BARGE 2007.

If you need background read my BARGE 2004, BARGE 2005 and BARGE 2006 reports.

Wednesday, August 1st.

We were clever enough to send the Sake to BARGE with Patrick the
week before, so we didn't have to check luggage, so our flight was
uneventful.  We met up Jester at Dollar desk and went to get my
compact car (which wasn't too tiny luckily as we ended up giving
people rides all week).

We got to Binions around 10pm got all checked in and went around
saying hi to people.  I don't think I played any poker that evening.

Thursday, August 2nd.

My team once again was Team Moosecock.  North Shore Mike, our previously
fearless leader was a pussy AGAIN this year.  It was clearly our year
as we had some seeKriT weapons.  For one we had Kevan's mom on our
team!  No way were we going to lose money!  Since Harkness dumped
us (something about us not cashing and also the hat thing) we had
Kevan and Lawrence (from Murray's home again) in addition to me and
QB, returning members.  The lineup shake-up was a good thing as we
came in 2nd.  Ka-ching!

I played razz.  Marlin put a beat on Tanya at my table that caused her
to rant about it for the next ... oh, for the rest of the afternoon.
She said she had 76.  "Seven six what?" countered Marlin.  "Seven six
five" "Seven six five what?"

After we cashed we headed off to "I Love Sushi" in Henderson.  Unlike
in previous years, the traffic was pretty light (I actually noticed
that all weekend, maybe no big conventions in town?) so we got there
pretty easily.  We had 45 people unfortunately, unlike last year they
didn't set us up at one single really long table but gave us a couple
of overflow tables next to a table set up for about 36...  The sakes
were a big success except number 5 (the unfiltered dessert sake that
most people weren't crazy about).  I'll let Ben send out the details
of the sake from this and last year.

This year the overs would have had it, but no one did the over/under
thing.

With fully half the people there going for the sake tasting something
different might have to be done next year from a logistical point of
view.

We got back in time to take a quick nap before heading off to the 
Blues crawl at 7:30 except I got mixed up and everyone else left for
Boulder Station at 7pm.  Oops.  We grab a cab over.  John Lee Hooker Jr.
is quite excellent but there's a bit of a confusion about being able
to bring in food and it gets a little smokey in there so after the
first set we decide to head back.

Friday, August 3rd.

I didn't sign up for TOC (again, though I meant to!) so I went to the
Golden Nuggen to play in their 11am tournament.  After a bunch of boring
hands and the blinds going up I raised from SB with Ace high, the guy
called me with jack high, I flopped middle pair top kicker while he
flopped top pair, the rest of the money went in and IGHN.  IFSATG.

We had to leave the symposium early as we had tickets for Ka' at the MGM.

Originally after that we were supposed to have a nice quiet dinner at
Joel Robuchon but when I called for reservations a few weeks before it
turned out that they are closed this week - bad beat!  We decided to
dine at L'Atelier by Joel Robuchon next door, a slightly more casual
version of the same chef's food.  Mid-way through the day Charles
called me as he previously declined dinner plans being in TOC but he
was out of TOC so could he join us - sure no problem.  At the symposium
my syndicate buddy Barry Goren decided to join us as well, and Bruce
Kramer who was supposed to dine there earlier in the evening but was
stood up by his dining buddies (good excuse = final table of TOC) also
joined our merry group.

Ka' pretty much sucked, like Charles said it would, but at least now
I've seen every Cirque du Soleil show (except for the one that just
started touring, I suppose) and Ka' is *definitely* the weakest, at
least in my opinion.

Dinner was great.  The menu had small tasting portions on the left
and regular appetizers and entrees on the left.  We asked about the
size of tasting plates, were told 3-5 per person make a meal.  Count
the number of items on the tasting plates side of the menu.  There
are 20.  There are five of us.  No problem: order one of each and
then cut it into five pieces.  A little tricky when some of them are
already pretty tiny, but we had a blast!

Afterwards we all headed to Karaoke which was being held in the state
of Hawaii.  No, just kidding it was just the part of Las Vegas (or
some desert West of Las Vegas) that was taken over by all the Hawaiian
who relocated here (I'd read that there were quite a few!).  This place
was called Lahaina Grill and we had a private room (actually two rooms
with dividing wall removed).  No KJ so we got to do our own which was
kind of fun.  The book was pretty extensive with some favorites, but
_still_ no "Jungle Love", sorry Amy, one of these years I'll remember
to bring my own disk.

