Phil Hellmuth's BARGE trip report - Short
Phil Hellmuth
Horseshoe Limo to the Bellagio, where I planned to stay for a couple of
nights with my wife who was flying in later that night from Florida.
When I hopped into the Limo, I decided to call Benny Binion Behnan to
see what he was up to. Before I hung up the phone, Benny had offered me
one of the 23rd floor suites at the Horseshoe for free!! That was a
good way to start the trip! When I arrived at the Horseshoe, my biggest
concern was whether or not Chuck Weinstock had been able to secure an
overhead projector for my power point presentation (PPP). Right away I
found Chuck in the tournament, in fact, he was one of the chip leaders!
Chuck told me that everything was all right as far as the projector was
concerned, but that I would need to give my floppy disc to someone who
had brought their laptop. I gave my floppy disc to Perry Friedman, and
what a mistake that turned out to be! When I gave my speech to BARGE,
Perry had added a slide of his own to my presentation!! It made for a
lot of good fun and laughs, as it related to me playing in the Tiltboys
home game (in my own hometown of Palo Alto) once and setting the record
loss ($2700), but that in another story for another time!
Speaking of Perry, I ran into him at the San Jose airport on the way to
BARGE, and played him and his friend Chinese poker on the airplane ride
down, and beat him out of $300! However, he did exact a measure of
revenge when he beat me in the rock scissors paper World Championships
held at BARGE.
The calcutta was absolutely wonderful, everyone was having so much fun
there! Spontaneous poker 'Freezeouts' broke out on the floor! Imagine,
no limit holdem on the floor with Paul Phillips (aptly nicknamed Dot
Com)! The people at BARGE just had so much enthusiasm for poker! They
clearly love poker, and that warms my heart.
The no limit holdem 'main event' was great as well. A consortium of
players put a $400 bounty on my no limit holdem head! So that when I
moved all-in with Qh-Kh, for $2000, the $300 big blind called me with
Q-10 off suit figuring that he needed help, but he would pick up 5th
place money in the tourney if he won the pot! Who could blame him? It
came 6h-9c-10h, giving me a straight and a flush draw, but giving him
the eventual winner, a pair of tens.
My wife and went shopping and then took a two hour nap knowing that I
had to speak at about 9:00 PM. I felt like the speech went pretty well,
and I learned not to read off the slides next time I give a PPP! The
group seemed to really get into my no limit holdem stories, and then of
course, the 'Perry slide' gave me a chance to talk about setting
records, although in the wrong direction this time!
The Chowaha game was a blast as well! They told me that the first hand
was always capped, and somehow my 'set of eights' held up to win the
first pot. Again the enthusiasm was fantastic! On Sunday, my wife and
I spent most of the day in bed, and then went out to dinner (Pierros)
and a show with Benny and his girl friend. Benny insisted on buying
everything, even the $900 bottle of Chateu D Quiem...It was really
awesome! When you ante as much as I do in one hand of poker, you might
as well enjoy the finer things in life sometimes...
Late Sunday night, I played some pot limit holdem with Mike Laing and
the "Math genius" Bill Chen, and I lost $500 and everyone quit! Bill
picked up pocket aces and busted both Mike and I at the same time (and
then he quit us!)! Nice job Bill! At least Bill tipped our Limo driver
on the way out of town! The raw 'poker enthusiasm' that was surrounding
BARGE really fired me up! Long live BARGE,
-Cheers, Phil Hellmuth Jr.
Jim Geary
> had brought their laptop. I gave my floppy disc to Perry Friedman, and
Phil, phil, phil. I don't think this is going to enhance your people
reading reputation any.... :)
Jim Geary
jimgeary.com - something to bore everyone
Emuchiefs
>see what he was up to. Before I hung up the phone, Benny had offered me
>one of the 23rd floor suites at the Horseshoe for free!!
Phil,
Interesting report, but for a free suite can you spell the last name correctly?
B-E-H-N-E-N
Pauljreed2
>Interesting report, but for a free suite can you spell the last name
>correctly?
==============
Geez, what a nit.
Haven't seen any interesting posts from you, nit.
----
Paul
"Never attribute to malice what is
adequately explained by stupidity"
RMITCHCOLL
>BARGE really fired me up! Long live BARGE,
>
>-Cheers, Phil Hellmuth Jr.
