From: LMB Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2014 13:19:57 -0700 Subject: [BARGE] Target '14 Trip Report. Part 1 (and my 1st one ever) In the beginning. Well it took me nearly 6 years from the time I joined the BARGE list to my first BARGE, so I guess its fitting it should have taken me nearly as many years of attending BARGE events before my first tripreport. More than just target. So as some of you may have heard this was not just my first target, it was also a fathers day and son's, aka chip's, 27th birthday celebration. Since he was working (a real job) he couldnt come up till friday eve. And of course like all 20 somethings, he couldnt come up by himself, but brought a bud. As they would have a vehicle, I was to find my own transport up. Calling craigslist. Ive been using CL for years for both nefarious and vanilla purposes, so I was confident I could find a rideshare up at a reasonable cost. And in addition to finding a reasonble cost, found a mellow dude that was renting a new 300 for the ride up. Charged me about what 1/2 the cost of gas for the ride. Score one for the +EV. Mr Fruchter. As some of you may remember - and those of you that do, you need to get a life - Dave fruchter was offering to share his room at the luxor. Now dave is a most interesting guy. I had enjoyed many of his list contributions and I understood that he was a staunch catholic.. ooops I mean atheist. My confusion stems from the fact he is as adamant about his non-beleif as the pope is about his infallibility. Maybe even more so. I had contacted dave and explained that Id dare take him up on his offer, but would it be possible for my son to also join us for the fri and sat nite if he came up alone. At teh time it was unclear whether he would ahve a buddy. Foolish fellow that he is, dave politely said 'thanks, but no thanks' and I did like wise. I checked hotels.com as well as kayak and found that I could rent a variety of xxx rated rooms for 30-40 bucks which fit nicel on my beer budget. However and as noted above, chip found a bud and they booked a room at the stratosphere. Ok.. ok.. so sometimes my son is not the sharpest blade in the knife draw. I recontacted dave and if after moment of his begging, I gave in and agreed to his 4 page oral agreement for sharing his room. Dave and I coord somewhat re: arrival. He hoped to arrive on wednesday late afternoon in time to make, IIRC, a venetian plo/8 trny which started at 700(?). I hoped to arrive around 5-6. As fate would have it, I arrived first. As dave had anticipated this possibility, he had notified the luxor that I was sharing the room so if I arrived first, I was to be given a key. Well done dave. I checked in and contacted dave. He was going directly to the venetian via a rental car. As fate would have it, his plane landed on time and he would get to the venetian when the trny was to start. As fate would further have it, the trny sold out sometime before he arrived. Score one for.. oops that's dave's scorecard. Let him speak for himself. As Im doing this w/o any notes and its nearly a month plus since target, Im a bit vague on what happened next. Somehow dave and I met up. We discussed dinner. Maybe even went for something. Maybe not. Anyway he either stayed at the venetian or hurried back to make more for his bankroll. We discussed he wsop and expecially the seniors. Dave expressed his near disdain for tournaments. Yes in some detail. He's a cash game man. That clear, he was going to play in a trny or two 'to break the monotomy' Un Now somewhere here or next day I met up with Un. Now I had gotten to know Un much better at EMBARGO. LIke Dave he is almost always in motion with more going on (mostly in his head) than he can keep bottled up. He also really like my gf, claudia, so we know he aint no dummy. (Or as was said in 'good morning vietman' he needs a *** more than any white man I know). Un is a successful chicago business man, actually entrepreneur, who, if you know him well, is looking for a 2d life as touring poker professional. Or as song writer. Or as a magician. Or ____________. You fill in the blank. Somehow somewhere and with someone I had dinner. It wasnt in the luxor food court. That I recall. Why you ask? Cause I didnt find it till sunday when I was about to leave. That meant I left the luxor a couple of times to find a mickey dees when one was right under my roof. Tirp Objectives. Target etc. An objective of this