[FSU88]

I’ll post my trip report of the 1^st Chiptalk Meet up and The Windy City Blowout

I may cross post to the original thread and the thread with the pics. So if you see this twice, I did it on purpose, or if I can figure it out, I’ll just post a link. I was trying to figure the best place to put this. Move if necessary.



I must first thank everyone involved in making this go off without a hitch.



I arrived at the hotel right around 4:30 local time, after sitting in Chicago's horrible traffic for what seemed like forever but was probably about 30 minutes. I was unwinding at the Marriott’s bar, watching the Tigers hand the A's yet another loss when I saw Dave W(Strange) approaching. I knew him from the Who's Who picture. We struck up a conversation immediately.

Slowly, more of the group began to assemble, and introductions were almost not necessary. Phil( TheThrill) and Dave W had made up lanyard style name badges, and they served as the entry to poker at Rob's(RTBrandy) House.
More about his graciousness later.

Lisa(Bolgenmod) took on the formidable task of driving some of us downtown to the Erie Cafe. Again, more traffic, but she navigated through it like a NY Taxi driver. That's where we met some more of the group, including Rob and his wife.

The restaurant Rob chose was simply great. We had an upstairs private dining room with it's own bar. Some other attendees stayed back at the hotel, and IMHO, they missed out on something special. Wine flowed and everyone had a tremendous time. Lisa and a few others ordered the last few prime rib dinners that were available, it was by far the largest cut I have ever seen, and it looked like it should have been at the carving station of a buffet and not a stand-alone dinner. Pictures were taken, before and after, but Lisa will have to share those. After letting all that dinner settle in, we set out to play some poker back at the hotel.

We were detoured by a request to 'bring more beer' back to the hotel, and Rob led us through his neighborhood looking for a package store. After twist and turns and a visit to a store that was already closed, we were able to find a grocery and the required beverages were bought.

We met the die-hard poker players back at the Hotel, already trying to lighten each other’s wallets. A couple games broke out and I was able to put a few extra 20's in my own wallet before calling it a night around 2:30. Others stayed up a bit past that.

We met for breakfast in the AM and refueled for another long day of poker. Getting to Rob's was actually very easy, unfortunately, we ran into some more traffic, this time caused by a small construction zone. It was amazing how 100 yards of one lane being closed can back up traffic for 2 miles.

Rob's place was fantastic, an absolutely beautiful home. He does nothing half way. The simple fact that Rob offered up his home for us to invade for the weekend would have been enough, but the food and beverage spread was outstanding. If you wanted something, it was there. Jessica, his wife, was also an absolutely gracious host. I will definitely be sending them some sort of gift for all of the hospitality.

Now let’s get in to some poker details. I signed up for the heads up tournament. We had 16 players. I drew Tom(tomb1) for my first opponent. We battled back and forth, but I was able to grab the win somehow . No real memorable hands that stand out. Second round I played Tom (geewhiz41) and had to make a comeback after getting beat by his pocket Aces. Every round we started with 3500 chips, and Tom had gotten me down to around 1000 after his aces. I slowly chipped my way back and took the game. In the semi final round I got to play Dave Z(W16227) and made my donkey move of the night and hit the two outer to just about stack him. We were trading back and forth for a while when I caught AQ. Standard PF stuff, raise and call. Flop comes 88Q. I have a bad poker memory, so while the fine details may be off, the results are the same. It ends up that I have to decide to call his all-in bet on the flop. He has me by about 300 chips at this point. I'm trying to put him on a hand, and while I'm thinking he has the 8, it's W16227, so I can't be sure. I make the crying call and tell him to show me his 8, and he obliges, showing me A8. I can't really remember if this happened after the flop or turn, but with just the river to go, I needed one of the last 2 queens. An A would just fill his boat 888AA. I need a Q to get 881st Out

