Shanghai Yummy

I was thinking about not making a Vegas report this time, but an article I just read inspired me to go ahead and make the effort. All in all, this was probably one of the most fun trips I've ever taken to Sin City. I was pretty short stacked going in, but it wasn't hard to figure out how to have a good time without spending tons of money.

As it turns out, though, it might not be possible to have the same good time the next trip. The Feds have shut down Binion's Horseshoe, home of the World Series of Poker, and the locale at which Vince and I spent the majority of last Saturday. We went there for the good Blackjack rules, and for the poker. As it turns out, we were one of the last to make contributions to the back taxes and pensions owed by the Horseshoe, as well as one of the last who had our asses handed to us in the poker room under the gaze of the Gallery of Champions. It's a real shame to see this place go, because of the history associated with it, but also because it's just a fun place to gamble in Vegas. The real shame, personally, was that I didn't discover it until this trip. Well, at least I'll be able to tell the grandkids one day that I played in the same saloon as Stu Ungar once did.

Speaking of ass handings, this poker thing is the Next Challenge. Over the years I've picked up Craps and Blackjack pretty darn well, but there's an allure to poker that is mystical and powerful. Okay, not really... I got sucked in when I told Vince that I would watch him play. As I read somewhere, playing poker at the Horseshoe is like taking the mound at Yankee Stadium. It's the big time. So I wasn't about to go and make a fool of myself... Well, after about an hour of watching Vince pretty much tread water, I decided this Texas Hold'em thing wasn't that hard to grasp and I said what the hell... what's a two hundred dollar buy-in going to hurt at a 2-4 table? For a good three hours, nothing. In fact, I was up! This from someone who has trouble remembering that a flush beats a straight. I mean, sure, I was getting pretty friggin' lucky... I mean, I had pocket aces and pocket kings within a couple hands of each other, and the coup d'état, a Royal Flush. I had the Ace and King of Spades and some other guy had the 9 of spades and another spade. The flop came down all spades, Queen, Jack, and the 8, I think. The turn was nothing special, but we both had at least a flush so we were raising like crazy. Then the 10 of spades comes down on the river. He's got a stright flush and thinks he's got it, but I turn over my cards for the royal. Needless to say, that was a huge pot. Kept me going for quite a while, but then Vince came by and said that he was hungry. I should have left right then. But instead, I said, "Okay, I'll join you in 10, 15 minutes..." Yeah right. I got completely stupid after that, losing a good 2/3, maybe 3/4 of my stack in the next hour. And it was all because I was just being dumb... going in on hands I should have folded just because "oh it'll be my last hand" or not leaving the table saying to myself "just one more little pot and I'm done..." Yeah, stupid, alright. Anyway, Vince finally comes back to get me and he's like "dude! what happened?" "Don't even ask..."

The true irony of this would not manifest itself until the next day, when we decided to play poker again, but this time at the Monte Carlo. Once again, I had my ass handed to me, but this time was just plain bad playing and bad hands. No up and down this time... just down and more down. What can I say? I was a complete rookie who had no idea what he was doing. I didn't feel as bad losing at poker, though, and I think it's because you're losing to other people instead of the house. It's almost like, hey that's cool... you're beating me because of skill and luck, not because you're a bastard and have the rules rigged so you can't lose... But the worst part about this was that I learned that at the Monte Carlo, the house pays special bonuses for high hands, starting with 4 of a kind and going up to... Spade Royal Flush... which pays... $3200!

Alas, the timing was not to be. Speaking of timing, just before the trip, one of Vince's friends told him to play 28 black on the roulette wheel. Overhearing this, the bartender at the bar they were at told him to play 36 red. Just before the trip, he'd bet on 36 red at the boat and the wheel came up 28 black. Go figure. Well, 28 black was all over the wheels during the trip too. Sure, it could have been one of those "you see what you're looking for" things, but explain this: at some point after my ass-handing at the Horseshoe, we went back to the Mirage and I watched him play Blackjack while recovering from the stupidity. Well, he's pretty much going head to head against the dealer and he's way up after just one shoe. I'm talking like up 500 when sitting down with 1000. So he hands me a quarter and tells me to play 28 black on the roulette wheel down the way. I run over there and put the bet down. What comes up? 36 red. Okay, then, on our last day, he decides he's going to beat this curse by playing both. We go up to a pretty crowded wheel and it takes a little while to try to squeeze into the action. Finally the croupier tell him that instead of trying to crowd into this table, there's another one right across the way. As we walk up to the second wheel... what number is flashing at the top of the wheel history? 28 black. Vince has since sworn off roulette.

The game of choice on this trip, though, was definitely craps. It's your first love that stays with you, right? In fact, the only time I left a table up on this trip was at craps. It was just that kind of trip. Because I didn't come in with a big bankroll, my gambling was fairly limited. This meant that I wasn't an active participant in The Legend, Part Two: Vince's Vengeance.

In contrast to the Original Legend, this one was much more subdued. It was almost surreal. Usually, when a craps table starts hitting and someone gets on a hot streak, the place goes wild and it's hard for passers-by not to notice. Craps had been pretty kind to both of us earlier in the trip. I'd had a couple of good runs at one point, making 3 or 4 points in a row. So had Vince. But on our last evening, after the ass-handing at the Monte Carlo, I said I was done with gambling for this trip. Too bad. Vince ended up making 7 points in a row, including two hard eights when he had a quarter on it. The thing is, there were only two other people at the table, and one of them didn't even play until the fourth or fifth point had been made. So it was quiet, and the dealers paid bets pretty quickly. So we weren't even there that long... The odds of making seven points in a row are more than 1 in 9000, which more rare than the original Legend (which we calculated as something like 1 in 5000). The thing is, it's hard to compare the two because we made a lot of assumptions to make that original 1 in 5000 calculation. Assumptions we didn't have to make this time around because I kept track of how many points he'd hit since I wasn't playing and could take the time to make such observations. In any case, it was once again quite amazing, and of course, the Legend grows.

All in all a great trip, especially considering that we got the hotel and most of the food comped. Basically all I really had to pay for was airfare and ass-handings. I could even claim that I played perfect Blackjack strategy this time around. I made no mistakes, to my knowledge, including changes to the strategy when we played single deck at the Horseshoe. And after I stopped gambling myself, I helped Vince with some of the trickier plays when he was playing. I wonder if there are "gambling consultants" out there?

PGP Signed Entry