In 1995 Tom Sims beat out 112 other people to win the NL hold’em tournament. Michael Buck took second, Doug Gifford finished 3rd. Gillian Groves won the blackjack tournament, Rudy Tatay finished second.
This was BARGE’s first year at Binion’s Horseshoe, as it was called at the time. BARGE would go on to spend most of the next 25 years almost exclusively at this same venue.
At the Symposium, held at the Plaza1, poker author Mason Malmuth spoke. This was the first invited speaker at any BARGE event. Chuck Weinstock notes: “I believe the catch phrase from Mason’s talk was “wrong” whenever he asked a question and it was answered.”
This was the first BARGE for eventual organizer Nick Christenson. This was also the first truly "organized" BARGE, by Mike Zimmers and Chuck Weinstock.
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It is not clear if “Symposium” had the conventional meaning, or if this was already a euphemism for “Calcutta” and we didn’t want to “taint” Binion’s Horseshoe. It is more likely Binion’s just could not handle this event. ↩︎