So now a wrap up on some cash games. I was sitting with Brian and Alexi and others playing limit Hold'em. Was doing OK, up a few $, when Brian and Alexi talked Dave W and I into some side action and some prop bets. Brian - thank you for talking me into this, it netted me just over 100.00, basically on Jacks, specifically the Jack of clubs. We picked some flop hands, anything you liked, like 678, or 579, or whatever you wanted. If that hand hit on the flop you got 3 points. We each picked 4 hands like that, and one was picked as the ‘Big Boy’ If that hand hit on the flop, you received double points. We also each picked one card to watch, and also one suit. I had clubs and picked the Jack as my card. So we are all intently looking at each flop, to see if any of our picks hit. If you miss one of your picks and the turn is dealt, you miss your points, as Alexi happily told me after I missed one of my picks. At the end of the night, all the points were totaled, and the point difference between each player was the payout in Big Bets, which was 2$ for this game. My power card that night was the J, every time it hit the flop, I got a point. If it was the Jack of clubs, I got another point. At the end, I was about 15 to 20 points ahead of Alexi, Brian, and Dave. Each point was worth $2.00. It made the game very interesting, as you needed to pay attention to every flop. We wrapped up the night around 2:30 and headed back to the hotel. Up around 150.00 in the cash game.

Unfortunately, some had to leave early on Sunday, so they were not able to meet at Rob’s for football and more poker. A cash game broke out along with a couple of SNG’s. I did not get to a SNG, but they were played with the Zen Matsui’s that Lisa bought in the group buy. They were fantastic looking chips. We played some HORSE and we tried out luck at BAGDUI, or whatever the heck it’s called. Somehow I managed another small profit before I had to drive back to Toledo. More traffic, but I was able to get home in about exactly 4 hours.


Without Rob’s unending hospitality, this whole weekend may not have been possible, at least not in this form. It was a laid back party the whole time.

To Dan and Lisa, thanks for organizing this event. When everything goes off without a hitch that means the legwork behind the scenes was outstanding. GREAT JOB.
To the makers of the chips and plaques – BigKyle, Jayson and Theresa – jaw dropping work.
Everyone brought something to contribute, and I’ve left no one out on purpose, but I would have to name every single person to be accurate and my fingers are tired.

Anyway - it was great to meet everyone. It will have to be done again.




Jeff

[BrakeDust]

Great post Jeff. It was great meeting you, even though your Jacks kicked my butt. I look forward to seeing you again sometime. Go Hephs!

[vrecksler]

I will add my Trip Report here too, to give a little Canadian flavour to the Meet-up.

FRIDAY

Coming into Chicago I learned how appropriate the 'Windy City' name is as my flight was delayed a couple hours due to high winds. Despite this delay, which I was unable to call ahead to warn my ride, when I arrived at O'Hare I was promptly greeted by ddollovoet at the baggage claim area. I guess I was easy to spot with my deer in the headlights look (first time to Chicago) and my Who's Who picture may have helped.

At the airport I got to meet bolgenmod, VAR, Speak, and Philly as well and right away I found everyone easy to talk to and felt more comfortable than I expected--bare in mind these were not strangers in my mind, I had chatted with these people in the CT games for several months. It was so cool to put a face to the names I had come to know on the board as well, and after the introductions we headed to the hotel.

At the hotel I got to meet more of the group; FSU, Strange, w16227, Big Kyle, Jojo, Tomb, chaude, just to name a few off the top of my head. A few of the Hammers opted to catch a quick bite after an unsuccessful journey in search of some alcohol (Philly was thirsty) and settle in the hotel for some cards. But before we got the cards out, Philly showed us the cool Team Hammer shirts that were going to be revealed to the unsuspecting crowd at the ME.

$20 mixed game where we played a ton of games that I had no clue about; badonkey, Crazy Pineapple, as well as different versions of Stud, Omaha, and of course Holdem. I was the lonely fish at the table and proceeded to build everyone's stack over the next few hours--I think it was an hour or two in before I won my first pot in a game other than Holdem, and it was only a half pot in O8 H/L. Then I ran into the nuts a couple times before losing the remainder of my stack at 2 am to jojo in the proverbial KK vs AA matchup.

