Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 15:13:48 -0700 (PST) From: Ken Kubey Subject: [BARGE] QB's 2010 BARGE Trip Report The story of my fifteenth BARGE. "You saved my BARGE." Week before BARGE ---------------------- I was bitten on my ankle by some leech-like creature. My TMJ was acting up. Sandi had a bad cough/cold. Bad illness in the family. Kristina just had to bail on BARGE this year. Sandi was on the fence with a bad cough, but finally decided to stay home also mostly to be around for Kris. It would pretty much kill me to miss BARGE, so I decided to go. I think we all made the right decisions. Tuesday, August 3rd ----------------------- I want to leave at 10:00 p.m. I manage to make myself late and leave at 10:45. Gambomouse is my co-pilot. I've done the drive to BARGE alone before, but it feels kinda weird this time knowing that Sandi and Kris won't be with me at all or on the way back. Wednesday, August 4th ----------------------- FM stations fade out on the Pacheco Pass. I find that the rental car has XM radio. For about 15 minutes, I love XM radio. When I can't find a decent song on 200+ stations, I switch to the old iPod. Sandi asked me to send her texts during the trip. I'm terrible at texting, buy manage to send quick texts like "On 5" and "On 58" while driving and longer ones at stops. I-5/Hwy 46 interchange. Gas and bathroom break. Go to Jack in the Box for traditional Jumbo Jack and two tacos. Jack in the Box is closed! Perhaps the worst moment of of the trip. Luckily I find an operational Jack in the Box a few miles down 46. I'm blasting rock 'n roll and cruising along with very little traffic. I just love driving between 1:00 and 5:00 a.m. Text to Sandi: "Rest stop at Boron. Nap time for all good mice" I rest for an hour. Sleep for 45 minutes, I think. Get to the Egg & I a few minutes early. Sit with Warren, Martin, Aaron, Amy, Steve, Patrick, Eileen, Patti and Chuck. Friends everywhere! Conversation is lively, omelette is great. Thanks to Goldie, Ice and Chuck for covering breakfast. After breakfast, some people want to go check out the Pawn Stars pawn shop. I hear that it is near the Stratosphere. I'm trying to follow the lead car, but they blow through a yellow light. Arggh. I try to use my GPS, but I don't know the name of the place. I finally pull off at a Starbucks to ask for directions. Only now do I realize that Tahajian and a car full of people have been following *me*! Someone in their car gets the address (713 Las Vegas Blvd) and away we go. The place is a big nothing. I saw more interesting shops in Reno and Jamestown. Ton of people in there. We are all rushed out for filming by an overzealous security guy. Now someone suggests the Pinball Hall of Fame. I get lost several times and ask directions at bars and pool halls. Finally find it. 1610 E. Tropicana. See lots of BARGErs there. Bart Simpson was playing a game based on some other cartoon. I got the high score on Asteroids and Robotron. Played some great old pinball games: Kiss, Meteor, Xenon, etc. Drop by Binion's to pick up my badge and say hi to 40 or 50 people. Also distribute $22 TARGET shares to Russ, Ross, Sharon, Aaron and Corey during the week. Check in at the Golden Nugget, get a 7:00 p.m. wake up call. Lowball. Start out well, but then fizzle out. Huh, you get more applause when you bust out early. Have a fabulous pastrami on rye at the snack bar. Twice more later in the trip. Get in a dealer's choice game. Up $40, down $40. Steven McLoughlin makes a call and says "Aggressive Call." Have to add that to my repertoire. I have a note about Grizz having the nuts and something about cashews. It must have been funny. I have the nut straight, board pairs. Ugh. Goldie bets. Ugh. I call. "Is Presto good?" Goldie says. Of course Presto is good. Drop $48. Oh well. CSI is filming at the GN pool area. See Elliot Gould and Marg Helgenberger (rowr.) Thursday, August 5th ---------------------- Wake up call at 10:00. Think about Kevan and