To: barge@barge.org From: "Patti Beadles" Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2003 02:07:49 -0700 Subject: [BARGE] Patti's trip report I'm not usually much of a trip report person, but I found this BARGE to be so interesting and enjoyable that I just had to. It's 6:27 on Sunday evening, and I'm passing through 20,000 feet on my way home from Las Vegas. Yet another BARGE has come and gone, and this one might well have been the best ever. From the time I stepped off of the plane and stumbled upon two different BARGErs to share a cab with, it felt more like an intimate gathering of old friends than it has in recent years; I never had the feeling that I was constantly squinting at nametags to figure out who the stranger was. Bingo was at my table during the HOP tournament, and He seemed to do a remarkable job of losing every single pot to me, while simultaneously taking down every pot that he played againt anyone else. "You know, Bingo, you beat everybody else and lose to me. If I was going to design the perfect poker player, it would be you." A few weeks ago, I got up one morning to discover a wedding invitation in my email. "It will be an Elvis wedding." That made my day! Friday morning I crawled out of bed at a ludicrously early hour for someone who had craps-crawled until I'm not sure when, sucked down some Advil, superglued my eyes open, and headed for the poker room to meet up with people. Peter Secor and I shared a cab to the chapel, and though he was in no better shape than I was, we still managed to carry on an intelligible conversation. "I wonder how many Elvis songs we'll hear today?" "Hmm. I set the line at five." "OK, I'll take the over for a buck." The wedding was lovely, and was officiated by both a minister and a young Elvis clone clad in a sequined red jumpsuit, with the requisite sideburns going down so far that you could almost imagine tying them into a bow under his nose. The bride looked radiant, which was an astounding feat for someone who had also been spotted in El Cortez shouting "yo lev!" and "cocktails!" the night before. The groom was dolled up in his best flaming-dice-clad black silk shirt, and seemed to be having the time of his life dancing around in front of the altar and making wisecracks to the bride under his breath. As soon as the happy couple walked down the aisle, Peter and I looked across the aisle and declared, "A push!" We had heard precisely five classic works of the king, performed quite capably though with occasional wobbles by our minister. Upon hearing of the bet, the Bev declared, "if it's a tie then we should get the money". I doubt that she was terribly surprised when we stuffed the dollar bills into her cleavage. Since the ADBs didn't field a CHORSE team this year, I spent the evening hanging out and watching the action. At one point a field trip was made to the hole in the wall casino next door, where I snagged half a dozen deep-fried twinkies and passed them out to various brave souls hanging around the poker room. They were surprisingly good, though one could feel them slogging their way through ones veins shortly after ingesting a bite. I'm sure I shortened my life by a few hours, but it was worth it. Friday night I managed to get to bed early, so that I could be at least moderately awake for the nolimit tournament. OK, to be fair, early for BARGE is a number that can be counted on the fingers of only one hand. Early in the tournament I borrowed Bill Chen's golden horseshoe long enough to spike a one-outer. Nearly half of my stack went in preflop against Ross Poppel and Brian Goetz. Brian was in for 795 preflop, and unbeknownst to me flopped a set of fives. After a flop of three low cards and two diamonds, I called all in against Ross and got shown a pair of kings. Brian had a diamond, and neither of the other two hands did. A diamond on the turn made it even worse for me, but the river was the queen of hearts--the only card in the deck that would give me the pot. I am a lucky player; a powerful sucking force surrounds me. After that I managed to both play pretty well and not get terribly unlucky, and made it into the money and then to the final table. One by one the players fell, and I managed not to be among them as the field dwindled until finally the contenders were Paul Person and myself. I had a two to one chip lead over him, and play was halted while a ceremonial procession wound its way from the cage to the tournament area. A stone-faced shotgun-toting security guard followed a casino executive carrying a cardboard box. When they got to the final table the box was upended, and a couple dozen rubberband-wrapped wads of bills fell onto the end of the table. One-dollar bills. The solemn ritual was blessed by peals of laughter from everyone except the celebrants, who maintained the dignity of their stations. The heads-up play was a frustrating time for me, though it was