1998

The story of my third BARGE.

Here are the pictures made by Siona from ATLARGE III. The are arranged essentially chronologically, beginning with the Smoker on Thursday night (pics 1-8), followed by the winners from the No Limit Hold'em Tournament (9-12), snaps from the Banquet (13-23), and finishing with the Stud winners. I've added a few captions (I haven't tried to list everyone in the group shots -- especially if I've already identified them earlier). Please forgive any inaccurate or missing attributions --- corrections gladly accepted. ...

Jump to: Results | Pics | Ed Woods' Trip Report | Other trip reports ATLARGE III - Results No Limit Hold'em We nearly filled our six alloted tables (nine players each) with 52 players sitting down at 10AM (well, there were a couple of sleep-ins, and David Hughes, a former BARGE winner, was a no-show (still placing 28th by blinding out!). It didn't take too long before the shout of "Presto!" was heard, and Tony Goldstein (D Karma) took down the mystery prize (The Complete Idiot's Guide to Gambling like a Pro) with 5h5s. There were at least two other Presto winners (sorry, no more books), including one that made quad fives! I won't detail the early bust-outs, but the record shows (my thanks to Peter Segal for keeping such an accurate record) that the most popular bust hand was AA (no surprise) with 3 out of 42. The only other bust hands occuring more than once were AKs (twice) and AK (twice). Surprisingly, there was only one bust with 55 :-). The final table got started at 1:35PM (after a break, just 3 1/2 hours after we started) with nine players (all the tournament tables are stud tables). Several of the players had entered the 12:15 tournament (also No limit hold'em) that the Trop spread for the non-rec.gamblers --- what is the EV of playing two tournaments at once?   Seat Name Initial  Chips 1 Tom Hummell 5050 2 Kennedy Lemke 3025 3 Mordecai Schwartz 2350 4 Scott Byron 975 5 John Epehimer 4625 6 Aaron Packman 2100 7 Al (Bud) Frampton 2750 8 Matt Treasure 3925 9 Tom Oboyle 1275 Despite starting with the shortest stack by far, Scott Byron proved incredibly resilient, doubling through Matt holding 88 against Matt's AJ when neither improved. Matt survived an all-in holding AQ versus big-stack Tom Hummell holding KJ when the board produced a straight and a split-pot. Al (Bud) Frampton wasn't so lucky confronting Scott with 66 against Scott's QQ, sending Al to "Tournament 2". By this point, Scott had a stack to be reckoned with. Mordecai Schwartz was delighted when Scott put him all-in, holding AA against Scott's AK pre-flop. Scott began counting out a stack to match Mordecai's not-inconsiderable one as the dealer flopped Txx, Q, J! This has to be one of the worst beats of the tournament. The secret of staying alive seemed to be avoiding going all-in versus Scott, as Tom Oboyle and Kennedy Lemke each survived all-ins against Tom Hummell and Aaron Packman, respectively. The rule proved true as short-stacked Matt Treasure confronted Scott holding A7s against AQ, not finding enough 7's or his suit to win the pot and so finishing in 7th. The first all-in to lose to anyone other than Scott occured when Tom Oboyle fearless took his QQ into the fray against John Epehimer who held KQ, but managed a King on the board to send Tom O home in 6th place. The sweet victory wasn't enough to sustain John for long though after he bled off some chips to Tom H, soon followed by an all-in with a lowly 97 against Scott who won (of course) holding AT. The next to go was stalwart Kman (Kennedy Lemke, master of the ATLARGE mailing list) who went all-in with the best hand (AQ) against Tom H holding J9, which was good enough when a 9 showed up on the board. We were down to three players after just over an hour at the final table. I don't have a stack-count, but I think Scott had about half the chips at this point, with Tom H having a slight lead over Aaron. Aaron soon had to surrender after taking his 22 against Tom's A4s, which was more than enough with both an Ace and a 4 on the board. Now it was just a matter of time before the two remaining players each found a hand they wanted to play. You can't be too selective when you're the short stack, and Tom decided to play T7s, which turned out not to be good enough against Scott's A9s, actually making a flush according to my somewhat sketchy notes.   