1999

The story of my fourth BARGE.

Here are Patrice's excellent snaps from ATLARGE IV. We are fortunate that she has permission to actually take pictures in the gaming area. Kate Dumas (middle) congratulates the first and second place winners in the Fourth ATLARGE No Limit Hold'em Tournament: 1st place winner Linda Lewis (right) and 3rd place winner David Trinidad (left). Not pictured: 2nd place winner, Tom Goodwin. ...

hiya, folks!! tiger123, your atlantic city beat reporter here, with the latest headline news about "atlarge iv" - rgp's annual march gathering in the town that made diving horses famous! complete details will follow later this week! atlarge iv was a resounding smash success!! rgp'ers kicked butt all over the poker room and beyond! many thanks to the inimitable jazbo burns, who created and organized our atlarge events, and to will espin (tropicana vice president of poker, keno and simulcast) and his hard-working and charming staff: poker room manager kate dumas, poker host patrice munafo and marie mchugh, poker facility administrator. the weekend started with rgp'ers grabbing the top two spots in the trop's regular 10 + 10 limit thursday hold 'em tourney. scott byron (my choice for rgp'er most likely to win the wsop $10,000 championship) was one, and i've got the other somewhere in my notes! congrats to both! thursday night, an amazing game of 1-5 high-low stud (eight- or-better) was spread. eight rgp'ers bought in for at least $500 each....all in white chips!! "reds don't play!" was the password! there had to be at least six or seven thou in whites on the table, and cries of "outgoing!" and "incoming!" punctuated each and every change of dealers! :) and every time floorperson anita ordered a fill, the gang would dig deeper into their pockets...so that none of the chips ever got into the rack! :) your intrepid reporter had to wait for more than three hours before he could get a seat in this game! on friday, all-around good guy tom goodwin (who hasn't been seen in atlantic city since a certain halloween evening when a certain feline got a big surprise birthday party) had the goods on everyone! he won the trop's regular $100 + 15 no-limit hold 'em tourney and an entry to mike sexton's tournament of champions! wtg tom! the friday night smoker at the old waterway inn was one very fine dinner! nolan dalla and peter secor put the over/under line at approximately **twice** the actual total bill.... and they *still* got people to bet the "over"!! ;) llew213, one very tough poker player, was the big winner of rgp's saturday no-limit hold 'em tourney! even though llew says that taking her husband to see "rounders" was a big mistake, she again proved that she is quite capable of beating the pants off every male poker player who thinks that girls can't play poker! wtg llew! a fellow named tom goodwin took the second place money. after the tourney, llew got to play in a "beat the boss" $500 freeroll against kate dumas. katie couldn't beat llew's quads, and our musical lady from pennsylvania added five more franklins to her bankroll! kate, patrice and marie hosted the banquet dinner on saturday. your dauntless reporter was lucky enough to be the first one to ask kate to sit down next to him. what a delightful lady she is! a random drawing was held to give away a number of tropicana poker club jackets and t-shirts! and everyone got a trop poker club wallet! :) saturday night, a "mats" tourney (a mini-satellite for the rgp "target" satellite) was held....in an undisclosed location. ming lee and rob jarman chopped this one up, and ming promised that he'll be in vegas come wsop time! :) g'luck ming! late saturday night, some of the crew got the tropicana staff to spread a 5/10 hosel game (hold 'em, omaha, seven stud, seven stud/eight-or-better, and loball draw). but the real action was two tables away, where there was a 1-and-2 "rock 'n' beers" hosel game!! yes...there was thousands of white chips. yes.....reds didn't play. yes...."outgoing!" "incoming!" and "cocktails!!" were the words du jour! :) on sunday, dave fruchter knocked out your much-humbled reporter in the second round, and then beat up on everybody else and took first place in the rgp seven-card stud tourney. all-around good guy tom goodwin took fifth, and won the all-around best player award! but in the "beat the boss" freeroll, kate showed dave that poker executives know how to play poker, too, and kate was the boss of this freeroll! :) mitch firestone and i caught a 6 pm bus back to the big apple sunday evening! but before we left, we spotted llew213 as the big stack in the five remaining players of the tropicana regular $40 +10 seven-stud/eight-or-better tourney.... whatta player! that's all for now! stay tuned for the videotape at 11! :) tiger

THURSDAY, MARCH 18 I left Avon at 9 AM and had the best trip experience I've ever had to AC. I live about 5 miles from I-84 and, once on it, I didn't hit a single snag and it was interstate/expressway all the way. I was determined not to smoke cigarettes this trip and I did just fine until I got to the Trop and found a LOOOOOONG line at check-in. Arti, who bears a remarkable resemblance to the devil, was in line just before me and of course he was smoking. Then, of course, so was I. Ah wilderness. But, after a quick shower, I was in the poker room to stay most of the rest of my 4-day weekend. Kathy Raymond at Foxwoods has been asking me to advise her on ways that she can improve the operation there. These notes will go to her. Without question the Trop's poker room is the very best I have ever played in. (And the list is very very long . . . starting with Binions in 1952.) Here are some of the innovations I have never seen before and/or procedures I have never seen done as well. - A POKER ROOM CARD, distinct from the casino's general comp card, complete with my photo and bar-coded identity. Once every hour (half-hour?) someone comes around with a hand-held bar code reader and registers your play. At Foxwoods, as at most casinos, you sign in and you are comped until you sign out. But if you forget to sign out you lose your comp for the whole session. You can track your comp credit at The Trop through a swipe reader near the sign-in desk, write yourself out a food (or other) comp electronically, etc. (I simply let mine ride for 4 days and got a welcome credit on my room bill.) - When I got my card I met the lovely & charming Patrice Munafo for the first time. If I were about half my present age and not spoken for I would kill for her. - TV MONITORS all over the card room, that let you see