ONLINE GAMBLING AND CASINO GUIDE

Last night I headed over to the Heart Bar at Planet Hollywood to meet with some real “Vegas experts”.

There were plenty of familiar faces, and also a decent view of the Planet Hollywood Pleasure Pit.

There were some incredible HPOA’s (hot pieces of …) working the table stages last night, but I was a bit too  busy to get up close and personal with them.  The Pleasure Pit dancers at PH are always quite attractive, but they seem to be notching up in quality ever more so as summer gets into gear.

I’m sure I will pay my respects a few times over the next few months.

For several weeks, a group of friends have been planning to hit the Gold Spike and test the $200 table limit, but in all honesty, I estimated that five people would actually show up to a small casino at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Ogden.

I was incorrect, and grossly so.

Somewhere short of 10pm, a crowd of about 15 people descended on the Spike … some actually arriving in limousines.  I’m not sure if this was a first for the Spike, but I am fairly certain that it is not an everyday occurrence.

When I finally arrived myself, I actually observed $100 chips being played on the felt.  Much like limousines, this was a rare site at the property.

Of course, when the big chips come out in Vegas, the limits tend to go up as well … and last night was no exception.  While the usual limit is $3, on Friday they were raised to a whopping $5.  Fortunately this was not a deal breaker.

I was moving between the two primary tables engaging in conversation for some time, and I even played a few hands myself toward the end of the session.

I sat down, put a $20 bill on the table, and got seven or eight hands out of the meager buy-in.  I was up a couple of chips early, then I split 7’s against a dealer 6 … lost both when the dealer nailed 19 … and when I was down to my final nickel, the dealer flipped a BJ.  When you buy in for four times the minimum, you aren’t going to ride the peaks and valleys.  You’re either going to triple or bust in short order.  I did the latter.

Looking back, I do have some regrets.  If I had taken the same $20 just two blocks east to 7th and Ogden, I could gotten some real mileage out of it.  Namely from a certain working girl named Coco.  Don’t ask me how I know her name.

Since the Spike has only one shift of table dealers, we got a “thirty minute warning” sometime around midnight.  Given the action, I’m surprised the owner of the Spike himself didn’t come down and deal to keep the tables open, because inebriation and the accompanying poor math skills don’t fully kick in until the wee hours of the morning.

Having been operating on less than three hours of sleep in three days, I was having trouble myself.  I don’t care what anyone says, being tired is just as bad as being drunk.  On my second hand, I was dealt a soft 16 vs. a dealer 10.  A  6 came out, and I swear it took me twenty seconds to figure out what I had.

“Six plus six, carry the one … wait, six times two plus eleven … wait … six plus six plus one … screw it … hit me.”

I was spacing.  The dealer was looking at me, and if I had something good I’m sure someone would have said something, so I just hit to kill the pain.

Sometimes it happens, and I even get games mixed up.

I’ll play perfect strategy 800 hands in a row, get tired, then look down to see a seven and three Aces – and I’ll hit to try to make the Full House.

This is why I usually play in the afternoon.

As a local ”grinder” (for lack of a better term), it is rare for me to gamble later than 8 or 9pm.  The limits for table games are lowest in the afternoon, odds are more likely to be full when there are not many players, and I am mentally sharper.  At least as sharp as I can be for an elderly guy.

There is a fine line that separates local recreational gamblers from local degenerate gamblers (which can bankrupt you in short order), and it’s all too easy to cross that line.  In order to live and play amongst the casinos 24/7/365, you must develop rules and not deviate from them.

The rules that keep me out of big trouble are:

1)  Never drink while gambling.  Ever.  I don’t care what anyone tells you, this is the single most important rule in all of gambling.  It is also why the house spend millions upon millions of dollars each year on free booze.  It’s not because they like you and think you are a swell person.

• Alcohol dulls anxiety, and after a couple drinks, you do not fear losing.  It doesn’t matter what your mentality is when you sit down, nothing makes a bad bet look like a good bet more than booze.

2)  Never play tired

• This is as bad as playing drunk, albeit in a different way.  It’s simply harder to keep numbers straight, and instead of being overconfident, you just become stupid past a certain point.

3)  Set a stop loss

• If you lose your stake, walk.  The odds of making it back on the spot are no better than they are a week later, and a bad mood is equivalent to playing tired.  Come back later in a good mood and make it back.

4)  Book profits

• My goal is usually to double, but some people look to triple or quadruple.  Figure it out and stick to it.  I cannot count how many people I know who have been up big, yet still inexplicably leave down.
• If you are up big, and keep playing, you will eventually give it back.  Period.  The statistics are what they are.  If you book profits on a big winning session, you can have a losing session afterward and still leave up … provided you booked the first win, bought back in with the initial stake, and set another stop loss.

5)  Do not carry an ATM card

• If you have an ATM card, you can get more cash.  I take X amount of dollars in cash, my cellphone, and little else.  This is a fairly recent thing I’ve been doing because I would sometimes buy back after busting out in Poker, but over my lifetime, this has been a losing proposition.

6)  Revenge never comes

• “I got a bad beat by that donkey tourist.  He’s so bad, I know I can win it back.”
• I’ve said it, and probably so have you.  For me, it just never works out as planned.  If the guy is bad, I’ll beat him the first time.  If he beats me, maybe he isn’t so bad, and I just really hate him.

It’s impossible to be objective.  I’ve learned this the hard way, and have now made it a personal rule.

I realize that rules are kind of lame and are not much fun, but yesterday I turned forty freaking one years old.  If you make it this far in life, and haven’t figured a few things out, then something’s wrong with you.

I’m not implying that my rules are good for everyone else, but in my opinion, you have to have some kind of game plan if you want any kind of fighting chance against the gaming gods.

There is nothing wrong with outright self-destruction a few times a year, it’s just not something you can do every day.

Fortunately, I only went in with $20 at the Spike last night, or I would have been hitting 19 and standing on nine for most of the night.  Rule #2 was in full effect.

Other than some mild fatigue, and the rapid onset of aging, it’s been a pleasant weekend.  We are finally planted in the triple digits on a daily basis, and even though summer arrived late, it’s safe to say that for the next 90 days … it’s on.

Crowds are not at 2007 levels, but there are more than enough people around to keep things interesting.  Especially with the group we have here now.  It will be a minor miracle if there is any booze left in the city 48 hours from now, and a rash of unwanted pregnancies is a very real possibility.

As I type this, the town has currently been taken over by people who actually understand the slogan that I have been trying to push for a year.

Being here is everything.

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