From: jacobs@cs.utah.edu (Steven R Jacobs)
Subject: BARGE Report
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
Date: 27 Aug 92 22:44:07


Wednesday night

   Plane was a little late, so Jonathan "Sheep Shank" Rosenberg made me load
   the cattle car for making him wait.  Sheesh.  After checking in and
   helping JR shower (he was injured recently in a rodeo and has a bum leg,
   really -- I don't help just ANY invalid ya know...), played Omaha hi-lo
   at the (Union) Plaza with JR, lost $300 in no time at all (Omaha is
   obviously not my game).  Switched to Texas Hold'em after leaving the
   Omaha table in total disgust (me, not the table...).  Hold'em and Omaha
   at the Plaza have a 5% rake with a $2.50 cap, which isn't too bad.
   Played a little Hold'em at the Alladin before crashing at 7:00 am.  The
   game at the Alladin also has a 5%/$2.50 rake.

   There were a couple of amusing characters at the Omaha table.  "Rocky"
   has a little statue of Rocket J. Squirrel that he uses to protect his
   cards.  Rocky was fond of telling everying exactly what he was holding,
   sometimes even before the flop.  This obviously made it easier to choose
   when to play against him.  His comrade, who I'll call "Mouth", was just
   the opposite -- no matter what he said, you could be sure he was lieing.
   Mouth motored on and on and on, getting worse the more he drank.  Lost
   all his money, then borrowed more from Rocky.  What a pair.


Thursday

   Hold'em at Plaza, followed by the famed Golden Gate monster shrimp
   cocktails (breakfast of champions....), then headed to the Fremont
   for some 7-stud Hi-lo.  Neither game accounted for much of a deviation
   in my bankroll.  The hi-lo stud game got a bit boring, I must have
   thrown away 18 hands out of last 20.  Fortunately, nobody at the table
   was smoking, so at least I could die of boredom without choking.

   Met with some of the "early arrivals" for Mexican scab food at the
   Frontier.  Good stuff.

   Went to the Dunes to check out their poker room.  No Hold'em game
   going, and the $1 max rake promotion advertised in Card Player was
   long gone.  Went back to the Alladin to see if they had a game going,
   but no such luck.  Oh well,  I'm due for some sleep anyway...


Friday

   Breakfast at the Sands with "the gang" (thanks guys).

   On the way back downtown, I stopped at the Stardust to play a little
   blackjack.  I'd never been there before, but after the 2 mile hike
   through the casino, I finally located the blackjack tables.  Placed
   a bet, blackjack (presto!).  Moved to another table, and placed my
   second bet, got another blackjack (presto!).  Moved to another table
   and got a third blackjack (Presto!) but this one pushed with the
   dealer's blackjack.  Let it ride, got another blackjack (PRESTO!!).
   Four hands, 4 blackjacks.  A perfect record.  I left the Stardust
   undefeated.  OK, so I cheated -- I used "Ace of Hearts" coupons that
   were sent to me by another rec.gambler (thanks, Manny!).  But still,
   I never lose when I play at the Stardust...

   Back to Plaza for Hold'em (Texas style, I've had enough of that
   Omaha hi-lo crap...).  Played for several ours, and dug part way
   out of my Omaha hole.

   Cruising the casino, where do I find Sheep Shank?  At the Pai Gow
   Poker table, of all places.  OK, time to learn a new game, even if
   it is a pretty silly game.  Played a while, won back another $40 or
   so of my Omaha loss.  OK, one last bet and we'll go to lunch.  $80,
   if I win this I'll be in good shape.  It pushed.  And pushed and
   pushed and pushed.  Half hour later, I still haven't won, so I try
   bribing the dealer.  Another push, increase the bribe.  Another
   push or two.  Finally I won the sucker and we headed to Golden
   Nugget for pizza (thanks Jeff).  Played a little more Pai Gow Poker
   at the Golden Nugget, just to get it out of my system :-)

   Back to the Plaza for another Hold'em session.  Played til about
   1:30AM, then headed to the Frontier for the annual banquet.  "Table
   for 10 please".  I was surprised to see Michael there, after all the
   whining, but I let him live anyway :-)  Edmund and the Good Doctor
   sprung for the bill (thanks!!!), so you bums who didn't show really
   missed out.  Now get this -- Blair sat between myself and Michael,
   and we _all_ survived the experience.  Amazing.

   
Saturday

   Woke up around noon, played very little Hold'em before heading out
   to GBC.  Not much of a turnout, only about 5 of us were there.
   Browsed for a while, and checked out Wong's "Blackjack Analyser".
   Looks like he's computing an approximate basic strategy (this claim
   is based on the program's suggesting doubling A9 vs. 6 *and* 5 in
   single deck games, which doesn't agree with my computations...), but
   at least it is quick.  If the answers are a little off, they should
   at least be computed quickly.  I didn't spot any other glaring problems,
   but didn't really have much time to look.

