From: jeffysroom@yahoo.com (A. Prock) Subject: BARGE 2001 trip report, part 1 This is my very long and probably far too detailed log of my BARGE trip this year. I had a great time, and met a lot of great people. I'd like to thank the group in general for being so friendly in general, and helpful in particular. Several people did the kind job of carting me to/from/around Vegas in their cards, and for that I am grateful. The poker was good, and the conversation was good. In fact, the only thing that was bad was the smoke :( Keep in mind while reading this that I fired my editor (me), because he is too lazy to do any substantive revisions. [The lousy bastard didn't even spell check the damn thing.] - Andrew -- Jul 31 Monday Monday was the day to do all of the things that one must do when one travels. I got all of my things together, and ran of the important errands. I debated for quite a while as to whether or not I should bring my computer. I knew that I probably wouldn't use it, but if I needed it for any reason, there would be no replacement. The tellers at the bank gave me some weird looks when I withdrew multiple $C in cash, but I was able to walk out with my own money with only the slightest feeling that I'd just robbed a bank. I then BARTed it to Pleasanton in the bay area so that I could catch a ride with Michael Hunter down to the land of Poker. When I got there he told me that I'd have to hang tight for about another half an hour at the station while he wrapped things up for the day. I took this opportunity to study my copy of Super/System to find out exactly WHEN it was correct to make the infamous "double draw" in lowball, a skill which I would then use and abuse during BARGE. I guess I must have been an obvious poker geek, since Mike was able to pick me out of the 3 or so other people waiting for rides at the BART station. And then we were off... Mike likes to visit the many small card rooms that dot the California and Nevada landscape. The cardroom which he had targetted for this evening was a fairly large 8 or 10 table room in the Table Mountain Casino in Friant, CA. As we meandered, re-meandered, and finally just plain got "lost" on the roads around the casino, he told me about some of his other travels to these "hole in the wall" casinos. The "for real and for true" Artichoke Joe actually runs one somewhere in nowhere, and aparently gets quite a hoot out of dealing his brand of "dealers choice" to all of the locals. We finally arive at the casino, are "directed" by "security" that our first parking inclination is not the best, and wind our way to the poker room. The poker room at Table Mountain is a nice clean room with good low limit action. I can't see many tourists around, but it is clear that the locals are loose enough to make the 2/4 game I get into a lot of fun. There is a lot of healthy table talk, a bit too much smoking and suckouts all around. Most of my good hands stand up, and I drag a monster pot with a rivered flush to give me positive variance to the tune of 25 big bets in two hours. We manage to find our way to the motel where we are staying, and the gods of chance smile upon us. It only takes three trips to the desk to get a room suitable for two poker geeks. The first had only one bed, and the second came with a bonus person, which we turned down. Aug 1 Tuesday We get up, get out of bed, drag various comb like implements across our heads, and try our luck at the continental breakfast. Not much luck, but there is coffee and juice. We are taking the senic route to Vegas, through Yosemite, and down 95 past, but not through, the various mountains and bordellos. The scenery is beautiful, and the conversation is good. We stop for lunch at the bottom of the valley. Despite the fact that I was just in Yosemite last November I am quite capable of getting totally turned around and lost in a mere matter of moments. As we leave Yosemite valley we pick up a passenger who is heading upland for a two or three day hike for the purposes of drowning the sorrow of lost love. The rest of the drive was highlighted by signs that read "Cottentail Ranch" and "Steve's Junction", as well as beautiful desert scenery. As Vegas comes into sight, I concede that the over/under arival time bet I made with Mike is definatly to be resolved in his favor. To settle up, we go to one of the downtown brewpubs for a hearty meal and some fairly good beer. I had the wheat, which wasn't quite as wheaty as I'm used to, and Mike had the managers special which turned out to be a little more berry-esque for my taste. On to the poker room! The Binions poker room isn't quite the action packed poker mecca that it will evolve into but the games look fun. Lee Crocker Daniel is sitting the the 10/20. My general perception of the 10/20 is that it just doesn't look like a fun game, but I put my name on the list and Mike and I sit down in a 1/4/8 