"Running out of time"Well, here it is again, the week after Worlds and I have this feeling again for the third time. This emptiness, so unsatisfying. Another year and no Title. I'm starting to feel like the Dan Marino of Trek, great career but no ring. I don't think I could be content never winning a Worlds. I want that ring. Now I'm not old, I can play this game for as long as I want. But with consecutive showings of 2nd, 3rd and now 6th I'm starting to think how long is this going to take. I'm getting the feeling I'm... running out of time.
The last two weeks are a blur to me. Shit, the last two months. The poker hasn't been going well for me. I think the secret is out on me, I play at the Tropicana 90% of the time and I think that's my problem. The good players have adjusted to me and maybe I'm also a little burned out. A couple of bad beats and I'm starting to get gun-shy and you can't have that in No Limit. No Limit isn't about luck or cards; it's a test of courage. Anything in excess is a bad thing so I think it's vacation time, but first let's look back on these past couple of nights and see where it all went wrong.
Actually it's starts the weekend before at the Trop. You should know by now that all my stories start like this. It's was a bad idea in the first place but I was playing with my GenCon money. With that in mind I was keeping it tight and playing solid. Then I run into a guy who wasn't. I flop top pair and make a reasonable bet, he calls. Turn comes, I make another reasonable bet, and he calls. River actually makes me a gut shot straight, I make a big bet, he pushes all-in. I'm shocked, I knew it came out runner-runner (both cards suited making a flush possible). But I wasn't worried about that since I made reasonable bets and only got called. I was forced to call since I had so much in the pot and sure enough he had the flush. He didn't even have a pair on the flop, unbelievable. I was only at the table for about fifteen minutes, but after that hand the player on my left informed me he's been playing loose all night. Information of little use to me now. I bought back in with the chump change I had left but it didn't last to long. But in that time the same loose player lost his whole stack, about $800, in one hand. He made a semi-bluff, he had a pair and a flush draw on the turn and he went all-in $500 into the big stack with a set of Jacks. There was a possible straight on the board so he considered for a long while but then made the call. So at least that restored my faith in the poker universe but now I was dicked for GenCon.
I had to dip into the emergency funds for a bus ticket. Last year it was a three-hour trip, this year 17 hours, ouch. But I figured I at least try to turn a negative into a positive. So I posted on the teamjersey.net message board when I got home that night. It was all true except for the not coming part. I figured maybe I would get some players hopes up. But as Sonsteby put it, "You would kill your own mother to get here." So he wasn't fooled but I heard some players were.
So I left Thursday morning for my exhausting journey. The trip there was pretty uneventful. The shitty part about taking a bus is the layovers at crappy bus stations. I had to sit in Pittsburgh for two hours, which licked balls, much like the city itself. But I managed to make it to Indianapolis by 2 a.m., luckily it's right by the convention center and I was able to meet up right away with the guys I was staying with. So I was able to get a couple of hours a sleep before Day 2.
I woke up early Friday so I could get there to buy a badge and register for the event. Last year I pre-registered and I remember Len waiting in line for 4 hours. So I called for a cab and waited, and waited. I saw a couple of gamers coming out of their room and I knew where they were headed. I asked them for a lift, ironically, they were from Binghamton, NY the same place where my roommates were from. I managed to buy a badge and register with plenty of time to spare. Jesse, the guy I was staying with asked me how I thought I would do and I told him 6-2. I should've played the lottery that day. I won my first 3 matches easily. Then I play Kris Sonsteby, he was playing Klingon Riker, as were 5 of my other opponents. Not to take anything from Kris but it was my first game where I made a mistake, I think I started to relax and I lost the game. Next I played Josh Latenau, I never quite abused anyone like I did to Josh this game. On my fourth turn, remember I'm running event/dilemma manipulation; I attempted my mission with 4 personnel. I solved the mission and went to my second mission; to my surprise I solved that one too. So I won my 4th game and pretty much locked up a Day 3 spot. Josh though would not have to wait too long for his revenge. With two more wins and only one other lose to Andrew Ehret's Riker deck I ended the day with the No. 3 seed. This, I think, being my unlucky break.
After Day 2 Justin Beal and I were looking over the results and seeing whom we matched up with. The judges didn't do the Trek BCS to determine the seeding. We noticed there was a good chance we would be playing each other. And sure enough...
Of all the, let me say, "easier" players I could've faced in the first round (Bowling, the two British fools, Ohio) I had to play Justin. So I prepared myself to go to war, as Sammy Farha would say. A war would be exactly what I got. We were told that the games would be untimed, best of 3 with a 3-hour limit. This made no sense to me; I assumed it would be hour time limits on the games. Our first game lasted almost two hours. It was exhausting, when you combine his Romulan manipulation with my Cardassian nonsense you're have yourself one hell of a chess match. I managed to "plot and scheme" and barely win that first game. Luckily, I think I had the stamina advantage as I think Justin's heart wasn't in the 2nd game. Compared to the first game the second was a piece of cake. I would be playing the winner of Sykes/Latenau, I beat both Day 2. Latenau won and it looked like I would have to run the Arizona gauntlet to get my Title.