Saturday, August 4th.

Ugh, that painful 10am start.  I sat down just in time for the first hand
which was pretty fortunate as it was AA.  I raised the single $25 blind
to $100 from early position and got re-lai by Bob Lauria immediately to
my left to $400.  All fold to me and now I told him that just because he
was the BMOC and went all deep in the main event and won all those ATLARGE
events it didn't mean he could push me around so all-in.  He totally went
nuts and started jumping around asking loudly (of himself) whether he
was really going to put all his chips in on the very first hand, and the
answer to that was yes, and my aces stood up and we clap for Bob and
I think everyone thought that was a joke, but I am, for a brief moment
the tournament chip leader!  I was going to offer everyone a chop, but
Scottro was still in, so I figured I'd never get a unanomous agreement.
I won another reasonable pot after which things kind of went downhill.

I was at that table where Marlin got run over by a deck (after deck,
after deck) over the next few rounds/hours.  I slowly bled some chips
some to bad beats (I scored a "I was sucked out on by an ADB" temporary
tattoo from Chris "ADB Ploink") some to unlucky flops and some too
sleepy play, I'm sure.  Eventually, I decided I was going to teach Marlin
a lesson and waited till he raised yet again from an early position and
I pushed all in with queens to find that he had kings.  The board
brought a king for good measure and IGHN.  IFSATG.

Luckily, Wil, my calcutta partner is still in.  I go play in the 2pm
Binions tournie and go out of that with Kings (against some random T8
hand) so I come back up to root our horses on.  I was part of the
Shelley Louie memorial syndicate and with 28 players left ten of our
horses as well as Wil were still in it.  Wow!  A serious of really bad
beats later there are 18 players left and six of our horses and Wil
are gone!  Plus another of our horses goes out next!  Ouch!  

I watch till it's time to go to the banquet.  The funniest hand was
when JP was all-in against Kenny and being behind he managed to suck
out and he stood up and yelled "I'm the real Kenny!"

Okay, maybe you had to be there.

The banquet was fine - we saw Perry and his new girlfriend Robin, but
Perry was a pussy and didn't stay for Roshambo (well, he'd be a pussy
even if he did as he didn't register for BARGE).  I think next year
I'm going to try sitting at a table with people I don't know or know
but haven't talked to at BARGE that year yet.  It was fun to catch up
some more with old friends, but I felt like I didn't meet nearly as
many new people this year as I had in previous years.

World Roshambo Championship results: defending champion Barry Goren made
it to the finals to fall to Gavin!  Gavin is the new WRC.  No tiltboys
participated.  Pussies.

Sunday, August 5th.

We'd had enough poker and decided to go to the Top of the World for
lunch (at the Stratosphere).  Cool view and pretty good food.  Along
the way we saw a billboard for "The Body" the exhibition at the
Tropicana.  It sounded like fun so that's where we headed after lunch.

It was *totally* gross and *totally* cool at the same time.  Definitely
worth a visit.  http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/ has more info and
lists where they are (there are multiple locations for this exhibition).

Eventually we went to the airport where we ran into Patti and Brenda and
Ron and Bob O and played a little chinese poker before heading to our
gate.

The worst bad beat of the entire week happened on our flight.  A couple
who checked in at the check-in desk and got their assigned seats and
boarding passes was somewhere in the boarding area.  For inexplicable
reason the gate agent had them on the departure management list (for
people who need seat assignments for this flight still) so he paged
them a few times (mangling their names beyond recognition) and when
they didn't answer gave their seats to a couple of stand-bys.  They
boarded (the original couple) because GA wasn't scanning boarding 
passes nothing strange happened till the standbys boarded and found
the couple in their seats.  The GA came on and kicked the couple off
of the last flight back to SFO.  I'd call that a much worse beat than
any I saw at the poker table, especially if they didn't know they were
being IDB'ed (involuntarily denied boarding) and were entitled to
various compensation.

Okay, the thanks section: Thanks Peter, Chuck and Mickdog for another BARGE.
Thanks to Patrick for bringing the sake to LV.  Thanks to David Heller and
everyone else who offered kind words and good thoughts for my dad.  Special
thanks to Mickdog for hopefully you know what.

This was going to be the year I was going to make it to all the *ARGE
events but I missed MARGE and due to work schedule I won't make it to
FARGO either :( but in 2008, I'm definitely, for sure, really going to
make it to all *ARGE events!