solo Vegas trip report

A trip report I wrote back in August following BARGE:

The first week of August is one of eight weeks during the year that’s
a peak activity period for my recently adopted line of work, so I'd
resigned myself to missing BARGE indefinitely. 
(to wit:  Pussy ad infinitum)

First good beat story of the trip:  Chuck and Peter are forced to
break with 15-year tradition and move BARGE to the weekend of the 18th.
Cha-ching!

Lennie and I check in to the Venetian at 9pm Thursday, and the desk
clerk swipes my credit card letting me know the room rate will be $1400
for the three day stay.  Slight cognitive dissonance as I flash back to
the historic $18 rate at Binion’s.  I haven’t read all of the BARGE list
instructions for getting a rate adjustment, thus don’t know if our room
even qualifies. 

Some quick math shows that we'll pay an average of around $140/hour for
a bed. Luckily, the room has both a bed *and* a shower, so the price is
right.  (End up getting the poker rate in the end, thanks Kathy!)

POKER THURSDAY

Head down to the poker room, sign up for all the NL and BARGE-only games,
when some tall goofy guy starts yelling my name from across the room.  I
stare at him for a full 5 seconds and wave back, but I have no idea who
he is or why he thinks he knows me.  Doing the polite thing, I ignore him
and start checking out the tables.  Tall-and-goofy walks right over and
demands I join him in starting a PLB (Binglaha) game.

Holy Cliff Matthews, it’s Jesus H Christ!! (Wait, strike that, reverse
it.)  He’s newly shorn and resembles deadhead not nearly so much as some
Midwest junior college CompSci prof. 

My best BARGE buddy (and ultra-best BARGE donator), and I nearly blew
him off.  The last time I saw Cliff, it was for dinner the night just
prior to the surgery that required him to shave his beard.  The
recognition shock about knocked me down.

I’m seated at the Binglaha table, and Fich brings over a rare copy of
the Tiltboy book that he claims cost him $120.  (Rare, in that it’s
owned by somebody other than our publisher.) He’d cut some deal with
Josh that ended up costing him $120; he didn’t actually *pay* for
the book. 

He says to me, “I know you’re just an also-ran, but I’d still like you
to sign it.”  How’s that for licking ass?  He adds that he’s assembling
a collection of books inscribed with vulgarities by the author, so I
write “Fuckin’ Fich, kindly Fuck Off” or something to that effect.

Eventually we get a 2-5 PL Binglaha game going, and start looking around
for a die.  Warren offers this electronic monstrosity that turns out to
be a random number generator with a digital die face, but the fucking
thing takes a good 3 seconds to spit out a result.  Two hands with that
thing and somebody flings it from the table while the brush brings by
a real Venetian craps die for our use.

Game on!

Cliff quickly beats me out of two medium sized pots, then fools some
schmuck at the table with the old "all in but don't know what I have"
move, always followed by his tabling the stone nuts.  He takes a quick
lead, but I'm confident that at some point All His Chip Are Belong to
Me.  I'm confident of this because I have many prior BARGEs' worth of
empirical evidence. 

One hour later, I'm in the BB with AKs24s, 5 limpers including Cliff,
and the small blind makes it 40.  I call, it's called around to Cliff
who pushes for around 600.  I'm getting decent pots odds and besides,
*It's Cliff* (tm), so I call.  Bingo can't resist the huge odds with
his JTs66 and calls also. 

Cliff shows an AA8s3, die comes up omaha-high only, flop comes 889
rainbow.  Looks pretty grim for our hero (that’s me, you putz.) 

Turn makes Bingo's straight, river makes Space Cadet's runner-runner-
scooper flush, and once again All Cliff's Chip Are Belong to Me.  Cliff
gapes for a second as if he didn't KNOW that was going to happen, then
sits out and watches me share his chips for an hour or so.  At about
2am, he asks to borrow $20 for cab fare.  What a r00ler!

At some point during the session Prock moves over to a seat near me and
I confess to being the loudmouth on his blog that’s critiquing all his
investment posts.  He says he suspected as much, and we decide to get
together for some stock talk back in the bay area.

At 3am, having given back 300 of Cliff’s chips, I decide that I'm easily
the worst player at the table and get up to play 2-5 NLH instead.  I put
on my loose-wild-splashy table persona in a field of locals rocks, and
manage to hit a few flops and book a 500 win. 

