Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 02:43:02 -0700 From: Tim Showalter Subject: [BARGE] BARGE trip report -- tjs Warning: Practically no poker content. I would like to have posted a timely, long, funny, interesting trip report, but I've failed miserably. Here's something anyway. I apologize for the poker content herein. I mean, there is some, but it's probably impossible for any of it to be accurate, informative, relevant, or complete. I mean, I knew I was supposed to be taking notes, but instead I was drinking. The events portrayed herein are fictitious. Any resemblence to events, people, places, things, or poker games that actually exist is purely coincidental. That's a lie, but not completely. I did realize that late in the week, I was running into the same people over and over, and the names finally started to stick--but that didn't happen until like Saturday night. So, I now offer a series of things that may have happened, presented in chronological disorder. I've left out a bunch of stuff that I had nothing amusing to add to, or that might cause me potential legal action in the future. DEFCON ------ I live in San Jose, CA, perhaps the geekiest place in the world. In the airport before takeoff, I'm waiting for the plane to start boarding the second wave. I'm wearing a shirt that says, "got root?" which pegs me as not just a nerd, but a nerd willing to advertise. I ask a woman standing nearby if she's boarding the same group with me. She says yes, then laughs and points out my shirt to her companion, and asks if I'm going to DEFCON, too. I laugh, because I meant to go to DEFCON, but forgot, and instead I'm going to get drunk and play cards. I traded up. The Rio ------- Perhaps my experience can serve as a cautionary tale to others. Future virgin advice: If BARGE is downtown, stay downtown! I split a room with my friend Doug. Doug plays some of those -EV games we've all heard of, so he can get a really good room rate at the Rio. So we stayed there. The Rio is under construction at the entrance and within the casino, making it even more difficult than usual to find anything. Our room was a suite, which to the Rio, made it an enormous hotel room with a couch, a fridge, and a mini bar, but no second room. Other than its size, it was not suite-like. The placard next to the wall safe said this room is $1,200 a night. I wouldn't have paid that much for that room if it was in Manhattan. The room was adequate, but some of the furniture was getting a little ratty. But we had a few minor problems. When we arrived, The wall safe was open, but locked. This made closing it difficult, and had to have someone come visit. When we returned Thursday night at about 4AM, the water was off. It was off for an hour. In the whole hotel, apparently. When we packed up and left on Sunday, we discovered that some alarm had gone off, and the elevators were unavailable. We were on the 16th floor, so we took the stairs. Down 15 flights, through a hallway, down a flight, through another hallway, down another flight, through a loading dock, then around to the front of the hotel towards the taxi stand. Lucky we weren't running late. On the upside, it was cheap for us. I'd recommend the Tilted Kilt restaurant, which is essentially what you get when you cross Hooters with an Irish bar. Penn & Teller are, of course, excellent. But it was a mistake to stay there for BARGE. We spent a lot of time in cabs, and any money saved was easily lost to cab fares. I'm still pretty green at poker, and I'm a complete tournament fish. So I don't have to stay at the Rio for the WSOP next year. Many of you will also not stay at the Rio next year. But the rest of you, good luck. Binion's -------- I'd like to report that Binion's is still a dump. They might have cleaned it up. The white chips were actually white. I hear the lighting was improved. But the place still has character... a lot of character. And, it's a genuine casino, a monument to gambling for gambling's sake. You can't go to the Horseshoe to have a good time and gamble. You have to go there to gamble and maybe have a good time. You can't go there to be seen, because the lighting sucks. In North Shore Mike's trip report last year, he mentioned that Binion's ran out of white chips during chip castle building. This year, they ran out on Thursday. I guess that since they had to change all the chips when Harrah's started running the place, they didn't make as many, or people were collecting an awful lot of souvenirs. I took four. The chip castle contest this year appeared somewhat subdued, yet the $2 chips were still necessary. I got two of those, too. The house seemed quite willing to put up with all our various antics. Some of the dealers were a little confused. Some rules seemed to be at the player's whims because BARGE was given such latitude. Others had spent less time at Binion's than the BARGE virgins. We had so many more people there than usual, they'd hired a lot of dealers just for us and the tournament. The tournaments were well run. The snack bar was good. Somehow I never made it back to the coffee shop, probably because I was too busy commuting to and from the Rio. The non-smoking poker room was appreciated. I'm spoiled by California. Of course, the smoke still got to me after a few days, because I'm spoiled by California. 