It's been a while since I added to this series but a lot has changed since I wrote this:
A lifetime of running cold series.
For one, I now have a hand-pay to brag about (later) but no Royal Flush yet. I also have a ton of tales and some new locations to add to the story.
But first, let's pick up where we left off.
After my last trip to Vegas (in 2014) the wife and I started 2015 planning to hit Vegas several times. We visited in March, June, August and December right after Christmas. We stayed at TI, Mandalay Bay (again), NY/NY and Excalibur.
The first trip, in March, was going to be the trip where I finally got to do some serious sports betting for March Madness. I had also decided to dip my toes back in the live poker well and play in one of their $40 buy-in daily tournaments for fun.
As is our custom, we arrived on a Thursday evening, ate dinner, hit the bar hard, lost just a little bit playing video poker and went to be somewhere around 2AM. The next morning I was up and about early (around 8AM) I went and ate breakfast and settled down at a slot machine to play a little prior to the tournament starting.
It was at this time I ordered a cup of coffee with creamer from a cocktail waitress, sipped it, thought it tasted funny, but finished it regardless. This, as it turned out, was a huge mistake that pretty much cost me the trip.
Thinking back I'm not sure if it was the coffee, but I'm pretty certain it was. Because 1/2 way through the poker tournament I started feeling ill. Very ill. My vision was blurring, I was dizzy and my stomach was doing it's best impression of an over baked pretzel. I wouldn't tell you anything about the last three hands I played in the tournament but it was pretty bad. I started walking away from the table before the last card came out because I knew that something was wrong.
What was wrong was food poisoning. A fairly hideous case of it.
For the next 38 hours I was confined to either bed or the restroom on the occasions that I needed to puke. I was also cold. So cold that my wife set the room temperature at 75 and still had to go down to the gift shop to by me a pair of sweat pants and a zip up hoodie.
All day Friday and all day Saturday I laid in the bed in the room half sleeping and half getting up to the bathroom. My poor wife, who hates college basketball, stuck by my side in the room with nothing to do but watch March Madness while I came in and out of sleep.
This was, without a doubt, the worst trip to Las Vegas that we have ever experienced.
On Sunday I was finally feeling marginally better, at least enough to get out of bed, so our last day was spent slowly walking around the Strip. At this point I was pretty much limited to drinking Pedialyte and eating some saltine crackers that we got from Walgreen's.
I didn't gamble, I didn't watch much of March Madness, we didn't see any shows. It was all around just a horrid trip.
The remaining trips in 2015 were better, no one got sick, but nothing to brag about. I was scared to drink coffee now but I did gamble and we had 3 trips with a succession of small wins and small losses that pretty much made gambling in Las Vegas just about a wash.
We didn't gamble much however because my wife was on a horrid losing streak and would just clam up and stop gambling after $20 or so. Then she'd get in a bad mood and so we'd just walk from casino to casino doing not much of anything but just ambling around. We spent all of 2015 in this funk, a funk brought on by extreme sickness and some pretty rotten action.
Because our gambling had dropped, so did our comp offers. We needed something to get us back on the beam and we needed it quickly because our Vegas passion was flailing and we really didn't know how to get it back.
About the only saving grace for this period of time were the shows that we saw. We saw Penn & Teller and loved it, Zarkana before it went away, Mystere, a show at the Venetian called "Panda" and the Dancing with the Stars road show at the Tropicana. We also dined well, when we ate, eating at all of Wolfgang Puck's places, Mesa grill, Gordon Ramsay's Steak and Pub, and we discovered the Crown and Anchor Pub for the first time.
The irony of the year was this: In 2015 we spent more time in Las Vegas than in any year prior, we also gambled a hell of a lot less.
In 2016 that would change, not always for the better.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Gamble Blogging. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Gamble Blogging. Sort by date Show all posts
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Monday, April 20, 2015
Bad travel blogging abounds. (Vegas Travel Edition)
So much bad travel blogging so little time.
Have you seen this?
Vegas Noob? 20 Things you must know before arriving. Getfreeflights.com
"The list" (go read the whole post) is a rather simplistic attempt to categorize Vegas hotels based on location. The short version of this is "only stay in the middle of the strip when you come to Vegas". That's fair advice, but not exactly relevant nor does it really establish the many reasons one might choose to stay in any of the many Vegas casinos.
But Vegas information, especially from bloggers, is always bad. Always. Either they assume that you want from Vegas the same things that they do or they try and guess what you want to get out of the trip and are 100% wrong. Unlike political bloggers (and most points/miles bloggers) I don't think they do this because of kick-backs (in most cases) I just don't think that the Vegas "insider" really understands why people come to Vegas in the first place.
It's all about having fun. Most people don't come to Vegas specifically to gamble, but most end up doing so when they get there. As a matter of fact, a recent survey revealed that only 4% of first time Vegas visitors come to the town specifically to gamble but, once there, over 70% end up wagering. A lot of visitors see shows, and a lot of people go to nightclubs. Oh, and you're probably shopping and just sightseeing as well when you're in town.
The dirty secret about Vegas is that, honestly, as long as you're either staying on The Strip or near Freemont Street, where you stay is merely a matter of price preference, because you can get anywhere fairly cheaply and easily using either cabs, public transportation or walking.
That said there are pros and cons to almost every hotel in Vegas, depending on what you're looking for. To try and say that there are "zones" to shoot for or avoid is really nonsensical. Take Circus Circus as an example. It's an older property in zone 3, which according to the "chart" you should always avoid. However, I'm willing to bet, if you have children, this casino should be on the top of your list. The primary reason for this is The Adventuredome and the live circus acts and Midway which kids love. Then you have Excalibur which has the Fun Dungeon which kids also love. So, if you travel with the kiddies both of these hotels should be on the top of your list not "zone 3" places to avoid.
If you're a sports bettor you might consider staying at the Westgate which houses the SuperBook. If you follow the guidance to "never stay in a hotel off the strip" you'll be some distance from Las Vegas' premier sports book.
Advice of this type is becoming more and more prevalent among travel bloggers. There are, to be truthful, a lot of kick-backs that these folks receive which leads them to make odd recommendations most of the time. This blog, unfortunately, is too small too receive anything like that so I hope that I'm always offering the best advice possible, in a fair and even-handed manner. Even IF I had the readership to pull in endorsement money I'd like to think that I wouldn't. For one, I have a day job that pays well and secondly, I find the endless "click my affiliate links" posts that most points/mileage bloggers are writing now to be incredibly boring. One guy even blogged about applying for a credit card which allowed him to provide 21 separate affiliate links within one post. The saddest part about that is I'm not even sure it's a record.
There was a time that miles/points bloggers made sense, offered good travel information and did a pretty good job keeping up with the various loyalty programs. This was before they became thought leaders (no really) and compensated pitchmen for the affiliate credit-card industry. In fact, even when they were blogging about aspirational awards they STILL had SOME value. The problem now is that when they're slaves to content. So you get a ton of affiliate links and pictures of lounges, selfies in airplane restrooms (which are as creepy as they sound) and tons and tons of carping about mileage devaluations.
Over the weekend, for some odd reason, I did a lot of travel/miles/points blog reading. My takeaway from this was that, for many of the reasons noted above, the industry as a whole is almost dead. I'm not sure what the fix is, and I'm almost certain that this little blog isn't going to stem the tide. I just hope I don't ever contribute to the downfall. (of course, some might say that I already am)
Have you seen this?
Vegas Noob? 20 Things you must know before arriving. Getfreeflights.com
There are a lot of hotels in Las Vegas and choosing the right one can be difficult.
The way I see it, you have 3 options:
Pick the cheapest one (trust me, you don’t want to do this)
Comb through travel forums and take advice from total strangers
Check out Bryce’s color-coded map below this list
"The list" (go read the whole post) is a rather simplistic attempt to categorize Vegas hotels based on location. The short version of this is "only stay in the middle of the strip when you come to Vegas". That's fair advice, but not exactly relevant nor does it really establish the many reasons one might choose to stay in any of the many Vegas casinos.
But Vegas information, especially from bloggers, is always bad. Always. Either they assume that you want from Vegas the same things that they do or they try and guess what you want to get out of the trip and are 100% wrong. Unlike political bloggers (and most points/miles bloggers) I don't think they do this because of kick-backs (in most cases) I just don't think that the Vegas "insider" really understands why people come to Vegas in the first place.
It's all about having fun. Most people don't come to Vegas specifically to gamble, but most end up doing so when they get there. As a matter of fact, a recent survey revealed that only 4% of first time Vegas visitors come to the town specifically to gamble but, once there, over 70% end up wagering. A lot of visitors see shows, and a lot of people go to nightclubs. Oh, and you're probably shopping and just sightseeing as well when you're in town.
The dirty secret about Vegas is that, honestly, as long as you're either staying on The Strip or near Freemont Street, where you stay is merely a matter of price preference, because you can get anywhere fairly cheaply and easily using either cabs, public transportation or walking.
That said there are pros and cons to almost every hotel in Vegas, depending on what you're looking for. To try and say that there are "zones" to shoot for or avoid is really nonsensical. Take Circus Circus as an example. It's an older property in zone 3, which according to the "chart" you should always avoid. However, I'm willing to bet, if you have children, this casino should be on the top of your list. The primary reason for this is The Adventuredome and the live circus acts and Midway which kids love. Then you have Excalibur which has the Fun Dungeon which kids also love. So, if you travel with the kiddies both of these hotels should be on the top of your list not "zone 3" places to avoid.
If you're a sports bettor you might consider staying at the Westgate which houses the SuperBook. If you follow the guidance to "never stay in a hotel off the strip" you'll be some distance from Las Vegas' premier sports book.
Advice of this type is becoming more and more prevalent among travel bloggers. There are, to be truthful, a lot of kick-backs that these folks receive which leads them to make odd recommendations most of the time. This blog, unfortunately, is too small too receive anything like that so I hope that I'm always offering the best advice possible, in a fair and even-handed manner. Even IF I had the readership to pull in endorsement money I'd like to think that I wouldn't. For one, I have a day job that pays well and secondly, I find the endless "click my affiliate links" posts that most points/mileage bloggers are writing now to be incredibly boring. One guy even blogged about applying for a credit card which allowed him to provide 21 separate affiliate links within one post. The saddest part about that is I'm not even sure it's a record.
There was a time that miles/points bloggers made sense, offered good travel information and did a pretty good job keeping up with the various loyalty programs. This was before they became thought leaders (no really) and compensated pitchmen for the affiliate credit-card industry. In fact, even when they were blogging about aspirational awards they STILL had SOME value. The problem now is that when they're slaves to content. So you get a ton of affiliate links and pictures of lounges, selfies in airplane restrooms (which are as creepy as they sound) and tons and tons of carping about mileage devaluations.
Over the weekend, for some odd reason, I did a lot of travel/miles/points blog reading. My takeaway from this was that, for many of the reasons noted above, the industry as a whole is almost dead. I'm not sure what the fix is, and I'm almost certain that this little blog isn't going to stem the tide. I just hope I don't ever contribute to the downfall. (of course, some might say that I already am)
Monday, October 24, 2016
Gamble Blogging: A LifeTime of Running Cold (Part VI) You have to learn to crawl before you walk.
Coming off our trip to Atlantic City I was feeling pretty good. I had just come off two "successful" gambling trips where I won (slightly) and only lost slightly. The important thing was that instead of blowing through my entire bankroll, and then heading to the ATM to get some more money to waste, I had actually come home, and deposited back into the bank a considerable amount of cash.
