From: "Michael Patterson" Subject: [BARGE] Barge Top Ten (of sorts) by Mickdog Top Ten List: Seven Favorite BARGE Moments and Three Bad Beats by Michael ćmickdogä Patterson 7. Banquet Food. Best banquet meal Iāve ever had. Period. I donāt know how the prime rib was, but the salmon was delicious. 6. Calcutta. I thought it was faster than last year, it was fun to be in a syndicate (the ADVers), and the food gets better and better. Love seeing the Chinese Poker and RoShamBo craziness going on in the back. 5. Learning how to be a better NLHE player. Iāve been a student of the game for only a year and a half and Iām still working out the kinks. Slight miscues in one of the Mirage satellites, the Mirage tourney, and the BARGE NLHE tourney kept me out of the money, but the after tournament discussion about my mistakes with people like Russ, Ploink, Bill Chen, JP, and Andrew P. was worth it. Goal for next year: cash in a NL tourney! No better yet: Next year, learn to put out a big enough rerai so Andrew folds his 75s trash and I go on to win the tournament! :) 4. Making the final table of the TOC tourney. One of this yearās goals was to make a BARGE final table. I never had a big stack but I played well all day and the payoff was enough to give me a freeroll for all the BARGE tourneys. Congrats to Ploink on his win in this event. Suckouts rOOl! 3. Making money in the few ring games I played. I really concentrated on my tourney play this year, but I won money in the LL HE games at both Binions and the Mirage. My favorite run of hands of the week. Sit down at the Mirage post behind the button get AJo. Rerai - punish the limpers. Win big pot with an Ace on the flop and a Jack on the river. Two hands later. JJ mid position. Win medium sized pot on turn after check-raise. They think I have Ace! About five hands later. Pocket rockets. Win a nice pot with two callers all the way. I do have Ace, two of them! Up a rack in 20 minutes. Play no other hands. Leave the table 20 minutes later to get in the tourney satellites. Shouldāve seen the looks on the localsā faces as I left. WooHoo! 2. Seeing old friends. People like Andrew Prock, Ploink, JP, Jerrod, Bill Chen, Peter Secor, Russ, my whole CHORSE team, Beth, Sabyl, Don Perry, Steve BIA, ćThe Occupantä, PacPalBuzz, and so many others always makes ARG events such fun to be a part of. 1. Meeting new friends. It is always great to expand your circle of poker pals, so getting to talk to and spend some time with Scottro, Sean McGuiness, LenG, Randy Collack, Paul Stine, virgin Steve Johnson, and many more who escape me at the moment was the best. Mickdogās Barge Bad Beats 3. Team Presto! takes last place in CHORSE event. Ugh. No cards, no luck = not much money back. I took our meager stack and depleted it on Kās vs. Aās in the stud round not allowing David Huberman a chance to play his last Stud/8 round (after rushing from the airport with Ed P. to get to Binions on time). David has played a whopping 2 hands in 2 years in the CHORSE Stud/8 round for us. Sorry Dave, but I did save you from folding 9 more hands of crap like 49J. 2. I lost $100. Literally. Iām not sure where it went, but after retracing my steps Iām pretty certain it was stolen from me while I laid my wallet down at the cashierās cage in the Golden Gate Casino. In maybe 10-15 seconds flat. Had more money than that in the wallet but the $100 bill was on the top and somewhat accessible. That happened the night before my best poker of the week (TOC tourney) so maybe I play better after being robbed. Iāll stop by the baby PL game next time at let BARGERs rob my money from me there instead. 1. I screwed up my plane reservations. Booked a Monday flight not a Sunday one. Doh! Normally I wouldnāt care, and would head to the Bellagio to play some POCKER, but I had a lot of work to do back in Portland. I got wait-listed for my original flight, missed that by only one person, and had a long layover which was made much more bearable by playing cards with Scottro and Oscar for an hour before they left town. But overall, the bad was definitely outweighed by the good. Quick thanks to Peter, Chuck and all the other behind-the-scenes organizers. Binionās did a good job hosting us (I especially liked the tourneys upstairs away from the smoke). Canāt wait for next year. Wherever BARGE may be, I'll be there. öMichael Patterson