Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 12:39:53 -0700 (PDT) From: Ken Kubey Subject: [BARGE] QB's 2008 BARGE Trip Report The story of my thirteenth BARGE. "I Love This BARGE" Tuesday, July 29th ----------------------- I'm driving down solo. Sandi and Kris got cheap flights and they will drive back with me on "Sunday." I'm hauling most of their baggage, so I can't leave until they have most of their stuff packed. I want to leave at 10:00 p.m. I tell Sandi that I want to leave at 8:00 p.m. I am on the road promptly at 10:47 p.m. Lots of freakin' wires and gadgets this year. Headset so I can use my cellphone while driving. GPS device so I don't get lost. iPod and charger thingie so I can listen to iPod on FM radio. I decide "American Band" by Grand Funk Railroad is one of my favorite songs of all-time. Jack in the Box at I-5/Hwy 46 interchange. Gas at only $4.23 a gallon! I can't believe I am excited about buying gas at $4.23. Sheesh. Take a good little nap in a parking lot in Tehachapi. Wednesday, July 30th ----------------------- I arrive at the Egg & I parking lot at 7:45 a.m. GPS R00Lz. I take a nap in the rental car. I'm awakened by the car shaking. Expect to see a bunch of BARGErs shaking the car. Nope. A pastor from the Apostolic Church bumped into my front bumper. His plate holder is destroyed. Otherwise no major damage. I sit with Larry, Bruce, Lynne, Linda, JD, Bev and Paul M. It is 9:00 a.m. on a Wednesday and I already start to feel like I'm at BARGE. Patti calls me over and says "Give me $10." About 3 seconds later I remember the coins. I say "You mean I should give you $20." Sandi has attended 10 BARGEs too! The BARGE OLD TIMER coins are awesome. Thanks Patti. My omelette is wonderful. Thanks again Ice! To Binion's. Check in. The room is pretty nice and big. See Keith Troll. Say hi to him. He asks if I have his $200. Doh! That's right. Keith had to bail on TARGET at the last minute and said I could give him his entry fee back at BARGE. So my car has been hit and I've paid out 1/3 of my bankroll and it is only Wednesday. A fine BARGE this is going to be. I have to go get more bags from the car. Keith helps me out. $100 a bag. Not a bad day's work. I wander outside. Get some free Mardi Gras beads and sign up for the Golden Gate slot club so I can get the $1.99 shrimp cocktail for 99 cents as God intended. Ploink asks for $10. Oh! The alcohol molecules! I bought two of them. It's a model of an alcohol molecule. Looks sort of like a little doggie. I'm watching some guys play Pai Gow poker. The dealer asks to see one of the pretty toys. She puts it by her tray, smiles and says "Thank you!" like I had given it to her. BARGErs at the table laugh. Thinking quickly I ask her if I can see some of those pretty green chips in her tray. She smiles and gives the toy back. I hang out with Bart and Slick and watch the end of the blackjack tournament. I have almost no idea what is going on. Catch a great two hour nap until about 4:00 p.m. Pick up Kristina and her friend Brit at Caesars. Drop Brit off at McCarran. Kris and I head back downtown for 99c shrimp. Lowball tournament at 7:00 p.m. Lowball is a 5-card draw game where you try to make low hands. Pairs and face cards are bad. Straights and flushes do not count. The best hand possible is A-2-3-4-5 called a wheel or a bicycle. The game is played with a joker in the deck. It is a wildcard. A decent hand would be something like 8-5-4-2-A called an 85. Better would be 7-6-4-3-2 called a 76. Still better 7-4-3-2-A which is a 74. Even better a 65 and a 64. I take my seat, order my first 7&7 from Tracey and it hits me that I've been in Las Vegas for 11 hours and have not gambled or had a single drink yet. I must be sick! During an early round Sandi calls me from home. She wants to bring a file from the computer at home to the laptop we have in Vegas. I try to talk her through it outside Binion's as Bingo is having a smoke. He is giggling as he hears me tell Sandi to click this and look for the f drive and so on. We finally agree to give up. Sandi will be landing at McCarran at 11:20. During one hand Jim says "I have a really tiny pair." I thought it was pretty funny. I run two bluffs in here. Once I bet a pair of 4's. My opponent actually has even worse with a pair of 6's and folds. The other is against my pal Rich. I pair 7's and bet out. He says "Did you pair?" I am just in the flow and say "Yeah, you've got me. You win." Rich flashes a king and folds. I show the bluff just for fun. Bingo is at my table. We come back from a break. We have not ordered drinks. Tracey has a Heineken for Bingo. He says "You are the best waitress ever." I think to myself "only if she has a 7&7 for me." She does. I say "You *are* the best waitress ever!" 8:00ish. I give Kristina all of our Karaoke drink tickets and send her off on her way. 9:00. 