Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 12:42:47 -0700 From: Ken Kubey Subject: [BARGE] QB's 2013 BARGE Trip Report The story of my eighteenth BARGE. "I get by with a little help from my friends." Wednesday, July 31st. ----------------------- Sandi drops me at SJC and I fly down to Vegas. No Sandi or Kristina this year as they are both starting new jobs. Flight and shuttle to Four Queens Hotel are nice and boring. --- Check in. Crappy room. TV and shower work. Good enough for me. A/C unit is loud, but it is like white noise. I think it actually helped me get to sleep. --- Oldbear is the first BARGEr sighted as I step off the elevator. --- Get my badge at Binion's and sit down to play some poker. Dan Goldman beats me like a rented mule. Thankfully the game breaks before I lose a full rack of chips. Get in another game and finally the cards recognize the talent. Mike Paull keeps complaining about how terrible it is that such a great payer (Mike) is down so much in this game. He also thanks us for contributing to his Social Security income. Carol thinks that Gambo is a bunny! I have to admit that looking at his profile, he does look a bit like a bunny. He was also mistaken for a rat and a gopher during the trip. I gather in chips from many friends. Carol takes the worst of it. Somehow I'm only down $25 when the game breaks around 4:00 a.m. --- Starving, I go to the snack bar for a club sandwich. Like an idiot, I pay cash instead of using my comps. Eat the potato salad and half the sandwich and head back to the 4Q. Put the container on top of a bucket of ice and go to sleep. Thursday, August 1st ---------------------- Wake up around 9:00 a.m. and do a little salute to Kevan, Gerdog, North Shore and Oldbear who are probably on the 14th hole of The Death March (BARGE golf outing). I just couldn't deal with the idea of a $50 club rental. --- All week I will be wearing my Ed Baker collection t-shirts. Thursday is one with a picture of a Barge (the boat) and the words: "I am a BARGE and I am drinking." In my 2012 trip report, I meant to type "I'm at BARGE and I'm drinking." Baker saw that I left the "t" off of "at" and sent me a t-shirt a few days later. --- Somewhere in here Patrick gives me a near-mint beige PokerStars baseball cap to replace the one I lost rafting. Thanks. I later gave Patrick a pair of BARGE dice. --- A week earlier, I e-mailed Chuck and a couple of other guys to tell them that Sandi and Kris were not going to make it to BARGE this year. When I first see Chuck at BARGE, he walks up right up and says: "You are dead to me." --- 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. Each player gets 4 cards... Oh never mind. Have a couple Crazy Pineapple drinks (pineapple juice, vodka and Amaretto). We are wearing our moose hats and we have moose Beanie Babies at each table. Makes it easier to find our spots. Barry "Mr. Raise" Kornspan is playing at a table nearby. I overhear Chis O'Conner say "Mr. Raise? More like 'Mr. Call' if you ask me." Talked to Ron Nutt, Betty and others. Randy hands me my chip sampler sets. In case you have not seen these, Paul McM, Scottro, Peter S., Nolan D., Kevin Un, J.P., Patti and Ken Kubey are immortalized in cartoon form on these chips. As I told Randy, I am pleased to make it onto a BARGE chip without having died. Oh, as usual I'm a pin pimp for Patrick and make my first sale to Larry Stone. His Calcutta Comment was about Deb Hersman. You know, the NTSB woman? Anyway, Larry shows me a cell phone pic of her and some conference he attended. Pretty cool. Somewhere in here I see Lynsy. So glad she has made it back to BARGE. --- Final Omaha round. I play AsJd7s4c. Flop smacks me right in the chops. Kh-Qs-Ts. I have a straight with my AJ *and* the nut spade flush draw with my As7s. I bet, Howler calls. Turn is a complete blank (unimportant card). 