Virgin No More, BARGE 2004.
You know you've firmly been wedged into the BARGE mindset when you
open your e-mail after your return, see some spam for Viagra-lite
offering to make you last longer and you think someone's offering
you a "last longer" bet...
Background:
2004 was to be my first BARGE. I've been playing poker for less
than two years, having come over from tournament bridge world.
It turned out that tournament bridge skills are easily transferable
to tournament poker skills so I tend to prefer no-limit tournies
to ring games. I've been to ESCARGOT once, and I've met a bunch
of BARGErs in other contexts, so even though this was my virgin
year, I knew I'd have a blast going in, and I even somehow got
nominated to be a virgin leader.
2004 is also Ben's first BARGE, in fact since he's much newer to
poker than I am, he only registered for BARGE as guest-of and opted
to stick to 2-4 ring games and social functions.
So, the weekend before BARGE we spent making buttons for virgins.
The one they got to keep said "Please Be GENTLE, it's my first time"
over a background of the BARGE 2004 logo, and the other one, which
they were to give away in the NL tournie said "I busted a virgin
at the Fabulous Barge XIV" in the style of "Welcome to Las Vegas"
sign.
[later in the weekend, the extra busted-a-virgin buttons got "vandalized"
to reflected other BARGE happenings, like in this photo]
Boy were my arms tired. Those manual button makers can be a lot
of work when you're making 80 buttons, which I did because I
heard from over 30 virgins over the past month. I made about
twenty extras for unexpected virgins and for collectors.
Wednesday, July 28th:
We catch our uneventful flight and grab a Dollar shuttle where I
pick out a car (bright blue PT Cruiser) from a row of mid-size cars
and get out of there in less than 5 minutes. Being a member of
"Fast Lane" really paid off big time as there was no wait. After sitting
in bad traffic in the tunnel for about 10 minutes we make our way
uneventfully to downtown and Golden Nugget Valet. We check-in
and get a beautiful room in the North Tower and dump our stuff
and change for the (non)smoker.
Btw, as we are entering our room on the third floor I orient
myself and realize our window is facing Fremont Street and the
Fremont Street Experience. Whoa, score!!! We go up to the window
and... well, you check out this view for yourself.
We have almost an hour till it's time to go to the smoker (or so
I think because I mistakenly remember the smoker as being at 7:30
when it's really at 7) so we decide to go to Binions and get badges.
I grab a handful of virgin buttons in case we run into any virgins.
We cross Fremont Street and enter Binions. GN was a fantastic
location for games at the Horseshoe. All you do is walk out, cross
Fremont Street and enter Binion's.
Immediately I spot a couple of people I recognize, from BA and from
ESCARGOT. We get our badges, I buy a pin from Patrick and we check
out the lay of the land. In 10 minutes I see Patti leaving and
getting into a car at valet. Turns out three of them were going
to the smoker. Oops. "Hey, got room for two more?" "Why not --
squeeze in!" and we do. Shelley is driving and we meet him and
ABD Fich.
We arrive at the Palms and find the crowd hanging out at the bar.
We get shown to our room which had tables set for ten (there were
six of them there, we occupied four of them). Amazingly, I end
up at a table with seven people I know and only two I don't (and
I immediately forget their names so I can't tell you who they
are). I catch up with Paul McMullin whom I first met at my very
first North American Bridge Championships in 1984. Ben picks out
the wine for himself, Paul, Patti and Fich and gets kudos (he
seems to know more about wines on their wine list than the very
helpful but not very knowledgeable sommelier). Steve L and Sabyl
and Tony Karma are also at my table and we all do a little catching
up and a lot of eating and drinking.
The food is quite good overall with an occasional misfire, and
the service is excellent given the inherent difficulty of handling
such a large group.
We run out of time before being able to get dessert or an after
dinner drink and run off back to Binions for Team C-HORSE. Ben
and I catch a ride with the first car of BARGErs that's pulling
away with an empty back seat and the driver Warren who's a lifer
at DEC turns out to know a bunch of people I know (everyone
queue up "It's a Small World After All" [and Asya knows most
of them]).
Now it's time for CHORSE. I have been invited to join Team Moosecock.
Between my college roommate being from Toronto and me spending most
of my school breaks there with her, and my working for a Toronto
based company for a few years in the 90's (which involved actually
living in Toronto for a while) I'm considered as Canadian as most
of the members of Moosecock (and a lot more Canadian than some!).