your standing on any game you've signed in for. Beats the hell out of a distant grease pencil board at Foxwoods or a clipboard at places like Binions and the Mirage. - A BEEPER you can take with you if you leave the card room, which will signal you back for a game whenever your name gets to the top of a list. (You can also give them your room number and they will lock up a seat and call you.) - DEALERS KEEP THEIR OWN TOKES, which is not of course exclusive to the Trop, but would be a welcome change at FW. I'd never been to the Trop B4, so I can't make any comparison to the pool-toked days there, but I have never seen dealers work so hard and so well as those I saw this weekend. Q.E.D. - GENEROUS COMPS. My play (mostly at $10-20) earned me $2.11 an hour. I'm used to $1. Immediately apparent also was the excellence of the floorpersons. I have long been fed up with such people who remain aloof and disinterested, particularly in the pit games. In most casinos they look right through you in the crap pit; you can wait a half hour B4 they pick up your comp card. At the Trop they are right there for you. I have never EVER seen a better card room floor. Outstanding among a great group was "T.K." who treated me like his best friend. One small concern. I like to take a poker break and (usually) pay heavily for it in the pits. I do wish there were crap and blackjack tables closer to the poker room. I started out at $5-10 hold'em while waiting for a seat to open up in $10-20, which happened in about 15 minutes. Don't you love it when your first session is a winning one? After a few hours I was up about $700, a very respectable win at those stakes. The best thing about RGP events, of course, is the huge number of people you know there. George Wattman, in his trip report, said it perfectly: "At dinner Saturday night, Nolan and I talked about why these are so much fun. I told him that I thought each one was an investment in the next event as the more people you know, the better each event becomes." So it was for me. As a Thursday arrival I was there earlier than many others and I delighted in seeing old friends as they first walked into the room. And, of course, we all kept looking for ways to get an "all-RGP" event going. It happened in a major fun way: I believe it was Fold'em (Who else?) who got a magnificent $1-5 hi-lo stud game going. And, since Peter always buys in for $500 in white checks to build his incredible castles, we ALL did. We must have had at least $3000 in whites on the table. It became apparent that we would have a castle-building competition when Steve "PAIN" Smith started going head to head with Fold'em. I tried for a while but I'm not in their league . . . so I simply kept a huge mound of whites in front of me. Not pretty, but still impressive. "Toke the dealers!" is the rule in Rocks & Beers but I'd never seen it B4 in a quasi-real ring game. We soon began to mass toke the dealers as they entered and left their downs, giving them a $16 base to build on for each down. Fold'em came up with a major innovation: Cut $1 from every pot to award to the dealer who made Ming Lee the bring-in. It took a while. I think the tally was in the teens B4 Ming caught a deuce of clubs . . . and the then- current dealer got toked all of it. We look, of course, for any kind of silly reason to toke. "Toke the pretty dealer!" "Toke the short dealer!" "Toke the tall dealer!" But, gentlemen all, nobody ever ventured to embarrass or insult a dealer with something like "Toke the shitty dealer!" Such behavior is cause for being drum-rolled out of RGP events. Finally I just had to leave all this fun to get in some serious negative EV play. You don't cash (or color) in on a white check game; you sell your checks to someone else in the game to keep them IN the game. I ended up with about $300, and I truly believe half of the $200 I left behind ended up in the dealer toke box. Wonderful fun! Dan Benjamin, a new friend, and I made the long schlepp over to the dice pit where we were both playing line & come bets for $10 and taking $50 odds. I had a very decent run . . . maybe + $800 or so . . . when Dan decided to call it a night and pocket his considerable winnings. So I moved over to Blackjack to test a betting system I've been thinking about: Start with 3 units. If you win, pull back 2 . . . increasing your bet to 4. Keep progressing with a one-unit addition to your bet until you break, then start the procedure over again. Of course you play basic strategy, but I have long since given up counting as it takes the fun out of the game for me and gives me a headache. Now I know this progression is (a) too conservative and (b) as doomed as any other progressive betting system. But I had a hell of run. At one point, for instance, I had progressed up to an 8-unit bet and I split 8's and drew a 3 on each . . . doubled on both of them and ended up winning 32 units. Then something sad happened. There were two young men playing, with one of them on third base. Both of them were obviously deaf mutes. The guy on 3rd base knocked over a clear soft drink and left a big puddle on the bet circle so the floor had to close down that spot until it dried out. He asked the young man to move to another table since this one was full and, of course, the young man couldn't understand him. (He thought, I suppose, that he was being punished for spilling the drink.) Then a big hassle developed with the player (a big guy) getting very upset. Finally they called security. In the meantime I got up and gave the young man my seat and everything was calmed down. When security got there the floor and the dealer told him the problem was solved. I spoke to security and told him what had happened, with a pretty strong suggestion that both the floor and the dealer had behaved like assholes by not realizing that this poor guy simply could not understand what they were saying. A few minutes later a "suit" came to the table, apologized to the young man, and the dealer and floorperson apparently were asked to leave the pit. It's now about 4 AM and I leave the action for the day. Up about $1300. FRIDAY, MARCH 19 Have you ever had a $32 breakfast? I am a room service nut, so at 4 AM I order a rather ordinary breakfast to be served at 11 AM. I didn't even look at the menu, but just asked for eggs, bacon, home fries, croissants, OJ & coffee . . . items you expect to find on any menu. Service was exactly on time, everything was hot and quite good, but the tab was $32. Wow!!! So much for room service! The next 3 mornings I got a danish, coffee, & juice for about $5 