Double down.
August 24th, 2006

As many of you know, Scoot and I took a 2-day trip to the City of Sin here recently -- Las Vegas. Contrary to popular belief, what happens in Vegas doesn't necessary stay in Vegas. Interested? Read on.

After booking cheap ass airfare a while back, we were set to fly out of Kansas City on the morning of the 22nd. The night before, Scoot came over to crash at my place so that we could just get up and go on Tuesday. Having somewhat of a gambling addiction at times, I conned Scoot into going to the local casino here late Monday night to "get into the mood." Mainly I wanted to see if Scoot's run as "The Cooler" had ended, which I'll tell you all about in another article.

We hit the Ameristar with our typical attitude: I was pumped and ready to win while Scoot was hesitant and planning on losing everything he took inside. Ahh, Scoot...ye of little faith. We found a quiet $5 minimum bet table, plopped down, and got into the game. Twenty minutes later we cashed out. I had turned $100 into $300 while Scoot had managed to almost double his $80. Not a bad start, right? I wondered if the euphoria I was feeling was what hookers experienced -- who else could make $200 in twenty minutes, eh?

Once in Vegas I found myself at a blackjack table that had a cigarette burn in the felt just to the right of the chip spot. That's a sure fire sign that I was in good hands. Dropping $100 after an hour, I figured I'd have better luck at the next casino. Nope, another $100 down the drain. Now, the week before, I had turned another $100 into $300 and therefore had a total of $400 "extra" bucks from KC for my bankroll. Half of it had now been flushed down the drain. We both tried our luck on a "Top Dollar" machine (the machine that made my last Vegas trip so memorable) and dropped another C-note. So my four-hunny had suddenly become only one-hunny. Dammit. Time to move onto another casino.

Scoot, of course, was firmly set in his "I can't win" mode and was doing just that. He's the only person I know that goes to Vegas having a pre-set budget of what he plans to lose on a daily basis. I kid you not. We both sat down at a table in New York, New York and prepared to do battle. After dropping nearly all of his Day #1 budget, Scoot and I split up to try to make our fortunes. I stayed at the table for a while and lucked out into it becoming a "good table."

One thing that I love about casinos is when you end up at a "good table." What makes a good table? Amazingly, it has nothing to do with whether or not you are winning but mainly with the participants involved. Blackjack players come from all walks of life -- you may find yourself sitting next to a doctor, a lawyer, someone who just turned twenty-one, a tiny Asian woman who doesn't speak a lick of English, a boozed-up gang of fraternity brothers, you name it. The longer you sit at the table, the more ecclectic the group seems to become it seems. Still, this isn't what makes a good table. A good table is one in which the people have been there for a while and a vocal camaraderie has established itself. Soon, the entire table has banned together as one. There's still one more ingredient left in our "good table" stew and that is a dealer that is fun. Once this dynamic has established itself, you couldn't drag me away.

After Scoot took off, additional people joined the table and before you knew it we had a "good table." There was, to borrow Scoot's latest descriptor, "an extremely Asian guy" named Ken (you can imagine the oddness in the introduction when we were both repeating our respective names and the other thinking to himself "why the hell does this guy keep repeating my name?!?"), a couple in their late thirties from Arizona, an extremely quiet older gentleman that NEVER said a word, a very cute mother of two who was killing time while her family was riding the roller coaster, and myself. Our dealer, a cool guy named Robert, could have easily been mistaken for the slightly younger brother of actor Sam Elliott. Put all these people together and you have a "good table."

I must have remained at this table for a good 2-3 hours. Two legendary events of the trip took place while I was on this table: the wheelchair lady and the almost-perfectly cut deck. Gotta go with the funny one before the ironic one, so here's the story on the wheelchair lady.

