Two Plus Two Newer Archives - Vegas TR: Budget Ballin' 8/19-8/21 (Harrah's, IP, Casino Royale)

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Vegas TR: Budget Ballin\' 8/19-8/21 (Harrah\'s, IP, Casino Royale)

I'll post the rest when I write it later. It's probably pretty boring to read but hey, if you're the type that clicks on trip report threads like I do, you're probably bored enough to read this anyway.

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Approximately three-and-a-half weeks ago, about $3,000 of my own hard-earned money that the government had locked up since mid-January was released and placed back into my account. I won't bore you with the details, but it was all due to the tug-of-war between our own overly protective government and online gaming. After wondering for about 11.8 seconds about what I was going to do with my newfound mini-wealth (I had resigned myself to expecting to never see that money again), the most obvious of the obvious came to me -- I must make a pilgrimage to the holy land of Las Vegas. Believe it or not, it had been since March 2006 since I had visited, marking my longest trip drought ever. Well, not counting those years that I didn't go between ages 0 and 21. Within a couple hours I had a full trip booked and had convinced my two buddies from Phoenix to join me. The following novel is a recap of everything that happened. Or at least the things I remember happening.

Sunday, August 19

The problem with going on an impromptu trip setup 3 weeks in advance is that airline prices are at nosebleed levels for the decent flights. Thus, to save myself about $150, I booked a Sunday morning flight at 7am. After being out 'til 12:30 am drinking and watching lesbians smack each other around on rollerskates the night before, I took a 3.5 hour nap and somehow woke my ass up at 4:40 in the morning to pack, make the 40 minute drive to the PDX airport, park the truck, wait for the shuttle, take the shuttle, check-in, wait for my flight, and then get on the plane. Since I was flying southwest, I scored myself a B boarding group ticket and scored my aisle seat that I love. This will be my only real victory of the weekend.

After two hours of a semi-amusing flight thanks to the flight attendant/wannabe comedian (I guess he was just waiting to be discovered), I hopped in a cab with some middle-eastern driver that had a name that looked like someone spilled alphabet soup all over his registration form. After some generic small talk and making sure he didn't longhaul me through the tunnel, I made it to Harrah's, home for my drunken and hungover body for the next 60 hours. $49/night, baby.

So now it's $20 tip trick time. If you have enough charm (check) and a $20 bill (check) and decent talking skills (check), you can work your way into a complementary upgrade in exchange for slyly slipping the clerk that Jackson. I did this and got bumped to a much nicer room high up in the tower that would have cost me an extra $40-50 a night otherwise. I'm a crafty son of a bitch.

Shortly after my arrival, I met up with my friend Amy, her sister Erin, and a handful of Erin's friends that I've never met. They were there from Friday-Sunday and were leaving that night. They are all pretty cool and 21 years old (my favorite kind of female) except the one guy that was there. Mundane, boring kid who thought it would be a good idea to bet on the Cleveland Browns winning the Super Bowl this year at 150-to-1 odds. He would have received more utility out of that $10 bill by wiping his ass with it. Then again, he's a Browns fan so there can't be much going on upstairs in his head anyway.

After an amazing assortment of surprisingly decent buffet food and quite an intellectually stimulating conversation regarding the merits of nacho cheese and it's usefulness in putting it on practically every food imaginable, a nap was in order so the 6 of us headed back to my room and took a little cat nap while my friends from Phoenix were driving in. 30 minutes later, they're here and it's time to begin the fun. Amy & Friends stayed behind and I eventually got my sh** together to head downstairs with the fellas.

First stop was over to Casino Royale next door. Quaint little low-roller sh**hole tucked in amongst the mega resorts. It has cheap table games and stiff drinks, which are two of my favorite things in life. Sat down at a $5 blackjack table and quickly learned that I'm really good at making cards add to 22 and higher. While dying this slow and painful death, I decided that I needed to start drinking to cope with the pain. What better than tequila shots? After ordering one and realizing that it didn't come with salt (I'm a serious wuss and need salt with tequila shots unless it's actually good tequila, which, of course, casinos do not give out for free), I asked the cocktail waitress to bring me some salt. After calling me out for needing training wheels with my tequila, she arrives a few minutes later with a salt shaker from a nearby diner and tells me to hide it and not keep it on the table (this salt shaker will provide lots of entertainment, keep reading).

So now the tequila shots are coming with a pretty good frequency of about one every half hour but soon I begin to realize that I have absolutely nothing to drink in between shots. That's when the aforementioned charm kicks in and I start convincing these cougars-turned-cocktail-waitresses to start bringing me a shot of tequila and a jack-and-coke every time around. They become overwhelmed with my drunken sexiness and oblige.

