Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2004 00:20:34 -0600 From: "John A. D. Cervanyk" Subject: [BARGE] Trip Report: The Trip I Missed BARGE For, Part 1 My sister in law was supposed to get married in Las Vegas on Saturday, August 21st. Since we had to go out then, we had to miss BARGE, again. I could have gotten rooms at The Orleans at a very good rate but my wife, Donna, wanted to stay on the strip. The only reasonable rates I could get on the strip were at Circus Circus. That didn't bother Donna at all so I booked five nights, Friday, the 20th through Tuesday, the 24th at C2. August the 24th is our wedding anniversary so I called the Steakhouse and made reservations. Before we leave I find out Donna's sister has changed her mind about getting married. We missed BARGE for nothing, Oh well it's still a vacation in Las Vegas and I'm going to play a lot of poker. I would still rather have gone to BARGE. We're going to drive out and Donna's parents offer to let us drive their Buick Century instead of our Saturn. Their car is much more comfortable and made a world of difference on the long drive. We left Thursday night about 9 pm mdt. and had a good drive with only one small hitch. In the 110 mile stretch with no services between Green River and Salina, Utah, a "low tire" light came on. I pulled over and checked all the tires and they seemed fine. At the next service station I again checked the tires and reset the light. A quick stop in Mesquite for Gas and an Egg McMuffin (no casino stop, no breakfast buffet, no souvenir chips) and on in to Las Vegas. It's about 8 am pdt when we get to C2. They won't let us check in until 11 am so we go to check out the poker room. If we play five hours a day they will give us the poker rate on the rooms, $59 Fri & Sat, $39 weekdays. That's only a couple of dollars during the week but more than $35 off a day, of the weekend rate. Both of us get seats in $3-6 hold 'em. The bad beat jackpot is over $78,000 so there are four tables going this early. I remember posts on RGP about how good the games got when the pool players were in town at the Riviera. The pool players were in town at the Riviera. And the games were very good. But it is $3-6 and low limit suck outs were prevalent as well. And...well... to be honest I sucked out a few hands as well :-}. One hand I raised with A-K and missed the Q-high flop. I bet out but most called. I again bet on the turn card,a J. I got checked raised but called. The river hit my gutshot with a T and my raise was paid off. At 11:00 a new dealer comes into the box and the floor and two other dealers stand in front of the table to watch. I'm not involved in the hand but at the end two players are tied with two pair a third player turns over one pair with four to a straight but announces "straight". The dealer mucks one of the 2 pair hands and starts to push the pot to the player who called straight. I say that's not a straight and she takes a closer look at the hands and then pays it off correctly. I get up and ask one of the dealers about going to check in to the hotel. He tells me to go now and that I would have an hour before they would pick me up. I ask about the new dealer and he tells me it's her audition for a position. Not a good start for her. At check, in because our credit card also works as a debit card they charge for all the days plus a $25 deposit for phone calls, movies, and any other charges we may make to the room, up front. I don't understand what difference it being a debit card makes, but it's no problem. The clerk asks if I want a low or a high floor. It doesn't really matter to me so I figure the view (if we get one) will be better high up. We get the 23rd floor, 23747. She also has a message from Donna's sister, Dorothy, that they will meet us there at C2 at 10:00. It's after 11:00 and we haven't seen them yet. Oh well we'll see. I get a map and directions to the room and the skyway tram, and coupon books and keys then head back to the poker room. I take my seat and ask about the dealer audition. She only dealt one more hand and was never seen again. I was doing OK but Donna wasn't having a very good session. She got low and bought in for $40 more, then another $40, then another rack. Then she turned it around and made a bit of a come back. Dorothy and her boyfriend, Darryl, show up and Donna takes a little break to play slots with them for a bit. Donna comes back to the game and the other two head back to the Imperial Palace, where they are staying. We play until 5:00 and cash out down $7. But we get two $4 food coupons and have enough hours to get three nights at the poker rate, a savings of about $77. Donna was not to thrilled that I had gotten a room high up but the line was huge and we weren't going to wait in it to switch rooms now. We use the food coupons at the Pink Pony Cafe. Donna had the prime rib and I get a burger. A friend had told me that the $8-16 game at the Bellagio can be soft and that I should check it out. Donna doesn't want to take the car and decides we can walk up. I try to warn her who far it really is but she insists that we should