10:00. I've had a few drinks and my stack is dwindling as the blinds reach 200-400. I'm down to 375 and call all-in on a 6 draw. Rich Strauss calls and draws on also. BB draws and checks out. I make a 64 which is the 2nd best lowball hand possible. Rich makes a 65 which will win about 95% of the time. So I triple up. I tell Rich to stay in the tournament as he is the only person I can beat. I decide to stop drinking so I will be sober enough at 11:00 to drive to the airport, etc. Now Kris shows up with two beers in hand. Bud Light? They had Heineken and you got Bud Light? Getting close to 11:00. It seems obvious that I'm not going to bust out in time. A responsible person would tell Sandi to take a cab. Me? I send Kris off to pick up her mom and I have the Bud Light. Break time. In the bathroom I see Bingo and mention that I'm glad the money for the ADB last-longers is being collected by Bruce. I go on to say that in may take me 10 years to win an ADB last-longer. I win another nice pot as we get down to two tables. I'm up to about 6300 now. Fich gets knocked out. Bingo and I are the last two ADBers. He has about 6700 and suggests we chop up the last-longer. That looks like a good deal. I agree. I'll be happy either way. Somewhere in here I bust Joe Long and get a cool Colorado shot glass. I also got a WSOP winners card as a bust-out prize. I can't remember who that was. Anyway, thank you. Tracey brings me my 8th or 9th 7&7. I am in the zone. I'm just playing some great poker and catching a few cards. I can imagine making the money now. Folded to Stephen Markowitz who raises from the button. I look down at A-3-4-5-K, a one-card draw to a wheel. I could raise here, but I don't want to go crazy out of position with a draw against a good tight player like Stephen. I call 900 more from the SB. The big blind calls too. I take one. The BB takes one card. Stephen takes 2 cards. I look at my draw card. The Joker! I have a wheel. DING! I bet 2400. Big blind calls. Stephen raises! I re-raise to 7200. The BB wisely folds his 86. Now it is back on Stephen. He raises 400 more all-in. I call and say "I guess we must have the same hand." I'm fairly shocked when he shows a 65432. That's a fantastic hand to make on a two-card draw, but you are not beating me with a 65432 when I've made it 3-bets post-draw. We discussed the hand at a break and I can understand not wanting to keep your last 400 with the blinds going up to 500-1000 soon. Bingo busts out. I'm the last ADBer. 10 years? Nah. 100 minutes. The final table is in sight now. I have the Gorillaz song "Feel Good Inc." going through my head. "Windmill, Windmill for the land, Turn forever hand in hand" BTW, I have no idea what the lyrics are past "Windmill, windmill." but I am in the zone. Make the final table and I have a lot of chips. This is my 3rd BARGE cash in 13 years. HOP (draw, lowball, 5-stud), Lowball and Lowball. I'm still 0-fer in the TOC and NL events. I guess 35 years of playing lowball with my elementary school and high school friends has paid off. Brad the tournament director gives all 8 of us a cool Binion's Poker Classic Final Table chip. Sandi calls. She and Kris are gambling at the Strat. I tell her I'm at the final table. She wishes me good luck and we are off the phone in about 20 seconds. World record. David Low busts. I see that 7th pays 310, so I will get at least that. I don't look at the higher payouts. Someone mentions that it is pretty flat. Time for another 7&7. But Tracey is gone. A new waitress takes my order. Nick is behind me an asks how I'm doing. I reply "I'm drinking constantly and getting chips." He replies "That's what this weekend is all about." Absolutely classic. BTW, my notes say "That was this weekend is all about." Was Nick drunk too? :-) :-) I want to credit Ken Fuch's for my BARGE tournament drinking strategy. I