Lou Krieger's MARGE Trip Report, Part 1
I'm in a bathroom the size of my living room that features a Jacuzzi and a shower as big as the average kitchen. Soft, white terrycloth robes hang in the closet, and thick, big towels that you see all the time in magazines like 'Architectural Digest,' but you don't usually find in most hotel rooms.
I'm writing the first part of my MARGE trip report from one of the luxury suites at the Bayview Hotel, across the street from the Grand, where MARGE 2K2 is taking place. How did I wind up ensconced in luxury's lap? A matter of luck, that's how.
When my plane arrived at 8:05 Wednesday evening, Tony Collins, the Grand's poker room manager was there to whisk me away to the MARGE smoker at 'Aunt Jenny's Catfish House.' When I arrived, most of the crowd had already eaten and were standing on the porch, but hosts Randy Collack and Steve Jewett were still inside, along with Rick 'Da Voice' Charles, his wife, and the Stine brothers. So I ate…shrimp, catfish, hushpuppies, and fries. It was a meal of all things southern and a month's worth of cholesterol in one large serving.
I lucked out because I didn't check into the hotel until late that evening, when they had run out of the kind of ordinary rooms that usually have views of auto salvage yards and are reserved for Internet cheapskates looking for the lowest priced flop they can find. As a result, I was upgraded and put up in this suite. So instead of a traditional hotel room, I'm in a place with a living room, bar, separate bedroom, and a bathroom the size of Vermont.
That's the good news. The bad news is that Cinderella can't go to the ball again on Thursday, and I'll have to gather my belongings, trundle down to the registration desk, and change rooms.
But who cares. After all, it's only one more room change than I had planned on anyway. Although MARGE had a block of rooms reserved for attendees, many of us figured out how to get rooms for about half that price by reserving them online, rather than as part of the MARGE package. The rub with this ploy was that the online discount room program was good for Wednesday and Thursday nights only, so the bargain hunters will have to move from the Bayview to the Island View for Friday and Saturday nights. On those nights, the MARGE rates will be lower than the online registration rate, so we will have managed to minimize our lodging costs to the greatest extent possible.
Now I'm in a regular hotel room, but it's a nice one. Though it's three floors lower than the suite, it still has a great view of the bay, the island, and the Gulf of Mexico that extends out to the horizon.
I arrive at the poker room just in time for a no-limit satellite. For a thirty-five dollar entry fee, the winner walks away with enough to buy into all the MARGE events, and second place gets fifty dollars. We start with $300 in chips and the blinds are raised every ten minutes. These make for very rapid satellites, and no room for errors or bad beats. One bad hand can eliminate or cripple you to the point that you have to start looking for a hand to go all-in with. I am lucky in that I'm never in jeopardy, never have to go all in and hope to get lucky, and when all the shouting is done, I chop with another MARGEr.
Ten minutes after the first satellite, a second one is spread. This time I'm about as short stacked as you can get. I'm down to one chip and with four players remaining when the blinds are four and eight chips respectively. I win a hand and double up to two chips. I go all in on my blind and win the next hand when my 5-3 flops two pair. Now I have four chips, just enough to post a small blind. I win that hand too, and when the button reaches me I have eight chips.
I make another hand, and another, each time turning two pair after going all-in with an ace and a decent side card. Finally I'm back among the living and I come all the way back to chop the second satellite too.
A third satellite is spread, and I'm chip leader until Randy Collack goes all-in fairly early in the event with Pocket Presto. I wake up with pocket aces, but of course it's no good on the river when a nine comes to give Randy the low end of a straight. 'Presto goot.'
I'm fairly short stacked again, though not nearly so desperate as I was in the second satellite. I keep surviving, and keep picking up small pots until I have a decent stack. Now Jim Bullard is short stacked but he somehow manages to hang on for five or six hands, mainly due to chopped pots and a small win or two. But his luck doesn't hold and Bullbert's finally eliminated. Only two of us remain now, and the size of the blinds relative to our stacks have rendered this a crap shoot, so we chop this satellite too.
Three satellites, three chops. Not a bad afternoon's work, but I'll attribute these chops more to good luck, or more properly, to the absence of bad beats, than any super-slick play on my part.
A few of us have dinner in the Grand's noodle and sushi bar, and it's a welcome relief from bellying up to yet another gravy-laden casino buffet.
The evening's tournament is 7-stud/8, a game I love. I'm at a table that has more than a few players who have probably never really played this game before. The clue is that they're raising with queens and kings for door cards, and playing the game as though it were seven card stud high. We begin with T3000 and 30 minute rounds, so there is plenty of play. I'm not really catching many decent starting hands, but manage to chop a few pots and scoop a nice one.
At my high water mark, I'm holding T5500, and somewhat above par for the number of players remaining in the event. Then a slow, almost inexorable slide begins. I don't find a playable hand for an hour or more and begin to ante my money away, chip by miserable chip. Every starting hand I was dealt was either two low cards and a high one, or two highs and a low, no three flushes or three straights, and no two-way hands like A-A-2.
When our table breaks, I'm moved to another but my starting hands haven't changed one whit. I'm now starting to get short, though I haven't reached the desperate stages yet. Finally I pick up a good hand, A-4-6, and complete the bring-in. I'm called in three places. I catch a deuce on Fourth Street, and I'm committed to this hand for the duration. My competition is another low draw, though it's not nearly as strong as mine, and two high hands. Fifth Street pairs my six, so my hand looks like this: A-4/626. It's not all that bad. The aces and sixes are both completely live, and I figure that aces up or a set of sixes will win the high side for me, and any baby locks up the best low. I'm hoping for any three, five, seven, or eight, or either of the three remaining aces or two remaining sixes, a total of 21 helpful cards. But I catch two running bananas to show up on the river with a nothing but a miserable pair of sixes that's beaten on board, and now I'm really short stacked.
A round later I catch another great starting hand, comprised of three wheel cards. It's improved when I pick up a seven on Fourth Street. But I'm very short at this juncture and have to make my stand now. When the high hand bets, I raise all-in, drawing to the best low with an inside straight draw to the high side of the pot. But I get no help, and IGHN after catching three bananas in a row to knock me out of the tournament somewhere around 25th place.
So it's up to sleep, to arise in the morning, complete Day One of my Trip Report, and pack up my stuff in preparation for yet another room change. MARGE is a terrific event, Tony Collins and his staff at the Grand go all out for us, and if you're not here, you're missing another wonderful time at another great ARG event.
Stay tuned. More to come. Tune in tomorrow.
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