Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2012 18:39:17 -0700 From: Ken Kubey Subject: [BARGE] QB's 2012 BARGE Trip Report Wednesday, August 1st. ----------------------- Sandi and I fly down to Vegas. What? No waiting for bags to be packed? No 540 mile all-night drive? I'm sorry all. Sandi's daughter, Kristina, is driving down with her boyfriend Chris. Sandi and I listen to the iPod. She plays "Takin' Care of Business" by BTO twice. Love it. We play some blackjack and hold'em on the tray table. I try to explain to her why we see people push all-in with different hold'em hands. I deal out the whole deck as 26 hold'em hands. We are looking for hands that are AJ or better. Got three to five hands usually. One deck had just one hand better than AJ. Foreshadowing. --- We land at McCarran. Kris beats us there by all of 10 minutes. We head over to Terrible's for prime rib. They are out! We order T-bone steaks instead. All medium rare. Sandi's is a shade under medium. Mine is well. Argghhh. This is the first time we have ever had any trouble at Terrible's in Vegas. Food is better than okay, but not great like it usually is. Well the baked potato was great. Like you care. --- Check in at The D. Used to be Fitzgerald's. Somehow we get a room on the 34th (top) floor. Cool. Great view. --- Sandi is really tired. I'm not kidding. She is too tired to gamble. *That* tired. Kris, Chris and I head over to Binion's to pick up badges. Paul Stine is the first BARGEr sighted. Watch a bit of the Binglaha final table. Patti comes by and gives me a shot of Malort in her handy-dandy collapsible, metal shot glass. Introduce Kris and Chris to Chris Mecklin. Get some new names people. Meet Jensen Teng. We've been friends on facebook for a month talking about BARGE. He's a good guy. I bet he'll be a fixture at BARGE. Hear Warren's filthy-mouthed stuffed parrot. LOL. We go back to The D and get to bed around 1:30 a.m. I don't think I slept at all. I close my eyes and rest for most of three hours. I may have drifted off for a few minutes when the alarm goes off at 3:30 a.m. I assume left as a prank by the previous occupant of our room. Thanks a lot jerj. Thursday, August 4th ---------------------- The Death March (BARGE golf outing). Look over at the clock two minutes before my 4:30 a.m. wake up call. What the hell was I thinking? Have the presence of mind to take a pic of the clock at 4:29. Gather up my golf supplies and moose. Sandi wakes up and is now ready to gamble. She walks with me over to Binion's to play a Bonus Sevens slot. One of our favorites. Binion's at 5:10 a.m. See North Shore Mike. He looks tired, but he's glad to see me. We meet up with the rest of the crowd outside. Kevan, Gerry, Mike and I are in one foursome. Mike and I are "cartners." One of the many funny terms I learn from North Shore. Alan Veach, Mark Hughes, David Aronson and Deron Brod in the other group. Aliante golf course. $30? Are you kidding? I think I've paid $15 to play miniture golf. $25 club rental and off we go. Cute little rabbits all over the place. I forgot to get pics. Did take a pic of some ducks. I haven't hit a golf ball since BARGE 2011 as I nail my first drive. 170 yards right down the middle. Poor drive for most, good for me. I hit two fabulous shots. One sand-explosion scoop out of a deep sand trap. The guys got a kick out of my joyous reaction dance to that one. The other was my tee shot on our "closest to the pin" hole. Did I mention there was gambling going on? $20 riding on this shot. Closest to the hole gets the $20. I hit just a beautiful high, arching tee shot maybe 20 feet left of the hole. Mike steps up and hits a nice shot too. We'll have to measure. As we walk onto the green, it's obvious that Mike's ball is about a foot closer. Darn it. There are some Bloody Marys and beers during the round. Gerry and I do Rock-Paper-Scissors for the last round. We tie three times before my scissors wins the contest. I use a line I learned from Lennie: "I like your moves, kid." Thanks to Kevan, Mike and Gerry for the beers. 