TRIP REPORT: BARGE XI
David R Huberman
BARGE XI
This year was my first BARGE, and only my second
ARGE event, ESCARGOT 2001: At the Bike being my
first experience with you goofballs.
Not understanding that much of the fun happens
before Thursday's opening History of Poker
tournament, I made plane reservations to arrive
Thursday morning. Ed Pizzarello and I enjoyed
an easy flight on United to Denver and then on
to Las Vegas, arriving at 10:15am. We caught
a taxi to the Hampton Inn on Industrial Blvd
where we were staying for free during BARGE
thanks to Hilton HHonors points. After
checking in and dropping our bags in our room,
we encounted bad beat one: it was impossible
to get a taxi from our hotel. Yikes.
We got a ride down to Binions from the hotel
shuttle, and I got to experience downtown LV
for the first time in my life. Binions was
about what I expected: dark, gloomy, smelly,
ugly, and chock full of BARGERS when I
arrived.
Shortly, I sat down at my table to begin my
first-ever table experience playing a-5 lowball
and 5-card draw. I don't remember everyone at
the table, but I sat across from Peter Caldes,
who told me all about the quads he played in
lowball once, next to Phil Gusftafson, near
Paul Berkowitz, and across the table from
Paul Stine and Jeff Shulman.
I don't remember any specific hands except that
I realized I was playing a lot of pre-draw hands.
Only Shulman was playing more hands, including
once where he capped it before the draw in lowball
then drew 3 and amazingly won the hand vs. two
or three opponents with an 8-5 low I believe.
Two hours into the tournament, not a single person
had busted out. I don't remember who beat me out,
but I was the 2nd BARGEr to bust out of the tourney,
hardly a surprise given my complete cluelessness
as to what I was doing :>
Ed and I spent the rest of the day exploring Las
Vegas. There were so many things to see since
we had last visited in the summer of 1996. We
played poker at Bellagio for the first time. Ed
sat in a juicy 4-8 HE game while I played in an
even juicier 8-16 HE game. I didn't get much
in the way of cards and lost $47 over four+ hours.
Most of my premium hands were snapped off on
the turn or river by K-2 or 9-6 catching a second
pair to my unimproved top pair. ::shrug:: I played
very well, I thought, and managed to lose very little
despite only winning 2 or 3 pots the whole four+
hours.
Later that night I returned to Binions for the
ADB Craps Crawl hosted by Peter Secor. Only about 60
or 70 of us wound up adventuring along Fremont St,
starting at the El Cortez (?), as dingy a gambling
pit as my sheltered eyes had ever seen. We had a great
time whooping it up, with the darksiders taking
a bath on one table, but enjoying steady success on
the other table. The look on the dealers' faces when
we walked in and started buying-in and placing bets
was priceless. Patrick Milligan and I joked that the
Security cage must have received a rude awakening
from their summer evening naps and were probably
glued to the monitors having not seen this much
action since, well, last year's craps crawl.
I won about $30 before we headed off to Fitzgeralds,
whereupon I remarked to Steve BIA Nissman that it
felt odd being a Yid in a Mick's casino :>
We finished the night (or at least I did) in a drunken
frenzy at Binions where the tips flowed freely to
the dealers, and the darksiders took a bath courtesy
of, well, me. I rolled against myself for, gulp, 25
or so minutes. Needless to say, about 20 minutes into
it I decided that since I was hot, I would bet the
rightside and try and make back the $200 or so I had
already lost on myself. No sooner had I spread myself
out and bought up some numbers than I sevened out for
a net loss of over $300. For some reason, this part
of the story was a source of amusement for Nissman
and the others. I didn't find it quite as entertaining.
I returned to my hotel room at 2:00am-ish, approximately
25 hours after I had woken up that morning in Virginia
to catch my early-morning flight.
Day Two brought the 10am TOC-style tourney. It started
off for me in grand fashion as I was seated at one
end of the table with Steve Carbonara, Lee Daniel
Crock (who is one of the most gracious poker players
I know), and Tonda Hall, Abdul's wife, who entertained
us with stories and solid poker play (despite getting
ZERO cards the whole time) while we sat together for
two or three hours.
I played solid, mistake-free HE, Stud, and Omaha/8
for about 6 hours before I ran into my first big
mistake. Earlier, I had more than doubled through
in a 600-1200 round against someone when I played
A-Q in a three-bet pre-flop pot. I flopped a gutshot,
and decided to call the "cheap" round just in case
my ace or the miracle ten got there on the turn,
especially with such a relatively large pot to
start with. I hit my miracle card on the turn, and
put as much money into the pot as I possibly could.
My broadway was g00t at the end, and before I knew
it, I had won a T11000+ pot. I sat tightly for about
an hour or so, and soon found myself in a stud
round.
My chip stack was dwindling, and the antes were
definitely worth stealing. I tried to do so
in middle-ish position relative to the bring-in
with non-threatening cards waiting to act behind
me. Unfortunately, I bet right into Chuck Weinstock's
rolled-up 9s, and he played me like a fiddle!
I lost about 60% of my stack to Chuck that hand
and started steaming inside. Luckily, it didn't
seem to affect my hand selection too badly as I
remained tight the remainder of the tourney. I
picked up some chips here and there, and before
you know it, Joan Hadley and I had survived the
bubble and were at the final two tables.
