Monday (This One Is Really Long - Most Eventful Day Of The Trip):
For breakfast, Mike, Warren, Dan and I met up with Mike's college friends Andy and Anna. This was my chance to talk Dan (TheGiftOfGab)'s ear off about the high-stakes game I watch him play on Ultimate Bet. I was pretty excited to be hanging out with him, and initially tried to avoid talking his ear off. After I could tell he didn't mind talking about it at all, I just opened the flood-gates and bombarded him with all the questions I had. I don't think he seemed to mind, and (although he most certainly could have been "acting") he seemed to genuenly enjoy talking to me about the high-stakes games he plays in. He had some really good things to say, and gave me a lot of perspective on the poker world. He never (or rarely ever) plays in poker tournaments, and instead focuses all of his energy on cash games. Another thing I really respected about him is the fact that he is planning on going back to college in the fall. I know if I was making the kind of money he is, college would be the last thing on my mind, but you can tell he has a good head on his shoulders, and knows this poker thing won't be around for ever. I have been tossing the idea back and forth of whether or not to go to Law School after undergrad, and after talking to Dan, I'd say there's a much better chance I'll be attending Law School. Poker is just a short term thing. Dan is infinetly more successful at it than I am, and even he realizes that its smart to have a nice foundation to fall back on. We got to talk about some of the successful players in his game on Ultimate Bet (namely Prahlad "Mahatma" Friedman), and I was very interested in hearing what Dan had to say about "how one could beat the unbeatable" (that being Prahlad Friedman). I think talking with Dan will help my poker game a great deal. He is a good role model - and I'm glad Mike was friends with him so I could get the chance to meet him.
Most of Mike's friends left either Sunday or early Monday. We (Aaron, Mike, Warren, and I) woke up around noon and decided to go to
Downtown Vegas. Dan left us to go to the hotel room and sleep - as he had been up all night playing poker.
Now, as a side note about Downtown Vegas: For those of you unfamiliar with the city, there are two "parts", The Strip, and Downtown. The Strip (for the most part) is very very nice. This is where all the big-time casinos are, this is where all the action is. Odds are, anything you've seen from a movie, or heard about from a friend, that deals with Vegas, it happened on "The Strip". Now, that brings us to "Downtown". The Downtown is the "old part" of Vegas. It is SUPER SHITTY and full of complete White Trash. I mean, there are three kinds of people that hang out Downtown: Bums, Whores, and Old People. All three are white trash. Now, there is a 4th type of person who goes downtown, "regular people" (much like the 4 of us) who like to slum-it-up for a day and hang around downtown counting cards in the shitty casinos that are too poor to use 6-8 decks for blackjack, and use 2-3 instead (thus making it profitable to count).
With that in mind, I was very excited to go Downtown. Not only do I love to slum it up (hense my obsession with Muncie's Dollar Theatre), but the legendary Binion's Horseshoe Casino is located downtown. Binion's is the location of the Poker Hall of Fame as well as the WSOP Gallery of Champions. Being that much of my life revolves around poker, I was thrilled to visit Binion's, which is basically the "home of poker".
Our first stop Downtown was to a shitty casino (what am I saying? they're all shitty downtown) known as the "Four Queens".
On the cab ride over to the Four Queens, Mike and Warren gave me a crash course in "card counting". When we get there, we immediately sit at the $5 minimum-bet blackjack table. I buy in for $200, set $160 of it aside, and tell myself "if I get to the point where all I have is the $160 left, I'm walking away". That was never a problem. I actually didn't count cards, felt too nervous with all the floorpeople standing around, so instead I just bet $5 after $5 (never once did I bet a dime over $5) and by the time it was over, left the table with $250 - this was perfect - as it whipped out my little mishap at the roulette wheel a few nights before.
This is where we get to Warren's card counting story. Warren, being the wanna-be high roller that he is, buys in for $500. As soon as this happens, the Pit Boss comes over and offers Warren a free-room, Warren immediately gives the guy lip and says "why would I want to stay here?!" This gets everyone's attention, and before we've even been dealt a hand, people are watching Warren like a hawk.
He is being very obvious about the fact that he is counting cards. Betting only $5 when things look bleek, and pushing in for as much as $150 when his odds are good. I mean, the kid is making no secrets about it. I overhear a female pit boss saying on the phone "too bad he can't count as well as I can". I think she said this loud enough for us to hear. Warren, of course, was oblivious to this. Like Kendall, English is not his native language, so he's only like 90% fluent, and mixed with the fact that he's 100% dumbass, there was no way he was going to take hear the woman's warning - let alone take it.
I subtlely inform Warren that he is being watched like a hawk. This just goes right over his head, and he continues being very obvious about his mechanics. Finally we have like 4 pit bosses around, and they start talking to Warren asking him probbing questions. This is the best part, Warren just gets up from his chair, leaves his chips on the table, says (in heavily Chinese influenced English) "I gotta go to the bathroom", and walks away. The pit bosses look stunned. The female pit boss looks at me and Aaron and says "you know he's just using you guys so he can see more of the deck, don't you". Very aware that she's damn right, I sorta snap back and say "look lady, if you haven't noticed, I haven't bet over the minimum once since I've been here. I hardly know this guy, and I'm certainly not 'helping him', so why don't you leave us out of this?" Alright maybe I didn't say it
quite like that, but it was damn close. She seemed reasonable, and backed off while waiting for Warren to return.
Warren returns, and no one does a thing. I was honestly thinking they were going to throw his ass on the street (literally) and instead, they let him win a few more hundred dollars, until he gets up and walks away. I was shocked. I was really hoping they'd drag him into some room and rough him up like they do to the hustlers in the movie
Casino. Oh well, I guess that's Hollywood...
Of course before he actually left, he had to give the dealer some lip about how he "didn't talk very much" and "wasn't very friendly". In Warren's defense, the dealer was a bit of a dick, but Warren was definetly out of line by opening his mouth to this guy. Mike (who keep in mind is a very level headed guy) told Warren to "shut the fuck up", the dealer (his name was Hai) finally opened his mouth and said "yea shut up!" all while his boss was standing right over his shoulder. To give you an idea of how out-of-line Warren was, the dealer flagarently told him to shut up, and his boss, who heard the whole thing, just smiled as if to suggest "atta boy, Hai!"
After we left the
Four Queens, the four of us went over to
Binion's Horseshoe, which was the highlight of the Downtown trip for me.
Here are a few various photos from the Poker Hall of Fame as well as the WSOP Gallery of Champions.
continued...
[ July 14, 2005, 11:21 PM: Message edited by: Ugly Bastard ]