The story of my first BARGE.

Thursday August 1st

Fly to Vegas from San Jose. Chuck meets me at the airport. We go to meet Steve and Jeri Jacobs as their flight is coming in. I pick Steve out of the crowd. Steve Jacobs looks like Steve Jacobs. We go to Horseshoe to check-in. Someone hugs me from behind. Thankfully, it is one of the few female rec.gamblers and not some drunken computer geek. Off to the Mirage Buffet.

Back to Binion’s for the Video Poker tourney.
I’m seated next to Derek Franks. Derek played incredibly fast. He looked like a courtroom stenographer. I managed to stay close to Derek and could see that I was ahead of others near me. He finished going through his 400 hands with 11 minutes left to go (for those not there, quite a few players still had unplayed credits after the 30 minutes were up). I was in 3rd place, but there was still another flight of 20 players. I figured 5th or 6th place was mine. Luckily for me, no one in the 2nd flight could beat my score. I took third place and more importantly, got a very cool BARGE jacket.

Next, I played in a pot-limit game. Monte was on my right and was drinking double Stoli-cranberries as fast as the waitresses could bring them. I usually drink 7&7’s (if I’m drinking), but decided to try a double Stoli-cranberry. What an awesome drink! You cannot taste the vodka. I had two and had a nice little headache the next day. The game broke down at about 5:45am. I was up $90, but never had a big hand good or bad.

Friday August 2nd

Slept through the free breakfast, but managed to stagger downstairs for the 21 tournament. Someone asks me how I’m doing. I tell him “I slept like a dead hooker.” I made a nice blunder on about the 3rd hand when I actually hit a hard 18. And I was sober! Jeez.
I win a big double down with 5 minutes left and have a shot on the last hand. I bet 500, get an 11, double down, but lose. I would have made the 2nd round if I had gotten a face card. Oh well.

I go with Doc, Lisa, and Brian to ride the big roller coaster at Stateline. Well worth the $4. The first drop is amazing. Brian angles us into going to Burger King. Have I ever eaten a healthful meal in Nevada?

Back to the Union Plaza for the Calcutta. Charles buys me for $45. I think that’s a minor steal and buy 50% of myself back. I’m talking to Rob Fagen and we make some $1 side bet. After Quick is auctioned off I offer to bet that Quick will knock Zimmers out of the tournament and that Quick will be holding a better starting hand than Zimmers when it happens. The true odds on that would be about 25 billion to one, but Rob talked me down to 40-1. Hey, it was worth a buck for the story alone. Somehow I get into a syndicate with Rich Strauss and Jeff Seigel. We try to get bargains and sometimes bid up players we don’t really want to pay big prices for. Our best buys are Doc and Mike “Won a TARGET satellite, must be a good player” Osborne. I’m not paying attention when we somehow buy Tom Sims for $110. Tom is a great player and all-around nice guy, but he ain’t worth no $110. Tom refuses to buy back 50% (even Tom knows he isn’t worth $110 :-) Rich and Jeff and I go out to a table in the hall to settle up. I’m whining about paying so much for Tom when Rich mentions that if he doesn’t play in the tournament, we get our money back. I think fast and say “Let’s kill him.” This was really one of those “you had to be there” moments, but we were just in hysterics plotting Tom Sims’ murder. Rich was almost crying from laughing so hard.

On to Binion’s for the floating craps game. Most of the group is at one end of the table, I’m at the other. I come out smoking. I make 6 straight passes in about 5 minutes and I’m ahead $140 before I’ve had my first Harvey wallbanger (7&7’s are bad juju at craps table). Unfortunately, two of my passes are come-out 7’s and the bargers at the other end are losing their come bets. Sorry about that guys. Terry Parker hit a $5 11 ($75) and then hit it again on the next roll. Who needs poker.
Later, Murph and Jim Bullard join me. About 4 wallbangers later, Peter Caldes gets the dice. He comes out with a 6. The table loads up on the hard six (that’s a 3 and a 3 for you craps rookies). I yell over to Peter “Can you roll it the hardway?” He yells back “This roll.” I throw a dollar on the hoppin’ hard six. Peter rolls the dice. I see a 3 and another 3. 6, the hardway! I throw Peter a buck. You know that feeling you get when you hit the stone cold nuts on the river in a big pot at hold’em? Winning at craps feels about 5 times better than that. Later, I pull out a white BARGE chip and throw it in yelling “Hard 5” The dealers were more puzzled than amused. They looked the chip over and then tossed it back. Somehow, at about 2:30, I was down $100 and had to re-buy. I make back $25 and then Don Rieck gets the dice. I get a little crazy and bet $25 on the pass line. Don makes his number. I let it ride. Don makes another pass. I am even. I take my $200. Walk to the other side of the table to tell Don that he R00LZ. Don is my hero. I wander around the poker room a little and head up to bed.