game which is loads of fun. I have loads of fun talking up the low limit locals and tourists. I win a good pot from an off duty dealer when she calls down my nut-no-pair with her 4th-nut-no-pair. But I give it all back to her, plus interest, when her set of nines cracks my aces wide open. My name is called for the 10/20 and I figure that I might be able to win back the change which I've lost with all of the rocks. Unfortunatly, the game isn't cooperating. The locals are bitching about this and that, all my pairs are flopping overcards multiway and all of my overcards are flopping nadda. I take my big blind when I hear my name called for the HORSE game. I mutter "that's me", and start to rack up when the dealer starts dealing the next hand. I try to convince the locals that I should be allowed to leave without paying/playing the small blind, but they will have none of that. The floor rules that I can play out the round even though I've got a seat locked up in the 4/8 HORSE game. So now I'm semi-tilted, down five more dollars, and I'm keeping someone from playing HORSE. I'm pretty much feeling like a total cad. I finally finish the round, not playing a single hand with all of the whiners, and find out that JP Masser is playing "over" me. He finishes the hold'em round and I sit down in the omaha round, and blow off about $100 in bitter remorse, fun, and general maniacal play. John Harkness takes full advantage of my full blown tilt and gets more than his fair share of my tilt proceeds. I make the acquaintence of quite a few BARGErs there, and generally let the good vibes wash away the induced tilt which I feel I have adequatly punished myself for. As it gets later and later, I get drunker and drunker. I'm not sure if I won or lost in that game, but I am sure that I had one heck of a good time, even if it didn't quite show :) Aug 2 Wednesday For some reason, I decided that I would aleviate my hangover by walking down to the strip from downtown. I think I was inspired by hearing John Harkness saying that he had done the same thing recently, but I'm not sure if that was the beer talking or not. Regardless, it's 10:15 am and I'm off for a nice long walk. I had been told that the neighborhoods were not the best. With all of the porno shops, strip bars, and motels with "free adult TV", I could see how this part of Vegas might attract the less attractive element. On the other hand it was mid-morning, a shift which few mugger seem to work, so I felt pretty safe overall. The real downer was that I somehow neglected to consider the "sun factor" of the trek. Everything was all hunky dory (sp?) till 11:30 rolled around. At that point all of the shade disapeared, and I was left walking down Las Vegas Boulevard with my fully articulated limbs positioned in various manners as to shelter my frying face from the heating element above. After stopping a couple of times to purchace large quantities of liquid -- and a couple of more times to give away large quantities of liquid -- I finally make to the "center of the poker universe". Last time I was in Vegas, I stayed and played at the Mirage, and it was good. The higher limit games didn't look very juicy this Wednesday afternoon, so I passed on the must move 20/40 game they were trying to start shorthanded. Instead I plopped into a very lively 6/12 game. It was a good game with lots of chatting, and generally loose play. I pulled down a fairly large pot with Kings-Up raising me on the turn when the third heart fell. I had capped the flop with a set of sixes, and was fully prepared to give away the good money I was throwing in after my bad money. After two laps I thought I'd go check out the Belagio and see if the action was as good as it had been during the Super Bowl. Unfortunatly, it wasn't. I played one orbit of 4/8, left up $22 and headed back to Binions. When I arrived at Binions I was shocked and delighted to find a 10/20 stud/8 game going. I had been under the strict impression that stud/8 was a game that was specifically NOT spread in Vegas, so imagine my glee when I find that not only is it being spread, but it's a 10/20 game. Aparently Kirby, an Atlantic City regular, had started the game and was doing a great job of making it a fun game to be in. Jumping in the game, I soon found myself stuck more than a buck after capping the pot on 3rd, 4th, and 5th, with rolled up jacks. Such is the cruel and bitter reality of the freeroll. I was rolled up twice more that night, but the poker gods would not allow such action to remanifest itself for me again. At some point, it dropped down to just me and Kirby playing heads up stud/8, a game which I've played far too much to pass up, even if my opponent is a "pro". Eventually, more players joined our ranks and we were at a full table within an hour. Frank Brabec impressed me greatly with his balls out play, and I bought a piece of him during the