However, until the game was about to start I didn't know which game
I was supposed to be playing. It was one of those draw straws
things, I believe and I drew the Hold'em straw. I was kind of
hoping for Crazy Pineapple, but it was not to be this year.
By the way, North Shore Mike was supposed to get silly hats for
our team, but through some mishap they didn't arrive to Vegas in time
for the team to wear them, but I decided to bring my own themed hat
which I wore during the event. Sadly it didn't seem to help.
I spend one painfully boring orbit during which I play one small pot
and win it. Before it's my turn again, we try to balance the stacks
which are bigger than when they started and are within four dollars
of each other. Cool.
I spend another painfully boring orbit during which I play no small
pots. Or any pots. This time when we go to balance our considerably
larger stacks we are within two dollars of what the other table has.
Cool.
Finally I get some hands. Unfortunately those would be all the hands
I lose chips on. On one hand I get pocket jacks on the button and
there's a late position raise to me. I re-raise and get heads up.
The flop is QQ4. The original raiser had QT. Nice hand, sir. No
wonder "Math is hard Five" ended up winning, hitting flops like that.
Late in the round I get pocket fours and try to get some of my chips
back. Flop comes Q74. Ding! Player on my right and I are the only
ones in and she stubbornly calls me down the entire way with 76o.
Sadly the turn and river provide a three and a five and we go to next
round severely crippled.
I had fun, but next time I want to play a crazy action game that I
don't understand so that when I take bad beats I can be completely
ignorant of it happening!
We play some ring games and around 3am decide to find a snack.
Golden Nugget coffee shop is closed for some renovations (that night
only!) and we find their 24 hour snack bar which is not particularly
good, but it's not truly aweful either.
Thursday, July 29th:
We get up at the crack of noon on Thursday and head down to the
coffeeshop. This time they are open and we get some mediocre food
into ourselves. Ben decides to check out GN ring games and I head
over to the Shoe to play in their 2pm NL HE tournament. It's a
$70 plus $40 single anytime rebuy.
I sit at an eleven handed table and the first thing I notice is
about half of these people have clearly never played poker before.
At least not live casino poker. No one is protecting their cards,
there's loads of limping and calling with aweful hands. I have
to be patient and remember not to bluff as these people's attitude
seems to be "How much is it my turn to put in the pot?"
I build up a bit of a stack (plus I took my add-on right away)
and pick up 88 with which I raise. BB calls and then tries the
stop and go play on me on the flop of A73 rainbow. Unfortunately
for him, I've got a clear read on him and call his all-in instantly.
He is almost embarrassed to turn over KJ. Unfortunately for me,
a Jack instantly appears on the turn and my stack shrinks severely.
Good thing he hadn't rebought.
Last hand before the break and limits going up again I notice that
if I don't double-up pronto I'll be rolling dice with the bozos
and I look down and find PRESTO! It's a sign! I push all in and
double-up against the same bozo who previously crippled my stack.
I hope he's at my table for a while, I'm convinced he wants to
give all of his remaining chips back to me.
After the break we play for a while longer and then get broken
up and I get moved to another table. At this point I make an
observation that if I make the final table or close to it, I
will have to miss the buffet at Rio. Oops. I make a decision
that I will push my tiny edges so that I either bust quickly
or reach the final two tables with a very large stack. At this
point we are down to about four or five tables out of the original
10 or so.
I win a couple of more small pots, then I make a big re-raise of a
small preflop raise and get called all-in by someone with A7o. These
people were *not* familiar with the concept of dominated hands.
I had QQ. He caught an Ace on the turn and doubled-up crippling
me AGAIN. Now I really have to gamble. Early position limps, and
I push all-in with pocket fours. He turns over AA. It was the only
time I got all my money in being a dog in this tournament. Luckily
I also caught a four on the flop. Alive again! A few hands later,
there's a minimum raise from another guy who plays like an open
book. I put him on a weak ace and push all-in with pocket threes.
He squirms for a while but eventually calls me with AJ and gets
the help he needs from the flop and IGtoRioN.
Around 5:30 Ben and I come down to valet and get the bright blue
PT Cruiser. Yikes! There are white paint splotches on the driver's
side door! Oh no. We have to fill out an "incident report",
exchange paperwork with security department, etc. etc. it takes
over half an hour all outside by valet where it's over 100 degrees
and I'm now severely tilted. They didn't even apologize just gave
me a copy of the report to give to rental car company with the
comment "They'll call us, we deal with them all the time". Yeah,
that inspires comfort in your valet service NOT.