18th hole. I've been smart enough to not bet 1-on-1 with Mike to this point. It usually takes me two shots to get to where his drive lands. But he has sliced a few drives way right. "Hey Mike, $2 on this hole?" I say. "Sure." he replies. Then he blasts his best drive of the day. Straight as an arrow. We measure it at 301 yards. He is nice enough to let me buy out of the wager for $1 before I hit my drive 40 yards left into the rocks. My score is hopefully lost. At 4:29 a.m., this seemed like a really bad idea. Halfway through the round, I told Kevan to remind me how much I like getting out for golf at BARGE and joking around with the guys. I plan to be back in 2013. --- CHORSE. Also called C-HORSE. This is a team tournament played with chips that are actually worth money. I'm playing the Omaha-8 round. Kinda like hold'em, but with four cards and the game is high-low split. Got it? Erin Ramsey is missing in action. But is pretty much there in spirit. It takes two people to fill the void. Chris Jepsen is ordering the Crazy Pineapple drinks (pineapple juice, vodka and Amaretto) about 10 at a time for us. Ron Grossberg is wearing an oversized glossy picture of Erin as a mask. It is both funny and a little bit disturbing at the same time. I had at least four of those drinks. Awesome. I'm on team Moosecock. We wear our moose antler hats and have our moose Beanie Babies as team mascots. My teamates just plain suck this year. I win pretty much every hand I play beating Dan G, Bozo, Kyle and others. Good to see some old-time BARGErs back this year. Tad Perry, Bozo, Razzo, DaVoice and Sippy to name a few. Say hi to Patrick and pick up my bag of pins. One of the best BARGE pins ever. Somewhere around here I meet Kevan's S.O. Beth. I was expecting her to be smart, fun-loving and have a great smile. Cha-ching. Have a friendly discussion with Aaron Lion about gun control. Someone remind me to not talk guns at BARGE. Talked with Regis and Claudia a bit about "Warehouse 13" and other topics. Our team lost about half of our money. $35 each and we didn't make it to the new no-limit round. Next year! Un yells "Six players to a hand!" as the NL round starts. --- I'm fading fast now and go back to The D for a much needed nap. Meet up with Sandi, Kris and Chris for food at the Binion's snackbar/deli. Great sandwiches. I devour two orders of potato salad also. See Josh Paley wearing a Cal hat. Go Bears! --- Next we go to a Comedy Show at The D. We had free tickets as part of a promotion The D was running. Also got several free breakfast coupons. I can't recall the guy's name but it involved rubber ducks and card tricks. He drags Sandi up on stage. Sandi won't bring her engagement ring to Vegas. The guy asks what happened to the ring. I shout out "We hocked it." Got a good laugh from the crowd. Sandi is nervous, but she does her part well. The bit involves a ring and somehow the guy gets it into a sealed bag of M&Ms. We still can't figure it out. Show was quite good. --- Back to Binion's. Put on my ADB hat. We play some slots near the craps tables and lose as we wait for the Craps Crawl to start. Hmm... no BARGErs. I go over to the poker room to investigate. --- ADB Craps Crawl at 11:00 p.m. I find my pal Bingo. Bingo has his hat. Yay. The crowd gathers. Decision is made to skip Binion's and go straight to Main Street Station. Kris and Chris join us. Sandi doesn't want to walk way over to MSS and stays behind to gamble and maybe even sleep?? Friday, August 3rd. -------------------- The table is full. We watch the action. A non-BARGE guy holds the dice for 15 minutes or so. I attempt to explain craps to Chris. He picks it up pretty well. A spot opens up next to Peter just as Howler's daughter, Christine gets the dice. She is a craps virgin. Any craps player will tell you that first-time female players are lucky. She rolls a 7 to win her first bet ever. The table is not good for Pass Line players. As Steven Wood said, the world record for shortest complete craps turn is tied many times at two. Come out six, seven out. Come out nine, seven out. Come out eight, seven out. You get the idea. Regis and Peter are betting the Don't and winning. Chris gets to shoot for the first time. Peter is unsure if male craps virgins are lucky. Chris makes two passes before the seven