I figured Josh would be switching his deck from the previous day. He's a competitor and I would've done the same. I was right, but I was confused when I saw a Cardassian/Bajorian combo. Game 1 was another Iron Man match lasting about an hour and a half. Unfortunately, this time I was on the bad end of it. I was running the Overwhelmed dilemma pile and Josh's deck had the perfect skill set for it. I would always stop him but rarely would I get kills. Josh knew he might have to play me round two and he played the perfect deck for it. Game 2 was odd, I drew 6 personnel, this rarely happens. At this point I was just about on tilt, I just played them and attempted the missions. Sure enough, Josh got some bad beats and I solved easily, shades of our Day 2 game. I managed to win without much trouble. But the game did take about 45 minutes and I knew Game 3 wasn't going to be long. Ironically, Game 3 my deck came out exactly as it should, but against Josh this was a bad thing. I knew I needed people and attempt fast. But it wasn't looking good; I didn't attempt a mission until Josh was well out. We both had a mission done and there was 12 minutes left. It wasn't looking good, I was....running out of time. He used a General Krim once to blow out a dilemma so if we had the same amount of missions done I would win by 5 points. I got stopped on my 2nd mission and had two dilemmas overcome. So it was Josh's turn with 10 minutes to go, he was thinking there awhile so I had to ask him, "Josh, you're not going to take a 10 minute turn, are you?" He wasn't quite stalling yet, but he was getting close. He completed his 2nd mission and went to his third. At this point I hear a 3-minute warning, I take the top seven cards of my deck and lay them out. I stop his attempt, and I figured there was about a minute and a half left. So I had no time for moves, I simply said draw seven and attempt. I think he drew 5; he picked two cards and told me, "I have the nuts." He was quoting me earlier; I guess he's a fan of RNJ. He turned over an In Training and a Captain's Holiday. I shook his hand and conceded the match. Crazy part is if I had one more 3 cost personnel I might have solved the mission. Not to be though, not to take away from Josh but I think if that was a full “one-hour" game I win. But he won in the format that was given and he won and I was busted out.
After Day 2 I watch some of the poker tournament they were having. To my surprise this year they were giving out a $1000 prize, unfortunately all the qualifiers were sold out. But after I busted out of Day 3 I went to see if I could talk my way into it. I found the guy in charge of it in the exhibit hall and luckily he knew a guy who wasn't playing and I could buy his ticket from him. So I was in and dominating my table. I did catch one bad beat when I flopped a set and a guy with top two called me and caught a boat on the river. But it only slowed me down for a moment. It got down to about 5 tables when our table broke up, then my cards went ice cold. The format they had was after 4 hours the top 3 chip leaders qualify for the final table. Problem was it was about 20 minutes left and there was about 20 players left. Again, I was....running out of time. So I get A-7 suited and push in, pocket 4’s calls me. So we flip the coin and I lose. So I bust out of my second tournament of the day.
So I wake up Sunday and figure I might as well go watch the final confrontation and pick up my glass. It was just as exciting as I expected, like a $1-3 stud game 8 a.m. on a Tuesday. After that I had some time to kill so I decide to play in the Race to the Alpha Quadrant tournament. I play my 90-card Goval deck; I figured I'd give some free rating points away. See, I give back to the "community". It manages one win and I managed to kill 3 hours, time to go home.
I get on my bus and this fat smelly Magic player sits next to me. Now this kid really stunk. It makes no sense to me these stinky gamers. I mean you got a hotel room, you get free towels and soap, wash your fat ass please. On top of that he's talking on his cell phone for two hours. At one point he went to reach for his bag in the overhead storage and I almost lost it. At this point if I could've choked this kid to death and get away with it I would have. Instead I just said, "Dude, I don't mean to be a dick but you have to keep your arms down." Luckily when we got to Columbus he was off the bus. 15 hours later I finally made it home.
