A Brief (boring) Trip Report

“The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.”
–Seneca
Alas, I don’t have very much to say in my Vegas trip report. Usually trip reports are my favorite posts to write up, but this trip was more of a family thing. Since I rarely get to spend much time with my younger sister, most of the trip was spent counting cards and rolling dice while sitting or standing next to the birthday girl, who turned 23 last week. She hooked up free rooms at Paris, but we fought through the distractions of the strip and spent most of our time downtown, where the smart gambler’s Expected Value is at least close to zero.
I also got to hang with RDub, who was gambling it up on negative EV games for his 21st birthday. We did make it to the Horseshoe Saturday night for a couple hours after younger sis went to bed, where I sat the no-limit game for a couple hours, bailing when the fish busted and left me with some weak tight types. Total poker take: -$20 after missing a flush draw in the $2-4 game while waiting for NL.
I ended up dead even (actually I think I was up slightly if you discount the cab fares) after many hours of blackjack and craps, and never made it to the Bellagio $15-30. Next time…
I’m still exhausted, so rather than a good post, I’ll briefly give you the trip highlights (photos soon to come).
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1. The Stuff Magazine Celebrity Poker Tournament
RDub’s buddy Phil Gordon hooked us up with a VIP entry to the Celebrity Poker tournament at the Palms. Apparently, when Nicky Hilton caught sight of me, she rushed to the wedding chapel immediately, the poor girl. But seriously, it was cool to meet Phil (briefly, he was running/announcing the tourney) for the second time, and to see a few celebs mixing it up at the tables. The few that I recognized:
–Lakers Luke Walton, Devean George, and Kareem Rush
–A loud Tara Reid
–The girl from “That 70’s Show” who finished 480th in the world series
–Lance Bass
I felt old, only being able to identify about 1/3rd of the “celebrities”. I guess that’s what I get for not having cable and never reading an issue of Stuff magazine.
The highlight was getting a free copy of Phil’s yet-to-be-released book, which offers an insider look at the world of poker from the eyes of a TiltBoy. The few pages I read were pretty cool.
2. Little Sister rolls at the Fitz
The Fitzgerald (downtown) had a promotion going where the person with the most rolls on the craps table wins $100. They had a little digital counter on the table which kept track of the number of rolls, and my sis made it to 27 before the dreaded “seven out”. Shame to miss out on the $100 prize (the high for the day was 36), but the stack of chips accumulated during the streak looked far better than a single Benjamin. What do you mean craps is -EV?
3. Lunch with PokerProf
I had a nice chat with PokerProf and Flipchipro about what it’s like to live and work in Vegas. They’ve lived there for 22 years, and hearing an insider’s look at the craziest city in America (coupled with the great view at the top of the Stratosphere) made for an excellent lunch. Check out a terrible picture of me and some of the highlights of the conversation here.
4. Some of the worst blackjack I’ve ever seen
The basic strategy cards for blackjack cost $1. My favorite play of the weekend was when a guy split tens twice on the same hand when a dealer showed a 10. Ye gads. Or maybe it was my last blackjack hand, when a confused dealer thought my 18 was good enough to beat his ace-8. I couldn’t grab my chips fast enough after he rapped the table for a push, and the best part was that the floorman stood there and watched the whole thing without a word. Ahh, late-night at the Horseshoe. The same dealer also stayed on a soft 23 with two aces in front of him.
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So those are the highlights (or lowlights, you decide). I’m gonna get back to playing poker, but make sure you sign up for Iggy’s blogger tournament, and test your skills against some of your favorite poker bloggers. My tourney game is so rusty that the Tinman has a better shot that me, but I’ve yet to money in one of these events so I’ll bring my A game. Rumor has it that the field will be pretty big and there will be some sort of bounty on my head, so do your best not to knock me out.
Keep on truckin.