SATURDAY

Morning came around quickly and we headed out to RTBrandy's to get set up for the HU tournament. RTBrandy's place looked small from the outside, but it was freaking huge as soon as you get in the front door! The place was awesome, and the poker room was perfect but I will not go on about the host any more as myself and many others have already gone off about how great it was. After meeting the rest of the CT group that I did not see the night before, the HU tournament was under way.

Heads Up

I played Big Kyle in the first round and he was a tough match; aggressive and solid, we were still playing with roughly even chip stacks when all the other matches were completed. This was a battle and it was anyone's game to the very end but I got a couple nice hands and survived. In the next round I was up against Jamby and this one, in stark contrast to my first match, was over very quickly. Jamby was more aggressive than me and she put me to the test early by pushing all-in on the river after I had called her flop and turn bets, and since she had me covered I came very close to folding top pair with a super weak kicker but in the end I came to the correct conclusion.

The third round was another grueling battle with mrticsay; this game lasted even longer than my first match with Big Kyle, and again it was very close. We changed leads several times and at times had the other on a small stack but neither of us could get finish it off. This became a battle of wits and the better player won with mrticsay finally taking me down. w16227 and I chopped 3rd and 4th spot rather than playing it out, giving him a chance to get in on the cash games and I wanted to have a break before the ME since I was not used to such long stretches of poker.

Main Event

The ME event began an hour after the HU tourney finished, and I was excited to begin play at table 2 with: blondwidow, QTsooted, jojo, spaceman spiff, geewhiz, ddollevoet, mrticsay, and VAR. The whole deepstack concept was new to me and I proceeded to donk off half my starting stack just before the dinner break as I kept hitting flops when I would play a hand--not the nuts but hands that figured to be the best in the end. Unfortunately they were not, as I had straights fall to boats, or smaller two pair, and I lost a big hand to spaceman spiff when I was out kicked (both had top pair and boad had paired, but my Q was no match for his K). A better player would have folded that one I think.

After the dinner break I decided to tighten up and just play smarter, but this revelation came at a time when the blinds and antes made finer play difficult as my stack was on the low side. When I picked up AKs I knew this was a hand I would be willing to go all the way with, and I got some luck and out raced spaceman spiffs JJ when I rivered a flush. Around this time a couple more people started to get knocked out and I was moved to another table where I sat and folded for about an hour.

We were then down to two tables and I found myself playing with sandy creek, mrticsay, RTBrandy, jojo, chicagosox, tomb, and geewhiz. I won a couple pots and even doubled up through sandy creek when my pocket pair held up, putting me in the average stack range. I remained an average stack as the field dwindled and as the bubble approached I found myself all-in with a medium pair which was outraced by chicagosox's overs, and this dropped me down some but the very next hand I picked up a nice pot and arrived at the final table with just under the average stack.

At the final table the blinds and ante's were quite high relative to my smallish stack, so I was looking for a chance to double up or steal the blinds but my position was not very favorable with jojo on my right and mrticsay and ddollevoet on left. As a result I played very few hands, and when I did play I opted to push rather than raise as raising would force me to commit half my stack. For the next hour and a half chips were flying all over the place, but no one was getting knocked out and the blinds and antes grew every 15 minutes. Only a few stacks were big enough to survive this so many players were looking to make moves and talk began for a 9 way chop that never materialized so play continued.

Players started dropping quickly at about the hour and 45 minute mark of FT play, and when it was down to 5 I found myself as the short stack of the table. I was in the BB with A9o and after posting the BB I only had 3X the BB left. So when Jamby and the SB (sandy creek) called, I pushed all-in figuring both would call and I had a chance to triple up. I caught an A on the flop and tripled up, then began playing aggressive by pusing all-in several times in a row with any A, any two paint cards, or any pocket pair. I was able to take down the blinds and antes and soon found myself the chip leader. When it was down to 4 I had over 200k in chips and given the current rate of play I figured it was still anyone's game and when the last break came up I brought up a 4 way even chop which everyone agreed to.

