Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:13:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: Karl Kirchoff
Subject: [BARGE] Mean Waitress:  A First Time BARGE TR

In which the innocent author has a run-in with the titular MEAN WAITRESS

by Karl Kirchoff

I first heard about BARGE a year ago, when my buddy Andy, aka "Andrew Hime" or
"djhomeschool" went. Despite his whining, it sounded like a pretty good time,
and some online friends were also going, so I decided to come this year. [boring
story about registration and flight/hotel reservations removed by moderator].
I am terrible with names. I apologize in advance.
Thursday:

The trip started off well. I managed to be literally (yes, literally) one minute
too late to check in to my flight, and was put on standby for the next flight.
Rats! So I had to travel around the airport like Tom Hanks in that movie where
he can't leave the airport... Philadelphia. Only I didn't die at the end,
instead I got on a plane to Vegas.
My airplane neighbors were a young couple from Austin on their first trip to
Vegas. They were really excited. They were even more excited when I ordered a
bloody mary, which evidently was the signal that they could order one, too. When
Morningstar drinks, everyone drinks! Anyway, as soon as we landed I get a text
from Andy telling me to come to Binion's immediately. Luckily, I made it in time
and didn't miss CHORSE, because I'm not sure my team could have lost that much
money that quickly without me. I also meet many people for the first time: Tom
Bayes (not an old man, and not even named Tom!), Mickdog (not a talking dog at
all, just a regular guy!), Ron Grossberg (Not gross at all, and tiny!) and Bob
Jones (Uh, tall!)
In the meantime, I also played some mixed cash games. I had literally never had
that much fun at a casino poker table before. A poker pro that you could have
seen on TV drew out on my pat 8 Badugi to make a 7 on the 3rd draw and scoop a
huge pot! I mean, it sucked that I lost that pot, but that's real poker, and SO
much more fun than the millionth hour of 1-2 NLHE. After the CHORSE game ended,
we went to I Love Sushi. Man! I'm normally not the biggest fan of "fusion"
sushi, but these rolls were amazing. My favorites were Fire in The Belly (spicy
tuna, spicy crab? hot sauce, and a neat little slice of jalapeno) and Sexy Time
(spicy tuna, crunch rice, and some sauce, maybe?). And then we got to gamble on
whether or not the bill was going to be more or less than $38. Also, a very wise
man, whose name I sadly cannot remember, explained to me that after 6 years of
BARGE, he hadn't figured out whether or not the BARGERs were gamblers who liked
to drink, or drinkers who liked to gamble.
By now, I had realized that this was going to be even better than I had hoped.
Anyway, we make it back to Binion's in time for me to quickly bust out of the
6-game tournament. Yay! That means more crazy mixed games! We played some
enjoyable 4-8 Dealer's Choice, and I had my first run-in with Mean Waitress.
I'm sure many of you know who I'm talking about -- older lady, short hair,
glasses, probably hated you. She was NOT happy, even though I was tipping her $2
a drink. But fine, maybe she was just having a bad night...

Friday:
I woke up nice and early for some steak and eggs at the Gold Spike, the fine
establishment I was enjoying for my Vegas trip. I asked for the steak rare, and
it was, perfectly so. Good job, Gold Spike. After gorging on protein, I called
Andy to wake him up in time for the 10:00 am TOC. Today was the day I chose to
don my douchebag disguise. See, my best friend Ren (as generous a motherfucker
as you'll ever meet) got me a shirt from an expensive Austin boutique featuring
two hot ladies kissing and the caption "Something Wonderful is About to Happen."
Reaction to this shirt was... mixed. Generally, it was a look at the shirt, and
then a disappointed look at my face. Eventually, I had to tell people I was
wearing the shirt ironically, and also as a favor to my best friend who just
happens to have cancer. So now who's the douchebag?
This was an excellent tournament. Plenty of chips and play in the early level,
and I even enjoyed playing straight stud high, which I normally am not a huge
fan of. I manage to bust ADB Foldem by flopping a set with KK against his AA. I
also manage to get nicely buzzed before spewing the remainder of my chips to ADB
Schmengie. Andy busted not too terribly long afterwards, and the gentle swell of
kind applause propelled us to the Chicago Brewing Company for sustenance. Andy
and I split an order of the bread knots (delicious, but way too much even for
two people, get the half order) and each had a very nicely done burger. I also
had their IPA, since it had the highest alcohol content, and it was quite good
as well. I also check out Andy's room (more boring than mine, but a good place
for a bed and a bathroom) and win Shae/Yoko a little token. She's totally coming
next year, btw.
Freshly fueled, we return to Binion's for more mixed games. I decide to switch
to double Beam on the rocks (from bloody mary during the tournament, in case
you're keeping score) since I figured it was time to get blotto. The kind
waitress from the tournament was more than happy to bring me these in exchange
for tips.

