Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2013 01:34:01 -0800 From: Ken Kubey Subject: [BARGE] QB's 2013 Embargo Trip Report My second EMBARGO. "He doesn't know." Friday, January 25th. ---------------------------- Sandi and I take the bus to the airport. Nice flight attendant looks like Lauren Graham. Alamo. We get a Toyota Corolla. Wow this thing looks new. Check the odometer. 2 miles. Cool. Head to the Gold Coast to cash in some winning football bets. Thank you Falcons! Sandi has a comp and we eat at the Noodle place. Pretty good. Over to the Quad Hotel (Imperial Palace.) Can't find the parking lot to save my life. Sandi calls them. "Turn right into the construction site where the sign says "Employees Only." Thanks guys. Drag ourselves to Registration. Around 100 people in this line. I use the term "people" loosely. Trailer trash, gang bangers, maybe some of those Las Vegas sewer dwellers afraid to drown with rain in the forecast. Drive down to Binion's for the World Chowaha Championship. Say "hi" to Kyle, Oliver and other R00LERs. I'm at table 1, seat 4. I get a funny feeling about the seat. Sandi and I say "hi" to lots of people. Sandi and Adam chat for a long while. Around the table... John L., Joe, Dan G. Doug G., Kirk, me, Ryan T., Nick, Keith T. There was some funny comment about having the Troll/Troell brothers at the table. Dan has a book called _How_to_Swear_Around_the_World_. I can't remember any, but they were funny. Okay, I can remember one, but this is a PG report. Un makes some announcements on the mic and then tells a bad beat story. Instead of giving us each a dollar, he puts a $40 bounty on Bree who defeated him in this event last year. Keith bought my second drink. Easy way to make a QB trip report. He gives the waitress a dollar chip. As she delivers my drink, I attempt to give her another dollar. She refuses it. Whatever. I mention that I won't be playing in the HU (heads-up) tournament on Saturday. I say something about just not liking to play HU. Someone asks "But what do you do when you get heads-up in a tournament?" Before I can open my mouth, Nick comes back with: "He doesn't know." Laughter all around. Best line of the weekend. Rich Strauss comes by. He's about the 2nd or 3rd person out. This is quite unusual. I tell him about how I helped the Giants win the World Series by eating a Whopper before each of the last seven games. Giants record in those games? 7-0. I beat Ryan and Dan and then redistribute their chips to others. I bluff off most of my chips to David Low. I get out my Magic Dice shot glass bustout gift. Dan is eyeing it. I stay alive calling all-in with T2 in my BB. Dan is upset that he didn't play the hand to bust me. I tip the dealer $1 and tell Dan that I'm only tipping the dealer because he (Dan) is on tilt. Dan throws the dealer $2. I throw the dealer $1 and say "I call." Dan throws the dealer $2 more. I say "I fold." Laughter. Joe Long takes my last chips. I give him the shot glass and shake his hand. Sandi and I go out to Fremont Street to watch a show. We bump into Becca and Dean who have just driven six hours on a total whim to join us all in Vegas. The 7&7s were kicking in pretty good at this point. I give Becca a big hug and I'm pretty sure I hugged Dean too. Sandi and I have fun playing Bonus Sevens slots. Rich brought us some luck as we hit a $10 jackpot just as he came by. Sandi has a 2-for-1 at the deli and comps. We get two of the club sandwiches pretty much for free. We eat one there and finish the other one over the next day or so. If there's a better value than the club sandwich at Binion's, I want to hear about it. I check the tournament later. 5 players left. Patrick is in my seat. I tell him he is going to win it. And he does. After sobering up for a couple of hours, we drive back to the Quad. No parking at all. I drop Sandi off and end up parking at the Venetian. Walk back through a medium drizzle and swamp on the sidewalk. Yuck. Saturday, January 26th. ---------------------------- Head over to the Egg & I for breakfast with the gang. Larry B., his friend Claudia, Rodney, Nick, Mr. and Mrs. Heldar, Patrick, Linda L., Oz, Un, Mickdog, Russ, Fich, Tim M. and Ron. Oh, congrats to Ron on winning the DC tournament. I had the bacon, avocado and cheese omelette. Pretty good. Lively discussion about NetFlix and RedBox and other critical topics. Heard more about Rodney's brush with death. Glad he's okay. Thanks to the