>
Phil, The speech and discussion session was great. Thanks for joining us. Last
year I learned many new concepts from Chris Ferguson and This year your Limit
Tourney advice opened my eyes as well.
Thanks again and it was a pleasure sharing the Chowaha table with you.
Randy Collack
KevinU...@earthlink.net
It was indeed a pleasure meeting you and your wife at BARGE. I thought
your lecture was tremendous, and I thank you for taking the time to
answer some of my direct questions afterward.
You knew you were a target in the No Limit event, and you were a good
sport about it. That showed a lot of class.
Thanks for taking the time to come, and welcome aboard!
-Kevin Un
Emuchiefs
Steve "Ice" Eisenstein
complain about my wife.
Michael Shuster
really liked your talk and it was quite cool of you to offer to share your
limo to the airport. I barely made my flight and might not have made it had
I had to catch a cab. I think it's cool you hung out with us and played
Roshambo and Chowaha in addition to the pot limit, and I wish you luck in
the upcoming Legends of Poker.
Bill Chen
MSA1213
>On Sunday, my wife and
>I spent most of the day in bed,
You can stick to poker instead of personal stuff in future reports.
Or maybe Razzo can do a video:
"Phil Hellmuth does Binion's" :)
marc
chill
fascinating champion. But he'd do well for himself to stop adding comments
like:
"Before I hung up the phone, Benny had offered me
one of the 23rd floor suites at the Horseshoe for free!! "
"Benny insisted on buying
everything, even the $900 bottle of Chateu D Quiem"
Remember - people prefer modesty. Let others say how great you are.
Regards - and still a fan.
"MSA1213" <msa...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20010809160555...@ng-fi1.aol.com...
HotChineseF
both unexpected and mildly disappointing, kind of like attending a Britney
Spears concert where she doesn't expose her navel.
JohnnyD
his makeup. That ego and competitiveness is probably what helps him win.
But for thoses who did think badly of him, if you attended this year's
BARGE, you probably have a whole new view of him. He was delightfull, fun
and acted just like "one of the guys".
JohnnyD
"chill" <chil...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3b74...@news-uk.onetel.net.uk...
SigAlEp18
It's really for real??
Mark Harman
Russell Fox
try hard **not** to have a good time at Barge); we enjoyed having him and
learned a bit from his talk. I hope he comes next year!
-- Russ Fox
"SigAlEp18" <siga...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20010810211611...@mb-fe.aol.com...
John Harkness
It's from Phil's email address, and he certainly seemed enthusiastic
about BARGE -- he entered a team in the CHORSE tournament, took the
$400 bounty on him in the No Limit tournament with good humour, gave a
terrific talk at the banquet, and then played in live BARGE games
afterwards.
John Harkness
lonestar...@pangeatech.com
Thank you for a great speech at the banquet and for generally being an
overall classy guy and poker player!
BARGE has always been a great event for us, the computer nerds, of the
poker world (notice I included myself in the nerd comment, not
intended to be used or taken offensively). This year, in addition to
our usual participants, we had the pleasure of welcoming Phil
Hellmuth, again welcoming Melissa Hayden (one of the best female
tournament players around), welcoming Roy Cooke for the first time,
and seeing David Sklansky around in the room during our events.
Many thanks to the participating bargers and to the big name poker
celebs that came out to participate!
Regards-
Marc88
pleasantries that come from being among the best in the world at an activity
that so many of us are addicted to. I also want to know the personal stuff
too. Many of us would love to have our talents recognized and be given the
red carpet treatment. Few of us are good enough, so let's get a vicarious
thrill from Phil's report and move on.
In Sweden, it's not polite to brag, but we're not in Sweden....
-Marc
"chill" <chil...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3b74...@news-uk.onetel.net.uk...
Chuck
> Modesty, schmodesty. Let it all hang out. I want to know the perks and
> pleasantries that come from being among the best in the world at an activity
> that so many of us are addicted to. I also want to know the personal stuff
I'm with him. Modesty schmodesty. Let it all hang out, Phil!
I want to hear all about your exploits, comps, limos, suites, Behnan,
Behnen, however the f you spell it is not important -- we get the
gist.
You're one of the few poker players who's life I WOULD like to hear
about.
We lurkers have to settle for vicarious stories like yours. RGP
Lurkers UNITE!
Cordero