remember him drinking all the way through a BARGE tournament and he was having a better time than anyone else. Seems like the right thing to do. At this point I am in cruise control. I am playing the hands that need to be played. I'm not getting out of line at all. Sandi has told me before that when I make a final table, I need to let the other people bust each other out and move up the pay table. John Grout goes out. Betty and Jim Anderson go out on the same hand! We are down to four! It seems like Richard Brodie is raising or 3-betting every hand, but then he shows down a real hand. Now the TD says that the top three will get purple BARGE chips! Someone says "Oh great. Another bubble." I win a couple of hands in here, but Richard and Chris Mecklin are pulling away from Steve Clayton and me. Steve gets knocked out. Cool. I earn a purple chip! But my lucky waitress is gone and my chips are dwindling. Chris makes an interesting play 3-betting a pat Q-T. It works out for him when I pair. I triple up with a pat 98. But that is about it. I stand pat with a J9 and lose to Chris' pat 10. I hear the applause as I shake hands with Chris and Richard. Okay, what did I win? $770! Woo hoo! With my win-rate down to about $6 per hour post-UIGEA that is a huge win for the GamboMouse! Chris very nearly won, but Richard rallied back to win. WTG everyone! Oh. Two notes. In six hours of play I ran just the two bluffs and I raised post-draw exactly one time. --- Head up to the room around 2:00. No Sandi and Kris. They finally show up. I usually give Sandi 10% of my wins, but I just gave her a Benjamin this time. She was pleased. Thursday, July 31st ---------------------- I wake up at 7:00. Think about my poor pals out there on the Death March. I happily fall back to sleep. Alarm is set for 10:00. Either it didn't go off or someone turned it off right away. I wake up at 10:50! Yipes. CHORSE is at 11:00! I shave, brush my teeth, dress and rush down to the poker room. Where the hell is everyone? Look at the BAAG. Golden Nugget! Arrghhh. CHORSE. Also called C-HORSE. This is a team tournament played with chips that are actually worth money. Each team has six players. 3 players rotate playing rounds of flop games on one table. The other 3 rotate playing rounds of stud games on a different table. CHORSE stands for: Crazy Pineapple (3-card hold'em hi-lo), Hold'em, Omaha-8, Razz (7 stud low), Stud and Eight or Bettor (7 stud hi-lo). Got all that? GN poker room is a zoo! 120 BARGERs milling around. I'm supposed to play Omaha-8. I'm first up. Man. I sit down next to Merlynn and barely have time to say hi. Now Asya comes by to tell me that she is going to play Omaha so that she can leave early to organize the Sushi outing. I'm reassigned to Crazy Pineapple. Awesome. I have 40 minutes before I have to play. Rush back to the room to take a quick shower. Feel better now. Korina is to my right. Jerrod is there. Gosh, I can't remember who else. Some pretty good players, I think. I win one hand with aces up. I play some other hands in the first round. In the 2nd and 3rd rounds I fold everything. Something like 17 straight hands. There are more chips in our stack each time it is my turn to play. Kevan is kicking butt on the other table and I heard that Ron won some big pots for us too. Mom Garrett did well of course as did Asya. We end up making $35 each. Pretty good. Hours later I learn that we won CHORSE! Woo hoo! We get these really cool plaques and will have our names enscribed on the wall plaque back at Binion's. Awesome. We took some pictures with the plaques hanging from our badge hooks. Just too much fun. I'm sure NoSho Mike is happy for us and I hope former team member John Harkness is cursing us from the afterlife. RIP John. Moose!!!!!!! --- Sandi and I get some 99c shrimp. Kristina is taking an online exam in the Binion's poker room. Huge thanks to Rodney Chen for setting up the router so that we had wireless internet access. Kris got a B. Yay. I see a guy ahead of us get the shrimp to go. Cool. I get one to go for Kris. I get R00Led for 50c "to go" charge. Won't make that mistake again. Sandi gets creamed played slots at GG, but then plays blackjack and wins it all back. I think we had dinner at the Binion's snack bar, but I'm not sure. Sandi and Kristina play in the SO stud event. They win a few hands, make some new