From: kubey@summit.engr.sgi.com (Ken Kubey) Subject: QB's 2000 BARGE trip report The story of my fifth BARGE. Wednesday, August 2nd --------------------- Driving to work, I remember Ed Baker's message about making your own BARGE chips. I buy some plastic chips and my office-mate Cindy and I spend well over two hours constructing BARGE chips. Note to self: buy sticker paper with pre-cut circles next time. Fly down from San Jose. Meet up with Jeff Okamoto, Mike Chow, Connie and Mike, and Patri at the airport. Connie scores a big bag of SWA peanuts from a flight attendant that she knew. We have the tightest non-money hold'em game you'll ever see on the flight. Once again, I decide to play poker all night. I get my BARGE pins from Jupiler. They look awesome. I predict these will be on Ebay for $25 or more someday. I trade a set of my BARGE chips for one of Ratly's home-made BARGE chips with PRESTO! on one side and a fish on the other. I play 4-8 Omaha-8 for many hours. I don't remember any of my hands, but I won $140. The game dies, so I get into a 4-8 hold'em game. A guy calls me down with ace high the one time I tried to bluff all night. Put me on tilt. I crushed him with my 82s that made a runner-runner boat and my 86o that flopped trips. Both were on or near the button. Otherwise, I have no excuse. Up another $60 as the game dies. Jeff lets Patri and me use his room to store our bags and also lets us take showers (no, not at the same time) in the morning. I give Jeff a chip set and buy him a sandwich. Thursday, August 3th -------------------- Have breakfast at the Binion's buffet. Maybe I'm not very picky, but I thought the food was fine. Can't beat the price :-) At about 10:30 a.m., I'm getting dizzy from all the 7&7's and the lack of sleep. I check into my room and take a great 50 minute nap before the HOP tournament. The deck runs over me a bit. I'm dealt aces full pat. I make a 64. I bust out Crunch and get a really cool T-shirt from him when my aces and nines hold up. I snow in lowball with 555X-Bug. Peter Caldes calls from the BB and draws two. I stand pat. Peter mucks as he sees that he has paired. I show my trip 5's and say "Presto!" I get moved to a new table, steal the blinds once or twice and then go ice cold. I get no cards for the next 90 minutes. Barry raises about 6 times in a row in lowball. The best I have is a 1-card draw to a 9. Fold, fold, fold. I lose a big lowball pot, with a 7 draw then win an all-in in draw when my aces improve to aces and kings against the other aces, king kicker. I get moved again. We are down to two tables. High draw. UTG raises to T1000. I find aces and kings and go all-in for T2200. Another player goes all-in for more. I still like the situation. Then Steve Landrum goes all-in for even more. Uh oh. Pretty unlikely that Steve has aces up. I tell my neighbor "I'm drawing" (meaning I'm not ahead) as I show him my hand. Kfish also goes all-in, UTG folds. Guy behind me has 777, Steve has QQQ. We all miss. Steve busts 3 of us and goes on to chop up the money. Head over to the Mirage for the buffet with JP driving. I sit with Bob, Stu, Connie and some other folks. Food is terrific. Later, I talk to the Mirage poker room manager (Donna) about running TARGET in April. She is very positive about the idea. Back down to Binion's. Sandi's plane is delayed. What to do? Play poker. 4-8 HOSE. And I get hosed. I did manage to trounce TOC champion Spencer Sun on one hand. He limps, I limp with 86o. Flop is 8-6-5. He bets, I raise. Turn is a 6. Check, bet, call. River is a sweet 4. Bet, raise, call. Boat good. Manage to cut my loss to $80. Spencer was stuck nearly $200, but came all the way back. Sandi arrives. We get her bags to the room. She plays some blackjack. Friday, August 4th ------------------ We drag ourselves down to breakfast. TOC tournament starts. My cards are terrible. The couple of times I get decent cards, the BB defends and wins. I win my first hand 2 hours into the tournament when my split kings catch a 2nd pair to beat aces showing. I went out with some decent hand. I get into an Omaha-8 game with MadMary and a couple of other BARGErs. Guy on my right is insane. Makes it 3 bets with KT93, etc. I scoop a monster half-kill pot with JJxy and J-6-5-5-T on the board. I post a $100 win before the Calcutta. I also witnessed the old guy bowing to peer pressure and doing a straddle at a table full of BARGErs. His 54o flopped a pair of 4's and took down the pot. Various reports have te guy at 80 or 90. I'd say 70 to 75. He did have a little smile too. Not your typical LV rock. And yes, Jaeger did laugh so hard that he fell out of his chair. Too funny. Calcutta... I get there before most of the crowd. Get