at the cart in the lounge just off the poker room. I played $10-20 hold'em until 4 PM and left to play in the Trop's NL Hold'em tournament ($100 + $15 buy-in). Did poorly, but didn't really have my heart in it because I didn't want to miss the smoker at 7:30. To the smoker, then, with about 35 people attending. I sat next to Mitch Kramer who has become one of my best poker friends ever since the first FARGO. Across from us were Alan Richter and his lovely friend Nanette. The food was delicious in the extreme. There is no place on earth you can get a true Chesapeake Bay crab cake unless you are reasonably close to the Bay itself. Small sad note: I took the over on the total tab which Nolan & Fold'em had set at $1700. It came in at about half that. Back to the Trop poker room and we got a baby pot limit hold'em game going . . . $1 - $2 - $5 to go. Almost immediately I went on a wild ride. I had bought in at $500 and, within an hour, had tripled that amount. It got to the point where I was seeing virtually every flop and connecting on many of them. But then my pot limit nemesis, Raydon, got into the game. I did fake him out of one or two pots, but nobody I play with plays this game better than Ray. Remembering how he skunked me for about $1400 on just two hands at the last FARGO I had enough sense to get out B4 he took all my checks. But I still cashed out about $800 winners. And, needless to say, Fold'em and I had to shoot some dice. Memory fails me but I must have taken a bad beat because when we quit at about 0430 I counted down my stash up in the room and was ahead by only $1100. I think I will speak to my shrink about my perverse obsession for the bones. SATURDAY, MARCH 20 Of course there was little sleep after yesternight's craps action. A hot soak and a quick shower, plus a hit of Gingko and a lot of black coffee got me going though. I should, at this point, make it clear that I am not good at remembering hand details unless I am making notes . . . which I never do unless I am reporting. But tiger's excellent coverage, posted earlier, would make my poor efforts redundant so I refer you back to him and will only post some personal observations here. The Hold'em tournament started out very well for me. Early on, I caught a monster hand against PRM and ??? and managed to nearly triple through and eliminate both of them. I think it was quad aces, which I did river at some point in the tournament, but I'm not certain. Things went quite smoothly after that but after the break I got involved with a flopped set I simply couldn't lay down and it was curtains for Billy. By this time the tournament was down to two tables so I stuck around to watch the fascinating final table. Tiger made mention of Pete "Tray Racer" Segal's tenacious play. At one point Pete was down to a single black chip. Fifteen minutes later he had a double stack . . . roughly $4000. Never has "a chip and a chair" been so perfectly demonstrated to me. Pete has made the final table at more RGP events I've attended than anyone else, including BOTH final tables at the first FARGO in 1997. But alas, he couldn't sustain it. When it got down to the final 3 LLew was in a commanding lead over Tom Goodwin and Dave Trinidad. A deal was made. LLew wanted $1100 out of the $2627 available, and Tom & Dave agreed to split the balance even though Tom had a slight edge over Dave. LLew also offered to throw in the TOC qualification since she was already qualified. So was Tom. This is as good a place as any to mention that Tom Goodwin gets my vote for Mr. Congeniality in our group. He has never appeared to me to be a "money" player so much as he is in it for the pure pleasure of playing. It's contagious. Whenever you sit at a table, including a dinner table, with Tom you are bound to have a swell time. LLew's offer to throw in the TOC qualification presented an interesting ethics situation. The qualification cannot be sold or transferred . . . thus it MUST be won. And, since LLew and Tom both had an existing qualification, it would have been an easy call to say "What the hell; give it to Dave". But, of course, both LLew and Tom were honor-bound to play their hearts out and make Dave EARN the qualification by winning all the checks. (Plus there was one more thing at stake . . . the freeroll with Kate Dumas for $500, which would go to the "official" winner.) As it turned out it didn't matter, and I am certain none of the players involved would ever give (or take) an edge in the highly competitive spirit of RGP. As it turned out LLew did win it and went on to play Kate heads-up and win another $500. NOTE that I may be mistaken about the "Must be won" rule cited above. I've asked Mike Sexton for a confirmation which I will post later. The rest of the day was rather horrible for me at the $10-20 hold'em table (We could not get a pot-limit game going in the afternoon.) I must have sat in the same seat and gone through $600 - $700 without EVER seeing a turn card. We've all had such days and they go a long ways toward ruining an otherwise perfect day. But nothing can spoil the camaraderie of ATLARGE. The banquet was on for 6 PM and, as Kristofferson wrote, "I reached into my closet for my clothes and found my cleanest dirty shirt". I had the great good fortune to be seated at a table with Fold'em, Mitch K, Tom Goodwin (and his knockout/beautiful friend, Barbara), Nolan & the ever- delightful Marieta (I would kill for her, too, but I would have to kill Nolan first which presents an enigma.). If I've left anybody out it is because beautiful women easily distract me. Indeed, I turn into jelly in their presence. Would that my lovely lady/wife were there. She would have given those half her age courage to believe that true beauty is not a transient thing. Good conversation and bad jokes made the evening fly. My system rejects pasta in any form and chicken, to me, has always been an adjective. But the salad was excellent, as were the martinis. Kate, Patrice, Marie, and (I hope I didn't forget anyone) graced us with their presence and a bunch of neat gifts. I will presume that everyone involved realizes that all those casino rate rooms, the $1,000 freerolls, and the gift items add up to a 5-figure sum, which is generous in the extreme. Thanks have been given by others and I add my own here. Next on the fun-seekers list was still more poker until a few of us decided we truly could defy the odds at the crap table. Chuck, Fold'em, David Croson & I left the poker room in search of David's wife, Rachel who, according to David, "will be easy to find; she's playing slot