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My seventh EMBARGO. “Minions at Binion’s”
Pre-trip stuff…
Monday, February 5th
I’m getting home late after visiting my mom (92) in a rehab hospital.
I see Sandi’s 1994 Honda Accord (our 3rd car) at the corner.
Tuesday, February 6th
Honda has been stolen!
Sandi takes this as a very bad omen and decides to not come along
on the Vegas trip.
Real Trip Report starts here…
Thursday, February 8th
Sandi drops me off at SJC.
Radar thingie detects metal in my back pocket.
Get molested by a TSA agent looking for non-existent metal.
I thought about making a #MeToo joke here, but that would
be in poor taste, right?
Boring flight, boring Uber ride to Four Queens.
I check in and get a room in the newer tower. I never get a room
in the newer tower. Weird modern sink, modern shower, but no bathtub!
Bed slopes right to left. Clock radio makes weird X-Files noises
every 10 or 15 minutes. I finally unplug it. Toilet seat won’t stay up.
It is almost 7pm. First ARGer sighted in Eileen. She also gets the first hug.
Get to the poker room. Someone says Russ wants to see me.
Oh, he probably wants to say “hi,” and talk about BARGE stuff.
Silly me, he wants $20.
No-limit 6 Up Tournament. The What?
It is no-limit hold’em, but we are using a stripped deck.
Lowest card in the deck is a 6. A6789 is a straight.
Trips beat a straight, a flush beats a full house!
Around the table:
Me, Ryan, Bozo, Nancy, Patti, Russ, JP, Jessie.
Very early I get AA and put in raise. Couple callers.
Flop is A-K-J. Nice!
I bet 500. Patti check-raises to 1100. Patti and I have been
playing for over 20 years. I don’t remember her ever check-raising
me before. And it is a small raise which screams that she has
a massive hand and doesn’t want me to fold Wow!
Turn is an 8. She fires 2300. I call thinking I’m drawing.
River 7. She fires 3000. I snap call, but I expect to lose.
She rolls over JJ. Whew! I win.
Just then, someone says “Kubey, you just called with the pure nuts.“
What? Oh hell. Trips beat a straight in this game.
I mention to Patti that she might have folded if I raised anyway.
She knows my play well and she agrees.
Ryan mentions some drinks his kids had in Hawaii including
a Virgin Lava Flow. Bozo says something about that only being
available after a virgin has been thrown into the volcano.
It was funnier than that.
Ryan also mention something really funny his daughter said
about one of the virgin drinks, but I’ll let him decide if
that should be mentioned to you guys or not.
Russ raises to 450. Bozo says “900.” and then puts out 9000!
We laugh at that. Flop hits, Bozo says “1500” and then puts
out 1400. More laughter.
Linda the dealer tries to scratch a smudge off of the 8 of diamonds.
I mention that is an “itchy eight.” She smiles.
AA. Russ raises. I re-pop it to 2000. Russ calls.
Flop K-9-7. I bet 4000, Russ calls and has 7000 left.
Alarm bells are going off in my head. Russ has KK. I’m sure of it.
Turn is a blank. I need to check and fold. Or maybe check
and see what Russ does. No, some wires get crossed and I somehow
think that I can’t fold AA here, so I might as well jam in the
0% chance that Russ has AK. I jam, he snap calls. I say “You have
kings?” He nods and says “You have aces?” I nod.
This was my only really bad play of the trip.
Double through JP with AA vs. KK.
Jodi replaces Ryan. She is friends with Scott Byron.
She says “I just want to last longer than Scott (pause) because it
makes him mad.”
I won a hand against Jodi where I think she made a bad fold.
But what do I know? I called with the nuts and she went on to
take 3rd place!
Monte is all-in with KJ vs. TT (JP?)
Flop K-T-X. Monte is about a 80-1 dog.
Turn J. River K. Something like that.
AQ and raise. Fold when Monte bets a K-high flop.
Next hand…
AKo. Don’t want to let Monte outplay me again, so I just jam.