This is a big step for any gambler. Not the first time you do it mind you, because luck is just that and can strike on any one trip, but if you can do it consecutive trips in a row then you start to think you might be on to something. And I was. Like most people who head to the casinos I had previously just gone with the idea that I'd throw money into a slot machine and see where luck took me. The idea that my play could affect the house edge hadn't yet registered. I understood the basic concept that some games were better than others but I still thought silly things such as it mattered if you put your player's card in the slot in terms of what you were paid out (it doesn't) and that casinos tightened the slots during peak hours (they can't, it doesn't work that way)
My first gambling book changed all of those thoughts forever. It also changed the way that I gamble to this day. It was a basic book, 1000 Best Casino Gambling Secrets by Bill Burton. And while the 1000 items aren't exactly "secrets" they are things that the average gambler doesn't consider. As an accountant, and amateur statistician, I was familiar with concepts such as "house edge", "expected return" (the house edge in inverse form) and "standard deviation" but I had never given them much thought when gambling in the past. I also bought Gambling 102 by the "Wizard of Odds" Michael Shackleford. Again, it's nothing earth shattering, but if you're stepping into the world of statistical analysis for gaming then it's probably a must-read. Finally, I started reading up on horse-betting, learning about overlays and why you should always try to find (and play) them.
In short, there was a huge learning curve. I purchased training software for video poker, as well as played countless hands on free software designed to help me learn strategy. In my life I've probably played 3-4 Million hands of poker in the various iterations, over the last couple of years you can probably add another Million hands to that count in video poker alone.
I started out, as everyone should, with "Jacks or Better" learning, and losing along the way until I finally started getting less and less correcting warnings on the simulators. I was learning, and not as slowly as I feared. I kept playing hands and I kept getting better. I also started playing blackjack again on Wizard of Odds, using their strategy trainer and actually doing better. The wife and I had a Vegas trip coming up so I was confident, I just knew I would not only play better, but budget myself better and come home with money for a change.
It was our Birthday weekend in 2014 and we were staying at the LINQ. I was ready to play video poker and my wife was excited to see a new property. Things started off solid. I played at TAG Sports Bar the first night and hit three 4 of a kinds (on Jacks or Better) to get me slightly up. The next day we were headed downtown where I knew things were going to be good.
And I wasn't disappointed. I switched over to "Double Double Bonus" poker and started hitting 4-of-a-kinds again. Nothing with a kicker, and nothing that paid out too much, but wins were wins and, after a while, I was up somewhere around $300 and was starting to think I had this gambling thing all figured out.
Then the standard deviation caught up with me, and I started to lose. It happened first at the Golden Nugget, where I blew through $100 of my profit rapidly. It continued at the Downtown Grand (another hundred) and culminated at the Four Queens. So, after all of that I was even for the day but still feeling optimistic due to my start. Before quitting for the day we went to the D for a drink at the long bar. I decided to hit the blackjack tables and, lo and behold, caught a friendly shoe and left there up $100.
The rest of the trip was a continuation on the theme. One casino up, one casino down. At the end of the trip we counted up all of the money we had remaining and we ended up putting the exact same amount of money into the bank after the trip as we withdrew before the trip. I was like Clark Griswold in "Vegas Vacation". "Hey, I didn't lose!".
But Las Vegas was like the dealer. "OK Cory, now you're really gonna get it!"
More on that in the next installment.
This is a big step for any gambler. Not the first time you do it mind you, because luck is just that and can strike on any one trip, but if you can do it consecutive trips in a row then you start to think you might be on to something. And I was. Like most people who head to the casinos I had previously just gone with the idea that I'd throw money into a slot machine and see where luck took me. The idea that my play could affect the house edge hadn't yet registered. I understood the basic concept that some games were better than others but I still thought silly things such as it mattered if you put your player's card in the slot in terms of what you were paid out (it doesn't) and that casinos tightened the slots during peak hours (they can't, it doesn't work that way)
My first gambling book changed all of those thoughts forever. It also changed the way that I gamble to this day. It was a basic book, 1000 Best Casino Gambling Secrets by Bill Burton. And while the 1000 items aren't exactly "secrets" they are things that the average gambler doesn't consider. As an accountant, and amateur statistician, I was familiar with concepts such as "house edge", "expected return" (the house edge in inverse form) and "standard deviation" but I had never given them much thought when gambling in the past. I also bought Gambling 102 by the "Wizard of Odds" Michael Shackleford. Again, it's nothing earth shattering, but if you're stepping into the world of statistical analysis for gaming then it's probably a must-read. Finally, I started reading up on horse-betting, learning about overlays and why you should always try to find (and play) them.
In short, there was a huge learning curve. I purchased training software for video poker, as well as played countless hands on free software designed to help me learn strategy. In my life I've probably played 3-4 Million hands of poker in the various iterations, over the last couple of years you can probably add another Million hands to that count in video poker alone.
I started out, as everyone should, with "Jacks or Better" learning, and losing along the way until I finally started getting less and less correcting warnings on the simulators. I was learning, and not as slowly as I feared. I kept playing hands and I kept getting better. I also started playing blackjack again on Wizard of Odds, using their strategy trainer and actually doing better. The wife and I had a Vegas trip coming up so I was confident, I just knew I would not only play better, but budget myself better and come home with money for a change.
It was our Birthday weekend in 2014 and we were staying at the LINQ. I was ready to play video poker and my wife was excited to see a new property. Things started off solid. I played at TAG Sports Bar the first night and hit three 4 of a kinds (on Jacks or Better) to get me slightly up. The next day we were headed downtown where I knew things were going to be good.
And I wasn't disappointed. I switched over to "Double Double Bonus" poker and started hitting 4-of-a-kinds again. Nothing with a kicker, and nothing that paid out too much, but wins were wins and, after a while, I was up somewhere around $300 and was starting to think I had this gambling thing all figured out.
Then the standard deviation caught up with me, and I started to lose. It happened first at the Golden Nugget, where I blew through $100 of my profit rapidly. It continued at the Downtown Grand (another hundred) and culminated at the Four Queens. So, after all of that I was even for the day but still feeling optimistic due to my start. Before quitting for the day we went to the D for a drink at the long bar. I decided to hit the blackjack tables and, lo and behold, caught a friendly shoe and left there up $100.
The rest of the trip was a continuation on the theme. One casino up, one casino down. At the end of the trip we counted up all of the money we had remaining and we ended up putting the exact same amount of money into the bank after the trip as we withdrew before the trip. I was like Clark Griswold in "Vegas Vacation". "Hey, I didn't lose!".
But Las Vegas was like the dealer. "OK Cory, now you're really gonna get it!"
More on that in the next installment.
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Gamble Blogging: A lifetime of running cold. (Part 1)
I am not what you would call a "lucky" gambler. I've never hit a jackpot, I've never had a straight flush in 3-card poker, I've never had a big run in blackjack, and despite playing poker for 27 years now (in various iterations, both live, online and video) I've never, ever hit a royal (or even a straight) flush when real money was in play.
I'm not exaggerating here. My best live poker hand, ever, was 4-6's that I caught at the Choctaw Casino in 2011. And it only bagged me a pot of around $100 since only one guy came along with me (playing 4-8 limit) and I knew that I couldn't over-bet, or bet the maximum, because he would go away. I've seen straight and royal flushes, been beaten by them (5 times so far) but I've never actually caught them.
My biggest gambling win to date was a $2 Superfecta hit at Delta Downs in 2010 on race 9. On a lark, after thinking I spotted something in the prior performances that made it seem as if the race would end this way, I bet 4-7-5-8 straight. Total wager: $2. Total win: $653.27. It's the first, and only, time I've ever had to fill out a form W-2G in my life. And even then I was JUST over the 300/1 minimum payout in Louisiana that triggered the tax form.
And while I gladly paid the taxes, after taking some partial legitimate gambling losses as an offset against it, I've never had that feeling again.
I think that's part of the reason why I like to gamble but don't have a driving need to gamble. Honestly I could take it or leave it but I do enjoy it as a form of entertainment. There's no way I'd even consider being a gambling "pro" because I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would eventually hit the mother of all cold streaks and that would anger my wife. (A wonderful woman, whom I love but has no risk tolerance when it comes to gambling).
I caught the casino bug in 1991, after a trip to Lake Charles with some co-workers from a local restaurant. We would get off work at night at around 11 PM, then drive to Lake Charles from Houston, sometimes arriving at the casinos at around 2 AM. We'd play until around 8 AM, drive back home, go by someone's house and shower up, take a quick nap, and then be back on the restaurant floor for our evening shifts around 4 PM. It would not be unusual for us to head to the bar for drinks after work that night, before stumbling home around 3 AM for some sleep. Of course, I was much younger back then.
I'll never forget that first trip to a casino however, at the time I thought it was the greatest place in the world. We went to the Isle of Capri, which is still there and exists as the "budget" casino option in Lake Charles these days. Back then there was also a Harrah's, but it was damaged in one of Louisiana's many hurricanes and is no longer there today.
I want to say that, back in the day, the boats would leave the harbor and paddle around Lake Prien all night, but I could be remembering that incorrectly.
Once we arrived I remember that one of my co-workers, an assistant manager whose name I don't remember, put $5 into a slot machine and won $500 within three pulls. Needless to say, her gambling was finished for the night so she just hung around the other assistant manager (who she was not-so-secretly sleeping with) and watched him play blackjack all night.
That first gambling trip I got hammered, both figuratively and literally. Free drinks while gambling was a new one for me, and it didn't take me too long to over-imbibe on whiskey and cokes. I also didn't have a clue what I was doing playing blackjack.
Drunk and clueless I proceeded to blow through a $500 bankroll in short order. Thinking back, I might have lasted 3 hours. So, I was done, no one (wisely) would lend a drunk novice any more money to blow, so I settled in to sober up and watch my friend play until it was time to go.
My buddy was on a heater. A heater so hot that he had accumulated $10K from a starting bankroll of $2K at the $25/25K table.. He got more dealt blackjacks in the hour I watched him than I received all evening. It was amazing to watch as he kept racking up win after win after win. I didn't realize it then (Novice!) but he was counting cards as well as playing with a strategy and progression.
He was also getting drunk. VERY drunk. So, as it came down to time to leave he turned around, looked at the group and said "I've never made a five-thousand dollar bet". His logic was that, should he lose, he'd still be up over double him money and he could say that he'd made the biggest bet of his life. If he won, well, he was buying drinks that night at the bar.
You can imagine what happened next. He was dealt 7-4 and the dealer had a 5 showing. I remember him uttering a curse word as well all looked on. Even with my limited knowledge of gambling etiquette I knew that it was bad form to coach him. With a grunt (which I still remember today) he pushed out the other $5K to double down. This left him with around $200 out of his original stack.
Of course, he pulled a 3. His only hope was for the dealer to bust.
There was no way that was ever going to happen. The dealer showed his second card to be another 5 and then promptly turned over a King for 20. Almost six hours of work, gone in one hand. An $8K gain turned into an $1800 loss in around 1 minute. It was, to this day, the 2nd most brutal gambling beat I have ever seen.
It also instilled into me a lifetime devotion to conservatism on the gaming tables. When gambling sober (which used to be a rarity but not in the last few years) I walk away with wins now and consider myself lucky to have them. I don't make out-of-bounds bets and I never bet more than 20% of my stack. Ever.
For a while, a long while, after witnessing that disaster, I was too conservative, I didn't play blackjack for a long time after the whipping that I took and I secured myself solely to quarter slots. Eventually I moved to the .20/.30/.40 cent bets on penny slots. It was a long, hard slog of gambling for me that changed the first time I visited Las Vegas....
That's a story for the 'next' installment.
I'm not exaggerating here. My best live poker hand, ever, was 4-6's that I caught at the Choctaw Casino in 2011. And it only bagged me a pot of around $100 since only one guy came along with me (playing 4-8 limit) and I knew that I couldn't over-bet, or bet the maximum, because he would go away. I've seen straight and royal flushes, been beaten by them (5 times so far) but I've never actually caught them.
My biggest gambling win to date was a $2 Superfecta hit at Delta Downs in 2010 on race 9. On a lark, after thinking I spotted something in the prior performances that made it seem as if the race would end this way, I bet 4-7-5-8 straight. Total wager: $2. Total win: $653.27. It's the first, and only, time I've ever had to fill out a form W-2G in my life. And even then I was JUST over the 300/1 minimum payout in Louisiana that triggered the tax form.
