Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 19:24:20 -0700 (PDT) From: Raider Fan Subject: BARGE trip report After over a year of waiting, it was finally time to get a break from the Houston summer and head somewhere cooler -- Las Vegas! I got to the airport 2 hours early just in case. It took all of 10 minutes to check my bag and get through security. Regarding the bag, I took the biggest baby we had in the house, circa 1983 or so. No wheels even, but it was part of the plan. Having heard that using a skycap avoids the taxi line at the Vegas airport, I decided to take a big one so I could put my laptop case in the bag after picking it up at the baggage claim. As it turned out, there wasn't a line so I lugged it (with the laptop inside) for the three mile hike through the empty queue. Rather than go downtown and check in, I headed straight to the Venetian to meet the BARGErs. I checked my bag with the bellman and told him I'd be back in a few hours to pick it up. I found my way to the poker room and couldn't help but notice a smell I'd never experienced. I was suddenly afraid that maybe my shirt was mildewed or something, but I hadn't noticed it before getting into the Venetian. Anyway, it was time to get to work. We tried to start up a 3-6 limit game, but we couldn't get it going. I grabbed a seat at a 1-2 NL game after finding out there was a capped buyin. I bought in for the $200 max and patiently waited for a hand while I enjoyed the free Budweisers with the $1 tip. I got my hand in the 2nd orbit when I was dealt KK in early position. I raised to $10 (average raise for the table) and got 2 callers. The flop was a beautiful K55. Since I don't want to pay 230+ people a dollar, I'll say no more. Fortunately, a 3-6 limit game had finally grown legs and I was able to get the 9th seat. We shared the same cocktail waitress and she was bringing me a beer every time she came around. The one thing I didn't suck at on this trip was drinking beer. :) I burned through a rack and part of the second when a 3-6 mixed game started up. I decided I couldn't do any worse at that and happily went to try it out. After a lengthy discussion, we settled on CHORE as the rotation. I had never played Crazy Pineapple, but I got a lot of help from the people at the table. This table was much better for me. It took me an hour and a half or so to lose a rack. At this point it was about time for the lowball tourney that I wasn't in, so I decided I better head downtown and make sure I had a room. I go out to the main exit and I see a HUGE line for the taxis. I give the bellman my ticket for my bag and he grabs it, doesn't complain about the weight, size, or lack of wheels and proceeds to take it to a different place to grab a cab with NO line. Best $5 I ever spent! I get down to the Plaza and find that the front desk has found its way to the third floor with quite a walk carrying a 75 pound suitcase. I tell the clerk I have reservations and give her my drivers license. Of course she can't find my reservation and panic sets in. If I don't get that $20 per night rate for 5 nights, I'm looking at alimony and child support forever. I calmly tell her that they called our house a couple of weeks ago to verify we were keeping the reservation, so I know they must have it. It turns out they had my last name as Roverman and it all worked out. It was time for dinner and I decided to try a pastrami sandwich at Binnions after all the discussion on the list about the subject. It wasn't the best I ever had, but there was a lot of it and it tasted great. I stopped at the beads place and got myself a trash can size hurricane with an extra shot for $9 and went back to my room. I had seen John Harkness earlier and we had lined up breakfast at the Nugget for 9:00. I was stuck, drunk, and tired and decided that was enough action for Wednesday. Thursday I got to the Nugget and found Magnolias about 8:40. I decided to play some VP while I waited for John. I managed to lose $40 on the quarter machines by the time I checked the dining room and saw him. John recommended the pancakes but he only ordered a short stack. I wasn't here to eat no stinking short stack. I ordered the regular stack and I can only say YUMYUM! I snarfed it down in no time and excused myself to the "restroom" where I went into the casino to have a cig. I came back and noticed Harkness was about to light up and I laughed out loud. I talked to John several times last year and he was never smoking. Oh well. We grabbed a cab and head for the Venetian for the team CHORSE tourney. Peter was easy enough to find so I could give him the $420 entry for our team. I found Joe Long shortly