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2007

Real ATLARGE trip report

by David Kuznick

Day -1 (Thursday 3/1)

Drop N off at nursery school so we can finish getting ready for the trip. See that an email from mav600 had come across the ATLARGE list. He is looking for backing; for $250, the backer gets 50% of his action in the pink-chip ($7.50-$15 limit hold-em) game Friday night which he will buy into for $500, 10% of his HOE tournament action, and a Haurex watch. :-) I talked it over with J and emailed him, and agreed to the backing. That would be the first of my luckbox moves this weekend.

Picked N up from nursery school and got on the road. N was fabulous in the car; this was his first long trip since potty training, and he did great; no accidents, though he was a bit difficult during the stop for lunch about going to the bathroom.

You expected actual poker content in a trip-report?

We stopped twice on the way; lunch and a bathroom break. Arrived at J's mom in Princeton around 5:30. Yummy lamb stew for dinner and an early bed for me.

Day 0 (Friday 3/2)

Up and on the way out, try to fix a surprise car-seat in the back of J's mom's car but no-go. It's not safe the way it is installed; I try to put it in correctly, but it's still not great. Useable in a pinch. Over to J's dad's to get the mattress N will be sleeping on Saturday night up from the bedroom, and to put our car seat in his car. He will also be taking N ice skating this morning. Say our goodbyes and head out.

Get to the Taj around 10:30; can't check in to the room until 1pm, so leave the luggage with the bell captain. Get on line to register for the HOE tournament, and mav600 is standing right there! Give him the $250 and J and I register. And 4 hours later, I break my streak of 5 straight ARGE mixed-event tournament cashes. Other than flopping the nut flush twice in an early Omaha/8 round, I didn't get many hands. I lost almost every stud/8 hand, including 3 times starting with suited babies 6 or lower. The one memorable hand I did win was a silly one; I have 557 in the bring-in, it got raised and called before me. The antes and level were high enough for me to call. I make two-pair on 4th street and keep betting it, as the raiser had raised coming in with a dead Ace and bricked, and the other caller didn't look to have a scary board either. I checked the river and scooped!

J had been out a bit earlier and had picked up some food, so we shared it up in the snack bar, and then went to check in and try to grab a nap, since N was up early the last two mornings. No luck on the nap. J hadn't been to the Borgata since they opened the new poker room so we headed over there.

We signed up for a $120 SitnGo, but it looked like it would be a while till it went, so we got into a 1-2 no-limit game. Nothing memorable, up $12 in a little over an hour; I think J was up about $125. We left to go back to the Taj for the banquet. Food was decent. Gift presentation to hgfalling and billandmatt (in absentia) of Geek Logik. Nolan Dalla was the surprise (to me) guest speaker. His attempts at humour were not so good, but when he answered real questions from the audience about some behind-the-scenes stuff with the WSOP and Harrah's that was very interesting; he should have stuck to that. Back down to play some p0cker