Session highlight:  4 limpers, I don’t see any obvious interest behind
me and make it 50, everyone folds, I expose 75s.  Next hand, 3 limpers,
I make it 50, everyone folds, I show J8.   Fold one hand.  Next hand,
2 limpers, I make it 40 from middle position, everybody folds.  I start
to furtively slide my hand over to the dealer face down, one of the
limper/folders says, “I knew you had something this time”.  I flip up 95s.


VEGAS BABY, VEGAS

I prepared for this trip a few weeks ago by watching “Swingers” for
about the 10th time, followed by “Made” for good measure.  Does it get
any better?

POKER FRIDAY

Friday morning Asya invites Lenny and I to join her in burning through
the comp she scored from the poker brush.  $70 for breakfast at the
Cafe Grand Suxe, just 3 of us?  No problemo!  5 glasses of $5 dollar
orange juice later, and we’re reaching for our wallets to cover the
overage.

Spent breakfast chatting about good books and movies with Asya,
Lenny and Kim Friedman.  (Note to self:  rent “Brick” and buy “Geek
Love”.  (A book about BARGE?) 

Back to 2-5 NLH until the Symposium.  Lenny and I are at the same
table and he tells me how much he hates having me in his game, just
as he does every time.  It seems that my loose guy act grates on his
nerves, given that he knows me to be a total rock, and he’s annoyed
when other players don’t see through my sheer phoniness and persist
in giving me their chips.  Nothing for it but turn up the charm a
few notches!  (This dial goes to 11.)

Session highlight:  calling down the tight kid “pro” in seat 5 after
a big check-raise on the flop and all-in on the turn, who shows an
A-high no draw hand.  I win with 2nd pair.

I head over to the symposium, sell for too much though I suspect the
interest was in my partner Sharon G, smartly elect not to buy back
half, and talk to Steve Brecher for the remainder of the time.  My
annual convos with Steve are a definite BARGE highlight, and we decide
to continue catching up over dinner at Delmonico’s.  I find Cliff and
we meet Kim and Perry for dinner.  Of course, I just had breakfast
with Asya 4 hours prior so I’m not in the least hungry.  I am thirsty
though, and we decide to chop up a bottle of Duckhorn ’02 estate resv
Cab.  (Yum, though my favorite DH is still the ’03 Goldeneye Pinot.)

After dinner Cliff and I sign up for the Venetian 125+50 NLH tourney. 
I make it to the final 3 tables with an average stack, then proceed to
join in the pushfest as the blinds escalate.  There’s a solid player
at the table representing himself as very tight, but I get the sense
he’s stealing selectively.  I make a decision to call his all-in with
an A5s, and it turns out he has AQ.  One lonely 5 later and this
previously polite and controlled player is frothing at the mouth and
calling me a donkey.  I was pleased to be able to eliminate him soon
afterwards with my K4.

I win every time I’m in against a dominating hand, and lose every time
I go in ahead.  My brilliant come-from-behind tactics pay off and I’m
accumulating, plus stealing often enough to keep me afloat.  Rick
Mombourquette is to my immediate left, and stealing far more
aggressively than me.  I coattail on his judgment and loosen my
standards a bit, until Rick gets caught stealing with a 53 and is
eliminated soon thereafter.  Suddenly everybody wakes up and the table
gets kind of frothy.

I make the final table with an above average stack, Cliff makes the
final table in 2nd to last chip position.  He informs me that I’m
about to r00l him again, because the payout structure for 58 entrants
only pays to 5 places (one more entrant and they would have paid to 9. 
Huh??)  As predicted Cliff goes out in 8th, which it turns out is on
the bubble, since I later persuade the table to flatten the payout
structure and pay top 7. 

Blinds are obscene and the money is just swishing around; it seems
the chip trailer wins every time he/she pushes and gets called.  I
start agitating for an even flatter structure so we can end this
thing before 7am, and most players are interested.  Finally, with
5 players left, we agree to a very, very flat structure (Scottro,
let me know my penance).  This game no longer resembles poker and
I want to get it over with.  I’m chip leader and chop up 70% 3 ways,
giving up about 100 in equity.  At least I’ll be able to play some
real poker before bedtime.  I score a quick 3 bills in the 2-5 game,
thereby justifying my equity giveaway at the tourney.