out. He locks up a $5 win and gets out of the game. I think he kept the chip as a souvenir. I have a MSS pale ale. Really good. But I'm losing, so I switch back to the traditional Harvey Wallbangers. I get the dice and roll a couple of come out 11's. Yes! Alan Veach nails a $5 hard six and a $5 hard eight for me. His good roll gets me back within $50 of even. More bad rolls. People start to leave. I decide to call it a morning with a $90 loss. There are still several people playing when I go to cash out. I come back and the game has broken. This happens to me at poker tables all the time, but at a craps table? I watch Patti and Bingo R00Ling it up at a BJ table. Patti doubles down on 11. I say "jack of hearts" a couple of times. Boom. Jack of freakin' hearts! Patti gives me a 50 cent piece as a reward for my psychic power. I watch them win one last hand and then walk back toward The D. A beggar comes up to me and says "Can you spare 50 cents for a beer?" Too big a coincidence for me. I give him Patti's 50 cents. We smile at each other. A nice little moment. I think about McDonald's, but remember that we have leftover sandwiches. Quarter club sandwich does the trick. Crash. --- Wake up call for 7:00 a.m. The BARGE Fun Run. Meet up with three other runners at the right place. We stand around for maybe 10 minutes. Where are the others? Turns out the other four were just out of sight and were waiting for us! Runners: Joe Long, Jessica Kuznick, David Lawful, Cliff Mathews, Ron G., Fruchter, Nolan and me. Nolan Dalla runs? Yes he does! We jog at a very easy pace for the first mile. After that, we head off on what is now known as "The Nolan spur." Joe is singing a tune during the last mile. "Desolation Road"? I ran for just over 33 minutes. I assume we went three miles. Thanks to Ron for organizing the run. --- I go for one of our free breakfasts at The D. --- TOC tournament The table: Bill Turner, George Wattman, Ron Nutt, Joh Pickels, Deron, David Fruchter, me, Russ Fox and Eric Rosengerber. Russ and David mention that they will probably talk taxes for an hour. And then they *do* talk taxes for 15 minutes or so. Yawn. Fruchter later mentioned that he uses his TOC trophy as a doorstop. Heh. He's hungry. I recommend the club sandwich from the deli. I find Larry Beirman and give him one of those light-up shot glasses that I owed him from January when he knocked me out at Embargo. I 3/4 Deron and Matt Ivester in Omaha. David and I get moved to a new table: Me, David, Becca, Jeff Deitch, Len G., Big Mike, Pete Segal, Matt and Warren. Pete has the identical shot glass. I guess he bought one somewhere. No. He tells me that Larry re-gifted it. LOL. --- Fruchter's sandwich arrives. Becca has some. I do David a favor and eat his potato salad. Tad Perry and Arthur "Spike the Cat" Reber are moved to our table. Tad says to me "Felix was taken." And I thought it had something to do with killing a vampire cat. I have a note that says "Sumo Wrestling Rich." I wish I knew what that meant. I'm low on chips in the BB in Omaha-8. I get dealt four random cards. There's a raise and two calls. Looks like a good spot to quadruple up or go home. I raise all-in. I have hope until Pete raises on a X-Q-Q-K turn. Kings full knocks me out with about 70 players left. So now Pete has two of the dice shot glasses. I love coincidences. --- On the rail, we hear that Becca has been taken to the hospital with an allergic reaction. Gosh, I hope it wasn't the sandwich. Someone asks me how I'm doing. "I'm a BARGE and I'm drinking." Doesn't get much better than that. -- The Symposium. Rich Strauss, JR, Jeff Siegal and I have our usual little syndicate. JR is a silent partner this year. Once again, I provided the comments on the Calcutta sheet. If you want any of them explained, let me know. Lots of snack-type food. Ruffles and onion dip. OMG. We are picking up bargain after bargain. Woo hoo. Oh, I make way too many picks in the "Un Pool." Talk to Chris Kuntz. We laugh at many of my calcutta comments and remenisce about his playing on Team PMS a few years back. See Bob Ogus and Martin V. around here. I buy Steve "Paul the Octopus" Sherman as I said I would. Diana