some of the food and sit down with Rich Strauss and Jeff Siegal. We've done a 3-person syndicate for years and haven't won money yet. We get John Reeves and Clark Olsen for $100. What a steal! We fail to buy Shmuel for the first time in 3 years and he (of course) makes the money. Up come Mike Maurer and Bob Herlien. Everyone knows that Mike can play, but I don't think many people know Bob. I've seen him play well in a pot-limit home game. Anyway, bidding gets over $100. Rich and Jeff don't want to go above $130. I bid $150 and win. I figure Rich and Jeff will trust my judgement and buy their thirds. Nope. Well, I'm sure Mike and Bob will buy back half of their action. Nope. D'oh! Well, I've got two good players for $150. I can't complain. The bladders buy Kevan and me for $120. Kevan is worth $140 on his own. We get there "They own my A$$" buttons which are quite funny within the BARGE group, but will get you a pretty funny look at the snack bar. I sell off more of my BARGE chips. Cindy and I made a whopping $12 each on the deal. John Harkness thought it was pretty funny. Someone actually tried to buy 3 chips for $3. Hmmm... maybe 50c a chip was too low?? :-) Let me know when you see them on Ebay. Team horse. I'm playing razz in seat 7. I played in exactly one big pot. I start with (24) 7. I'm behind against a A and 5. I catch a 4, they both catch Q's. I bet, the both call. First guy catches a 10 and shows 5-Q-10. I catch a K and show 7-4-K. Last guy catches a 9 and shows A-Q-9. They check to me. I bet representing a 7 draw. The 9 draw calls. Okay, I can see that. But then the 10 draw calls too. I can't see that. I make an 87 and lose to the 5-Q-10's 86. I was steaming. Michael Hunter wins a big pot for our team and I get that "look out motherf@#$ers" feeling I sometimes get at the poker table. I'm ready to play my A+ game. Next round I fold all of the hands. Final round, I play a hand with (34) 7. A player with pocket aces raises and I have to fold on 5th street showing 7-Q-7. Yuck. Later, I just call a raise with another 7 draw, catch inside and win the pot. Woo hoo! Our team ends up losing $15 a man. Not as bad as it could have been. Time for bed, right? Naw, I wander over to Main Street with Bruce to find some craps players. The table is a bit choppy, but we are having a lot of fun. I get the dice and roll a few numbers. One of our guys is betting some heavy odds and wins about $300 on my 5 minute roll. The table then goes ice cold. The other BARGER players all go broke or nearly so. I lose $24 and feel pretty good about it. Non-variance is my friend. Saturday, August 5th -------------------- I wake up 15 minutes before the tournament. I shave, throw on some clothes and hustle downstairs. I get a good starting table for once. Everyone at my table is a capable player and everyone is playing tight, but there's no one there that I'm afraid of. There was one very weird hand early. Guy makes it T200, I raise to T800 with JsJc. He calls. Flop is 3 small diamonds. He bets T200. Yes, T200 into a T1600 pot. Plenty of ways that I could be behind already and if he has any diamond, he can outdraw me too. I decide to wait for a better spot and fold. I steal a bunch of blinds and I'm up a bit when I get moved to a much tougher table. Patti, Ploink, Russell, Tom Overton. The other players were tough too. I steal a few blinds. Don Perry makes what looks like a steal raise. I find 55 in the BB. I don't have enough to make him fold, but I'm low on chips and I'll play a coin flip if he has two high cards. Unfortunately, he has 99. But I have faith. A 5 on the turn and I'm back in the game. Unless I'm mistaken, this is my first suckout if 5 BARGE NLH tournaments. I'm up to T5900 with less than 5 tables left. The blinds go up to T500-T1000. I have AK UTG and raise to T2500. Don Perry has a mountain of chips in the SB and I don't want to give him an easy call. Folded around to Tom in the BB. He thinks a bit and goes all-in. Uh oh. While I'm thinking a cheer goes up around the room as we hear that Quick has busted out on the hand before. I know Tom isn't in there with nothing. AK, AQs or QQ are the hands I'm hoping he has as I call. I just hope he doesn't have... uh oh, he has kings. I'm out. I wonder if I can fold AK there, but with T1500 in blinds staring me in the face, I think my call is justifiable. Mike and Bob are still in there. Kevan had gone out a little earlier with TT to Bill Chen's AK. Next thing I know, Mike is out too. I realize that I haven't eaten anything for a long time. I join Brian G., Mike and Connie for lunch at the Pizza Kitchen. Yum. Lots of good conversation too. Back to the tournament. Bob is still in there. He's wearing someone