friends and have a lot of fun. Greg Pappas again gives out earrings to the ladies. Somewhere in here I play the Big Six wheel and win. Sandi, Kris, her new friend Josh and I play some blackjack. This is Kris' first time playing blackjack. I think it might be Josh's first time too. Kris loses 3 of her first 4 hands. Thankfully our luck turns as the two dealers start to bust a few hands. Now we are all ahead and having fun. I lose a couple hands. It is a $5 table and I'm up $4. I quit. I spend the next hour as a chip runner. Sandi gives me $30 in chips. Go to cashier, bring her cash. Kris gives me $20 in chips... Josh gives me $20 in chips. It was fun. Josh is a really nice, funny and sharp guy. Friday, August 1st. -------------------- ADB Craps Crawl at midnight. We start out at Binion's. Sandi and Kris actually want to go along. Kris is a craps virgin. Josh wants to learn the game. Kris makes a couple of passes, but doesn't get on any kind of big roll. I'm not sure what happened here. I think part of the group went to the California and another group went somewhere else. You could read a book at the California craps table. Damn cold table. Ploink makes a couple of passes, but then sevens out when I have $30 or so bet. I lost about $80. Not too bad I guess. Josh and Kristina play blackjack into the wee hours. Kris got on a roll and won $100 or so. --- TOC tournament Len G. is at my table. He is the BARGEr that I insulted online. He beat me with some reasonable hand, then this beauty comes up... Hold'em round. I have 99. Someone raises ahead of me. I consider 3-betting, but decide to just call. Len calls from BB. Flop 6-3-2. Checked to me, I bet, Let calls. Turn 2. Check, I bet, call. I have Len on 65, 63, 43 or so. River 3. Len bets out. Grrrr. I call. He rolls over Q3o. Arrrgghhh. I think this was the only poker hand all week where I actually got a bit upset. Managed to not say anything. Did not get my chat banned :-) I win a monster with a wheel in the Omaha-8 round, but then chips start to dwindle. I get moved to another table next to this beautiful young women who is talking up a storm. Turns out it is Nicole, the Noisy Tigress. I see a flop free in the BB with QQ43 in the Omaha-8 round. Flop is A-Q-4. I bet, Ron and Nicole call. Turn is a low card. I bet 600, call, call. River is a 3rd club. I only have 75 left and bet, call, call. Ron has a flush and a low. I'm out. Glad to see that Ron made the money. Kris wants to play bingo at the Plaza. I get her set up. Sandi is using our laptop to get some stuff done in the poker room. Marc the Binion's bellman runs our bags over the GN. Marc R00Lz. I'm missing a bag. Just happens to be the bag with the $700 I had won earlier. I freak out. Long story short, I had totally forgotten that I had brought a Little Oscar ice chest, a shopping bag and MY BAG down to the car just before the TOC. I'm such an idiot sometimes. Great feeling when I finally remembered bringing the bag down to the car. Over to the Symposium. Rich, Jeff, JRX and I have our usual little syndicate. Good to have Jeff back. We recount our plot to murder Tom Sims from many years ago and have a good laugh. Once again, I provided most of the comments on the Calcutta sheet. I used an online anagram site to come up with a lot of the comments Many of the comments are based on the person's name or initials. A few of the comments are just plain random. If you want any of them explained, let me know. --- We buy several pairs. My favorite pick is Adam and Corey. I'm just sure one of them will go deep. Some poor soul bids $100 for Rich and me. Rich is worth $70 or so. I'm worth about $4.18 Bad buy. Un plays his "I Love This BARGE" song. One of the highlights of the trip. I'd like to see Un play it at the banquet next year. --- I get into a great 4-8 Dealer's Choice game. I learn how to play Oklahoma and some other goofy games. I call Chicago. I scoop a nice one with KK and the K of spades. Jeff D. is to my left. Oklahoma, he plays J422. He says to me "Why do I play hands like this?" just as he flops quad 2's! Of course his board gets killed. lol. Somewhere around here I chat with Howler and Murray by some slots. I don't remember much of it, but it was some good ADB bonding. I'm up $10 around 2:00 a.m. I decide I better quit. If I get stuck, I'll play all night and be a wreck for... Saturday, August 