and Steve buy his half back. I'm not sure I knew they were married. --- We see Dean and Becca downstairs. She is fine. She thinks it was something she drank. Whew. Rich, Jeff and I are on the rail rooting for Adam Bachrach. Adam is low on chips with 17 left, but he keeps winning. Our rooting gets him to 4th place and $1000. Yay. --- Sandi is off with Kris and Chris at the MGM and other places. ADB Sandi has four Appletinis and is R00Ling it up playing blackjack and later slots. I'm pleased to see she made it back to the room in one piece and is sleeping away when I get in. --- I try to call Southwest airlines about moving Sandi to a later flight on Saturday. "Your wait time will be approximately 23 minutes." That can't be right. I call back in about 30 minutes later. "Your wait time will be approximately three hours." Dang! Saturday, August 6th --------------------- Get up at 8:00. We get packed up. Dump bags in Kris' room. Sandi and I do another free breakfast. I give Sandi a hug and kiss. Kris drives Sandi to the airport to save us a cab fare. Ding. --- The BARGE no-limit event. About 170 players at 18 tables. I get there maybe 10 minutes late. I hear that Chuck Weinstock has already been busted on the very first hand with AK losing to 66 with a two kings and two sixes on the board. Full house loses to quads. Ouch! Around the table... Joe, Ross Poppel, Christine M., Diana, Bree Goldman, Fich, Sharon Goldman, me and Regis. Five women! Pretty cool. Christine and Bree have big-time hangovers. Bree is in really bad shape. She can't even sip water at first. Luckily our table is full of people experienced with hangovers. Christine has a Sprite. Bree later has a ginger ale and some dry toast. Fich is giving Bree a hard time about something. She turns to him and says "I *will* throw up on you." Laughter. Regis had a shirt with a picture of a shark and the caption "Be My Chum." Only took be 10 minutes to get the second meaning. Regis and Sharon both had bacon-related bust out gifts. Oh, get this... Sharon was sober and said she had been all through BARGE. I'm playing very passively. I'm not connecting with the flops at all and I give my opponents credit. Fold, fold, fold. A female dealer comes in so there are six women at the table. I fold some more and get a text message from someone at the table saying "Now there are seven girls at the table." Ha freakin' ha. --- My first 7&7 was about as weak as it could be. I took to ordering double 7&7. The waitress (Michelle) nicknamed it a Double-O-7. Cool. Oh, every waitresses I dealt with was terrific this year. --- Around here we break for the BARGE photo on Fremont Street. Organized chaos. Thanks Rodney! --- Ross posts his blind and ante with two black chips around three green chips standing vertically. After about three jokes, we come up with "Mint Triple-Stuff Oreo." Good teamwork on that one. There is also discussion of BARGE Merit Badges. Nick gets moved to our table. He wins a big jam up with AQ vs. AK. Oh, I have a $23 slot ticket that Sandi brought back from the MGM. I ask Nick if he could cash it. He declines as he doesn't go to the MGM and he says something about having to set up a bivouac to get from the MGM parking lot to the poker room. He was nice enough to spell "bivouac" for my notes. Ron Nutt said something funny, but I can read my notes. Oneway tieruy? tierup? tiercix? tcercip? tcercey? Wait! The "t" is probably a plus sign. Oneway and... Folded to me and I jam with AJo. Remember me dealing hands on the airplane? Oh yeah. That foreshadowing bit. Folded around to Nick. He asks "Do you want the action?" I'm in need of a double up, so I say "Sure." Nick told me he was calling no matter what I said. He flips up Presto! (55). AJo is about 46% against a small pair, but I feel I am doomed. Flop 5-T-8. A 9 on the turn gives me hope. A now useless ace hits on the river to pair me up and knock me out. I give Nick a copy of "The TV Cartoon Trivia Book" and shake his hand. I'm out in 54st place. About the same as last year. I enjoy the round of applause. If I have to lose, it's at least good to lose to a good guy and someone who does so much for BARGE. I walk over to Goldie