6d maybe? I bet my last chips. Howler calls. He turns up a very similar hand to mine. He also has AJ and a smaller flush draw. Quickly I say "Spade!" as the dealer is about to put out the river. River Ks. Yes! I do a little fist pump, but then they push the pot to Howler. Wait. What? He has the Js and 9s to make a straight flush. Arrgghhhhhh. Luckily, fellow Moose, Asya has been on a rampage at her table and has won a ton of chips for our team and gets us back ahead for the day! WTG Asya! --- Pot-Limit Omaha High tournament. Also known as PLO. This is a little bit like Texas hold'em. Heh. There is a 3-card flop, a turn and a river. Big difference is that each player starts with *four* cards and must play exactly two from his or her hand and three cards from the board. Betting is pot-limit meaning you can bet pretty much any amount up to what is in the pot at the moment. More confusion... we each start the tournament with 1000 in chips and three orange lammers (small chips). The lammers can be used to get another 1000 in chips each. Weird rule is that these lammers can be used at any time. Most tournaments have a cut off. Bored to death? Sorry. Let's play Omaha! --- Around the table starting at seat 1. Me, Trombley, Warren, Byron, Rick M., Mr. Raise, Ron G. and Dianne P. Early on I flop a boat with Presto! (55). I bust Ron when he makes a straight on the turn. Ron uses a lammer to get another 1000 in chips. A few hands later I bust Ron again and I think I took some more of his chips later. Anyway, I'm off to a flying start. Scott Byron is at the table and just tortures me. After that, any time he raises, the cards explode out of my hands as I fold as quickly and violently as possible. I have a wonderful hand... AA98ds (double suited) and bust Warren. I call an all-in from Russ with AJ62ds (double suited) and beat him when I catch a club flush. Russ is one of the few people I actually "hold over" in tournaments. Russ uses his last lammer. With KKxy I bust Russ on a K-high flop. Russ tosses me a BARGE Chip Committee bounty chip. On one side it says "I GO HOME NOW" and then "But I'll be BACK." Nice! I beat Ross Poppel on one hand and he instructs me to write that in my notes. We discuss that if I bust Ross, I can just put in my trip report that I busted R*ss. Ross suggests the more specific R?ss. UNIX/Linux fans will get this. Another KKxy hand and I bust Adam. --- I get moved to a new table: Paul G., Carol, Rich B., Bayes, Paul Fischman (what a name), Bryan J., me and Nolan D. Notes are a little sketchy here. I think the waitress brings me the wrong drink. I say "That's a strange one." Someone fires back: "You can handle it." It was really funny. Trust me. I still have all three of my re-buy lammers. Bryan says "I was the lammer leader till you showed up... bastard." More laughter. Rich Bremmer is a short stack for once and goes all-in with JJxy. I have 5574s and make the call. Flop a 4 and turn a 4 to bust Rich. As a bust-out gift, he puts a Mardi Gras-style necklace around my neck. It has different color beads and also A-K-Q-J-10 poker hands. I wore the necklace for the rest of BARGE and got random compliments from people in elevators, on Fremont Street, etc. Oh, the drinks. I'm drinking those Pineapple, vodka, Amaretto drinks all through this tournament. Sorry mom. Sorry Sandi. Had to be somewhere around 10 over seven hours. Oh, the waitresses were just awesome all week. Smiling, laughing, and making an effort to not miss orders. Just terrific. With my lucky Ed Baker shirt and lucky Rich Bremmer necklace, the roll continues. 8875ds and bust Stephen Wood. Hey, I busted Sander and Wood. Ha. Stephen gives me a pretty $3 1st anniversary chip from Lucky Chances. That's a cardroom in Colma near San Francisco. Bryan Juliano say to me "I hate having you on my left." I my 30+ years of playing poker in cardrooms, I don't think anyone has ever said that to me before. A great compliment. --- The Big Hand. ------------- I have AsAh8d6d and put in a raise. Murray puts in a huge re-raise. Wow, I hate this. Murray could have the other two aces and could have better diamonds. I'm sure he has to have some double suited monster to make this play against me. I took more time to think about this play than perhaps any other in over 10 years. I'm trying to avoid making terrible folds, so I finally say "Let's gamble." and put in the rest of my chips. Murray has just about the horror show I expect. QcQdJcJd. He has my 8d6d flush draw covered. He can kill me with a queen, jack, a club flush, diamond flush or all sorts of high straights. Let me use Maurer's simulator to run these hands... I win 54.5% of the time. Murray wins 45.5% of the time. Close. My aces hold up and now I have a lot of chips. Fellow Moose Murray is crippled. That makes me feel bad. --- A line from Becca that I won't explain: "QB, you just wanted my boob." --- Another AAxy hand and I bust Larry B. AAxy suited in spades. Get in a