Finish Name Payout 1 Scott Byron $988 2 Tom Hummell $520 3 Aaron Packman $390 4 Kennedy Lemke $260 5 John Epehimer $182 6 Tom Oboyle $104 7 Matt Treasure $52 8 Mordecai Schwartz $52 9 Al (Bud) Frampton $52 In addition to the top prize, Scott Byron had the privilege of playing Trop VP Will Espin in a heads-up challenge No Limit Hold'em match (being a casino officer, this the only way Will can get to play poker in NJ). The format was set to a quicker pace than the regular tournament, and it only took 45 minutes before Scott was $500 richer. I watched the contest, but I didn't really see a lot of showdowns --- Scott just managed to erode Will's stack until the final hand, which Scott recalled as follows: "I picked up TT. He called my raise, flop was AA3 with two hearts, he went all-in with K9 of hearts, I made the call and two pair held up." Scott was simply unbeatable on this Saturday, as he went on to win the East competition for a WSOP trip later in the evening. [It has been pointed out to me that Scott didn't win East outright, but took a sweet deal when they got down to the final two. Jim Vichench had the chip lead, but decided he would have trouble making it to TARGET, and decided to make Scott a deal.] Limit Stud Unfortunately, my notes on the stud tournament are much sketchier --- for one thing, it's much harder to record all the details of stud confrontations. Also, I must confess that after busting out myself two hours into the tournament, I slipped off to lose a little money at $5&10 hold'em in a game with a line up of mostly other ATLARGErs. I do want to thank Ross Poppel for keeping an accurate record of the finish order. I did show up in time to watch the final table action, but did not manage to get a starting chip count. Seat Name 1 Linda Lewis 2 Jim Karlinski 3 Al (Bud) Frampton 4 Alan Richter 5 Irv Kessler 6 Paul Hodosh 7 Sandi Benditt 8 Ray Di Donato Very soon after the final table started, Ray Di Donato and Sandi (Siona) Benditt got knocked out on the same hand. I have Ray in 8th place as having the shorter stack. Soon thereafter, Jim Karlinski got clipped at the T200/400 level. Irv Kessler was out 15 minutes later, followed by Paul Hodosh when the betting got up to T300/600, three hours and forty minutes into the tournament. This left Linda (Llew) with the big stack and Al and Alan about even. The players made a money deal, but you can be sure no one slacked off with not only the glory, but also the chance to take on Will Espin for $500 at stake. It turned out that Linda made a wise decision, because she was the first eliminated among the last three, about 20 minutes after the deal. It took only about 5 more minutes before Alan stood alone with all the chips. I apologize for the lack of detail in reporting the stud tournament. I plead exhaustion after two wonderful days (and too much pot limit :-). I'll try to do better next year. At least, I have the final order of finish and the official money :-).   Finish Name Payout 1 Alan Richter $740 2 Al (Bud) Frampton $462.50 3 Linda Lewis $185 4 Paul Hodosh $148 5 Irv Kessler $111 6 Jim Karlinski $92.50 7 Sandi Benditt $55.50 8 Ray Di Donato $55.50 The challenge match versus Will was agreed to be scheduled at the convenience of the winner. Since Alan was staying in AC another day, they decided to meet on Monday. Alan reports that his lack of concentration after the long weekend was not enough to withstand Will's not-inconsiderable skills.  The ATLARGE group can be proud to win half their matches against a very strong player. Best All Around There was some controversy after the FARGO best all-around decision, and there may be again here (but if you complain too much, you may find yourself organizing ATLARGE next year :-).. There are innumerable ways to decide the best overall title, but I think the one I've chosen is fair and equitable, if not always intuitive. The method awards the prize to the person with the highest total, where the total is computed as the product of the number of people beaten (including self) in both events. (This is equivalent to the product of the ratio of positions.) Although people seem to think that winning the event with more people should be worth more than winning the smaller event, it is difficult to decide a fair way of weighting the events. The method I use weights both events equally --- which seems appropriate to me as the winner is supposed to show the best all-around skill. The top three contenders were the winners of the two events (Scott Byron and Alan Richter) and Al Frampton (the only player to make both final tables). The decision was actually extremely close. Scott's score was 52x28 (he finished 10th in stud) for a total of 1456. Alan finished 12th in hold'em, and so had a score of 41x37 = 1517. But the honor and the winner's jacket went to Al Frampton for finishing 9th and 3rd with a score of 44x36 = 1584. Last year's overall winner (Paul McMullin) was unable to attend because of the date. Let's hope all these fine players return next year to give us a great battle. (Content supplied by Jazbo).