Pink chip game list is long. J and I sign up for a $140 SitnGo; Taj has a weird prize payout $1000 for first and $200 for second. Get into a 20-40 stud game while waiting. Nothing memorable, but I drop $78 in 1/2 hour before the SitnGo starts. Besides J and I, Jordan "Fellknight" Devenport is in as well. Some young kid wants to do a $20 last-longer, and Fellknight and I agree. Young kid plays like a lunatic. Nothing too interesting for a while. Fellknight is the first last-longerer to not last long enough. I finally bust the lunatic young kid, and so am up $40 on the last-longer bet. It's now down to me, J, local "wiseguy" Tony Soprano-wannabee to her right, and some quiet guy to his right. Quiet guy made a ridiculous fold earlier to young kid, when he was in SB to young-kid's BB, and young kid had only about 1.5 BB's left after putting up his blind. Quiet guy folded to him from the SB with plenty of chips. J and I give each other a WTF look. Now the weird stuff starts happening. I get short-stacked and start jamming a lot; like 5 times in a row, taking the pot uncontested every time. I had a pair every time as it turned out. Mr. Wiseguy starts getting annoyed at me for jamming every hand. I finally build up a decent sized stack, and this time Mr. Wiseguy raises and I have 88 and jam again. He calls flipping over AK, and turns his Ace and of course starts needling me. I say "Well, I had the best hand again" and he gets really pissed and says "What? You think 88 is better than AK?" He is acting like he totally has it in for me, and honestly I was nothing but pleasant to the guy. Now the weird stuff really starts. I have junk UTG and fold, folded around to Wiseguy, who jams. J folds and as the dealer is pushing him the pot, I put my BB out. Wiseguy counts his chips from the pot and starts going apeshit that he got shorted as my chips were in also. I say no, I folded UTG, and everyone at the table and the dealer agrees. He then says I had my chips out in the pot and they are his. I again say, no, I folded and was putting my BB out while the dealer was pushing him the pot, and again the dealer agrees with me. He then gets even more pissed and says "I wouldn't have jammed if I knew you weren't in the pot!" I tell him, you just got pushed a pot uncintested, what are you complaining about? The dealer finally tells him to STFU in effect. Now watch why tilting is bad for your game. Mr. Wiseguy is short-stacked and gets involved in a hand with Mr. Quiet Guy. I forget the pre-flop action, but there's an A on the flop and Quiet Guy goes all-in. Mr. Wiseguy SHOWS AN ACE AND FOLDS! How great is that? He obviously wants to stay in long enough to bust me (afterwards, everyone agreed that was the only "logical" explanation). J eventually busts out in 4th; she did a great job playing her short-stack. It's down to the three of us and I take care of Mr. Wiseguy shortly. He limps from the SB, I have T4o from the BB and check. The flop comes 842. Mr. Wiseguy checks, I bet, he jams, I insta-call. He has A2, and doesn't improve. NHS, WP! I thought he was really going to lose it when I called with the T4, but to his credit he kept his mouth shut and walked away quietly. At this point, I'm pretty tired and offer a deal to Mr. Quiet Guy. We setlle on me getting $800 and he getting $400 (I was up about 2-1 in chips and wanted $750/$350, but since I was tired and was up the $40 from the last-longer, I agreed). I toked the dealer the $40 from the last longer.

I check in on mav600 on the way upstairs and he's up a bit. I tell him to give my share to Joan when he leaves, and head up to bed.

Running ATLARGE total:

Backing: -250 ( + whatever the watch can be sold for; looks like around $100-$200; just ignoring for now) since he's still in the pink chip game and didn't cash in the HOE tournament
HOE tournament: -120
1-2 no-limit: +12
20-40 stud: -78
$140 SitnGo: +660 (last-longer $40 went to the dealer)

Total: +224

Amusing postscript to the Mr. Wiseguy story: I was at Foxwoods last week (3/19-21) for the Foxwoods Poker Classic. In one of the games I played in, I was playing with a guy who looked awfully like Mr. Wiseguy. But he was really pleasant to me, and figured it couldn't have been him after this little episode. The next day I'm playing in a SitnGo and have my ATLARGE sweatshirt on and one of the guys in the game asked me if I was just recently at the Taj as he thought he recognized me. I told him yes. And then Mr. Wiseguy lookalike i salso standing around, and he said he remembered me also (again acting totally pleasant). I then realized that he was in fact Mr. Wiseguy! I jokingly reminded him of our incident and he apologized. His buddy who was with him said something to the effect of "How do you think I met him?". Pretty funny. I did tell him I thought for sure he was going to hit me in the head when I busted him. :-)

Day 1 (Saturday 3/3)

N has us well-trained, so despite the 1am bedtime, we are up around 6:30am. Ugh. Go get some breakfast and J tries to go back to sleep. I go to play some 15-30-45 OE. njchick sweats me for a bit, and hands me my winnings from backing mav600 ; net of $426, woo-hoo! Not much luck in the OE game, but I manage not to get buried as I tend to brick my hands early and can get away from them. I get 3 suited babies in E 3 times, win none of them; worst one was starting 236 suited I make an 86 on 5th, and by the river I have a 64 low and a pair. I get scooped by a rivered wheel. That's basically how the whole hour-long session went. I call up to the room to wake J and I pick up down 151.

Not much to report in the no-limit ATLARGE tournament. I just about doubled up in the second level wen my JJ held up against Hideyuki's AK, to bust him. Yet I received no bust-out gift from him. Ok Hideyuki, you can owe me. I get almost no hands and miss every flop, and I'm out after about 2 hours, and J busted right after me.

I get into a 2-5 no-limit game, and again, don't get much in the way of hands, which is too bad because there are some horrible players donating their stacks. I play one hand badly that costs me about $150 trying to bully someone. I pick up down about $350, almost half of it because of bad play on my part.