Next thing I know, it’s…

Saturday August 3rd

I wake up about 4 seconds before my alarm goes off at 9:30am. I’ve gotten 6 hours sleep which is about 6 hours more than I got before TARGET. Halfway through shaving, the screen on my old electric shaver tears badly. I manage to finish up without doing too much damage. I shower, dress, and head down to the BIG ONE.

I’m at table 5. On the first hand, the small blind jams. Andy Latto looks at his cards and calls. SB has KJoff. Andy has AA and doubles through. What a start. I held pretty even mostly by stealing. Kristofer Munn is on my right and was getting big pocket pairs on what seemed like every 3rd hand. With the blinds at 100-200 I get 99 in 2nd position. I make it 700. Mike Schneider raises all-in for 650 more. I have 1025 left. I really wanted to fold, but felt I had a reasonable shot. I called and was shown my old nemesis, JJ. The board came out with and A and K to scare Mike, but no 9. Now I’m down to 375. We all ante 25. I get dealt my only group one hand: AcKc. I go all-in. Folded around to Kristofer. He looks like he wants to fold, but there’s around 900 in the pot and he only has to call 150. He calls with 82off. Deuce on the flop. I’m gone. I tell my bad beat story to Kevan and couple others. About and hour later, Kevan tells me his bad beat story. And then says, “But if you think that’s bad, you should hear what happened to this other guy.” and then proceeds to tell me my own bad beat story. We had a good laugh.

I play in the pot-limit game again and drop $200. I just had no cards whatsoever in about 3 hours.

I get a ride from Larry to Yolie’s Restaurant. I sit with Jim, Oliver, Rob, Brian and Ione. We eat way too much meat. I order a 7&7 (hey, that’s 7, shift 7, 7 - never noticed that before) and can barely finish it in an hour. Besides, it wasn’t free. I thought Caro’s talk was very good. His point about the threshold of misery really hit home. I play good now.

Tom and Georgia Sims give Rob, Brian, Ione and me a ride to O’Shea’s. Yes, they have a big car. They are such nice people. What are they doing hanging around with us? :-) We hang out at O’Shea’s. I play nickel slots. I’m a coin collector also, so I am a very slow nickel slot player. Yes, I look at every stupid nickel. I found a 1941-S and a pretty rare 1948-D. Are you thrilled?

We all head over to the Barbary Coast for the mass-barring. From what I heard, the “mass” was Andy Bloch. I sit down at 3rd base next to some woman. I think about trying to annoy her so that she’ll leave and let a rec.gambler play, but she’s just too nice. Finally, I realize that she’s rec.gambler Rebecca Richfield. She does leave later and Peter Caldes sits down. The table is pretty fun. Jim Bullard is showing cards and trying to get tossed. Peter and I lose a couple hands and he angles me into switching seats. On the next hand I get 66 and split against a dealer 6. Peter accidentally bets his last $20 and gets 33. He pulls out his wallet and splits the 3’s. He gets another 3. More money from wallet. Hits and gets a 7 - double down - more money from wallet. Dealer busts. Peter wins $80 by accident on what could have been my hand. I think this is cosmic payback as Peter was the one that rolled that 3-3 for me at craps. I lose $60 and give up.