just walk. As we walk past TI it's about 10 minutes to the pirate battle and I see a lot of families with kids waiting for it. I haven't seen the show but saw on the travel channel how much it has changed and wonder how appropriate it is for these children. We finally get to Bellagio and to the poker room I get on the list for the $8-16 but I'm about 25 people down. I should have figured it would be bad on Friday night. Donna plays some slots but can't get any drink service so I pay $4 for a coke :-{. I check the list and only a couple of names have moved. So we go over to the IP to look for Dorothy and Darryl. We pick up a house phone and ask for their room but they are not in. The operator takes a message but won't give us the room number. We have to ask by name and spell Darryl's last name every time we try to call. I see a sign for a new Texas hold 'em poker room on the 3rd floor. OK up to floor three we go. We get into a $3-6 game and wait for Dorothy. They have some tables that are more of a long rectangle than an oval. There are no betting lines on the tables and some of the dealers had a very hard time collecting bets from the ends of the table. This time I had the bad session and Donna won. I lost all but $6 of my rack and Donna won $70 so we lost $24 here. Dorothy showed up and visited for a while then it was time to get back to C2 and some sleep. We take the new tram for $3 each but there really isn't a good stop for C2. The convention center and the Sahara stops are about equal distances away and not the best part to be walking at night. We opt for the convention center stop and make it to C2 just fine. Saturday we walk through C2 exploring the shops and stuff before heading to the poker room. We get seats around 11:00. This session we almost play around the clock. After 4 hours we get some food coupons and go get sandwiches from the Westside Deli and eat at the table. Donna has a real elevator session, up and down. She starts out losing, and losing, and losing. Nothing goes right and she keeps buying in, $400 worth in a $3-6 game. She had been saving the quarters and took a break to play some slots and hits for $100. She buys back into the game with the $100. And the elevator heads back up. She's winning everything in sight. At midnight they start handing out tickets for a drawing in the morning. Every time a new dealer comes into the box they put a ticket in the pot and for any hand you win with a flush or better you get one. You have to be playing at 7:30 and they draw at 8:30. We start collecting tickets and get sucked into staying for the drawing. At 6:00 am we cash out at $570. We are into this game for $600 of our gambling money plus the $100 that Donna won in the slots. So we're down $30 plus the $100 slot winnings. We also get some food coupons and go for breakfast at the Pink Pony. Donna gets some bacon and toast and I get steak and eggs. Back to poker. We play for a couple of hours and don't hit in the drawing, but we win about $150. So we are up $20 for our marathon session. We have about double the hours we need for the poker rate for all five nights and the floor gets the rate set with the registration desk. After about four hours of sleep we walk north on the strip to the souvenir shops to get gifts for the kids. We hit two or three shops and pick up a bunch of stuff and head back to the room at C2. We grab some sandwiches from Batista's in the Promenade section of C2 and eat in the room. I've always wanted to go to the Gambler's General Store so I check the address and a map and start out. It wasn't hard to find but when we get there, it's closed. I was shocked. A gambling store in Las Vegas closed at 7:00 pm? They're open 9 am to 5 pm 7 days a week. Ok we'll come back tomorrow. Then on to downtown. We're going to hook up with Dorothy and Darryl in front of the 4 Queens at 8:30 and I want to check out the poker room at the Golden Nugget. I can't make the left into the Nugget's valet so I head up to Binion's and enter the self park/upper valet lot. But at the 2nd level the valet is closed so I get a ticket and self park. Getting the ticket validated turns into an ordeal. The cage tells me to have someone on the floor validate it. Donna plays some slots but no one that comes by can mark the ticket. I get my name on a list in the poker room but they won't validate until I play. We decide to deal with it later and go out to explore. A couple more souvenir shops and a light show starts. After the show we go down to Neonopolis. Here we get snacks at DQ. Then a shop that has a history of Las Vegas museum in it for $2.50 each. We chat with the owner/manager and I show him my $1 Sands poker chip. He tells me he sells those for $50 each. Now it's up to the 4 Queens to hook up with Dorothy & Darryl. We walk around a bit and catch another light show. Donna and Dorothy go shopping and Darryl and I go to the Nugget poker room. They have a list with enough to start a new game but a tournament is running and they don't have a dealer. It's a very nice room, too bad it is only temporary to introduce the poker room. They are going to move the room