the boys who are playing golf. See Connie, Mike and Charlie (BARGE champ 2032.) CHORSE. Also called C-HORSE. This is a team tournament played with chips that are actually worth money. I'm playing the Crazy Pineapple round (it's a game like hold'em, but you discard one after the flop.) Erin Ramsay orders drinks for the table. The drink is called a Crazy Pineapple... pineapple juice, vodka and amaretto. I am flying after a couple of these babies. Erin, dude, you R00L! Our team is losing. I get our last chips in with Presto! (55) on an 8-6-5 flop. It holds up. We finish down a few bucks. Somewhere in here I'm discussing a BARGE ankle bracelet alarm (probably with Erin.) The alarm goes off if you are sober or if you get above .15 BAC. Something like that. Someone complains that their shirt doesn't fit well. Then I hear "I'm a professional model, I know how to wear clothes." Said by (drumroll) Barry Tanenbaum wearing a Coney Island Whitefish shirt. Later, I'm in the bathroom trying to fix my hair after wearing a moose hat. A BARGEr who asked to remain anonymous pipes up and says "You look purty." in a perfect "Deliverance" way. Shudder. BTW, I hate the sinks. Try to wash your face without dipping the bottom of your shirt in the dumb square sink. Team pic with Kevan, Asya, Ron, Barbara and Murray. A classic. Looks like something from Family Feud. Someone is trying to pull up the BAAG on some fancy phone. I whip out my version printed on paper. Mike Maurer marvels at the technology... foldable display, etc. Jim B. dubs it the iPaper. Somewhere in here I play the Big Six wheel and win. Gotta like the cowgirl dealers. Around here, $1.99 shrimp at Golden Gate with Martin, Bullbert and Lou K. Lively discussion. 6-game Tournament. I have no notes. I lost. Good to see Sabyl and Mark T. at final tables. Friday, August 6th. -------------------- ADB Craps Crawl at midnight. We start out at Binion's. We stay at Binion's. Bingo tells me how he was down to $4 in an earlier craps session and somehow cashed out a winner! Cue ominous music. The table is choppy. Don't bettors are cleaning house. Peter Secor and Lee Crocker are taking my odds bets. I get the dice. Bingo is down to his last $10 and looks like someone ran over his dog. I make a pass. Mild cheering. Another pass. Another one. I'm in the zone. Peter is making money. Bowtie is making money. Bingo is high fiving me. Amy is winning, Bob is high fiving me. Steven Markowitz is winning. Point, number, number, pass. Don't bettors rebuy. Leslie is winning. More clapping and cheering on every pass. 5, 10, 8, 4, 5! I can feel the energy level at the table. I finally roll the dreaded 7 after about 30 minutes. Lots of applause. As the next couple of shooters seven out, you can feel the energy level drop about 80%. Bingo has run the $10 into $400. Way back in 1996, Bingo saved my night with two passes allowing me to run $50 into $200. I have called him "my hero" ever since. Don has called me *his* hero for several years now. Finally in 2010, I feel that I have earned it. Amy has a good roll. The table gets choppy again and people head to the cage to cash out. At some point later, Bingo says "You saved my BARGE." to me. Then something about having to stay in his room knitting on Friday if not for my great roll. --- 7:00 a.m. wake up call. Dear God, why? Oh, the Fun Run! Stumble out onto Fremont for the 7:30 a.m. run. Run with Ron, Mick, Bob J., Chris M., Cliff and Joe Long. Also running is Cliff's 5-year-old, Iris. We run two miles in a blazing 25 minutes and 40 seconds. Iris is the unofficial winner. Thanks to Ron for organizing this event. I plan to do it again next year. Shower. Breakfast with Kyle and Murray. Kyle has comps to pick up the tab. Murray tosses out a 35% tip. Yay. --- TOC tournament David Klutchman takes a river beat in a monster pot. He's down to 300 with the average stack at about 4000. He walks away from the table to shake it off. Comes back to win the frickin' thing? Wow. Bruce I. kept