else's bathrobe. I thought it was a bounty. Turned out he was just cold. Bob is in the money and has a ton of chips. I give him a thumbs up from across the room. I generally don't like to bother my horses. A few minutes later, Bob gives me the slash across the throat sign. He's still seated, so I run over to talk to him. He tells me that he's just lost 90% of his chips. He still has some chips left. I tell him "You're still in there. Play HARD!" BTW, I get way too pumped up at the BARGE tournament. I love this stuff. Just plain love it. Bob steals some blinds and wins some all-ins pretty much always showing up with the best hand when the chips go in. A few more go out. Bob is playing a nice patient game. He moves up to the $150 pay out. Hey, I might make money on this deal. He has a one chip call from the BB with J3o and spikes a J on the river to bust a player. He makes the final table. He is constantly short stacked, but is making all the right plays. With six left, the SB tries to steal his BB. Bob defends with AJo. Scott has 84o and flops a straight. Oh well. Good show. Head to head it's Jeff against JR (John Reed). I talked a bit with Jeff later and he's a good guy, but I've know JR since the days of alt.gambling (before rec.gambling.poker or even rec.gambling). Just as I'm sure most people were rooting for TJ against Chris, I'm sure most of us were pulling for JR. But the longtime players were beaten by the newer guys in both cases. I was happy to hear the round of applause for JR and then another sustained round of applause for our new BARGE Champion! Way to go Jeff! Head over to the banquet early and get a good table. Jim Bullard shows me the "Heather Locklear" BARGE badge that he had gotten sort of by accident. Another collectible item. The food was pretty good. I enjoyed Jesus' talk and answers. Seems like a really good guy. I got on the Chowaha list early only later to learn that Chris would play in the game. Too cool. Back to Binion's for Chowaha. I make a small buy-in of $300 and get to work on my chip castle in seat 10. First pot is capped 9 ways. I'm in there playing blind of course and flop Q's and T's on the middle flop and bet it. It's gets raised twice behind me. I hit a T on the turns and go for a check-raise. It gets checked around. D'oh. I make the smart play of betting blind on the river just before a Q falls. I get a couple of calls and win the pot. I throw out a $1 chip toward the dealer and say "Chop it" as a joke and then throw him 4 more chips. I lost with two small boats and finished the session down $15. At some point, Mike Chow, the inventor of Chowaha walks up to the table looking for a seat. My straddle comes up and I have Mike sub in to play my chips. He flops trips and pushes it hard, but is outkicked. Mike gives me a $20 which covers most of his spewage. Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, the 2000 World Series of Poker champion sits down in seat 8. There must be over 5000 white chips on the table. Chris whips out a $10 bill to buy in. What a sense of humor. Much later I make a comment about the guy in seat 8 playing way too tight. Chris looks around to notice that we are 10 handed and that I'm talking about him and cracks a smile back at me. I also gave him one of my homemade BARGE chips which I believe ended up at the very top of his massive chip castle in one of the photos. Oh, speaking of castles... my original plan was to build a zebra using the black spots on the edge of the white chips to form stripes. All was going fine until I ran out of chips. I pulled out a $100 bill and Tom Weideman ran off with it and returned with a rack of white moments later. The tail came out okay, but doing a horse/zebra head with chips was beyond me. Instead I went for a long giraffe style neck. I think it came out okay. Sandi snapped a couple of pictures. I hope to get them scanned in before next BARGE. Peter Secor *did* confirm that my castle won the non-existent animal division of the contest. Sandi hits a $100 jackpot playing a dollar slot. Woo hoo! Sandi then watches Mike Zimmers play lowball. Remind me to be careful about leaving Sandi near Mike for more than about 5 minutes! I watch Jeff Siegal accidentally make a max bet on a nickel machine (after Brian had already warned him) and hit a $15 jackpot. Well played Jeff. Around this time, I find Lee Jones in a 15-30 game. Lee needs to run to the restroom and has me play his chips. I sat in for one round and played 3 hands. Failed to 3-bet an AK early. If I can get the blinds to fold, I could have won the pot. I raise with AJo UTG and win a nice pot with a J-high flop. I won Lee some money, but wasn't thrilled with my play of the AK hand. Still later Nut-Z gets many of us do a shot of Schnapps (no Rumplemintz available) in honor of Mark S+@#+$. I buy a copy of Q's poker dictionary. Ratly checks it's validity by looking up "Chowaha". It's in there! Sunday, August 6th ------------------ We drag outselves down to the buffet. Sit with Patrick and Jupiler. We all want to go to the Orleans for the noon hold'em tournament. Jupiler drives. Just before we leave we say bye to ADV leader Beth. Beth should be commended for all of her hard work and good sense of humor. She's a great addition to the BARGE team. I start out great in the tournament. 