jam up with Tom White. He has AAxy suited in hearts. Monstrous pot. Even money shot. Flop contains two hearts. Oh no. Turn heart. Rats! I still have a small stack of chips and those lammers. --- Make it to the final table: Tom, Corey, Janie, me, Rich S., Paul F., Kyle, Dan G. and David Low. Dan and I agree to split (chop) the ADB last-longer. Dan is just running over us. Paul has KKTx and busts Janie when he turns a straight. Kyle goes out next. Then out of nowhere Dan loses two big hands and goes from 2nd chip leader to the rail. AA84s and call Paul's all-in. He has something like KQTX with clubs. I see a beautiful ace in the window of the flop. The turn makes things very scary as Paul can win with a jack or a club. Anyone want to guess the river card? Jack of clubs. Ouch. Rich B. says to me "You played that as well as you could have." High praise from a former BARGE champ. I have almost no chips now. Corey survives 362 billion all-ins. David Low survives two all-ins. Now (as I have planned from hours earlier), I am going to use my re-buy lammers one at a time and try to move up from 6th place to 5th place. I lose a hand with queens full of eights vs. queens full of nines. Use another lammer. Low is low. I decide to just fold all on my non-blind hands now in hopes of moving up one more spot. David Low finally does go out in 6th place. I have to use my last lammer and now am actually at risk of being knocked out of the tournament. I'm excited when I river a ten-high straight, but Corey has a jack-high straight to bust me. I give him a light-up shot glass and a hand shake. 5th place. $555. Double Presto! My 2nd best cash in a BARGE event. GamboMouse says "Squeak!" --- Good to see my pal Rich Strauss win the tournament. Great text message from Sandi... "Ooo! Congrats to U & Lucky Ass Rich!!" I wanted to go to dinner with Rich and others, but I only had a few minutes to get ready for... --- ADB Craps Crawl at 10:30 p.m. Rush over to my room. Stuff away most of my bankroll (I'm a genius), grab my ADB hat and meet up with a huge group of craps players at the corner of Binion's. Pretty sure this was the biggest turnout for craps ever. Must be the early start time. --- I can't get a spot at a table. Tired of mixed drinks, I get a beer football for $9. --- North Shore takes a spot next to me at a table at Main Street. We are having a great time. We are yelling and high-fiving. Some BARGEr at the next table yells "Hey, quiet over there." North Shore fires back "Pipe down. We're gambling over here." Maybe the best line of the week. After being down all night, I rally back to a $1 win. Out of beer and tired, I cashed out. I saw lots of friends at the craps tables. No chance I can name you all, but I remember Steven Markowitz, Alan Veach, Bingo (winning big), Brenda, Diana and Paul, Aaron, Peter, Wood, Chuck, Kenny and many others. Friday, August 2nd. -------------------- Wake up call for 7:00 a.m. The BARGE Fun Run. Runners: Joe Long, David Lawful, Cliff Mathews, Ron G., Mickdog and me. John Moeser was out there, but he was just going for a walk. Joe's wife Kat is there too. I think someone had a "Cat in the Hat" hat with them. There was some joke about "Kat in the hat." We jog at a stupid-slow pace for the first couple of hundred yards. We pick it up to about 5 mph (12 minute miles) for the rest of the run. We do two laps around, about two miles. No one wants to quit, so we take off on the Nolan spur. Total time was 51:40. We did about four miles. If you are worried that you are too slow of a runner to join us, don't be. Come on out next year. You can quit after one mile or two miles if you get tired. Thanks again to Ron for organizing the run. One of my favorite events. --- Joe is going to McDonald's for breakfast. Wow that sounds good. I have no money on me, but Joe is willing to cover me. Joe wins a free quarter pounder coupon in the Monopoly game. Since Joe is a Pescetarian, I get that too. R00Ling! I later tried to pay Joe the $2 for my breakfast, but he refused the money. Thanks Joe. --- Later, Cliff gave each of us a pair of running socks. Thanks! --- TOC tournament The Ed Baker shirt: "Sanity Depends on the BARGE list." The table: Bozo, Joe, Paul Stine, Byron, Steve W., Tina, Nolan D., Landrum, me. Very early on, I get a cell phone call from Sandi and miss one hand. As I'm walking back to the table, my cell rings again. A guy from