Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 10:58:48 -0400
From: Michael Brennan 
Subject: BARGE 2006 Trip Report

BARGE 2006 Trip Report

Flew in. Arms tired. David Brenner and everything on the airport tram. 
Nice guy.

Upset locals at Imperial Palace. Room ready. Wash face. Head to the 
Venetian.

Lazy pineapple. Quartered, quartered, quartered and never hit high draw. 
Three winning hands and down half the stack. Next please.

Paris in the morning. Cards in the air. Coffee cups don’t fit in the cup 
holders.

Lobah Sabyl straddles, calls re-raise, draws five. Oh my. I didn’t read 
the chapter on how to play $20 bets from Chen. Goodbye.

Venetian in the morning. Post early. Play a single hand. Five people get 
up. The last person sitting looks at me and leaves too. Maybe I 
shouldn’t of raised? Or was it the badge?

Being a morning person in Vegas is no fun.

Twenty seven hands, no aces, no pairs, no suited connectors and no wins. 
I let Team Jam down.

Sushi. Sake. Win over/under second year in a row. My only positive EVevent.

Aces don’t improve. Kings up let me down. Flushes become pale. Straights 
become crooked. I want them to call those hands but why do the poker 
gods reward them? Sake before stud is not a good idea.

Let’s buy some players. Let’s buy back ourselves. (Ahead at end, who 
could have known?) How did this “Mr. Joseph” thing start anyway?

TOC goes well. Survive Gavin at my right. “If five four suited cannot 
beat Ace-Ten my game is shot to hell.” Survive Sabyl at my right but not 
by much. Final two tables. What do you mean only nine pay? Go on tilt. 
Go home early. Rather go out raising then wait for killer blinds.

Dealer shows five. Stuck at fourteen. There are no face cards left in 
the deck. Hit it! Stay at twenty. Dealer still makes twenty one. A 
shuffle and half a deck later dealer shows ace. Nothing but face cards. 
Buy insurance? No? Told you so. Still up. Let’s walk away. Never seen 
counts so extreme. Still have no clue what switching top cards, only 
paying one to one and dealers pushing at twenty two do to basic 
strategy. It cannot be good.

Lose no-limit race as Ace falls on flop. At least it was quick and 
painless. Time for Chinese poker. Never played before? Sure we will have 
a fun game at a dollar a point. Split the pairs in the middle please – 
or not.

No poker for you at the dinner table. Sorry. Don’t you know who I am? 
Good job Phil but you still owe us a dollar for the longest running bad 
beat story at BARGE.

Oh there are two Aces in the middle. Kings full no good. No wonder 
Scottro said fold. When you cannot read a simple Chowaha board it is 
time to go. Still drop a rack – hopefully mostly in dealers buckets.

Time to leave. Somehow up just a little. Thanks Chuck. Thanks Peter. 
(Hope I never hear either of you called to a house phone five hours 
before starting time again.) Thanks everyone else.

Until next year,
Michael “mjoseph” Brennan