EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY:
MIKE CARO SPEAKS AT BARGE
LAS VEGAS, NV (1996)
Starting tonight, BARGE is happening all this week through next Saturday night (see: barge.org). This marks the 27th consecutive year I’ve attended the annual summer gathering of poker players. We meet up in Las Vegas to play a series of tournaments, cash games, socialize, and hang out together. This year, we’re playing BARGE at the Westgate, which has been the group’s host casino most recently since Binion’s Horseshoe (our longtime home) closed down it’s poker room a few years ago.
I remember my first BARGE which was in August 1996. Each year, BARGE features a guest speaker at the banquet, typically held on the concluding night of the week-long convention. Over the years, we’ve had just about every notable poker celebrity speak to us at BARGE, which is a testament to its drawing power and respected status within the community.
Mike Caro was the speaker in the first year I attended. Caro was one of the game’s most popular poker writers and theorists. Not only was he widely-respected, Caro was also wildly entertaining. He also had many stories from his early days as a poker pro grinding away in the gritty cardrooms of Gardena. Over the following four decades, Caro introduced many new approaches to poker. I’ve written and said this before — that Caro deserves induction into the Poker Hall of Fame, but I won’t belabor that here and now.
Caro’s speech to BARGE that year was both memorable and hysterical. The BARGE banquet attracted about 70-80 attendees. It was held on a packed Saturday night at a Brazilian steakhouse (all you can eat meats) called “Yoli’s” on Paradise. The problem was, our group took up only half the restaurant. So, the other half of the restaurant’s guests were forced to endure a lengthy, and let’s just say, eccentric poker presentation by Caro. It was a disaster.
First, the restaurant was ridiculously noisy. Waiters were coming and going with giant skewers of meat. Dishes and glasses were clanging. Then, a few minutes into Caro’s speech, the microphone suddenly went dead (or maybe the restaurant owner pulled the plug — we’re still not sure). Nobody knew what to do.
Caro was — well, Mike Caro. They didn’t call him “Crazy Mike” for nothing. He is “the Mad Genius of Poker.”
Unfazed, Caro announced he would continue the speech outside of the restaurant. We were to follow him outside onto the terrace. So, about 9:30 at night, 70 or 80 of us swarmed out the front door at Yoli’s and then found ourselves on a second-floor deck with a small patio. This posed a problem since the patio area was unlit. Completely dark. Caro didn’t care. This was golden madness, a chance to shine. Abandoning conventionalism was one of the things that made him so popular as a speaker to all kinds of audiences.
It was a really crazy thing to do, but Caro spontaneously stepped over the railing and stood atop the roof of the building. Everyone gathered around him. Off in the distance over his shoulder were the brilliant colors of The Strip. It was perfect.
So, Caro launched into his speech. He waved his arms. His long hair flowed in the desert wind. He paced back and forth across the rooftop, and we laughed and applauded at all the high points. What was funniest about seeing Caro do his act were the reactions of confusion and disbelief from other people who came and went into Yoli’s, passersby who were not part of the BARGE group. “A powerful winning force surrounds me!” That was Caro’s stock line. But seeing this wildman-guru standing on a roof yelling the mantra made us all look more like a cult than a poker group. Caro went on and of course hit the speech out of the park. I’ve seen many speeches before, but never a man standing on a rooftop hollering on a Saturday night with the Las Vegas skyline in the background.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the photo from that night. However, Caro returned to BARGE a few years later and joined us at another banquet, when this photo was taken.
Caro deserves all of his success and should be regarded fondly by everyone as one of the most important contributors in the game’s long history. With Mike Caro, always expect the unexpected.