4th. --------------------- The BARGE no-limit event. This is the big one kids. $1500 WSOP NL events are a cakewalk compared to this tournament. I'm in the one seat. Next are Crunch, BARGE champ John Pickels, David Low and then some other guys. BTW, Crunch claims that he doesn't know who Cap'n Crunch is. Is that possible? AKs. John raises. I defend. Flop is all rags. I check and fold and show my "I've got nothing." hand. He shows 77. KK and raise after limpers. All fold. Bob H. joins the table and raises his first hand. I look down at JJ and re-raise. John calls cold from the BB. I think Bob folded. Flop is 8-8-3. John fires 1000. I only have 1250. I'm a little worried about QQ, but I really think Mr. Pickels has TT, 99 or a smaller pair. I make the call. He rolls over KK. Turn is a Q. I start to reach for my bust out gift. River J!!! I'm back in the game! John takes it pretty well, but I can tell he is steamed. A round later I open-raise with QQ to 350. John jams for 1200 more. Back on me. Could he have AA or KK? Sure. Could he have JJ or TT or AK or AQ or AJ or 64o or complete air? Sure. I think I'm ahead. I make the call. KK again! Sheesh. John wins this one. I still have some chips. Remind me to show Mr. Pickels more respect in the future. Gerald raises to 225. I call with JJ. Flop is T-5-3. He bets 400. I have 1150. This is the only hand I really think I screwed up. I called. Idiot. What was I hoping to flop? Turn Kc. making a flush possible. Check, check. He bets 800 on the river. I fold. We talked later. He said he had AK and would have folded to my flop jam. I've really beaten myself up for not jamming the flop. In retrospect, I only let him have a free shot a 6 outs. Still I hate my play here. Oh, good to have Gerald and James Hammer join the group. Can't have enough Cal guys at BARGE. Hmm... maybe we could get a Cal vs. Stanford last longer going. Down to 675. 66 and jam. Crunch re-jams. Not good. Now Barry Kornspan says "I don't think I can fold this." I put him on KK. He has QQ. Crunch has ATo. I gave Barry a copy of "The Cartoon Trivia Book" and made my way to the survey table. I was glad to see that Barry made the money. I pay off my Goldie bet and get an Obama bumper sticker. Kris is out of the SO NL event. Sandi is still in. We still have a lot of horses. I'm having fun buzzing around the room checking on horses. Having drinks. Martin mentions that when he orders a martini, he says "Hold the Dickens." Huh? No Oliver Twist. Olive or Twist. Get it? Groan. We have a sandwich at the snack bar. Pastrami is great. Martin treats. Thanks man. Edmund Hack joins us too as we talk about the economy and stuff. I see Tom Sims go out with AA. I send him over to see Sandi. They are both happy to see each other. Sandi was also very happy to see Chuck, Barry, Bob, Patti, Adam, Debbie and a bunch of you other R00Lers. Sandi gets knocked out, but makes more friends. She and Kris go off to play bingo and gamble. With 63 players left, our syndicate still has 12 horses. Cool. Down to 35. Now I get to play waitress getting waters for Bob and Rich. Corey is out. Adam, Merlynn, Brett, Bruce. Just John Grout, Dave Green and Rich are left as we near the money. John goes out. David hangs on for 15th. Bingo and Nolan are the last two ADB's standing. Ed Baker is still in for Boston. Mark Hughes is still in for the Virgins. I could probably say this about just about everyone, but are there two better guys to root for that Bingo and Nolan? Bingo goes out in 13th. Great showing after 3rd and 2nd place the last two years. And He was drinking beers all the way too. I report to Rich that he is our last horse. He asks if he has to win it for us to make money. I tell him 2nd will work. Oh.. forgot about Rich's key hand. 88 all-in vs. AA. I think Nick had the AA. Flop A-Q-J. Turn T. River 9. Rich makes the runner-runner straight! So sick. This site is rigged! Nolan and Mark are both all-in with KJo vs. a big stack's Q3o. Flop X-Y-Z. Turn Queen! Mark and Nolan go out on the same hand? Is the last longer a tie? Or do we win because Nolan has more chips? Rules say we win. Yay. Boston team wins the other last longer. Rich is playing great. Fold, fold, fold. Jam. Fold, Fold, fold. Jam. With 6 left, Rich is #2 in chips. Mark Rafn is the chip leader. As we break for... --- The Banquet. The only good thing about