   Also checked out the "World Series of Poker Adventure".  This looks
   pretty amusing, although the graphics are a bit lame compared to
   Leisure Suit Larry etc.  It appears to be mouse ONLY, no support for
   keyboard control, but perhaps there are options...

   Edmund and the Good Doctor passed out the official BARGE badges to
   those who made it to GBC.  These of course will become collectors
   items worth untold fortunes in future years...

   More Hold'em at the Plaza, with Martin "Slick" Veneroso and Mike
   Zimmers.  I was catching some pretty good cards, and pulled in
   about $220 over a few hours of play.  Most memorable hand: pocket
   10's, bet before the flop, everyone folds except one player in late
   position.  Flop comes 10-10-x, I'm in an early position so I slow play
   my quads.  I check, the button bets, I call.  Same thing on the turn.
   I was tempted to bet it on the river, figuring the other player might
   not bet the $8 on the end, but I check raised and got paid off (sorry
   Slick...)

BARGE Tournament

   So I'm playing Hold'em at the Plaza when I get a phone call from
   one of the BJ slime^H^H^H^H^H guys -- "Hey, we got five guys here
   at the classy end of town who want to play poker".  OK, I'll see
   what we can do.  I checked with the head dude in the poker room to
   see if he'd open a new Hold'em table for us, but no go -- not enough
   dealers available.  So, we spread the word to five players who were
   at the Plaza, and head up the strip to meet the other half of the
   table.  We meet in the casino and migrate to a vacated room, and
   trash the place to get the right ambiance.  Take one round table and
   one square table, shove them together between the beds and throw a
   blanket on top, and VIOLA -- instant poker room.  One player produces
   the chips and cards (thanks Slick), everone puts up the entry fee, and
   we start to play, pretty much making up (and changing) the rules as
   we went along.  Nine players starting with $190 each in tournament
   chips (no, we did NOT pay anywhere near that for the entry fee...)
   Three prizes, split approximately 50%/30%/20%, playing until the
   winner has all the chips.

   First hand, $2/$4 hold'em with $1/$2 blinds.  We doubled the limits
   every 15 minutes until a couple players busted out, then changed the
   limits whenever there seemed to be a consensus.  Alan takes an early
   commanding lead, and before you know it we're pulling all the silly
   $1 chips out of the game because the limits are too high.

   There were several times when quads showed up in this game, once
   on the board with an ace kicker -- chop it up.  We suspected that
   the dealer was a mechanic, but we let him live anyway since he
   went bust out of the money.

   Finally it gets down to me, Edmund Hack, and Jacko.  Jacko wanted
   to bust me out so bad he could taste it, but it just wasn't meant
   to be.  After Jacko bites it, we raise the blinds to something like
   $100/$200 and switch to pot limit.  We had about $1700 between us,
   but I have the bigger stack.  I have the big blind, so I retain
   the option to raise if Edmund calls the big blind.  Edmund calls
   the blind, adding $50 to the $150 that is already there.  I double
   this to $400 based on my pocket jacks, and Edmund calls.  The flop
   comes with three small cards with no danger of anything serious,
   and my bet puts Edmund all in.  No help on the turn or river, so
   that's all she wrote.

   Chalk up a win for the second Hold'em tournament that I've ever
   played in (the first started last October and still isn't over
   yet...)

   All in all, the Hold'em tournament was the highlight of the trip,
   at least for me.  This is bound to become a BARGE tradition, and
   may become bigger than the World Series of Poker :-)

Sunday

   Stopped by the poker room to see how Blair was doing at the 7-stud
   table, and to wish him a happy birthday.  Drove Mike Zimmers back to
   his room, then headed back to the Aladdin for some sleep.

   Slept 'til 11 trying to recover from the tournament, then checked
   out.  Winning the tournament put me ahead for the trip, enough to
   cover expenses.  Played poker all day at the Mirage.  Started out
   well, and was ahead $60 or so before breaking for lunch.  After
   lunch (thanks Jacko), the poker game deteriorated.  I caught a lot
   of cards that were good enough to start with, but not good enough
   to bring in the pots.  In fact, I flopped a king-high flush at the
   same time that someone else flopped an ace-high flush -- that same
   hand robbed me last year at the Tropicana.  Dropped an embarassing
   amount of money before leaving for the airport at 7:30pm.  What the
   hell, how often do you get to Vegas anyway....
--
Steve Jacobs  ({bellcore,hplabs,uunet}!utah-cs!jacobs, jacobs@cs.utah.edu)
"Never teach a card counter to sing.  It wastes your time and gets the card
 counter barred."