You know those mechanized carts that people use in grocery stores? Well, of course, Vegas offers those to the plethora of handicapped and/or elderly people allowing them to scooter from slot machine to slot machine. Well, as fate would have it, Scoot and I were lucky enough to witness an accident involving one of those carts. Some woman in her mid-40s who, for whatever reason decided she couldn't walk around the casino without help, plopped her fat ass down in one of those carts and began driving it all around. Somehow in her uber-laziness, she managed to skim on learning how to properly handle the thing, and RAMMED the hell out of the table next to mine. She nailed three people's chairs, sending an empty one half-way over. Needless to say, everyone there started laughing. When the woman went to back up the cart, she dropped a half-hearted "oops" and tried to point the cart down the aisle towards my table. Scoot happened to be in the path watching me at my table and a devilish grin crept across my face. I couldn't wait to see his reaction when she went to pass him. I glanced at the woman trying to line the cart up, looked over at Scoot, looked quickly back over at the woman, and then back at Scoot...who...was...gone. In the split-second that I glanced over at MarioKart Andretti, my boy Scoot had r-o-c-k-e-t-e-d down two aisles of slot machines to get the hell out of her way. Funny as hell.

The second story was just something kinda cool. The couple that was from Arizona had been catching crummy cards for a while. I suggested that she cut the deck and give it some lady luck. Reluctantly, she took the cutter and said that every time she cuts the deck that things never work out for her. Her husband smirkingly gave a nod in agreement and she sliced the deck in half. Robert, our dealer, said "well, maybe it'll work out for you this time" and dealt the cards. Everyone got either a face card or an ace. On the second round, EVERYONE and I mean everyone -- with the exception of the woman that cut the deck -- got a blackjack. I wish I had a picture of her face after that lil' event went down. Even the dealer had to laugh at that one. Never in his career had he seen something like that happen. Gotta love firsts!

Robert ended up making me a happy man, helping me stage a comeback to recoup my KC winnings and bringing it back up to around $300. My first day plan was to turn the $400 into a grand and then play nothing but green chips ($25) the next day...going for $2,000-$2,500. If I hit that magic number, I was going to get up and cash out. Scoot and I decided to check into our hotel room at this point in time and then hit the tables later. I...passed...out. After a good three hour nap, I was ready to rock and roll once again.

Heading downstairs, I planned on reaching my first day goal and then calling it a night. At first, things seemed to be going just fine. I was catching the cards I needed and the dealer was busting. Scoot, amazingly, was up as well. The luck began to turn and Scoot quickly found himself back at zero. I managed to weather the storm and began making a comeback. Before I knew it, I found myself at another "good table." This time around the participants were: a very talkative and very funny guy named Joe from Chicago, his beautiful Greek girlfriend, an older Iranian man who I nicknamed "Mr. Twenty-One", his wife, and then an assortment of drive-by gamblers, most of whom didn't last all that long. This was, easily, my favorite table of the entire trip. While I ended up losing the most at this table, I absolutely enjoyed the nearly four hours I spent there.

This table had the most energy of any table I've been at in a long, long time. Even though people were getting clobbered, the fun we had while all playing togther -- with a sweet dealer named Deseet (yes, pronounced "deceit") -- was top notch. I managed to outlast everyone on the table and welcomed a whole new cast of characters including a guy who nearly got thrown out due to defending his friend who was at the table adjacent to ours. Apparently the guy's buddy and another man at the table got into it verbally and all hell broke loose. Before we knew it, three uniformed security guys and two pit bosses were in-between these three who were ready to throw down. Ahh, alcohol. After all was said and done, no one was thrown out of the casino which surprised us all. The guy that had been sitting at our table had been asking me for advice throughout his time at the table and for some reason felt compelled to come over and personally apologize to me for getting into it with the guy at the next table. I told him that he didn't need to apologize, that everything was cool, and that he did what he felt he had to do in order to defend his friend. The guy then patted me on the back and took off.

Eventually, I was wiped out and had lost everything I had managed to win back at New York, New York earlier. Giving up for the night around three o'clock Vegas time (five o'clock our time), I headed upstairs and got ready for bed. Bingo, I discovered a $25 chip that I had pocketed and forgot to cash in from New York, New York. That pretty much established where I'd be heading back the next day...

And now, onto Day #2...