J does some makeup shopping and I waffle back and forth about going out to dinner with a bunch of people. Initially I feel to tired to socialize, but after J and I unsuccessfully try to get into anywhere at the Taj, we decide to go with the original plans. We go to Mia at Ceasar's Palace. Group includes Warren, Jodi (notice your name is spelled correctly in my blog) her bf Oscar, Dave F, Buckshot, Nolan, Rebuy, Art Reber, and actionbobnj . Food is absolutely amazing, and even with all the wine, appetizers and desserts, the bill is only $100/person. Really fun time.

Head back to the Taj to play a little more before bed. J and I get into this awesome 2-5 NL game, which has a young kid playing like a lunatic. First hand J is in a pot with him (after she was watching the game a bit and saw how he played), he tries to bully her off her hand. She has 99 and flop is Jxx, and basically she does not let herself get bullied and takes down a nice pot. She finishes the hour-long session up almost $500, I finish up $55 and we call it a night.

Running ATLARGE total:
Previous balance: +224
Backing: +426 (again, not counting the watch)
15-30-45 OE: -151
ATLARGE NL tournament: -120
2-5 NL: -352
2-5 NL: +55
Total: +82

Day 2 (Sunday 3/4)

J is not playing the stud tourney as she is heading back to Princeton to hang with N. I finalize plans with Dave F. to get a ride back. He's going over to the Borgata, and I will drive his car over and get him when I am ready to go. I get into some games before the tourney.

The first is a 2-5 NL where one guy is absolutely lighting his money on fire. I still can't get any hands. He finally goes broke and leaves. The game is now short-handed and the other players all seem to be good players, so I pick up after a round or two, down $22.

I get into a 1-2NL game and this has 3 total maniacs. Here was one very interesting hand. 3 players limp, including young kid (YK) to my right who seems to know what he is doing. I have AJs on the button and make it $15. Everyone folds except YK who calls. Flop comes T9X rainbow. YK checks, I bet $20, called. Turn comes a J putting a flush draw on board. YK checks again, I bet $50, called again. River comes an A putting a flush on the board. YK goes all in. I have about $150 behind and there is about $170 in the pot, plus his $150 bet, so I am getting over 2-1 on my call. Now I am not a big fan of making pretty big calls like this on the river, but I fiigured it this way: What hands could he have that I am beating? Smaller 2-pair, AQ, maybe AK, pair with a missed straight (i.e. a bluff) . We could also have the same hand. If he had the straight or a set on the turn, I think he would have either bet out or check-raised me. If he has the flush, so be it. I call and we have the same hand. Everyone at the table is shocked by my call, but I have asked some good players about it, and they agreed that the odds were there for me to call. I won a bunch of medium size pots for a nice win of 278.

Stud tourney was really frustrating. Right off the bat I took 2 beats from Siona who chased down both my split AA and KK with an under-pair, and made 2-pair while I didn't improve. get a call from J's dad who can't remove the car seat from his car; good thing he's a theoretical physicist and not mechanical engineer. ;-) Then I won a big pot with AA against KK, and Siona was also in that one. I made trip aces while the kings did too, and my trip aces held up. Then it was up and down for a while. I lost about 1 third of my stack with AQ5 of spades against KK(of spades)x, when we both caught spades on 4th, and I paired my queens on 5th while the KK caught a third spade. I didn't make my flush, and the KK made trips on the river. I forget my bust-out hand. Call Dave F, and head over to the Borgota to pick him up. Say hi and bye to Buckshot and Rebuy, and we head back to Princeton. Get invited to the F's house for dinner, get dropped off at J's mom's house. Over to J's dad's house to bring N's bed back downstairs and switch the car seat back to our car. Say our goodbyes, over to J's mom's house to pick up N. Head over to the F's for pizza; they give us a bunch of L's toys for N. On the road by 7 or so, and uneventful trip home. N sleeps most of the way, then wakes up about an hour before we get home but is really well behaved, and gets to sleep pretty quickly once we are home. His time with his grandparents went really well, and he had a really good time. Good to know for the future.

Good to be home.

Final results:

Previous balance: +82
2-5NL: -22
1-2NL: +278
stud tourney: -120
Grand total: +218 + Haurex watch

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