and pay him my $5 for the last longer. I'm going Martingale on you Goldie. John Grout relays his failure to believe in Presto! as he folded it to a raise. He would have flopped set-under-set and then hit quads to win. Rich gets knocked out shortly after I do. With 40 players left we scour the room looking for a horse. None? Brutal. This has never happened to us before. --- Jeff, Rich and I go for lunch at the GN cafe. Much talk about the good old days. Jeff says that he doesn't read my trip reports because they are too long. What!?!? "But they are awesome." I tell him. I will try to get him to read my 1999 report which I think is an absolute classic. We sit there for a good hour after finishing our food yakking away. --- I go back to Kris' room to change clothes. Kris has a nice green dress on. --- The Banquet. Our table: Chris, Kris, David Heller, JR, his new wife Kimmi, Martin, Rich and me. Kimmi is very nice. Go to the bar to get my two free drinks. We talk with Edmund Hack for a bit. 21 straight BARGEs. Stud. Just like last year, George Wattman runs over to say "Hi" and cut the line. A new BARGE tradition? --- Salad is good. Prime rib is very good. Dessert is awesome. I only have a few little bites. I can't eat that much chocolate. Ten bucks for a very good dinner, two drinks and much more. What a deal. Thanks sponsor people. Pick up some photos and say thanks to Rodney. Just wonderful photos. GamboMouse looks good in the pics. Peter talks from the podium about a couple of BARGE friends we lost in the last year. Barry and NewJane. Peter really gets choked up and can barely speak. I get teary-eyed. Next comes Un on guitar playing his new song "Party Down at Binions" to the tune of "Hotel California." Un, jump in here if I got the title wrong. He had the whole banquet crowd softly singing the refrains. Oh great, more teary eyes. Just a wonderful song. My personal highlight of BARGE 2012. Patrick presents the framed chip set to Rich Bremmer. Very sorry to hear that Patrick is stepping down from the BCC. Patrick does so much for BARGE. We really *do* appreciate it Patrick. Nick did his usual good job as emcee. He had a couple of quick ad-lib jokes that were quite funny. Karina's talk was good. Certainly the prettiest BARGE speaker ever. She did a great job during the Q&A session. I talked with her for about 15 seconds later. See Derek Gomez for about the third time at this BARGE. I have failed to remember his name the first two times. He covers his badge and points at me. "Derek Gomez!" I say, pointing back and smiling. Yay. --- Back downstairs for the reindeer games. I get into a $4-$8 HORSE game with Peter/Mickdog, Mark Rafn, Oliver, John Lloyd, ADB Monte, Steve W., and Tom Hummel. I hear loud applause from the NL event. Rush over to see a beaming Paul McMullin. Way to go Paul. Shake his hand and also shake hands with runner-up, Nick. Tough to lose a near-coin flip for the title. Nick seemed to be taking it pretty well. Back to the HORSE game. I get stuck $40 in the wink of an eye. I still have enough chips to build my usual chip structure. GamboMouse is looking through the top window (see pic on facebook). http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4496149528800.2183497.1442217272&type=3 The female dealers all seemed to love the mouse. One dealer kept trying to deal my cards into the two-chip wide space in the structure. Omaha round... she gets three straight cards in the goal. Mandatory $1 tip for that. Around here there are two toxic gas leaks near our table. GamboMouse is temporarily killed by the first and was flat on his back on the table. Laughter. The second is so bad that I have to leave the room for a minute. I guess I missed the rancid cheese and roadkill at the banquet. I lose another hand or two. Now to bet $8 on the turn, I have to start using chips from the structure. I am clearly giving off the old "taking down the chip castle" tell as everyone folds. Everyone at the table is drinking and joking and having a good time. Tom is just getting killed. He finally wins one decent pot. Monte is R00Ling the table. Winning with good cards and bad. I call a straddle with ATs. Lot of players. Flop