multi objective trip was to get to know some ARGErs much better. Target is smaller and 'holy cow' I had no peg in tow. I was certainly getting to know dave better. God only knows what he must think now that he knows me better. (But that is his trip report and Im been praying that the atheist isnt trip reporting). Was up bright and early on thursday looking fwd to target at 1100 and target bkfst buffet at 1000. Spoke with bell desk (or some such staff personnel) and had no doubt I could make the short 1 mile walk from the luxor to the mirage. Caution. The distance is short. As the crow flies and even the taxis can drive. However walking such miles on the north end of the strip is, as you will recall from HS geometry, is anything but a straight line. Walking distance was closer to 3 miles. And there was a mickey d's just across the street. One large iced sugar free vanilla ice coffee and I was well awake. Into the luxor poker room and voila... NOTHING. Not an ARGEr to be found. No QB. No lew, No Un.. Never an un at target. Whats up with that Un. In his defense I think he was heading team Un to a bubble bust. Called or text QB who said yes I was in the right place but that he was running a few minutes late. Slowly but surely others began to congregate in the poker room. Got to truly meet, Ming, Garret, and Lew. Had a good little righty lefty discussion with russ fox as well as a long time ARGEr (who hadnt been to a BARGE in over 5 yrs nad whos name, I apologize, Ive forgotten. ) It was really good to meet ming for the first tiime and get to talk with garret and lew tho I had met them briefly at BARGE or EMBARGO. Any others that I met at poker room whos names I have omitted, my sincere apologies. Its my leaky memory not your non memorabalality. At 1000 (or perhaps 900) we were still socializing in the poker room. QB was doing last minute prep for the tryn and assured us we had time. And he was right. Then it was off to the mirage buffet. Before long there were at least 20 of us and, speaking of long, that included my friend and too often list nemesis, joe long. As always joe was a delight. He's energetic, sincere, funny and often times thoughtful. Now if he would only see that the mega dollars in elections are raping our democracy, he might make it into heaven. Or whatever plane his ever believing in reincarnation mind he hopes to resurrect in. Patti, pink hair and all, also made the bkfst, but as is usual, we didnt get to converse beyond, perhaps, hello. IIRC also had a chance to speak with chris mecklin who, again IIRC was having a pretty good run at the early wsop and other tournaments. Food was good. That or I was hungry. No doubt I had 3 different breakfasts. I was ready to play poker. Teach these muffins who was boss. Back to the poker room. Something like 27 entries with bree goldman begging out. Seems she had some family member on the final table of a wsop event that she preferred to sweat rather than contribute her dead money. Geesh.. More about that family member in a bit. The tournament is a blurr. Sorry but somehow cant tell you a single player at my table. Maybe Ming. Played brilliantly. Brilliantly that is if you consider hands like 4-5 suited brilliant. One unplayable hand after another. Might have been card dead for the entire time. Trust me, Im not exaggerating. Anyway just before we broke to two tables I managed to 'excape.' No gift, no good bye, no dont let the door slam you in the arse on your way out. No respect. No respect. Grumble grumble grumble. WSOP & the rio. I was ready to head to wsop and provide the venue with some class. Low class, but as much as my 5'8" could provide. Above mentioned long time BARGEr that I hadn't met offered a ride. Some chit chat about past BARGEs and why he hadnt been attending any of late. Some lame excurs about a house boat, others and good time at lake powell. Well Ill tell you sonny, lake powell rocks but it aint no BARGE. We separated. He to play some poker or something. Me to sweat dan goldman a BARGER I already knew quite well and had to admire and respect. And that goes for his wife sharon and daughter bree who I would get to know better on this trip. As I pushed past the multitude of spectators to get a front row seat for the final table, down to maybe 7 at this point, sharon also presented. She had a good size suitcase she was dragging. I learned the suitcase was b/c she had been in so cal working when dan's good run