Jump to: Results | Pics | Ed Woods' Trip Report | Other trip reports Lightly edited by Jazbo — 4/27/98 Trip Reports by: Steven Berkowitz Scott Byron Tom Goodwin Jim Hill Tim McGarvey Spencer Sun Jim Tolliver Jazbo's Note: Quite a few good trip reports about ATLARGE III have now been posted to rec.gambling.poker/atlarge@plainsboro.com. I'm collecting them here (with permission from the authors). If you haven't been to one of the "RGE" events, these will certainly give you an idea of how much fun it is! --jazbo  ...

Jump to: Results | Pics | Ed Wood's Trip Report | Other trip reports Lightly edited by Jazbo Jazbo's Note: I am very pleased that Jeff has allowed me to post his ATLARGE trip report. I think it deserves to go into the archives as one of the great ones. It certainly give the true flavor of the event for those who haven't yet attended. —jazbo Part I: The Traveler In making my plans to attend ATLARGE III, I had my choice of flights on Thursday to make it to the smoker. I chose the 3:15 pm flight that would allow my wife to work half a day (her employer is notoriously tight with time off), yet put me into Philadelphia about 4:00. Surely FIVE HOURS would be enough time to get from PHL to the Old Waterway Inn. (No, it wasn't and don't call me Shirley). All of you EAST players saw my poker chip case. A thin briefcase-looking thing with ten rows of a hundred chips. What do you think that looks like going through a security X-ray? "Step over here, sir." "Do NOT approach your bag, sir." "What is in the bag, sir?" All the while my Peg is there, too, with security giving her the evil eye while they warily have me open the case to ensure that there aren't ten sticks of TNT in there, and then wish to examine a few individual chips to ensure they aren't C-4. I think that was a VERY good time to be careful and NOT joke about things, no? (It happened again outbound from Philly, too.... ) We board late, at 3:30, after a thunderstorm rolled through Raleigh. We roll out to the tarmac, where we PARK while the captain says... "Ladies and Gentleman, Air Traffic Control has placed a hold on departures leaving for Philadelphia, Newark, and New York due to weather in the area. We'll be waiting here for a few minutes. We expect the next update from ATC in about fifteen minutes." Aiyah! At 4:15, the captain comes on the speaker and says "Ladies and Gentlemen, ATC has told us that the hold is still in effect, and that the next update will be at five o'clock. I'm sorry..." yada yada yada. AIYAH! *IF* we make it into the air at 5:30, landing at 6:30, I'll now BARELY have time to make it on the trains to reach A.C. by 9 pm. This sucks. What sucks even more is that the captain is full of $%!#. A young lad of about 13 has a walkman-type device, and it's SOMEHOW picking up the conversation between ATC and the flight deck. ATC doesn't believe it will be lifted any time soon, but they won't CANCEL us -- they'll check again at five. They take the plane BACK to the gate to add fuel, as they now expect to be holding over Philly once we DO get airborne. The steward is told he cannot serve drinks on the ground, and the passengers are revolting (but the gal in seat 7A was kind of cute), so they let us OFF the plane so that we can head to the bar. ConsolationDING! So, they FINALLY lift the hold on Philly at 5:30, and we get back on the plane, head out to the runway, and JUST before they firewall the engines for takeoff, they put the hold BACK on... AIIIIIIYAH! "Ladies and gentlemen, ATC has informed me that the next update will be at 6:10... " If I had a dollar for every time the pilot told us when the NEXT update was going to be, I'd have NOT lost money this trip. At least the KID was giving us good data from his walkman.... At 6:45, the hold is yet again lifted, so the captain fires up the engine. Just one. As we listen to the other engine misfire, the kid listens to his walkman. This kid is GREAT.... He tells us what's going to happen a full TEN MINUTES before the captain comes on and says... "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the captain speaking. [DUH!] As you can probably tell, Murphy's Law is in full effect. We have a mechanical problem, and we will be returning to the gate. We have a spare aircraft, and we will be transferring you and your bags to that aircraft for this flight. We know you're frustrated, folks, and, uh, this is one of those days that....uh....." ["SUCKS!", I