to the main casino. Donna and Dorothy show up and we decide to move along. Back to Binion's and to get that parking validated. Again no one on the floor can do it. I go back to the cage and they finally call some one who can stamp the ticket. We get the car and find our way to Industrial, to the Rio. We were all a little under impressed. High limits on all the table games and nothing very special about the casino. We were going to check out the Palms across the street when Dorothy mentions that she had been told to get an In And Out Burger. From our stays at the Orleans I knew there was one right off I-15 and Tropicana. The burgers were good but not that special in my opinion.The fries were certainly fresh but a bit undercooked for my taste. But another "Las Vegas thing to do" has been crossed off my list. I suggested going to the Orleans but Dorothy and Darryl we flying out on Monday and wanted to head back to the IP. We drop them off and go back to C2 for a short poker session. We play for a couple of hours and lose $30, but pick up those $4 food coupons. We're not hungry now but have 24 hours to use them. On the way back to the room I sit at a $10 Pai Gow Poker table. After a couple of hands Donna sits next to me. A half hour later we are up $35. Time for sleep. -- Take Care, John A. D. Cervanyk --- JADC@4edisp.net Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2004 00:20:50 -0600 From: "John A. D. Cervanyk" Subject: [BARGE] Trip Report: The Trip I Missed BARGE For, Part 2 Monday we start out by taking our food coupons to the Pink Pony. This was our one bad meal here. It was busy but didn't take too long to get seated, but it was a while before the waiter showed up to take our order, we both got prime rib and asked for medium rare. Then it took a really long time for the food to come. People who had been seated after we had ordered, got their food before we got ours. When the food finally arrived Donna's steak was rare where mine was just right. I traded steaks with her instead of sending it back. I didn't want to deal with another long delay. Then my steak had a lot of fat and gristle on it. When the waiter showed up with the bill he only charged us for one dinner. We hadn't complained but I think he noticed we had switched steaks and saw all the fat left over on the one plate. We were both pleasantly surprised by him not charging us for the dinner. Now it's off to the Gambler's General Store. I could spend hours and lots of dollars in this place. All the poker books I've ever wanted, Kem cards, poker chips, table tops, tables, chip display frames, dealer buttons, anything and every thing you'd need for a poker home game. We shopped for a while and got stuff for me and my 27 year old son who has gotten the poker bug from all the TV poker these days. I suggested the Golden Nugget poker room but Donna didn't want to go back down town. So it's off to the Palms. The clerk at the store said I could get Industrial from Charleston but I couldn't find it. I drove back and forth twice before going up a couple of blocks and back over to pick it up. I'm sure it was there but neither Donna nor I saw it. Anyway we get to the Palms but at the valet they want to check the trunk. I popped it open they took a quick look and closed it. I have no idea what that was about but didn't ask. We get into a $4-8 with a half kill to $6-12 for two pots in a row. A couple of notes about the room, around the perimeter of the room there was about a two foot hardwood floor before the carpet started. It was very easy to get your chair stuck between the wood floor and the carpet. And they have automatic shufflers in the tables. I liked the shufflers as they speeded up the game. A recurring theme breaks out, lose early, comeback strong to end up ahead a little bit. There was one younger player who was being very aggressive. I wouldn't call him a maniac but he was hard to put on a hand, sometimes he had the goods, others he had nothing. At one point he had over $400 in front of him, before we left he had rebought twice. I made another large suck out in this game. A new player came in UTG and raised the $2 blind to $6, he could have anything. I have Q-Q and raise to $10 a few call around to him and he caps at $14. The flop is three rags and he bets out, I call. The turn pairs the board again he bets and I call. I hit my two outer on the river for the full house, he bets and calls my raise, he had K-K. We played for 4 or 5 hours and cashed out about $30 ahead. I kept a couple of $1 chips, a $3 chip and a $5 one. From here we stopped at a grocery store for sodas and bottled water for the room, then back to C2. We dropped the drinks in the room and go to the pizza place for dinner. We split the small one and it was fine. And now another session in the C2 poker room. This time Donna and I got separate tables. I liked the game I was in but after a short time a seat in Donna's game opened up. My game was pretty good but I took a table change anyway. I didn't do very good here. I don't know if the game was any tougher but I lost a rack and didn't rebuy. Donna won just under $100 so we're