Trip reports are a tradition of long standing on the Internet NewsGroup, Rec.Gambling.Poker. Like others that have preceded and will follow this one, it's my account of ESCARGOT, the annual February gathering of RGPers, who descend from all across the country to sunny southern California for a weekend of fun, frivolity, and poker.
Even before the official ESCARGOT events were slated to begin,
the RGP spirit was in the air and everyone who arrived a day or so early was
ready to party, and play some poker. Jerrod Ankenman is always in charge of
organizing the "unofficial" ESCARGOT events. He's the self-professed
"King Of Hotel Room Poker Games," and a man who's found his calling.
Perhaps "organize" implies a bit more rigidity and structure than
Jerrod uses to get these events off the ground, but that's somehow right in
keeping with the spirit of ESCARGOT.
Although starting times, and even the days of these unofficial Slot
Online events are often a moving target, everyone wanting to play in them
seems to quickly plug into the loop. The SCATS event, won Jerrod, is a
satellite in which the winner receives an entry to TARGET, which is also a
satellite, albeit one in which the winner gets to play in the World Series of
Poker. There's also the World Chowaha Championship, and often some other events
that are held during odd hours, either at the Bike itself or at the hotel
across the street, where tired players have been know to fall asleep on the
floor or in the corner as they await their next hand of cards.
RGPer Marc Gilutin, who works as a prop at the Bike, is
instrumental in getting a one-table satellite started. For a thirty-dollar buy
in, the winner gains entry into all of the official ESCARGOT events. We manage
to finish two satellites before the start of the Bike's evening tournament, and
event that many of the early arrives plan on entering. Jerrod Ankenman wins the
first satellite. He's also the chip leader in the second event, but when it's
three-handed, he dumps off his money in a few big hands, and Michael Patterson
and I, the two remaining players who are now about evenly stacked decide to
chop the winnings and get ourselves into the Bike's evening tournament while
there's still time.
Everyone at an ARG event is a story unto themselves, and one of
the true joys in attending ESCARGOT, BARGE, MARGE, and all of the other
gatherings is the opportunity to meet some incredibly fascinating people, and
to renew acquaintances with them every year. I get to see how the ADBers -- a
subgroup of irreverent idolaters who worship beer kegs, taps, bottles, and
shots -- defy poker strategy and conventional logic by playing poker quite well
while three more than a few sheets to the wind.
Early arrivals gather for the all your ESCARGOT buy-ins belong
to us
Then there's Harry Baldwin. Each year, Harry, who is in his 70s,
rides his bicycle from San Diego to Los Angeles to attend ESCARGOT. That's a
distance of about 130 miles, up some pretty steep grades, but Harry's done it
every year now since the very first ESCARGOT.
Thursday marks the first day of official ESCARGOT events, and by
late afternoon most of the guests have shown up, picked up their registration
packets and are already hard into enjoying themselves. Now the Bike is full of
RGPers, and the inevitable questions from the regulars about the "computer
nerds" who have invaded the place. And lots of these invaders have come
from a distance to attend. There's quite a contingent of Right Coasters, with
Linda Lewis, Steve "Ice" Eisenstein, Scott Byron and others on hand,
as well as Gavin Scott from Toronto, Mary from Madison Wisconsin, and New Jane
from Fargo, North Dakota.
The Bike has an incredible promotional that evening. It's a
"real cash" tournament that occurs in their $6-$12 and $9-$18 games.
Now don't think of "tournament" in the traditional sense, where you
sign up, pay a registration fee, and continue on until all but one player has
been eliminated. In this event you are playing with real chips, not the tourney
variety, and you can cash out anytime. Here's how it works. The event is merely
a designated 30 hands, and a token is awarded to the winner of each pot during
that time period. At the end of those thirty hands, the Bike awards the four
players who have accumulated the most tokens a cash prize. That cash prize is
an overlay; it does not come from player entries or buy-ins -- there are none.
But here's the rub. If ever one needed a real time lesson of why
the object of poker is to win money and not pots, this is it. Many players are
going balls out to win the most pots and collect the largest number of tokens
during that thirty-hand period. One of the players at my table accumulated five
of them - a pretty good stash in and of itself - but went through two racks of
chips in the process. He didn't cash in the event either -- there were players
who won more pots than he did -- but managed to blow off a huge number of chips
in his futile attempt to win a prize that would not have equaled his loss even
if he had gotten lucky.