following me to different tables. Or was I following him? Short on chips, I go with AJ44s. Miss everything. Argghh. Around here Eileen gives me a nice little glass pendant type thing for Sandi. She really likes it. --- The Symposium. Rich, JRX, Jeff S. and I have our usual little syndicate. Jim B. and JZK joins us. Once again, I provided most of the comments on the Calcutta sheet. If you want any of them explained, let me know. MC Hammered for Foldem was one of my favorites. We wanted to buy Chuck Humphrey and Carol Kline, but bidding went too high. James Hammer bought Rich and me. A good buy, we thought. Aaron Lion failed to buy me. Boo. Perhaps the best ever food spread and two free drinks. Peter managed to auction off everyone. Also loved the falsetto for the auction of Dave Tahajian. Say hi to Bob Ogus, Adam and Debbie. Adam, WTG on the WSOP cash! --- Have late dinner with Rich and Jeff at the GN. We talk about how bad online poker has gotten. Rich explains that the only time to play now is on Friday or Saturday between 5:00 and 9:00 p.m. It was funny, but a little too true. --- Karaoke. Oh man. Some great singing, some bad singing. Too many shirts off. I only have a couple of notes. Asya and Ben looked really nice. Obviously dressed for a non-BARGE event. "You Lost That Loving Feeling." Everyone was singing along. The finale is "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. Everyone is going to sing at the front of the room. I'm not sure I want to do it as I don't think I know the words. I'm told "QB, trust me, you know the words." Once the song starts, I *do* know all the words. Really fun. Sharon is directing us. Someone was filming. I was doing some air-guitar toward the end of the song. Hope I was off-camera or didn't look too stupid. Other singing goes on well after the music is shut down. Karaoke might be the most fun event of the week. Check it out. Saturday, August 7th --------------------- The BARGE no-limit event. Again, the $1000 WSOP NL events was easy compared to this tournament. --- I wanted to mention tipping/toking. This looks like a good spot. Of course tip your waiters and waitresses. Tip the dealer when you win a hand in a cash game. Tip the vallet and bellman if you use them. Maybe overtip if your bill is small or comped. Tip incomming dealers at C-HORSE game and in the Reindeer games on Saturday night. This is expected and almost mandatory. And if you want to overtip, go for it. Outgoing tips? Someone invented this a couple years ago. If you want to do it, fine. Go for it. I don't think anyone should be forced to do this however. And please don't make people feel guilty about it. Same goes for tipping during the tournaments. If you want to do it, fine. If you don't want to tip during the tournament, that is fine too. Tipping *after* you make the money is always nice. No one should be *expected* to tip/toke *during* a tournament. especially the SO tournaments. My Humble Opinion. Rant over. --- Oh, breakfast with Mickdog and Murray. Back to the NL tournament... Around the table... Sharon, Maurer, John Pickels, Chris Jeps., John Moser, me and Marvin Baird. I raise with 55. Moser reraises. I fold and show. He shows JJ. Pickles explains why QTo is called "Greyhound." Because if you play it, you'll be on the first bus out of town, Okay, he's no Don Perry, but he's pretty funny. Moved to the main room. Diana Pickles, Chris Mecklin, Corey, me, George Wattman, Chris Klutchman, Regis, Bob Ogus and Tom Simms. I have two Gambomouses with me. One on the felt, one behind the other on the rail. Perry F. comments that it looks like they are doing it "Mousie-style." It is a tradition to give out a prize to the player that knocks you out. Most are $5ish items. JZK is giving an iPad! Guess who wins it. Dan Goldman. This site is rigged too. Somewhere in here we did the BARGE group picture and the ADB team pic too. Rodney rocks! I fold QQ to an all-in from Chris M. I folded QQ correctly at the WSOP (opponent showed