Eventually we make it to Rio (we end up giving a ride to a nice
couple and get to know more BARGErs whose names we're destined to
forget instantly).
Valet is full so we fight our way over to a garage which ends up
being on the exact opposite side of the Rio from the buffet. We
make our way over and see the end of what appears to be a really
long line for the Buffet. No, no, that's not exactly true.
This is a massively giganto humungously long line for the buffet,
longer than the most popular ride in Disneyland on the most
crowded day of the year kind of long which snakes through the
casino before getting to back-and-forth roped off rows of
people all waiting to go and eat at the Buffet.
I think I personally might have paid $400 just not to stand
in that line. We keep walking till we get to the sign that
said "Exit" and see a bunch of BARGErs there. Our timing is
perfect as they are setting up a cash register just for our group,
and we also hook up with a local who can take up to three
people in with him for 1/2 price so we get in for $12/each
(plus the $6 vig for not waiting in line).
We grab a table with some more people we'll meet, enjoy talking
to and forget till the next time, load up on rather decent food,
some weak drinks and have a good time. After a while I get up
and circulate around looking for more virgins to hand out their
buttons.
Eventually we make our way over to the P&T theatre and get our
tickets from Kim. We go in and I purchase the DVD of the first
season of P&T Bullshit! (It's a show they do on Showtime which
I enjoy a lot). We find our seats which are further back than
the last time we saw P&T here about a year ago, but are much
more central. I go up on stage to check out the boxes which seem
solid even though I've seen the trick and know exactly how it
works "in theory" -- I can't find any evidence of trickery
when examining the boxes on stage. Penn and Mike Jones are
playing some excellent jazz and time passes quickly.
The show is great as always. They have added some new bits, and
brought back some bits from way-way-back which is fun for those
of us (like Ben and me) who've been fans for a long time.
After the show I brave the huge crowds and get P&T to sign my
DVD package. They are both extremely patient, signing everything
handed to them and posing for pictures with everyone.
On the way out we agree to give a couple of BARGErs (San Jose
virgin Tim Showalter and a friend) a ride back downtown and say we'll
pick them up near valet/taxi stand after we get our car and they drop
their stuff in their room (they were staying at the Rio).
That could have been quite an adventure with the crowds of
people and cars but somehow we spotted them on our second
pass through the area.
We head back to Binions and I spot Bruce Hayek whom I used to
work with and end up sweating him for a while as he plays 1-2 NL
and we catch up. (Refer to Bruce's excellent trip report for
details).
I miss the craps crawl start but decide to catch up with them around
2am. I didn't bring my cel phone so I can't call Patti to ask where
they are so I just start wandering around Fremont Street. I find the
whole bunch of them at Fitzgerald's which is only the fourth or
fifth casino I walk through. I hang around the craps table trying
to pick up the intricacies of the game and let it slip that I'm
a craps virgin. When the dice come around to me, everyone doubles
their bets because apparently you can't go wrong with a virgin
shooter. Sadly this turns out not to be true at all in my case
as everyone loses money.
Pretty soon the craps crawl dissolves into several groups some of
whom go and some stay and eventually I make my way back to Binions
with some of them.
While I was gone it turns out Bruce got Aces back to back to back,
so I figure there's nothing interesting left to watch and call it
a night.
Friday, July 30th:
When we arrive at Binions I'm determined to make it into the
hospitality suite -- I tried going there three times already
and each time it was locked.
This time I figured out a secret plan to get in and asked Nolan
for a key before going there. He gave me one out of his stack of
a dozen or so, ding! Of course when I got upstairs *this* time it
was open, so all that plotting turned out to be unnecessary.
Since I planned to go to Symposium at 4pm I can't enter the 2pm NL
tournie again so I decide to slum in Ben's 2-4 ring game. I end up
at a different table from him, but the action is no different than
what he described. Lots of loose-aggreesive, loose-passive and
tight-passive players. Lots of random players, misreading of boards,
misreading of hands, showing of hands (unintentionally) and bad beats.
After dropping a rack in a couple of hours of that agony, it's time for
the symposium. It's a lot of fun, even if a very drunk Murray keeps
trying to buy every single pair. I kid you not, eventually Mike has to
ask the aucioneers to disregard and verbal or physical indications of
bidding from Murray. I think that saves us some money.
