From: SteveBIA@aol.com Subject: Yet another BARGE (Virgin) trip report I promised myself I wouldn't do this, since there are so many trip reports, but I guess I lied to myself :) I've never written a trip report before, and its a bit long, so if you read the whole thing don't say I didn't warn you! Trip Highlight #1- BARGErs and Binions I know a number of RGPers from playing in LA and from ESCARGOT in February, but I had never met the majority of attendees at BARGE. To put it simply, they are a great bunch of people. The cumulative poker knowledge in the group is scary, but hardly anyone was bragging about their skills or criticizing anyone's play. This is a great group to socialize with, even without the poker. Binion's is old, run down, smoke filled, struggling financially, but just oozing with gambling/poker history. They treated us wonderfully, my room was much better than I expected, the food was decent and the poker room staff made us feel like we were in our favorite home game. Trip Lowlight #1- Wednesday at the Mirage Wednesday evening, driving to the Mirage for the PLO tourney with Scott Byron, he's been trying to get throught to the Mayfair Club for hours, finally reaches a co-worker and learns that the club has been closed down by the city and he's out of work. But, why did he have to take it out on me? He got a big chunk of my stack in the tourney when I started with kings, he started with queens and flopped a queen. Then, he busted me out when three of us were all in on a flop which gave me top set, the player on my right middle set, and Scott the nut flush draw with a gutshot. Any normal person would have rivered the flush, but nooooooooo, he spiked the gutshot :) Trip Highlight #2- "Jalapeno" Ron at the craps table Thursday (I think) after the HOP style tourney, about 12 of us head for the craps pit and convinced Binion's to dig up a couple of dealers and boxmen and start a new table for us. We stood there for about 45 minutes to an hour with nobody, not even Jester betting against the dice, making any money. In fact it got so bad that about half the original gang left out of frustration. I was betting a little bigger than most of the group, which meant I was stuck the most (about $500) when my hero, the best craps shooter in Vegas, none other than BARGE's own Jalapeno (Ron) picked up the dice. Number after number after number. About 20 minutes into the roll, Ron's 10 Heinekens started to catch up to him, and he had a desperate need to er, visit the necessary. Despite saying to himself over and over "please seven out, please seven out" he proceeded to hold the dice for a total of about 35-40 minutes. By the time he finally crapped out, those of us who stuck it out were all out of the hole and were showing a nice profit, in my case to the tune of two grand. Ron gets my vote for the best all around title at BARGE :) Trip lowlight #2- Going home early My so-called pal, who happened to be my ride home, Lou "Party Pooper" Krieger telling me on Saturday that he was getting pretty BARGEd out, and wanted to leave at 8am Sunday morning. A whole day lost! GEEEEEEEZ! And all this just so he could get the smoke reek out of his clothes by doing laundry :) However, Lou's a great conversationalist, and that made the 4+ hour drive both ways go by in no time at all. Trip Highlight #3- Misc. Heads up with Chris Ferguson in Chowaha, very small pot, somebody announces that it has to be a "must toke the pot" hand..... I announce on the river that I made something and bet saying that I'll toke the pot, and Jesus, the guy has to call and beat me announcing that HE wants to toke the pot! At least he could have raised so we could have fought over who would give our money to the dealer!.... Giving Lee Jones free stud lessons during the TOC tourney, and then watching him practice lessons from his new book "How to Jam an Underpair on the Flop" during a holdem round :) ... following Foldem around on the sleazy craps tour and various other functions because he's guaranteed entertainment... being invited by Beth to join the ADV syndicate, even though I wasn't an ADVer... getting poker strategy tips from our after banquet speaker Chris Ferguson... buying 13 racks of white chips to build my chowaha chip castle (Kevin Un bought 15, I was going to buy more but I decided to let him win the prize) and building something that turned out looking like a wedding cake... ROOLing at crazy pineapple during the team CHORSE tourney... getting knocked out of the tourneys with good hands beaten by good hands, which is how its supposed to happen... only playing 3 sessions of live poker, but winning at the NLHE at the Strat and the PLHE at Binion's, even though I gave back a little playing HOSE Trip Lowlight #3- Misc. not cashing in any of the tourneys (best I did was 4 out of the money in the TOC)... first hand in the Mirage PLO I played, lady to my left (non-RGPer) calls my AKQT two suited pre-flop raise, we're all in on a flop of AKx, turn is a baby making two of a suit for me, river is a blank baby, she turns over 7542 rainbow and rivered a wheel... she played every hand during the rebuy period, and must have rebought about 11 times... hassling with Binion's credit department over the credit line they had already approved for me, and being told AFTER the fact that any markers I didn't pick up when I left a table were going to be immediately sent to my bank, along with some other things I heard, lead me to believe that Binion's is in serious financial trouble and is not long for this world... and finally, discovering that I didn't like winning pots from RGPers, so to those who gave me some money, sorry, I would rather have won it from some of the local rocks who thought we were nothing but early Christmas presents for them. Thanks BARGErs, Michael and the other event organizers and the Binion's poker room staff for an absolutely fabulous 4 days. See you next year!