Calcutta because I just knew he was capable of going all the way in the no limit tourney. Aug 3 Thursday As hours passed, the limits increased. The tournament hero somehow escaped after about six hours of play and at one point being over $2000 down. He slinked back and muttered something about ending the night up $80. I love rushes. A Jerry Garcia clone had apparently been notified that the "fish" were in town playing "his" game, and as the limits grew from 15/30 to 20/40, so did his investment in the game. Nollan Dalla sat down in the game and proceeded to outplay Kirby, "Jerry" and I. Unfortunatly for him, that meant that he got an extra ante or two since we all seemed to have tightend up our third street standards. At about 10:30 am, I left the game, down about 5 big bets after catching a major rush myself. After eating the Binions morning buffet, it was time for the History of Poker tournament. It was my advertised intention to bust out as early as possible so that I could catch a nice afternoon nap. To facilitate busting out, I went all in twice with double draws in lowball. The first time I doubled through, and the second time I trippled through (versus Russ Fox I think). Finally, with two tables left, I made a single draw in lowball versus Russ Fox and a pat player. The poker gods were not pleased with my antics, and instead of busting out after a half an hour, I busted out in 15th or so, and lost out on the money as well as the nap. In a state of utter fatigue, I figured I'd go to the Mirage buffet, and cash in on the +ev move of actually eating the food I'd already paid for. During the buffet, I got a chance to meet Stephen Mack, and we had a fairly serious non-poker discussion about jobs -- Eeek!. At this point, I'm feeling much better. Though I've been up for hours and hours and hours, I'm well fed and in the mood to gamble. I decide that it would be a very very good idea to play the Mirage NL tourney. I'm not sure why I thought this was a good idea. I've never played big bet hold'em for money, and I've lost every tourney I've ever played in. But hey, I'm up more than $220 so it's a free roll, right? I get there in the nick of time, and find myself at THE softest table in the tournament. It's full of all of the straglers who, like me, decided to play the game on a whim. Every other pot features an all-in raise, and everyone seems to be involved in gambling. I confide to Spencer Sun that I might be in over my head, but he reassured me that I can probably play better than the field. Well I know I can play better than THIS field. I get a couple of shots at doubling through, only to have my QQ cracked by AK, and my TT to be cracked by 77 when the 4th flush card hits the river. C'est la vie. In about a half an hour the table is broken -- surprise surprise. I then go to the WORST table in the tournament. Table 1 is filled with the sort of analytical, cautious and reserved players who show up early to sign up for tournaments. Of course, there are several BARGERs as well as many local regulars. None of the pots feature all-in raises, and most don't have showdowns. Saddenz! I exit when I make the very -ev move of betting my bottom pair with nut flush draw into a single suited board. "I can get off this bet", I say to myself. To the rest of the table I say "I call", when the next player behind me shoves all in. I guess I could have hit one of the other 7 flush cards, or made a runner runner full house, but when the river brought me trips I triumphantly flipped my hand over thinking it was good. I knew I wasn't any good at no limit hold'em. I forget how I made it back to my hotel room, but somehow I did. When I got there I slipped into the sweetest sleep that is humanly possible. Aug 4 Friday After 12 hours I wake up and shower. I'm still tired, but feeling very refresed. I go down, have some breakfast, then head to the poker room. The games look pretty standard so far, so I start a list for 2/5 pot limit hold'em and 1/2 pot limit hold'em. Did I mention that my only live big bet experience consisted of me busting out of the previous nights tournament? Until the games get going, I've got to occupy my poker addiction or explode. Noticing that Kirby is in the 4/8 razz I decide to join her in pestering the local rocks by injecting action into another game I've never played before. As I sit down, I think to myself "A powerful winning force surrounds me". Sure enough, after a half an hour at the game, I'm up $200. I hear my name called for the 2/5 pot limit game, and declare to myself "It's time go GAMBOOL!!!" As I sit down, it becomes pretty clear to me that these stakes are a bit higher than I'm comfortable with. Nevertheless, I am determined to play this game to the best of my ability (lol) and have a good time. Most of the players are BARGERs. Kirby and a local crag have also joined the game. I pay very close attention to the