yell, to the laughter and agreement of my fellow passengers, though I don't think the captain heard me....] Gee, if I'm REALLY lucky, I can get there in time to see Nolan get spanked on the Over/under betting on the BILL. By the time they get the spare aircraft prepped, though, the flight crew has "timed out" and cannot travel. Another is called, they FINALLY arrive at about 9:30 pm, and we get airborne. "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the captain speaking. We've been placed into a holding pattern by Air Traffic Control. As you can see out your window, traffic is pretty stacked up here at Philadelphia. We expect to be up here for about 45 minutes. Sorry, folks." BAD BEAT! Now there's NO chance in hell I can watch Nolan get spanked. No smoker for Jester. At least now I'm +75 in non-spent money.... REBATE! We land. FINALLY. I kiss Peg good-bye, head for the SEPTA train and 30th Street Station. I arrive at 30th Street just before midnight. The departure board says the next train to A.C. is at 1:15 am. I have about an hour, and am now STARVING. Mc'Dings is there, so I go munch and play Turbo Texas Hold'em on my notebook for a while. At 1:00 I emerge from McD's, and there's no 1:15 train listed on the board. Next train, is says, is 5:44 am. "Oh, someone goofed and had the weekend schedule listed up there for a few minutes around midnight. The last train left about a half hour ago." Screw the AIYAH. Now I yell "F@%K!" and nearly get thrown OUT of the station, left to sit in the cold rain of Philly, in shorts and without a jacket (who needs a jacket at the pocker table? Surely I don't need to bring a jacket! [Yes, you do need a jacket, Shirley. That's foreshadowing, for anyone bored and not paying attention by now....] I apologize, he relents, and I park my ass on a bench until 5:45. At least the TRAINS didn't break down, and I reach A.C. just before 8 am Friday morning.... No problem, just 14 hours later than I'd expected to arrive. At least I've used up all the bad karma one possibly can have, right? Part II: Bad Mojo Now we can actually talk about ATLARGE, since I've arrived. No hand-by-hand details here, no siree... Just highlights. If you made it through my first part of the report, without falling asleep, well done. Now I'll just hit you with the highlights of the GAMES, in rapid fire.... I nap for a mere THREE hours, go shoot dice, and win $193. Nice start. The bad mojo must have been slept ff. I get in a Hold'em game by noon, with many other ATLARGER's. I take down another small win here. Yes, the bad mojo is definitely gone. No wood to knock on. Big mistake. My salvation was the negative (for YOU folks) expectation games. I DESTROYED the dice tables, taking down about $400 total over the weekend. I left the Let It Ride table a $50 winner. However, it was the Pai-Gow Poker table where the first tale of the weekend happened. Friday night. Pai-Gow Poker. Six ADB's have the entire table locked up, betting $25 minimums and toking $1 EACH, EACH HAND. In 30 minutes we've dropped every white chip in the game into the toke box. They have to bring out a fill. While we're chanting LOUDLY each time the dealer is about to look at his hand....   Pai-Gow!   Pai-Gow!   PAI-GOW!   PAI-GOW!!!!! ...the Asian High-Roller at the table next to us is betting $25,000 per hand. They bring us the fill: $400,080. (Yes, four hundred thousand and EIGHTY). My GOD, they must fear us ADB's.... They think I'm going to turn this paltry $300 toothpick into a lumberyard! MEGA-DING! So we're laughing hysterically as they count down four stacks of $5000 chips, and four stacks of $1 chips that are destined to hit the toke box in short order. You have to love it... Six drunken bastards betting $25 table minimums against a bank of a half million dollars.....and they COMP us to soup at the Jade Palace soup kitchen.... HIGHLY recommended. My hand of doom: I'm banking and am dealt a K-T-8-7-6-3-2 Pai-Gow. That'll teach ME not to say "House Way" when offered the starting choice... Those should have been SECOR'S cards! Mega-saddenz as I pay out $225, having generously offered to bank more than $25 per hand. Pai-Gow ends at 3:30 am, just in time for us to go get 5 hours of sleep before the Saturday tourneys..... it's TOURNEY DAY! *This* is why I come -- this is what I live for.... I lost the Trop 4:15 Limit Hold'em tourney. No hands of note. Two tables had broken when I