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The story of my twenty-fifth BARGE.
“It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock ’n roll.”

Pre-BARGE crap.

I’ve been elected to the BARGE Board for Directors!
Thanks to Larry B. for the nomination and Bruce I. for the 2nd.

BARGE is being held online this year. Lots of Zoom meetings and all of the play will be on Cliff “Deadhead” Mathews’ mb2 poker server.

All hail Deadhead for putting together this poker site from scratch to make BARGE 2020 possible. Some call it eBARGE.

Rich’s BARGE status page was my idea! Hope that helped people.

I pestered Cliff and Rich with many suggestions.
Thank you to both of them for their patience.

Editorial note:
Like everything else this year, this trip report won’t be up to normal standards. We’ll keep it going and hope 2021 is better.

About mb2 and Zoom…
It was fun to have the Zoom meetings going during the tournaments.
A couple of times I had to shut off Zoom as my laptop was getting overwhelmed.

My solution was to run Zoom on my phone with the WiFi turned off so it didn’t interfere with mb2.

It was good to play with and/or see some long-lost players…
Zimmers, Sager, Ellen, Latto, Jeff Roberts, Uncle Al and Andy Bloch.

Thursday, July 30th

Check in to this hotel.
King-size Sleep Number bed with adjustable base. Good for watching TV.
Great shower and big bath tub.
Big TV in the room and an even bigger TV down in the lobby.
Breakfasts and dinners are all comped and the chef is really excellent and quite a looker too.

Cocktail service is spotty, but the drinks are hella strong.

First BARGEr sighted is Peter Secor on a Zoom call.

Mark Haroldson is picking horses and asks us for suggestions.
“I like the 2 horse.”
He said he made money with our picks.

Golf should be around here. Next year.

CHORSE. Also called C-HORSE. This is a team tournament
played with chips that are actually worth money.

Our great friend and Moosecock team member Ron Nutt passed away.
Team Moosecock is out of action for 2020.

6-handed No-Limit hold’em tournament. 80 players.

Bust in 17th. I think with 33 vs. Tom Hummel’s 99.

Deadhead (the guy that wrote the software) wins the tournament.
“This site is so rigged.”

Limit 6-Game tournament. 84 players.

HORSE rotation + Badeucy.

Hold’em round. This game is like Texas Hold’em.
88 and I’m planning to raise.
Mike Zimmers raises in early position and types in “I have AA.”
Sure Mike.

Kathy 3-bets it. My 88 goes into the muck. Zimmers caps it.

Flop is 9-A-9.
Mike bets, Kathy calls.
Turn 5. Bet, call.
River 2.
Bet, Kathy raises! What? Zimmers 3-bets it. Kathy caps.
Zimmers does indeed have AA. Kathy has… 99 for quad nines!
“This site is so rigged.”

I bust Mickdog in a stud hand.

Dan Goldman busts me in 33rd place.

Random comment dept.

“Does Andrew Bloch rhyme with Andrew Prock”?

Around here we have a Zoom meeting with the board and organizers. It all goes very smoothly. Terrific group.

Oh, someone mentioned something good about Cal.
Fellow Cal Bear, Russ Fox mentions that we need to say something.
“Go Bears!” “Go Bears!”
I happen to have my Cal mask handy and put it on.

I win two pots in a row, so I keep the mask on for a few minutes.

Posted a photo to Facebook and got some likes.

Friday, July 31st

The BARGE Fun Run was virtual this year.
See Sunday.

Cooler!

Instead of running up and down the stairs for Cokes and ice,
I filled a tiny cooler with ice and cans of Coke Zero Sugar.
Had a bottle of Captain Morgan rum from Costco at the ready.
Also kept a glass of water handy.
Worked out great.

Tournament of Champions (TOC) tournament. 89 players.
Playing hold’em, 7-stud and Omaha-8.

I played really well.

Went out in 7th place.

Gerald and I were grrring and squeaking at each other.

