ONLINE GAMBLING AND CASINO GUIDE

It’s been a long week already and it’s only Tuesday.  A round-trip, cross-country flight in less than 24 hours can put one in a state of agitation fairly quickly.  Especially when one has to deal with the TSA multiple times.

TSA: “Sir, why do you have two laptops in your possession?”

Me: “Because I am hell-bent on world domination and I need one laptop for each hemisphere?”

TSA: “Can you step over here please?”

I’m not sure why, but I always get picked out for the “laptop swab”. Fine, I know why, but still … how much bad stuff can I hide in a 1” thick Macbook Pro?  North Korea has intercontinental ballistic missles pointed at us, yet the fact that I can fit two laptops in one bag is of paramount concern to national security.

I digress …

After pounding out angry screeds with my computer precariously balanced on a tray attached to a seat with a guy who appears to have Tourettes and/or has taken eight hits of meth, the best way to spend a sleepless morning is, of course, eating a cheap casino meal.  In particular, the Harrah’s “Flavors” Buffet.

That’s right, I ate at the Harrah’s Buffet.  Bite my ass and call it Fred.

After polishing off a few plates of breakfast food and feeling like a bloated, tired pig … I headed toward my car so that I could go home and finally get some sleep.

The problem was, I wasn’t exactly tired anymore.  Not only that, but I had somewhere to be in a couple of hours.  Sleeping for one hour is worse than not sleeping at all, so I did what any moron with short-term memory impairment would do.

I headed to the casino.

Once on the floor, I noticed something that had escaped me on my previous million visits.  Toby Keith has a “party pit”.  Yeah, that Toby Keith.  The same one who sings “we’ll put a boot in your ass it’s the American way” from the safety of a recording studio.  The same Toby Keith who “loves” his Bar and Grille.  The same Toby Keith who once paid a transvestite midget eight thousand dollars to lick peanut butter off of his nipples .  Okay, I made the last one up (or did I?) … but at least you know who I’m talking about.

I think the “everyone gets a party pit” concept might be getting a little abstract now, but who am I to judge?

I continued walking past the 6:5 games of “party” 21 and encountered another game that I often see, but usually walk past.

The game is called “Texas Hold’Em”, but instead of playing in a normal 10-person configuration, people playing against the dealer a/la Blackjack, Three Card Poker, Let It Ride, etc.  I remember seeing this “Hold’Em” game before, and I think I tried it once, but the whole thing was a blur.  Don’t ask.

Anyway, not having time for a session of actual poker, I decided to take a seat and figure out exactly what it was that I have been missing.

When I took my seat, I explained to the dealer that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, and she assured me that it was fine because the game was “easy”.  If there is one thing I have learned in this town, it’s that when the house tells you a game is “easy”, it’s euphemism for “only played by idiots”.

She then began to explain the rules to me.  Sort of.  I was to put an ante out, then after seeing my cards I could bet or fold, then after the flop I could bet or fold, and whoever had the better hand after all the betting was complete would win.  There was also some kind of side bet based on a pair of 2’s or something, but I generally don’t do sucker, I mean side bets.

The nice lady proceeded to deal cards to the five of us sitting before her, and I peaked at my hand to find J-4 offsuit.  When the action moved to me, I said “fold”.

“You should play any two cards.  Otherwise you lose your ante”, she said.

“Yeah, but my cards were garbage”, I said.

“Remember, you’re only playing against me.  Any two cars can win”, she said.

I have to admit, this made sense at first.  I was playing this game like an actual poker game, and it was clearly anything but.  It was heads-up poker on acid.

I proceeded to watch the rest of the hand play out, and when the flop came I yelled “Where’s the rest of the damn flop?”.

Apparently, in this game, the “flop” is only three cards.

People continued to bet or check until the fifth “river” card was revealed.

This was where things got dicey.  People who won got paid on some bets and pushed on others.  The players who lost, however, lost everything.

“Why did that guy get paid on his ante, but not her?”, I queried.

“He had a pair of Jacks”, she replied.

“What is this, video poker?”, I mumbled.

Simply put, I didn’t get it.  Apparently even “easy” games are now completely over my head.

I continued to play several more hands, and I inexplicably won money.

How?

I’ve no idea.

I got Kings at one point, and I simply bet every time I was able to do so.  When I made anything on the board, I bet to the end.  When I got a poor hand, I played the cards to the flop, and then checked to the river.

There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to any of it, and it appeared, at least to me — to be absolute luck.  The dealer could not fold.  She was required to see the hand through, so the whole thing was more or less an esoteric version of “go fish”.  There was no bluffing, and no strategy.  To be honest, I have no idea why they deal the cards face-down.  It wasn’t as though the dealer could alter her play in any way.  She was simply a card flipper.

Given that I had played for a solid twenty minutes and still really had no idea how to play, I decided to accept the good fortune that I was up … and walked.  The casino had already more than paid for my breakfast, and the whole goal of going to a casino is to leave with more net money than you walk in with, so I was good to go.

It probably goes without saying, but I don’t think this particular game is a substitute for actual poker in any way, shape, or form.

I made my way to the parking garage, stopping only at the entrance to Toby’s Bar and Grille.  There was a young female hostess standing at the entrance to the restaurant, and I walked up to her and nonchalantly asked “How much is a boot in the ass?”

“Excuse me?”, she said.

“It’s the American way”, I responded.

She just stood there giving me a quizzical look, and I quickly moved on before security was called.

I need some sleep.

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