Trip Report
by Bill Alan
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 . . .
| Jazbo | with $200 in chips |
| Eric Holtman | with $575 in chips |
| Morgan Bjorkander | with $725 in chips |
| Dave Wheeler | with $1425 in chips |
| Dave Fruchter | with $1525 in chips |
| Tom Goodwin | with $2500 in chips |
| Mitch Kramer | with $2875 in chips |
| Clark Olson | with $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
| 1st | David Fruchter | $1140.00 |
| 2nd | Mitch Kramer | $655.50 |
| 3rd | David Wheeler | $342.00 |
| 4th | Clark Olson | $199.50 |
| 5th | Thomas Goodwin | $171.00 |
| 6th | Eric Holtman | $142.50 |
| 7th | Morgan Bjorkander | $114.00 |
| 8th | Jazbo 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
