Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2003 05:42:40 +0000 (GMT) From: Joshua Paley To: barge@barge.org Subject: Re: [BARGE] Roshambo World Championship I ran into Peter Secor tonight, and he asked that I do a writeup on BARGE. So, here you go. It's in stream-of-consciousness format. Five to ten years sooner than a typical Bruce Hayek trip report, here's mine. Never, EVER delegate a trip report to Bruce. Nice guy, though. I got in somewhat late on Thursday and joined a group consisting of Mike Maurer, Connie Kellers, Chuck Weinstock, Peter Caldes, Stephen Landrum, and Perry Friedman for dinner at Zax. Obviously, seafood was connoted, so I ordered prawns. It was an interesting group. I took the opportunity to look deep into each of their souls. I have learned from watching Phil Hellmuth on TV that looking deep into other people's souls is a good poker tactic. After dinner, Perry introduced me to The Slot Machine. Ten Handed Double Bonus Video Poker. Nickels. God himself could not have created a more perfect slot machine. Making 50 bets per round is the only way to fly. I had very nice success with The Slot Machine except when Connie Kellers and Michael Maurer came by with their Optimal Play for The Slot Machine card. I thought that Binion's did an excellent job with things this year, but I still find that the smoke there wears me down. I realize that it probably isn't as profitable to appease Josh Paley as it is to appease chain-smoking slots players, but I couldn't handle more than 30 minutes of poker in the main cardroom. One of the nice things about living in California is the lack of smoke. While I do appreciate Binion's making the tournaments non-smoking, the smoke is pervasive elsewhere in the casino, including hotel floors. So, I stayed at the Nugget with Perry. The Nugget has pretty good 1980s music between midnight and 4am in the casino, and the North Tower is very convenient. (Nolan, I don't know what, if anything, you can do about the smoking at Binion's, but I find it a damn shame. Binion's has all the rich history that lends itself to great storytelling, but I cannot get around the basic fact that it is punishing to inhale there. It's frustrating.) We were watching some WSOP highlights when Perry pointed out that Scotty Nguyen looked a lot like Smeagol in the Lord of the Rings movies. Perry thought that it would be cool to put the championship bracelet on the table in front of Scotty so he could make a big move and screech, "THE PRECIOUSSSS! MUST HAVE THE PRECIOUSSSSSSSS!" On Friday, Patti Beadles beat the snot out of me in the TOC, using powerhouse hands such as 73s and 74o to crush me in the limit HE piece. Oh well. I went off and played a fair amount of blackjack and The Slot Machine to work on meal comps. A digression (one of many): I like meal comps. Now that I teach high school, anything that looks like a free meal is good, even if it isn't really free. In looking over Russell Fox's account of things, I think it needs to be said that when people get good cards, they are going to look a lot more impressive than if they get crap. I thought I played well, but that was aided significantly by the fact that I had a monstrous chip stack due to monstrous cards. My QQ lost to Barry Tanenbaum's KK, and I still had a huge chip lead. It's nice to be able to pressure blinds, but it cannot be done as well without chip count. I thank Russell for the compliment, but most people would have done quite well with my cards. At the first break, I am guessing that I was probably chip leader (or very close) about T$7600. With two exceptions, every all-in confrontation went my way. I busted Lou Krieger by calling his raise pre-flop with a crappy hand, checking in the dark while flopping two pair, and raising him on the turn when he got an ace to pair up. Again, chip count matters. With a low chip count, I could not call his raise. Also, I made sure to look into Lou's soul. (Lou told me later that he once did political work, so you can imagine what I saw.) Then the cards ran dry, and it was interesting to see just how dramatic an effect that was. With the blind structure as it was, I went from first to just above average stack while Keith Fichtemaier took a sizeable lead. Keith played extremely well; it was my judgment that of all the folks who started at Table 30, he probably did the best job. He pointed out to me that I had "shot my wad early". I looked deep into his soul. I have heard quite a few complaints about the pacing of the blinds. My own view is that while I might prefer a slower pace, to do that would probably require the main event to run for two days. Starting earlier by a couple of hours would ruin