We go back to June 28th of 2008. I am flying out to Las Vegas and it’s hours until my 21st birthday. I had played poker online for 3 years and felt pretty good about my game (I now know I wasn’t great). We get in at 10:30pm and after a short taxi ride my buddy and I check into the Venetian. I tried the 20 dollar trick and failed miserably. After settling into the room its midnight and I am now legal to gamble and drink. My friend Jess and I get dinner while waiting for my friend Kip to get in from Dallas. After Saki Bombs and Sushi from a restaurant at TI we meet with Kip and hit the tables. We begin my playing blackjack and drinking Whiskey and Cokes. After several hours of –EV table games its 3am and my friends are off to bed. I decide to hit the V poker room as I had read many great things about it.
It turned out that at 3am the Venetian room can be full of idiots. To my left and to my right were fish that raised and called EVERY hand. They would bet blind and call down just to see the river. I had a good buzz but I knew I could kill this game. I bought in with 200 and surprisingly most of these idiots had me covered. Turned out most of them knew each other and were in on business and had lots of cash to blow. When someone would bust they would rebuy, so everyone had between 400 and 1k in front of them. These guys were really funny and I ended up having my first redbull vodka (then about 8 more). I don’t know why but it was one of those nights where I ran really bad. Aces would get all in to garbage and get cracked. I had dropped about two buy ins when I looked out the window and saw the sun was up, I wasn’t tired but I was drained from the bad luck I was having at the table. I had only brought about 800 with me so I was down to 400 so I went to bed at the V. I couldn’t sleep because of all of the red bull I had consumed and I remember wishing I didn’t have 3 days left to go in Vegas.
I wake up at 2pm with several hours left of my 21st birthday celebration. We decide to play craps at Casino Royale and we ended up getting shithoused drunk. We were running this craps table and I remember we were doing shots of 151 backed with pineapple juice. I threw 50 dollars (my profit from the craps) on a 12 being rolled and HIT. BOOYAH, I don’t remember the payout but it was big, very big. We ended up drinking more and more and by 4pm we were borderline blacked out. Truly amateur day. As we were leaving Casino Royale, all three of us were in one of the circulating doors to exit. My friend pushed me from behind and I ran head first into the glass. They must windex those windows really well because I thought I was being pushed out side and then BLAM! I stumbled out of the doors and everything went black, I was on the ground in the middle of the strip, yelling, while my friends were laughing. I ended up looking like a baby unicorn with the huge bump on the center of my forehead. Every day after this injury I would play the enchanted unicorn slots as I felt I had to win on that machine.
The last major thing that happened on this trip was on the next night. I had managed to lose most of my profit at the BJ tables and got hammered in the process, honestly we were very drunk over the whole trip. The three of us were pretty experienced drinkers but we were drinking all day without eating too much. We were now checked into the mirage and had a nice big suite on one of the top floors. The room was awesome and we didn’t pay more than 200 per night. This night we planned to go the club JET at the mirage, we got in by 1am and absolutely loved it. We didn’t think we would like the club scene but damn was it awesome in there. Beautiful Women, decent music, and amazing lighting; we were in heaven. By three AM we had amassed a 300 room charge in drinks and I was minutes from blacking out (we will get to that). My buddy Kip who is not the most attractive man in the world is dancing with a chick who was a solid nine. He takes off with her and Jess and I were very proud. It turned out that when he got to the elevators with her she told him she had a strap on in her purse and wanted to know if she could mount him. He told her all bets were off and as the elevator doors closed she said to him “you know you want to, it will be fuuuuuunnnnnn.” He went to bed. At this time I was at the club and was dancing with a good looking girl, I bought her a drink and because the club was so packed I had to hold this drinks over my head. When I got to her I spilled the entire drink over her hair and body. She slapped me and took off. I guess cranberry vodka doesn’t go well on a white dress. At this point I want to leave but I am too drunk to find my way out. If you haven’t been to JET before it is three circular rooms and if your intoxicated it can be pretty confusing. I wandered around for over an hour and couldn’t figure out how to leave the damn place, fortunately I find my friend jess and we leave. The last thing I remember is seeing is the light of the hotel lobby while leaving the club.
I wake up in my bed and my whole body hurts. The lamp to the right of me is no longer there and I find it in the other room, shattered. I wake up Jess and ask him what happened and he starts to laugh a little.