As I sit here now disappointed, but not broken, I do have some grips about how Worlds was run. As I said, I assumed the games on Day 3 were going to be timed best of 3. DGMA should specified this ahead of time, this affects what types of decks can be played successfully. Decks like Justin's and mine are seriously diminished in untimed games I believe. And to my surprise, the Finals had hour time limits. This is ridiculous, how can you have a top 16 tournament and have different formats along the way? Decipher, next year just keep it the same the whole way, best-of-3 one-hour games. Another for the judges for not doing the pairings between Days 2 and 3. I know they’re tired and want to go do something else but give us a little effort please. Decipher, I know Trek is at the bottom of the list but I'm sure you can find us judges with a little enthusiasm. Last, where was the clock? A guy told me someone dropped it. Bullshit, they dropped the LotR clock and we got dicked. How sad, I'm playing in a World Championship and I got a guy yelling 3 minutes left like I'm playing in a shitty local. All right, story time is over, you can leave the library now; RNJ is about strategy so here are your nuggets of wisdom for the month. But I listened to some of the critics of RNJ and let me see if I can please the haters.
Decklist, Decklist, Decklist
Some of the criticism about RNJ was that it didn't include decklist. Well, I hate decklist. When I see them on DGMA I look at it for about 5 seconds, even if it's good or bad. One of the things I hate the most is a hack; someone that never makes their own decks and only copies other players. Now I'm not going to judge anyone else. If you need to look elsewhere for help then fine, do what you need to do. I'm not a good deckbuilder, so I'm not going to sit here and write out a deck that took me a long time to develop. I have to put a good amount of work into my decks, a lot of trial and error. I start with a rough copy and it takes some games to filter out the junk I put into it and fill in the gaps. I could churn out an average, maybe a little better, deck and put it here, but that's not me. You can get plenty of that at DGMA. But I'll tell you what I'll do. I'm going to look through my binder here and go through a couple of cards I like, and why I like them. This isn't natural for me, so it's probably not going to be enlightening. But let's get started:
Missions- 2E right now is in desperate need of more missions. There's only about 3 or 4 different sets of missions you can use for a winning deck. I could only imagine how much better this game would be if those clownshoes they call 'designers' would come up with some new missions. So there is not even one mission I like, I'm tired of them all. Aren't you tired of seeing Kressari Rendezvous?
Equipment- Have you ever used a non-Batleth equipment card? I haven't. And it's only used as a token hand weapon for gay Harsh Conditions. So if it weren't for that nobody would use them. Same as missions, there's not even one I like.
Dilemmas- Even though it crapped out on me at Origins, I love Biochemical Hyperacceleration. Throw a Dreamer and a Cave-in and blow out a crew and hand, good stuff. I remember one game with Mike when he went out on his third turn and after his attempt he was left with an empty ship in orbit and no hand. Problem is that just about every competitive deck is Security/Strength based. But just wait for the right time in your meta, when it works it's pretty solid.
I'm not a fan of the "crapshoot" dilemmas. Examples would be Murder Investigation, Dressing Down or Racial Tensions. The pick x personnel and if they have y they're stopped group. I'm not saying they're bad, I just dislike them. I catch enough bad beats at the poker table; I don't need them at the Trek table too.
Interrupts- I'm trying to think of something other than Escape, Shady, Comfort, Relentless, Stricken, or Death is Glory. Everyone knows they're good but there's not much else out there. One I don't like is Stricken Dumb; if I hate the "crapshoot" dilemmas I'm not going to stock cards to stop them.
Events- Instead of making battle or infiltration better, Brad and Evan, maybe to busy with another game, just said let's just design 100 different event cards. That'll make the game interesting. Decipher, see what happens when you make shitty 1E players game designers?
Anyway, the key event in my deck was Key to Victory. IF you're forced to play with 50 events in your deck you need a way to get through it. The other hot card was Crystalline Entity, against Klingon Riker it's pretty much useless but when you see a guy play a Far Seeing Eyes you'll be happy you have it out. Then you have your "fuck with your opponent" events, Trial Never Ended, Manheim Effect and Stir Crazy. Whatever is fucking him up keeps fucking him up with it. Also, don't forget Unexpected Difficulties, you have to make sure you draw those Secret Identities and get rid of Riker. Finally if you are going to play with all this junk you need the worst card of them all, Party Atmosphere. The only this worse than playing all this crap is paying for them.
1 Cost Personnel- It's my belief that 1 cost personnel are the backbone of any successful deck. Cardassians have Jerax, Klingons have Kahmis and TNG has bong-smoking Davies (look at him, it looks like he's hitting the 24th century bong). So when you make that deck remember you have to get those attributes from somewhere.
Right before publishing: that vacation didn't last too long. I got back on the poker horse and recently took eighth in a $20 buy-in tournament at the Trop. Didn't make a fortune but it's nice to get back on track. So with the 2004 Trek Championship Circuit at a close it's back to the Lab until '05. Until then, if you find yourself in A.C. stop by the Trop, maybe I'll see you clowns around.
John Corbett- "Tighten the back of your tongue. ...Keep Trying. You've almost got it."
Any questions, stories, fan/hate mail please feel free to send to johncorbettjr2 at comcast dot net
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