Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2014 15:32:01 -0500
From: Chris Mecklin
Subject: Re: [Target] 2014 TARGET Report

Ken: Thanks for organizing TARGET.  Enjoyed it as a "TARGET virgin" and it
was a nice way to break up my long tournament grinding trip.  If I come out
next year, would love to play again!

My TARGET Report:
I checked into Mirage the day before as essentially a "vacation" day.  Get
upgraded from two queens w/o strip view to king w/strip view.  The strip
view is pretty cool to have, especially for someone who traditionally stays
econo most of the time.  I'm only doing this one night mid-week on the
strip.

Today's basically a vacation day so I hung out by the pool for a couple of
hours.  The "large" beer at the pool bar was just massive--it was like the
Big Gulp of beer and must have been close to 3 pints.

Lunch Report: Maintenance meal at the Chipotle across from the Mirage
between Harrah's and the Casino Royale.  Standard.  Didn't even both to
look it up on Yelp or TripAdvisor ;-)

Went to the Mirage poker room and sat in a $1/$2 NL game.  There was this
drunken twit from Alabama that kept saying "Roll Tide" who was just a
horrid player at the table.  Not to be stereotypical, but Kentucky
basketball fanatics and Alabama football fanatics are neck-in-neck for the
most annoying people on the planet.  Living in the South, I get to play
with them a lot.  I bluffed him off a small pot, then he spewed the rest of
his money to others.  He really hated the tatted up young grinder next to
me, which was weird because this guy was actually cool and friendly unlike
most of the lower-tier pro/pro wannabes I've encountered in Vegas.

Here's an interesting hand that I wasn't involved in.  Young well-dressed
black guy in seat #10 straddles.  Old man in seat #1 calls, I fold from
seat #2, a couple of other callers including Scandinavian guy in seat #8.
 Black guy uses his straddle option to raise to $50.  Old man in seat #1
goes all-in for about $300, and the dealer puts out an all-in button rather
than having the guy move his chips in.  Folds to Scandi, who goes all-in as
well, then freaks out "I didn't realize Seat #1 was all-in, I was just
back-raising the straddle".  Straddle tanks and finally folds.  Old man has
Aces (of course) and Scandi has 33.  Black guy says he laid down Kings.
 Flop is AAx, so old man ends up not just winning the pot, but also a high
hand bonus.  Scandi was going broke anyways because I'm sure black guy
would have snap-called if the old man hadn't been in the pot.

I end up winning $120 in the game and then go to the pre-TARGET dinner at
the Brazilian steakhouse in Mirage.  Ends up being me, John Moser, Kevin
Un, Kenny Shei, and Jeff Siegel.  Ate lots and lots of meat (decent, not
spectacular and probably not the best BSH in Vegas) and good conversation,
fueled mostly by Un.

Just end up going back to the room and crashing afterwards.

Woke up in the Mirage.  Went to express checkout and found out that they
were trying to charge my room for a scooter rental.  Uh, no.  The pool bar
tab was mine, but I wasn't drinking and scooting.  So I ended up standing
in the front desk line for ages, but got that straightened out.

Went down for the pre-TARGET brunch in the Mirage buffet and ran into Kyle.
 Ended up playing some blackjack machine with Kyle and a computer dealer.
 I've seen the ones with the computer generated hot chick dealer, but this
one had some creepy disembodied hands instead, that ended up taking $20
from me.

Had brunch with a couple of dozen BARGErs, then played the TARGET
satellite.  My starting table was Ross Poppel, Russ Fox, Rick Momborquette,
me, Kyle Minnis, Scott Byron, Arthur Goltz, and Kevan Garrett.  As it's a
sattie, we start with just 2000 in chips that I quickly turned into 625.  I
did knock out Ross Poppel, who had exactly 625 as well, when my AK held on
his AQ.  Ended up busting 18th or so of 24, shoved a short stack with A3
and John Moser's AQ held.

I was the one using my smartphone for tracking Dan at the final table in
the $1500 pot-limit bingla^H^H^H holdem event. I liked announcing "Someone
not named Goldman is out" but unfortunately Dan did get sucked out on
before I could go to the Rio for a final table sweat.

The four seats ended up being won by Ming Lee, Joe Long, Linda Lewis, and
Paul Stine.   Kenny Shei was the bubble.  I think the number of non-seniors
qualifying TARGET players could have been counted on one hand, especially
with Bree Goldman not coming in order to sweat her dad at his final table.

Skipped the Carnegie Deli as between the previous night's meat consumption
and the morning's buffet consumption, another meal was not needed.

Went to the condo that I'm staying at for a few days, then went downtown.
 There is supposed to be a mixed game on Wednesday & Thursdays at Binion's,
but it wasn't going.  I did briefly play $10/$20 Triple Stud with some
crusty old bastards who really weren't as good at stud games as you might
think.  Hilariously, redhead Stephanie (who is always so friendly to us
BARGErs), didn't waste any of her charm on these guys.  The guy broke
because it was starting to get shorthanded or Matlock was on or something.

Lost $20 in the Triple Stud game, then played some $1/$2 cash at the Golden
Nugget.  That room is really dark and cramped and I didn't really like it,
lost $40, then called it a night.