machines". I find it strange that people of genuinely superior intellect can approach life's vicissitudes with such unquestionable confidence. Of course what really happened was that Rachel found us . . . where logic dictated we would be . . . at the crap table. Fold'em has devised some sort of arcane method by which he uses other people's money to beat the crap tables. It involves putting chips in either the front tray or the rear tray, I forget which, and I believe it ultimately yields about $1 to a determined and disciplined player. Chuck stood back, constantly regaling us with details of how he was going to take "the family" to Las Vegas soon, but unwilling to risk one engraved image of the son of the late Nancy Hanks on the crap table. The only truly good thing about this session is that I saw no reason to further destroy my rapidly dwindling bankroll since I could thoroughly enjoy myself observing the weird habits of my fellow fun-seekers. Since everyone else had pigged out at the banquet I was determined to get some real honest-to-goodness American food into my constantly demanding system and got them to join me at the Surfside (?) café for burgers and whatnot. An aside . . . I have been much impressed, over several meetings, with David and Rachel. They are, I believe we can all agree, people of superior intellect. From time to time I need an intellectual fix. Let's face it: One does not usually run into such people at a poker (or, lord knows, crap) table. Indeed, most of those we do meet pronounce words like "them" differently than Dr. Johnson did. But David & Rachel have a delightful and mannerly way of adjusting their conversation to suit the people they are with at the moment. Earlier in the evening I had been listening in on a conversation between Rachel and Andy Latto which was largely way over my head. Mind you, they were not ignoring me . . . any more than two people speaking in Swahili would be. But in a cozy booth in a place where you could get a good burger they adapted themselves to a different place and other people. Earlier in this long diatribe I wrote about beautiful women. Rachel need give no ground to others in purely physical beauty, but exudes what . . . to me . . . is a beauty unto itself: Beauty of the mind. I felt compelled, on our way to the elevator, to say to all "I had a good time just now". Chuck, who I greatly admire for a whole bunch of things, said "So did I". Lest I forget: Peter picked up the check. SUNDAY, MARCH 21 Tiger's notes on the Hold'em tournament are infinitely better than mine on the Stud tournament which follow. But I will attempt to be as complete as I am able to be in reporting on another truly exciting final table. Those who fought there way to get there included . . . Jazbowith $200 in chips Eric Holtmanwith $575 in chips Morgan Bjorkanderwith $725 in chips Dave Wheelerwith $1425 in chips Dave Fruchterwith $1525 in chips Tom Goodwinwith $2500 in chips Mitch Kramerwith $2875 in chips Clark Olsonwith $6825 in chips First to fall was Jazbo. WTG just getting there Jazbo. You really had just one hand left to play. Morgan, who came all the way from Sweden to play, was also short stacked. ADB Jaeger didn't have enough either and fell third. Tom, who was certainly a favorite on the morning line, failed in the stretch. Clark, who looks as youthful & harmless as Matt Damon, simply couldn't get a hand. Look for him in future meetings. He has class. The final three were all, each in their own way, serious contenders. To my knowledge, no deal was made. They came here to play. I started handicapping Dave Wheeler at ATLARGE II, when we both showed up early for the Thursday smoker and had a chance to chat. I recall that he is an engineer in the auto industry and a fearsome player in a pot limit game. I don't know Dave Fruchter's play very well, but he showed himself to be a very ballsy player . . . not afraid to move it all in. Mitch I know well. I watched him slowly destroy two very brilliant players from the Boston area at FARGO '97 and, if I were a betting man, would have set the line on him as a favorite. Dave Wheeler, short stacked, was first to go. He'll get there one of these days as he is a truly fine player. At this point I would have laid at least 2-1 on Mitch, acknowledging both his dominant stack and his card sense, which I have observed on several occasions, particularly when he won the Hold'em tournament at FARGO '97. But Dave Fruchter proved to be a survivor. All-in at one point, Dave played brilliantly and gradually whittled away at Mitch's stack to take the trophy. WTG Dave! The money was distributed to the winners as follows 1stDavid Fruchter$1140.00 2ndMitch Kramer$655.50 3rdDavid Wheeler$342.00 4thClark Olson$199.50 5thThomas Goodwin$171.00 6thEric Holtman$142.50 7thMorgan Bjorkander$114.00 8thJazbo Burns$85.50 Kudos to The Trop's Aimee Thompson who ran a perfectly organized tournament and "T.K" who did the same the day before. These are quality people and I am pleased to see that The Trop recognizes that fact. Another so-so afternoon at the tables, during which I managed to further diminish my earlier winnings in yet another $10-20 hold'em game, was (gratefully) cut short by LLew's invitation to dinner. She, in the meantime, had taken down yet another big prize, this time in the Trop's $40 buy-in 7-stud hi-lo game. Is there no limit to this gal's dominance over the rest of us? LLew, who by this time had more money than God, wanted to share some of it with her friends. Clark Olson, Jim (Bulbar) Bullard, Fold'em, Dave Trinidad, and I were her guests at a marvelous Italian restaurant (Angellino's?) in Ducktown. I had one of my most memorable meals in recent times . . . a superb dish of Lobster Ravioli. I am not particularly fond of Italian food, as noted, but this was more of a continental dish. And now, with the official joustings over, I allowed myself to have a second ultra-dry martini . . . which was essentially gin on the rocks. Back, stuffed, to the Trop where I bled a little bit more but managed to get to bed at a decent hour. MONDAY, MARCH 22 Needing sustenance for the long drive home I slept until 11 AM, took another soak and shower and down to the poker room for one last fling. There was no $10-20 hold'em going but I managed to get into a $10-20 stud game seated next to my buddy Tom McHugh. Once again I couldn't catch diddly. Apart from one hand when I drew rolled up 8s it was a pretty dull session. The final tally for me was not great, but I wouldn't trade a huge win for the excellence of the best RGP event I have ever attended. It's hard to invent new ways to say WTG to the great Jazbo but, having put on two FARGOs myself, I have a feel for all he goes through. Believe me folks . . . you don't have enough money to pay someone to organize one of these events. It's truly a labor of love and Jazbo . . . we LOVE you for it. One quick, obligatory, stop at the White House for a cheese steak fix and I am on my way back to Connecticut. Took the Tappan Zee this time to avoid NYC traffic and was home without any problems by about 9 PM. Many thanks to everyone who contributed to my marvelous weekend, be they RGP or Trop people. I am off to Las Vegas on Saturday for a week. Marcelle & I are seriously considering relocating there and Tom Sims has asked us to dinner on Sunday night to, among other things, tell us about "normal" life there. I hope to see many of you at FARGO in early October. Bill Alan