the big idea of staying up until 4am (at least) the night before. The noon start is good. I personally would prefer the noon start and fast blinds to an earlier start if it has to be a one-day event. When the NLHE tournament started, it dawned on me that getting really good cards and beating people incessantly with them would be a good plan of action. I executed this plan quite well, I thought, providing me with a lot of chances to steal blinds and make cheap calls to try and put the hurt on people. One of the more interesting hands came when Ken Kubey and his soul raised a T$300 blind and made it T$900 to go. I had about T$6000 and Ken had maybe another T$1500 in front of him. I held AKo, and I was assessing how to deal with this. One option was to pop my ass all-in, but the big blind had just joined our table with a comparable chip stack, and I was trying to see if he was giving away any information. I decided that Ken did not have AA or KK and made it T$3000. Ken thought for a long time and then folded after I looked deep into his soul. If this were not a tournament setting where there were no rebuys, I think Ken calls trivially with his JJ. Given that he could be eliminated then and there, it isn't as obvious to me how he should play the hand. If he puts me on AA, KK, or QQ, then he's a sufficient dog that he should fold. His best hope is that I had what I did, but while that would give him pot odds and make him the favorite, he'll still be knocked out about 4 in 9 times. If he didn't know which Type 1 hand I held, lumping the probabilities together makes the decision slippery. All of this assumes that I had a top-flight hand, but Ken did get that right. With about 30 players to go, my stack was whittled down something fierce. I was dealt Q9s in a late position, and I popped my ass all-in. Tom McEvoy called me with a small pocket pair, and, after I looked deep into Tom's soul, I channeled the Diceboy who flopped me top pair. The very next hand, the man on my right raised a significant amount. I looked at my hand and found pocket 10s. I had seen him make significant raises without huge hands before, so I decided to look into his soul. I popped my ass all-in. He called (it was a small raise), and turned over pocket 9s. I went from last to first in chip stack at my table in two hands. Again, this demonstrates the volatility of the game and the fine line between looking good and getting shown the door. Those two hands essentially assured my being in the money. When we got down to two tables one of the earlier hands had me in the small blind and Barry Tanenbaum in the big blind. The hand was folded around to me, and I found Q7o. I decided to look deep into Barry's soul. I popped his ass all-in. Barry had Presto, and he thought about it for a long time. The issue for him wasn't whether he was ahead--he decided his hand was definitely better. The issue was whether it was worth risking his tournament on the hand, given that I probably had two overcards. Barry decided that to be effective, he needed to do something to augment his chip stack, so he called. I sucked out a Q on the flop, so it didn't work out for Barry. Then came the break. As I mentioned to Peter Secor yesterday, I was in no mood for a break. I enjoyed it, I suppose, and I found Howard Lederer's talk interesting, but my focus was really on the game. I was of the opinion that I had as good a chance as anyone to win, and I was much more interested in concluding business or getting rest than I was in schmoozing. At the final table, I took one hand with 99 (unshown). It was the only hand I played until my last, where I went all-in with AKo to give Paul Person practice for what he would later do to Patti Beadles. Paul's Q9s produced a runner-runner-runner flush. I should note that Paul's call was absolutely correct--he was roughly a 3-2 dog and getting plenty of value. I enjoyed watching Patti and Paul pound on each other, but eventually I wore out and left. I thought the packets of $1 bills, brought to the table by security was a classique maneuver. I thought that Jan did a very fine job of running the tournament. I was, frankly, impressed by everything that the people at Binion's did to make the experience great. I just wish I could handle the smoke. Last, as regards the Roshambo World Championships, hats off to Andy Bloch for taking down the big bucks. I'll be writing a book on how to look deep into Jesus's soul sometime this year*, and I am sure it will sell like hotcakes amongst the serious professionals out there. Until next year, Josh *Or not. ________ Thanks to PokerStars, Paradise Poker, and Quiotix Technologies for their generous sponsorship of BARGE 2003.