And while I gladly paid the taxes, after taking some partial legitimate gambling losses as an offset against it, I've never had that feeling again.
I think that's part of the reason why I like to gamble but don't have a driving need to gamble. Honestly I could take it or leave it but I do enjoy it as a form of entertainment. There's no way I'd even consider being a gambling "pro" because I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would eventually hit the mother of all cold streaks and that would anger my wife. (A wonderful woman, whom I love but has no risk tolerance when it comes to gambling).
I caught the casino bug in 1991, after a trip to Lake Charles with some co-workers from a local restaurant. We would get off work at night at around 11 PM, then drive to Lake Charles from Houston, sometimes arriving at the casinos at around 2 AM. We'd play until around 8 AM, drive back home, go by someone's house and shower up, take a quick nap, and then be back on the restaurant floor for our evening shifts around 4 PM. It would not be unusual for us to head to the bar for drinks after work that night, before stumbling home around 3 AM for some sleep. Of course, I was much younger back then.
I'll never forget that first trip to a casino however, at the time I thought it was the greatest place in the world. We went to the Isle of Capri, which is still there and exists as the "budget" casino option in Lake Charles these days. Back then there was also a Harrah's, but it was damaged in one of Louisiana's many hurricanes and is no longer there today.
I want to say that, back in the day, the boats would leave the harbor and paddle around Lake Prien all night, but I could be remembering that incorrectly.
Once we arrived I remember that one of my co-workers, an assistant manager whose name I don't remember, put $5 into a slot machine and won $500 within three pulls. Needless to say, her gambling was finished for the night so she just hung around the other assistant manager (who she was not-so-secretly sleeping with) and watched him play blackjack all night.
That first gambling trip I got hammered, both figuratively and literally. Free drinks while gambling was a new one for me, and it didn't take me too long to over-imbibe on whiskey and cokes. I also didn't have a clue what I was doing playing blackjack.
Drunk and clueless I proceeded to blow through a $500 bankroll in short order. Thinking back, I might have lasted 3 hours. So, I was done, no one (wisely) would lend a drunk novice any more money to blow, so I settled in to sober up and watch my friend play until it was time to go.
My buddy was on a heater. A heater so hot that he had accumulated $10K from a starting bankroll of $2K at the $25/25K table.. He got more dealt blackjacks in the hour I watched him than I received all evening. It was amazing to watch as he kept racking up win after win after win. I didn't realize it then (Novice!) but he was counting cards as well as playing with a strategy and progression.
He was also getting drunk. VERY drunk. So, as it came down to time to leave he turned around, looked at the group and said "I've never made a five-thousand dollar bet". His logic was that, should he lose, he'd still be up over double him money and he could say that he'd made the biggest bet of his life. If he won, well, he was buying drinks that night at the bar.
You can imagine what happened next. He was dealt 7-4 and the dealer had a 5 showing. I remember him uttering a curse word as well all looked on. Even with my limited knowledge of gambling etiquette I knew that it was bad form to coach him. With a grunt (which I still remember today) he pushed out the other $5K to double down. This left him with around $200 out of his original stack.
Of course, he pulled a 3. His only hope was for the dealer to bust.
There was no way that was ever going to happen. The dealer showed his second card to be another 5 and then promptly turned over a King for 20. Almost six hours of work, gone in one hand. An $8K gain turned into an $1800 loss in around 1 minute. It was, to this day, the 2nd most brutal gambling beat I have ever seen.
It also instilled into me a lifetime devotion to conservatism on the gaming tables. When gambling sober (which used to be a rarity but not in the last few years) I walk away with wins now and consider myself lucky to have them. I don't make out-of-bounds bets and I never bet more than 20% of my stack. Ever.
For a while, a long while, after witnessing that disaster, I was too conservative, I didn't play blackjack for a long time after the whipping that I took and I secured myself solely to quarter slots. Eventually I moved to the .20/.30/.40 cent bets on penny slots. It was a long, hard slog of gambling for me that changed the first time I visited Las Vegas....
That's a story for the 'next' installment.
Monday, May 15, 2017
Gamble Blogging: A LifeTime of Running Cold (Part VIII): Get on the Roller Coaster!!
We're getting closer to the end of this, so if you're still following along, Congrats! If you're just now catching up here's a link to the prior posts:
A Lifetime of Running Cold Series
When we last checked in things were not going well. There's running cold and then there's that sub-zero type of cold where nothing is paying out and everything in the world feels like a losing proposition.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a winning session at slots, table games or much of anything else. I was even considering moving back to live poker because a.) I could win on that and b.) nothing else seemed to be working. And I didn't understand it. I had read gambling books, had studied strategy for my favorite games, but nothing was clicking. I understood the concept of variance and why it was a bad thing but in order for their to be a low variant their also had to be a high one right?
During the down period of 2015 I had slowly started to add more video poker into my game in an attempt to decrease volatility. It wasn't working. All I was doing was shoving $20 bills into machines and watching them bleed me dry. I had decided that the problem was I just wasn't playing enough, giving the machines enough time to hit a hot streak.
With that thought in mind I had planned for a big, big Vegas trip with the largest bank-roll I had ever brought, $2500 with the expressed intent of using it all for a huge Video Poker run. The wife and I were ready, I had the bankroll, the plan, and (most importantly in my mind) I had studied strategy and practiced for hours on end. I was ready to turn the luck streak around.
Spoiler alert: I got hammered. In fact, the wife and I both had the worst run of variance that we'd had in our lives. I lost all of my bank-roll except for $300. The wife lost everything she brought as well.
The trip started off fine. We took advantage of a free stay at Rio, if you gamble much at all at Caesar's properties it's very easy to get comped rooms there. This is due, in large part, to its being located "off-strip". In fact, the location is a little bothersome and the hotel is dated, but it's not too bad a place to play. Outside of rotten luck we had fun there.
But I could not win at anything. Video Poker, despite my best efforts, was a total bust. I didn't get enough 4-of-a-kind hands to allow me to play for any length of time, and the entire experience was disheartening. We came back from that Vegas trip discouraged, beaten up and very much lighter in the wallet. We weren't planning on heading back to Vegas until October (this was August) but we seriously considered cancelling that trip altogether.
In September however we decided to take a trip to our "local" casino, L'Auberge du Lac in Lake Charles and get some gaming in there. And that's when the roller coaster started moving in the "right" (for me, if not for the casino) direction.
That trip was the first one in which I didn't have a loss to show for it. It was a modest win, but a win. It didn't come close to turning it around for the year, but it was at least a sign of a little bit of progress in what had, to date, been a horrible year of gambling.
The October Vegas trip was back on, and it was where I got my first hand pay. We were staying at Bally's (again, on a CET "free room" stay) and had decided to spend a day downtown. For lunch we went over to Grotto. (I don't care what people say, that's a solid Italian restaurant) We ate at the bar and then decided to "try out" the new Billion Dollar Buyer machines that Golden Nugget had just installed.
They were dollar machines at five dollars max spin. My plan was to put $20 in one of the machines, and play until it was gone. I was expecting 4-spins and done. The machines are a bank of 4 that are right across from the entrance to Grotto. As we walked up I told my wife to "pick a machine" and we'd go from there. She selected the 2nd machine from the left. I put in my twenty and started to spin away.
1st spin - Blank.
2nd spin - Won $10 dollars! Yay! Two more spins.
3rd spin - Blank.
4th spin - Blank.
5th spin - Blank.
6th (and last) spin - I turned around to my wife and said "Oh well, at least we had one hit. Here's it goes" and hit the button.
My first hand-pay ever.
Needless to say I was ecstatic. We collected our cash, caught an Uber back to Bally's and locked the money up in the room safe. Add to that several four-of-a-kinds and some straight flushes later, and this was our second winning trip in a row. Yes, we were still down for the year but we had clawed some of it back. Variance was finally turning our way.
After Vegas we shut it down for the year and took our losses that were partially offset by a big win. This was the 2nd time that I had to declare gambling winnings on my tax form. Fortunately, unlike last time, I had good records of the prior year's losses so I could claim them as an offset.
2017 was on the horizon, and that's the subject of the last part of this series.
A Lifetime of Running Cold Series
When we last checked in things were not going well. There's running cold and then there's that sub-zero type of cold where nothing is paying out and everything in the world feels like a losing proposition.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a winning session at slots, table games or much of anything else. I was even considering moving back to live poker because a.) I could win on that and b.) nothing else seemed to be working. And I didn't understand it. I had read gambling books, had studied strategy for my favorite games, but nothing was clicking. I understood the concept of variance and why it was a bad thing but in order for their to be a low variant their also had to be a high one right?
During the down period of 2015 I had slowly started to add more video poker into my game in an attempt to decrease volatility. It wasn't working. All I was doing was shoving $20 bills into machines and watching them bleed me dry. I had decided that the problem was I just wasn't playing enough, giving the machines enough time to hit a hot streak.
With that thought in mind I had planned for a big, big Vegas trip with the largest bank-roll I had ever brought, $2500 with the expressed intent of using it all for a huge Video Poker run. The wife and I were ready, I had the bankroll, the plan, and (most importantly in my mind) I had studied strategy and practiced for hours on end. I was ready to turn the luck streak around.
Spoiler alert: I got hammered. In fact, the wife and I both had the worst run of variance that we'd had in our lives. I lost all of my bank-roll except for $300. The wife lost everything she brought as well.
The trip started off fine. We took advantage of a free stay at Rio, if you gamble much at all at Caesar's properties it's very easy to get comped rooms there. This is due, in large part, to its being located "off-strip". In fact, the location is a little bothersome and the hotel is dated, but it's not too bad a place to play. Outside of rotten luck we had fun there.
But I could not win at anything. Video Poker, despite my best efforts, was a total bust. I didn't get enough 4-of-a-kind hands to allow me to play for any length of time, and the entire experience was disheartening. We came back from that Vegas trip discouraged, beaten up and very much lighter in the wallet. We weren't planning on heading back to Vegas until October (this was August) but we seriously considered cancelling that trip altogether.
In September however we decided to take a trip to our "local" casino, L'Auberge du Lac in Lake Charles and get some gaming in there. And that's when the roller coaster started moving in the "right" (for me, if not for the casino) direction.
That trip was the first one in which I didn't have a loss to show for it. It was a modest win, but a win. It didn't come close to turning it around for the year, but it was at least a sign of a little bit of progress in what had, to date, been a horrible year of gambling.
The October Vegas trip was back on, and it was where I got my first hand pay. We were staying at Bally's (again, on a CET "free room" stay) and had decided to spend a day downtown. For lunch we went over to Grotto. (I don't care what people say, that's a solid Italian restaurant) We ate at the bar and then decided to "try out" the new Billion Dollar Buyer machines that Golden Nugget had just installed.
They were dollar machines at five dollars max spin. My plan was to put $20 in one of the machines, and play until it was gone. I was expecting 4-spins and done. The machines are a bank of 4 that are right across from the entrance to Grotto. As we walked up I told my wife to "pick a machine" and we'd go from there. She selected the 2nd machine from the left. I put in my twenty and started to spin away.
1st spin - Blank.
2nd spin - Won $10 dollars! Yay! Two more spins.
3rd spin - Blank.
4th spin - Blank.
5th spin - Blank.
6th (and last) spin - I turned around to my wife and said "Oh well, at least we had one hit. Here's it goes" and hit the button.
Needless to say I was ecstatic. We collected our cash, caught an Uber back to Bally's and locked the money up in the room safe. Add to that several four-of-a-kinds and some straight flushes later, and this was our second winning trip in a row. Yes, we were still down for the year but we had clawed some of it back. Variance was finally turning our way.
After Vegas we shut it down for the year and took our losses that were partially offset by a big win. This was the 2nd time that I had to declare gambling winnings on my tax form. Fortunately, unlike last time, I had good records of the prior year's losses so I could claim them as an offset.