KK.), but I feel like I screwed up this time. Later Chris said he had AKs and would have spiked an ace ;-) I take most of Regis' chips with 66 vs. 77 on a 6-high flop and then the rest with my AK pairing vs. Regis' smaller ace. I got a stretchy orca. Does that sound dirty? Caryl Aronson replaces Regis and I bust her with AQ vs. a smaller ace. Got a bright LED flashlight. I get QQ, JJ or AK every orbit and keep above average. Corey makes it 500 to go with AK. I make it 1400. George jams for 1800. I make the auto call. He has Presto! I'm good at flopping kings. I see a king on the flop, but there is a 5 also giving George the winning hand. It goes downhill from there. Shortstacked, I find K8o on the button. The blinds are pretty tight. I jam. David Trinidad makes the call with A4o and busts me in 55th place. I gave David a copy of "The TV Cartoon Trivia Book." He is one of the sharpest guys at BARGE and a good friend. I pay my $5 to Goldie. Damn he plays well. Oh, thanks to everyone that congratulated me on my 2nd WSOP cash. First time is always the best, but this one was almost as exciting. Talked with Yolanda, Barry K., Bruce B. and others. Rich played well, but missed the money by about 5 players. Rats. Around here, Kevan walks up a presents me with a button that he bought for me at the Gamblers General Store. It says "HORN HIGH." Kevan knows I sometimes bet the "Horn High Yo" when playing craps, so this was a good gift for me. Made my day. At the final table, Alan Horn is standing by seat 6. He says to the rail "I'm screwed." We are puzzled until he points to the ground where there is a two-inch long metal screw. Heh. Good to see Len, Aaron and of course Chuck Weinstock at the final table. Way to go guys! Jim B. made the final table saving our syndicate from a big loss. Oh yeah, wanted to thank some late arrivals... Andy Bloch, Bill Check and Michael P. Hunter. Oh and AJ too! Glad you guys could make it. --- The Banquet. At Binion's. Our table: Rich, Jim B., Hack, Dave M., Slick, Tomcat, JRX and me. At the bar, I talked to someone who had a nut in her glass of water. Not a peanut type nut. A nut as in "nuts and bolts." Nick was funny as hell again. Mostly ripping on Nolan. Patrick did a nice quick presentation of the chips to Heldar. Do I need to say great job on the chips, pins and badges? I think I do. Barry did a nice job. He seemed a little nervous. Who wouldn't be? Speaking in front of 200 people and following Doyle Brunson from last year. Barry was at his best ad-libbing. The pose for Rodney was priceless and the "I'll just talk to Kenny Shei." stuff was fun too. Thanks Barry! Sandi misses you too. The food was good. Maybe a little step down from the GN, but just fine. Mickdog, Nick and Peter did a great job again. Nice ovations for Rodney, Chuck, Peter and Mickdog. I wish we could have had an ovation for Nick too, but he wrapped it all up very quickly. --- Back downstairs for the reindeer games. I get into a 4-8 Must-Drink HORSE game with Un, Paul McM., Bwana, Martha, Dan N., Steve (Ice), Patti, Sandra and Alan Horn. I'm in seat 9. Patti was playing hands blind, winning and tipping $4 or $5 per hand. Someone makes a snide remark. Patti says "How can you say that to a lady?" Un then says "I just bit through my tongue." Patti also had a breathalyzer at the table. More on that later. Cocktails! We are in a must drink game and don't get drink one for a good 45 minutes. 