As I get up to head upstairs, I confirm that Lenny is still sitting
in the Binglaha game, far and away the toughest table in the house. 
Can you say “game selection”?  On the other hand, it was likely the
most entertaining game in the house as well. The day before, I’d
watched Bart S. win $1500+ by playing all hands blind until he faced
a bet of 25 or more.  He "slowrolled" himself and the table multiple
times on the river.  Ain’t BARGE great? 

Aside:  Lenny is constantly accusing me of hating to play any game
(at the home game or card room) in which I don’t think I have a
significant edge.  I can’t really deny the charge, but I can’t decide
if that really makes me a pussy.  This trip, Lenny spent most of his
time at the PLB table, breaking even.  I booked a nice win for the
trip, but also spent less time playing with BARGERs.  Given that
I’m playing 95% for the pleasure, I can’t really explain my rationale,
but I guess it comes down to enjoying myself less when I can’t find
exploitable opportunities.  That also fits well with my current line
of work (equities investor), so I’m not in a hurry to change.

Crash at around 5, set the alarm clock for 9:30 and hope I make it to
the BARGE NLH tourney tomorrow by 11.

POKER SATURDAY

Lenny and I both make it downstairs by 10:15 with our bust out gifts: 
signed copies of “Tales From the Tiltboys.”  Each book contains two
identical notes,  “Did you really expect a nice inscription after
busting me out of the BARGE NLH tourney?” 

Made two good laydowns in the first few rounds to stay alive.  First
time, I smooth called with QQ pre-flop sensing strength from the
raiser.  I called a medium bet on the J-high flop, then folded to a
half pot bet on the turn.  Raiser showed aces.

Second hand, I called a raise in the blinds with A-Q.  The flop came
QJx, and I made a 2/3 pot bet which got called.  I checked the turn,
then stared down the bettor who made a 2/3 pot bet on the turn. 
Situation felt icky, and I mucked hesitantly.  Raiser later claimed
to have a set of jacks, I believed him.

Next table, with a medium size stack I go card dead.  I make 3 steal
raises with reasonable but not great hands, and all three times
somebody to my left comes over the top.  This wasn’t a particularly
aggressive table, they had something real each time.  Finally, with
about 7xBB I call a raise of 3xBB from the table leader Jack.  I
have 22 on the button, pot is just he and I.    Flop comes TT8 or
something similar.  He checks, I push, he looks kind of surprised
but can’t get away from his KT.  I stand up, dealer turns a 2, I sit
down.  This pot gets me close to par.

Kim Friedman has meanwhile moved to my immediate left, and proceeds
to come over the top of my subsequent steals two times.  She claims
to have had me both times, but I know she was snowing me. 

I’m whittled down and make a move all-in from cutoff with 77.  Russ
Fox immediately pushed all-in behind me, and some card rack named
Mordecai pushes from the big blind.  I’m up against AK and KK, IGHN. 
Mordecai takes a book apiece from Russ and I (bustout prizes) and
all our chips, which he uses to win the whole caboodle.

I walk over the Phil’s table just in time to see him lose his story
hand, TT all-in called by Bob Ogus with J8s in the big blind for
about 6x the blinds.  Phil snaps the big tiltarino, as is Phil’s wont,
and I stand there still awed that after 13 years Phil can still
tilt at just about anything. 

He’s doing his best Hellmuthian impersonation, venting aloud at Bob. 
He reaches into his bag for his bustout gift, a set of Expert Insight
DVDs (featuring Phil Gordon), then he starts to put them back in the
bag because (he mumbles) “that guy doesn’t deserve these.”  I poke
him and he eventually hands them over and cools off a little.  Or
so I thought.  Apparently he carried that monkey around for the rest
of the day, because I saw it chittering on his back that night while
he delivered his banquet address.

I join Phil for lunch and we spend the time looking at his banquet
slides and refining them.  I like his “overrated” theme a lot, and
suggest the “Feign Modesty” bullet and the “Refer to self as
Overrated” bullets for some nice self-referential bonus points. 