4-8 Full Kill with No Limit Overs --------------------------------- Thursday night, Doug and I get to Binion's, get our badges and virgin paraphenalia, and I sit down in a 4-8 game. Actually it turns out it's a 4-8 full kill game but I'm happy about that. And it's passive. Well, it's passive by my standards but I live in the SF Bay Area and these folks are afraid to raise. I love this game. Eventually Walter Day sits down and now it's the same, bunch of fish, except now the pots are a little bigger and I'm laughing more. I really love this game. Walter decides that North Shore Mike needs to be in this game, and pretty soon, he is. And then Murray shows up. I don't know any of these people but what the hell, I've read N.S. Mike's trip reports, and this game is now prett much as advertised: it is now a really really fun game. A few no-limit sharks show up. I think ADB Chaz was one. Sharon Goldman was there, sitting on my left if I recall correctly. Pretty soon, half the table is playing with overs, and nobody's whining at me for ruining a perfectly good no-limit game by staying in pots. My friend Doug gets into the game, but I'm getting all his good cards and he's getting all my bad ones, which has the expected effect on our respective emotional states. Later in the week I heard Sharon recount the story of how she called a blind straddle blind, or raised it blind, I forget which, because it was BARGE, and the player on her left told her to. I replied that it had been the player on her right, and that I had been on her right. That was a great game. Future virgin advice: I highly recommend getting into the 4-8 kill game and having a bunch of ADBs invade. Man, that was a fun game, and a much appreciated introduction to BARGE. Craps Crawl ----------- Future virgin advice: The Craps Crawl was a blast, and it is highly recommended. Since I had to ask, and it doesn't appear on the schedule, I will note that it happens at 11:59 PM Thursday night. I admire North Shore Mike's play-by-play report from his trip report last year, and I'd do that, but I'm sure I could have gotten the details right Friday afternoon. Now all I have left are the highlights. We started in the bar by the sports book. I know I didn't pay for the beer I was drinking, so whoever did, thank you. We proceeded to Binion's pit, then to the El Cortez, where the crawl started to lose cohesion. The El Cortez declined, apparently just like last year, to open another table for the drunken fools to play. I don't think they were the only one. But of course, it was 2AM and they had no staff. I heard a suggestion to just reserve a table somewhere and *stay* there, and I don't think that's a bad idea. It would be nice if it was available for us, not necessarily reserved, though. I don't mind playing with strangers. I got paid off on Un's hard six for the table. I will return the favor. I colored up at the Horseshoe rather than bother to cash out. I tried at two different casinos to change $100 Horseshoe chips for the local currency and failed both times. A player at Main Street Station took pity on me and changed the chips for me into those funny paper ones that the government likes. I don't think he had a BARGE name tag, but whoever you are, thanks again! I don't think we ever went anywhere cheaper than $3 craps. I thought there were cheaper games downtown! The 20x odds at Main Street Station were welcome, though. (Binion's has Harrah's mediocre 3-4-5x odds, and everywhere else had 10x.) Main Street Station has microbrews. I didn't like the Black Chip beer at Main Street Station. The other beer I had there was better. I wonder what it was. Asya rolled badly as a craps virgin. Asya, we forgive you. The tour broke up late, and I wandered back out into the heat and towards the Horseshoe to get a cab. Thank you, Frank Brabec, for pointing me in the direction of a cab, whichever direction that was... I might have had a little too much to drink. Future advice to myself: pack aspirin. (I did not *miss* the stud shootout so much as not bother to register for it in the first place. I planned to sleep in, which was good, because I pretty much had to.) The Kevin Un Downtown Las Vegas Tour ------------------------------------ On Saturday, I'm in this really loose 10-20 game at the Horseshoe. Unfortunately all the looseness is good BARGErs who are just trying to scare the locals, and me. I'm pretending that this isn't the second time I've ever played 10-20. (The first was the night before at the Mirage.) Kevin Un is on my left. After we've been playing for most of an hour, he says he has to go to the Bellagio to break some $25 chips. I agree to go with him if I can play one more round, because I Am Stuck. He agrees. He then amends the destination to the Gambler's General Store, realizing he can go to the Bellagio later. I agree to this plan as well. It's hard to know how much money Un saved me. Kevin is staying at the Golden Nugget, so we head over there. The valet pick-up and drop-off are on different sides. We wander through the casino when Un realizes he is, in fact, staying at the Four Queens, so we head over there. We find the location of the banquet, which I immediately forget. We get the car and take off. Is it just me, or does he talk a lot? That's a joke, I'd already figured that out. I'm kidding, of course. Kevin told me right up front that he talked a lot. That is completely unfair, because I really enjoyed talking