just a little under even again. We cash out and get some more food coupons. We check out the Pai Gow tables on the way to the room but there are no seats tonight. So back to the room for the night. Tuesday is our 19th wedding anniversary and our last full day in Las Vegas. This will be my last chance to try the $8-16 at the Bellagio. We use the car and valet once we get there. I get on the list and they start a new game within minutes. It only takes a few hands to realize this isn't going to be the soft game my friend had told me about. Four or five knew each other and all seemed to be good players. An oriental gentleman in the 10 seat was a very good player, aggressive and hard to put on a hand. There were a couple of soft spots but not enough to make this a good game. I should have gotten up, but I wanted to play at least one session at this limit. The first hand I limp in middle position with 8-9s and the 10 seat raises. The early limpers called so I did too and 3 or 4 see the flop. I catch an outside draw and check along when it comes to me. The 10 seat bets, it folds to me and I call, everyone else folds. Oops. To make it worse I call the turn when I know it was wrong and lose $40. Ok, John, you have to play better poker than that if you want to last a while. I do play better and make up the loss. I win a heads up pot with Q-Q . I'm kicking myself over my play of 6-6 in middle position. I limp, it's unraised and 6 see the flop of A-A-6. It's checked to me and I bet, 2 fold, the blinds call then the hand to my right check raises. I put him on a big A and for some reason decide to three bet it. I should have only called here, the blinds may have called another small bet but not two more. The turn was a 4 then the river an 8. He called both bets and I made a decent pot but it could have been better. One other hand of note, I limped with J-Ts from mid position. The button raised, I called. The flop is 7-8-9 rainbow. I check, call the flop, check, raise the turn, and bet and get called on the river. He showed J-J. I played for about 4 hours and I rack up a couple of hands before my blind. As I throw my UTG hand away I tell the dealer I'm done. In a very serious tone she tells me "You can't leave." I looked very puzzled and ask why, she says "You still have chips left." then she smiles. She had me going for a second. I cash out at $508, up $208. But I was lucky to escape with that. The game wasn't that soft and did make some good hands to win the money I did. I find Donna and we head back to C2 for our anniversary dinner. I'm glad she didn't want to play in this game with me. I was nervous enough playing at this limit, it would have driven me nuts sweating her action as well as my own. Our dinner was very good. Donna had the prime rib and I got the porter house, and we split the jumbo shrimp cocktail. Her steak was a little undercooked but they took it back and brought it out cooked just right. I finished what Donna couldn't and we had to pass on the dessert cart. With tip the meal was $110. Not too bad for a good steak dinner. Believe it or not we are finally pokered out, we blow $100 on the -EV games. I played craps for a while betting $5 on the come out and backing with $10 on the odds bets. I won a few but lost more, quitting after losing $50. Then lost the other $50 at Let It Ride. Actually only $40 as I picked up when I only had two reds left. We're leaving early in the morning so we call it an early night and go up to the room. We check the bill on the TV and every thing looks good. Donna doesn't sleep very well and showers and gets ready before the alarm goes off at 5:30. I get up, get ready and finish packing up. It's still before 6:00 and the last night charge isn't on the TV yet. I call for bell service and leave Donna with the bags as I go down to check out. Since they charged us up front, and we then got the poker rate we were getting a credit of over $110. I wanted to make sure there were no problems with it. All went smooth with check out and Donna said the charge showed up on the TV shortly after I left the room. I get the car from the valet and Donna and the bags arrive less than two minutes later. And we're on our way home. An uneventful 11 hour drive and we're home in Colorado. All in all a very good trip. For a change I did most of what I wanted to do. I finally got to the Rio, the Gamblers General Store, the new poker room at the Golden Nugget (even if I didn't get to play), got to play at the Palms, and the $8-16 at Bellagio and I ate at the Steakhouse at C2 and at In And Out Burger. A couple of things I didn't get done was a cigar in front of the Bellagio fountain show, and playing at the Orleans. But I still wish I could have gone to BARGE. And it looks like I will miss it again next year. My daughter has picked August 6th next year as her wedding date. I've tried to talk her into getting married is Las Vegas but it's a losing battle. And with the cost of the wedding it may be two or three years before we get back. I'm sure there'll be plenty of changes and new things to see by 2007. -- Take Care, John A. D. Cervanyk --- JADC@4edisp.net