action, but for the life of me all I can remember is Kirby losing a big pot to the crag when runner-runner flush comes. A couple of hands later I get TT in the pocket. I limp and I may or may not have called a back raise. The flop comes with a T, and I make a half pot sized bet. On the turn, the crag bets and I r-r-r-raise pot. My hand is shaking like mad as I try and count out the bet. I'm sure all the veins on my head are pounding like crazy too. By the river it's me and the crag, and one of us is all in. When my set holds up Kirby says something like, "How come you win with sets and I don't". A BARGER (Russ Rosenbloom?) says, "That's exactly the hand I put you on." Thank god the crag was there to pay me off. When I hear my name called for the 1/2 game, I run like a scared deer. I'm obviously not cut out for 2/5 if I can't even bet pot without oozing 20 tells per minute. The 1/2 game is relativly uneventful for me, but Lee Crocker Daniel suffers two underset defeats which were rather expensive. I have never seen a more gentlemanly player. I think most would have at least muttered something under their breath when the second underset occured, but Lee just took it in stride and kept playing. As the symposium starts the 1/2 game breaks, and we head up to buy some horsies. Impressed by the style of Frank Brabec, I am determined to get a piece of his action. Michael Hunter, Mike McManus, and I get Frank and his wife for $100. We split it 30/30/40, and I sell a piece of my action to Mary Massey. After that, Michael Hunter, Lee Crocker Daniel and I start a small no limit freezeout on the floor, $20 buy-in. After Lee gets knocked out I recover from a 4:1 chip deficit to take down the $60 pool. Who says you can't beat no limit champs? The next freezeout is eight handed. For some reason I get it inot my head that team CHORSE is starting in about 8 minutes instead of 68 minutes, and commence to terrorize the game by moving all in every hand. This strategy doesn't seem to work very well and I end up busting out in 6 or 7 hands. About 15 minutes before the CHORSE event starts, my team (the IRCsomes) gets together and we organize, comiserate, and generally try and get our heads screwed on straight (eep!). After practicing our fight song a couple of times we head to the tables where a giant throng of players awaits the beginning of the event. It's amazing to watch 108+ poker players milling around 4 pokers tables trying to figure out what the heck is going on. We sing our fight song and soon after the event is a foot. Mary Massey (razz), Frank Brabec (stud) and I (stud/8) hold down the stud table, while John Davis (crazy pineapple), Jan Pierce (hold'em) and Steve Pierce (omaha/8) hold down the flop table. Through the effective use of "Good Solid Poker" by our team, we somehow manage to make it to third place on the money total. I ended up doing ok despite running my hidden kings into a pair of hidden aces. By the time CHORSE is over, I am totally amped and completly fatigued. Me and John Davis decide to go sit in the 4/8 omaha high game to get some booze, and do a little low stress gambling to ease our transition to sleep. Naturally, I imediatly loose everything I won playing CHORSE, and then some. John seems to be achieving the inverse feat, and we both are doing well in the beer consumption. At some point a couple of other BARGERs sit down, but they too seem a bit tired and not in the mood to gambOOl. As I'm finishing my third beer, I'm reminded by the new dealer that my brand spankin new Benjamin Franklin doesn't play. That sounds fine by me, but he seems to insist that I take it off the table. As this is my last round, and I've been drinking, I get a little stubborn and ignore him. After a bit more prompting I stick the bill in the corner of my mouth and lose another pot. When John takes his big blind, I decide that this is my last hand. I stick the $100 up my nose and straddle. Of course, all I get is callers, so I feel compelled to raise blind. The flop comes XYZ with some low cards. I look at my hand, expose a 2, and bet while announcing that I've got a gutshot. I get more callers. At some point I go all in (remember $100 bills stuck up your nose don't play in games under 10/20). When the dust clears my gutshot fills and I drag down a big enough pot to put me close to even. I stumble off to bed, and pass out promptly. The next day I'm informed by Nolan Dalla that the table went wacky after that with straddles around and side bets galore. Boy do I have bad timing. From: jeffysroom@yahoo.com (A. Prock) Subject: BARGE 2001 trip report, part 2 This is the second, and final, installment of my long winded, non-spell-checked trip report. Enjoy. - Andrew -- Aug 5 Saturday I wake up, rush down to breakfast, and sit down for the no limit hold'e event. I'm fully aware that I'm about as dead as dead money can get in this event, but I resolve