This was my fourth RGE event, two BARGE's, one FARGO, and this my first ATLARGE. Although short, it was probably my best. As BOBBY D put it in his trip report, everyone is so welcoming and fun to talk to that you are comfortable as soon as you arrive. All hail Jazbo for excellent coordination and event planning! At dinner Saturday night, Nolan and I talked about why these are so much fun. I told him that I thought each one was an investment in the next event as the more people you know, the better each event becomes. It is great to sit down at a table and be familiar with several of the folks there. Although your EV may drop due to the skills of this group, the fun factor increases! I arrived Friday about noon and went to the Taj to build up the bankroll. Noon on Friday is nothing but the local rocks that continually trade dollars and know each other. I, the ever-present rookie, picked up a couple hundred for ATLARGE. One guy had such a classic reverse tell it should have been in CARO's book (if he had only been wearing 1960's clothes). He would get excited when missing and feign disappointment when hitting. Thanks for the donation. About 3pm, I went over to the Trop to sign up for the limit holdem tourney. Checked in and put my stuff in the room. Went down to sign up for 5-10 and 10-20 before the tourney. I got into the 5-10 game at 4pm thinking I wouldn't play due to the tourney beginning immediately. Got seated by PRM and found out that the tourney wouldn't start until 4:15. Won the first two or three hands and cashed out late for the tourney up $65!. Sat down and found that I missed the first several hands, didn't have to pay blinds yet and had Bwana, Jaeger, and Peter Segal at my table. OK, I also found out the hard way that it was no limit when the guy in #1 went all in against me about the fifth hand. I called and my QQ held against his JJ, and set me up for the day. I got broken out to another table soon there after and didn't have to play these tough guys for long. Did pretty well in the games, finishing tenth, to much in the way of sympathy of others. You can't imagine the fun of knowing half the tourney and doing fairly well, it's like being famous! Thanks Tom Mc Hugh for giving me the hang tough speech! The downside is that I played until about 9:45 and totally missed the smoker. Damn, I was looking forward to that! Went pretty much on tilt in the side games after that, pissing away a couple hundred and going to bed at 3am. Played with some great guys, gave away a cigar to Bobby D, talked with PRM again, and met some RGE newbes that were surprised that the group wasn't a bunch of geeks. Far from it. I got at a tough table in the ATLARGE tourney, LLEW, ADB BK among others. Did fairly poorly, got no cards and watched LLEW put on a tourney winning demo. Hey LLEW my chips gave you the edge at both FARGO and ATLARGE, I need a percentage for BARGE this year! Tilted around after that and played some negative EV table games to pass some time. Considered just going the hell home, but got into a 10-20 game about 1pm. After a while, Tom McHugh, Bruce Kramer, Scott "Bwana" and Russell Rosenbloom came and left. In the last hour or two, Russell, Bruce and I went on a total combined rush and tilted the local rocks to the tune of cashing out at banquet time up a combined $2300. Bruce, way to go for reaching one of your poker goals with a big win! I guess we exceeded the one big bet an hour rate! The more poker I play, the less interest I have in table games. I guess this is all part of my continuing gambling education. I tell you, I learn more at an RGE event than a year of books and self-analysis at the tables. I wish I had a strong local home game to learn from, but a quarterly visit to the AC rocks doesn't help much. Thanks again to all of those who discussed strategy, playing conditions, places to play and how to attack situations. I especially want to publicly again thank Nolan for answering my emails about where to play, how to approach others in the RGE community, and hopefully reassembling the TEXAS team at this year's BARGE. Lets raise the stakes and make it winner take all! I had a great ATLAGE dinner, not so much the food, but the company. Sat by Muriel and Nolan, Bruce, Mitch, Foldem (Peter, thanks again for the drink), and Peter, among others. What a great group to discuss the finer points of keeping track of wins, where to play, when and all that other stuff no one else in your life understands. I got home and started telling my wife about flopping the nuts in the big blind with a flush draw and no full houses possible and her eyes glazed over immediately. There are about exactly a hundred other people I talked to, played against, and helped me over the one and one half days that were all fun, accessible and a better group that you usually see in AC. I feel like my continuing poker education was improved this trip. I can't wait for BARGE, looking forward to seeing all these guys (and obviously gals) and more there. Who cares the location, it will be great! George