80 people ordering drinks and one waitress. Not good. I further get R00LED by Patti as she claims my drink and downs it before I can say a word. I'm working on a chip structure, but the table shakes forward and back and it falls. Dan Nussbaum suggests I build in the direction of the shaking. Works much better. Thanks Dan. Drinks finally arrive. BTW, I missed the end of the NL. Chuck H., I owe you a handshake. Patti dashes off and lets Dave Tahajian play her chips. Dave is just a crack up. So glad to have him back at BARGE. Un is replaced by Micon (from WSOP fame.) Stud high-low. I start with 2345 and call lots of bets. Dave is showing 898X. Micon shows A67T, three clubs and raises on 6th. On the river, I miss of course. Dave bets, I fold, Micon raises. Looks like a 7-low and flush. Dave says "I reraises just in case." Micon then goes into a robotic raising motion as he repeats "I raise." and puts out about 10 stacks of four chips. Dave just calls with a full house only to see Micon roll over a ROYAL FLUSH. Yipes! Dave says something like "Ai-ya, Patti is going to whip my ass." I have one really nice hand in stud where I start with rolled up kings (KK-K) and the case king is showing on 3rd street. I think Bwana thought I was just trying to steal the antes and called me down after I filled on the river. Got smoked my Micon on a razz hand. Ugh. Grapes joins the table. At one point I have Micon, Grapes and Bwana to my left. My table selection skills need serious work. Tahajian is winning some pots and has almost recovered all of Patti's lost chips. Matt (Grapes) and Dave tangle in an Omaha pot. Flop is 9-8-8. After some raises, Dave cries out "Ai-ya, you have pocket nines. Nice hand sir." Matt does have 99. Poor Dave has 98 for the losing boat. I try the breathalyzer and blow a .09. Legally drunk in California, but pretty weak. I try again later and get a .05? I suck at this game. I think this also confirms that Binion's mixed drinks aren't as strong as they used to be. Ice is drinking straight stuff and hits .14. Sandra, Alan and I are all getting a little giddy as time goes on. I win an O8 pot to crawl above even at 3:15 a.m. Tahajian gets the honor of knocking over my chip structure. I cash out up $3. Yes! On the way to the snack bar I watch 5 or 6 ADBers taking turns playing Megabucks. Each throw $1 in the tray. Player scoops the tray if he hits any jackpot. Looked kinda fun. Order a final pastrami at the snack bar. A tough-looking young guy sits down next to me. He looks mean too. We end up having a nice conversation about SNL, Santa Barbara and other stuff. People are people. I wander around the poker room and say "so long" to about 30 BARGErs. Remember this is 3:30 a.m now. Sunday, August 8th ------------------- Rich Strauss has agreed to drive back with me. We meet up, hit the ABC store for supplies and little gifts. The trip flies by as we talk about old Cal football and basketball games and player, Giants games, A's games, etc. Thanks for going with me Rich. Really made the drive better. Rich gives me a quick tour of his new place near the HP Pavillion. Really nice. Back to Sunnyvale. I take my freeway exit and as I near my place, my jaw finally clicks back into normal position for the first time in two weeks. Get home. Collapse. My feet are really swollen. I guess from drinking the night before and nine hours in the car. Sandi said I looked like one of the spaceship passengers in the movie WALL-E. Too true. The bite on my ankle is just about all better too. Gambling... craps: lost small big 6 wheel: won blackjack: DNP because BFB. live poker: lost small slots: lost $3 - Just learned that I made money. Yay Foldem. tournies: lost, lost, lost, lost and lost. roshambo: did not play. I hope I didn't leave out too many people. I tried to at least say "hello" to everyone, but it's almost impossible. The 2010 Virgin group was tough! I hope the 2011 group has more ADB types and less pro poker players. I had a great time at BARGE 2010. I'm already looking forward to BARGE 21. Hey, BARGE will be legal to drink and gamble! Missed all of my friends who didn't make it this year. A few names... Zimmers, Quick, Bev, MadMary, Tony, Crosons, Chic, Marc, Paul, Charles, NorthShore, Scottro, John, Frank, Shari, Murph, Jeff, Chow, Tom, Mitch, Merlynn, Oscar, Marlin, Dave and Dave. I'm sure there are many more. Thanks again to Binion's. The home of BARGE. Thanks also to all the other people who make BARGE go. Great job everyone! Can I sign up for BARGE 2011 now? Ken Kubey kubey@sgi.com (510) 933-5335