Back to 2-5 NLH, my favorite game in the card room, and one in which,
yes Lenny, I think I have an edge.  I sit down with 500, but soon
Dan Goldman buys in to my left for 1000 so I feel obligated to do
likewise.  Good thing too, Dan makes sure that nobody ever sees a
flop for less than 20.

Lee Jones joins us to my right, and the three of us are bantering,
showing our nutty plays against one another to the table and generally
goofing off.  Dan finds a good hand to raise to 30, and I call him out
of position with my 99.  I give him about 150 on the flop and turn
before folding his river bet, despite a very ragged board.  I know rags
are dangerous around Dan, and sure enough he flashes his 46 which had
flopped two pair.

Session highlight:  Lee limps UTG and I limp behind him with A8s.  Dan
makes his standard pop to 20, two callers plus the big blind, Lee and
I both call.  Flop is A84 with two hearts.  Lee leads out for $85. 

I think I’m ahead here about 90% of the time given Lee’s big bet, though
I worry a little about a set.  I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have the flush
draw, and that a strong ace is the most likely candidate.  The question
is, how to get paid off by the hands I’m ahead of? 

I settle on a raise that Lee may read as a bully bet or a flush draw. 
I make it 250, everyone folds to Lee who goes into the tank for a long
time.  He has about 800-900 left, so a call commits him to the pot,
which was my intent when I bet the 250. 

He eventually decides (as he tells me later) that *he* knows that *I*
know he’s weak-tight, and therefore I must be trying to push him
around.  Lee moves all-in, and for a moment I worry about the set
again.  Then I remember my whole betting premise and call.  Lee says,
“uh oh, I’m in trouble”, and I get to revel in my masterful pot
manipulation when he flips up AQ.  Ah, the glory.

Which lasts about 1.3 seconds, or exactly long enough for the dealer
to burn and turn the Q of spades.  Still, I’m grinning pretty large
at having worked Lee over so well (in principle), while (in fact) I’m
watching the dealer count 900 off my stack and shovel Lee the 2200 pot.

I cash out my remaining 200 and walk over to the banquet.  I join Asya
at a table only to find that Chuck and Peter reserved a spot at the main
table for all the Tiltboys.  Huh?  I speculated that the table in the
kitchen was likely a better spot for us, especially given the Fried
factor, but I guess we were there coat-tailing Phil.  Chuck asks me to
do Phil's introduction for the banquet address.

When Peter called me up to the podium, I realized that we hadn’t yet
delivered our traditional banquet thank you to Chuck and Peter.  If
I’d been able to plan ahead, I’d have had something momentous and
witty to say about the amazing effort these two put in every year,
and this year in particular.  Thankfully, I was unprepared and only
got out a few weak words to the effect of “I’d like to publicly thank…”,
when the room erupted in an ovation that went on and on. 

Y’all said it better than I ever could have. 
 
I then kissed Phil’s ass nicely and brought him up to the microphone
with a tag line that I’m proud of:  “Of whom it’s said that if poker
tournaments had no skill, he’d win every one.”

I thought Phil did a good job of milking his “overrated” theme for a
ton of laughs.  At lunch he had asked me if I thought the crowd could
take a little vulgarity.  “Are you kidding??”  Phil then proceeded to
liberally pepper his speech with f-bombs, which fit nicely into the
“on tilt” persona that he was pretending to fake. 

He’d been carrying that tilt around all day, so the speech was his
chance to finally blow off steam.  If anybody was offended, blame me.
Fortunately, when the steam dissipated, he realized how harsh he’d been
to Bob O. and the two of them made up beautifully together on stage. 
Bob, you’re a good sport and rolled with the punches like a true BARGER.

After the banquet, I put up my 100 FUN (we're just playing for fun,
cash games not allowed during the banquet) to enter the World Roshambo
Championship.  Drew Perry in the first round.  I'm determined to
outthink him this year, but he quickly pulls ahead 3-1.  I decide
to resort to random for just long enough to put together a new
strategy, and he wins 5 straight against my random!  I succumb to
him at 10-3, humiliated once again.  Being the 11th best RSB player
alive really sucks if you spend most of your time playing against
the other top 10. 

Perry sweeps to the finals, takes a dominating lead over Barry Goren,
then falls apart when he runs out of trash talk.  Another non-TB
champion, congrats Barry.