Ben immediately gets bored at the symposium (he left before the
games broke out) and leaves to get back into the 2-4 game after
getting some food.
The food is a snack that's supposed to keep us till it's time for dinner.
On my previous trip to Vegas I ate at the Rum Jungle in Mandalay Bay
and told Ben about it so he was eager to go there which was our plan
for Friday night.
When the symposium ends it's too early to head to dinner so I join
Ben at the 2-4 game in the Golden Nugget. I only played there for
that one hour, but I liked the room a lot. Very airy, spacious and
comfortable. And soft. Not many interesting hands. I won three
pots and all three were when I was in the BB. There was a young
woman in seat four who got a call from her friend who just won something
or placed high in something and this woman suddenly yells at the top
of her lungs into her phone -- "Shut the Front Door!!!" The whole table
absolutely cracks up. We continue using this phrase after she leaves
any time someone says slightly suspect.
But the interesting part was when this married couple sat down. They
are both in a pot. The board has a pair and on the turn and river
they are raising and re-raising each other catching a couple of people
in the middle on some of those rounds. He flips over a pair declaring
he has a full house, which is actually what she has. He misread his
hand (had A6, he'd have needed A7 to have a boat but it'd still have
been smaller than hers). She makes a joke about buying him new glasses
out of her big pot but I get really paranoid. I mean that looks REALLY
suspicious. But watching them for the next half hour I really believe
that he has trouble reading the card spots but plays extremely straight
forward otherwise and she just waits for good hands and when she gets
them raises a lot. I take the rack that I lost earlier back from this
game and it's time to go to dinner.
We get into the car (no new paint splotches this time) and take the
slightly long way to MB as we were trying to find an ATM. In some
sort of a weird conspiracy, none of the ATMs that I looked up online
in advance were where they were supposed to be. So we gave up and
headed for MB.
After parking we enter MB and head to the Rum Jungle. "Do you have
a reservation" they say? "No, sorry, no reservation" We had no idea
when we'd get there, so making one seemed pointless. "Sorry, we are
only taking people with reservations at this point" It's a little
after 8:30pm. "Well, we'll be happy to drink at your bar until
some reservation holder doesn't show up" I suggest. I must look
really sad or something because suddenly she reviews the seating
chart and tells us she'll seat us right away. Ding!
If you haven't been to the Rum Jungle, it's a pretty neat place. The
food is vaguely South American and the "Fire Pit" (which is what we
both get) is this "all-you-can-eat" thing where they bring over
huge skewers of various meats, fowl and fish cooked in various sauces
and cut you small pieces of each (the idea being that after you've
sampled all of them you can ask for more of whichever you liked most).
Of course after sampling eight different kinds of meat/chicken/turkey/
fish/sausage/etc with rice, beans and salad, all excellent, there is
no way to have room for more, nor for any dessert, sadly. But overall
the meal was excellent and definitely worth the trip. MB is also home
to one of my favorite Vegas restaurants, "The Red Square". Next time
I'm staying on the strip MB is on top of the list.
After getting back to Binions I get to sweat Bruce and witness some
amazing stuff. (Again see Bruce's trip report. I see the Q9 hand, I
see Ernie try to get himself killed by trash talking everyone's
physiques and families, and the Napoleon coins etc. etc.) I'm
muchly amused. I watch the big $ HOME game when Ernie moves into
it and witness some amusing confrontations between Ernie and Paul
Phillips but I leave before the infamous Ernie-Maverick showdown.
The only real bummer was missing the Karaoke outing. Ben and I
both *love* Karaoke, especially when drinking is involved, so next
year I hope to see Karaoke on the official unofficial event schedule.
Saturday, July 31st:
I wake up in time for the 10am big NL game and get there a little early
even to finish distributing the virgin bust-out buttons to the virgins
I still hadn't found.
I find myself at a corner table with Mike Blake (virgin) on my left
a bunch of people I sort of recognize around the rest of the table and
Penn Jilette three seats to my right. Penn does not look very thrilled
to be awake at this early hour and complains that as long as he's awake
he should at least be at breakfast.
Being at the same table with Penn generates the single best moment
of the whole weekend. The dealer is scrambling the cards at some point
and one of the cards accidentally flips over and it's THE THREE OF CLUBS!