folks who picked up the tab. Chatted with Fich in the parking lot about goofy stuff on the BARGE list. Back to the Quad to collect Sandi. We play some slots and lose. Over to the Mirage where I have a comp. CPK pizza. Awesome. Then to the Flamingo to see insult comic Vinnie Favorito. If you don't like swearing or jokes about racial stereotypes, stay the hell away. This show was hilarious. Even the people in the crowd he was making fun of were laughing like crazy. Sunday, January 27th. ---------------------------- Later we cruise back down to Binion's at about 1:00 a.m. Sandi goes off to play slots. I try to get into a dealer's choice game. The table is full, but one lady appears to just be watching. I ask if I can take the seat. She agrees as her friends are going to leave soon. Pretty sure she is Ji. Anyway, the table goes ballistic with Nolan H. raising a lot. Oh gosh, who else was there? Masa, Scott S., Rich B. and a couple of others. I get stuck about $20. Ji kind of wishes she didn't give up her seat. I remind her that she is saving money as I'm now down $40. Crushed by Nolan in a huge hi-lo pot. Ugh. Down $90. I flop quad 9s. If I lose this pot, I'm leaving. I win. Yay. River a wheel. Turn broadway. Turn a heart flush. A new guy sits down at the other end of the table and loses $100 or so. In a semi-lucid moment he looks over and says "Is that a gopher on the table?" I explained that it is a gambling mouse. He seemed fine with that. Another $15 in pure profit from ring games. We park the car at the Flamingo and go to Bill's for breakfast. They have steak and eggs for about $7. We sign up for the slot club and get $5 comps. $4.30 for breakfast. Oh, pretty women everywhere. Shortest dresses possible. This one very pretty one was basically wearing a bra on top. Wow. There were probably young men around too, but I didn't notice. Sandi and I theorized that they were coming over from Caeser's. Is the club Pure? We asked our waiter. He tells us they are coming from the after hours club at Bill's. As we are walking out around 5:00 a.m., we see the club. There is *still* a line to get into the club. See more girls in short dresses outside freezing to death. Back to the Trailer Trash Inn to get some sleep. 2:00 p.m. I go to the Goldman's for the Embargo hangover party. Sandi bails on me. "All you guys do is talk about poker." Yeah, hard to deny that. She would have been bored after 45 minutes. See Patti for the first time all weekend. Carol too. I mostly stayed around the kitchen with Jeff, Patrick, Kenny, Ron and others. We talked about some different stuff, but mostly about poker, BARGE and Embargo. Congrats to Rich Strauss for winning the HU tournament. I wish I could have been there. I get a text from Sandi begging me to get over to the MGM. I bail out and completely forget to thank Dan. Thanks Dan. MGM. Walk the mile from the parking garage to find Sandi. We actually win playing some slots. Kristina texts us about a steak and lobster tail deal at the Orleans. I think it is over now. Anyway... $7.11. No comps this time, but pretty good food for little money. Palms. To gamble? No, to see a movie! "Django." If you like violence, blood, swearing and racist comments, this is the movie for you. Very entertaining. Up for Best Picture? I don't know about that. I guess they need nine nominees now. Oh, Quentin Tarantino is one sick MF. Monday, January 28th. ---------------------------- Go to the Rio to play slots. Back to the Quad one more time. Sleep. Construction guys are nice enough to start hammering on metal at about 8:00 a.m. I'm so tired it is just white noise. We pack up. I use my dad's famous line as we leave the Quad: "Take a good look at this place." Lunch at McDonald's. We have some extra time. Shockingly, Sandi wants to gamble. She wants to play blackjack so we go to Hooters for some $3 blackjack. She kicks ass winning about $30 in 30 minutes. Southwest. Oh gosh, I did it again. We have to go to Burbank, stay on plane and then to San Jose. Hard landing at Burbank. Less hard landing at SJC. Bus to home. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks to Binion's for hosting EMBARGO. I just love Binion's. If I ever hit the lottery, I'm buying the place. Thanks to Nick, Mickdog and Bree once again. I wish I had spent more time around Binion's, but Sandi and I had fun running around all over Las Vegas. Great to see so many friends. Sorry I missed seeing a few of you. -- Ken Kubey