He calls from the blinds with JJ.
Flop is a totally rigged A-A-J. No help comes and I’m out.
Exhausted and starving, I head over to the coffee shop/deli
for a club sandwich. I scour the menu. No club?
Well, it is Binion’s. They’ll still make it for me even if
it isn’t on the menu. No? I’m pretty sad about this.
Text Sandi the bad news. She sends back some crying emojis.
Order a cheeseburger. Ron Nutt joins me and orders hummus
and pita bread. I thought about calling it the “terrorist special,“
but that would be in poor taste, right?
Cheeseburger is wonderful. Potato salad likewise.
Head back to the 4Q for sleep.
Friday, February 9th
Change rooms. 2nd room is in the old tower. Wall paper in the hall
is falling off. Light in the bathroom barely works.
I feel much more at home.
Bed is flat, clock is silent and there is a bathtub. Yay!
I’m about to head downstairs for some food. See a BARGE-chatter
message from Un (19 minutes old) that he is at Magnolias. Cool.
I rush down.
He’s finished some soup and has a taken a tiny bite of a sandwich.
He says it is the first solid food he’s had in a couple days.
I order the ham steak and eggs.
Sabyl and a couple other people stop by. They chat with Un
while I wave and munch away as I don’t want to be late for the
1:30 tournament.
Time for the World Chowaha Championship.
I won this two years ago and finished 5th last year.
I can pretend to think I know what I’m doing.
Each player gets two cards and must play two from the hand and
three cards from the boards. Boards?
3 flops, 2 turns, one river. Final boards look like this:
F1 F1 F1
T1
F2 F2 F2 R
T2
F3 F3 F3
Turn 1 can be used with the top or middle flop.
Turn 2 can be used with the bottom or middle flop.
River can be used with any flop.
Confused? Tough. Just roll with it.
Around the table:
JZK, Bremmer, Lynsy, Crunch, Heldar, Me, JP, Kent and Nolan D.
Fist bump with Heldar.
Nolan’s hair looks great. No kidding.
I owe Nolan some money from sports bets, but don’t have enough to pay.
He’s in no rush. Whew.
Rich Bremmer is sporting his brand new ADB Omaholic hat and offers
us vegetable candy. I have a carrot-flavored one. Not bad.
Un is at the next table and offers Pepto-Bismol shots.
Ah, a look into the future or ARG events.
I raise with AQ. JP is short-stacked and goes with KJ.
JP takes the lead with J on flop one. I go ahead to stay with a Q on
flop two. JP had busted Rich and re-gifts the Veggie Candy box to me.
No sign of the cocktail waitress for a while. Nolan asks if
we remember when the dealers had those clickers to call for cocktails.
I reach into my bag and pull out a clicker. Lots of smiles.
I call a Nolan raise from the blinds with 66. Nolan has AJ.
One flop is J-6-X and that’s it for Nolan. He gives me a pair
of dice.
Kent (nice guy, friend of Dan’s) is short-stacked and goes all-in
with Q9. I have a pretty much auto-call from BB with 54s and flop two 5s.
Kent gives me a 1921 Morgan Dollar (silver). I had been eyeing
that all game long as I collect coins.
New table:
Kirk, me, Jessie, Lynsy, Patrick, Kluchman, Kyle, Low and Crunch.
Fold’em and I chop the ADB last-longer despite him having more chips.
He’s just that kind of guy.
Jessie Capps is a super nice young guy, but he is a terrific player and
I hate having him on my left.
Somehow I’m in a hand with A6 vs. Jessie. Two 6s on the middle flop.
I bet out the flop and turn. A flush is possible and I check-call
the river. He has 63, so I win with the ace kicker. Whew.
99 and raise. Kyle (short-stack) calls all-in with 87.
He flops an 8 in two places, but my 99 holds up.
Blind vs. blind I have Q6s and Jessie has 97 and is all-in.