A-T-8. I bet, folded back to Monte who check-raises from the BB. I three-bet. Call. Turn blank, check/bet/call. River K. Check/bet/check-raise by Monte. Crap. QJ makes sense. "Queen Jack?" I say as I throw away $8. Yep. QJ. This hand really takes the wind out of my sails. John, Monte and Steve all rack up minutes later. David Lawful and Scott Byron join the game. 7-stud now. I keep getting hands like QQ-K, KK-A, QQ-J. I correctly fold when David catches some great cards. Somewhere in here Stephanie (the pretty dealer from Texas) and Becca kiss. Uh... wow. I *did* get a cell phone pic of Patti and Sharon kissing earlier which was pretty damn cool too. Back to the game... Scott completes showing a 6. I raise with AA-K. He three bets. It's a high-low round, so I call down. "Rolled up sixes?" I ask. "Yep, rolled up sixes." Oy. I move to a $3-$6 dealer's choice game with Bree, Derek, Joe and some other folks. I get creamed in an Oklahoma hand were I have two flushes and nut low draws. My AKJ flush gets taken away. My AJ flush loses to an AQ flush. Arrgghhh. At 3:30 a.m., I rack up my last $14 and head to the cage. Say "so long" to several people. Nolan is the last in the poker room. He gives me that "knowing" Nolan glance. About four sentences exchanged without a word being said. --- I figure I'll get my comp from play and have a free sandwich by my loser self and get out of Dodge. Luckily Grizz is headed to the snack bar too. Good, I'll have company. Then we run into Scott S., Un, Dave O., and Erin. We join the guys and I feel a lot better after a lively political debate, potato salad and a quarter of a massive club sandwich. Using all of our comps, 2-for-1 coupons and such turns into a calculus problem, but it gets done. Wave to the guys, take off my badge. BARGE is just about over. Aww. --- Wake up Kristina from a dead sleep. Instead of blowing cab fare, I buy her a tank of gas. Get to the airport just after 5:00 a.m. Get to the gate for my flight to Burbank. Burbank? Rats! To save $60 I booked flights with a 90 minute layover in Burbank. Get to San Jose around 10:50 where Sandi picks me up. Take a great four hour nap. My 2010 lucky shirt failed me on Saturday. It is officially retired. --- Gambling... craps: lost medium-small. big 6 wheel: DNP. Totally forgot. 2013 for sure. blackjack: DNP because BFB. live poker: lost medium-bad. slots: lost small. tournaments: lost, lost and lost. roshambo: won to not have to buy drinks during golf. I know I left a lot of people out of this report. I met the Virgin Queen guy, but can't remember who it was. Hugs were down this year... Becca, Eileen and Bingo. Despite losing money, I still had a great time with all of my good friends. I wouldn't miss it for the world. Just too good a time. Missed all of my friends who didn't make it this year. A few names... Bob H., Mike, Connie, Bullbert, Steve, Sabyl, Merlynn, Oz, Mark T., Lennie, Bruce, Bruce, Lynsy, Chic, Tanya, Corey, Katie, Bart, Jacobs, Scottro, MadMary, Frank, Shari, Lee, James, Leslie, Bill, Andy, Jerrod, Michelle, Quick, The Duck, Dave, Dave and David. I'm sure there are many more. Please come back to BARGE. You'll love it. Thanks again to Binion's. The home of BARGE. --- Kubey's 2012 MVB (Most Valuable BARGEr) Awards: Patrick. If anyone deserves more credit and appreciation, it is Patrick. Structure sheets, awesome pins, badges. Tapes the drink tickets inside the badges. Patrick. you R00L. Un. Runs C-HORSE, does the Un Pool and that great freakin' song. Nick, Mickdog and Bree. Nick gets a little edge for emcee job, but I'm sure all three did way more work than we know. BARGE runs so smoothly now we hardly think about the work. Keep it going! Well done. Rodney. Do I need to say this every year? You bet I do. Fantastic pictures. Peter and Chuck. I don't care if they did nothing. They R00L. Patti, Ice, Nolan, Asya, Kevan, Ron, David A., Goldie, Rafn, Bingo, Dan, Sharon and anyone else I'm forgetting. Thanks also to all the other people who make BARGE go. Thanks to the wonderful people at Binion's. Tournament directors, floormen, waitresses, waiters, bartenders, cooks, etc. --- Can I sign up for BARGE 2013 now? -- Ken Kubey