The story of my fourth BARGE.

Wednesday, August 4th

Fly down from San Jose. I’m supposed to meet Chris Colby who is supposed to meet Len G. Chris’ plane is delayed an hour. I don’t find Len, so I take an early bad beat and take a cab solo.

First “ding!” when Mike Chow buys ice cream for Brian W. and me.

I wanted to fly on Thursday, but could only get the cheap flight if I came in on Wednesday. But, I’d waste the money on a hotel room that I would likely use for all of 4 hours. Solution: play poker all night!! R00LING plan accept that I later signed up for the Thursday morning golf event. D’oh!

I get into a 4-8 game near midnight. There is an off-duty Orleans dealer in seat 2. Long story short – he loses his job by swearing at the other players.

Peter Secor and Rich Guidoboni were in my game between about 2 and 8. I take a 15 minute break for breakfast at 5:45. I get a $5 comp, have the steak and eggs and a milkshake. My bill is 9 cents :-) I have good cards all night and book a $200+ win before heading off to golf.

Thursday, August 5th

Gerry finds me in the poker room at 8:30 a.m. We get in his new SUV and head to the airport to pick up Kevan. To the course where we eventually meet up with the rest of the golf gang. Jim Foley and I share a cart. He’s a decent golfer. I used to shoot around 105. I could blame lack of sleep or using rental clubs. I won’t. I just played terribly. I took the prize for high score with a 133.

Back to the Orleans to find Sandi. Of course she is already gambling :-) We check-in to room 1902 which is as far from the elevators as the Orleans is from the Horseshoe. We later moved to 1932. Shower/nap. Dinner at the Mexican restaurant. Excellent food and free frozen Margaritas! Not bad. Sandi hits a $100 jackpot on a 25c machine.

Jim Foley gives us a ride downtown for the ADB craps tour. We walk all over the place and lose money. Dalla and Jester’s negative influence on the dice cannot be overcome. Pass line bettors like Bingo, Sager and me got creamed. Thankfully, I was betting way small and only lost $85. Had fun playing roulette at the Plaza. We make money betting on 1. To Binion’s for the drive-by toking. I give a chip to an older lady dealer. She remembered us and said she’d tell her boss to get us back next year. The rest of the early hours are a blur, I’m elected to drive back to the Orleans at about 5:30 a.m. Steak&eggs. Sleep.

Friday, August 6th

Stephen Mack, Sandi and I take a cab to the Venitian. See Doc and Lisa while wandering around the canal. We get coupons for $5 if we join the slot club and play $25 worth. All goes well until we get into the line to get the $5. 30 minutes later we have our hard earned money, but blow it all on high priced cafeteria quality food. Oh well. Head over to the Treasure Island. We are told the first pirate show is at 4:30. We win some money at BJ and head outside at 4:25. Oops. Show was at 4:00. Back to Orleans.

Calcutta. I pick up my chips. I think these are the best yet. Great to see Martin (Slick) who has been MIA for quite a while. Food was very good and there was enough for once. Sandi and I sit with Lee and Lisa, Rich S., Stephen, Shmuel, and a couple of other folks. I just miss buying Doc. I get some very good deals. Brian W. and Martin Maugh for $45 each! Kevan for $80. The bladders B team of 4 for $160. That included Peter Caldes who was a hand or two from winning BARGE last year. A steal. The virgins buy me for $60. I think that’s right in line, not to high nor too low. Luckily, I sell back 50% on all my buys and sell off other pieces.

Team horse. I’m playing razz in seat 3. During rounds 1 and 2, seat 1 get the bring-in 1/2 of the time. I win the antes once in round 1, have to fold when Lou catches good and I catch bad in round 2, and blow our tiny stack in round 3 when Ray T. has the better starting hand and catches well.

Between rounds, Sandi and I are playing the nickel Monopoly slots. The machines are fun and it seems that most of the people playing then are winning. I also get to search through the nickels (I’m also a coin collector as well as a degenerate gambler). Sandi signs up to play 4-8. That’s a high limit for her, but if I can beat ’em for $25 an hour, I figure she can hold her own. She’s number one on the list and leaves me at the slots. She comes running back about 15 minutes later saying something about the jackpot. She’s so excited that at first I think she has hit it, then she explains that it was hit at her table. I tell her to get back to the table and stay there. I cash out my tub of nickels and run over to see what is going on. Yes, the bad beat poker jackpot had been hit at her table on her 2nd hand! One player had 77, JayJ had AK. Flop was A-K-7. Turn was a 7, river was an A. Aces full of kings beaten by four 7’s. Both cards in each players hands played, plenty of money in the pot. All the cards were in the deck. Jackpot! The guy with the losing hand got $20,000. The lady with the four 7’s got about $10,000. The players dealt in at the table got $514. The other hold’em players in the room got $137. Sandi was absolutely giddy. She lost $12 in live play later.