wonderful to have a rail full of well-wishers, and it warmed my gambling-hardened heart to hear the poker room erupt in cheers when I took down a pot. Several times I had Paul in when I had much the best of it, and was foiled yet and yet again. The most disappointing of these was when I took my AJ up against his A8, and was crushed by a flop of 88x. After that the lead changed places several times, I lost several all-in confrontations when I went in with the best of it and never won one when I went in behind, and lost the final hand with A4 vs 43 with an ace on the flop. The fourth heart on the river sealed my fate. After an hour of bemoaning my luck to anyone who would listen, I sat down in the must toke must drink HORSE game, and managed to quickly get up by a few tequila units and many Monte units (though I suspect it was generic vodka rather than Stoli), while probably losing only the amount of money that I'd spent on tokes. Around 4 a.m. I had lost track of how many sheets to the wind I was, when Nick Christiansen came over to the table and announced that Nick Behnen was looking for someone to play a heads-up $1000 nolimit freezeout with. I said that I'd be all over it if I wasn't rip roaring drunk, but it probably wasn't a good idea in my current condition. "Oh, he's drunk too." My protest that I didn't think I could afford to take all my own action caused several wallets to appear, and a short while later I found myself with two stacks of green and two green-backed cards in front of me, staring across the green felt at the man who essentially owned the casino. All this green was making my well-lubricated head swim, but I knuckled down and played the best poker I could under the circumstances. I won fairly easily after getting a good run of cards, then cash was exchanged, the stacks were equalized, and we started again. This one was tougher, but soon it was 2-0 in my favor. "You got some gamble in you, Patti. I like that. Let's keep going." The next one was his, 2-1. I took the fourth when his kings were no match for my flopped set of queens (!), and it was 3-1. At 3-3 he declared that I was too tough, and he wasn't gonna play with me anymore. I'd added a couple more Stoli crans to my condition while we played and the room was spinning slowly around me, so I was happy to step aside and let him have a potentially-softer opponent. The next sacrificial offering by the BARGErs was Bill Chen, who played and lost two matches before deciding that he'd had enough and was heading for bed. Andrew Prock provided the final match of the night, and the lead switched places a few times before he was down for the count. Though it certainly isn't perfect, I love the Horseshoe. Strip casinos are the embodiment of some of the worst parts of American culture, with their simulated, airbrushed, sanitized, Disneyesque replicas of reality. Binion's is the real thing--no gloss, no glitz, plenty of warts, just an honest-to-god gambling hall, and the last family-run casino in America. Binion's is history and character and old-time Vegas, and the threadbare carpets and smoke-darkened ceilings hold more tales than any plastic palm tree or genuine simulated exploding volcano ever could. Strip casinos are like centerfolds--everything airbrushed and glossed and polished to perfection, but clearly not real and definitey untouchable. The 'shoe is more like the face of an old man, each line and scar showing its own little bit of character. Can you imagine Steve Wynn or Donald Trump in the poker room smoking cigarettes, drinking up a storm, ordering cheeseburgers and pie for the bystanders, and playing poker for (relatively) small stakes? It's just not going to happen. The Bellagio would never spread chowaha and binglaha for us and give us racks upon racks of white chips to build chip castles with, while turning a blind eye to the mini craps game being run between hands, the queens are wild when a woman has the button rule, or any of our other not-by-the-book antics. I love BARGE, and this one was most excellent. Big thank-yous go to Chuck and Peter for their extraordinary job of organizing, to everyone who helped out, and to Jan for being an excellent tournament director. I'm ready to do it again next week. -Patti P.S. I know that one traditinally starts a trip report with a dreadfully dull account of getting to the airport, so I'll include mine. After many years of planning, politicking and construction, BART (bay-area rapid transit, one of our public transit trains) now goes to SFO. I went out my front door, walked a few blocks, hopped on BART, and was in the United terminal at the airport in just under an hour. The fare was right around $5 each way, far less than a cab, shuttle, or airport parking. Public transit that works well is a thing of great beauty. ________ Thanks to PokerStars, Paradise Poker, and Quiotix Technologies for their generous sponsorship of BARGE 2003.