit next to each other on Sunday in a 4-8 game. Now that I realize that with his reputation along with mine, it’s no wonder this game will be discovered by archaeologists in a few centuries. Problem was the other players were also tight and somewhat passive. I salivated over the 4-8 game right behind us with the mounded pots, but I didn’t have time to switch before I left. Dropped 2 racks. That’s all right; I needed some humility to take home with me. My last pleasant experience was the hour I killed in the airport with Jeff Barrett waiting for our flights. After doing my penance at home (the 6 year old threw up all over the inside of our van while I was away), I scratched the itch a little bit the other night by playing on UB. Rivered my first ever royal flush and won $123 from their high hand promotion. I wonder if the player I ck-raised on the river was a lady with dark hair. Another side note, my 1st full night home I’m watching TV with my wife when we flip past this show “The Chair”. After watching for a few minutes, she observes that I may be the world’s perfect contestant for that show (from her, this was a back-handed compliment at best). I’m sure many of you would probably also agree after watching my “style” (or lack thereof) of p0cker. Don’t know when my next ARG event will be, but I’ve got enough daydreams from this one to keep me going until then.