work. Arrgghhh. Tell him I'm on vacation in Las Vegas and we agree to talk on Monday. Get back to the table semi-tilted. Cell phone starts ringing again!!! It is freakin' Steve Watanabe calling me from seat 5 across the table. Ha. I say "Where's the 'Ignore' button on this thing?" Later I call Steve back, but he says he has my calls blocked. LOL. Landrum is playing Candy Crush on his phone. I had never seen the game before. I learn from Tina and Steve that many people pay money to get extra lives and special features in this otherwise free game. Unbelievable! I have a pair of BARGE dice on the table. Nolan wants to gamble. He puts up $5 to my $20 that he can roll a 7. Joe and Paul hold their arms out to form a wall at the end of the table. Nolan rolls. One die hops up over the "wall" and Nolan calls "No Roll!" just before the die lands. Of course the total is 7, so Nolan R00LZ himself out of $20. I win the bet on the next fair roll. Yay. Gotta love Nolan. Stephen Blackstock runs me down on some hand. I ask him "What was your nickname again?" Nolan later makes this comment about Tina... "She hasn't raised since the Carter administration." I play AA35s in an Omaha round and bust Tina. She give me these "sex dice." You roll three dice and then you are supposed to do whatever weird act comes up. Still sealed at the moment. --- New table: Me, Paul, Karl, Adam, Mickdog, JP, Regis, Russ and Bob Jones. I win a stud hand with two pair: JJ44 and say "After Michael left the band." Rick Becker joins the table and shows me the round dice he has. Very cool. They are spheres, but are weighted so numbers show when they come to a stop. --- I'm have made my syndicates selections for the Calcutta, but oddly I am still in the tournament. Hand off my picks to Rich and Bob and they rush upstairs. The tournament is halted for the Symposium. I meet up with Rich and Bob and they tell me the failed pretty badly. They only won three auctions, nine horses. I say that's fine with me. Less horses, less money out the window. I just want some people to root for. The speaker is Stanford Wong who is a well-known expert on blackjack and many other gambling games. I've known his name for 20 years. Only in the last week did I learn it is a pen name and that he is actually a white guy who went to Stanford. I resist the urge to boo when "Stanford" is introduced. He does a short talk and then answers questions for the next 30 minutes. Pretty entertaining. --- Back to the tournament. 12 places paid. About 30 players left. I'm folding away as usual. Three ADB players left. Stud round. I have an ace up. Opponents have many low and similar up cards. Looks like a good spot to steal the antes. Ron brings it in, I raise. My plan is foiled when Gillian and Ron call. I make a pair and keep firing. I bet the 5th card still hoping for them to fold. Ron does. On the 6th card, Gillian catches a 3rd diamond. I've put her on a flush draw from the start. I check, she bets 2000. Rats. I have just 2100 left. Pot is around 12,000. If she has the flush, I'm out. If she has two pair, I'm very live. I put my last chips in and make aces and eights. I guess that really *is* the dead man's hand. Gillian has the flush and gets an ice cube tray of card suits as my bust out gift. To make me look good, Gillian went on to destroy the rest of the field in winning the TOC. Yay! --- Go with Jeff S., Adam B. and Rich S. to the bar and grill place at Main Street. Great food. I make the mistake of mentioning Snowden and we are off to the races talking politics. No fatalities and we are all still friends. Woo. Rich is replaced by Bob as we go over to The D to check out dancing dealers and the crazy gambling going on at the Sigma Derby. This is an old mechanical horse race game. Scott S. was hosting. Fun to watch people hooting and hollering as they watch plastic horses race around the oval. I believe Kenny won the event. --- About here I spot a Big Wheel game at the Golden Nugget. This is the huge wheel with different dollar amounts 1 to 20 and a couple of 40 slots. $2 a spin now? Grumble. Bet $2 on 1. Lose. Martingale. Bet $3 on 1. Lose. Grumble. Martingale. Bet $6 on 1. Win!! Ryan Troll just happens to walk by to witness my huge payday. --- Earlier I talked to Connie. She had gotten two nice free slot play coupons by playing at Binion's. You swipe your card after 5 points ($40 of play) to get the first and then