72 started. At three tables, I'm in pretty good shape. An older guy comes over to the seat next to me. It looks like Oklahoma Johnny Hale. It *is* Oklahoma Johnny Hale. I buy his book for $15. I introduce him to Sandi. He kisses her hand which puts a *big* smile on Sandi's face. He hands us a $25 gaming token that can be used to get lodging at his Senior poker event. Cool. I bust out four players and collect $20 in bounties. My cards go pretty cold as we get down to 14 players (10 places pay). Now my cards go completely cold. With 12 left, I'm pretty much forced to go all-in on my blind. Jim Bullard has AK, I have K6. I'm out. Jim and I have a small argument about the waitresses at the Orleans. I guess I shouldn't call the second best looking waitress in the room (who is a knockout, BTW) the "ugly one". Jim takes 10th and joins Patrick, Sandi and me for lunch at the Mexican place in the Orleans. One free margarita and many chips with guacamole dip later, I'm feeling better. Harry B. and Paul Stine take higher spots in the tourney. I think Oklahoma Johnny Hale chopped 1st. Sandi and I head over to the Bellagio where we have gotten a room for the low low price of $79 for Sunday night. What a room! I could live in the bathroom. We have a pool view which is spectacular. Wow! We change and head over to the Luxor to see Blue Man Group. It is a very entertaining show. I've always liked drums, so it was right up my alley. Lot's of funny bits too. They do a lot to involve the audience also. Darn good and different show. After the show, Sandi gets one of the Blue Men to kiss our tickets. We carefully carry around the tickets with wet blue-paint lip prints on them. We get some Krispy Kreme donuts at the Excalibur on the way back. Yum! Monday, August 7th ------------------ The BARGE mayhem has now caught up with us as we both are too tired to gamble further that night. We actually get several hours sleep and go down to the pools/hot tubs just like normal people. Next we go shopping at the Mirage, Caesers, and Harrahs. Then to the Rio to get cash back on some slot thing I did in April and then back to the Orleans for more nickel Monopoly. We lose a bit, but I do find a couple of nickels for my collection. A 1951-S in Extremely Fine condition and a 1943-S in About Good condition. The wartime nickels are a bit rare and are made of 56% copper, 35% silver and 9% manganese. Nickel (which is 25% of your typical nickel) was needed for the war. Try to find another BARGE trip report that mentions "manganese". We rush over to the Bellagio to meet Patrick and his wife, Eileen for the buffet. Barry and Betty join us too. Barry is apparently in a pretty good game as he leaves his chips on the table and pays time during dinner. The food is awesome. As it should be for $22.95! Big peeled shrimp, smoked salmon, shark, sturgeon, crab, etc., etc. For dessert, I have a slice of lemon meringue pie that is the best. Finished with dinner, Sandi tries some blackjack, but runs into a hot dealer and gives up before much damage is done. We finish our gambling with the Monopoly slots and Sandi hits a 100 coin jackpot to cap off the trip. On the plane, I'm sitting next to some 20-something guy and his girlfriend (who was a garlic princess at Gilroy's garlic festival). As we take off, he mentions taking a beating at the MGM. I ask what game. He says "War." All I can think is "War! What a R00Ler!" I had a great time at BARGE 2000. I know I've left out a lot of names of nice people I talked to or played with. You know who you are. Thanks for making this such a great BARGE. What a pleasure to have BARGE back at Binion's. I drank a lot of water at the tables, not to mention a few other things and I think that helped me avoid getting sick from the smoke and dry air. Due in large part to Bob Herlien, I left Vegas with more money than I arrived with and had a whole lot of fun with all of my poker playing pals. Say *that* three times fast. What a great group! Thanks once again to Mike and Chuck for bringing off a terrific event. Can I sign up for BARGE 2001 now? Ken Kubey kubey@engr.sgi.com (650) 933-3536