From: Leslie Walker Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2008 15:22:58 -0700 Subject: [BARGE] Leslie's Way Too Long BARGE 2008 Trip Report - Part I This is a multi-part message in MIME format. Leslie's Way Too Long BARGE 2008 Trip Report This was my 3rd BARGE, and this was the first time I had gone without my wonderful husband. We traveled a lot this summer (once to LV already so that I could play in Ladies Tournaments and to Hawaii). He was swamped with work. I was sad to leave James at home, and I was a little nervous to go by myself. But I managed to have a great time without him. :-) I arrived at the Binion's poker room around 6:30 on Wed. (Thanks for the ride from the airport Paul and Bob!) I was so excited to see everyone and be at BARGE! Zbigniew took me up to his room while we waited on Eileen to get back from the Ethiopian dinner. (Lol. Now James will never let me go back to BARGE alone!) When Eileen showed up, she walked me to my room at Main Street Station. After getting settled in, I headed off to Karaoke. I LOVE Karaoke!! I knew alcohol would be involved so I decided to eat something beforehand. In my haste, I saw the snack bar at The California Hotel and stopped for the non-delicious dinner of egg rolls and shrimp cocktail (very bad idea!). Karaoke was awesome! Thanks Sharon and the unnamed poker site that sponsored it!! I sang, drank, danced, drank, danced, sang, sang some more, danced some more, drank, drank and drank some more. I was really lit! But I had so much fun! I love singing. I love dancing. And I love BARGErs. It was the perfect combination for me. Kevin's song, "I love this BARGE", was great. Lynsy re-wrote lyrics to "Bye, Bye Love" ("Bye, Bye Chips") and convinced a group of people to sing it. Patti demanded to spank me (How could I say no?!) and made me promise to tell my husband so he would be even sadder that he didn't come. Marlin admired my humps. a little too much. I heard I wasn't the only one that experienced Marlin's affection. :-) Peter, your pictures of Karaoke are fantastic! Thanks Patti and Rodney for getting me back safely to my room. You guys are super fun and super cool! I woke up on Thursday feeling absolutely horrible. (Surprise, surprise.) I was incredibly nauseated. How much did I have to drink?! I didn't want to remember. I threw on my sunglasses and my flashing bitch crown, and I headed to the Nugget. I got there early and played 1-2 NLH for about half an hour. I finished up a little. I joined my teammates on Team PMS (Pretty, Mean, Sisters), an all girl team, for CHORSE. Btw, fantastic job Lynsy of pulling it together! I played Omaha/8 and, as Marc mentioned, got very lucky. My other team members did well too, but their performances were more based more on skill. We finished up! My flashing bitch crown was a hit with non-BARGErs. In between rounds, when I was mulling around outside the poker room, multiple tourists came up to me to tell me that they loved the crown and to ask if it was birthday or if I was at a bachelorette party. No. I'm just the princess bitch. At the end, we briefly thought that we had more chips than Zbig's team, MPN (Men's Poker Night). The funniest thing about that is Howard (who is in my home game and on Team MPN) looked like he was going to cry. I seriously think he teared up. Imagine the humiliation being beat by a bunch of girls (that included me - even worse)! Ah, but I miscalculated (Math is hard. Let's go shopping.), and they beat us by a little. We came in 4th. We'll get 'em next year! I had been feeling really crappy all day, thinking I had one of the worst hangovers of my life. The nausea was getting worse. That didn't make any sense. I hadn't been able to eat anything. After CHORSE, Lynsy and Bruce invited me to grab some food. The thought of eating disgusted me, but I figured I needed nourishment. Shortly thereafter, I spent about 4 hours on the floor of my bathroom throwing up. I made it to bed and continued the fun off and on until the wee hours of the night. I blame the shrimp cocktail from The Cal the night before for giving me food poisoning (the kind that takes 24 hrs to hit you). James saw the charge for $6.66 and said that should have been a big warning to me. I missed Sushi and Sake and the Craps Crawl. Boo! :-( From: Leslie Walker Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2008 15:26:02 -0700 Subject: [BARGE] Leslie's Way Too Long BARGE 2008 Trip Report - Part II The next morning, I felt rough, but nothing like the night before. And I really didn't want to miss the TOC. How do you know when you have an addiction? I ran into JP while doing the experiment of seeing what happened when I drank vitamin water and ate a couple of crackers after taking a double dose of pepto. They stayed down. Yay! We had a really nice conversation that included my work, his work and the history of Presto! There were several really cool (current/ former) New Yorkers at my table. They were also really good players. I donked off some of my chips during the first round of stud. I think I played okay after that, but I never got anywhere and busted out early. I hung out and played dealer's choice games including Oklahoma until the Symposium. Un and I decided to be partners for the second time in the Calcutta. I really appreciate him sharing his thoughts on poker and my play in particular when we've e-mailed in recent months. It was nice to catch up with Asya and Ben at the Symposium too! Friday evening, I was excited to play in the Second Chance NLH tournament at the Nugget. We were packed in like sardines. People were turned away. Fortunately, they were able to expand to three tables and allowed alternates into the tourney. I'm not sure how many total played, but I'm going to say around 35. 