2017 was on the horizon, and that's the subject of the last part of this series.
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Gamble Blogging: A Lifetime of Running Cold. (Part IV) The Early, Wasted Vegas Years.
I don't remember the exact trip that the wife and I fell in love with Las Vegas. Not any of the gambling, or the debauchery, but the city itself. But it happened. We got bit by the Las Vegas bug, and bit hard. To the point that we now try and get to the City (From Houston, which is not the easiest thing to do due to distance [and high airline prices]) two or three times per year, preferably three.
It wasn't that first trip, in 2007 for the Mr. Olympia, and it wasn't our next couple of trips either. Those trips were important, because we learned lessons, but they weren't the trips that made Vegas our home away from home, THE place where we wanted to go above all others. I remember those trips though because they set the foundation for what we do in Las Vegas today, they put us on the path of loving the city, despite our many mistakes on them.
Don't laugh, but on our 2nd and 3rd trips we stayed at Circus Circus. For one, it was cheap, and 2nd, the wife used to work for Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey before we met so Circus chintz appeals to her. It was a novelty and a thing that we did, and now we never go back to that casino. As a matter of fact, we haven't set foot in there for 4 years now.
When we did go however we played slots. Exclusively slots. I would play "Press Your Luck" and "Zeus II", betting the minimum of either $.30 or $.40 depending. I would get up a small amount, and then the house edge would inevitably take it back from me. At this point I hadn't given up live poker yet so I used to play a little bit in their tiny poker room.
It was horrible. A bunch of old guys folding around the table trying to get enough hours in to qualify for their weekly free-roll tournament. The one story I told earlier about the guy saying, to his friend, that he had "no idea what I had" happened on our 2nd trip there. Unfortunately, I couldn't get enough good cards (running cold remember) to really take advantage of this so my wins were smaller than they needed to be, before being flushed back down the black-hole that are slots.
We had fun though, a LOT of fun. Back then we hadn't started seeing shows, so we walked a LOT. In Las Vegas, even today, we average 30K steps per day on our Fit Bits, and on one trip we had the brilliant idea of walking to Fremont Street, from the Strip. Which is a walk of about 10 miles (probably), and it was July. We made it, but I'm not sure how. It took us over 2 hours and by the time we got to the Fremont Street Experience I was too tired to do anything. So I found an unused slot machine and just sat down for about 30 minutes drinking my Gatorade.
The point is, we did things. Fun things, stupid things, things that probably weren't all that smart but (and this is important) weren't illegal and didn't really put us in harm's way. Sure, late at night we'd drink too much and do silly stuff, but no one was hurt and at least one of us always was in control of things.
But it was truly awful gambling. Sitting at a penny slot machine trying to keep my money lasting as long as it could before I had to stop at an ATM. Back then I didn't have a daily gambling budget, all I knew was that I would gamble until the money ran out, and then go withdraw some more until I woke up on the trip and realized I've done enough.
Bankroll management? Pfft. What was that?
On our fourth trip to Vegas we stayed at the Luxor, a hotel that everyone hates these days but, back in the day, used to be pretty cool. We also went and saw Ka at the MGM Grand, and ate at Tom Coliccio's "CraftSteak" for the first time. Ka is (still) the best show I've seen in Vegas and CraftSteak is (still) the best meal I've eaten there. My appetizer was Braised Short-Rib Raviolo in brown butter sauce. If you told me I could only eat one meal for the rest of my life it would be that one.
For Trip 5 we stayed at Mandalay Bay. On the first day I sat down at the big Wheel of Fortune game they used to have and won $500 while waiting for my wife to run up to the room to grab her phone. The next day I won an additional $500 playing Double Double Bonus Poker at a bar where I hit 4 of a kind with the kicker. Needless to say, this was the first trip that I came back home with more money than I left with.
In fact, on Trip 5 I was on fire. I won $75 playing Zeus II (hitting All Zeus squares on a "super respin" but since I only bet the minimum it didn't pay much [lesson learned later in life]) another $100 playing video poker and $400 playing Wheel of Fortune. To this day this was the most ridiculous winning trip that I ever had, but it wasn't as much as it could be because I was (except for Video Poker) playing the minimum bet.
By what we now call "The Mandalay Trip" I had given up live poker and was looking for a new game to play. Blackjack still had emotional scars from so many early, brutal beat-downs and I wasn't confident enough with my low-rolling style to play craps or roulette with a crowd of people, so video poker seemed like something I could play in addition to slots, and possibly increase my winnings.
Strangely, after the Mandalay Trip we stayed away from Las Vegas for a while. We hit our International travel phase and visited Madrid, Paris (twice), London, Singapore, the Virgin Islands, Alaska, Lisbon and a host of other American cities, including Seattle and Atlantic City. We would, of course, head back to Vegas but it wouldn't be for a while. Our next visit was AC, to actually see the place before it went away.
Next time I'll tell you about that.
It wasn't that first trip, in 2007 for the Mr. Olympia, and it wasn't our next couple of trips either. Those trips were important, because we learned lessons, but they weren't the trips that made Vegas our home away from home, THE place where we wanted to go above all others. I remember those trips though because they set the foundation for what we do in Las Vegas today, they put us on the path of loving the city, despite our many mistakes on them.
Don't laugh, but on our 2nd and 3rd trips we stayed at Circus Circus. For one, it was cheap, and 2nd, the wife used to work for Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey before we met so Circus chintz appeals to her. It was a novelty and a thing that we did, and now we never go back to that casino. As a matter of fact, we haven't set foot in there for 4 years now.
When we did go however we played slots. Exclusively slots. I would play "Press Your Luck" and "Zeus II", betting the minimum of either $.30 or $.40 depending. I would get up a small amount, and then the house edge would inevitably take it back from me. At this point I hadn't given up live poker yet so I used to play a little bit in their tiny poker room.
It was horrible. A bunch of old guys folding around the table trying to get enough hours in to qualify for their weekly free-roll tournament. The one story I told earlier about the guy saying, to his friend, that he had "no idea what I had" happened on our 2nd trip there. Unfortunately, I couldn't get enough good cards (running cold remember) to really take advantage of this so my wins were smaller than they needed to be, before being flushed back down the black-hole that are slots.
We had fun though, a LOT of fun. Back then we hadn't started seeing shows, so we walked a LOT. In Las Vegas, even today, we average 30K steps per day on our Fit Bits, and on one trip we had the brilliant idea of walking to Fremont Street, from the Strip. Which is a walk of about 10 miles (probably), and it was July. We made it, but I'm not sure how. It took us over 2 hours and by the time we got to the Fremont Street Experience I was too tired to do anything. So I found an unused slot machine and just sat down for about 30 minutes drinking my Gatorade.
The point is, we did things. Fun things, stupid things, things that probably weren't all that smart but (and this is important) weren't illegal and didn't really put us in harm's way. Sure, late at night we'd drink too much and do silly stuff, but no one was hurt and at least one of us always was in control of things.
But it was truly awful gambling. Sitting at a penny slot machine trying to keep my money lasting as long as it could before I had to stop at an ATM. Back then I didn't have a daily gambling budget, all I knew was that I would gamble until the money ran out, and then go withdraw some more until I woke up on the trip and realized I've done enough.
Bankroll management? Pfft. What was that?
On our fourth trip to Vegas we stayed at the Luxor, a hotel that everyone hates these days but, back in the day, used to be pretty cool. We also went and saw Ka at the MGM Grand, and ate at Tom Coliccio's "CraftSteak" for the first time. Ka is (still) the best show I've seen in Vegas and CraftSteak is (still) the best meal I've eaten there. My appetizer was Braised Short-Rib Raviolo in brown butter sauce. If you told me I could only eat one meal for the rest of my life it would be that one.
For Trip 5 we stayed at Mandalay Bay. On the first day I sat down at the big Wheel of Fortune game they used to have and won $500 while waiting for my wife to run up to the room to grab her phone. The next day I won an additional $500 playing Double Double Bonus Poker at a bar where I hit 4 of a kind with the kicker. Needless to say, this was the first trip that I came back home with more money than I left with.
In fact, on Trip 5 I was on fire. I won $75 playing Zeus II (hitting All Zeus squares on a "super respin" but since I only bet the minimum it didn't pay much [lesson learned later in life]) another $100 playing video poker and $400 playing Wheel of Fortune. To this day this was the most ridiculous winning trip that I ever had, but it wasn't as much as it could be because I was (except for Video Poker) playing the minimum bet.
By what we now call "The Mandalay Trip" I had given up live poker and was looking for a new game to play. Blackjack still had emotional scars from so many early, brutal beat-downs and I wasn't confident enough with my low-rolling style to play craps or roulette with a crowd of people, so video poker seemed like something I could play in addition to slots, and possibly increase my winnings.
Strangely, after the Mandalay Trip we stayed away from Las Vegas for a while. We hit our International travel phase and visited Madrid, Paris (twice), London, Singapore, the Virgin Islands, Alaska, Lisbon and a host of other American cities, including Seattle and Atlantic City. We would, of course, head back to Vegas but it wouldn't be for a while. Our next visit was AC, to actually see the place before it went away.
Next time I'll tell you about that.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Gamble Blogging: A Lifetime of Running Cold (Part II): Vegas! Baby!
As I stated in part one of this series, I have been gambling, to some extent, for a large portion of my life. I played my first hand of 7-card stud when I was 16, and would play that game almost exclusively for years until I first went to a casino in 1991. (Back then, the gambling/drinking age in Louisiana was 18, so it was normal for Texas teens to travel there as a "rite of passage" and lose money in the casinos.)
Prior to that first casino visit in Lake Charles, Louisiana, I really hadn't paid much attention to casinos. They offer negative expectation games (which I didn't like) and, to be honest, I was a little intimidated with blackjack, poker in a casino, etc. Plus, I was broke through most of the late Nineties, early Aughts which precluded me dumping a ton of money into entertainment. Most days I was just trying to scrape together enough money to pay the bills and possibly buy some Totino's party pizzas.
Also, I drank, a little too much back in those days, something that I now write off to the ignorance of youth. I still do, occasionally, partake in alcohol, but it's far less often these days and the quality of drink is much, much higher.
That catalyst for that change was meeting, and marrying, my wife. My wife is a woman who always found challenges in healthy exercise. She wanted to lift weights and work out and, secondarily, to compete. So we found ourselves training her to compete in NPC Figure (think of it as bodybuilding 'light') competitions. Prior to her first competition in November 2007, the IFBB was holding their annual Mr. Olympia contest in late September.
Of course, we HAD to go. So, we went.
Now you might think, as a poker player (albeit a home game player exclusively) that I would have been to Las Vegas before I was 34, but you would be wrong. I've never been much for bachelor parties (I've attended only 5 in my life, none in Vegas and only one that involved a strip-club), and I was not, then, much of a traveler. Prior to 2007 I had only been on a plane three times in my life.
So, off to Las Vegas we went. The wife to watch the bodybuilding and attend the product exposition (and event in and of itself) myself to gamble in a Vegas casino for the first time. I still remember getting off the plane to this day. To my mind, McCarron is one of the great airports in the country, and not because of the slot-machines (although those help) but because of the baggage claim area in what is now Terminal 1. It's a gaudy, glitzy, campy, totally Las Vegas place that advertises magic, burlesque and big-name stars all surrounded by the normal trappings of an airport. In short: It's still my favorite place to de-plane in the world.
One of my least favorite things to do in the world is walk outside of those airport doors for the first time. Even in September it was hot, and dry. It's like stepping out of a wonder land straight into the waiting mouth of the Devil's largest kiln.
On our first taxi ride we got long-hauled. Of course, back then I didn't know what that was. Today I always get a car from a limo service so that's not a concern. On the upside, they'll always let us stop by a CVS or Walgreen's to pick up water, energy drinks and other sundries that we can get for 1/3 of the price off the Strip.