I missed the money in the TOC from 2000 through 2018.
Now I have back-to-back cashes. Woo!

I was rooting hard for Corey. He had a nice 4th place finish.

PLO (Pot-Limit Omaha) tournament. 81 players.

We each get four cards, must play exactly two, high only.
Board is like hold’em. And you can bet up to what is in the pot.
We have two rebuy lammers to use if/when we need more chips.

I’m on the Zoom call with about 60 people.
See Rich Strauss sporting a Magnum PI quality mustache!

Notes say “Un, remind me.”

Oh!! My most important note of the week!

Kevin Un and I were exchanging e-mail about his raising money to help out Gil from Binion’s who is in the hospital fighting for his life.

Big thanks to Kevin Un for getting this rolling.

There were some “I love the BARGE” messages going back and forth.

The e-mail exchange was my BARGE highlight.

Lose a monster pot to JRX as he hits a straight on the river.

Bust in 13th.

MB2 tournament (Murder, Badugi and 2 or 5 Omaha) 76 players.
I will not try to explain these games.

I’m playing really well as we are down to two tables.
Five players at my table.

Observer says we are at the bubble.
Remember there is no actual money on the line.

I say something like: “How about a save for 10th place?”

Observer says something like “Bad idea given there’s 9 left.”

Me: “Even better. I’m laughing so hard. OMG.”

Later:
Me: “I AM INSANE. LOL.”
Mecklin: “insane in the membrane.”

I bust out in 6th place.

Pretty good day with two cashes and 13th in PLO (paid 9.)

No Symposium this year.
No hilarious calcutta comments. Sorry. Next year!

Board Meeting went fine.

Terry King was our guest speaker.
66 people were watching on the Zoom call. All muted thank goodness.

It was done in an interview format with Dan G. asking questions.

She was friends with all the big-time players back in the day.
Doyle, Danny, Cissy Bottoms, Jack Strauss. Chip Reese was her boyfriend. Oh, and she won a WSOP bracelet in 1978.

Some notes:

“BJ. No pictures. You can’t prove anything.”
“Contraband dog food.”
LFromHell mentioned dumping a soda on a jerky player.
Jeff D. moderator.

I enjoyed Terry’s talk. There were some laughs and it held my interest. Questions at the end were good too.

Karaoke

Mrs. Heldar was the best I heard singing “Hallelujah.”
I liked Timmy’s rendition of “Ring of Fire.”

Some tournament started and I had to bail early on “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Oh well.

Bust Jim in Badugi. What tournament? What day? I don’t know!

After I put a bad beat on him…
COC: “You should feel dirty inside.”
Me: “I do!”

I can’t read this note:
Either:
Waitress Fries Comped.
or
Watanabe Fries Comped.

Saturday, August 3rd.

The BARGE NL (No-Limit) Main event. 116 players.

Minor complaint: Big blind ante? Ugh.
I’m sure it was much easier to just use the BARGE 2019 structures, but there is no need for big blind ante in an online tournament.

Slick played in the No-Limit tournament for the first time in two decades. Slick out first.

In an e-mail discussing this, Martin suggested I add:
“He should have heeded Deadhead’s advice to be careful distinguishing between the Jam and Fold boxes.”

Random comment dept.
“OMG the drinks are strong at this casino.”
“Not comped tho…”

Someone (Shari maybe?) asked to see GamboMouse.
I propped him up so he was visible in the Zoom meeting.

He later proved to be bad luck and was banished to the hallway.

A few decent notes finally…

Triple jam up… Corey AcQx, Joe KK, Voltaire 55.

Flop Jh-7c-3c. Joe way ahead.
Turn 4c. Corey picks up the nut flush draw.
River 6s. Presto! makes a straight!

Dean misclicks while on Zoom. Wins the hand by accident.
Does a victory dance for us.

77 and double up.

Most players have 100,000 or so.
Gillian has 650,000!
“She’s a damn good poker player… (5-second pause) for a girl.”
Much laughter.