Post-banquet games, find a short-handed Binglaha with Bill, Jerrod,
Ploink, Bart, Lenny and some non-BARGER named Derek who may be the best
high-low player I’ve ever met.  He was also a nice guy, perhaps because
we was enjoying sucking our chips up.  I felt totally outmatched in the
game, and tightened up so much that every player was soon taking turns
calling me a pussy, including Derek.  I didn’t dispute any of the charges.

Phil joined us for a little while, as did Lee.  It only took Phil a
short while to realize that AAxx-suited was not a lock hand through
the river, and after learning that $700 lesson he wisely ran away. 

Session highlight:  At some point Lee check-raised me on the river
for 400, and I realized belatedly that after my 100 bluff bet I'd given
off a huge loose-lip tell (I was chirping like a spring robin.)  I
couldn’t decide if Lee’d rivered the nuts or just picked up on my tell,
but either way I couldn’t call.  Nice play Lee, did’ya have anything?

I bailed out of Binglaha and returned to 2-5 NLH.  Recouped my Binglaha
losses and a few bills more, and crashed around 5am.

Session highlight:  somebody else at the table is playing my typical
gameplan, splashing around loosely preflop, then playing cautiously
thereafter.  I intentionally make a couple of loose calls behind his
preflop raises and give up on the flop, figuring this pegs me as a
loose chaser in his mind.  I then jam for 500 behind his bet on a flop,
with just top pair (there was a flush draw on the flop to help tempt
him into thinking I was semi-bluffing.)  He reads me for “getting
fed up and pushing back”, so calls with top pair, worst kicker. 
Cha-ching.


POKER SUNDAY

We’ve arranged to meet for another comped brunch with Asya, Ben,
Perry, and Asya’s friend (and current RSB World Champion) Barry Goren. 

My third meal at the “Grand Luxe” café, and I’m thrice under whelmed. 
I’m one of those snobs who find the Cheesecake Factory to be way
overrated $15-for-a-tiny-notch-above-Appleby’s-food, and their bastard
child the Grand Luxe doesn’t seem to live up even to that standard. 
Nice décor though, if that counts for anything (it doesn't.)

Fortunately the food was free, and the company more than made up for
it.  Hearing Perry once again espousing the hidden beauty in all the
Worst Movies Ever Made is highly entertaining.  He persuaded me to
watch “Last Action Hero”, a movie I wouldn’t have rented even if it
contained a full frontal of Maria Shriver.

We spent most of breakfast trying to recall Sarah Silverman’s best
racial and anti-semitic slurs, followed by Perry’s 1000th retelling
of the story behind my “Cheatin’ Towelhead” nickname.

Still a few hours for poker before heading to the airport.  The card
room seems exceptionally subdued this morning.  Lenny and I are
quickly seated in a 2-5 game.  After reminding me how much he hates
playing with me, he proceeds to make a masterful river bluff and
push me off a nice pot with my AK that flopped top pair. 

Another Lenny moment:  I make a big turn bet and Lenny lays down a
solid hand that was in second place.  He offers to trade information,
I accept and tell him my hand.  He then tells me, “you’re lying” and
proceeds to explain why I didn’t have the hand I claimed to have (I
did.)  I nearly smack him for his accusations, then decide that I
don’t mind Lenny thinking all my big bets are bluffs.

We get to the airport an hour before flight time and have to fight
our way past the SWA mob to the United check-in.  I spot some tall
woman with bright pink hair in the United Premium line, and we
quickly glom on to her and mooch a fast check in.

Patti, Lenny and I break out the cards on the floor of the airport,
and I count out chips for a freezeout.  Patti is IM’ing with Kevan
on her Treo; he’s stuck in the SWA mob and hasn’t checked in by the
time we board our flight an hour later.  (He misses his flight.) 
We’re talking about BARGE, and I ask Patti if she attended the
wedding.  D’oh.

I propose NLH for the freezeout, after which Lenny again accuses me
of maneuvering for an edge, so I agree instead to a Padugi freezeout
(never played before.)  I really liked the game, probably because I
found a few exploitable holes in Patti and Lenny’s game...

Another year, another great BARGE.  Chuck and Peter, thanks for
coming through for us yet again.  Preserving the singular BARGE
dynamic is a near-alchemy accomplishment, and you manage it time
and again.