I look at Penn and I say "How the hell did you do that???" That gets
a smile from him. (For those not Penn and Teller fans, three of
clubs is featured in a card trick they've been doing forever where
it's presented as part of the punchline with a "Is THIS your card???"
exclamation).
In addition to the virgin button, I brought a perfect bust out gift,
I thought, for the unlucky person who'd bust me would receive a brand
new mint unwrapped VHS instructional dance video tape which would teach
them how to Macarena. In Five Minutes. Running time: 25 minutes.
As a special bonus they would also learn "The Sexy Macarena".
The first strike was quick. I have pocket jacks out of position and
call a small raise and see the flop three-handed. It's all unconnected
rags with two hearts (I have the JH) and I decide to just pick up the
pot right there and push all-in. Mike Blake behind me calls for all
of his chips with AT of hearts and catches a heart immediately ending
all suspense except for the suspense of counting chips to see how many
I'd have left. Three. I have three green chips left. A couple of
hands later I push all-in with KQo and doubleup against two rags in
the BB. Then I push all-in with A7o and find myself up against presto.
Somehow I manage to suck out on presto and now I have over four
hundred in chips with the blinds still low at 25-50. I decide I can
stop being a maniac when I look down and find two kings. I make a
four times the big blind raise and find myself called in three places.
It's good news because the flop comes KQ3. I push all my remaining
chips in and get called by JT across the table. There's good news
on the turn and bad news on the river which is a 9 and IGHN.
After that anti-climactic end to my big comeback, I'm ready to go
get some breakfast. But first I go over to the survey table. No one
has mentioned the surveys yet and I thought they were quite interesting.
A bizarre mix of questions about wagers and opinions. I'm not quite
sure what the point of it all was, but I'm looking forward to seeing
the results.
By then Ben is up and comes over and we go down to Binions cafe for some
lunch. We meet Bruce, Lenny and Theresa. We have fun discussing the
strange characters that we've met this weekend (not the BARGErs, the
residents of the NL game).
We all then decide to give the 2pm NL tournie another try. As it's about
to start Patrick comes over and offers me a last longer bet which I take.
Somehow I've managed to miss out on all the last longers in the NL (just
as well) so this'll have to do.
My table is similar to the one a couple of days before but a little more
fun. Kim comes by and leaves the big bag of FTP schwag by my chair so
I'm using it to my advantage. I announce to the table that if anyone
loses a pot to me they get a hat or a t-shirt. Then just to be nice,
I give a hat to the guy sitting on my left. Then the girl sitting on
my right says to him: "Hey, I'll roshambo you for that hat!"
"What?" I do a double-take. Excuse me, but do I know you? Or rather -
should I know you? Nope, she's not a BARGEr, she's just some fun chick
in from Dallas with her husband and a dozen friends. And she kicks the
guy's butt and takes the hat too, so I invite her to play in the
Roshambo World Championships that night, which she would have unfortunately
they happened at the Four Queens and not the Shoe.
In addition to our table being full of poker newbies, our dealer
seems to be very new to dealing tournaments. She tells me she
usually deals at Harrah's. A-ha. All the BARGE events have taken
up the regular dealers and they've had to import substitutes from
the farm team.
Anyway, I make a very bad mistake on a very early hand. I have some
KTs hand and after someone or two limp, I limp in on the button. The BB
who is a totally random player makes a minimum raise and everyone calls.
A random flop sees everyone check around. The turn gives me a straight
draw and a flush draw and I bet about the size of pot when it's checked
to me ($300) and the BB calls me as everyone else folds. I have a
read on the guy and he doesn't have a hand but is hoping to improve
on the river. The river card doesn't improve me but it doesn't seem
to improve him either and after he checks I push my remaining $700 in.
He calls. He looks really miserable to call me, but he calls, and he
has ace high. Honestly, I don't know if he knew he was allowed to fold!
Anyway, I re-make that mental note not to bluff idiots and rebuy.
I have a series of interesting decisions now. On one hand, a shortish
stack pushes his 500 all-in and gets called by calling station in late
position. I find 99 and can't decide what to do. I know I have a better
hand than the late position guy but I've only got 900 total so if I win
against the big stack and lose to the small stack (who's been very
patient) I'm no better off than if I just fold and if I get unlucky
I would be out. If I get lucky I'll more than double-up though... i
eventually decide to fold (short stack had KQ, calling station had 87
and the flop had a Queen) so it was a wash but I'm still not sure I
did the right thing. (Since I have .46 chance to win 2400, only a
12% chance to go broke and a 41% chance to win 800, I think that means
I made a mistake). I give the short stack a t-shirt for winning
the pot against the calling station and a couple of hands later he pushes
all-in when I raise his big blind. I call and take my AK against his 96.
