The story of my third BARGE.

Thursday, July 30th

Fly down from San Jose. I’m coaching Stephen Mack on how to play No-limit Hold’em as he has never played it before, yet still entered the Barge tournament.

Take a limo with Sandi, Stephen, Nate, Mary, John and Sam to the Horseshoe. Much better than the shuttle or a cab. Pretty reasonable if you have 6 or 7 people.

Play some blackjack, win $50.

I’m invited to go play craps. Sandi plays a Wheel of Fortune slot and nails a couple of small jackpots. She is dead tired at midnight. I head over to Main Street to play craps, Sandi is off to bed.

Run $1 to $90 when a hard six parlay hits! Jeff Siegal is playing next to me. It is is first time playing craps. He learns quickly that betting all of your stack as an odds bet is dangerous. He throttles back his odds betting and does well. I’m the only player not taking odds. When the dealer asks me why, I say “That’s not gambling.” Snickers all around.

Jeff gets the dice and comes out with an 11. Gotta love betting with Craps Virgins! Jeff holds the dice for a few minutes, then it’s my turn. I think my roll was 5, 5, 8, 7. Never got warmed up.

Next guy makes two straight passes. I’ve got $20 on the line and toss in a $5 chip and say “Horn High Yo.” I’m betting $1 each on 2, 3, and 12 and $2 on the 11. And you wonder how they can afford to build those nice new casinos. The shooter says “I was going to bet that.” and also tosses $5 out. Roll - Yo ’lev (11). We each get $26 for the 11 and win our pass line bets. Finish up $45.

Back to Binion’s and up to the room at 3:30am. No Sandi? Back downstairs. Little Miss “Too Sleepy to play Craps” has been gambling it up for the last 3 hours and winning.

Friday, July 31st

Off to the Orleans for the Omaha tournament. I’ve got this one complete loon at my table who is raising almost every hand. I later find out that the loon is Pat Flemming! I never have to re-buy, but do take the add-on. Key hand… two players all-in (did I mention that you get a real $5 chip for busting a player?) I have AQ5X. I call a bet on the flop with my 2nd nut-low draw… board was J-4-2 I think. Turn is a 10 and I’m ready to give this one up, but the other player checks. River is another brick. I check. Other guy bets. I look at my cards one last time… Oh, I just made the A-high straight!!! Check-raise. He calls.

I make the final table and meet an RGP semi-lurker, Ivan. The table agrees to pull $500 from the top 3 spots and add the money to the pool for 4-10. I’ve got a good stack, but I see no harm. First hand I play is AQsQJ. I bring it in for a raise, only Ivan calls. Flop is 9-6-3. I bet, he calls. I figure him for A2 only. Turn is a J. I put in my last chips. He calls. River: 2. He’s upset as that 2 messed up his low draw. I show my Q’s. Ivan tables his cards and someone notices that he has J’s and 2’s. I’m out! Would have been the chip leader or at least split the pot if he didn’t catch one of his 6 outs. Oh well. Win $50.

We decide to take the shuttle to the Barbary Coast and then the bus back downtown. Man, it was hot on that bus. I guess it was worth saving $12 or $13.

At the Sympossium, I once again get hooked up with Jeff and Rich Strauss. We again make some good buys, but only one of our horses makes the money. When will I learn. Sandi is really fading this time and actually goes to bed about 30 minutes into the bidding. Stephen Blackstock buys me for $55. He also bought some fish named Lee Jones.

Next it’s the World Roshambo Championship! Phil Gordon pleads with me to join in. He’s willing to pay $15 of my entry. I knew what a pressure packed event this would be and declined.

Early on, it looked like it would be “Ladies Night” as Patti and one of the Tilt-boy’s girlfriends were dusting their opponents easily. Jim Geary comes out of nowhere to make the finals. As a warm up, he did about 20 push-ups. The tension was amazing. It was like a boxing match. Josh Paley and I discussed lining up ESPN and some sponsors for next year… Prudential, Boise-Cascade, and Fiskars.

Back to the ‘shoe where I get demolished in an Omaha game. Missed 2,853,620 draws in 1 hour. Only stuck $100, I get into the HORSEL game and finally win some hands.

A new dealer comes in. I notice that his name is “Zircon” and tip him 50 cents. Two other BARGErs follow suit. Won a hold’em hand by raising with 82o and flopping A-8-2. I plead insanity. At about 3am I decide to actually cash out down $18 for the night. Anyone that knows me knows that I would normally play all night to win that lousy $18 back, but I wanted to be reasonably sharp for…

Saturday, August 1st

Wake up in time for breakfast. Sandi and I join Abdul, Guy, and Tonda in the comp line. About 4 hours later we are seated. About 9 hours later, we are served our food. Wolf down my food and jog over to the poker area, sit down at table 62. I look around. I hate this table. Jeff is on my left. Andy is across the way. There are 3 or 4 other fairly good players at the table. And then Steve Brecher sits down! I call for a table change.