busted. Mojo falling.... I lost the Saturday ATLARGE Hold'em Tourney. I was in the lower third of the field. My hand of doom was heard on MARS. I don't remember the opponent, but I really, really liked my KK when the flop was T83 rainbow. He led, I smooth called, and the turn was another rag. I still like my hand, so when he leads out, I jam. He thinks about it (I like it when they have to take the time to think!), and calls. He's got me covered in chips, so if I lose, IGHN. We roll our cards and he finds he's a tremendous dog with JJ. Someone says "He needs another jack" as the dealer lays down the river card. Pandemonium breaks loose, the world stops turning, and every other table wants to know what the ruckus in the corner is about. Jester goes home now. "Mojo FALLING...." REBUY! I play in the first annual ATLARGE "rebuy" tournament (the public NL Hold'em event at noon). Nothing of note. I go out in 13th place, while it pays 6 places. "FALLING, FALLING...." EAST: The WSOP satellite I organized.... (FULL trip report on that later). Second HAND of the tourney overall. Clark Olsen and I both raise all-in after the flop comes down, you guessed it, under my overpair of KK. ClarkO, though, has hit middle set (tens), and relegates me to mere timekeeper, while everyone ELSE finishes playing poker in MY hotel room. That's NOT the way it was supposed to happen. ;-) "MOJO FALLING, FALLING, WAAAAAAAAAA!" - Jim Morrison Negative EV time yet again. Road Rally slot machines come highly recommended from Mr. Secor, though I think women would enjoy the vibrating seats on the average of every fifth pull or so, much more so than men. I win $25 on these 25-cent slots, r000ling my chat friends in the side bet department, and destroying the machines too. The Roulette Syndicate lost $60 in short order. $10 minimum at the dice table. Several COMPLETELY empty tables. We have nine players, and will LOAD this table if they drop to $5 minimum, guaranteeing them an hour's action. The pit won't relent. I don't understand this, and neither did Peter, who summed it up nicely... "If they advertised that they always had at least two $5 tables open, even on Saturday night, they'd be PACKED, at all tables, 24x7." A quick explanation of the methodology of our "money laundering" system. We "wash" our buy-ins. Bet and take odds. If that bet WINS, then the WINNINGS is "locked up" and cannot be bet again, but we'll keep re-betting the original bet and odds until its lost. In a perfect world, with zero standard deviation, we're going to bet each flat bet almost twice, win slightly less than half the time. Good money management, yes, but still expected to lose. So we re-angle the house.... Each ADB picks another ADB betting the same way (do or don't), and we piggy-back. Clark Olsen and I piggy back the darkside, $500 buy-in each. The table makes krushing of us, and we are down to $750 total in short order. Peter and Jeremy give it up, with their winnings, and head to the Let It Ride table, telling Clark and I to meet them there when done. Clark and I stick it out, knowing (yes, KNOWING) that the bad mojo MUST end soon. Variance will be our friend at some point. We've committed to finishing the "wash" of $1000 total. That "some point" comes when we have just under $800 locked up in payoffs, and enough to bet darkside and take odds on three bets. Those remaining chips had the power of the darkside with them.... Using the force, those chips won EVERY BET for about 20 minutes. We never even lost a don't come....     "Six, Nine, Five, Seven out, line away, pay the don't". "Five, Three Craps, Ten, Four, Six, Six, Eight, Eight, Seven Out". "Aces Craps, Four, Ten, Six, Five, Five, Five, Five, Seven out." When we've finally lost those last three bets of the original buy-ins, we have $1350, $175 score each. DING! So, what should you do with found money? Play Let it Ride! I score rolled up jacks on a ten dollar bet, and leave a quick winner. Secor has a Royal draw, is shown the fourth club, and lets all three bets ride to score an 8:1 hit on his $30 bets. DING! Soon, though, the magic wears off, and at about 3:00 we agree to head off to the SIGNATURE event of ATLARGE III..... Part III: 2-4 Hold'em like you've never seen it before..... 