Took Friday off from work as its a long drive from Connecticut and its nice to beat the rush hour traffic. Shared a room with my brother who plays poker but stays out of RGP activities. This was my third Atlarge, and must concur with Bill Alan that the Tropicana is the best poker room in the country. Lots of great ideas have been put into practice. Lots of credit to Will Espin and the Trop Staff. Will had told me of his ideas before the room was constructed, and a lot of thought and hard work went into it. Friday night after check in, I played some 10-20 Stud and won about $200. Wanted to play pot-limit holdem, but was not very sharp after the long drive. Saturday I bust out quick in the holdem tournament with pocket 10s which became three tens on the turn losing to a flush on the river. Most of the rest of the day is spent playing pot-limit, its $3-5 blinds and about half the players are veterans of previous RGP PL games. Even very good players often get crushed in this kind of game, but I manage to win about $700 before dinner. Dinner was nice, more for the company than the food. In future RGP outings I would like to branch out into playing craps or do silly drinking things, instead of just poker. After dinner Saturday, I am on the list for pot-limit, but play 10-20 holdem. Nice game with several RGP players, one interesting hand I am dealt KQd on the button. Flop is 10-J of Diamonds and a blank. Two bets to me, I raise. Turn is a blank only one bet two callers. River is the 9 of diamonds giving me the nut staight flush. Guy to my left bets, call, I raise, he raises, other guy folds, raise, raise, raise, raise. Finally I am all in. I had originally thought he had the nut flush on the first first two raises. The guy was a regular fat guy poker player with big gold jewelry so he looks like he hangs out at the casinos. By the third raise I put him on the straight flush which is what he had when he happily turned over 7-8 of diamonds announcing straight flush. I meekly say me too, and show him my nuts. Sunday I bust out of the stud tournament and head straight home. I would have played all day but my brother had to testify in a trial. I will be in Vegas May 5-12 for the world series, hope to see some of you there. Also looking forward to Fargo and maybe Barge. Jim Tolliver (JT)

hiya, folks! here is my report about the no-limit texas hold 'em tourney, held this last saturday as part of "atlarge iv" at tropicana hotel and casino, atlantic city, new jersey. $50 of the buy-in went to prizes, and each player started with T500. i'll post a separate trip report about some of my various adventures this weekend, including the 1-5 "white chip" high-low 7-card/eight-or- better game, and including the "mats" mini-satellite. my name isn't tom sims, and my name isn't mike paulle, and i've got my very own particular style of writing. i don't do this to earn my living, and your opinions about my reports will vary. i write this stuff to tell you all about what happened, and (if i'm lucky) to entertain you to a small degree. enjoy!! tiger ------------------- late friday night, your doughty reporter was busy consuming multiple scotch units while whiling away the hours chatting with nanette (alan richter's ladyfriend) in a 1-5 no-smoking game of 7-card stud. i also won $44 before staggering off to bed at 7 am. but as i was leaving the poker room, i saw tom goodwin dug in at a lively 10/20 hold 'em game. tom had won the trop's regular friday no-limit game several hours earlier, and he was practicing his usual routine of collecting all the chips on the table. he promised to get a little bit of sleep before the tourney.... although 72 people registered for the no=limit texas hold 'em event, only 71 people showed up. i am advised that the no-show was yuri sorkin. i don't know yuri, so i can't tell you if he was there or not. the tourney started roughly on time at 10:00 am (no, i wasn't there. "i don't play hold 'em!"). the tropicana tournament director was tom "tk" kraus. tk told me later that he'd never seen a better-played tourney! i finally wandered down to the poker room around 1 pm, just before the remaining players took their final break. there were only 11 people left, and the two tables played "hand for hand" until they got down to the final 9. the big stacks were dave trinidad, herbie allen and tom goodwin. pete segal and rob jarman were "on the bubble." barry kornspan became a new acquaintance of mine. unfortunately, i met him as he busted out in 11th place, losing to local tournament pro herbie "hollywood" allen. herbie and patty allen lurk at rgp, and i've mentioned both of them on several occasions. after barry went down, the short stacks were bob jarman and wes tilly. bob was all-in and survived with a KQo against dave croson. however two or three hands later, wes took two red nines against dave; this time, dave turned a jack to leave wes one place short of the money. wes was also a new acquaintance. :( the dealers at the final table were tina and john. both of them did a terrific job!! tk also told me that all the players at the final table were quite generous to the dealers, and i'm glad that we didn't have any mavericks around to sully rgp's reputation. here is the lineup and stack sizes of the final table: bob jarman1000 mordechai schwartz3375 dave trinidad8525 tom goodwin4850 herbie allen2500 pete segal1250 franky casino2500 dave croson5625 llew2136075 here are the scheduled payoffs: 1 $1420.00 2 816.50 3 390.50 4 248.50 5 195.25 6 159.75 7 124.25 8 106.50 9 88.75 play at the final table began with an ante of T25 and blinds of 100/200. in the first big hand, only mordechai and dave saw the flop, which came Qc 6s Jh. mordechai checked; dave bet 500 and mordechai raised to T2000, which put him all-in. dave called, and showed a KQo. mordechai had QJo for two pair. 5d on the turn and 4s on the river didn't help either player. mordechai won a big pot to challenge dave trinidad for the chip lead. soon thereafter, mordechai raised with an offsuit slick. herbie allen called all-in with a pair of tens. the flop hung "hollywood" out to dry: 7s Qs Ah. Jh on the turn and 9h on the river ended herbie's tourney. [in a no-limit game, your entire stack is always in jeopardy. players thrust, parry and feint, and you're never really sure of where you're at until someone is all-in and the cards go face-up on the table. so, there were several hands where an all-in thrust by one player ended the hand.] for example: tom goodwin raised. it was folded to dave croson who thought a long time. he pushed his entire stack into the middle of the table, and it was tom's turn to think. discretion became the better part of valor; tom mucked; and we never got to see either hand. franky casino came all the way from the netherlands to attend atlarge! he and his wife had a great time and were enormously popular during the weekend! franky found an A8o and bet. mordechai, holding two queens, raised him. franky called all-in, hoping for a good flop. he surely got one with 2s Ah 8h. the turn was a meaningless 7d, and franky got even more help with the 8d on the river. franky decided that he was on a roll, and raised pete segal's big blind. earlier, when there were only 15 players remaining, pete was