ASIDE ON TIPS:
We don't have to get into a huge thing here, but $2 per drink is fine, right? I
usually see people giving $1, so I figure the extra dollar is going to get me a
little bit more attention, or at least a modicum of whatever the opposite of
loathing is. Look, just keep bringing me drinks and you can make $30 off of me,
okay?
END ASIDE.

So we were mixed gaming it up! I was having a great time, enjoying the company
of nice people, and spewing chips. Then the fucking shift change hits. Mean
Waitress rolls up to our table. "Cocktails," she lied, "Cocktails?"
"Can I have a double Beam on the rocks, please?"
She says, out loud, "... not going to bring you a double..." and wanders off.
Not much later, she returns. With a single. And not only is it a single, but
it's in a tiny glass, as if to say, "Hey, fuckface, this is a very small drink!
Enjoy it while you can!"
This makes me angry. I give her $1.
And that's it. I'm done. I am boycotting free godfucking drinks at a casino. She
comes back several times to say, "Cocktails, cocktails?" in my general vicinity,
but I don't even glance at her ever again. At one point, I have to walk back to
my hotel for a quick bit of work, and on the way back, I buy a chaos-smiling
Miller High Life for $3.75(!!! + $1 tip, that's right, still tipping) and nurse
that bad boy while tilting off many moneys to the lucky people at my tables.
Apep, eat me. It's time for bed.

Saturday:
Breakfast time! Instead of $7.99 steak and eggs, it's $5.99 prime rib and eggs.
I am not aware of this, and order steak and eggs. However, the well-trained and
friendly staff at Gold Spike quickly correct my mistake and get me into the more
+EV breakfast. I am being entirely serious when I say that staying at the Gold
Spike is a great choice if you're going to downtown Las Vegas. Very cheap, nice
interesting rooms (hey, a room is a room, but it wasn't one of those generic
cookie-cutter faux "luxurious" rooms that you see literally everywhere), and the
staff were extremely pleasant and professional.
Anyway, freshly gorged again, I let Andy sleep a bit later and walk down to
Binions. It's like 9am at this point, so only a couple of people are playing
craps.
As I'm watching craps, and feeling like I imagine my cats feel as they watch me
play Wii, ADB Foldem rolls up and says hello. Have I mentioned how friendly this
group is? Anyway, in our polite chit-chat I reveal that I have no fucking clue
how craps works. I mean, I get it. Don't roll a 7 or an 11 (unless you're
supposed to, in which case, do!) and never roll 2. But the betting and all that
crap is a mystery. Foldem launches into a long, well-organized, and detailed
treatise on how to play and bet craps correctly. See, this is why I like hanging
out with nerds. They know shit, and are more than happy to spread the knowledge
around. Sadly, I remain too dumb for craps, but I do take away that there are
some smart bets in craps if you're looking to gambooool! it up and play an
action game without spewing chips for no reason.
Okay, time to call Andy. If you know me at all, you know that I absolutely love
O8, limit or PL. Andy and I play 4/8 half-kill as often as possible in Winstar,
despite them barely tolerating the game up there (Thackerville, OK). The kill is
triggered on a $40 scoop (i.e. any scoop). They won't make it a must-move game
("It's too hard," they explain, despite having a MM 5-10NLHE game and sometimes
a MM 2-5PLO game and having the absolute textbook case for NEEDING a must-move
table in their O8 game), they take a jackpot drop despite the BBJ being locked
at 5k for both O games and being basically impossible to hit (quad Ts lose)
while the HE jackpot gets hit like something that gets hit a lot. Punching bag?
Your mom? I dunno.