to myself to not play as horribly as I did in the Mirage tournament. The first table was a pretty easy table to handle. I didn't get involved in any major confrontations, and didn't do anything utterly moronic. I was saving those plays for later in the tournament. After my table breaks, I find myself at a table with a bunch of familiar faces. Things are going pretty smooth -- fold, fold, fold -- when I pick up Presto. I make the "standard" raise, and Patti Beadles makes the "standard" reraise behind me. I'm not really liking my hand, but then it IS Presto, isn't it. I hem, haw, and throw of about 18 tells to Patti, whereupon I call. When the flop comes something like T42 rainbow, I decide to get "jiggy wit it" and pull of the infamous, check-raise all-in bluff into the better hand. Of course, I throw off about 26 more tells, and Patti as little trouble calling me. When she shows JJ, I know I'm in deep. Fortunatly for me, I turned an open ended straight and riverd the wheel to double through. Over the course of the tournament I go 4/4 with presto, but thankfully never have to go to the river with it again. I then go on the smallest rush ever, as I steal the blinds with KK, AA, and AA in rapid succession. People bust out of our table, and new players sit in. Having never really played no limit hold'em before I talk about preflop raising strategy with the table. Michael Maurer notes that the worse your position, the smaller your open-raise needs to be. I tuck away that piece of information for future reference. About 10 hands later, I pick up JJ in late position. Michael makes an undersized raise under the gun, and another player makes the standard reraise. I look at my jacks, and promptly ignore the information which I had tucked away. I re-re-raise Michael and the re-raise all-in. Imagine my horror and resignation when I find that Michael has AA, and the reraiser has QQ. All I can think of as I drag down the pot is how happy Michael must have been to get all-in preflop versus QQ and JJ, and how bummed out I would be if I had were cracked by jacks. I'm now a "big stack" and manage to gamble my way into the money. At one point I make a standard raise AK and folded after much consideration to an all-in raise by Jaeger -- who had been and would continue to lube my brain with Coronas. It turns out that Jaeger held AK as well. The very next hand I get AK again, and this time it's his turn to fold big slick. I somehow feel that I got the short end of the bargain. We get down to two tables and I get down to T4500, when I have to take the T4000 big blind. Someone raises under the gun, and I look down to find 82o. I throw my hand up in desperation while declaring time. The raiser misheard me and threw up QQ. In a sudden state of panic, I muck my "officially dead" hand. I had been planning on calling the bet, but I just wanted everyone to know how desperate my situation was. I'm not sure how the floor would have ruled on that hand, but I think QQ definatly benefiteed from me folding with 20:1 pot odds. God I suck. I soon exit the tournament in 14th. Having placed in the tournament money for the first time in my life, I'm a bit of a personal high. I go to the list to see what they are spreading. To my glee and delight I see that they are spreading pot limit stud/8. Mind you it's "Mississippi" stud/8, but stud/8 nonetheless. I sign up for the game and wait, wait, wait for my name to be called. I know that Michael Hunter was in the game, but I forget who most of the other players were. Actually, I'm pretty sure I didn't forget them. Rather I just never noticed them. It was pretty hard to notice anything beyond the "Paul Phillips Show" during my whole stay at the table. Of cours, having front row seats probably contributed to my tunnel vision. The first hand I play is pocket sevens. So, I raise! Paul comes back at me and we end up all in before the flop. When the flop comes T7T, Paul flips up his quads, and I shrug and flip up my sevens. A seven on the turn then inspires a rather long discussion about odds, and how interesting that was. Being on the short end of that exchange, I don't find it particularly interesting, but then what do I know. From my perspective, I was behind before the board was run, and I was behind after the board was run. A veritable no-op. The "Paul Phillips Show" continues, and I have a hard time trying to figure out whether he is trying to tilt me in particular, or the whole table at once. Maybe a little bit of both :) I rebuy and win back my money when Paul pays off my pocket aces. The next hour or so is uneventful. When banquet time rolls around I rack up and head up for the grub. I was seated at a table with Mike McManus. Mike is an all around good guy, and he did the thankless task of loosly organizing us virgins this year. It was really nice to have a concrete awareness that there were others out there, like