Turns out after we left the club we ended up taking an escalator up somewhere, I fell down it. I guess I didn’t quite fall down because as I was tumbling the escalator was going up. I am waiting to watch Americas funniest home videos one day and see myself falling up the escalator. After the escalator incident I am told that I had a team of about 12 security guys following me through the casino as I was yelling at players telling them that they were going to go to hell for gambling. My friend assured the men in the coats that I he was taking me to the room to go to bed. He then tells me that once in the elevator I talked him into streaking from the elevator to our rooms. As we ran to the room, there was a security guy there who let us into the room. He must of thought we were a gay couple that couldn’t wait to get our clothes off.
First trip: I ended up spending everything, swearing off Las Vegas, and played little poker.
On my next trip I came out during march madness 2009 with my best friend Sam. Sam and I were on our own for the first night and then to meet up with my dad and uncles during the trip. We stay at the mirage and on the first night I really wanted to just play poker. I had been studying the game and doing pretty well on PStars. Sam doesn’t want to play poker so we decide to play blackjack. This was one of the worst sessions I have ever had and I managed to drop about 300 in an hour while playing ten dollar hands. Fast forward to the next morning and I realize I had blacked out. I open the safe and the 1k I had brought is ALL GONE. Sam explains that while he had went to bed, I kept returning to the room swearing and grabbing more money from the safe. I lost it all in BJ.
The next day I call my dad and he is in town. We plan to meet that night at the Rio as that is where he and the rest of my extended family is staying. I tell him that I had screwed up and lost everything in a drunked blackjack session, he is disappointed and gives me a good talking to. My dad has been in GA for 21 years and while he hates me gambling, he is ok with me playing poker as he sees I have control over that and make a decent profit when I play. He tells me to quit being such an idiot, to stop drinking like a fool, and to play where I can win.
We meet at the Rio and after a few beers and about 30 incredibly delicious chicken wings, Sam and I get 100 dollars each from my dad and head to the poker room. Turns out that the wait for 1-2 is about 45 minutes so I play some nickel slots and end up dropping 20 dollars. We get into the 1-2 game and I buy in for 80, Sam buys in for 100. First Hand I get dealt AQ in the cutoff with three limpers. I raise to 12 and the BB and the three limpers call. Board is garbage and I ended up folding to a potsized raise. A couple hands later I am Dealt AK in EP raise the standard 3x and get a bunch of callers. Board doesn’t hit yet again and I am down to about 40 dollars. I end up getting my stack up to around 200 playing a good short stack, then middle stack strategy. Most of these players were pretty Loose Passive so I waited for my spots and played well. One older Asian woman happened to talk about how she was a local pro and basically asserted that she was better than everyone at the table. I don’t remember the hand but I ended up taking her for pot of 150 and had my stack up to about 350. She was furious with me and was on major tilt. She had me covered in another hand and I doubled up with a full house. I racked up and left the table with just about 800 dollars. Sam had maybe 200. We run over to the bar and give my dad back the 200 and start doing Irish Car Bombs.
We couldn’t smoke in that bar so we decided to put five dollars each into nickel slots and get some free beers while we smoked. I felt out the machines and decided on two machines at the Rio. I remind Sam to only play the minimum and not to hit max bet as it was about a three dollar spin at the max. First spin Sam hits max bet by mistake and wins $550! That was a great night.
Sure enough, sports betting and BJ gets the best of us and we lose all of our winnings. We wake up the next morning and walk to the Wynn before we have to leave. We get a drink at Parasol up Parasol down and swear that we will not come back to Las Vegas until we get out gambling under control and do vegas right. We hope to return and see a few shows, eat some nice meals, play poker during the day while sober, and to separate our drinking and gambling.
My last trip was this past march to see family during March Madness 2010. I was determined to “do vegas right” this time. If I messed this trip up, I would not be back to vegas for a long time. My dad couldn’t make it out this time so I roomed with my uncle and met with his friends and my other uncle. I spent a lot of time on my own on this trip and played a lot of poker. I was staying at the Paris and I really liked the hotels location. It was connected to Ballys, and across the street from the Bellagio. I managed to separate my gambling from the drinking and did very well in poker. I had many winning sessions at Ballys and really enjoyed the room. The only time I didn’t like the room was at night because of all the music and the noise. The Bellagio room was well run but I didn’t think it was that great. I liked the Venetians room much more than Bellagio’s. I did lose some money on the sports and after everything I left vegas up about 200 dollars. It was a successful and very enjoyable trip.
I am going to be back in town from June 29th from July 3rd. Hopefully I can meet with some of you guys and girls out there. I hope you enjoyed the lengthy trip report.