3:30 am, Sunday morning, a table full of drunk bastards has just ordered another round of beer (twenty beers), has tipped generously, and has yet again folded around to the button who calls out "Make it four dollars", to the dismay of the blinds, who fold. The button tips a dollar, and the game continues. It's...... ROCKS and BEERS, Hold'em style. This game had more angles than a dodecahedron, and more liquid lubrication (of the social variety) than Pennzoil. Among the angles: Jeremy Miller and I both buying into 2-4 Hold'em for $1500 each. We have pre-arranged a time for us to both continue re-jamming each other, to the felt, all $1500. It turns out, though, that our timing was HORRIBLE. The only playable hand, AA, shows up in Clark Olsen's hand when we try it, ruining it even more when its found that we both had AQo at the time we started doing this..... We both fold, letting Clark pick up the $32 in the pot, but I would have LOVED to have seen a $3000 pot in 2-4 Hold'em, and having to tell the dealer to chop it up.... Jeremy and I *did* have an $1100 pot later, which he won. Then even later, we went about $300 into it, until I folded to his $4 bet on the river. I didn't have the odds to call, since I had NO outs.... ;-) I r00led Jeremy back later when my Presto set beat his Aces for a $60 pot. I stacked up the chips in front of me as if splitting an Omaha pot, and toked the dealer ALL of the winnings from Jeremy, thus sending Satan [=Jeremy] on tilt. We toked EVERYONE. Chips were flying through the air all over the place. We toked the chip runners bringing the fills. (Nolan was sending them over from the main games.... "Go tell those guys to keep it down -- they'll toke you.") We toked the cleaning people. We toked anyone that walked by with a shower of chips. We toked the bartender, the cashier, the cage. Sadly, one young lady was greatly offended by the chips flying at her -- she apparently thought we were trying to insult her by making her pick up tokes off the floor. She walked away in disgust. I hope someone explained to her that we were certainly not being racist or insulting -- I've never met a less racist bunch of folks than those from BARGE and ATLARGE gatherings. Other angles we pulled.... Playing "normal" (i.e. not must-fold hold'em ala rocks & beers) at the beginning of a new down (perhaps even a bit looser, capping pots pre-deal, etc.), still tipping lavishly, but after the button makes a full orbit, we lock down to rocks & beers, putting the dealer on tilt.... "Toke the pot" (What?) "Toke the pot!" (The whole pot?) "YES!" (Ok!) "No white checks allowed in the rack!" Every time white chips made it into the house rack, we'd buy 'em out. One dealer was particularly bothered by this, as he kept feeling for the whites in the rack, but they weren't there. No white in the rack is VERY tough on dealers in a 2-4 game... ;-) I posted my big blind with a $500 chip, and forced the dealer to change it down, even though I had about $400 in whites in front of me. He had no white chips in his rack, but I STILL made him change down the $500 into reds, and then posted the white anyway. I then bought back the $500 next hand (to his relief -- I don't think the house likes those chips in poker racks). I ALMOST had the opportunity for a GREAT angle on Secor that he still doesn't know about... Hope you're reading this, Peter. The floor saw what I was doing, and asked me not to do thus, but you'd have loved it... I borrowed a broom from a cleaning staff member, and had a pair of dice in my pocket. I was going to use the broom handle to push you a pair of dice on your big blind, calling "Coming out, line bets, hardways, C and E money". Alas, I was told that the security cameras would have had FITS seeing that on the monitors, so I abided by the house wishes and didn't do it. That would have r00led, though. This game broke at about 6 am, with me down $60.... Not bad. I certainly had $60 worth of fun. (How'd I wind up only -60 after those pots with Jeremy? It was pre-arranged between he and I that we'd even up on our monster pots at the end -- the idea was to tilt the dealers and the rest of the table, and it worked). All of ATLARGE r00led. The house was great, the chat friends were great, it was all r000ling. I look forward to it again next year. Net for the trip: -400 give or take, as some of my money was used on cab fare, train fare, train station food, etc... a LOT better than last year's $1500 crushing. [How'd I do in Stud? Slept through the first hour, and finished in the top half, but out of the money. I'm no stud player. Maybe next year.] Jeff Woods