again after 40 points ($320 of play.) Okay, let's play slots. I try the Bonus Sevens machines near the slot club. They suck. 75 cents a spin. Lose $10 to get to 5 points. Swipe. I get a gift! A bungee cord for my slot card? Are you serious? I have like 10 of those at home. Sandi probably has 30 or 40. Every other place gives those away free when you get your card. On tilt, I go to the better Bonus Sevens machines over near the snack bar and cashier. I'm rolling on these. After I hit a good jackpot, I switch to a 2nd machine. Hit a jackpot there and switch back to the 1st. I get five Bonus Sevens and get to spin. $50 top prize. I'm happy to hit $30. Also get three flaming 7s on the other machine for an instant $20 win. Finish the session up $23. Maybe a little more with coins. I R00L. --- I walk by the $500 HOSER tournament. Rich Bremmer hands me $10. I forgot that I bet the "under" on the number of players. The line was around 24. Only 15 or 16 actually played. Still a good turnout at $500 per person. Congrats to Scott Byron, Monte and Lennie. Wow, two traditionally unlucky players and a drunk in the money. Ha! Also want to give credit to Jeff S. for getting this thing going. --- Sit down is a ORE game. O = Omaha, E = Stud Eight of Better R = Razzdugi. I won't even attempt to explain that game. I lose about $35 in 5 seconds playing stud hi/lo. Then I get dealt a cool hand. 88-8. Only one 8 showing. This is called being rolled up. I just call on the first betting round to let everyone in. Next card is a 4s. I'm showing 8s4s and raise. It looks like I might be going for a low or a flush or both. Next card is no help, but I bet anyway. On the 6th card, I catch the case 8. Sweet! I bet, bunch of calls. River. Who cares? I bet, call, local guy raises $2 more all-in. Pete S. calls. I can only call. Local has a full house. Pete missed a low, but has a flush. My four of a kind scoops a *huge* pot. I went from down $35 to up about $70. --- Local is replaced by a new player. His pal is sitting behind him. The new guy has no business playing with us. In Omaha-8, he raises about 5 times with set of 6s when a straight is possible. He wins half the pot. Later he loses a ton of chips with two pair when it is obvious that there is a flush out. The game is getting very slow as the dealer has to explain *every* time that he has to put in $6 to call or $12 to raise. On a J-5-5 flop, a BARGEr has JJ. Tons of raises. Queen on the turn. More raises. Could he have QQ? He does. He scoops a monstrous pot. Sick. I decide to leave the game. I could lose a ton back. Also, I'd almost feel bad beating this guy. Further, the game is about to change from Omaha (that resembles a normal poker game) to Razzdugi which is a low-low game with lots of weird rules. I don't want to see it. --- Long story short, the guy loses back $100 before Murray convinces his pal to pull the new guy out of the game while he still has chips. Murray R00LZ! --- Drop by Karaoke a couple of times. Joe Long does a good song. Spend 10 minutes running insulting jokes from Murray to Un and back to Murray. Something about length of body parts and what one should do to himself if only he had... well, you can figure it out. Saturday, August 3rd. --------------------- The BARGE NL (No-Limit) event. 144 players. WSOP and TARGET are important to me, but this is *the* tournament I'd really like to do well in. Ed Baker shirt has a B.C. cartoon. Interviewer asks Wiley if he has any vices. "No Ma'am." Any hobbies? "I like drinking and gambling." A certain BARGEr wants to take GamboMouse's measurements! I realize I left Gambo back in the room. Rush back across the street and then back to Binion's. Whew! Around the table... Paul M., Dorje, Mickdog, Randall, Grizz, Patrick, Prock, me and Chic. Later, a guy named Bob is moved to our table. I swear I know this guy. Turns out he is a dealer from the Mirage. He has dealt TARGET several times. I fold "4Q" which I mention is my hotel. Bob says that I should have called to see if the dealer would flop my room number! --- Find JZK and give him a "HOLD" button from Garden City. RIP GC. --- Prock asks Fich why he is moving to Florida. Fich: "Because that's where the house I bought is." --- I'm drinking those Pineapple things and losing. Try 7&7s. No good. Decide my BAC is too damn low. Switch to Long Island Ice Tea. That does the trick. --- First break. Walk quickly to