Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 23:16:03 -0700 From: MrBookworm Subject: [BARGE] BARGE Trip Report - Part x of y /There is no way I can write a trip report that covers 7 days of BARGE in one sitting, so I have decided to break it up into stories as I remember them. Eventually I will put it all together and send it out, but in the meantime I will share the pieces as I complete them. - Dean/ *Bad Beat Jackpot and Roulette at table 83** **Saturday, August 3, 2013**(about 2pm) **BARGE NLHE** * A few hours into the tournament, my starting table broke and I joined Oliver Juang, Tracy Becker, Andy Bloch, Larry Bierman, Linda Lewis and a few others (sorry if I missed you, I didn't take notes). As soon as I sat down Tracy told me to ship $1 to her side of the table. Of course, I didn't ask why and tossed a $1 blue chip her way. Andy placed my chip on top of a stack of about $15-$20. On a side note, Andy had busted Un and received a dice game that had playing card values and different rules for different games. Tracy was giggling like a drunken Nolan scooping pots (Hee or Dalla, same difference) as she was r000ling the dice collecting $1 bets from Andy between hands. "Oh my gosh, I'm beating Andy Bloch at dice" she exclaimed, "who would believe it"! Andy did roll a royal flush in whatever game they were playing, but Tracy was obviously getting the best of him most rolls. As we played on I learned that the stack of $1 chips was a bad beat jackpot for our table. The rules were simple. $1 initially to join the jackpot. If a player in the jackpot got it all in they were eligible for the bad beat. A determination is made on which hand was ahead when the money went in. I was reasonably confident that there were enough IQ points and smart phones at the table to figure out the best hand if there was a close call. If the best hand held up from that point, then the winner owed the jackpot another $1. If the best hand ended up losing then the loser of the hand would win the jackpot as a consolation prize. This happened multiple times and the winners were happy to feed the jackpot another dollar rather than make the walk of shame away from the table. As we played on, the jackpot kept growing as new players joined the table (Nolan Dalla, "Big Mike" Klein) and succumbed to Tracy's demand for $1 to participate. In addition, the best hand kept holding up and the winners happily chucked another $1 towards Tracy and Andy for the jackpot. After another hour or so, the jackpot had grown to $30 and our table was going to be the next to break. We didn't know what to do with the jackpot since only the players at our table had an interest in it. Giving it all to the dealer was the obvious choice, but that didn't seem fair since Alan had only been dealing at our table for a few minutes. After thinking about it for a minute I suggested that we take the money and put it on 1 roulette number with the players left all having an equal share. This idea was quickly approved by Andy, Larry, Llew, Big Mike and Oliver. Andy gave $5 to Alan as a toke which left us with $25 to put on one number. I wrote down the names of the 6 players with a share of our $900 in future roulette winnings. We all left to find our new table assignments and planned on placing the roulette bet on the next break. At the next break, Andy and I met up and were getting ready to go make the bet. We both realized that we didn't know which number to pick since 55 wasn't valid. I sure as shit didn't want to pick the losing number and I'm sure Andy felt the same way. "Yo Redbird, give me a roulette number!", I said to my wife a table or two away. "Huh?", she asked confused as she walked over to us knowing that finding me at a roulette wheel would be like finding Northshore drinking wheat grass smoothies at BARGE. "Give me a roulette number", I repeated and she said "13, but why?" I explained it to her and it finally made sense (well, as much sense as some drunken dumbshit betting $25 on one stupid roulette bet could). For the record, I was not drinking during the NLHE event..... yet. I don't think Andy was either. Off we went to the roulette table and Andy caught the dealer's attention to place the $25 bet. He squeezed through a few players seated at the game that were obviously in between visits to McDonald's and Walmart. The dealer listens to Andy and then says something to him. Andy looks puzzled and comes over to me, "the dealer has to get approval first?" A pit boss finally comes over, looks over the two of us and thinks about approving the bet. I had on my "Dick" tradesman worker shirt with iPhone video camera poised to capture the big win. Andy was wearing a shirt with "fuken r00ling" and AA on it (a pair of aces, not Alcoholics Anonymous, but either works at BARGE). Pit boss approves the bet, then immediately walks over to the pit phone. Presumably to call the eye in the sky? I'm laughing pretty hard at this turn of events because I'm realizing that if we win there will be questions. Neither of us had expected to get more than an odd look at the dumbshit that would place a single $25 bet on the number 13. However, thinking about it afterwards I'm guessing they recognized Andy and had their eye on him to make sure he didn't hit the BJ tables? As I write this I'm going to assume that the eye in the sky was tracking our every move once we left the poker area. The casino now fears me, yes, me! I'm now probably going to catch heat the next time I try to play negative expectation games at Binion's because of this, sweet! That's right, I associate with known card counters. I bet they checked my Facebook friends and saw Mr. M on that list too! On top of that, we only had 7 mins left on break when we went to place the bet and we were both antsy to get back and not miss any hands. We probably both looked nervous to the pit guys rather than itching to get away from a stupid roulette wheel and get back to our tournament. Hopefully our BARGE badges and friends on the poker side of the house will be able to explain why Andy Bloch and some guy with the name "Dick" embroidered on his shirt and a nametag that says "MrBookworm" and "Dean" are making an incredibly dumb bet in a casino and really didn't have an edge. At this point I figured we were a lock to win this bet because the questions, explanations and entertainment that would soon follow were the stuff of BARGE legend to be. The dealer spins the ball and I get the video recording started on my iPhone. This is going to be awesome! The ball slows and bounces and Andy says "it's close, it's got a chance" and then he says "not so much" as the ball settles into 23 or 27 or 26 or twentysomethingIdontfuckingcare. Afterwards, everyone that knows about the jackpot roulette bet want to know what number came up? It's the same as when I bust in a tourney. If I bust in 2nd place or on the bubble or first one out I remember. Otherwise, I don't give a shit. We lost, I don't know what number came up other than it started with a "2". From now on I'm going to tell people that it landed on "00". The fucking house rigged it because they were scared shitless of Andy Bloch and "The Worm" beating their wheel of idiocy. They probably figured that the Walmart people were part of our team and they didn't want to take a chance on any number coming up besides "00". So, you heard it hear first, even Andy Bloch can't beat roulette with a team because the house rigs the game. We hustle back to the tourney as quickly as we can. I get stopped by a guy in a wheelchair that asks "do you work here"?. I assure him that I do not. Andy points out that my shirt with the "Dick" nametag and my BARGE badge around my neck do make me look like an employee. I joke about going back and asking what he needs since I've spent too many hours in Binion's over the years (starting in about 1985 when I did play BJ and 7 card stud there). I can confirm that the place is open 24 hours/day, 7 days a week. Perhaps he needs change for $100 and I can just keep it? Of course, I would never win another hand at poker if I conned a guy in a wheelchair. We get back to the tournament and I prepare to bust out. -- Dean "MrBookworm" Kerl A++ G++ PKR+ PEG* B+ TB ADB M+++