ANYWAY...
We hear the legend of the Orleans O8 game. It's half kill, and runs all the
time, and they know what they're doing. Angry Bill (50% of my Omaha "friends"
are named Angry XXX. Except for Barbara, Other Barbara, Deaf-but-can't-prove-it
George, Spewy, and Black Spewy) goes to LV semi-regularly and stays at the
Orleans, apparently earned by playing this game and only playing 1123 and ABCD
O8. So Chaossmileonme, we're in Vegas, it's Saturday morning, we're going to the
Orleans.
And we do. It's a long expensive cab ride. It's a long walk to the poker room.
It's a short wait for the MM table. I get seated fairly quickly. Andy isn't too
far behind. I'm in the 3 (of 10) seat. Andy winds up in 4. 1 has been there for
a bit, and seems kind of crabby. I've been folding (discipline!) and drinking a
couple of bloody mary when I pick up a terrible hand (KQ83 with the K suited)
OTB+1 and it's folded to me so I raise. Yeah. Andy folds, Extremely Old Man
calls, Slightly Less Old Asian Man calls.
Board is K high with several draws. Check, check, bet, call, call.
Turn is a card less than K that doesn't make any draws. CCBCC.
River is a card less than K that doesn't make any draws. CCBCC.
Showdown. I show my KANGS.
EOM shows JJ9x (9 on the board, btw)
SLOAM mucks without showing.
EOM explains to Andy that he put me on Aces, which is why he called.
Ah.
I realize this game is soft. I am going to crush.
WRONG.
I spew.
I spew on draws.
I spew on steals.
I spew on bluffs.
I spew on lock low draws.
I can't win.

Finally, I get moved to the main game. A woman who was moved there like 30
minutes ago has a 6-high wall of racks. She totally moved there with 1.5 racks.
She has been holding this game down and kicking it until it can't move.
I've reloaded up to just less than 2hundred (3h in) at this point, and variance
starts to even out. Not just for me, but for Wall-Of-Chips-Woman. I scoop a big
pot, and then scoop the kill, which gets me up a few bucks. Yay! Meanwhile, Wall
of Racks Lady's luck is changing (her inability to determine her low could also
have been a factor) and she is getting crabbier and crabbier and being rude and
condescending to SLOAM who is just trying to have a good time and spew chips.
Leave him alone! Finally, she leaves with about a rack and a half.
Anyway, Andrew and eventually leave up about $70 each (plus I have about 10
Bloody Marys under my belt so I'm feeling pretty happy, great drink service).
And it was really fun sitting next to these NY/NJ guys who are actually enjoying
themselves at an O8 table, even though one of them spent a little too long
explaining to me how Vegas isn't like the old days, and now it's run by big
corporations, and it doesn't have that personal touch, and it's like Disneyland.
I guess Casino was on cable in his room or something, but I do not call him out
on his plagarism.
We cab it back to Binion's, because Andy is going to the Banquet, though
evidently he was only interested in the food and not the speech. Before that,
though, I get on an OHORSE table and get hit with the deck. I pull a monster pot
in Oklahoma where the rivers kill one board, and give me nut nut on the other
two. Yay! I also pull a pretty big pot when I flop a straight and a triple.
Eventually, everyone goes to the banquet leaving me to drunkenly play 2-4 limit
and irritate a the cocktail waitress (not the mean one) by ordering food. I test
my "tips make everything better" theory by giving her $5 and she brightens up
and continues to bring me drinks. 2-4 LHE is... bad. I wind up $40+, but have to
leave because these local guys who do a podcast sit down and start being all
chummy and smug. "Hey, we get 2000 downloads a show, we all have funny
nicknames, that's Johnny Four-Racks!" Quit rubbing my face in it!
Actually, they were nice, I was just bored. I wandered around until Reindeer
games started. Sadly, my flight was early as balls the next morning, so I only
got a couple three orbits in, but man, that was fun. Better flight planning next
year.
That's pretty much that. I make it home alive, my cats didn't burn the place
down, Shae still loves me, and I gotta go to werk the next morning.
I'd like to thank everyone I interacted with at BARGE (except for Mean Waitress)
for a wonderful trip. I hope to see almost all of you next year.

SMFK