the restroom. Spot John Lloyd for the first and only time all trip. Notes say "John in john." I crack myself up sometimes. --- KK and jam it up vs. 2012 champ, Paul McMullin who has QQ. Flop a K. Yay! 99, raise and call a jam from Adam R. 99 holds up. A5o and open-raise. Get two calls. Flop is K-7-6. Callers check to me. Pretty good chance they missed that flop with AJ or QJs or something so I push all-in. Mickdog calls (trapping) with KQo. Oh no. I start packing up as I pick up a straight draw with a 3 on the turn. A beautiful ace hits on the river and I sit back down. I feel bad for putting a beat on Mickdog, but he has already had some good success earlier in the week, so I get over it. --- Later I raise with 88. Randall jams. BTW, had never played or talked much with Randall before. He's a good guy. I say "A better player would call here." as I fold. Someone instructs me to write that down. --- Goldie pays off our $10 last-longer! Yes! --- AQs raise and call Dorje's all-in with 33. Ace in the window. I bust him. BTW, this year's Virgin class was small but still a good one. Hope you all return. --- Randall pushes all-in wit JJ. I find KK in the BB and call. A-2-3-4-A. Randall gives me a neat bust-out gift which includes mini bottles of Jameson and Crown Royal. Very cool. --- Around here, North Shore and agree I split the ADB last-longer. --- I get a "walk from Prock." I think that rhymes. Others argue. A week later and sober, I still think it rhymes. I give the dealer $2. --- Randy Collack says "It's kinda outta character for you to be drinking." Laughter. Note that I abbreviated "you to be" as U2B. I R00L. --- Gerdog says "Grains a grain." I think we were talking about food groups. --- Players are busting left and right. We are down to 19. 16 places pay. My big blind. Folded around to Andrew Prock in the SB. I'm holding $2 out toward the dealer as I will give it to him/her if I get a walk from Prock. No such luck. Prock raises. Andrew has been the most aggressive player at the table all day. He will raise here with almost any hand knowing that I play pretty tight. He's only folding complete trash (72, 83, 82, 93, etc.) I look down and find A9o. Not the greatest hand, but it clearly crushes Andrew's range of raising hands. I'm flying pretty high and feeling great. I say "all-in" as I push my chips forward. Prock says "I call." with no hesitation. This is not good news. My buzz is instantly gone. Side note: I doubt anyone had more fun than me this day up to this point. He flips up AQo and says "I would have done the same thing." meaning I made the proper play given the situation. My head goes down. I watch the board run out with nothing interesting. I'm out of the BARGE NL tournament in 19th. I hand "The TV Cartoon Trivia Book" over to Prock as my bust out prize and shake his hand. --- With 18 players left, our table breaks and the player rush to find their seats at the other two tables. I put GamboMouse, my dice, note sheet and pen away and then slump over in my chair. Elbows on my knees, right hand holding my left wrist, head down on my right wrist. I stay like that for about five minutes just trying to breathe and take in the disaster. I am devastated. Maybe there is a better word, but that's the one that came to mind. I know some friends were nearby, but I was glad no one came over right then. I don't think I could have gotten a word out. Apparently busting right near the bubble is not a good thing for me to do. --- After I stand up, Peter can tell I'm in bad shape. He hands me $85 which is my share of the ADB last-longer. That helps a little. Rich Bremmer has a comp at the steak house that he wants to use. Peter, Bruce Kramer and I join him for drinks. I have a couple of very good orange flavored beers. Kinda like Blue Moon. I feel a little better as we march over to the BARGE banquet. --- Rich S. and Bob H. save a seat for me. Patrick, Eileen and Hack are also at the table. We have two free drink tickets. I get two Heinekens. George fails to cut me in line. There is some fun stuff at the table including Eileen getting Gambo to drink beer. Un's song was very good. I only drink part of one beer and for the first time I can remember in over 40 year, lose my appetite. I eat a roll, salad and a few bites of prime rib. I looking at the beautiful dessert, but have no energy or desire to even try it. Special commendations to several