interrupted her schedule and voila, here she was. Naturally with me in attendance rooting him on, dan busted out less than 1/2 a dozen hands later. Sharon and I could not agree on which of us was to blame. I think my target trny run was proof positive that I was the black pebble. She was gracious in claiming, no it was her and she had a history of such black cat effects on dan. And anyway, he didnt bust until she appeared which was after me. Argue amongst yourselves. I along with several other congraddoled dan Some of us then discussed how hungry we were. The goldmans invited me to join them for lunch or whatever meal it would be and I conned bree into letting me hang with her while everyone ran some errands. Got to see more of where las vegans actually live. Funny it reminded me a lot of Phx. Thank you bree. Sushi mushi. As some of you know, if you were on the unofficial and impromptu sushi outing of EMBARGO '13, I do not like sushi. Claudia (see above reference to peg) loves it, so I was 'pussy whipped' into the outing. (Yes.. she is that outstanding). Anyway dan and family love sushi so shushi it was. It was at some strip mall and I dont remember its name. Looked much like the 'chineese' restaurants that populated the east in the 60-70s when I was not yet born. In addition to the goldmans, ARGErs, jeannie david (?) and scott (last name not recalled) also came. Jeannie I had met a few times at BARGE events and played with/against her a time or two in BARGE trnys. This time got an opportunity to get to know her a bit. The most memorable part of the meal other than the convo, at least for me, was the HEADED crustacean I ordered. It was some kind of over sized shrimp.. make that oversized in the sense of the ant that ate brooklyn oversized. So imagine an oversized fried shrimp with a fish face. Not withstanding its fried preparation, I was not prepared for its appearance. And unfortunately I did not find the taste any better than the sea urchin's appearance. Score one for the opposition. Food wise. The conversation was wonderful. Dan and sharon treated So overall, even withthe giant squid that ate sicily, score another for me. Now sometime before this or maybe not, I met up or conversed with Un. Or perhaps it was fruchter. Im thinking I was jonsing for a trny. Under that circumstance I would likely have played in a trny at the wsop, orleans or of the ohter half a dozen venues that were in trny over loaded. But even with my memory in slow dissolve, Im thinking if I had played a trny, I would at least recall where and what it was. OK.. you can skip this paragraph. [Well this 'short' first ever trip report has sprung a leak. With so much more to relate including a surprise 'date,' Im breaking this into parts] From: LMB Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2014 13:58:04 -0700 Subject: [Target] Target '14 Trip Report. Part Deux (and still my 1st one ever) =E2=80=8BUpon further review Im thinking I somehow did indeed end up at the= orleans, but not with Un or fruchter. No, my partners in crime at the orleans was brady family,, ahem I mean the goldmans, dan, sharon & bree. It was a PLO8 trny in which I didnt realize it was O8 for at least a round and still managed to be among the chip leaders thru the first and most of the 2d break. It was also a bounty trny and happy relate I was collecting those $5 bounties by the bounty. That is to say 10 or $50, 2/3 the price of admission. So Im cruising along knock em out right and left. We're down to about 3 tables and some things become foggy here. I see dan or was it bree moved to MY table. I beat whichever up a couple of times and s/he is down to last chips and goes all in. Decent enuf hand but Im something like a 2 or 3 to 1 fav, but off comes the miracle card on the river and instead of another bounty Im quartered and maybe even lose a few chips. Unfortunately that hand adumbrates too many of my following hands. Next thing I know it is ms sharon goldman on my left. The convo gets better and she promises to look me up when she is next in the phx area. (I have it recorded sharon so dont dare stollof on this one.) So while sharon and I chatter like old hens that havent seen each other in a month of sundays, my stacks begin to dwindle. One hand after another I start with clearly the best hand and hand after hand the poker gods deprive me of my rightful victories. Finally when sharon's stax has miraculously grown larger than mine, we're