after that and he paid his $70 share. This was around 10:20 or so and the tourney started at 11:00. I was saying hi to people I met last year and having a good old time until 10:45 or so when I hadn't seen ANY other members of our team. At this point I started wondering what happens if the tourney starts and we only have 2 of the 6 there. Then I started wondering what happens to my $420! Around 10:58 or so the rest of the team arrived. We quickly decided who was playing which game, got our toking chips, and I received everyone's share. After Wednesday, this was +EV. I must say it was GREAT getting to meet Tanya, Fell, and Howard after exchanging posts for years! I had met Steamer in LA on a business trip, but it was nice seeing him again. We lost money in the tourney, but we didn't hit the felt. We each got $25 back so it could have been worse. Next stop on the agenda was the Sushi outing. I got a ride with two really cool girls whose names have totally escaped me. You know who you are and I know I thanked each of you multiple times for the ride. The sushi was outstanding and the sakes that Ben and Asya picked out were unbelievable. I had no idea that sake could be enjoyed chilled. I've always been the hot of the box type of sake guy. In keeping with my trip so far, I managed to lose another $5 on the over/under for the tab. Major kudos to Bend and Asya for making this event happen! I'm really not sure what happened after the sushi outing. I know I made it back to the Venetian and I think(?) I played some poker. Anyway, I wasn't taking notes and the beers plus sake had pretty much kicked my tail. I know I somehow made it back downtown and found my room. Friday was a new day and my turn to pick the spot for breakfast. As many of you know, my wife/best friend is Hawaiin, so I convinced Harkness via email to trade the pancakes for Portugese sausage. We met up at 8:30 at the California casino and enjoyed the $5 Luau buffet. I got my rice, eggs, and Portugese sausage along with some other stuff. We can't get Portugese sausage in Houston, but Giselle introduced me to the stuff when we lived in LA. I assembled it just like I like it. Rice, soy sauce, sausage, eggs, and tabasco on top. YUMYUM! John wasn't particularly impressed, but he didn't bitch about it. While we were eating, we talked quite a bit about video poker. He was saying what a blessed live he was living regarding royal flushes and the number of hands seen. I told him I had never seen one. We got to the Venetian around 9:20 or so with the TOC starting at 11:00. I found a 50 play video poker machine with 500 credits per hand (of course they were pennies in my case) and threw a $20 bill in there. About 5 hands in, I was dealt QJc and hit a royal (my first ever! w00t!) for 8,000 pennies on one of the 50 hands. 2 or 3 hands later, I was dealt 4 tens before the draw! I checked and rechecked that I actually had the hold button pushed for them, hit the draw button and watched myself rack up a 25,000 penny jackpot! I immediately cashed out and had turned my $20 into $310. The TOC was fun, but I didn't do much. I got way past the first break, but I never caught much and eventually hit the felt. I found my buddy Randy Collack and immediately paid him his $10 for the last longer. I went to the bar and started enjoying the "free" beers as long as I kept feeding $20's into the video poker. After about the third $20 and 5th beer, I decided this wasn't such a great deal, but I wanted to watch Tiger. I pretty much left the credits in the machine until his round was over and then proceeded to lose them. I went to the calcutta^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsymposium at the duly appointed time and proceeded to do my share to help us cover the bar commitment. I ran into Bart Simpson and we discussed our plan on our team. We agreed that if we could get ourselves for $80 or less, we'd do it. Amazingly enough, we sold for $150! Bart attributed this huge overlay to his post on the Bellagio session and his Binglaha sessions during BARGE. I don't know what brought it on, but I paid my $37.50 for my share and wished it would have been much less. Now it was time for the craps crawl. I searched the room looking for someone that was ready to head downtown. I found some prospects, but they were waiting on someone. I was not going to be late, so I grabbed a taxi (after waiting out the line) and headed down to Main Street. There was still room at the table, and I managed to turn my $100 into $70 before it was time to head to Binions. We took the s00per sekrit passage somewhere along the line, did a walkby chip dump on the dealers, and found our way to the craps