WYWAB 2026

The WYWAB series for 2026 finished on July 22nd.

No Prizes, No Cash, Just Fun

There were no prizes. Had there been prizes, I, Cliff Matthews (aka deadhead), wouldn’t have been eligible for them.

Overview

WYWAB stands for “Wish You Were At BARGE”, the Big August Rec.Gambling Excursion, held July 20th through 25th, 2026 at The Orleans in Las Vegas, Nevada. BARGE provides the inspiration for this series.

WYWAB was a series of free tournaments—one per day—whose structures were drawn from the tournaments spread at BARGE.

This series was not sanctioned, endorsed or in any other way sponsored or related to the BARGE organization. It was put on by Craft Poker Co., a completely unrelated corporation.

The link in the Event column of the table below is a link to the Mb2 structure sheet and will be definitive. You can compare those against the official 2026 BARGE structures.

All were welcome

All events in this series were open to the public.

Started before BARGE

Unlike 2024, when WYWAB ran alongside BARGE, the 2026 series started before BARGE and ended before BARGE culminated. WYWAB ran July 16th through 22nd; BARGE ran July 20th through 25th. That way people attending BARGE had a chance to play BARGE’s esoteric games online before playing them in real life.

One Tournament a Day, All at the Same Time

Unlike 2024, when WYWAB mirrored BARGE’s varied start times, every WYWAB 2026 tournament started at 5:05 pm Pacific time (which is also 6:05 Mountain, 7:05 Central and 8:05 Eastern). That is the standard craftpoker.com daily tournament time.

Round Duration

All levels were five minutes long.

There was a five minute break that started after each table had completed a hand at 55 minutes past the hour or later. That means the last table to finish a hand at 55 minutes past the hour or later got exactly a five minute break and all other tables had been paused while waiting for that table to finish a hand.

Late Registration and Re-entries

Late registration and re-entry rules varied per tournament. Consult each tournament’s Mb2 structure sheet for the specifics.

Leaderboard

There is a “WYWAB 2026 Leaderboard” entry in the Leaderboard menu available in the lobby. By default, only players with a net Fun Money win show up on leaderboards, but if you’ve played and have a net loss, you can see your entry by having the shift key held down when you select an entry from the Leaderboard menu.

The Tournaments

Some Differences

WYWAB was a one-per-day selection of BARGE’s tournaments; not every BARGE event was replicated, and some BARGE games (such as Funbook, CHORSE and Blackjack) aren’t games that mb2 knows how to deal.

For the tournaments that were dealt, some differences were just to improve the online experience and keep the tournaments from taking too long:

• All rounds were five minutes long.

• There were no chip races.

• Breaks started “on the 55”, which means that once each table had finished a hand after fifty-five minutes after the hour, all tables got a five minute break.

• Mb2 does not yet know how to change the number of seats for the final table, so each final table had the same number of seats the tournament started with.