Ploink and I busted out on the same hand when I
went all-in for T6500 with JJ, he had one chip
left in the small-blind, and the big blind called
the remaining T2500 without looking at his cards.
He had Q-9, turned a Q, I didnt catch a J at the
river, and I busted out in 16th place for a $70
win.
After collecting my money, Ed and I went and ate
up on the strip and I took a nap to prepare for
that evening's C-HORSE tourney!
I played on Team Presto! with Michael Patteron
(Omaha/8), Bob Herlein (master of HE), Michael
Hunter (CP and WRGPT champion!), Ron Galicia
(stud), and my buddy Ed (Razz).
I only played in two pots in my Stud/8 rounds
past fourth street, scooping one and halving
the other when Bob Ogus refused to lay down
a pair of kings against my 4-5-6-7 board which
I was betting most of the way.
We didn't get much in the way of cards in this
ring-game-styled tournament and wound up losing
about $32 each - but it was fun and well worth
it!
Paul Phillips' Team 3%ers won a lot of money
that night with Bwana scooping Stud/8 pots
and Paul winning big CP pots, including one
heads-up against PacPalBuzz where Paul
flopped trip 7s and Buzz threw away a pair
of 8s (he had 8-8-9 and kept the 8-9 on
a 9-7-7 board) right before the 8 hit the
turn. Ouch.
It was after 2 when the tournament finished,
and Ed and I went back to the hotel to try
and catch something in the way of sleep before
the next morning's 10am NLHE feature event.
All the morning table lineups looked difficult.
There were simply too many great names playing
in this 21-table 10-handed tourney. I sat
down with Randy Collack, Ploink, and THREE
tiltboys (Perry Friedman, Steve Brecher, and
Lennie) along with Warren Sander and others
whose names I didn't get.
On the THIRD hand of the tournament, just after
Perry proclaimed how much of a shame it would
be if he busted out before he finished his french
fries in front of him, Lennie raised his small blind,
Perry went all-in, Lonnie called, and we had our
first KK vs. AA battle, with Lennie (AA) winning the
hand. Perry, being a tiltboy and all, took the loss
well and got up to a round of applause. When Bob
Dunning, the tournament director, announced
who had busted out and how, the whole room erupted
in applause and laughter.
Next to us about an hour into the tourney, Phil
Hellmuth loudly proclaimed, "All-in!" and was
called my Ming. Ming had A-K to Phil's JJ,
but the board brought Ming no help, and Phil's
jacks were g00t.
A few hands later, after I got moved, I found
myself with JJ in the small blind. Everyone
folded, I think I went all-in or something,
and the big blind called with, yup!, AK.
AK vs JJ all in the blinds. Wow. I caught
a jack on the flop, the AK caught a gutshot
draw, but didnt complete it and I busted out
someone I never met and doubled-through.
It was gone shortly after, though :< I caught
55 immediately after someone scremed, "Presto
g00t!" on another table, and made it T1000
to go hoping no one else would call such a
large raise. Shelley Louie called, and we saw
a flop of 5-x-10. Woo hoo! I immediately went
all-in, but unforunately, Shelley called. Turns
out I should have tabled my cards when going
all-in before he called - he had outs of course,
but he hit the one out he probably never considered:
RUNNING TENS! Oy! 5-x-10-10-10 was the board,
and I went from suck to being hugely re-sucked,
and boom, I was out of the tourney.
I said goodbye to my friends and wished everyone
luck, and caught an early flight home with Ed.
We got to the United ticket counter at the
airport to find the computer thought our return
tickets had been used. Yeah, right. It took them
more than an hour to fix the computer by which
time they were already boarding our flight. We
ran through McCarran, bowling over little kids
and trampling homeless people, cutting our way
through the security line (to the shouts of,
"assholes!" by the pissed off crowd), ran through
Terminal 4, and just barely made our flight to
LAX which got us in to Terminal 8 just as our flight
in terminal 7 was boarding. We ran through the
walkway, caught our plane, and took an easy,
uneventful flight back home to Dulles.
Shout outs to:
Gerry Peterson for placing 10th in NLHE!
Russ! You da Man!!! I am so happy that
Russ won the NLHE tourney! He's a class
act who has been very nice to me since
meeting me in Feb at ESCARGOT. He's
an excellent poker player, and as
Harkness recalled here earlier, Ploink
uttered that Russ cold-calling two bets
is scarier than someone else re-raising :>
Buzz! Congratulations on the TOC win!
Buzz is one of the people I come to ARGE
events to see and talk with. A gentleman
of the finest caliber and one aggressive
poker player!
Nissman, one of my stable of bitches!
Stevie Carb and Mike McManus - nice to meet
you guys, finally!
Michael Patterson and the Team Presto! gang -
maybe next year we'll get cards! :>
Joan, my Yenta! Love ya babe! Thanks for the
groovy spinner!
Razzo - you're as nice as your website.
Chuck and KidZee - thanks for a great tourney
Bob Dunning and the Binion's Tourney Staff -
great job guys!
I'm planning on attending MARGE in November and possibly
FARGO if my travel schedule is open that weekend. See
many of you there!
/david