being in the South tower at the Golden Nugget is that you are two minutes from the banquet room. I'm in the long drink line. I realize that I better order for Sandi too. Who do I send to get her drink order? Just the guy who is on pain-killers and has a kidney stone the size of a BB ready to destroy him... ADB BigBoy, Bruce Kramer. Talk about a loyal BARGEr. Do whatever it takes to get to BARGE. That's what you have to do. Our table: Sandi, Kristina and I sit with Robert, Patrick K. (who also lost a ton of weight), Joe, Bob H., Rich and Martin. Sandi is buzzing around the room talking with her friends from the S.O. tournaments. I went by the table to pick up some of the prints of the pictures Rodney had taken. What a nice thing to do. Great job! Oh, I just love the picture he took of GamboMouse hiding behind a Binion's water bottle with the BARGE dice showing 11 and a 7&7 next door. Classic. Food was pretty good. The dessert was great. Two free drink tickets inside our badges!! The organizers of BARGE are geniuses. Chuck stepping down! Say it isn't so. Chuck, I will let you do this on *ONE* condition. You must continue to come to BARGE. I don't want to hear any lame excuses. If you aren't dead or in jail, you come to BARGE, okay? I lost track of all the ovations for Mickdog, Nick, Peter and Chuck. You guys are awesome. Keep up the excellent work. I hope you guys know how much we appreciate your hard work. Tom Schneider did a nice job. Plenty of good jokes. I agree with his main point about leaving a game when you get the feeling that you should leave the game. Trust yourself. You can always play again some other time. Nick did a great job as the main emcee. As people were milling around, I went to shake Chuck's hand. I was so choked up that I couldn't even say anything. I go upstairs to change, head back to Binion's to watch Rich in the NL. When I get there, the table is down to three! I missed maybe 15 minutes and half the players are gone? Rich held on for 5th and said he got the chips in with the best hand. A player busts in 3rd. I go to shake his hand and say something like "Way to go Jeff." as I see that I'm actually talking to Steve Forcash and not Jeff Deitch. I must get a picture of these two together next year. About 13 minutes later, it is all over as Dan Chevrie defeats Mark Rafn. Congrats Dan! Oh, since Rich and I bought back, our syndicate was just barely in the black this year. Yay! I get into a 4-8 Dealers Choice game with Jeff, Grizz, Chris, Leslie, Mickdog and Nick. Leslie tries to talk to me from a couple of seats away. My hearing is failing a bit and I have a very hard time with some women's voices. Oh well. At 11:30 p.m. I call Red Bone. 5-draw high-low, declare. Black cards are worth zero. Red cards are worth their blackjack value. Nut low is 5 black cards. #2 low is 4 black cards and a red ace. Nut high is 52, but that is hard to make. Anything in the 40's is pretty strong. Jeff wins a bunch. I win some. It's a fun game with plenty of action. Tom Schneider joins the game and calls some Oklahoma variant and adds twists to the game on just about every hand. I bet Tom out of a hand on the turn. I R00L. I was playing too tight. I was getting crappy cards too. Trip 6's in hand is not good for Omaha, right? I work on my chip structure and put Cheezer in the middle of it holding a chip. It was a kinda cool arrow-shaped thing. A couple of people came by to take pictures. A dealer looked at it, saw Cheezer the Mouse in the middle holding a chip and said "Is that rat-holing?" I tossed him a chip. He said his name was Tom and that he should be on the BARGE list now. Hi Tom! I cash out with a $25 win. I check back a few minutes later and the game has broken. I wander around the poker room. Watch Foldem play at two tables at the same time. Too funny. Asya wants me to join a Chowaha game. I don't want to blow my big $25 win. Then I see it is a $2-$4 game. Ah, what the heck. A seat is open next to Leslie. I take that one to get position on the action players and so that I can actually hear her. I flop a set and win one decent pot before the game breaks. I'm up $15 as I see Peter walking toward me. I toss him a chip. He says "You bribery worked." as he hands me the Chip Castle contest trophy. Woo hoo! I heard that Rick and I were the only real competitors this year. Rick does some really