(This text was recovered from a previous Barge chip site and has been lightly edited, if at all.)
THE THEME: The theme for the 2014 BARGE Chipset comes from the luckiest (for me) outcome of a hand in the 2013 BARGE No-Limit Tournament. It was fairly late in the tournament, 4 tables left I believe, and I was in middle position with an M of about 10 when I looked at Ah5h. It was folded to me and I decided that this might be a good time for an all-in steal so I jammed. Uh oh, I got called by AA and figured that it was the end for me. But as Chic is my witness I flopped one wheel card and made a bicycle on the last two runners. From there I went on to win the tournament and that was the only time my tournament life was on the line with me an extreme underdog. There is a little more to it than that. I am also a dedicated cyclist; I logged around 3500 miles on my bikes last year. So this year’s theme is The Wheel. I am grateful to a number of people especially the members of the BARGE chip committee for making the 2014 chips a reality. I hope you like the design; in later posts I will tell the story of each chip in the collection and highlight the contributions of these friends.
Dave “sam_6” Lawful
BARGE 2013 No Limit Hold’em Champion
A SPECIAL CONTEST, CAN YOU CRACK THE S00PER SEKRIT CODE?
Every year a very limited number of purple chips are made (maybe around 35?) Most of these chips are distributed to the past No Limit Hold’em Champions, the current years BARGE tournament winners and the Organizers. The BARGE champion receives several “discretionary purples” to distribute as they wish. This year I am running a contest and will award one discretionary purple to the winner.
The 2014 BARGE chipset has edge markings that are actually a cypher. Each character/pair of characters represents a letter of the alphabet. Each chip has a different line on it. The object of this contest is to decipher the chips and send the decoded message to my personal email. Read and follow the rules carefully:
1. To win the contest you must have purchased a chipset from the BCC website prior to BARGE. (your name will appear on Randy Collack’s list and you must be paid in full.)
2. The chip will be awarded to the first contestant who emails the correctly decoded message to davidlawful@msn.com.
3. No person who is currently entitled to a purple may receive a second one. You are welcome to play, the purple will be awarded to the first entrant who is not entitled to a purple already.
4. The decision of the judge (that would be me) is final.
5. Management reserves all rights.
6. Ties go to the runner runner.
THE STORY OF THE 2014 BARGE CHIPS
THE COMMON OBVERSE: Have you ever seen a bike with those wide rimmed carbon fiber aerodynamic wheels? Michael Brennan adapted their look for the BARGE 2014 wheel set. An aero wheel set will cost you $1500 or more, a sampler set of all 8 of this year’s chips in will only cost you $15 if you order them early.
THE BLACK CHIP: This is my favorite story surrounding the creation of a chip in this year’s collection. One of the earliest ideas I had was to use that wonderful 1933 photo of Albert Einstein riding a bicycle in Santa Barbara. (I used to ride a bicycle in Santa Barbara as a college student.) I soon learned that Cal Tech owned the photo and they would license the image for scholarly purposes at a nominal cost. I had to abandon that idea and that would have been the end of it if I weren’t BARGE Champion. Because I was BARGE Champion I made an effort to attend as many other arg events this year as my calendar would allow. I went to my first ATLARGE in March and there I met Stephen Jacobs there who is an ATLARGE regular. I am sure you will agree that Stephen bears a significant resemblance to Albert in this photo; you might not have realized it was Stephen. I am grateful to him and his friend “Gleny” (of www.gleny.com) who made several photographs for us to use. I am also grateful to Second Life Bikes ( www.secondlifebikes.org) who loaned them a vintage bicycle for this project. Please check out Second Life Bikes. They are doing great things in Asbury Park, New Jersey and inspired me to begin volunteering at Lucky Bikes, an organization with a similar mission here in Denver.
THE WHITE (GREY) CHIP: In the 1960s there was a BBC imported TV show called “The Prisoner” about a MI5 agent who quits the service and is kidnapped. He wakes up in a place called “The Village” where he is imprisoned with other spies who have quit their services. Everyone in the village wears a badge with a high wheel bicycle on it and a number. If you try to escape the Village a big weather balloon like thing captures you and you wake up back in The Village. Our hero is trying to escape and although there are a several “number 2s” that appear throughout the series no one ever sees “Number 1.” My good friend and past champion Mike “ADB Howler” McBride drew his rendition of the village’s canopy covered penny-farthing bicycle. I am very fond of Howler’s drawing, it makes me want to ask: Who is number 1?
THE BLUE CHIP: Hear me roar! Did you ever steal a couple of your mom’s clothes pins and put playing cards in your spokes when you were a kid? I choose the Ace and 5 of hearts for my motorcycle.
THE GREEN CHIP: Bike routes in Denver are marked with these green oval signs. As it turned out A5 was the bicycle route to the 2013 BARGE Championship for me.
THE ORANGE CHIP: There was a time when I traveled to LA quite a bit for work and in the evenings I would go down to the Bicycle Casino to play some cards. Michael Brennan did this great drawing of The Bike, which was also the host for a number of the ESCARGO events.
THE RED CHIP: Yes I know that the wheel was believed to have been invented in ancient Mesopotamia, and was originally made of wood not stone. This “invention of the wheel” is much more fun don’t you agree? The cave man looks a little like a selfie I once made.
THE YELLOW CHIP: When you are climbing a long steep hill (like one of our Colorado mountain passes) on a bicycle the most welcome sign you see is the one of a truck on a triangle indicating a down grade is starting. There are actually signs using bikes not trucks and Michael Brennan has faithfully copied that graphic for the yellow chip. If I catch a fairly straight 8% downgrade on my road bike I am good for top speeds in excess of 40 mph, the pros go much faster. Of course if I have a bicycle and all you have is a pair. You aren’t catching me.
THE PINK CHIP: We had to do something about the big wheel you see at the entrance to nearly every casino in Las Vegas. Generally this is a very negative EV bet. I figured if BARGE had such a wheel it would look like this and be positive EV because it is still OK to have fun in Las Vegas.
A PDF of all nine chips, including the legendary purple chip, is available here.
A smaller image of the nine chips and the edges is available here.
Next set: 2015: Virgin Experience
Previous set: 2013: Unlikely Events