Time for the Rocks and Beer poker game. A bunch of us end up at the MGM HUGE poker room. They have 6 or 7 games going. Pretty sure they were all 1-4 stud. They sprinkle us around the room but do allow us to get seats together as others leave. We get 5 bargers at one table. There’s a nice older guy in seat 7 and a couple of young guys who I think were from L.A. in seats 4 & 5. We have trouble deciding the rules of play. Do we play full rock mode = 1 (only play trips) or are we allowed to play rock mode = 0 (free play) against the non-bargers? If you get the bring-in, are you allowed to play? We keep switching from mode 1 to 0 and back. Tom keeps dumping big pairs only to find out that rock mode = 0. The older guy leaves and then it’s just 6 bargers and the 2 young guys in 4 & 5. Someone says “Badges on.” We all pull out our badges and these two guys look a little worried. They are given the name “Small Team.” We are of course, the “Big Team.” We are making so much noise that the floorman keeps coming over to tell us to hold it down. Finally, he banishes us to the back corner table. We are still pretty noisy and “But shhhhh” is uttered any time the floorman looked our way. We have lots of fun with the small team. Someone even pays one of them $1 to circle one of our guys. They finally leave and we are now 8 bargers. We get a new dealer named Georgia. She’s a nice lady. Probably in her 50’s. We set rock mode = 1. This is where it gets pretty silly. We start exposing cards. A 3 brings it in. It gets to me. I expose AhKhJh and say “I cannot call.” On other hands, people show split aces and muck. One one hand, someone calls the bring-in and we think he must be rolled up. Not. Georgia deals out all the cards for the $2 pot. One player has a pair, the other has nothing at all, but a 6-5-4-2-A which would be pretty good if we were playing hi-lo. We all start saying “Split Pot!,” “Chop Chop!” Georgia plays along and splits the pot. The guys end up tipping her the entire pot. We get her laughing along with us to the point where here eye make-up was about to run. Oh, did I fail to mention that I was bring-in boy? I’m sure it only seemed like I had the bring in on half the hands. It was probably only 1 out of 5. On one hand, I bring it is as usual and it’s folded to Monte. He shows me pocket kings and threatens to raise. I look at my down cards and find and ace. I show Monte the ace and say “I have ace.” Monte mucks his K’s. Rob Fagen started timing our hands to see how fast we could fold. We got it down to 2.9 seconds and could have done better. Oh, and the security guys come buy to take the drop box that probably had all of $7 in it (all from when the small team was still playing). Anyway, I put my hands up and all 8 of us put our hands up like we’re being arrested. Someone (Mark Rafn?) went and bought a roll of nickels and tried to bring it in for 40 nickels. We had a good laugh over that. We tried to get the dealer to drop a nickel, but he wouldn’t do it. Jeremy was busy building a pyramid with his chips.

We quit at 5am and couple of guys who had way too much to drink wanted me to drive their car back to Binion’s. We walked over to the Excalibur to get the car. Can’t find the car. It must be over here. No, it’s not there either. About 20 minutes later, we give up and take a cab back downtown. Even with this little glitch, the Rocks and Beer poker game was by far the highlight of BARGE for me. The next day, I was hoarse from laughing so much. The dealers did very well. I think we averaged giving them $30 per hour.

Sunday August 4nd

I get my usual 3 hours sleep & take a cab to the Mirage brunch buffet. I join Doc and Lisa. The food is good, but the champagne doesn’t taste right. Doc drives us over to the Gold Coast for the noon hold’em tournament. I play a little Let it Ride before the tournament. In the tournament, I get no cards. I lasted as long as I did by stealing pots. Doc gets all sorts of big pairs beating Jazbo with a set of aces over a set of kings, but then gets crushed by Andy? when Doc’s flopped Q’s full of 7’s gets turned by Andy’s pocket kings. Ouch. I bust out when Larry Stone raises, I jam with AQ and he calls with QQ. No ace, I go play Let it Ride. I win a little at Let it Ride and then come back to see how folks are doing. Kim has a ton of chips. Andy is out and offers to play a game of backgammon with me. I used to play a little about 8 years ago and certainly haven’t played a game in over a year. We play for $1 a point. I come out with 5 straight doubles and double. Andy accepts and proceeds to re-double and then gammon me when I go cold and roll a bunch of 1-2’s and 1-3’s. The 2nd game is a little closer, but Andy wins again. I challenge him to card house building, but he wisely declines.

To the Mirage for some last day hold’em. I get my money back from Andy when I snap off his top two pair with a heart flush. I switch to 20-40. I raise with 66. People call. Flop is 9-6-6. BB bets into me! I just call all the way and raise on the river. Four sixes good! Barry and Kim are destroying the game.

The R00LERS come by and talk me into going to the Texas buffett. A very good buffett if you like BBQ. Murph and I hop into Jeff Sue’s rented Mustang convertible for the ride to the airport. Jeff does some nice high speed driving to get me to the curb a few minutes before my flight. I talked to Andrea Malone for about 10 seconds before resuming my jog to gate C22. I made it with about 4 minutes to spare. Jim Bullard is on the same flight and we recap the trip on the way back to San Jose.

I had a terrific time at my first BARGE and hope to be back next year. Zimmers r00lz, but Don Rieck is my hero.