nice structures, but he's won it before, so I'll accept the award. No cash, just a little castle from the dollar store which I will treasure always. Sunday, August 3rd ------------------- Find Sandi playing slots around 2:00 a.m. Kris is stranded at the Palms. I won't go into the details, but the ADB force is strong in this one. Sandi and I have breakfast in the coffee shop and let Kris sleep in. We check out and head to the pool. Kris is still a wreck. I buy her some Pepto-Bismol from the gift shop. That finally turns the tide. I'm sitting by the pool and see a guy wearing a PokerStars shirt followed by another guy wearing a PokerStars shirt. I remember that I'm wearing a PokerStars hat. Now I recognize them as Sean and Russ. I ask them what kind of person wears PokerStars stuff to a pool? heh. Also see Asya, Ben, Ron and a couple of Virgins. Oh, Rachel and her super cute kid too. We go for dinner upstairs at Fitzgerald's around 7:00. There's some dumb "free cruise" drawing that we have to be there for at 8:30 p.m. We each have $2-off coupons and we all order the Rib-eye steak and salad bar. Very good. It was the only time all three of us ate together at a restaurant during BARGE. Drawing. We lose. Some of the slots at the Fitz still use actual coins!! I just sit at the nickel machines, looking through nickels and getting free drinks. I'm not actually playing. I went through about $140 in nickels. Found one from 1939, About 20 other keepers from the 40's and 50's. Two Canadian ones that I figure will be worth 10 cents soon. The two best were a 1943-P and a 1944-S. These are war nickels that are actually 35% silver and are worth about $1 each. and I actually needed the 44-S for my collection. Woo hoo. Meanwhile, Sandi and Kristina are playing this really fun Monopoly slot called "Jackpot Station." The music in the bonus game is just awesome. Wonderful beat. Around 10:00 p.m. I start asking them to quit so we can get on the road. Around 11:00, I ask them if they want to go watch the Fremont Street Experience show. "No!" they say in unison. I go watch the show. Good one with the cute blonde. Saw a lame LG one earlier. Midnight rolls around. "Want to see the show?" "No!!" This one is set to the song "Freebird." My favorite song. A bunch of us are doing air guitar toward the end of the song. I've never seen Sandi so addicted to a slot machine. She wants to get this one for the house and I think she was half serious. It is that fun. Monday, August 4th. -------------------- Finally get them to quit around 1:20 a.m. Make one last trip to Binion's. Grizz is still playing. I tell him that he has won the last longer. Then I see Korina and say bye to her too. Finally Mom Garrett is waving to us from the final table. She won the thing a few days before and was trying to hang on for the money in this Binion's tourney too. We said bye to her and got on our way. We finally leave downtown around 1:45 a.m. Sandi had been at the South Point earlier in the trip and wants to show us the place. Okay. I give them a 20 minute limit. Did you know that the South Point is on Las Vegas Blvd.? And it gets it's name from being so far South? Did ya think of that? We get out in 19 minutes. Sandi takes the first shift. She fades as we get to Primm. I take over there and get us to Edison? About half way home. Kris gets us to highway 5. I take over again and get us to Gilroy. Sandi gets us home. Yay. craps: lost big 6 wheel: won blackjack: won live poker: won slots: lost tournies: won!! 3rd in Lowball. CHORSE champs! Chip Castle 1st! roshambo: did not play. I had a great time at BARGE 2008. Somehow it lives up to all the hype. Just the best group of friends a person could hope to hang out and gamble it up with. My friends who missed BARGE... please try to make it next year. You know who you are. Sell your jewels, borrow from friends, just get to BARGE! Frank, Len, Bingo and others, please consider quitting smoking. I want us all to be going to BARGE for at least another 50 years. Thanks once more to Chuck, Peter, Mickdog and Nick. Thanks again to the Golden Nugget and of course Binion's. Thanks also to all the other people who make BARGE go... Dan, Sharon, Mark, David, Ice, Bruce, Ploink, Asya, Kevan, Bob, Patrick, Rodney, Un, Patti, Fich, the rest of the BCC and everyone else. Can I sign up for BARGE 2009 now? Ken Kubey