all in after the flop and Im miles ahead. Turn, miracle card one for sharon. River, miracle card two for sharon and your hero is walking. All the goldmans and only the goldman' remain in our 10 person last longer bet. Luck box sharon, I understand goes on to take down the gold. Congrats to sharon. No really. Congrats. Score one for the goldmans. Ahem.. make that one more for the goldmans. Well its getting late and Ive already had more fun than should be legal, so I head back to the luxor. However its late and Im w/o wheels. Grab a taxi and at the luxor in less than 15 minutes. Dave is already there. Or not. Remember no notes and an EA memory. What is EA you ask? Mostly it stands for Entertainment Arts, a hugely successful sports vid game maker. However in this case it stands for Early Alzheimer. WSOP or how I met your mother. We chit chat a bit. He's had a good haul playing at the venetian. Or a bad haul playing a trny after all the venetian. Dave's a workout freak along with a few other freaky ways and its really not clear if he will be playing in the next days' wsop seniors event. Actually Im pretty sure he has already boght his entry and this is at least part of why he is in vegas= . But whatever Im not sure if he is going to the rio the next morning or going on an EZ jog to henderson. Sleep ensues. Up bright and early. Sports Center on in the background. Or maybe its squawkbox on cnbc. Whichever. Fruch is awake or becomes awake shortly thereafter. He either goes and works out in the hotel gym or not. I state my intention to head to the rio= . He says so is he and he's happy to give me a lift. We plan on some bkfst. With the help of my backers, thank you ex wives, other family members and select and wise ARGErs, Ive got my grand to enter the seniors. Fruchter knows the drill. He gets me in the line for my wsop ID and around the corner we go to purchase my entry. Something over 4000 are already entered. Nothing note worthy of my entry except that its my first wsop entry ever. Im in the amazon room, silver section, table something, seat something else. Players are friendly. One made the money last year only to suffer some devastating hard luck loss. One or two others also had played in a previous seniors or two. Now I know your waiting with bated breadth to hear of my run. And indeed it was a fun run. Somewhat surprisingly my most notable hand of this trny happens late in the first round. But Im getting a bit ahead of myself. I have a few playable hands. Some mature and I win mostly without a showdown. More than a few die if not with the flop than surely on the turn or river. With a few minutes left in the 1st level, I pick up on AA. Not sure of my position, but neither a blind nor the button, Im pretty sure. Well not that sure. Anyway I was somewhere in the hand. Raise 3 maybe 4 times the blind with 2 callers. While I cant remember all the cards on the flop, highest maybe a queen. lets just say it was xx3. A little hazy on who bets what when but before the betting on the flop is finished me and our table chip leader are all in. He's hit his set of 3s. Turn is a blank. River is golden. A ce it is and our hero survives. Several hours and at least 2 breaks later and about when 2/3 of the field is eliminated, say about 1500 plus remaining our hero pushes with lets say KQ against something like 77 and no help on the board. Hero goes home. All in all a good time. Worst beat and perhaps a crippling one in hind sight was when my AK was beaten by A9 or 8. Mean time all the target winners are long gone. As far as I recall only disdain for trnys fruchter is alive and kicking. Its getting near dinner or perhaps past dinner. We chat at this break and he tells me stick around as his stack has dwindled and we'll grab something to eat when he's eliminated. I sweat him somewhat from the rail when he is moved to a different table with maybe 800 players remaining. I cant find him and some 30 minutes later he calls and announces IGHN. Sometime before this I should mention the prodigal son has arrived. We chat while he is waiting to check in. He hangs up on the note that we should do dinner. He fails to call back for HOURS. And of course he doesn= t answer his phone. How many black holes are there to fall in in Vegas? Anyway fruchter and I are back in our hotel room. Dave is talking about heading out to play some plo at the venetian or something. Im thinking about sleep. Son calls stating he fell