I win so my plan to butter people up with t-shirts so they won't bad beat
me seems to be working...
However, after this hand I run out of hands to play as the calling
stations are calling everything and I pick up dreck after dreck.
Luckily, I'd already collected my last longer bet from Patrick
who didn't have any more luck in this event either, and his bad
luck seemed to come quicker.
Eventually I get all my money in on a coin flip and lose when there
are four tables left and the blinds are going up fast. IGHN.
But no, not home -- into fun BARGE ring games where I see Patti
playing Chinese Poker. I never did know what Chinese Poker was,
but heck, they get dealt thirteen cards each, and I know just
what to do with those (add up the High Card Points and open the
bidding, right?) so I join in. Hey, why not learn to play Chinese
Poker by playing for $5 a point with JP, Andrew Prock, Patti,
and other folks who rotated in and out (David Hu, Lenny, etc).
I end up down about $40 (which is a cheap lesson indeed) but having
had huge loads of fun for a couple of hours. I would have played longer
but someone says "Isn't the banquet in 20 minutes?"
Whoa! It'll take me at least that long to get laced into my outfit
so I rush off to the GN, grab Ben from the poker room there and sprint
upstairs.
Now, at one point someone (Ben, I think) asked why I saved the nicest
outfit for the dinner that was almost guaranteed to be the worst food
of the whole trip. Well, duh! It's a corset! You can't eat very
much while wearing a corset, so it'd be kind of a bummer to be missing
out on a really good meal just to wear it! Anyway, after 10 minutes
of pulling and tying (why don't Vegas hotel rooms come with a lacing
post???) we're ready to go. Ben's all decked out in a suit, I've
got the abovementioned (custom made) grey corset with a purple french
silk hand-painted (not by me) wrap, and we're off.
We make it over to the Four Queens and find the banquet room. We're
supposed to sit with Bruce, unfortunately, he told about ten other
people that they are sitting with him, and the tables are only set
for ten. No problem we just take a chair from one of the less popular
table (the waitstaff complies by bringing over another place setting)
and we all squeeze in. We ordered one fish one beef between us on
the theory that one is bound to be edible and it is (fish is quite
good, the beef is barely fit for consumption, all veggies look and
taste like they came out of a can, several days ago).
There are lots of giving of thanks and then Greg gets up and gives a
very enjoyable talk. Then most people leave but we stay for the big
event, the Roshambo World Championships.
Since we're newbies we decide to play a satellite, both to decrease
our outlay and to get some practice. Ben and I play and have a tight
race to five which he wins by one. Then Ben faces off Andy Latto who
beat Shelley, and beats him. Andy goes off to look for another satellite
and ends up being staked into the event by a consortium. I quickly
buy back 10% of Ben's action, and he's off to the big event.
Ben had some tough draws. His first round was against Kim S. They
are both lightning fast (while I'm struggling to keep up and to keep
score), and they tie two out of every three throws. Eventually Ben
reads Kim correctly and wins 10-7.
Second round is against Steve Day. They move to the stage. I hope
that the pressure isn't getting to Ben but he looks rather relaxed.
I note with relief that Perry has busted out and Ben won't have to
play him (though I'd brought a pair of earplugs in case one of us
did draw him). Ben and Steve stay even for a while, Ben falling
behind once, but he doesn't lose his composure and comes back to win
his way into the finals.
There's now a small break as the format of the final is determined.
The three of them will play heads up, three matches and if someone has
won two, they are the champion, otherwise they play three more matches
this time to five instead of the usual ten. If they were still tied
I'm not sure what the procedure would be.
Ben is up first against Chris "Jesus" Ferguson. Chris has unusual
technique, taking longer between throws than anyone else in the event,
and I think that breaks Ben's natural rhythm. He falls behind early
and isn't able to overcome that disadvantage though he mounts a small
come-back towards the end of the match, but alas there's not enough
time.
Lenny is up next against Jesus. Ben is intently watching both of them --
if Lenny wins, Ben will be all that will stand between him and the
championship.