Bike Tournament Director Denny Williams with ESCARGOT organizer
Lou Krieger
Even players that did know better, who simply got on a rush early
on and found themselves in contention for the money offered up as part of the
Bike's promotion, were forced to play every hand later on in the event, in
order to ensure themselves a chance at getting into the prize pool. As a
result, raises were the order of the day, and it didn't matter if the raiser
had a hand or not. Once near the prize money the goal for these players became
one of eliminating others, in order to stand a better chance of getting lucky
and winning. "I have no choice, I'm gonna play every hand now. I've got
to," said one RGPer, who had gotten lucky early and won a number of pots.
And play he did, raising and trying to eliminate the most players he could,
since every token acquired for winning a pot might push him higher up the money
list.
In these incredible promotional events, even if one doesn't win
many pots, the nature of the game brings out the maximum gamble in people. If
one plays very solidly, and concentrates on playing only those hands that can
grow into very big hands, it only takes one good pot to turn the hour of that
30-hand promotion into a winning one.
And the object lesson is clear too. If there's any player out
there who thinks the object of poker is winning pots and not money, I'd like to
sentence him to playing this game each day until he sees the error of his ways.
The evening's tournament was ROE, alternating rounds of Razz,
Omaha/8, and 7-stud/8, and I really love playing two of them. The event began
at 7:15 with about 60 entrants, and by the time I was eliminated in tenth place
it was nearly 1:30 AM. At that point, Beth Even had most of the chips and
eliminated me in an Omaha hand when my pair of aces lost to her flush, and my
low never materialized. Beth made most of her money the round before when she
tripled up during a Razz hand. Her two opponents went all-in after frequent
raising and reraising and Beth's made eight morphed into a made six on the
river and she skewered two players who held sevens. I didn't stick around to
watch the end. I was tired enough as I staggered out the door of the Bike into
the cool damp night and decided to give it a rest for the day.
Gary 'Creepshow' Furness and Steve 'Ice' Eisenstein enjoy a
moment at the banquet
Friday night held the promise of a limit hold'em tournament, but
I had places to go and things to see before I could sit down and play cards. I
had to meet Daniel Negreanu at the Commerce Casino that afternoon, to interview
him for a feature article that will appear in Midwest Gaming and Travel. Wanting
to check out the action at Commerce, I arrived about four hours before I was to
meet Daniel.
Because of their tournaments, nearly every table at Commerce was
full, and the room looked like a feeding frenzy of poker players. They had
moved the $20-$40 games out of their usual location in the top section for the
duration, and were spreading only $30-$60 games and above in that locale. A new
$30-$60 hold'em list was in the process of being called down when I arrived, so
I quickly put myself on the list and was in the process of being seated when
the powers that be decided that the game was to be $40-$80.
Since I've been living in Palm Springs for the past four and a
half months, where a game bigger than $15-$30 is seldom seen, I decided to play
a bit above my usual limits and sat down just as the first hand was being
dealt. I looked down to find A-K. I was in seventh position at the time, and
only one player had called the blind thus far. I raised, and the big blind and
the player who had limped in both called. The flop was terrific, to say the
least -- a couple of kings and a nine.
I bet when the hand was checked to me. The big blind folded and
the last remaining player called. The turn was inconsequential, but my opponent
called when I bet. The river was a jack. My opponent checked, quietly called my
bet, and won the pot when he showed me a straight. He had taken far the worst
of it to draw at his inside straight with a Q-T, and he played the hand more
like you'd expect it to be played in a $4-$8 game than pone played at ten times
those limits. But that's poker, and I was stuck from the first shots fired. I
played for a few hours and wound up losing a grand total of four dollars for my
efforts, when it was time to meet Daniel Negreanu and conduct my interview.
I never had a shot in the limit hold'em tournament that evening,
finishing unceremoniously in the midst of the pack. But Nolan Hee, from Long
Beach, wound up winning the whole thing, and that meant some money in my
pocket. One of the ESCARGOT traditions is the last-longer bet. No individual
bets, mind you, but bets designed to capitalize on the intrastate rivalry that
seems to affect all things involving both halves of this very bifurcated state
of ours.
So we have teams of bettors, described either as SoCals or
NoCals. But this didn't seem fair to our other guests, so a
"Rest-of-the-World" team -- instantly dubbed the UnCals -- was formed
too. The cost of the wager is ten bucks per participant per event. Losers pay
winners and the winners divvy up the loot. That makes it fair for smaller
teams. Their chances of winning on a purely numerical basis is reduced, but
compensated for because each player's share of the loot is bigger if they do
manage to win.
Chris 'Ploink' Straghalis concentrates during Saturday's NLHE
finals
Nolan's win squared the books for the SoCal team, since the
money won from the UnCals and NoCals on Friday night's event was somewhat more
per person than our loss the first night.
