For your first BARGE, you’re a Virgin. Traditionally, there’s a “virgin queen” nominated from the virgins, typically the first one who posts to the mailing list in a given batch.

Here’s some more context.

The Beginning of the Virgin Tradition

From: eae...@aol.comhatespam (ADV Beth)
Newsgroups: rec.gambling.poker
Date: 11 Jul 2002 23:18:57 GMT
Subject: A Brief History of the BARGE Virgins

[posted & emailed to the BARGE mailing list]

I started playing poker in 1998 and discovered RGP shortly thereafter. Since it was summer, RGP was filled with threads regarding BARGE. I felt like such a newbie that I didn’t feel comfortable taking a spontaneous trip to Vegas to join the group, but I read the threads with interest.

By the next year, I had already gone to my first RGP event (ESCARGOT ‘99) and was eager to attend my first BARGE.

After registering and signing up for the mailing list, I read lots of discussion about a Calcutta. Well, I had never heard of a Calcutta and didn’t have a clue. Someone suggested that newcomers form their own syndicate to pool their limited knowledge of the players. I wasn’t sure if I would get much response, but I stepped forward and called out for any interested "Virgins" like myself to email me. Immediately I received seven responses! Eventually, we had a group of 20+ 1999 Escargot Virgins who formed a syndicate (a successful one, I might add), won last-longer challenges issued by the ADB’ers and the Boston BARGE Brigade, and generally had a great time…especially since we had corresponded by email in advance and didn’t feel quite so lost by the time we arrived at BARGE.

Because we enjoyed hanging out together so much, we wanted to continue our group at BARGE 2000. We knew that we couldn’t continue to be Virgins, so after much discussion, we evolved into the ADV’ers (alt.deflowered.virgins). In the meantime, there have been successive Virgin groups: the 2000 Virgins led by Scottro and the 2001 Virgins led by North Shore Mike.

List of BARGE Virgin Queens

  • 1999 ADV Beth
  • 2000 Scottro
  • 2001 North Shore Mike
  • 2002 Zbigniew
  • 2003 Sethro
  • 2004 Asya
  • 2005 Bob Jones
  • 2006 MissT74
  • 2007 Ron Grossberg
  • 2008 David Kluchman
  • 2009 Sean Frame
  • 2010 Yolanda Kerr
  • 2011 Drew Boyett
  • 2012 Rod "SURFER-1" Crane
  • 2013 Chris O’Connor
  • 2014 David Kullmann
  • 2015 Jennifer Shahade

Virgins who have won the BARGE NLHE Main Event

  • Jeff Bartoszewicz, 2000
  • Mordecai Schwartz, 2006
  • Andreas Wolfram, 2014
  • Jennifer Shahade, 2015