tables. I squeezed into a table and was lucky enough to find the one they left alone at $5 minimum. Things weren't going well playing the come line, especially after my roll. Doc saved the day though and brought me back to dang near even. Once again, I showed terrible judgement and left the table nearly even. My "symposium" partner (Bart Simpson) was coming up for a roll and apparently he hit a bunch of points. In addition, it turns out that Harkness had the dice for over 30 minutes. The best part of the Craps Crawl for me was watching the BARGErs help(?) Andrew Prock play the game. I thanked Andrew for the work he did on Pokerstove and a couple of people near by hadn't heard of it. How could a BARGEr not know about Pokerstove? Anyway, I digress if that's possible. I was low on cigs so I needed to run back to the Plaza before heading to Fitzgeralds. When I got there, it dawned on me that I hadn't eaten since breakfast. I did the McDonalds run, woofed it down, got my cigs, and headed back. When I got there, we were already assembling in the showroom. Chris was greeting everyone as they came in and handing out a very cool Chris and Amy chip. I congratulated him and thanked him for sharing the experience with all of us. The kareoke (sp?) was unbelievable and then it was time for the wedding. I can't try to capture that whole experience, but Patti was outstanding, Chris going for the mic and saying "I DO" and Amy giving the big "Hell Yeah" brought something like tears to my eyes. I'm getting goosebumps thinking about it. How cool was it for them to let us share that moment with them? The MANY beers I'd drank Friday caught up with me shortly after the wedding, so I headed back to the Plaza with a short detour to the beads place and another trash can size hurricane. I woke up Saturday morning with no breakfast plans, a 3/4 full hurricane (that I wouldn't drink on a bet), and a hangover I haven't experienced in quite some time. I skipped breakfast and headed down to the Venetian. It turns out that the smell I was worried about on Wednesday is there on purpose. Apparently it's supposed to be some kind of mixture of flowers or something. I was hanging in there in the NL tourney picking and choosing my spots. I wasn't getting a whole lot to work with unfortunately. I lost a significant hand and decided to take a walk to get over it. When I came back I was on the button with KQs. I guess I should have walked a tiny bit longer. Un (to my right) did the normal 3X raise and I immediately pushed. The pot size made it an autocall for Kevin and he showed his AK. It got a little exciting when 2 clubs hit the flop, but I didn't suck out on him and IGHN. I had a lot of time to kill before the banquet, so I practiced my newly found skills at making credits last at the bar and watched Tiger's third round. Between the tips to the bartender and the $20 in the machine, I think I drank Buds for about $2 each with a great view of the action. Somewhere around 2:00 I remembered that I hadn't eaten all day and decided to take a walk to Denny's. Not much needs to be said about that, but I did eat. The banquet was later, and it was great to enjoy the company and listen to Phil Gordan. What a great job! I had played a ring game with Bob O prior to the banquet, so I knew the story. He had said that Phil was on major tilt, but I wasn't convinced until the speech started. Too dang funny! After the banquet it was time for the reindeer games. I chose the 3-6 mixed must drink game. I knew I was in deep chit when I saw Grizz in the number one seat. It took us a while to get our drinks and pick the games we were playing thank goodness. I managed to lose a rack after an orbit or so and decided the best place for me was on the floor watching everyone else play. There were some amazing games going on, especially the PL Binglaha game with Terrance, Chic, Sabyl, etc. I was fascinated watching all those red chips and C-notes going into the pot. Sunday I tried the 11:00 tourney at the Nugget but didn't cash. I perfected my milk the credits at the bar trick and drank Buds for $1 tip a piece during Tiger's entire final round. So I lost about everything I brought to town, Tiger won. I was planning on putting a bet down on him Wednesday, but he was only 5/2. If he would have been 5-1 or better, I'd be much happier. Anyway, I've rambled on long enough. If you haven't figured it out, I had a blast once again! It was great meeting so many people and getting a chance to talk with them. I hate to start mentioning names because I know I'll leave some out. You should all know that I really enjoyed being around you and sharing time with you. I'll see you next year!