Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 07:42:22 -0700 (PDT) From: David Aronson Subject: [BARGE] Meee's BARGE trip report part 2 Meee's trip report, part 2 of 3?. More letters to Sarah Friday, Aug 2, 2013 at 10:44 AM Subject: Hi from LV Dear Sarah, Hi! Its been a wild couple of days here, so I didn't get a chance to write to you. Besides, Mom said you were on your 3-day trip and wouldn't get the emails anyway, so you weren't missing anything. Today is Friday morning at 8am, and breakfast before the TOC poker tournament is set for 9:15. Yesterday was Thursday, a day off from BARGE tournaments for us. Instead, we had a pre-CHORSE (team poker event) breakfast with everyone from Team Jam (that's us) -- Mom and I, Deron, Janie, Dean and Rod. Rod was subbing in from Rebecca, who I thought was out because she wasn't feeling well. We ate at the Magnolia coffee house in the 4 queens and figured out who would play which games. CHORSE is an acronym for C = Crazy Pinapple (Rod) H = Hold 'em (Mom) O = Omaha 8 or better (Janie) R = Razz (Deron) S = Seven card stud (Dean) E = Eight or better 7 card stud (Me) Then we all went to Binions to play in the event. We lost some chips is the first few rounds, then made a furious comeback at the end. Mom had a great last round at hold 'em, getting some good cards and playing hard. Dean unfortunately lost our stud/stud8 chips at that table, so I didn't get to play the last round. Rod made a miracle low at pinapple and we might have won the whole thing, except on the very last hand his 6's full house lost to kings full. So we ended up losing $5 each for the three hours, including tips. Then we drove to I Love Sushi. Once again, the best sushi ever. Asya set up the event, and Ben brought his usual collection of outstanding saki for people to try. Mom always does the saki tasting, and this year was as good as ever. Then we came back to the hotel and crashed at 4pm. My back stiffened up so I was unable to do the craps crawl, but Mom went out and had fun with Peter S. and Aron L. They won at Binions, didn't play at the California, but lost at Main Street station. I hear it was a good time. Then Mom lost at bubble craps and pai gow, and finally came back to the room at 1am. The day before that was Wednesday. It started with us getting to the Egg and I for 8am beakfast at 8:35, due to us not getting to bed until 3am. The food was as outsanding and plentiful as ever. I had my usual chicken brocolli skillet with bannan nut muffin, and mom had a nice egg white omelette. Wonderful, as always. Then as an added bonus suprise, Bob O picked up the check for everyone. Thanks Bob! We were going to do archery next, but we had little sleep and nobody else wanted to go and it was 100 degrees out and we needed to change hotels from Main Street to the Golden Nugget, so we canceled the trip to archery. Instead, we changed hotels and did a little gambling at the El Cortez. Then we got back to the room and got ready for dinner. Dinner was the re-creation of an old BARGE staple, the Mirage buffet. Now quite expensive at $32 per person, but pretty good food. There were about 14 of us in all, at 3 tables. Thanks to Bob H for suggesting this event. We at with Regis and Claudia, who later scored some 2 for 1 coupons due to an odd waitress. After telling everyone the fastest route back, we headed back to the GN. I was playing in the 7:30pm tourney, the 6 game event. Mom wasn't, so she slept. I played, and played, and played. I kept getting good hands. I scooped some Razzdugi hands when I didn't even know what my dugi was. When I had the best hand people called, and when I might not have they folded. Then it was down from 85 startes to 15 at 12:30am. I played and played some more, and got lucky to win at Omaha against Tracy, and had a lot of chips. At 2am we reached the final table, with 3 Davids at it. There was also a Randy, a Peter, a Michael, a Paul and a Ronald. We played and played, and then David L got hot and started busting people left and right. I still had a lot of chips and stayed out of his way. He wiped them all out until it was just him and I. Then he wiped me out, mostly at razz, and I came in second place. Woo Hoo! We finished at 3am (Mom and Deron and Ann had watched for the last two hours), then got to bed at 5am. Thank goodness for no golf the next day at 6am! More about Tuesday later. Hope you had a great trip. Love, Dad ------ Saturday, Aug 3, 2013 at 11:08 am LV Sat Morn EMail From: David Aronson To: Sarah Aronson G3 Hi Again, I know I owe you Tuesday, but now it is Saturday so Friday is fresh in my head. So I'll do Friday first. Deron got coupons to the Goldon Nugget buffet for breakfast, so we had a semi-syndicate breakfast there at 9:15. The attendees discussed what would happen at 3pm depending if they were still playing in the TOC tourney (Stud, Omaha 8 and Hold 'em). Mom had a nice omelette, and I had scrambled eggs. Then the tournament started at 10:30. I had a fun table with George W and Ryan T and Dave O at my end. The cards were not too friendly at our end, with Mark H winning a ton of chips early. All the good hands I was getting on Tuesday (I know, we haven't done Tuesday yet) I was not getting on Friday. Just tons of unplayable omaha hands, junk hold 'em hands, and any time I had a decent stud staring hand the cards I needed were all out already so there was no chance of playing them. But we started with a bunch of chips, so it wasn't until 2:00 that things got desperate. Ron G was doing well, and so was Rick B. I got lucky on an Omaha hand and made a flush on the river to double up against Chris J? to near the starting stack. Then I got most of my chips in with KK34. It looked like I might win half of the pot with the KK until the board paired 6's and Michael M turned up with a 6. Oh well. My last chips went on 44 in hold'em in a 6 way pot that included AA. No 4 on the board and I got to go the 3pm Calcutta on time. Mom was still in though, with a string of miracle all in's that included a royal flush in hearts. The rest of Friday started with a calcutta where you buy teams of 3 in the Saturday No Limit tourney and hope they cash. Steve M, John M, Deron B and did our best Michael B impersonation (Michael couldn't make it to BARGE this year -- missed ya bigtime) and bought a bunch of teams. Then was the symposium where Stanford Wong answerd questions about how to win at gambling. After that Mom and I played in a cash game with a bunch of bargers. Mom lost all her chips, and I managed to stay around even. Then we went up to karaoke with a bunch more bargers. Keven Un made everyone cry, John M made everyone cry for a different reason. Nolan D can sing. So can Asya and Ben, and Heldar's wife Andrea. I made a new friend and now I can't remember his name -- it starts with a K -- wait, I'm pretty sure it was Karl. Afterwards, Mom won at bubble craps and the cash game. I watched the $500 hoser tourney a bit with Deron. Bill C busted in 4th. On the way back to the room we talked with Chic. Then sleep. I hope this is less than 50 lines. Are you having a great time still? Pencil flute? Gotta go to breakfast before the NL. Will get to Tuesday sometime, I hope. Love, Dad.