me, who had never been to BARGE before. Thanks Mike. The banquet food was surprisingly good, and the speach that Phil Hellmuth gave was also surprisingly good. Phil's speach started out kind of bad with him reading his Power Point slides word for word, but as soon as he transitioned into a more relaxed and free form manner, he gained full command of the crowd. After the banquet, I head back down to play in the pot limit game. While I wait, I see that both Paul Phillips and Maverick are in the game. Fond recollections of the jeers and taunts that were exchanged between the two (on the BARGE email list) fill my mind. I am thinking to myself, "This HAS to be a good game". By the time I get called, Maverick has busted out, and the lineup includes Paul Phillips, Salim, Michael Hunter, a couple of local rocks, and a couple of other BARGERs. The game continues pretty much as it did before. Most of the pots I get involved in are uncontested. I lose my stack when I raise all-in in a 3-way pot with a hidden set in Missippi stud/8 versus two low draws. Unfortunatly, I don't fill up and both low draws make it with one of them improving to a straight. Such is life. REBUY! Again the action is pretty uneventful. At some point the table switches to an all Mississippi stud/8 game and I'm thinking "oooh, I love it". But as I look around the table, I realize that both Andy Latto, and Andy Bloch, two east coast high-low players, are at the table. So it's the gauntlet of "Andys" in a pot limit stud/8 game. Then it happens. The BIG hand. When I say BIG, I mean that it was BIG for me. I don't think it was the biggest pot of the evening, but it sure was the defining pot for my evening. Throughout the entire night, Paul and I have been making various "exchanges". Often I would say things like "I've never played big bet poker before", and he'd say things which seemed to indicate that he believed me :) I start the hand with split kings with Paul as the bring in. I raise his bring in, and he calls. When the next two cards come down, I'm holding (Kx)K96, and he is showing (xx)2Q3. Neither of us are showing suits, and I can't backdoor a low. I bet pot, and Paul raises me. I stop and think for about half a second, put him on a draw, and re-raise pot. Paul very quickly and precisely says that he'll put me all in. Now I stop to think for a little more than half a second. My first though is "what the heck just happened". As soon as I figure out that I'll have to go all in to continue playing, I begin to wonder if Paul might have the dreaded hidden set. As the chips settle I determine that I'm pot commited -- I think I have to call about $200 in an $1800 pot. I call, and Paul gives me a hard time by implying that I might have folded. When I hear him say that I'm fairly sure that I'm in the lead. We both expose our hands. Paul has the dreaded 2345Q for the open ended wheel draw, and I was just glad that it's still a draw. After the cards are run, my rivered Kings up takes down the whole pot when Paul rivers Queens up. At this point everything seems to go wacky. Paul starts going off on how much of a dog I was in that hand, and seems to imply that I was sooper lucky or something. Paul and I exchange various unpleasantries. Some were probably out of line in one dimension or another, and I hope that everyone at the table understood that none of what was going on was all about poker. Here is one of the less personal jibes we exchanges. Paul: "I'll lay $2100 to your $2000 on a coin flip." Me: "I'll lay all the money in my banks to all the money in your banks." Neither of us take the offer. About 10 minutes after the hand the game broke. I'm sure some of it was the late hour, and some of it was the high level of rhetoric that was going on. I went up to the room and ran a few simulations which showed that when all the money went in on the BIG pot, I had 5 parts of the pot for every 6 parts Paul had. Not as big of a dog as I had feared. I float to sleep thinking and dreaming of pot limit stud/8. Aug 6 Sunday In the morning I get up and head down to the buffet. I am looking forward to a "Math Geeks" meeting. Personally, my math credentials are kind of weak. I only have an undergraduate degree in the subject, AND I recently failed a statistics course. But I'm always happy to pose as a math geek at every oportunity I get. We all have a rather raucus caucus regarding bankrolls, computer poker, and online risk. After the geekfest, I wondered down to Binion's poker room where I ran into Stephen Mack. He said that he was headed, with some other folks to go ride the Big Shot at the Stratosphere. Being a ride junky, I humbly accepted his invitation to join them. I joined Stephen, Ken Kubey and a person who I assume was Ken's SO for a trip to the "tallest thrill ride in the world". On the way, we ran into Bruce Hayek and Lenny Augustine. According to Vegas "law" you can't have