The Strip, when you see it for the first time, even 10 years ago, unless you are dead it almost takes your breath away. The lights combined with the size of the resorts is staggering, it almost belies belief. You've seen Chevy Chase as Clark Griswold at the beginning of Vegas Vacation in the limo? That was me, but in a cab. It was one of the best cab rides I've ever had up until that point in my life.
We were deposited at Treasure Island (not yet TI, and they still had the ship) which was where I found the cheapest rooms at the time. Unfortunately for us, the Mr. Olympia was being held at the Mandalay Bay, and we didn't realize just how far that was down the Strip from where we were staying. Still, TI was, and remains, one of my favorite properties on the Strip, probably because I have (mostly) good memories there.
We checked in, got to our room, and my wife took a nap while I hit the casino. I walked up to a .25 cent Wheel of Fortune slot, put in $20 and won $200 on the third spin. In retrospect this was one of the worst things to happen to me because I still feel a need to play the old, classic, 3-coin per play Wheel machines whenever I can find them.
Being conservative, I quit. Cashed out the ticket (it was actually $236.50, an amount I'll never forget) and went up to the room to take a nap myself before heading to the show. Friday night at the Mr. Olympia was "ladies night" back then. So we watched the show and then went to an after-party being put on by Craig Titus and Kelly Ryan, two competitors who are now both in jail for killing their live-in associate some years later. Great crowd those bodybuilders, and that's the biggest reason my wife quit competing a little over a year later.
To be fair though, some of them were pretty nice. But all of them were, how to say this....sexually "liberated" and for my wife it just came down to one to many times being propositioned by men (and women) in order to improve her placings etc.
So after the after party my wife went back to the hotel and went to bed, and I went over to the old Steamboat hotel and casino to get my revenge on blackjack.
Some revenge. I got destroyed. First, (remember, this was in my younger, much, MUCH, wilder days) I drank too much bourbon and coke. Second, I still was just a hunch player in blackjack. I tried to act all suave and cool as my $200 winnings went away and then started cutting into my $500 bank roll for the trip and, to be honest, I really should have stopped. But I was drunk and having fun and, 4 hours later, at 5:30AM, I had blown through my entire bank-roll and one additional trip to the ATM to "get it back".
I was also way, way too drunk, out of cigarettes (something else that I used to do but don't any more) and over 3/4 of the way down the Strip from my hotel. The only option was walking, so...walk I did. Somehow I made it to my room and made it to the bad. The next day, at noon, when I woke up, my wife was ready to go to the Expo but I was too hungover. I had blown it. I spent most of the day in bed, only emerging at 5PM to grab something light to eat before heading to the evening show.
I was clearly done gambling for this trip and, to be honest, I didn't want to ever play blackjack again. I was sick, defeated, and utterly beaten down. Worst of all I cost my wife a day at the exposition, something she didn't let me live down until it was her turn to get sick in Vegas.
But that's a story for another part of this tale.
Prior to that first casino visit in Lake Charles, Louisiana, I really hadn't paid much attention to casinos. They offer negative expectation games (which I didn't like) and, to be honest, I was a little intimidated with blackjack, poker in a casino, etc. Plus, I was broke through most of the late Nineties, early Aughts which precluded me dumping a ton of money into entertainment. Most days I was just trying to scrape together enough money to pay the bills and possibly buy some Totino's party pizzas.
Also, I drank, a little too much back in those days, something that I now write off to the ignorance of youth. I still do, occasionally, partake in alcohol, but it's far less often these days and the quality of drink is much, much higher.
That catalyst for that change was meeting, and marrying, my wife. My wife is a woman who always found challenges in healthy exercise. She wanted to lift weights and work out and, secondarily, to compete. So we found ourselves training her to compete in NPC Figure (think of it as bodybuilding 'light') competitions. Prior to her first competition in November 2007, the IFBB was holding their annual Mr. Olympia contest in late September.
Of course, we HAD to go. So, we went.
Now you might think, as a poker player (albeit a home game player exclusively) that I would have been to Las Vegas before I was 34, but you would be wrong. I've never been much for bachelor parties (I've attended only 5 in my life, none in Vegas and only one that involved a strip-club), and I was not, then, much of a traveler. Prior to 2007 I had only been on a plane three times in my life.
So, off to Las Vegas we went. The wife to watch the bodybuilding and attend the product exposition (and event in and of itself) myself to gamble in a Vegas casino for the first time. I still remember getting off the plane to this day. To my mind, McCarron is one of the great airports in the country, and not because of the slot-machines (although those help) but because of the baggage claim area in what is now Terminal 1. It's a gaudy, glitzy, campy, totally Las Vegas place that advertises magic, burlesque and big-name stars all surrounded by the normal trappings of an airport. In short: It's still my favorite place to de-plane in the world.
One of my least favorite things to do in the world is walk outside of those airport doors for the first time. Even in September it was hot, and dry. It's like stepping out of a wonder land straight into the waiting mouth of the Devil's largest kiln.
On our first taxi ride we got long-hauled. Of course, back then I didn't know what that was. Today I always get a car from a limo service so that's not a concern. On the upside, they'll always let us stop by a CVS or Walgreen's to pick up water, energy drinks and other sundries that we can get for 1/3 of the price off the Strip.
The Strip, when you see it for the first time, even 10 years ago, unless you are dead it almost takes your breath away. The lights combined with the size of the resorts is staggering, it almost belies belief. You've seen Chevy Chase as Clark Griswold at the beginning of Vegas Vacation in the limo? That was me, but in a cab. It was one of the best cab rides I've ever had up until that point in my life.
We were deposited at Treasure Island (not yet TI, and they still had the ship) which was where I found the cheapest rooms at the time. Unfortunately for us, the Mr. Olympia was being held at the Mandalay Bay, and we didn't realize just how far that was down the Strip from where we were staying. Still, TI was, and remains, one of my favorite properties on the Strip, probably because I have (mostly) good memories there.
We checked in, got to our room, and my wife took a nap while I hit the casino. I walked up to a .25 cent Wheel of Fortune slot, put in $20 and won $200 on the third spin. In retrospect this was one of the worst things to happen to me because I still feel a need to play the old, classic, 3-coin per play Wheel machines whenever I can find them.
Being conservative, I quit. Cashed out the ticket (it was actually $236.50, an amount I'll never forget) and went up to the room to take a nap myself before heading to the show. Friday night at the Mr. Olympia was "ladies night" back then. So we watched the show and then went to an after-party being put on by Craig Titus and Kelly Ryan, two competitors who are now both in jail for killing their live-in associate some years later. Great crowd those bodybuilders, and that's the biggest reason my wife quit competing a little over a year later.
To be fair though, some of them were pretty nice. But all of them were, how to say this....sexually "liberated" and for my wife it just came down to one to many times being propositioned by men (and women) in order to improve her placings etc.
So after the after party my wife went back to the hotel and went to bed, and I went over to the old Steamboat hotel and casino to get my revenge on blackjack.
Some revenge. I got destroyed. First, (remember, this was in my younger, much, MUCH, wilder days) I drank too much bourbon and coke. Second, I still was just a hunch player in blackjack. I tried to act all suave and cool as my $200 winnings went away and then started cutting into my $500 bank roll for the trip and, to be honest, I really should have stopped. But I was drunk and having fun and, 4 hours later, at 5:30AM, I had blown through my entire bank-roll and one additional trip to the ATM to "get it back".
I was also way, way too drunk, out of cigarettes (something else that I used to do but don't any more) and over 3/4 of the way down the Strip from my hotel. The only option was walking, so...walk I did. Somehow I made it to my room and made it to the bad. The next day, at noon, when I woke up, my wife was ready to go to the Expo but I was too hungover. I had blown it. I spent most of the day in bed, only emerging at 5PM to grab something light to eat before heading to the evening show.
I was clearly done gambling for this trip and, to be honest, I didn't want to ever play blackjack again. I was sick, defeated, and utterly beaten down. Worst of all I cost my wife a day at the exposition, something she didn't let me live down until it was her turn to get sick in Vegas.
But that's a story for another part of this tale.
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Gamble Blogging: A Lifetime of Running Cold (Part V): The Atlantic City Trip that Changed Everything.
As I have recounted (repeatedly) in Parts I - IV of these tales my early gambling excursions were alcohol-fueled trips that resulted in pretty big losses, and not so fun hangovers. In short, I was everything casinos love, uneducated, inebriated and bereft of bankroll management knowledge. In short, I was a sucker, a mush if you will.
I have also, and remain, a cold runner my entire life. So when I imply that the trip to Atlantic City of which I'm about to relate "changed everything" I meant more toward my outlook on gambling as a whole. Not my relationship to the standard deviation. On that metric I'm still very much trending toward the casinos side.
We went to Atlantic City in October of 2012 for our birthdays. The wife and I share birthdays exactly 2 years and 1 day apart. Her on October 30th, mine on Halloween. The upside to this is that, in 18 years of marriage and 20 years as a couple, I have never forgotten her birthday. But we wanted to see Atlantic City before it went away. All I knew about the City is what I had seen on Rounders, and on the remake of Ocean's Eleven (Clooney, Pitt, et. al.). I knew Trump had some casinos there, and Caesars, and I knew there was a Golden Nugget there, and it was from them I received an offer.
It wasn't a great offer as those things go, 20% off the room rate but it was enough to whet my appetite so we decided to find a flight.
First problem. Back then United Airlines hadn't yet made the stupid business decision to start a flight from Houston to Atlantic City (in return for gate considerations at Newark) so if we wanted to fly direct we would be stuck flying Spirit Airlines. Yuck. There was, however, a loophole, so with a direct flight to and from Philadelphia, and plans to catch the train to Atlantic City, we took off on a trip that would change how I, and my wife, gambled forever.
Plane rides don't bother me, so we had fun. During those years both the wife and I had status so we both copped upgrades to first class and were halfway lit by the time we arrived at PHL. We were only staying three days so I didn't have a bag to check, but my wife did, so we grabbed her bag and shot off to catch the next to last train to Atlantic City.
Which we made, with 30 seconds to spare. We purchased the ticket in our seats from the porter and settled in for around a 90 minute ride. As I stated before, the wife loves trains. Since she lived on one for two years while working with the circus she enjoyed the ride. I got somewhat bored (it was dark, so you couldn't see anything outside of the windows) but we made it and then hailed a cab from the train station to the Nugget, which is (unfortunately, for why you'll read later) some way away from the Boardwalk.
We got in and hit the bar. Hard. I then proceeded to take out my first night's money and blow it all playing slots. "That was fast" I told my wife, and we agreed not to gamble any more until the next day. We had some more rounds, chatted with the bartenders and then went to sleep.
In the morning (honestly) we woke up and it was raining, but we really wanted to head to the Boardwalk so we put on our drip-dries and went to find the jitney. We did, and we were off. Our first stop was the Trump Taj Majal.
In short, and I'm not being political here, it was a disgusting dump. Half of the slot machines were out of order and the ones that were working were old and filthy. It looked as if the casino hadn't been cleaned in 50 years. On top of that, most of the bars were closed. Not having my typical morning Bloody Mary was going to be an issue. But, we found a place to eat breakfast and decided to head over to The Borgata, and Revel.
Here's what I remember about the Revel, it was a beautiful property, laid out terribly, and the slots were brutally tight. In fact, ALL of the Atlantic City slots that we played seemed to be unusually tight. It was like pouring gasoline on a brush fire every time we added money. My wife, who is very risk averse and hates gambling (but enjoys going to casinos) quit after losing $40 in just under 10 minutes. By the time we had reached 3PM on our first day there I was down $300 with little hope of getting it back the way things were going. I had $200 left for two days, and I had promised myself I was NOT going to be hitting up the ATM this trip.
Then, something miraculous happened. I won. Not a ton of money but enough to get me into the positive for the first time in a long time. We had sat down at a bar in Borgata and ordered a round of drinks. Looking for something to do I put $40 in a video poker machine, the first time I had played since I had the win at Mandalay. Other than that I hadn't played. I had seen it played, talked about it with friends who played, and had even watched people play it while sitting at bars, and as a live poker player I understood it, but you could throw things such as basic strategy out the window.
