Black Jack

Despite a lot of traffic and some long drives, I had a great weekend in Vegas while managing to lose a lot of money in black jack.

I got to Vegas around 9:30 p.m. after a seven-hour mission from Los Angeles. It's only supposed to take four hours to drive to Vegas, but with problems from Enterprise and a long stop at Costco, combined with Friday afternoon traffic in L.A., it took us a lot longer than expected. We thought we had finally made it to Sin City when we exited Tropicana, were across the street from our hotel and out of nowhere we get pulled over. So my boy has to take like eight sobriety tests for apparently no reason before taking a breathalizer that registers a whopping 0.0000. I'm wondering why he couldn't have just taken that first when he said he hadn't had one drink of alcohol. Instead, the cop made him do all of the 'balance on one foot' and 'walk this way exactly' shit before taking the actual breathalizer. I can't front, I was a little nervous seeing that if the cop had the audacity to pop our trunk, he would've been greeted by three bottles of vodka, a bottle of jack, some rum, a box of coronas, which definitely would not have helped our cause, although we weren't guilty of anything. But we avoided all of that. Props to Brett on his excellent balancing techniques.

Anyways we make it in and of course like all the hotel parking lots we have to park in the MGM parking lot, which turns out to be appx. 3.4 miles away from our room. We get there late after everyone has already eaten and change our clothes and it's off to the Hard Rock for some gambling.

Table 1: Came up, about $30 right away at the Hard Rock. I'm not sure why we even left that table, everyone won between $10 and $100 in about five minutes.

Table 2: Craps - broke even. Made two $10 bets, one in the field and one on the come line or whatever and won the field bet.

Table 3: Lost about $150 in black jack.

After table 3, we headed out to a strip club called "Paradise," which sucked. It didn't necessarily suck, but I wouldn't recommend it at all.

After that we hit the outdoor in n out wagon, which was the worst run operation this side of Mexico. Our order took so long that we ended up just getting someone else's order when they didn't show up. Yeah, we just claimed it as I'm sure someone claimed ours once it was called after two hours.

That night I slept on the floor real cozy and young Andrew had to listen to me snore all night.

Saturday morning I made it to the poker table and made a whopping $24 in about four hours. First I played $1/2 NL and made $10, then I played $3/5 NL and made $14. I'm pretty sure that had I stayed longer, I would have made a lot more money but the fellas wanted to hit the strip so off we went.

We made a ridiculous turn-around walk to the corner, up the outdoor elevator, back into the MGM and down the escalator and to the monorail, which took us to our destination: Chipotle.

After the fine dining we hit up Caesar's, where I lost another $200 playing Pussy Cat Dolls black jack.

Off we go to the Bellagio, where I wanted to see who was playing in Bobby's Room, but unfortunately no one was in there. Sammy Farha was playing some $1k min black jack though. We hit the $10 minimum tables, which I was surprised to see at the Bellagio. I managed to win $200 there. Sweet. I think almost everyone won at the Bellagio. We even had a video poker victory in the group.

After picking up some McDonald's for dinner, we headed back to the room to get ready for the night out. A lot of drinking and ironing took place in the next couple hours, along with some NBA viewing.

We headed to Planet Hollywood, where we had reservation for some bottles at "Prive," only we showed up at 9:30 so we had an hour or so to kill. That's when I won another $100 at a $25 minimum table. Sweet.

Prive was off the hook. Besides the fact it was my first time really partying with all of my childhood friends, the place was crackin'. Tons of people, good DJ and Red Bulls that cost $12. What more can you ask for? We even got to see the bachelor do some impressive dance moves in the middle of some (apparent) dance-off circles.

When 3 a.m. rolls around in Vegas, there's only one thing to do. No, not a prostitute. Gamble! This is where I made my huge loss. There weren't enough seats at a table for all of us so I went to my own table, where I got taxed nicely for $200. So then I get a seat with the homies and get taxed for another $200 before they kicks us off the table after they kill Real Estate Rob for a huge hand where he put all his money on the table, then had to split his 88 against a 7 for the dealer and of course the dealer wins the hand. During the mayhem of the hand, someone spilled beer on the card, which pissed the floor boss off because she had to change the cards. How about the fact we lost $$$$$$$$ on that hand, biatch. And she's worried about a deck of cards. Pfff.

So on the new table I drop another $200 in black jack. In the worst way. Basically I went up about $400 and then after about ten shoes, the mean ass floor woman says "last shoe," and I'm like "Why?" and she won't even answer me, just glares at me like I'm an asshole for asking. So the dealer finally tells me that they have to close some tables. So of course I lose my whole stack on that shoe, plus hundy. F-U, Planet Hollywood.

After that I went back and crashed on the floor with one sheet, directly next to the air conditioner. Froze my ass off and I think I have to get hip replacement surgery now.

The weekend was off the hook though, despite the fact that as a group we lost our ass off.