Here's my TARGET trip report. This is *not* the official TARGET report. Friday, 4/20. Meet up with Jeff and Jennifer at the San Jose airport. Jeff and I play gin. I haven't played gin in years, but I suddenly see a lot of the intricacy of the game. Check in at the Mirage and am told that my room rate is $299 a night. Yeah, right. Get that fixed the next day. Cab down to Binion's. Up the escalator. First person I see is Chris Ferguson. I go inside the tournament room, whip out 40 $100 bills and trade them in for 8 chips. I'm not sure if I was more nervous carrying the cash or the chips. Back to the Mirage where I spend $17 to win the $10 coin to be given out at TARGET. Off to bed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Saturday, 4/21. I gather up all of my goodies and head down to the poker room. A large number of players show up for the brunch. Could the comps have something to do with that? Mike Osborne saves the day by getting us out of the short-but-slow comp line and into the buffet. Back to the poker room. I break out the random table assignments. I hand out the TARGET pins (Patrick helped design them, BTW). Jeff Siegal helps out with taking notes. After a quick misdeal, we are underway. I get all of my good cards in the first round. AK, JJ, JJ. After that, nothing. I win an all-in from the BB with A8 catching and 8 against a better ace. I take AT against Kevan's AK and don't catch a T. I think I played very well and made no major mistakes. Oh well. Maybe I'll win in 2002. A group of us are waiting near the poker room entrance to set up rides downtown. Jeff Siegal suggests that we play roulette. I say that "I feel red coming on." We each put $5 on red. It comes up black and Jeff says "You Idiot!" loud enough for the other 3 or 4 RGP people to hear. Much laughter. I think he was 61% kidding. I get into a 4-8 Omaha-8 game with a 1/2 kill to 6-12. I play A24X in the BB in a raised 6-12 pot. Flop is J-5-4 with two spades. It checks around. Turn is the 9s. I decide that I'm going to try to steal this pot and bet $12. A player calls and then another player goes all-in for $2. Oops. Well maybe my low will come and... river: pairs the 5. Well, maybe I can win the $20 side pot. I bet $12. The all-in guy mucks out of turn!!!! At first I love this, but then the other guy goes into a deep think. Maybe 10 seconds later he folds. Woo hoo! Who says you can't bluff and all-in player! Finish up about $100. I go to dinner with some of the guys at Gee Joon. Expensive, but very good. Much talk about UNIX. Lot's of fun. I highly recommend the hot and sour soup. A bunch of us meet up for the craps tour. We end up at the California. Kevan and I are next to each other at the table. Jaeger, despite all of my pleading, is betting the "don't" at the other end of the table. Frank gets the dice first and holds them for a good 20 minutes. He rolls a lot of come-out craps, so it wasn't as great a roll as it could have been. Jennifer (craps virgin) is next. She makes her first pass and then rolls every number in the world several times costing Jaeger many bets. She hits a couple of hardways for me. Jeff is next. He makes a key point when I have $40 on the pass line. Jaeger has called out for a rebuy or two. I introduce Kevan to the $5 "Horn-high-yo" bet. I tell him up front that it is a terrible bet. He points to the "Big 6/8" and says "It isn't worse than this, is it?" I reply that I am pretty sure that it *is* worse than that. Despite the warning, we make the bet several times winning about half of the time. Kevan even makes the bet for the dealers a few times hitting at least twice. Chris and Peter hit a couple hardways and/or come-out 11's for me. Kevan and I were both up around $150. I'm sure we tipped away at least $100 between us, but you can't put a value on the fun we had. Back to the Mirage where I sleep the sleep of a happy craps player. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sunday, 4/22 I wander into the poker room around 10:00 a.m. I find Jerry Gerner. He treats me to a sandwich over at the snack bar. Thanks! We find Mike in the taxi line and head over to the Orleans. I have a milkshake with Patrick, Roger and Bob. Patrick shows us his ideas for a new BARGE coin. Looks like a winner. 104 players start. I play well and make the last two tables. With the blinds and antes about to eat me alive, I go all-in with 44 UTG and run into JJ. Bye-bye. Bob came in 3rd or 4th, I think. I meet Jeff and Jen an the Bellagio. Alan B. has just cleaned up in a 30-60 game. We go to Noodles for noodles. Pretty good. Later, I'm walking near the big wheel and hear the players chanting "Forty... forty... forty..." It get's louder. I stop to watch the wheel as it slows down. It looks like it's going to be just short of the "40", but they keep chanting. The wheel has more momentum that I thought and gets into the slot right before the "40" and still has a little motion left. It's right on the pin. If this were a scene from a movie you would not believe it. With it's last gram of energy it slips into the "40" slot and the players go nuts. An 80-year-old white grandma high fives a young looking black guy. I had a big grin on my face for a while after that. Back to the Mirage... I play some craps and win $100. I get into a passive yet fishy Omaha-8 game with a full kill. I'm up $300 after about 3 hours when two of the fish leave and are replaced by a rock and a good player. Long story short I go on super-tilt and finish the session at -$85. Meanwhile, Tom Goodwin is in a cap-it-up 4-8 game at the table behind me. Well it *looked* just like a wild and crazy 4-8 game except they were using $10 chips. I watch him win a good pot with 88. I think he won 2 racks. I go to bed at about 8:00 a.m. Gotta love Las Vegas. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Monday, 4/23 Sandi is still under the weather and has cancelled her trip. I wander into the poker room and get into a 6-12 game that is starting up. We start 5-handed. I win the first hand and then get creamed. I lose $140 in 15 minutes. No joke. I go play some nickel slots to calm down. Later, I get back into the Omaha game and again get beaten soundly. I wasn't on tilt or playing badly, just lots of bad rivers. Down another $200, I take a break. I win the first hand when I return to cut the loss in half. I decide that the game is too rocky and get into the 1-5 stud game. This is a "rock" game. The winner of the pot puts up $1 to start the next hand. No antes. I play reasonably tight, but have trips beaten three times. One particularly gruesome hand... I have a pair of queens and three spades showing and have a made flush. On the river, I bet $5, guy showing T-7-6-9 rainbow raises. I re-raise right away. He says "You must have a flush." and re-raises. I've played enough cards to know when I'm beat, but I have to pitch in the last $5 to see this. Yep. 9's full of T's. Did I actually lose $100 in a freakin' 1-5 stud game with no ante? Yes. I pick up. You could probably see the little dark cloud above my head as I was walking out of the poker room at 2:00 a.m. Okay, let's shoot some craps. I get the dice. The people at the other end are cheering every roll. I'm not sure they understand the game, but they seem to cheer more when we hit a point or number with money on it. Anyway, I make 6 straight passes. Next guy rolls a couple of 11's for me. I make a two hard 8's. I'm up $200. The nice people at the other end of the table leave. I call it a night. Thank goodness for craps or I'd be down a ton for this trip. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tuesday, 4/24 Meet up with my old friend Rich and his wife Beth. We wander through the newer hotels. I want to show them a nickel slot that I like called "Flip Flop". For the third time this trip, I see a machine left unattended in the bonus round. People get to the bonus round, but don't notice it. The machine won't take another nickel so they leave. I win $3 on the freeroll. I fly home that night. Ken Kubey kubey@engr.sgi.com (650) 933-3536