But I won. It was while playing twenty-five cent "Double Double Bonus" and I got dealt 4-two's with a 3-kicker. $500.00. I hadn't hit anything that big since my visit to Delta Downs. I glanced at my wife, hit "cash out" and we spent the rest of the day walking to the various casinos on the Boardwalk, signing up for their players cards and playing off the free-play for new signups when we found it.
On the 3rd day there I gave some (not all) of it back. By the time we had left however I still had over $400 in my pocket which I was planning on giving back to the bank when we got home. After the win I continued playing video poker, with my wife's blessing, except at the casinos that gave us slot free play that is. On the whole of course, after the hit, I lost. But the rate of loss was smaller, and slower, than I was used to playing slots which convinced me that there might just be something to this whole video poker thing.
All in all I remember the Boardwalk not for the crappy casinos, or the good food (there is a lot of that, especially the pizza) what I remember the most is sitting in a bar inside the Borgata and winning something at a casino game for the first time in a long time. For a brief, fleeting second, I was ahead of the casinos on a trip and I wanted that feeling again. For the first time I realized that gambling outside of the poker room could be affected by skill (except for slots of course). I realized on that trip that in order to continue to play consistently, I was going to have to get a hell of a lot better at playing the good games in order to make my bankroll last longer.
I almost didn't have time to learn those lessons however. Because on our way back to the Nugget, on the jitney, while driving through one of Atlantic City's neighborhoods several windows in our little bus were broken by locals throwing rocks at us. One of the rocks missed our head by a foot or so and landed in the seat in front of us. The driver promptly floored it, and we returned to the Golden Nugget where we stayed up all night drinking and thinking "whew! that was close". The next morning we caught our train at 6AM, rode to PHL where we caught our flight home. Tired, a little freaked out, but glad to be putting money in the bank for a change.
After getting home, and depositing back the money, I promptly went to Barnes and Noble and bought my first book on gambling.
But I'll save that tale for Part VI.
I have also, and remain, a cold runner my entire life. So when I imply that the trip to Atlantic City of which I'm about to relate "changed everything" I meant more toward my outlook on gambling as a whole. Not my relationship to the standard deviation. On that metric I'm still very much trending toward the casinos side.
We went to Atlantic City in October of 2012 for our birthdays. The wife and I share birthdays exactly 2 years and 1 day apart. Her on October 30th, mine on Halloween. The upside to this is that, in 18 years of marriage and 20 years as a couple, I have never forgotten her birthday. But we wanted to see Atlantic City before it went away. All I knew about the City is what I had seen on Rounders, and on the remake of Ocean's Eleven (Clooney, Pitt, et. al.). I knew Trump had some casinos there, and Caesars, and I knew there was a Golden Nugget there, and it was from them I received an offer.
It wasn't a great offer as those things go, 20% off the room rate but it was enough to whet my appetite so we decided to find a flight.
First problem. Back then United Airlines hadn't yet made the stupid business decision to start a flight from Houston to Atlantic City (in return for gate considerations at Newark) so if we wanted to fly direct we would be stuck flying Spirit Airlines. Yuck. There was, however, a loophole, so with a direct flight to and from Philadelphia, and plans to catch the train to Atlantic City, we took off on a trip that would change how I, and my wife, gambled forever.
Plane rides don't bother me, so we had fun. During those years both the wife and I had status so we both copped upgrades to first class and were halfway lit by the time we arrived at PHL. We were only staying three days so I didn't have a bag to check, but my wife did, so we grabbed her bag and shot off to catch the next to last train to Atlantic City.
Which we made, with 30 seconds to spare. We purchased the ticket in our seats from the porter and settled in for around a 90 minute ride. As I stated before, the wife loves trains. Since she lived on one for two years while working with the circus she enjoyed the ride. I got somewhat bored (it was dark, so you couldn't see anything outside of the windows) but we made it and then hailed a cab from the train station to the Nugget, which is (unfortunately, for why you'll read later) some way away from the Boardwalk.
We got in and hit the bar. Hard. I then proceeded to take out my first night's money and blow it all playing slots. "That was fast" I told my wife, and we agreed not to gamble any more until the next day. We had some more rounds, chatted with the bartenders and then went to sleep.
In the morning (honestly) we woke up and it was raining, but we really wanted to head to the Boardwalk so we put on our drip-dries and went to find the jitney. We did, and we were off. Our first stop was the Trump Taj Majal.
In short, and I'm not being political here, it was a disgusting dump. Half of the slot machines were out of order and the ones that were working were old and filthy. It looked as if the casino hadn't been cleaned in 50 years. On top of that, most of the bars were closed. Not having my typical morning Bloody Mary was going to be an issue. But, we found a place to eat breakfast and decided to head over to The Borgata, and Revel.
Here's what I remember about the Revel, it was a beautiful property, laid out terribly, and the slots were brutally tight. In fact, ALL of the Atlantic City slots that we played seemed to be unusually tight. It was like pouring gasoline on a brush fire every time we added money. My wife, who is very risk averse and hates gambling (but enjoys going to casinos) quit after losing $40 in just under 10 minutes. By the time we had reached 3PM on our first day there I was down $300 with little hope of getting it back the way things were going. I had $200 left for two days, and I had promised myself I was NOT going to be hitting up the ATM this trip.
Then, something miraculous happened. I won. Not a ton of money but enough to get me into the positive for the first time in a long time. We had sat down at a bar in Borgata and ordered a round of drinks. Looking for something to do I put $40 in a video poker machine, the first time I had played since I had the win at Mandalay. Other than that I hadn't played. I had seen it played, talked about it with friends who played, and had even watched people play it while sitting at bars, and as a live poker player I understood it, but you could throw things such as basic strategy out the window.
But I won. It was while playing twenty-five cent "Double Double Bonus" and I got dealt 4-two's with a 3-kicker. $500.00. I hadn't hit anything that big since my visit to Delta Downs. I glanced at my wife, hit "cash out" and we spent the rest of the day walking to the various casinos on the Boardwalk, signing up for their players cards and playing off the free-play for new signups when we found it.
On the 3rd day there I gave some (not all) of it back. By the time we had left however I still had over $400 in my pocket which I was planning on giving back to the bank when we got home. After the win I continued playing video poker, with my wife's blessing, except at the casinos that gave us slot free play that is. On the whole of course, after the hit, I lost. But the rate of loss was smaller, and slower, than I was used to playing slots which convinced me that there might just be something to this whole video poker thing.
All in all I remember the Boardwalk not for the crappy casinos, or the good food (there is a lot of that, especially the pizza) what I remember the most is sitting in a bar inside the Borgata and winning something at a casino game for the first time in a long time. For a brief, fleeting second, I was ahead of the casinos on a trip and I wanted that feeling again. For the first time I realized that gambling outside of the poker room could be affected by skill (except for slots of course). I realized on that trip that in order to continue to play consistently, I was going to have to get a hell of a lot better at playing the good games in order to make my bankroll last longer.
I almost didn't have time to learn those lessons however. Because on our way back to the Nugget, on the jitney, while driving through one of Atlantic City's neighborhoods several windows in our little bus were broken by locals throwing rocks at us. One of the rocks missed our head by a foot or so and landed in the seat in front of us. The driver promptly floored it, and we returned to the Golden Nugget where we stayed up all night drinking and thinking "whew! that was close". The next morning we caught our train at 6AM, rode to PHL where we caught our flight home. Tired, a little freaked out, but glad to be putting money in the bank for a change.
After getting home, and depositing back the money, I promptly went to Barnes and Noble and bought my first book on gambling.
But I'll save that tale for Part VI.
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Gamble Blogging: A Lifetime of Running Cold (Part III) The Poker Tales
Before I ever stepped foot in a casino, there was 7-card stud.
It has always been, and will always be, my favorite variant of poker.
While other poker players were idolizing Doyle Brunson and Daniel Negrano I was studying the play of Johnny Moss and Chip Reese. People clamor for the Poker Brat, I was fascinated by the "Grand Old Man of Poker" and other players.
But for me, 7-card stud was (and is) a game played at home. Even before the "poker" boom finding a good game of 7-card stud outside of Atlantic City was tough. Texas Hold-Em has always ruled the mainstream poker room, despite the fact that it's (in my mind) the worst game of all the variants to play.
My early gambling life was full of 7-card stud home games. I used to play with friends for change. I would like to tell you that I was a 7-card version of Matt Damon rounding in the underground poker rooms of Midland and Houston but that would be a lie. But I did get games almost whenever I wanted them. Quietly, without raising a fuss. You see, gambling was illegal in Texas (still is for the most part) and I've always been risk-averse to getting caught. Plus, my parents were not, shall we say, "open" to having a gambler in the family, probably doing to our Baptist up-bringing.
I'll never forget the first time I played 7-card. It was at a friends house in Midland in 1989. I "stayed over" with some other friends and we played cards until 6 o'clock in the morning. None of us were any good, and our stakes were micro, but I caught the bug from that point on and to this day I can't put 7-card down.
And that's how it went for years. I'd head over to a friends house with a sixer of Miller Genuine Draft and we'd play cards for hours. As I got older the stakes got a little higher, but never too high, and the tables got a little smaller with fewer and fewer players joining in as guys got married, had kids or generally lost interest in the game.
Not me though, I loved 7-card stud. I actually, at the time, became pretty good at it. My knack for reading other people is slightly above average, but no where near where you need to be for a successful run at professional poker. My mathematical knowledge is fair but, again, nowhere near where it needs to be for a successful pro-poker career.
Then there's the fact that I don't WANT to play poker as a profession, and I never have. I enjoy playing poker and I always want it to remain a game. I thought about, for a minute, making a run at a professional career in Texas Hold 'Em. And while I can beat most weekenders and conventioneers at a table, I'm just not good enough to beat the professionals or top players. Plus, as I stated. Poker should be fun.
Finally, after watching the WSOP on ESPN for a few years, I decided I'd give this live, sitting in a casino, poker thing a try. In 2005 my family decided to take a trip to the Grand Coushatta Hotel & Casino in Kinder, Louisiana. They had, at the time, a small poker room that was supposed to have attached to it some pretty good action and fair games.
I was brave, I bought into a 2/4 limit game with a hundred dollars. I played Texas Hold 'Em for 5 hours, and walked away from the table with $100. Five hours, no money made, or lost. I won three pretty good sized pots the entire 5 hours, and folded most of rest of the time. As grinds go it was fine decaffinated espresso.
But it made me think, falsely, that I might be good enough to give this poker game a whirl. So I would head out to the Isle of Capri from time to time in Lake Charles to play poker. I'd arrive on a Friday evening, eat dinner, and play until early Saturday morning. Then I'd drive home.
Lather, rinse, repeat for several years. Throw in also the odd trip to Choctaw casino in Durant, Oklahoma and I had a pretty good regional casino poker tour going on. Overall, of course, I lost. Because, at hold 'em, I'm not very good. I'm easy to trap, get over-excited when I (finally) get a hand and over-bet the pot frequently when I do.
Finally, in 2012, I decided that I was ready to hit a Las Vegas poker room and see just how good I was. Sort of. Because I decided to play at the no-action pit that is Circus Circus, which was horrible until I ran into two poker players who were worse than I.
And I won. Amazingly. Despite being card-dead I bluffed or semi-bluffed off of those two jokers around $2,000. At one point one said to another before folding "I have no idea what he's holding". I knew right then I was NOT the sucker at the table.
After that trip I was feeling pretty good about myself, and not worried at all that the run of cards I was on bordered on historically bad levels. The best hand that I caught the entire Vegas trip as 2-pair. I hadn't made a flush since before Moses, and even my straights were being caught on the joker end of things. In short, disaster was on the horizon, but I was too convinced of my ability to read and bluff to notice.
