Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 16:14:02 -0700 (PDT) From: Ken Kubey Subject: [Target] TARGET 2005 Report Hi all, Here it is. The official 2005 Report. The 12th TARGET event was held at the Mirage. It was our 5th year there! Saturday, 6/03. About 20 of us met for brunch. Guy and Peter Caldes sat with Sandi and me. Comps didn't cover the buffet price, so we each had to shell out about $6.50. Sorry I didn't know about that ahead of time. I went to the Rio the night before to buy lammers. They wouldn't let me buy them! I finally decided to just bring regular $500 Rio chips instead. Richard White was the TD again. Donna Harris helped set up the tournament. Again we used Patrick Milligan Tournament Timer. Thanks to Patti Beadles for bringing her laptop and getting it all set up. It was nice to be back on a Satuday for the first time in 3 years.. We managed a respectable 26 players at post time. The tables: Bob Blaeser Keith Bronson Ray Klann Adam Bachrach Mark Rafn Peter Secor Peter Caldes Rod Chavez George Wattman Rob Perelman Ken Kubey Guy Berentsen Patti Beadles Charles Haynes Sabyl Cohen Ross Poppel Stephen Landrum Corey Imsdahl Roger Park Dan Sammartino ----------- Paul Martino Jerry Gerner Russ Fox Paul Stine Chris Straghalis Bryan Martindale We had nine TARGET rookies in the field this year. Amazingly everyone showed up on time and cards were in the air very close to 12 noon. Rod Chavez put a wicked river beat on Charles with A7 vs. A6 with A-X-6-Y-7 out. All of the money went in on the turn. Chaz lost about 95% of his chips on the river and was looking for a spot to triple up. Charles an Jerry both went out on the same hand. Hands: Mark Rafn KK Jerry Gerner JJ Charles Haynes A9, I think. First time we've ever had two compete for "first player out" honors. Jerry got a bag of goldfish crackers an a roll of Lifesavers. Charles got a $10 Mirage coin and a Wisconsin Lottery scratcher ticket from Grizz. It was a Poker scratcher with hold'em hands! I lost a big hand with AK vs. Dan's QQ and went out with AJ vs. Mark's 99. Have to work on my coin flipping powers for BARGE. I have this hand in my notes: Bob Blaeser K7 Keith Bronson 99 Flop K-K-X Turn some high card giving Keith a gutshot draw. River 9! This site is *so* rigged. I think that was the hand that sent Bob out in 11th. Anyway, the final table was set: Dan Sammartino 1800 Ross Poppel 2900 Paul Martino 7900 Keith Bronson 4400 Sabyl Cohen 4400 Bryan Martindale 3500 Mark Rafn 13900 Guy Berentsen 4100 Peter Secor 3400 Paul Stine 5800 Dan and Peter also made the final table last year. 1st, 2nd and 3rd get 3 $500 chips (should have been lammers) 4th gets a handshake. We had an extra $20 in the pool. We voted to add it to the dealer toke pool. Dan was the first one out raising all-in with AK for 1200. He got two calls. Peter's 42 in the 600 BB turned trip 2's to knock Dan out. At this point, we start the Paul Martino highlight reel... Paul (a.k.a. Patti's boss) found Bill Chen's horseshoe and put it to good use. Keith took Paul on with 66 vs. Ad9d. The flop came ace-high with two diamonds. Can you say "nice flop" for Paul? The turn made Paul's flush to seal Keith's fate. Just to add insult, a 9 popped up on the river. 9th for Keith. 8th place belonged to Peter Secor. No one could blame Peter for getting all-in with AQ on a flop of A-9-X. Little did he know that Paul had flopped a set of 9's. Another "action flop." This site is *so* rigged. Sabyl raised all-in with TT. Paul was probably having trouble finding his cards with all those chips in his way. On this hand he found KQ. The flop was all Paul again... K-Q-9. Sabyl said "I guess I need a jack" Turn JACK! Crowd "Ohhhhhhhhh!" River QUEEN! Crowd "OHHHHHHHHH!" Suck-resuck-resuck. Sabyl goes straight to the rail in 7th. Paul get more chips and a snow globe from Sabyl for his house. This site is *so* fricken' rigged. Ross thought he would take a shot with 22. Paul woke up with AK. Well, it's another coin flip, maybe this time... Flop A-A-5. No miracles for Ross. 6th place it is. At this point we started 5-handed play. Chips stacks were something like: Paul Stine, Guy, Mark and Bryan: 4000 each. Paul Martino eleven-teen billion. For the next hour, these five played some