the short stack. he went all-in about six times, coming off the floor each time to get to the final table. pete is a true veteran of atlarge final table play, and he likes to say that he's got the best fingernails at rgp! he's certainly got the most experience in hanging on to his last chips! this experience served him well, and pete folded to franky's raise. then came the strangest hand at the final table. short-stacked bob jarman raised T725 all-in under the gun. pete called. franky called. dave croson called. llew called. hey! did bob get maximum action for his all-in bet?? the flop was 2d 8h 2c. llew (who was the big blind) bet T1000. bob was all-in; pete folded; franky folded; and dave croson (little blind) called. the turn was 6s. dave checked and llew bet T1500. dave folded. the river was 4d. llew's As 8s stomped on bob's K10o. bob got 8th place. the antes went up to T50 and the blinds were 200/400. dave trinidad, holding the ace and 10 of clubs, raised. pete used up most of his chips to call with a pair of tens. dave croson, with the 6 8 of hearts, also called. the flop was 3s 4h 9c. dave croson checked; dave trinidad bet T225, which just happened to be the rest of pete's stack. he called, and so did the other dave. the turn of 7h gave the wharton school professor a gut-shot straightflush draw, but nobody bet. the Ks on the river gave the pot to the guy with fingernails of steel and tens in the pocket. the professor was seriously short-stacked. dave croson was the little blind on the next hand, and the blind cost him the rest of his chips. nobody called llew's big blind. the flop didn't help either player; llew turned a pair of kings; dave rivered a pair of jacks, and that was good enough for seventh place in the tourney. tom made a big raise. llew and mordechai mucked. franky made a big raise, but dave trinidad in the big blind came back at him to win the pot. tom raised T1200. franky re=raised all-in and tom called all-in. tom had As Kd and franky had the Q9 of spades. the cards on the board were the ace, four, ten and queen of diamonds, and the jack of clubs. tom had a flush. franky had T800 left. within one or two hands, franky put it all-in, with a KQo. "iceman" trinidad was there with the 10 9 of clubs. the board was 9d 3h 5s Ad 7h, and dave's nines were the winner. franky stood up to a big round of applause as the sixth place finisher. mordechai raised on the button. small blind iceman came over the top, and big blind tom and mordechai mucked. on the next hand, llew had the button, so she raised. mordechai re-raised all-in. llew called with the J 10 of diamonds. mordechai showed a KQo. three diamonds, a spade and the Qh gave llew a flush, and gave mordechai fifth place money. [a note about llew. she started this tourney with a couple stacks of real white chips. each time she won a significant pot, she would toke the dealer!! the dealers had never seen this before!! wtg llew!!!] llew raised T1500. pete called with a significant portion of his chips. the flop came Ad 5d 10d. pete checked; llew bet T2000. pete consulted the list of payoffs, and called. the club ace on the turn gave llew trips. pete checked with a flush draw and a gutshot broadway draw. if llew knew how many outs pete had, she probably would not have slow-played. perhaps she thought that pete was slow-playing a flush. the club jack on the river gave pete a pair of jacks, and he put the rest of his chips in the pot. llew called with three sharp-tops to file mr. fingernails away into fourth place. the three remaining players asked tk to stop the clock, and the players counted down their stacks. llew had T21675; dave had T7725; tom had T5900. llew and tom already had qualified for mike sexton's tournament of champions. there was $2627 in prize money available to be chopped. they reached a deal: llew got $1100; dave and tom split the rest 60/40, or $916.20/600.80. you math whizzes will notice that, as between dave and tom, the ratio of chips was 57/43, so tom may have short-changed himself by a few bucks. the balance of the deal was that llew got to play poker room manager kate dumas in a $500 "beat the boss" freeroll, and dave got the entry to the tournament of champions. :) back to the game! dave raised; llew called. llew made a big bet on the flop and dave mucked. llew made a medium raise. dave re-raised and llew mucked. llew raised and dave called. the flop was 9c 3h 9s. llew made a big bet and dave mucked. llew raised on the button, and tom called her. after the flop of 3c 3h 6d, tom's all-in bet won the pot. tom raised. llew re-raised to win the pot. llew was in the little blind and raised. dave in the big blind re-raised; tom mucked and llew called. the flop was 3h 9d 7c. dave thought his pair of fours in the pocket were enough, and he went all=in for T2250. llew called him with a K8o. the Kc on the turn meant trouble for dave, and the Qs on the river was the end. they were now down to head-to=head. the antes went up to T75 and the blinds were 300/600. tom only had about T3000. it didn't take very long. tom raised all-in with the A4 of hearts. llew called him with the QJ of diamonds. the flop came 4d 5h 4s; the turn was 8d; the river gave llew a pair of queens. not enough, yet. tom was still alive. but, pretty soon, tom had the Ah 9s and committed all his chips to a raise from llew. she had a big lead with a pair of kings, and they held up! wtg to both!! what a great tournament!! congrats to all who played!! special congrats to those who won!! :) and many many thanks to tk and the rest of the tropicana staff for one terrific no-limit tourney!! tiger p.s. a couple final notes: at 7 am, when i went to bed, tom had promised me that he would get some sleep before the 10 am scheduled tourney start. yeah....he got about an hour's worth, showered and shaved....and picked up second place! all right!! although llew is a frequent visitor to the tropicana poker room (and can sometimes be seen in front of the video slots....), she and kate dumas had never actually met. the "beat the boss" freeroll solidified the instant bond between the two of them! :) and llew's quads gave her an extra $500. :D bill alan was seen hanging around the final table. he claimed to be reporting about this tourney for "cardplayer" magazine. despite the fact that this was a "no-smoking tourney", i saw him smoking lots of cigarettes, taking lots of drinks from cocktail waitresses, and chatting with lots of people. but i didn't see him taking many notes. if any stats or description of hands appear in his "report", we'll all know where he got them......