In 2013 I made yet another weekend trip to Lake Charles, this was during the time that they had both boats open, and the 3rd floor of the 2nd boat was entirely devoted to poker. I was living large this time, I had a bank-roll of $1000 (half of my Vegas winnings) and was ready to jump into the "adult side of the pool" by playing 1-2 no-limit (don't laugh).
I got to the poker room around 10 PM and started playing around eleven. From eleven to around 2 AM I was actually doing pretty good. I was up around $200, which was nothing special but it was a profit and the quality of player at this table was better than what I beat in Vegas.
At around 2:30 AM, the worm turned. I was holding AK off and the flop came out A-K-K. I had flopped a King-high Full boat. The only hand that could beat me was AA and, since no one re-raised my opening raise pre-flop, I thought I was OK. The turn card was a 7, which was a blank, so I bet into it around 1/2 the pot. One guy, a very loud and mouthy local, came along. The river is where everything went wrong. Of course, the Ace came out, the ace of Diamonds in fact, and I had the sneaking suspicion that I might be beat. I min-bet. Realizing, at this point, that the Ace had me at a disadvantage. If the guy raised, I wasn't sure how I could call. If he folded, of course, I won, but that Ace had given him all of the power.
Then he called. Which was an odd play. But he did so I turned over my boat and he immediately whipped over his AA and started pointing at me and calling me some names that involved the initials "M.F." 'I got you, you MF' etc.
"Idiot", I replied, "got lucky on the river."
What happened next was surreal.
"Sir, please don't insult the other guests" - This came from the dealer. And I realized he was looking at me. I just got MF'd by a guy who had caught a one-outer on the river and he was jumping my shit for calling him an idiot? (It was only after all of this that someone informed me the guy who beat me was a local, regular.)
I lost it for a minute. Then the poker room manager came over, informed me of my breach of poker-room rules and asked me to leave.
I was stunned. And pissed, and utterly done with Texas Hold 'Em and casino poker all-together. I hadn't been drinking, at all, so at 3:30 AM I cashed out, got in my car and drove home. I told my wife that I was done with live poker and would never play it at Isle of Capri again, something I've held to until this day.
At that point I was all but done playing Texas Hold 'Em, and live poker in casinos all-together. I did have one last go in Vegas, which reaffirmed my decision to not play, but that story is best told in conjunction with another tale, so I'll save it.
However, if you want a 7-card home game I'm all ears.
It has always been, and will always be, my favorite variant of poker.
While other poker players were idolizing Doyle Brunson and Daniel Negrano I was studying the play of Johnny Moss and Chip Reese. People clamor for the Poker Brat, I was fascinated by the "Grand Old Man of Poker" and other players.
But for me, 7-card stud was (and is) a game played at home. Even before the "poker" boom finding a good game of 7-card stud outside of Atlantic City was tough. Texas Hold-Em has always ruled the mainstream poker room, despite the fact that it's (in my mind) the worst game of all the variants to play.
My early gambling life was full of 7-card stud home games. I used to play with friends for change. I would like to tell you that I was a 7-card version of Matt Damon rounding in the underground poker rooms of Midland and Houston but that would be a lie. But I did get games almost whenever I wanted them. Quietly, without raising a fuss. You see, gambling was illegal in Texas (still is for the most part) and I've always been risk-averse to getting caught. Plus, my parents were not, shall we say, "open" to having a gambler in the family, probably doing to our Baptist up-bringing.
I'll never forget the first time I played 7-card. It was at a friends house in Midland in 1989. I "stayed over" with some other friends and we played cards until 6 o'clock in the morning. None of us were any good, and our stakes were micro, but I caught the bug from that point on and to this day I can't put 7-card down.
And that's how it went for years. I'd head over to a friends house with a sixer of Miller Genuine Draft and we'd play cards for hours. As I got older the stakes got a little higher, but never too high, and the tables got a little smaller with fewer and fewer players joining in as guys got married, had kids or generally lost interest in the game.
Not me though, I loved 7-card stud. I actually, at the time, became pretty good at it. My knack for reading other people is slightly above average, but no where near where you need to be for a successful run at professional poker. My mathematical knowledge is fair but, again, nowhere near where it needs to be for a successful pro-poker career.
Then there's the fact that I don't WANT to play poker as a profession, and I never have. I enjoy playing poker and I always want it to remain a game. I thought about, for a minute, making a run at a professional career in Texas Hold 'Em. And while I can beat most weekenders and conventioneers at a table, I'm just not good enough to beat the professionals or top players. Plus, as I stated. Poker should be fun.
Finally, after watching the WSOP on ESPN for a few years, I decided I'd give this live, sitting in a casino, poker thing a try. In 2005 my family decided to take a trip to the Grand Coushatta Hotel & Casino in Kinder, Louisiana. They had, at the time, a small poker room that was supposed to have attached to it some pretty good action and fair games.
I was brave, I bought into a 2/4 limit game with a hundred dollars. I played Texas Hold 'Em for 5 hours, and walked away from the table with $100. Five hours, no money made, or lost. I won three pretty good sized pots the entire 5 hours, and folded most of rest of the time. As grinds go it was fine decaffinated espresso.
But it made me think, falsely, that I might be good enough to give this poker game a whirl. So I would head out to the Isle of Capri from time to time in Lake Charles to play poker. I'd arrive on a Friday evening, eat dinner, and play until early Saturday morning. Then I'd drive home.
Lather, rinse, repeat for several years. Throw in also the odd trip to Choctaw casino in Durant, Oklahoma and I had a pretty good regional casino poker tour going on. Overall, of course, I lost. Because, at hold 'em, I'm not very good. I'm easy to trap, get over-excited when I (finally) get a hand and over-bet the pot frequently when I do.
Finally, in 2012, I decided that I was ready to hit a Las Vegas poker room and see just how good I was. Sort of. Because I decided to play at the no-action pit that is Circus Circus, which was horrible until I ran into two poker players who were worse than I.
And I won. Amazingly. Despite being card-dead I bluffed or semi-bluffed off of those two jokers around $2,000. At one point one said to another before folding "I have no idea what he's holding". I knew right then I was NOT the sucker at the table.
After that trip I was feeling pretty good about myself, and not worried at all that the run of cards I was on bordered on historically bad levels. The best hand that I caught the entire Vegas trip as 2-pair. I hadn't made a flush since before Moses, and even my straights were being caught on the joker end of things. In short, disaster was on the horizon, but I was too convinced of my ability to read and bluff to notice.
In 2013 I made yet another weekend trip to Lake Charles, this was during the time that they had both boats open, and the 3rd floor of the 2nd boat was entirely devoted to poker. I was living large this time, I had a bank-roll of $1000 (half of my Vegas winnings) and was ready to jump into the "adult side of the pool" by playing 1-2 no-limit (don't laugh).
I got to the poker room around 10 PM and started playing around eleven. From eleven to around 2 AM I was actually doing pretty good. I was up around $200, which was nothing special but it was a profit and the quality of player at this table was better than what I beat in Vegas.
At around 2:30 AM, the worm turned. I was holding AK off and the flop came out A-K-K. I had flopped a King-high Full boat. The only hand that could beat me was AA and, since no one re-raised my opening raise pre-flop, I thought I was OK. The turn card was a 7, which was a blank, so I bet into it around 1/2 the pot. One guy, a very loud and mouthy local, came along. The river is where everything went wrong. Of course, the Ace came out, the ace of Diamonds in fact, and I had the sneaking suspicion that I might be beat. I min-bet. Realizing, at this point, that the Ace had me at a disadvantage. If the guy raised, I wasn't sure how I could call. If he folded, of course, I won, but that Ace had given him all of the power.
Then he called. Which was an odd play. But he did so I turned over my boat and he immediately whipped over his AA and started pointing at me and calling me some names that involved the initials "M.F." 'I got you, you MF' etc.
"Idiot", I replied, "got lucky on the river."
What happened next was surreal.
"Sir, please don't insult the other guests" - This came from the dealer. And I realized he was looking at me. I just got MF'd by a guy who had caught a one-outer on the river and he was jumping my shit for calling him an idiot? (It was only after all of this that someone informed me the guy who beat me was a local, regular.)
I lost it for a minute. Then the poker room manager came over, informed me of my breach of poker-room rules and asked me to leave.
I was stunned. And pissed, and utterly done with Texas Hold 'Em and casino poker all-together. I hadn't been drinking, at all, so at 3:30 AM I cashed out, got in my car and drove home. I told my wife that I was done with live poker and would never play it at Isle of Capri again, something I've held to until this day.
At that point I was all but done playing Texas Hold 'Em, and live poker in casinos all-together. I did have one last go in Vegas, which reaffirmed my decision to not play, but that story is best told in conjunction with another tale, so I'll save it.
However, if you want a 7-card home game I'm all ears.
Thursday, January 3, 2019
GambleBlog: Thinking about the 2019 Gambling Year.
Tuesday marked a new year, which means that everyone is rushing forth with a list of resolutions that you should make because they really, really want you to.
I say forget all of that. This is a gambling blog, we don't do resolutions here. What we do like to do however is take a stab at listing unpredictable events. It's like we're doing a forecast for a corporate Vice President who doesn't understand future tense.
But that's OK, because it's fun to dream.
Sports Betting: My prediction for 2019 is that business is going to pick up, but not as fast as some think.
- First, there's the whole "Federal Government Getting Involved" question that needs to be answered. And despite the fact that the Feds getting involved in something has rarely in history improved it, the gang of functional idiots that we continue to elect to 'represent' us is going to try anyway. Why? Because they see money, and money is the true driving force be hind all politics. Whether it's money to coffers or campaign money Congresspeople and Senators see a big ol' kitty that they can pass along to their political patrons. The States and sports book operators are going to need to ban together to put a stop to this, or the nascent sports betting industry could find itself crippled before it fully gets off the ground.
- Second, lets cool our jets on the whole "30 States are poised to legalize sports betting" nonsense. While it's entirely probable that some States are going to get on board, we ARE talking about State Legislatures here. Typically, State Representatives and Senators are significantly lower on the intelligence scale than their Federal counterparts, they're still in training you see. Several of the 30 states will blow it completely, several others will walk in mud for the entire year, and the few that can actually fog a mirror might pass something that's just barely workable. My prediction is we'll see a stall in State passage until the dimwits in DC figure out what they're going to do.
- Third, existing sports betting States have to get a handle on regulation. Earlier this year FanDuel was allowed by the State of New Jersey to pay out all Alabama Championship bets early. This was a horrid decision that was sold by FanDuel as fan-friendly but which really served only to skew the markets. It should have never been allowed and in Nevada it would not have been. If you're a State that is looking to legalize sports betting, make sure the people who write your regulations and enforce them know what they are doing. If in doubt, copy Nevada.
Horse Betting: I remain a horse player but I have no idea why.
- First, fixing the takeout problem should be the number one issue in horse racing, but it's not even close to the top 100 for the powers that be. One of the reasons for this is that many track presidents and big-name personalities view horse players with a level of contempt typically reserved for ponzi scheme operators. Until the industry comes to the understanding that betting IS the driving force behind the industry they are going to continue to have to rely on supplemental slot machine income (where available) to subsidize the industry.
- Second, the Stronach Group must be stopped. Yes, they've had some good ideas. The Pegasus World Cup Day is growing on me, and they've done a remarkable job with Laurel Park (if only the Preakness could be moved there) but in large part they are the bastions of huge takeouts and slot supplements. It will be interesting to see if they can succeed at Santa Anita, but early returns are not promising. People said "change was needed to they fired most of the things that were right at Santa Anita (the people) and are making the things that are wrong (high takeout, betting structure) worse (Horse Racing Roulette). If this is how they operate sans slot machines racing is in for a time.