asleep (for 4 hrs) but he and bud are roaring to go. What do I want to do for dinner. Tell him to pick me up at the luxor and we'll find a reasonable place. Dinner or not. Perhaps less than 2 hours later he calls. He is not as we agreed waiting at an entrance and ready to go. He had valeted his car and was playing craps. Or black jack. Or what not poker game. Mind you its after 1 a.m. and I have been up since close to 600 a.m. And not only am I senior you just heard I played in the wsop seniors so I have proof. So apparently we're both starved and with car in valet we are we're limited to the luxor or walking distance. And as I had not yet discovered the food court, those quix and reasonable choices were not under consideration. Fortunately there was a deli or sandwich shop of some kind. And while you wouldnt confuse it with katz, langers or carson street deli/s the price was only a bit too high and the meant not half bad. Bread could have been much better. So I have the corned beef on some kind of excuse for a hard roll and I dont remember what teh chip ordered. Well the discussion is overwhelmingly family and while no doubt would be enteretaining for most of you ease droppers, cant say I remember it myself. However what happened next was indeed BARGE like and since BARGE is not pg rated, I shall share that. Sometime as we were enjoying our meals this dark haired, lets say reasonably attractive 40 something gal took a seat within ear shot. Not sure who said what to whom first but somehow we all end up at the same table and convo is becoming a lot of fun. She's single, up form sacramento with her 'aunt & uncle who are asleep in their room (yeah sounded a bit strange to me too) to gamble and have fun. She's a mom of something like a teen something Never married or married twice who cares and whats the difference anyways. The chat becomes flirty and chip, aka josh, aka bosh, always my son rolls his eyes. He decides he is wide awake and gambling awaits him. He and hs friend are off. Me & ms sacramento dig in. One double entedre after and another and even Im thinking I could get lucky. Oh yeah of hi hopes and little sleep. From: LMB Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2014 15:27:16 -0700 Subject: Re: [Target] Target '14 Trip Report. Part trois (and still my 1st one ever) How I didnt meet your mother (cont) The chat becomes flirty and chip, aka josh, aka bosh, always my son rolls his eyes. He decides he is wide awake and gambling awaits him. He and hs friend are off. Me & ms sacramento dig in. One double entedre after and another and even Im thinking I could get lucky. Oh yeah of hi hopes and little sleep. Revise last sentence to start Oh ye.... I confirm that she is not sharing a room with aunt & uncle and make clear that while fruch is cute and works out daily Im pretty sure he would not appreciate me bringing a woman back to the room, floozy or not. She suggests a trip to the drug store or in this case the hotel gift shop. As we prepare to enter she hugs my arm and whispers in my ear. "You do know this will cost you." WTF.. Housewife from sacramento. Mother of one or two, at least a daughter. Administrator at UC-something Medical School. And a hooker? We commence negotiations. No we didnt. Get your minds out of the gutter. I told her it was 'nice' meeting her but that I had to immediately go to sleep as I was now living someone elses bad dream. Oh well. But this aint nothing compared to Un & ms. ashley. Stay tuned. It aint the seniors but . . or how I really got to know Un. I awake bright & early saturday. There is kind of a 2d chance seniors down at binions but only about 400 or so are expected. Having just bested nearly 3000 players I figured I was a shoe-in for the big money. Surely the final table. Why not top 3. I deftly cross exam dave on his plans for the morning. No he doesnt like trnys so no he isnt going downtown for seniors light. Note, he does enter the venetian deep stack later that day. Now Ive heard a thing or two about the 'deuce.' And those two tiered buses are so cute that I sometime forget Im not in london. Also I have an affinity for the common man, so I ride a bus every decade or so to remain in touch. So I ask a bike cop riding the perimeter of the luxor where can I catch the closest deuce. Its within close walking distance and I have at least na hour to make it downtown. I skip on over to lets see near the mgm or ballys or again you fill in the