Back at the slots, I find plenty of nickels from the 50’s and a few from the 40’s. I pick up one nickel and see 1950 on the front. The 1950-D (Denver) is the rarest nickel in the entire Jefferson series with a mintage of only 2.8 million. I turn it over and find a mintmark. Jim B. confirms that it’s a D. The coin is worth about $3. Woo hoo! Steak&eggs. Sleep.

Saturday, August 7th

New Years Eve. Christmas morning. The Super Bowl. Game 7. It’s time for the BARGE poker tournament. I pick the card for table 7, seat 7. Has to be lucky, right? I grab a beer and get ready to play. My table is a bit tough with Abdul and Lee as the main celebrities. I walk over to talk to Rich Strauss. I see that he has Mike Maurer and Steve Brecher sitting to his left. My table doesn’t look so tough after all. I steal the blinds a couple of times and see one flop for T50 in late position with something like 98s. Suddenly, the blinds are at 200-400 and I’m down to T750. Larry Stone raises to T1000 under the gun. I find AK and call all-in. Another player calls the T1000. I love the flop of As-Ts-9d. Larry goes all-in, other player folds. I’m waiting for Larry to turn over AJ or AQ. No, he has TT for trip tens. I’m drawing runner-runner. I turn up my AK. The turn card is a spade. My king is a spade. I say “Spade!” The river card is a spade and I jump up in delight until I see that it is the 9 of spades giving Larry a full house to beat my nut flush. I give Larry a copy of my cartoon trivia book as my bounty, wish him luck and head to the rail. I played fine this year. I really only had 5 or 6 playable hands in 85 minutes and made the right decision every time.

I watched my horses go down. Mike Osborne had a rack of Oreo cookies. Too funny. Pretty much everyone I talked to went out with a pair or a big ace. I was very pleased to see Doc make the final table. He was low on chips, but just making it that far is quite a feat.

The final table was fun to watch. But with the blinds so high, it more resembled a home game we play called “Guts” than hold’em. I felt sorry for Oz as he lost with KK to QQ on the river. That’s the exact hand that sent me to the rail in 1998. The head-to-head match between John Harkness and Russell Rosenblum was hard fought and seem to go on forever. Russell was more aggressive, but John picked his spots and Russell had to respect his bets and raises. John finally found a hand to make a stand with and won it all with his ace. Congratulations John! Russell took 2nd at both TARGET and BARGE. I suspect we’ll be hearing his name more and more.

I play one hand of 6-12 at a table full of tough players and gladly take a seat in a 4-8 game instead. I think Adam and Steve W. were in the game at some point. I get caught in a bluff early and then showdown good hands the next hour to win $78 before the banquet.

A roar goes up from one of the middle tables at about 7:00. I wonder if we’ve hit the jackpot again. No. People are pointing at the TV screen. There’s a shot of a barge on a river. Love it.

I thought the food at the banquet was very good. The peach dessert was really tasty. I liked Mike Sexton’s stories. I even played one hand of bridge!

Back downtown for more craps. Beth is dressed in a toga for her sacrifice to the craps Gods (she’s a craps virgin). We get a table at the Las Vegas club. I roll the dice twice – seven out, we lose. Then they raise the table limit to $5. We leave. I won’t be playing craps at the Las Vegas club again.

We head over to the plaza. The craps table is too crowded so Jim, Sandi and I play roulette. Again we all win on 1. Jim and I are half convinced that that wheel is biased toward the 1. Chris says they are heading over to Binion’s for Chowaha.

The main game fills up in about 1.4 seconds. The average buy-in is $400 in white chips for a 2-4 game. First hand is capped blind 9-ways. Nice tight game :-)

About 15 minutes later, the 2nd game starts. Average buy-in is only $200 in whites. First hand was capped muti-way. I think a couple of players folded pre-flop! I get stuck about $60 and then start hitting and bluffing. When I hit they call, when I bluff they fold. Nut-Z wants to do a shot of Rumplemintz (sp?). I doubt that it will mix well with my 7&7s, but I’m game. We shoot ’em. Good stuff.

I get moved to the main game. Steve (Pain) has a massive cylindrical chip stack. It was in the neighborhood of 1800 chips. He’s trying to rack them all up and it’s taking forever. Ratty and I finally jump in to help out. Patti built the Luxor with her chips. She even had a flashing beacon on top!