Lenny beats Chris and then Ben. The details are in Bruce's write-up.
Good job, and congratulations to Lenny for his World Championship.
Let me just say that I'm very proud of Ben's showing in his rookie year,
and that it's clear to me that he was also the best dressed in this
event, as well as the best dancer.
We walk back over to the 'Shoe where Ben gets into a 2-4 where he will
stay, at that one table, same seat for the next seven hours -- another
new record for him. I sign up for the Chowaha game which seems to have
a huge list, and walk back over to the GN to change, since playing poker
in a corset is a bit uncomfortable. Well, it's not too bad, just sitting
and playing, it's when you have to lean over to scoop in your chips
that the difficulties happen.
While waiting for a seat in Chowaha, I play some more 2-4. This is
another typical low limit game with the first hand I play being rather
typical of the whole evening. I see KK in the BB and it's raised to
me by the button (who looks like a gamb00ling type). I reraise and
we see the flop six-ways. The folks in the middle keep calling two-
bets cold on most streets, and eventually after two runner-runner
hearts, the 9-4 of hearts in middle position takes the huge pot.
I win about a rack in this game (I got my share of those huge pots too)
Here's an example of suckage out. I have JJ in the BB and Gillian
raises after UTG limps. Button gamb00ler reraises as do I and we
see the flop five-way capped. The flop is an uninteresting 852
and I bet out. Gillian calls, the button raises, I reraise and
she drops out with her QQ (she put me on Aces or Kings, which is
what I was hoping for, since I know gamb00ler could have anything).
On this hand he happened to have snowmen, so when the Jack fell
on the river it nets me a huge pot and Gillian some satisfaction
and the button some angst as it took a couple of raises on the
river before he decided that maybe I had him beat after all.
Somewhere along the way I realize that we missed the scotch
tasting which Ben would have been a lot more into than me, as
I don't really drink (go figure). Maybe next year.
So after a few hours (like, after 2am) I *finally* get a seat in the
Chowaha game which is an absolute blast. There are several virgins
in it, as well as several old timers, including Theresa "Sweetone"
in seat 10 who's got a fish castle on her head, and everyone is
rocking'n'rolling. There's blind betting, straddling on just about
every hand, there's the toke-chip toss on the incoming and outgoing
(every dealer must have a bucket for tokes, if they don't when they
get to our table, we fetch one for them). There are a couple of very
modest chip castles but the majority of the chips at this table seem
to be in the middle of the table for a great majority of the time.
I win no pots for the first few orbits which makes me sad, so I announce
my intent to win the pot on my next straddle. I'm warning people, so they
won't be disappointed when they lose it. It's my straddle and at this
point we are looking at one card only (after the flop) and I see the
Ace of Spades. Player on my right (Mark? from San Diego? I have no
idea if that was his name, let's just assume it was) also likes
what he sees and we cap the betting with half the table along with us.
The turn (at least one of them) is a spade giving a possible runner-
runner nut spade flush to me (one runner on the river and one as my
other down card). We cap it as I'm getting ready to go all in for the
rest of my remaining chips. I get the dealer to deal the river
face down and we finish the last round of betting which puts me all
in. Did I mention that one of the flops was KQJ rainbow? Mark
declares that he has a good card that I'm not going to like and turns
over the Ace of Diamonds. I turn over my Ace of Spades. Seat 1
turns over the completely unpaired seven of spades (oh no! it's one
of my outs!!!) The dealer now turns over another spade on the river.
Nut flush draw! Regis who's one to my left peeks at my downcard but
keeps a poker face so I have no idea if I have a chance. Mark turns
over his other down card: a Ten!!! He flopped Broadway! I turn
over my other card.... It's the JACK OF SPADES!!! The crowd goes
wild and I drag my first pot, luckily pretty much getting me almost
back to even (it would have had it not been for all the people I toked).
We play for a while longer with me back to my non-winning ways, to
the point where I have to buy a rack from Seat 1 who's given up on
any chip castles, when I decide that it's time to win another hand
and I declare that I will get quads on the next hand and I will win.
I make a point of telling the dealer than so that he knows to deal me
something good and put out my small blind.