- Third, more focus on the later season races and less on the Triple Crown please. I realize this is sacrilege, and many will hate it, but Triple Crown Hegemony is destroying the sport as increasingly large numbers of casual fans totally tune out after the Belmont (or before if no triple crown is one the line) and are all but ignoring the best racing of the year in the Summer and Fall. That horse racing is not strongly promoting the Breeder's Cup as horse racing's championship (yes, they pay lip service but still) is a crime. Ask most people who the "Champion horse of 2018" was and they'll tell you Justify. What he did was great, but Audible was better and should be horse of the year based on resume. Speaking of that: no one will even notice outside of the extremely insular horse racing community.
Las Vegas: The place I call "home" is increasingly becoming less and less homely.
- First, something has to be done to get the casinos to understand that dog-shit odds, poor pay-tables coupled with high fees is not the path to profitability. I'm not arguing that we return Vegas to a mythical "value destination" but something needs to be done to return some feeling that customers are getting some value. High resort fees that offer little in the way of amenities, which are in reality room rates stated a different way to keep search results artificially cheap, Concession "fees" which are a joke, and service fees for spas and other amenities of which a portion the casinos keep are driving people away. It seems like they finally saw the light on parking fees, or are starting to, hopefully they get it on the other fees as well. Also, about some of those prices......
- Second, can we please have 2019 be the year that 3-zero Roulette dies the rotten and ugly death that it deserves? The same goes for 7/5 Double Double Bonus Video Poker pay-tables on the strip, or the best games being 6/5 bonus at the quarter level (the games most patrons play). I'd include 6/5 blackjack on this list but I understand that the end of that abomination is going to take a lot of heavy lifting because it's much more entrenched. Right now I'd settle for a roll-back on Roulette, better VP pay-tables and that blackjack doesn't get worse to the tune of 11/10, which I'm afraid we're going to see very soon if things stay the same. Gambling odds always favor the house. Players know this but they're willing to take the chance if they feel there's a CHANCE they can win. By making odds worse on the popular games (I won't even get into Penny slots because, well, they are never going to get better) Vegas is stripping away all of the fun and reason to play, on the Strip anyway. The bad thing is we're starting to see this disease infect downtown. Horrid.
- Third, gotta get a handle on that crime Vegas. I'm not referring to the events of October 1, which were horrid, I'm talking about two people getting murdered at Circus Circus, in their room because a thief was allowed to come up and enter rooms. I'm talking about people getting shot, robbed, mugged, assaulted on a semi-regular basis IN TOURIST AREAS. The 1970's in Vegas were a horrid time because people did not feel safe on the streets. The city and business leaders are letting those days come back into being and it's threatening to add even stronger headwinds to a city that should be doing much better than it is when you consider the economic times. Remember: Casinos are starting to show signs of strain during the GOOD times, what happens when the next recession comes? Get with it y'all.
- Fourth, can we all go ahead and agree that the 'Interactive gaming' and 'esports' things were busts? That all of the work trying to fix the so-called millennial problem were misguided? OF COURSE millennials like to gamble, they just do it in more social ways. When you see someone in my generation (X, if you're wondering) gambling you're likely to see three people playing side-by-side at slot-machines, video-poker terminals or in chairs at a table. If you see three millennials gambling you'll find one playing, and two cheering them on. It's social for them. They want to win, and immediately post that win to social media. On that note how about loosening up and letting people take pictures of their wins, or video their slot play. If your security experts can't tell the difference between someone trying to record wins and play for fund and someone doing it for nefarious purposes they need to go back to training.
In short, I think that 2019 is going to see the gaming industry get worse, before it starts to get better. But there will be signs of life. Already we're hearing reports that casinos are considering lowering resort fees, room rates, and some casinos, even on the Strip, are making a big deal about having better odds. This is a huge plus and a trend that I hope we see continue as the months roll by.
For sports gaming we'll see more "wait and see" than actual change, but there will be a LOT more coverage as it continues to go mainstream. Obviously, some of this will be good and some will be really, really bad. An unlisted challenge for sports betting is going to be the tout industry, and toning down sports betting "experts" who can be some of the most unlikable, unflinchingly judgmental people in the world. Attracting casual bettors could be a chore.
Horse racing has the same problem. The horse industry is very insular, and not very welcoming to outsiders. Horse track regulars are a surly lot, more likely to curse at someone for what they perceive is a bad bet than celebrating a good one. Horse tracks themselves continue to treat patrons as if they're entitled to them.
For me, personally, 2019 will be a continuation of 2018. I do plan on making one less trip to Vegas this year over last however, not because of Vegas but because there are a couple of other places I plan on going. I might even incorporate some trip blogging on this blog.
To all of you still reading, I wish you good fortune, good luck, good eating and good drinking the entire year. May you spend most of it with the ones you love.
I say forget all of that. This is a gambling blog, we don't do resolutions here. What we do like to do however is take a stab at listing unpredictable events. It's like we're doing a forecast for a corporate Vice President who doesn't understand future tense.
But that's OK, because it's fun to dream.
Sports Betting: My prediction for 2019 is that business is going to pick up, but not as fast as some think.
- First, there's the whole "Federal Government Getting Involved" question that needs to be answered. And despite the fact that the Feds getting involved in something has rarely in history improved it, the gang of functional idiots that we continue to elect to 'represent' us is going to try anyway. Why? Because they see money, and money is the true driving force be hind all politics. Whether it's money to coffers or campaign money Congresspeople and Senators see a big ol' kitty that they can pass along to their political patrons. The States and sports book operators are going to need to ban together to put a stop to this, or the nascent sports betting industry could find itself crippled before it fully gets off the ground.
- Second, lets cool our jets on the whole "30 States are poised to legalize sports betting" nonsense. While it's entirely probable that some States are going to get on board, we ARE talking about State Legislatures here. Typically, State Representatives and Senators are significantly lower on the intelligence scale than their Federal counterparts, they're still in training you see. Several of the 30 states will blow it completely, several others will walk in mud for the entire year, and the few that can actually fog a mirror might pass something that's just barely workable. My prediction is we'll see a stall in State passage until the dimwits in DC figure out what they're going to do.
- Third, existing sports betting States have to get a handle on regulation. Earlier this year FanDuel was allowed by the State of New Jersey to pay out all Alabama Championship bets early. This was a horrid decision that was sold by FanDuel as fan-friendly but which really served only to skew the markets. It should have never been allowed and in Nevada it would not have been. If you're a State that is looking to legalize sports betting, make sure the people who write your regulations and enforce them know what they are doing. If in doubt, copy Nevada.
Horse Betting: I remain a horse player but I have no idea why.
- First, fixing the takeout problem should be the number one issue in horse racing, but it's not even close to the top 100 for the powers that be. One of the reasons for this is that many track presidents and big-name personalities view horse players with a level of contempt typically reserved for ponzi scheme operators. Until the industry comes to the understanding that betting IS the driving force behind the industry they are going to continue to have to rely on supplemental slot machine income (where available) to subsidize the industry.
- Second, the Stronach Group must be stopped. Yes, they've had some good ideas. The Pegasus World Cup Day is growing on me, and they've done a remarkable job with Laurel Park (if only the Preakness could be moved there) but in large part they are the bastions of huge takeouts and slot supplements. It will be interesting to see if they can succeed at Santa Anita, but early returns are not promising. People said "change was needed to they fired most of the things that were right at Santa Anita (the people) and are making the things that are wrong (high takeout, betting structure) worse (Horse Racing Roulette). If this is how they operate sans slot machines racing is in for a time.
- Third, more focus on the later season races and less on the Triple Crown please. I realize this is sacrilege, and many will hate it, but Triple Crown Hegemony is destroying the sport as increasingly large numbers of casual fans totally tune out after the Belmont (or before if no triple crown is one the line) and are all but ignoring the best racing of the year in the Summer and Fall. That horse racing is not strongly promoting the Breeder's Cup as horse racing's championship (yes, they pay lip service but still) is a crime. Ask most people who the "Champion horse of 2018" was and they'll tell you Justify. What he did was great, but Audible was better and should be horse of the year based on resume. Speaking of that: no one will even notice outside of the extremely insular horse racing community.
Las Vegas: The place I call "home" is increasingly becoming less and less homely.
- First, something has to be done to get the casinos to understand that dog-shit odds, poor pay-tables coupled with high fees is not the path to profitability. I'm not arguing that we return Vegas to a mythical "value destination" but something needs to be done to return some feeling that customers are getting some value. High resort fees that offer little in the way of amenities, which are in reality room rates stated a different way to keep search results artificially cheap, Concession "fees" which are a joke, and service fees for spas and other amenities of which a portion the casinos keep are driving people away. It seems like they finally saw the light on parking fees, or are starting to, hopefully they get it on the other fees as well. Also, about some of those prices......
- Second, can we please have 2019 be the year that 3-zero Roulette dies the rotten and ugly death that it deserves? The same goes for 7/5 Double Double Bonus Video Poker pay-tables on the strip, or the best games being 6/5 bonus at the quarter level (the games most patrons play). I'd include 6/5 blackjack on this list but I understand that the end of that abomination is going to take a lot of heavy lifting because it's much more entrenched. Right now I'd settle for a roll-back on Roulette, better VP pay-tables and that blackjack doesn't get worse to the tune of 11/10, which I'm afraid we're going to see very soon if things stay the same. Gambling odds always favor the house. Players know this but they're willing to take the chance if they feel there's a CHANCE they can win. By making odds worse on the popular games (I won't even get into Penny slots because, well, they are never going to get better) Vegas is stripping away all of the fun and reason to play, on the Strip anyway. The bad thing is we're starting to see this disease infect downtown. Horrid.
- Third, gotta get a handle on that crime Vegas. I'm not referring to the events of October 1, which were horrid, I'm talking about two people getting murdered at Circus Circus, in their room because a thief was allowed to come up and enter rooms. I'm talking about people getting shot, robbed, mugged, assaulted on a semi-regular basis IN TOURIST AREAS. The 1970's in Vegas were a horrid time because people did not feel safe on the streets. The city and business leaders are letting those days come back into being and it's threatening to add even stronger headwinds to a city that should be doing much better than it is when you consider the economic times. Remember: Casinos are starting to show signs of strain during the GOOD times, what happens when the next recession comes? Get with it y'all.
- Fourth, can we all go ahead and agree that the 'Interactive gaming' and 'esports' things were busts? That all of the work trying to fix the so-called millennial problem were misguided? OF COURSE millennials like to gamble, they just do it in more social ways. When you see someone in my generation (X, if you're wondering) gambling you're likely to see three people playing side-by-side at slot-machines, video-poker terminals or in chairs at a table. If you see three millennials gambling you'll find one playing, and two cheering them on. It's social for them. They want to win, and immediately post that win to social media. On that note how about loosening up and letting people take pictures of their wins, or video their slot play. If your security experts can't tell the difference between someone trying to record wins and play for fund and someone doing it for nefarious purposes they need to go back to training.
In short, I think that 2019 is going to see the gaming industry get worse, before it starts to get better. But there will be signs of life. Already we're hearing reports that casinos are considering lowering resort fees, room rates, and some casinos, even on the Strip, are making a big deal about having better odds. This is a huge plus and a trend that I hope we see continue as the months roll by.
For sports gaming we'll see more "wait and see" than actual change, but there will be a LOT more coverage as it continues to go mainstream. Obviously, some of this will be good and some will be really, really bad. An unlisted challenge for sports betting is going to be the tout industry, and toning down sports betting "experts" who can be some of the most unlikable, unflinchingly judgmental people in the world. Attracting casual bettors could be a chore.
Horse racing has the same problem. The horse industry is very insular, and not very welcoming to outsiders. Horse track regulars are a surly lot, more likely to curse at someone for what they perceive is a bad bet than celebrating a good one. Horse tracks themselves continue to treat patrons as if they're entitled to them.
For me, personally, 2019 will be a continuation of 2018. I do plan on making one less trip to Vegas this year over last however, not because of Vegas but because there are a couple of other places I plan on going. I might even incorporate some trip blogging on this blog.
To all of you still reading, I wish you good fortune, good luck, good eating and good drinking the entire year. May you spend most of it with the ones you love.
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