6 out of 11 of us at my table were regulars in the Milligans' bi-annual YACHT (Yet Another Cool Hold'em Tournament) held in the Bay Area. How fun! I tried busting out repeatedly, but I kept doubling up. Patrick helped with that. Bingo was moved to our table. Yay! I was happy to finally get to talk to him this BARGE. He told us the story of how he earned the ADB title and the name Bingo. When it got down to 10 players, we did a save for everyone. I busted out 6th. Bubble girl. I'm getting a reputation. When it got down to 4 players, they did a chop. I bet Scottro had chest pains right about then, wherever he was, but didn't know why. Next morning, I felt really nauseated again. WTF?! Grab more crackers, vitamin water, and pepto tablets. I headed down to the NLH tournament. I had several last longer bets with folks. I saw Dave Low and asked if he wants to do one. No, but he suggested doing a last shorter. :-) Okay. Chris from my home game was to my right, and Doug, a friend, was to his right. Howler asked if I felt okay. Wow, did I look that bad? I felt pretty bad. I was doing fine in the tournament early on, stealing pots here and there. Then Sabyl sat down. I think she is awesome. She's my role model! She was really suportive when Lynne and I were out for the Ladies Tournaments in June. Sabyl was raising frequently and taking down many pots. I end up in two hands with her that were around the same size. She took down one pot, and I took down the other. The hand that crippled me involved Sabyl as well. In hindsight, I'm sure I played it incorrectly. Oh well. Here are the details as I remember them (which could be off). I raised in early position with JJ 3x BB to 300. A short stack shoves all-in for a total of about 800. Not too worried about that. Sabyl shoves in to about a total of 2100. I thought and thought and called. My stack size was around 2800. Short stack has 99. Sabyl has KK. I'm screwed. It was early enough and my stack was big enough, that I could have folded. And Sabyl is very aggressive, but probably wouldn't commit all her stack without a monster. At the time, I was thinking she might do that with AK or AQ. Live and learn. Howler busted me with KK nonetheless! I collected my last shorter winnings from Dave and paid my last longers (did I miss anyone?). By the afternoon, I was finally starting to feel normal! Hooray! I played in several different games including a dealer's choice game where we played deuce to 7/ badugi, Chowaha Omaha/8, and Oklahoma. It was so fun! I was up almost $300 over the course of a few days playing these crazy games. The guys I played with jokingly gave me crap for leaving the game early because I wanted to get ready for the Banquet. I explained that I am girl. I take any opportunity to get dressed up and put on high heels. Lynne, Bruce and I got to the Banquet right at 7pm and found seats with some people I didn't know. Bobo (?) and his friend were at our table. They are really nice guys. For the first time in three days, I was able to eat more than crackers! The salmon was good. Ben brought me tastings of sake I missed on Thursday evening. That was so nice. The nama was my favorite! I thought Tom's jokes were pretty funny. I cracked up when he was talking about doing his daughters' laundry. I didn't really relate to the knowing when to leave part of the talk. That's not my problem. I signed up for Chowaha, but I ended up rotating through several games over the night. It was awesome. I played pot-limit Binglaha for the first time. I only lasted about 20 minutes. It was too big a game for me. I played dealer's choice again and learned RedBone from QB. Chatted with Mickdog. Turns out we both worked at UCSF in previous lives. Then I played Chowaha and Half Indian Chowaha with Tony and QB among others. When that game broke, I didn't want to go to bed since I was feeling well for the first time since Wed. PAR-TY! So I sweated Un while he played in the 2am tournament. I really enjoyed our conversation while he played. Then I went to the diner at the Nugget with Dave, Doug and Bree. Doug and I reminisced about how last year we ran into each other 2 days after BARGE in a bar in San Francisco (He lives in Seattle?). I had been out with my co-workers doing "team building" activities that included a lot of alcohol. :-) He was at a conference. I was really embarrassed to be caught inebriated at a bar in the afternoon in the middle of the week until it dawned on me that he was doing the same thing. Ha! At that point it was 4:30am. I contemplated staying up all night, but decided to crash for 2 whole hours before I had to get up for my flight. Clearly I have the best husband in the world. Not only was he okay with me going to BARGE while he was responsible and stayed home (to keep up a good standing at work so he can support my poker habit and pay our California mortage). He showed up to pick me up at the airport with a red rose. There were 11 more waiting for me at home! :-) I'm spoiled. I hope he can go with me next year! A couple of other notes. It was great seeing Paul and Suzanne (formerly in the Milligans' home game, moved to San Diego). Sorry we didn't get to hang out more. You have to come to YACHT! I was bummed that Tim Showalter wasn't able to make it. Party before your brother's wedding?! Lame. :-) Thanks so much to Peter, Chuck, Mick and Nick!!! You guys do an icredible job of organizing BARGE. Can't wait until next year! Leslie