to Kevin, but I see no reason to let that get in the way of a cheap shot. Kevin heads for the Bellagio by way of I-15. Which is fine, except that we're going to the Gambler's General Store. We drive back to downtown, a few short blocks from the hotel, and go in. I pick up a few items on Un's advice, namely Small Stakes Hold'Em, which I still haven't read, and a bunch of lammers, and 1/2 Kill and Kill buttons. I should have bought some nice Kill buttons and donated them to the Horseshoe. That 6-12 Full Kill Game ------------------------ Someone else had mentioned this game. Given it was the only 6-12 game that I saw all week, I thought I'd mention it. After the Banquet, I wander back to to the Horseshoe and try to get into a game. I'd like to make some money and be clearly ahead on the trip. I probably signed up for the 10-20, but there was immediate seating in the 4-8 kill game. But before I ever got any cards, the non-BARGErs wanted to raise the game to 10-20. Thus 6-12 was settled on as a compromise. I was fully hoping to make a lot of money in this game but never really had any cards to do it with, and there were a lot of people in every hand. The 6-12 FK structure confused every new dealer until "Marlin" Cohen made a sign that promoted the game to 6-12. Marlin was the most effective chip runner Binion's has ever had. (He was doing a great job, but he also might be the only chip runner that Binion's ever had. I don't know why we weren't tipping him more.) The game was slow because the wacky $2 chips were in play. A 6-12 game with $1, $2, and $5 chips, and the $2 and $5 chips are about the same shade of red. Every new player and dealer is forced to go into a five-hand acclimation phase in which you try to figure out which chips are which. This game just made me homesick for the 6-12 games in California with (just) $2 chips. Heathens. Miscellaneous ------------- I had no problem skipping the triple draw lowball tournament, the blackjack tournament, and the video poker tournament. However I couldn't get a flight early enough to make the CHORSE game, and I wish I had. I did badly in the tournaments that I did play. My limit Hold 'Em game is okay, but everything else I was just a complete fish. But the tournaments were the best ones I've ever played in. And I hate to admit it, because it sounds so TV-stupid, but it was cool to play with Chris Ferguson. The only way it would have been better was if I'd actually played better. I had fun. I look forward to giving you all more of my money in the future. Since this report is so short on poker content, I will note that I had amazingly good runs of cards in the TOC-style and the NLHE event. (I think prm said to me, "What's it like to be a card rack, sir?") In the TOC-style, for like an hour, I actually thought I could play Omaha *and* stud. But the structure was so good, I gave all my chips away in a timely fashion. My bust-out gifts were $3 chips from Garden City. Since the $9-$18 game at Garden City apparently disappeared some time ago, if you're in San Jose, they're good for one time charge--and that's it. Yay. I also offered a barely used bottle of cough syrup as an optional bust-out gift. No one wanted it. (The smoke had gotten to me by Saturday. The cough syrup didn't help.) The Hospitality Suite did double duty as the Loser's Lounge. Thanks again, PokerStars! I played a game called Coloretto with Marc Gilutin in the hospitality suite. Cool game, even without gambling. Thank you, Marc! I forgot to charge my cell phone. prm lent me his for a call I desperately needed to make. Thank you! Friday night, I caught a cab from the Horseshoe to the Mirage with four complete strangers and one crazy cab driver. (The five of us, the only ones around, all decided to go to the Mirage at the same time. ding!) Getting on the freeway, the cab driver aims the car in the general direction of a pedestrian slowly crossing the street, then breaks off the vehicular assault at a reasonably safe distance. "I was just trying to scare him, but he was probably drunk anyway," he says. The other passenger in the front seat agrees. I think to myself, "Why am I not wearing a seat belt?" I look forward to seeing everyone again, and I'm hoping to make it to ESCARGOT, too. Thanks for a great time! Thanks ------ Thank you to Foldem and Chuck Weinstock for all the work to make all the fun possible. Thank you to PokerStars and Paradise poker for the sponsorship! Thanks again to PokerStars for the hospitality suite, which was fantastic and very well stocked. Binion's Horseshoe treated us well all week. Thank you for putting up with us. Thanks to Patrick Milligan for the use of his excellent tournament clock software. I wish I'd bought more BARGE chips. Thank you to Kim S for dealing with Penn & Teller and the Rio and the buffet nightmare. Thank you, Greg Raymer, for a very interesting speech. I look forward to seeing the big suckout on ESPN... whatever it is. Thank you to everyone who made me feel welcome, which is everyone I talked to. And thank you, Asya, for taking care of the virgins! (Also for the ride back downtown :-)) I owe Cliff Mathews a beer. I'm sorry I didn't make the poker programming presentation. I was too tired, too hung over, and too at the Rio. I'm looking forward to next year--and staying downtown, staying longer, and getting in some more poker than I did this year. Thank you all!