I was glad to hear that 5% was being held out for the dealers.

Fold several hands. Jeff tries to steal a pot with the nut flush draw, but runs in Spencer’s flush. A hand or two later I get my road hand - pocket kings. Spencer comes in for T75. I make it T400. He calls saying something about having a lot of chips. Flop is 9-5-3 with two spades. He checks, I bet T800. He calls! I don’t like this. Turn is a non-spade. He checks. I only have T700 left. I’m pretty sure he’s going to call if I bet. I really should have bet, but I checked figuring that I might induce a bluff or that I might be able to get away from the hand if a spade fell. River is a Q and Spencer bets T1500. An interesting bet as I’m sure he knows that’s way more than I could possibly have left. I thought for a long time. A good 30 seconds which is a long time at the poker table. I thought he might have QQ, AsQs, KsQs, AsKs, or maybe something like TT. If I was beaten, it was going to be QQ. Fold and keep T700? Call and have T3800 or a spot on the rail. I called. He had QQ. Spencer got a copy of my book “The TV Cartoon Trivia Book” ISBN 0-8431-2878, as a bounty.

Quick was quite please to see me as I handed him my $20.

I wander around the room saying “pocket kings”, “ran into pocket queens”, etc. What a terrible thing to be out so early. Thanks to the many people who listened to my “bad-beat” story.

Sandi and I went to play blackjack. Got on a little run and won $60. Nice, but I was still in a state of shock. Checked on the tourney again. More blackjack. I hold even. Sandi gets on a serious rush and wins $150 in about 20 minutes! Woo Hoo!

Back to the tournament… our horses are dropping like flies. Rich Strauss just misses the money when his 55 is cracked by 74o.

Stephen Mack finishes in the top 1/3. Pretty good for a guy who had never played no-limit before.

Kevan (Kaven) Garrett makes the money. I’m also rooting for Jeff Sue, Lee Jones, and Ken Fuchs. Next year, I’m drinking during the tournament. Ken busted out 10th, but at least he was having some fun.

Peter Caldes starts building a stack. I begin to pull for him too as he rolled a critical hard six for me at a previous BARGE :-) Then I see Lee start to win a couple of hands. I turn to someone and say “You know, Lee might just win this thing.” Sandi had previously given Lee a “Good Luck” pat on the shoulder. Long story short, Lee wins all the chips and is now the second person to win WRGPT, TARGET, and BARGE. Not bad.

Banquet. Sit with Sandi, Ken, Sager, Sabyl, Steve, Jennifer, Shyam, Stephen, and Scott. Sorry if I butchered anyone’s name.

Stephen does some terrific Dana Carvey impersonations. Ken Fuchs autographs a copy of his book for Sandi. Dinner was very good. Mike Caro was very good as always.

Jeff drops us off at the Mirage. I get into the tightest 6-12 game in the world. Boring. The only hand I win is KT on the button with two new players posting in. One of the posters had QQ, but didn’t raise. K on the flop. I win. Get into a terrific 4-8 Omaha game, but get no cards. Sandi is falling asleep as I fold about 15 out of 16 hands. I win $20 at the Mirage and blow most of that on the cab back downtown.

Sunday, August 2nd

Hoover Dam! Sam Paik takes Sandi and me out to Hoover Dam. We take the $8 tour. It’s really quite something. We watch some videos about the construction of the damn. Unbelievable what these people did. And to think that they were working out in that blazing heat much of the time. Awesome.

We get back, take a super short nap. I want to go the the Stratoshere Tower. Perhaps we’ll have dinner there. I call them. $40 to $80 for dinner. Hah! We go to the coffee shop for a terrific cheap dinner.

Almost forgot… on the way to dinner, I play the 25c slot that gives Horseshoe coins for jackpots. I’m down $30 when I hit 3 red 7’s for a 5 coin pay ($50). Cool.

We blow off the tower until next trip and gamble away. I suck completely except for a parly hard eight for $90. Sandi is getting destroyed at blackjack. $5 bets are losing. $2 bets are losing. Finally she goes with $3 bets and wins a few hands. She’s played perhaps 3 hours with out being dealt a blackjack. I figure that she should be dealt one once in about every 20 hands. Is that right? Finally at 3:00am she is dealt a blackjack and we are off to bed-then-the-alarm-goes-off at 5am. Oh man. Remind me not to book a 6:45am flight ever again. Wander by the poker room and see the last few BARGErs huddled around a table. Reminded me of the Olympic flame just before it is put out at the end of the games.

Squeeze into a cab with Stephen, Sam, and John. Get to the airport in plenty of time. Fly home. Go to work. Ai-yah!

Gambling…
Lost $3 in 11 hours of poker.
Must have won $100 or so at craps and blackjack. Didn’t keep track. Did okay on the few slots I played.

I met lots of nice people at this BARGE and was glad to see so many poker playing friends.
Thanks to Mike and Chuck for bringing off another wonderful event. When do sign-ups start for BARGE ’99?