terrific poker. The short stacks had a lot to think about. Paul Martino had enough chips to call 3 or 4 all-ins without losing the chip lead. Mr. Martino slowed way down as well. When he did put in a raise, the others ran for the hills. In my notes, I have exactly *one* hand where a short stack sucked out to survive. Mark jammed with QTs. Paul Stine thought for a while and called with A7s. Flop Was about 8-6-4 keeping Mr. Stine in the lead. A 10 on the turn turned the tables and kept Mark in the game. About a year later, Guy (Grizz) went all-in with KQ. Paul Martino picked up 33 in the BB and made a reasonable monster stack call. The board came out with all low cards to knock Grizz out in 5th. With 4 left, Martino was still comfortably in first. Mark and Bryan looked to be battling for 3rd and 4th place with Paul Stine holding a small chip lead over the short stacks. Then Paul Stine went completely card dead. About 20 minutes later, Mr. Stine was close to the felt and finally found a hand to play, jamming with AQ. But by this time, the blinds were at 800-1600 and Bryan and Mark could call with just about anything in an attempt to knock Paul S. out. The flop and turn were checked around. A second 10 appeared on the river and Mark appeared to like that card as he actually made a bet. Bryan quickly folded. Of course Mark had made trip 10's to take down Paul's AQ. I have to say that I felt really bad for both Grizz and Paul Stine. They both played terrific poker and have nothing to be ashamed of. Congratulations to Paul Martino, Mark Rafn, and Bryan Martindale! All TARGET rookies! They each received $1500 in Rio chips. I think all three played in the $1500 limit event the following day. Bryan last 3.5 hours. Paul lasted 4.5 hours. I haven't gotten a report from Mark yet. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Craps run. I walked up behind Ray Klann. He was in a $6-$12 game and had just bet he river. Next player folded. Now a player check-raised. Looked to me like a runner-runner flush. Ray popped him back. Other guy (Oh, it's Rod Chavez) makes it 4 bets. Board is Ts-5x-5y-Ks-6s. Ray calls. Rod has Presto! Quads! Ray has TT for top full on the flop! Wow! A bunch of us went over to the Gold Coast to play craps. Paul Stine gave me a ride over. Fich gave me a ride back. Thanks guys. Paul S., Patti, Chris (Fich, better watch out for this Chris guy) Fich, Russ, Corey, Adam, Peter, Ray and me. Dan? I hope I didn't leave anyone out. I think we could have put another player into the WSOP with the money we all lost playing craps. Only a great late roll by Ray got me back only down $60. Well, I really lost $65 playing craps. I beat Patti out of $5 with my rock crushing her scissors. Good ol' rock. Nothing beats rock. Patti beat Fich out of $5 and did a victory lap around the table. She also tipped away at least $10 when craps dealers beat her at roshambo 2 times out of 3. T.J. Cloutier made an appearance at the next craps table over. We saw him last year too. Does this guy follow us around? Ray shot from the dark side a couple of times. I tried to remind him of what happened to Aniken Skywalker, but he just wouldn't listen. We played a little Pai-Gow (double-hand) poker after that. I think I may have skipped out without paying a 50 cent commission. Maybe someone paid it for me. Thanks if someone did. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Oh well. There's always next year. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thanks to everyone who played in TARGET and a big Thanks to all of the folks that sent checks in early. That really helps me a lot. I want to single out Charles. His check arrived a couple days before any others. If his check hadn't arrived, I would have been climbing the walls worried that the mailroom guys had lost them all. I'll have to check records, but I think Chaz has moved into 2nd place in TARGET appearances too. I'll be sending out a survey soon. I hope everyone had a good time during the TARGET weekend. TARGET will be held again sometime around the WSOP next year. Ken Kubey kubey@engr.sgi.com (650) 933-3536 _______________________________________________ Target mailing list Target@conjelco.com http://mail.conjelco.com/mailman/listinfo/target