Eileen is using the nickname MeMyself.
Someone says “My, myself and Eileen.” Of course!!!!!!!!!! Very clever.

66 and jam. Get two calls. Uh oh.
Board runs out Q-x-y-T-x. No betting! Maybe I’m okay?
No, Voltaire has AT to take me out in 51st.

gg

Take Taylor the dog out for a walk to the park.
It was the most beautiful weather.
We just sat on the grass at the park for 15 or 20 minutes
watching the world go by.

Stud tournament. 82 players.

I wasn’t planning to play this, but I’m doing well in the BAAP standing, so I’ll take a shot. Missed the first 20 minutes while at the park.

No notes.

Bust in 42nd.

Omaha tournament. 81 players.

No notes. Bust in 23rd? Really? Apparently I can still play decently with a very high BAC.

Reindeer games. Decided to play lowball this year.

Seems like I’m up against the same guy on every hand. Takes me a minute to realize we are the only active players.

This gets boring very fast, so I give up.

Take a great nap!

Saturday afternoon was a complete blur. Thanks to DLow, Bremer and Deadhead for filling in some gaps in my Swiss-cheesed memory (reminds me of Quantum Leap.)

Sunday, August 2nd

Zoom meeting and mb2 stuff. Sort of the BARGE hangover party.

Regis and Pete Segal got off some funny lines.

I’m not sure if people heard me say “see ya later,” but I did wave also.

Went for my private BARGE fun run. 4+ miles.

And BARGE is over.

Gambling…
craps: DNP
big 6 wheel: DNP
blackjack: DNP
live poker: DNP
slots: DNP
tournaments: lost, lost, won, lost, won, lost, lost, lost
last-longers: lost
roshambo: DNP.

Hugs: Sandi

Let’s hope we can have a live BARGE in 2021.

Kubey’s 2020 MVB (Most Valuable BARGEr) Award:

Cliff “Deadhead” Mathews.

Cliff wrote the poker server that we used for all of our BARGE tournaments this year. Without Cliff’s work, this BARGE would have been much worse. Some of our players in Washington (the state) wouldn’t have even been able to play.

Very honorable mention to Russ Fox for becoming the first person to win the BARGE Main event twice! 2001 and 2020.

Other honorable mentions to UN for raising $1600 for Gil, Dan G. for being at 79 final tables and Mecklin for doing the Fantasy stuff and mb2 stuff.

Fun Fact: 2019 champ Harker and 2020 champ Fox work together and wrote books together.

Thanks to the players on my fantasy team: Llew, Tanya, Lawful, Corey and Bingo. Unfortunately, my two cashes knocked our team just out of the money. At least I helped out Christian’s team.

Big thanks to all the people who were beta testers on the mb2 site. Nancy, Samarel, Caryl, Eileen, Shari, Grizz, Bozo, Mecklin, Ellis, Bob, Kyle, Keith, Andy, David, Gerry, JR, Peter, Chuck, Mike, Bruce, Rich, etc. Sorry if I forgot any names.

Thanks to the board: Bozo, Lawful, Howler, Ron G. and me! Someone noted “All white men.”

Thanks to the organizers: Russ, Bremer, Deitch, Sharon and Goldie.

Thanks to the Tech Crew: Doug G., David Low and Barry.

Hey BARGE Chip Committee. No rush guys, but would like a status report.

Peter and Chuck just plain R00L.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it. 2020 is a terrible year and this was certainly NOT the “Best BARGE ever,” but we will be back playing live next year.

Oh, the song!
You probably know the AC/DC song with the lyrics: “It’s a long way to the top if youwant to rock ’n roll.” Bagpipes and all.

Well, I asked Alexa to play it.
What I got was this amazing version by Eddie Money:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtOPfQP9o3g

The song has been on auto-repeat in my head all week.

Can I sign up for BARGE 2021 now?