six people in a cab. According to tiltboy "law" you must Roshambo for the cab fare. Upshot: I end up paying the cab fare for the ride the Stratosphere. I also make a complete fool of myself as I try and convince Bruce and Lenny that they weren't playing 3-way Roshambo properly. Of course, I was wrong. The Stratosphere tower is tall. The view that you see is amazing. I never realized that there were two or three golf courses ON the strip. But then I don't golf. On the advice of the ticket sales lady, we ride the "roller coaster" first. The most "thrilling" part of the ride was this nagging feeling I had that one of the many dangling cables was going to hit me upside the head. I've been to many amusement parks. Without fail, my favorite rides are the "freefall" style rides. You know the ones that crank you up 200 feet in the air and then drop you straight down. The Big Shot is essentially a "freefall" ride, but the twist on this one is that it acts kind of like a rubber band. You start at the bottome and are "launched" up. If the ride were perfectly engineered, you'd be in free fall all the way up as well as all the way down. Unfortunatly, friction and sloppy engineering get in the way and when the ride reaches the apex, you "keep going" bumping into the restraint. But I have to say it was a great ride, so great that I paid the bonus $3 to ride it again. After the Big Shot it was time to go play poker. I made my way to the Belagio via the Mirage. At the Belagio I ran into John Davis who looked cool as a cucumber in his dark sunglasses, sitting behind a sizeable stack of chips at one of the many hold'em tables. I got on the list for the 15/30 and was soon playing with all of the local regulars. I guess Sunday early afternoon isn't a great time to play 15/30. After getting knocked around a bit I started looking for something else to do. I found Saybl and she said that she was heading over to the Orleans for a limit hold'em tourney. One quick phone call to Bill Chen, and I too had a buy-in. The Orleans tourney was pretty uneventful. I pretty much played my standard B+ game till then end. I was two or three out of the money when I made probably one of the biggest mistakes of the entire trip. I was in the big blind with Q6o with three small bets remaining. One player limped ahead of me, and the flop came KQ6o. I checked with the intention of raising, and the player checked it through behind me. Of course, a jack comes on the turn and I bet call his turned gutshot -- he held T9o. I guess the moral of the story is, any pot is "big enough" when you are the short stack close to the bubble. I'll never slowplay as a short stack again. I swear it. Jerrod Ankeman and E. Deiter Martin both cashed in the tournament, as well as Melissa Hayden. Having busted out of the tournament, I grab a trip back to the Belagio with Saybl. I soon find myself in a dull 30/60 game with Barry Tannenbaum and Mason Malmuth. Mason and some doctor are having a humerous conversation about the Burning Man festival. Neither of them seem to really understand what it is all about, but the doctor is trying to convince Mason that he needs to go. I spend countable seconds imagining Mason at the Burning Man, and then purge it from my mind with an invisible shudder. As luck would have it, as soon as Mason leaves the game becomes your standard 3/6 California game. Some clearly frustrated fellow (CFF) has just sat down at the table and decided that he will bet bet bet every hand to the river, regardless of what he holds. The most hilarious hand was when Salim called him down on an AKx board on the flop river and turn, cracking CFFs bluff with a Queen high. All I could think was how much value he was getting calling down the maniac. I was talking with Barry and he was nearly watering at the mouth trying to get involved in a pot with CFF. As for me, I got clobbered in the head by the deck. Over the period of three hours, I went 1 for 2 with pocket aces, I got quads twice, and I flopped the nut flush in a raised family pot. After CCF left the table, I got up to stretch my legs. The game had gone a little dry so when Abdul invited me and Saybl to join him for a bite to eat, I eagerly accepted. The three of us spent the wee hours of the morning talking about the things that all good BARGERs should talk about. I don't have a clear memory of most of them, but the common theme of gamblng seems to stick in my mind for some reason. As the sun started to rise, me and Saybl rode back to Binions, and I found my way to bed. Aug 7 Monday I kind of missed my wake up call, but I got another one from J.P. Masser, who was kind enough to let me share the ride back to the Bay Area. Again, for some strange reason, I found myself talking about poker for a protracted period of time. All in all it was an excellent trip. I'd like to thank everyone for being such great fun to hang out with. - Andrew