When play resumed, tomb went out and I followed suit shortly after when my aggression worked against me--jamby had eliminated tomb so she had a decent stack and when sandy creek folded on the button and I had A2o I pushed and jamby called with AQ...ouch. That did a number on me, and when the BB came around to me and sandy creek (in the SB) raised I blindly put the rest of my stack in the pot since I could only post 2 more BB's. I thought my T3o was good when I flopped a T but sandy's K3s caught a runner runner flush and sent me to the rail where I watched jamby and sandy duel it out for the title. As you all know, jamby was victorious and both players were well deserving of their respective finishes.

SUNDAY

Because my flight was Sunday afternoon I only had time to play in a $20 Sit N Go with w16227, tomb, space, ddollevoet, chaude, rebecca, mrticsay, and bolgenmod. I went out very quickly on this one when chaude schooled me with a play that everyone at the table but me recognized. She limped in early position, and then w16227 raised and I called with AJ. When it came around to chaude she min raised, and after w16227 folded I called and saw a flop. The flop came A rag rag, and so I checked with the intent of check raising so when chaude bet and I came over the top all-in she quickly called to show me top set. It was a great play and she reeled in her sucker (me) like a pro, but at least I learned a little something from that poker lesson. On the short stack I was just looking for a hand or position and thought I was in great shape to double up with my KK against bolgenmod's A4 but lady luck was against me on this one (probably as punishment for my earlier donkey play against chaude) and I was consoling myself on the rail with RTBrandy's perfectly cooked brats.

With my poker playing done I reflected on what was an awesome time. I bought a sample set of Big Kyle's wicked ME chips, as well as the plaque that I started the ME with (from Harlequinn) so that I can frame them as a momento for a great weekend. It was awesome to finally meet face to face most of the Hammers that I have been playing with for so many months, and in talking with everyone at the Meet-up it will definitely change the Thursday night game for me. Now I have a face and a personality to attach to the names I see on P* and I am looking forward to wearing my Hammer shirt and socializing during the CT games even more.

[FSU88]

Originally Posted by vrecksler

I am looking forward to wearing my Hammer shirt and socializing during the CT games even more.

Bradley - will that still be Phil's shirt with your name on masking tape or will Phil send yours in time?

Those are great shirts, nice job.

[ky70]

Great post guys!!

[vrecksler]

Originally Posted by FSU88

Bradley - will that still be Phil's shirt with your name on masking tape or will Phil send yours in time?

Those are great shirts, nice job.

lol, I should have my own shirt very shortly. The whole mixup with my shirt being left behind was my own fault; I rarely buy new clothing so I asked Phil to keep my shirt seperate when he washed all the others. I figured I would like to enjoy that 'new shirt' smell for a little bit before washing it, and so it was inadvertently missed when the rest of the shirts were packed for Chicago.

The cool thing is that while everyone else is coming down from their Windy City Blowout high, I will get a little pick me up when my shirt arrives.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by vrecksler

The cool thing is that while everyone else is coming down from their Windy City Blowout high, I will get a little pick me up when my shirt arrives.

Am I the only one still wearing their nametag?

[RTBrandy]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey

Am I the only one still wearing their nametag?

No, but the people at work are looking at me kinda [more] strangely...

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by RTBrandy

No, but the people at work are looking at me kinda [more] strangely...

Well, at least RTBrandy is more normal for work than say SpaceMonkey.

[mrticsay]

Originally Posted by vrecksler

The third round was another grueling battle with mrticsay; this game lasted even longer than my first match with Big Kyle, and again it was very close. We changed leads several times and at times had the other on a small stack but neither of us could get finish it off. This became a battle of wits and the better player won with mrticsay finally taking me down.

A highlight for you was that, I believe, you were the only one to crack AA's in the two big tournaments. I know AA never lost in the ME.