Of course I straddle when I can and hit full houses on three of my straddles. Funniest is when I have Ad2d and flop the nut flush draw on the top flop and trip aces on the bottom flop. Turns bring a diamond and a 2. I bet out and tell the other player that both turns hit me. For once, someone believes me and folds. I also cap the betting with AsJs, flop the nut flush draw, make the flush and have it stand up as the nut hand. I threw about $10 to various players at the table during the session and must have tipped away at least $40. Still finished ahead $185.

I take a blind button and find Sandi crushing a BJ table on the other side. I pick up about 5:00 a.m. and the game breaks moments later. Should I take that as a hint?

Jim, Sandi, and I get comps and head over to the coffee shop. More steak. Some ADB’ers wander in after us. They can’t find a KENO runner, so I book their action on a 3 spot ticket for 2 games. I crush them for a $1.40. Of course they were drawing live in the first game to nail me for $126 on a 62-1 shot. Lucky for me their 3rd number didn’t show.

Sunday, August 8th

Stephen, Sandi and I try the buffet. It was okay. I’ve had better. Next, we take the free shuttle ovr to the Gold Coast and then walk over to the Rio. Stephen and I sit down to play BJ. Sandi goes to the ladies room. About 30 minutes later, I go looking for Sandi. Find her buying stuff in the gift shop. Catch the 4pm “Sky show”. Pretty good song and dance show inside the Rio. Free!
More BJ. Continue to win small amounts. Finally find Sandi again. She found a shop that sells Beanie Babies. Oh dear.

Back to the Orleans to meet up with Patti and Sabyl to go see Chicago (the musical) at Mandalay Bay. We play some BJ there. I get put on tilt by a player on my right hitting a hard 17 against a 7 and then the player on my left standing on soft 16. I try to explain to the guy that standing on 6 is not a good idea. He tells me that he can play his hand any way he wants to. I say “Fine.” and pick up my chips. I know that his idiotic play doesn’t affect my chances of winning, but it just plain bothers me. Patti is taking a beating. She has to go to her wallet to split a pair and then has to go in again to re-split. She wins all 3 when the dealer busts. Patti back ahead. Yay!

Patti has gotten us 2nd row seats for Chicago. I knew nothing about the show and was very pleased to see that it starred Marilu Henner (Elaine Nardo from “Taxi”) and Ben Vereen. Really good show. Marilu Henner was maybe 15 feet away from us a couple of times. Cool.

Sandi and I head over to the Bellagio. I get into a 4-8 game with Stephen. Sandi goes off to play BJ and slots and actually books a small loss. She had won at almost every casino in almost every game.

One fun hand… I play 95s in late position after 4 callers. Most pots were 2 or 3 handed, so this was easily my loosest play of the night. Flop is T-8-6 with two hearts. Player on my right bets. I just call to allow the other players in. Turn is a Q. He bets again. I call and think that a 7 would be the best river card. Just then the waitress comes up and says “Your 7&7 sir.” just as the dealer puts a 7 on the river! My straight beats his set of 6’s.

Stephen takes a bad beat as his flopped set of 8’s is beaten by a rivered set of tens. As Lee says… if you don’t lose a lot of chips with set under set, you didn’t play it right.

We take some pictures in the garden area and head back to the Orleans. Sandi and I agree to call it a night at 4:00 a.m. We play the Monopoly slots again and beat them again for about $30 each. Yes, nickel slots! I get permission from the floorman to take a picture of Sandi at the jackpot table in the poker room. Score one point for the Orleans.

Monday, August 9th

We have lunch at the Mexican place. Share a cab with Kevan to the airport. Meet up with Dieter, Barry and Betty. During the flight, we play some limit hold’em and some Chinese poker. After we land, Kevan is holding the deck and wants to play another game. We agree to play indian chief poker. We draw cards from the deck, so I know this was not set up. We hold the cards to our foreheads. The betting is capped and I figure I have these two beat as they both have 5’s. We look at our cards to see that all three of us have 5’s. About 420-1 that we would each have the same card. About 5500-1 that we would each have a 5. What a perfect ending to BARGE ‘99.

I was 5-0 in ring games, 0-2 in tournaments. Lost at craps. Won a little at BJ and slots. Was 1-0 at Roshambo and wasn’t circled at all. Didn’t miss the Tilt Pus^H^H^H^H Boys as much as I thought I would.

I had a great time. I know I’ve left out about 50 names of nice people that I sat near or played against or said “hi” to. You know who you are, thanks for making it a great long weekend.

Thanks to Mike and Chuck for bringing off another terrific event. When do sign-ups for BARGE 2000 start?