From: "Eric J. Holtman" Subject: BARGE vignettes 1) Beginning Bookend: I'm driving to the shuttle for the airport. I'm tailgating an SUV, we're both doing about 45 in a 25. Cop on opposite side begins flashing his lights. We both pull over. Cop pulls up beside me first, says: "I'm ticketing him (pointing to front guy) for speeding. Unless you were speeding too. You weren't speeding were you?". Me: "Of course not". "Well, O.K." So I start BARGE -1 speeding ticket. 2) Straddling, and the locals, Part I. After busting out of the TOC (BTW- I fucking hate Omaha), I get on all the lists for live play. First available seat is the 1-4-8 holdem. I _hate_ this structure: tiny blinds, a crippled turn bet, and a huge bet on the river, after the drawing hands get there. Suprise, suprise, this game has no action in it. Big blind is to my right. I straddle. I win my straddle, in a free walk. Let me repeat that: I win my straddle, in a free walk. 3) Straddling, and the locals, Part II. I move from the Orleans style 1-4-8 jackrock game, to a 4-8 BARGE filled holdem game. In this game, as has been recounted by others, we play "must straddle" for about 3 or 4 orbits. Including a local, the only non BARGER in the game. Yes, I laughed so hard, I fell backwards out of my chair. 4) Why do I still have money? About 5 minutes into the NLHE event, I look down and find AKo. I make it about 100 to go. Sharla calls. Flop comes K high, with a 4. I check. Sharla bets about 150. I make it 500. She calls. This call scares the shit out of me. Turn comes blank. Check, check. River comes blank. Check, check. I roll over my TPTK. She rolls over her set of 4s. How I don't get crippled or broken on this hand, I'll never understand. 5) "But he might have had a better low" It's the Team Horse tournament. I'm playing the stud/8 round. I have 258 suited, with the 5 up. I believe six people call the completed bet. On fourth street, every other low hand bricks out, I catch good. We're three handed. On fifth, I catch my low, both opponents showing at least two bricks. We go five bets. On sixth, I catch no help for the scoop, but my opponents are still obviously going high. We go five bets. On the river, Mitch "BFB" Firestone, who has just been calling the raises as the other high and I slice and dice, comes out firing. I have an 865 low. I peer over at Mitch's cards, and somehow convince myself he called about a trillion bets drawing to a better 86, and just got there. So we only get 3 bets on the river. Of course, he was rolled up to start, and filled, to take to other half. 6) "How good was this game", Part I. It's Saturday night of BARGE. Time to cut loose. Play Chowaha. Shoot dice. Do shooters. In short, "Animal House". ("You guys playing cards?"). What am I doing? Drinking bottled water, playing 15-30 holdem. Why? Because the game was that good. As previously reported, we had Sleepy Guy, who would fall asleep between hands, wake up and raise blind. Who also flopped an overset against me. (Ouch!). We had Mr. Baccarat Dude, who burnt through a couple of racks, then just played $100 bill after $100 bill for awhile. We had a couple of other clueless fish. And we had drunk guy. Drunk guy blew through some racks, and then looked like he was about ready to quit. Just then, Lee Jones, the other RGPer in the game with Timmy and myself comes down to our end and says: "Order coffee guys, he's fingering a multi-K wad of 100s in his pocket, and he's about the pull it out." He did, and I went from stuck $700 to stuck $9. 7) "How good was this game", Part II. I go to Bellagio Wednesday morning after BARGE. The 8-16 game is dead. I get called for 4-8. This game has two off duty Bellagio staff in it, 4 or 5 players who had played all night, about 3000 in chips in play, and the tr00 r00ler. I had played with Mr. R00ler the day before. He played any two cards, usually to the river. In addition to Mr. R00ler's action, the off duty staff were straddling a lot. Truly a great game. Hand of the day. We take the flop 8 handed for a straddle. Flop comes JT3, rainbow. Mr. R00ler bets out. It comes back to him 2 more bets. He calls only one of them. Guy behind calls both. Dealer backs up, say, "It's 12 to go sir". Mr. R00ler says, "Oh, well, I fold then", and tries to take back his extra $4. Dealer says: "Sorry sir, there's action behind you. You can call for $12, or leave the $8 in there". Tr00 r00ler decides to call. Turn 4. River 7. Tr00 r00ler drags pot he didn't even want to play with 56o. Oh yeah, it was a great game. I dumped 3 racks. 8) "C'mon baby light my bankroll on fire" It's Tuesday after BARGE. Satan and I have spent the day goofing off, hitting the Star Trek Experience, and generally enjoying many fine -EV games. It's just before dinner, and Satan's stuck about 2 bills in a $10 blackjack game. Pulls out $300, saying "Got to get even." Now, I've seen him do this before. And he's always gotten even. $300 vanishes in about 4 hands. Pulls out another $300. Flush. Pulls out $200, so he's in for a dime. Next dealer hits him in the face with the deck, and we go to Gee Joon all square. After dinner, we go across the street to the Nugget for some Pai Gow Poker. Same movie. Burn money. Same ending: miracle comeback. What a r00ler. 9) "Never underestimate the power of the dark side" I saw Jeff Woods do the following, not once, but twice, during the weekend. We approach dice table and buyin. Jeff and I (and sometimes others) would bet against the dice. Table makes krushing of us. Jeff switches over the right side, just in time for a shooter to go 4 numbers and out. 10) Ending bookend. After a wasted halfday at work, I'm driving home today. I might a right on red, coming to a full stop, but jumping out to beat the light which had just changed. Flashing lights, siren. I get off with a warning. Ding!