I peek at one card (a six!) and ask the dealer to put three more on
one of the flops, hopefully lengthwise, not heightwise. He deals
out three flops and the bottom one has a six in it. However the
middle one has two kings, so I'll likely need my quads with most
people in, someone's bound to have a king (even if they don't know
it yet). After the betting (lots of it) I peek at my other card
and am shocked to see another six. Wow, maybe I *could* get my quads
on this hand... so now, the board looks something like this:
X Y Z
K K 3
Y 6 2
The dealer gets ready to deal as I'm chanting "quads, quads, quads"
and the first card he turns over is THE SIX OF SPADES!!!!!! OMG,
but wait, what is he doing, he's putting it on the top turn and
turns over a seven for the bottom turn. The board is:
X Y Z
6
K K 3
7
Y 6 2
Does anyone else see a problem with this??? What kind of stupid game
is this when you get dealt quads and you can't play them just because
your cards are on the bottom flop and top turn??? I'm absolutely
heart-broken. I check and make a crying call when Mark bets on the
button. A bunch of other people call. I figure Mark for a King,
hope he doesn't have his kicker paired and root for the board to pair
the bottom flop. Alas it does not. I check again and it gets checked
to Mark who declares "I smell a trap!" and checks and turns over his
trip kings. I turn over my set of sixes fully prepared to pay my
bad-beat-story buck, I just want everyone to see how close I came to
getting quads on the hand I called for them, and how I'm going to
lose this pot which is rightfully mine when Ken QB who just joined
the game points out that my full house is actually the best hand.
Full house? What full house? "Sixes over Kings". D'oh!!! In my
lament over missing my quads, I missed that the turn gave me a boat.
Ouch -- that's a pretty bad beat: on Mark! Not only did I catch one
of my few outs, but it took my turning the hand over for sympathy
and someone noticing that it was a better hand than his (cause I sure
didn't notice it) to beat him. I toke the dealer a bunch of chips,
then I toke Mark for putting the beat on him and I toke Ken for
reading the board right. I sell a rack back to seat 1 and discover
that I'm about even for the evening. It's almost 5am and I'm starving,
so I finally extract Ben out of the seat he's been in since 10pm,
we get some breakfast comps from the poker lady in charge and get
some breakfast at Binion's cafe.
Btw, for all the breakfasts we had during BARGE we didn't get to
meet and mingle with any new people, so that's on the list for
future things to do. Maybe we just weren't there at the right
times.
About 5:45 am we come up to the front desk at Golden Nugget and
ask for late checkout as we are just going to bed. They offer
one, I ask for three and we compromise on 2:00pm.
Sunday, August 1st
We wake up a few minutes before 2pm and manage to pack and get
out and checked out by about 2:30pm. We leave our two bags with
the bell people and walk over to Binions. There are some die-hards
still playing but it's more subdued than it's been all weekend.
We say hello and goodbye to old friends and new and head back to
the GN to finally use up our free buffet coupons. By the time we
get the food at 3:30pm we didn't just miss all breakfast/brunch
items, we've missed lunch and they are putting out dinner. It's
quite mediocre but adequate.
We get our luggage and car from valet for the last time and take
a leisurely drive down the strip as we have an hour to get to
the airport and return the car.
After returning the car with no incident (and no comment about
the barely noticeable in the sun paint marks) we take the shuttle
to the terminal, and find ourselves at the gate area an hour and
a half before our scheduled flight time. Since our flight gets
delayed another hour when all is said and done, we end up sitting
around for quite a while. Thanks to Full Tilt Poker we have a
deck of cards and I teach Ben to play Chinese Poker which we
do for the next hour and a half. At one point Theresa "Sweetone"
joins us for a bit while she's waiting for her mom's flight.
Eventually we get on our flight and a couple of hours later
make it home safely. We are exhausted but we had an absolute blast.
We'll be back next year.
In no particular order thanks to:
Patrick Milligan for providing me with BARGE logos.
Patti Beadles for providing button making equipment.
Binion's for hosting us.
Binion's dealers for "getting us".
Goldiefish for organizing the (non)smoker.
Kim S for arranging the evening at the Rio.
PokerStars and Paradise for sponsorship $$$.
PokerStars for the hospitality suite.
PokerStars and FullTiltPoker for the schwag.
My OBF Mark for convincing me to learn how to play poker
and for lending me a couple of poker books to turn me into an addict.
The Moosecocks for letting a girl play on their team (and
for making money for me in the syndicate).
All the virgins for doing their best to have a great time and
become part of all the BARGE traditions.
Everyone who came to BARGE to have fun and made it so much fun for me.