people: Bremmer, Bruce K., Peter, Steve W., Diana, Rodney, Eileen, Patrick, Hack, Bob and Rich for being so nice from the time of my bust-out to after the banquet. I hope I didn't forget anyone. My memory of the banquet is quite hazy. I mention to Diana that I'm planning on being at the next 50 BARGEs so I will have other chances to make the money in the NL tournament. I'd like to amend that... I plan to be at *at least* the next 50 BARGEs. Rich, Bob and I walk back over to the Four Queens. At this point, I am more tired than anything else and I take a great nap for a couple of hours. George Bailey has nothing on me. --- I woke up feeling *so* much better. Still felt like crap, but much, much better crap. Walked over to the poker room. Congratulated our new champ, David Lawful on his second win of the week. WTG David! Had a good talk with Tony about karma, superstitions, etc. Being a rational person, he doesn't really buy into these things. While discussing superstitious slot players, I mentioned that you can really spot a slot player who is on a bad run when they use the handle to bet instead of the buttons. Tony gets a big smile on his face. I have a funny feeling that even he has used the handle at some point. Talk with a lot of other people, but am still too wiped out to play or drink. Just drinking water. Yeah, yeah. --- Go over to the snack bar for another club sandwich. Scott Byron joins me at the counter. I've known Scott for close to 20 years, but I think this is the first time we've talked for more than two minutes. He's such a nice guy. Sunday, August 4th. ------------------- I wake up too late for the Bill Chen talk, but I head over there just in case. Instead of 30 minutes, I believe Bill went on for close to 90 minutes, so I did catch 20 or 30 minutes. We shook hands afterwards. --- Go with Bill, the Heldars, Bob, Bigboy and Kenny to the Egg and I. After waiting a while, we finally decide to get two tables. Kenny, Bob and I are at one. We talk about different stuff. Food was great. We do credit card roulette for the bill. Thanks Bob! --- Bob H. drives us over to the Goldman's where we play Cards Against Humanity. What a great game. Totally sick. Have a bourbon slushie. I hope the Goldman's hold a patent. Two hours went by in a flash. Bob and I are booked on the same flight, so we say our good-byes and head for the airport. Back in San Jose, Bob's wife is stuck in traffic. Sandi arrives to pick me up and Bob gets to collect on a hug Sandi has owed him from BARGE 2012. --- Gambling... craps: won $1. big 6 wheel: won $1. blackjack: DNP because BFB. live poker: won $34. slots: won $23. tournaments: won, lost and lost. Up $200+. last-longers: won or chopped all but TOC roshambo: DNP. I know I left a lot of people out of this report. Next year, lose more money to me so I'm sure to mention you. Missed all of my friends who didn't make it this year. A few names... JR, Bevan, Bullbert, Ed, Tanya, Jacobs, Scottro, MadMary, Frank, Shari, Lee, James, Leslie, Quick, Crunch, Fruchter, Chow, Stephanie, MPH, Rafn, Tahajian, Ming, Harry, Perry, Sippy, Kuntz, Kuznicks, Rick, Razzo, Jensen, Bill, The Duck, John, Dave and David. I'm sure there are many more. Do whatever you need to do. Frame your spouse for a crime, Have your children kidnapped, cash in your 401K, rob a bank, blackmail your co-workers. Do not miss BARGE. Thanks again to Binion's, the Home of BARGE. The dealers and waitresses were better then ever this year. Of course the guys that run the tournaments were great too. --- Kubey's 2013 MVB (Most Valuable BARGEr) Award: In a close vote, the winner is... Kevin Un. There was even talk of renaming the whole event to UnBARGE. Mickdog, Nick and Bree did their usual terrific job. I don't even want to think about all of the stuff that has to go on before BARGE and behind the scenes to make this all come off so damn well every year. Thank You, Thank You, Thank You! Patrick kicks ass again with badges, pins, structure sheets, hard copy BAAG. Rodney with the great pictures again. Thanks to the person that delivered mine. Peter and Chuck R00L. Others who ran events, etc. Asya, Bob O., Kenny, Scott S., Kevan, Ron, Goldie, Bingo, Dan, Sharon, Bill C. and anyone else I'm forgetting. Thanks also to all the other people who make BARGE go. --- Can I sign up for BARGE 2014 now? Ken Kubey kubey@sgi.com (510) 933-5335 -- Ken Kubey kenkubey@gmail.com