I wasn't planning on writing a big trip report, but thought now I might just to give other potential lurker/newcomers the idea that attending these events are worthwhile. Short Answer: YES! First things first.. I'll have to thank my wife (cue Academy Awards music...) for "letting" me come. I'm already away from home too much for work-travel, which is not a good thing with 6 and 3 year-olds. So, it was much to my surprise when a couple months ago that she innocently said "Why don't you go?" when I was describing these "ARGE" things to her. This was, of course, after having to explain that I really was just playing cards with someone named "NewJane" on IRC. [Hint: Never leave incriminating bookmarks around to attractive fellow IRC'ers web pages for the spouse to find without 'splaining yourself first]. So, I cashed in a free ticket on Midway Airlines [freeroll?, just learning poker parlance] that was about to expire and made plans to go... The trip to the Trop was my 2nd ever casino poker experience, having tried out some poker in Las Vegas in February during a business trip. My only other poker education was the hundreds of hours I've played on IRC after discovering it about a year ago. I'd also never met anyone else of the group in person before. So, I had a little nervousness on a couple of fronts. Medium Answer: Not to worry! The poker room at the Trop is great, even for newbies. Patrice is a fantastic hostess. I met lots and lots of ATLargers both at the ring game tables and in the tournaments, and everybody was really friendly and helpful. Flew into Philadelphia from Raleigh/Durham on Friday and rented a car. Arrived at the Trop at about 2:30 pm. Next time, I think it would be worth it to fly directly into AC. The extra time/hassle/money of driving from Philly (esp. during the torrential downpour on Sunday) was not worth it. Went to poker room and picked up the poker room card. Really nice and organized system. Soon got into a 3-6 HE non-smoking game. 10 hours later (Yes, I'm hooked), I got up -$130. I was disappointed in losing (I played 4 times in Vegas, and never lost money) but had a great time. Several ATLargers played at various times. I think most of my money was lost while the ATLarge quotient at the table was high, which was a trend for the whole weekend for me. Went to bed about 3 am Sat. Up by 9 on Saturday morning and head for the HE tourney. I quite literally have no idea what to do. After getting a duplicate seat assignment resolved, I end up at seat 9 at the same table as eventual winner Llew (who was seat 1). My goal was to last through the first break. I don't even bother eating breakfast.My first big blind (99) is un-raised with Llew only caller. Flop 9-9-x. I check. Nothing. Check turn. Nothing. Bet 100 on the river, Llew folds against my first ever quads. Fast forward... 5 hours later, I'm still in the same seat, with about T1000 (started with T500). I had only been all-in once (JJ in blind, called big raise), and won with a fluke flush. Only other memorable hand: AQo in big blind, called medium raise from Llew (UTG) after everybody else folded. Flop A-high ragged. Llew bets T400 (well over half my stack at that point). I agonize.... and fold face-up to some audible responses from the table. Never found out what Llew had (I figured AA or AK given the UTG raise and big bet after). Anyway, I finally get moved to another table when we were down to 14(?) players. Get down to 10 players (9 places pay). Run to gift shop to get some crackers (it's 4 pm and I still hadn't eaten). I was 2nd smallest stack. Small stack went all-in and lived. Few hands later was my big mistake: I still had about T700 (blinds 100-200). On the button, everybody folds to me with J9s. I raise T300. Small blind counts my remaining chips and re-raises. I had to fold, I not going down with J9. In retrospect, I learned that trying to steal without enough chips to back it up is a bad idea. Another round goes by and I'm big blind. Get 99 [remember the quad story above???]. Button raises enough to put me all-in, I go for it. He turns up QJo, J flops and IGHN. In hindsight, I could have most likely made the final table by not even looking at my cards once we got down to 10 or 11. I had enough for 4-5 orbits at that point in the blinds. (Fast forward, I watched Jazbo the next day in the stud tourney survive with 2 chips to the final table by waiting, waiting...). Anyway, this was probably the best $60 poker lesson I'll ever get. Banquet saturday night was very nice. I got there a little late, and "had" to sit next to Patrice, tough duty. Won a Trop Poker Room jacket, a nice consolation prize for the 1 out of the money finish earlier (was this rigged???). Went back to the poker room and got into 1-3 non-smoking stud. I had never played stud (except against my computer). Figure a little practice before the Sunday tourney would be good. Played for 2 hours, +$10 (woohoo). This is not a money game. Dealer commented to me once that I was basically splitting my pots with her (I was toking 50c-$1). Went back to 3-6 HE for a while, and did better +$70. Also tried "Double Joker" Video Poker after buying one of Jazbo's cards. Hit five-of-a-kind FIVES! Calls of Presto! brought only stares in the video poker room...Turned in at 3am again. Sunday stud tourney. Finish 42nd, resolve that I like Holdem much, much better. I went into this tourney with the idea that I would be ultra-conservative (and I ate breakfast). After being the bringin for what seemed like the 50th time, I eventually had to play a hand. Went down with (AK)Q which improved to exactly (AK)Q-c-r-a-p. Tried 2-4 HE for a while. Amazingly different game from 3-6, these people were wild! 3 straight capped pots before the flop (I was in one with AKs, lost). Quickly -$40. Decide to go back to 3-6 (+$80, nice way to end). Stayed there with some very nice ATLargers until about 3 pm, when it was time to start the drive back to PHL. Flight delayed 3 hours due to the weather, but I was home by 11 pm. Long Answer: Overall, just a great, great weekend. Something very different for this 34-year old, pretty quiet and close-to-home dad. Adrenaline was still flowing until about Tuesday. I don't know how often I'll get to do the "ARGE" stuff, but I definitely want to do it again. To all the lurkers/newbies out there, I can't imagine a better way to get into poker in a friendly atmosphere than what ATLARGE at the TROP is. Wes   wtil...@nortelnetworks.com