blank. Over there in less than 10 minutes. Mother with 2 chldren is trying to figure how to buy tickets from the automatic kiosk. She is about as successful as those deaf folk that ried to shut up Un in some trny of theirs he was claim jumping. After nearly 10 minutes and the next bus now within eye sight, she quits. I give it a fast once over. Take a deep breadth. And realize it doesnt work. Have something close to exact change so I step on the bus. Driver convinces me to buy the all day for 8 bucks as the 1-wat fare us akreadt 6. Sounds reasonable. Off we go. Up the spiral stair case I go and grab a 'window' seat. Its a typical perfict sunny day n early june in vegas. Reminds me of home. Of course it does silly its part of the same great dessert as phx. Something like mayan or mixican or post cucumbersome and it stretches from nevada, parts of so cal thru western -central az down into mixico. And OK.. maybe it is the sonoran dessert and not the mohave gumbe desert. Which is to say its hot and getting hotter. Bus a/c works fine but its slower than a slow boat to china. Im beginning = to think I might not make 'shuffle up and deal.' We hit a corner and their is xpress deuce I can switch to. Thinking quixly and recalling the xpress alts of the NYC subway, I leap off my bus and onto 'deuce da quix.' True to its name, I m downtown with at least 10 minutes to spare. Hop skip and a jump and Im nearly in the poker room. Small crowd buzzing. Before I rip out my entry fee, I hear some chatter. Seems the trny has 2 starting days, today and tomorrow and the finals will be monday night. F*)&. I have to leave sunday noon and to work on monday bright and early. But what to do? AS if in a haze I find myself at mickey d/s in the whatever they are calling the fitzgerald these days with giant iced coffee. You know its nearly as good as starbucks and a couple of dollars less. Then again I like molson's and if you read the list religiously, you know molson is swill. Im boerd nearly depressed and downtown. Waht to do. A voice int the back of mind says something about Un being downtown playing hotel roulette. His life is kind of a roller coaster. Just thinking abouthis problems makes me feel better about my situation. Grab the cell phone and reach Un. He's miserable and lonely. Perfect. Beam me up Un. Thirty minutes later or several eons as the crow flies, un finds downtown street and misdirects me. Yes I meant misdirects me. Im now bobbing between las vegas blvd and 4 th street on freemont trying to find Un in his silver Toyota or Cadillac or hummer. Whichever. He f/n sees me at one fo the corners and has me turning in every direction. Thot I was going to get arrested for doing the mexican hat dance without a clue. I imagine Un laffing his head off and after a few brief moments of homicidal thought realized that this was likely as much fun as Un was going to have in vegas these 3 weeks, so give the boy some leash. We head to the orleans where I have assured him that the noon trny will be over by 5:00 or sooner. We are there about 10 min early - hey anyone remember if I ate bkfst?. Un did you feed me? Im getting hungry writing this and thinking about then. Anyway the trny maven says it will likely end about 6:00. Un is scheduled to pick-up his niece at the airport maybe about 4:30. I fail to convince him if in the unlikely event we *both *make the final table, we'll be rolling in the moola and we can reimburse her taxi fare or even authorize a limo. Un asses the field, realizes he is no better than half the field and you know what they say about not being able to carry his side kicks jock and begs to sponsor me in the tournament for 50% of what I win. We negotiate further and I let the black cat take a 5th of me at par. He leaves to play some live poker and I head for the tnry section. I proceed to play brilliantly donking off a few chips even winning one hand. I misread my hand and over bet. Luckily nobody had hand. Now sometime before the scheduled break I picked up pocket tens. A raise about 3 times the big blind Think about a reraise but decide to see the flop hoping to make a set and craftily win all of the two caller money. Well the flop is Q T 4. Holly crap batman, I'm in like flynn. Large bet, raise by twice as much. All call. Turn is another 4. Larger bet larger raise. Soon all three were all in. As I prepare to b/c the chip leader, SOB turns over poket !Qs. IGHN. Stunned. And I cant find Un.