Friday night did not bring much sleep to anyone, since
Saturday's event was slated to begin at 11:00 AM, an early hour for poker
players. But there really wasn't any other way to go about it, if we wanted to
ensure that we would wind up the tournament in time for that evening's award
banquet.
The event was a no-limit hold'em shootout-to-match play format.
We'd begin with eight tables and play would continue until there was one winner
per table. In other words, as players were eliminated, tables would not be
combined as they are in traditional tournament formats. Instead, play would
continue shorthanded, until there was one winner at each table.
These table winners and those finishing second at each table
would move on to match play. Match play was a double-elimination format, with
the proviso that each second place table finisher entering match play was
deemed to have one loss. Brackets were established so that winners played
winners and losers played losers. Whenever a table winner was eliminated from
the winners bracket; he or she was moved down into the losers bracket. Once in
the losers bracket, another loss meant the player was eliminated from the competition.
By the time the dust had settled, Nolan Hee, the winner of the
previous night's event, emerged from the bracket of the once beaten to
challenge undefeated, and former world Chowaha champion, Chris Straghalis. This
match was a seesaw battle all the way, with Hee winning the first match to
square things up. Now Hee and Straghalis each had one defeat pinned on them,
and whoever won the next heads-up match would be the champion. After being
short-stacked on numerous occasions, Straghalis rose to the challenge and
defeated Hee to win the event.
For those with a wagering interest in the outcome, Straghalis
and Hee are both SoCal residents and I was fortunate enough to be on the
winning team in two of the three events.
Earlier in this event a hand materialized that ought to have
gotten the "Suck-out of the Year" award, if we had such a category.
It involved Gary Furness, a physician from Santa Rosa, CA, and Steve
"Ice" Eisenstein, an attorney from New Jersey. They were the two remaining
players at their table. Furness held a pair of nines in the pocket, while Ice
was holding a pair of tens. All of Ice's money was in before the flop, which
was 10-8-3 of mixed suits.
Steve Eisenstein, having flopped a set of tens was a huge
favorite over Gary Furness. But Gary caught two perfect running cards, made a
straight, and won his table. Not only did this hand determine a table winner in
the shootout-to-match play format, it was an east coast versus west coast
competition, as well as the classic lawyer-doctor showdown. It was clear to me
when Gary caught those two perfect cards to skewer Ice, that God, just like
everyone else, wants to stick it to the lawyers every time.
Four be00tiful bald headed gamb00lerz at the same table? Take
our picture, Kim! (Adam, Marc, JV, and Dan)
I was curious about just how big an underdog Gary Furness was,
so I ran a few simulations. In the first, I gave Gary and Ice their pairs, and
kept the suits the same, to eliminate any wins Gary might have by making a
four-card flush. With random flops, turns, and rivers, and a million hands
dealt, Gary Furness won 17 percent of the time. The remaining 83 percent of the
victories belonged to Steve Eisenstein.
Next I simulated those hands and added the flop to the mix. With
a 10-8-3 flop, Ice won slightly more than 95 percent of the one million
simulated hands. That made him a pretty big favorite, though not as big as many
people suspected when everyone who witnessed, or heard about it was discussing
the hand.
Our guest speaker at that evening's award banquet was the very
funny, witty, irreverent, and right on point, John Vorhaus. Poker Digest editor
Melissa Raimondi was a guest at the banquet and kind enough to give a
complimentary subscription to every ESCARGOT attendee.
Once the banquet was ended players drifted off to play in cash
games on the casino floor, though some found their way to the hotel across the
street where the world Chowaha championship was to be decided. Invented by Mike
Chow, Chowaha is a staple whenever the Internet poker community gets together.
It's like hold'em, except that three flops are dealt, one atop the other. There
are two turn cards. The topmost turn card plays with the top and middle flop;
the bottom turn card can be used only with the middle and bottom flop. One
river card that plays with all three boards is dealt, and the best poker hand
wins the pot at the showdown. Peter Secor won it, and has the distinction some
would call it the dubious honor of being referred to as the World Chowaha
Champion for 2002.
This was the fourth annual ESCARGOT, an event I created in 1999
because I thought that southern California, an area with more poker tables than
any other in the country, deserved its own gathering to honor those poker
players who chat about poker and other topics of mutual interest on the
Internet newsgroup Rec.Gambling.Poker. But four years is a long time, fresh
blood and new ideas are always welcomed, and ESCARGOT 2003 will be planned and
directed by Russ Fox. I'll be there. I always am and always hope to be. But
this time I hope to enjoy it as a guest who has all of the fun and none of the
responsibility. You can too. It's never too soon to plan for a good time, so
mark your calendars for early February 2003.
Judi Slot Online Deposit Pulsa
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