He flops a 9 on the top two flops, but I flop a Q on the last flop
to take him out. He gives me a Lego Apache Chief as a bust-out gift.
Final Table:
Secor, Larry, Patrick, Lynsy, me, Doug, Crunch, Bob O., Nutt and Low.
I meant to make a joke about “Nutt Low,” but started getting texts
from my family that my mom was rushed to the real hospital and that she
could go soon and can I fly back home on Saturday morning. Holy crap.
Don’t feel bad if my mom passes away soon. She wants to go to sleep
and not wake up.
Bozo is watching and I ask him to get me another $20 in toke chips.
I toke him $1 and he gives it to the dealer.
I mention to him that I’ve been having trouble moving stuff from
table to table as “my minions aren’t here.”
He asks: “Your minions at Binion’s?” Brilliant.
Rich S., Bob H. and John L., where were you guys?
I did see John for about two seconds, I think.
I catch Peter’s eye and mouth “You and me heads-up.” I think he got it.
People start to bust out and we are down to seven.
Only six places pay. We often make a $100 save for 7th place
at this point. Bob O. has very few chips and proposes the save.
A couple of the monster stacks aren’t interested. I propose $50
for 7th. No dice. Oh well.
More players bust. Suddenly it is just Peter, Crunch and me.
Peter has a ton of chips. Crunch has a lot, I’m getting low.
Crunch raises with A4. I get my last chips in with T9.
I flop a T to take the lead, but an ace on a turn ends my tournament.
I give Crunch a choice of the Veggies or a magnetic million dollar chip.
He takes the chip. I see he went on to win. WTG Crunch!
I collect $525 for 3rd, tip the $25 and rush to the corner of
Binion’s closes to Main Street Station to make phone calls.
Amazingly quiet over there.
Southwest at first wants to charge me more to trade my expensive
Sunday night seat for a cheap Saturday morning seat. What the hell?
They finally relent and are okay with an even trade. Yeah, I got
ripped off. What evs.
Hang around to watch the last part part of the pot-limit tournament.
Poker room guy hands me a plaque for my 3rd place finish.
Goldie insists on taking a picture of me holding the plaque.
He posts it on Facebook. Good pic. I make it my profile pic
and get a ton of likes.
Another cheeseburger. Ron just gets a cup of coffee this time.
Off to bed. No, not with Ron.
Gambomouse wanders in at about 2:30 a.m., throws down a wad of $2 bills
and a card key from the Golden Gate. He then takes a really long shower.
I don’t know what happened. He didn’t want to talk about it.
My iPhone alarm is “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and it comes on at 4:27 a.m.
That’ll wake your ass up.
I have a 7:30 flight and I’m one of those people that would rather
get to the airport two hours early than one hour early.
I’m all set to go about 5:00. Oh, flight is 7:45. I have time to have
breakfast at use up the day’s free $10 for not having maid service. Cool.
Uber to airport. Driver says he’s looking to get out of the business.
In two years, he’s put 82,000 miles on his car!
Row to myself on flight to SJC. Sandi takes me home to drop off bags
and get my car to drive up to hospital. 10 family members there
and one on Facetime.
I’ve never seen my mom so weak. My sister says she is a lot better
than she was on Friday night! Wow. We all spend time with her.
I drove back up to the hospital on Sunday and she was much improved.
She is going to a assisted living place today with hospice care too.
It’s okay. Really.
Thanks to Binion’s for hosting EMBARGO.
I understand that we might have to move BARGE elsewhere.
I hope we can keep having the smaller EMBARGO at Binion’s at least once
every two years. I’d be fine with every year.
Amazed that David Lawful didn’t cash in any events.
Thanks for the hugs from Claudia, Nancy, Eileen, Adam, Goldie, Peter, Lori,
Bree and Sharon. I forgot to look for Rochelle until she was off shift.
Damn it!
Thanks to the organizers for another great rec.gambling event.
I needed to get to Vegas to see everyone and blow off some steam.
Managed to have a lot of fun in 30 hours. Also glad I went home early.
$