A few hours later and and I'm suddenly stuck about two hundred bucks. Then to make matters worse, this crabby bitch of a dealer started giving me [censored]. "Sir, do not bend the cards please." (I wasn't). "Sir, please keep to casual profanity only." (What, saying 'this is fu**ing horsesh**' after you hit your 5th 21 in a row isn't casual enough?). "Sir, please step away from the table if you want to use your cell phone." (Trust me, if I was cheating with my cell phone I'd be winning more than 1 out of every 5 hands). I'm pretty sure she was one of those dealers who thinks that gambling is a mortal sin and therefore, derives great pleasure in seeing people lose at it, but at least I was drunk and definitely on my A-game commentary- and humor-wise so it wasn't a total loss.

After this complete beatdown at the hands of Ms. C-U-Next-Tuesday, we decide to walk through the 100-degree heat (did I mention the sun was already down, wtf) to Planet Hollywood to use our budget-boy $25 off restaurant.com coupon and their sports bar (Blondie's) there. We each ordered a bucket of beer with our meals. Literally, a bucket for each of us filled with some sh**ty domestic beer. I love Vegas. I also love watching Geoff completely inhale not one but two huge sandwiches. The guy only weighs about 160 soaking wet too. I hate him and hope he dies in a grease fire at this point. After cleverly sneaking a bucket of beer out of the sports bar (after getting refused by the waitress when I asked if I could take it with me) and acting like I just stole the Mona Lisa out of the Louvre, I decide it's not worth my time carrying the thing anymore and discard it. I guess I'm pretty fickle when I'm drunk.

After saying goodbye to Amy & Friends in the cab line at Harrahs and awkwardly hugging 2 of the girls who I had known for a total of about 8 hours (us perverts never pass up a chance to hug 21 year old girls), we were off to the Imperial Palace for the highlight of the evening -- The Special Olympics of Poker, which in casino terms is "$2/4 Limit Texas Hold Em". If No Limit Texas Hold Em is the Cadillac of poker, then $2/4 limit is like the beat up Datsun pickup that starts shaking above 50 mph.

*** Poker content ahead, skip this if this bores you. I will try to make it amusing, though ***

I originally buy in for $100 and win a few pots with some crafty plays and some good cards. Pretty soon the table fills up and I have what us drunken hack comedians call "a captive audience". Each time the cocktail waitress comes around it's another tequila shot. I beg and plead others at the table to join me and get one chick to do so (she looked like she had just finished following Poison around as a groupie for the last 20 years, so it didn't surprise me). With each shot I become more chatty and start spewing chips like no tomorrow. I notice that very few people are drinking, which is odd because it's 1 am and the Imperial Palace -- what the hell else are you going to do? Then suddenly it hits me -- I'm the retard that is donating money to everyone for the first time ever. Since it's 2/4 limit, I embrace my newfound role and begin playing like it even more, playing almost every pot instead of playing 30-40% of them like I usually do.

Then things got more amusing. I learned that it's nearly impossible to get removed from the Imperial Palace poker room. I:

* Bounced a quarter off Geoff's forehead from across the table (he was falling asleep and I had to wake him up)
* Included the F-word about every 5th word out of my mouth
* Gave Geoff the middle finger about 4 times despite the dealer telling me that I cannot do that there each time
* Pissed off two separate dealers with my drunken antics
* Repeatedly made fun of the guy next to me having an iPod on

I just couldn't get kicked out. Can't say I didn't try though. I just wanted another casino to add to my list of ones I've been 86d from.

I'd post some hands that I played but frankly, I was too drunk to remember them. I do remember getting up off the table down about $120. So when stuck, what do you do? Chase losses. Off to the $3/6 table!

To be honest, I don't remember being on this table at all except for one hand in which I had KJ and the flop was AT3. I called like the fish I am and turned the Q for my straight and beat a guy who flopped two pair with AT. There was also a hand where I got beat on the river and meant to throw my cards down onto the table but instead tossed them a little too hard and one went flying past the dealer onto the floor. I think I only was allowed to stay because I apologized profusely after I did it. I made some money back on this table and decided to call it a night and head back to the room at Harrah's since it was 4:30am.

But on the way back, I saw Harrah's had a poker room too! And I saw that they had a $3/6 table open and that a bunch of cranky sober old guys that appeared to be regulars were there and, well, any chance I have to piss off cranky people even more I take.

I remember one pot where I raised with KQs preflop and got 4 callers. Flop was JT2. I bet, got raised, got re-raised, and then, because I'm a fish, I capped. Turn was a 3. I bet, got called, got called. River was a K. Bet, call, call. I win the big pot with a pair of kings and the whole table starts making fun of me for capping with king-high on the flop. Showing complete unoriginality, I decide to bust out the "Kiddie game is down the street, ladies!" comment to to piss them off even further. I also mentioned that I'm not going to be pushed around by a bunch of nits. It worked. Unfortunately, a couple guys left an hour into the table and I was forced to go to bed at the wonderful hour of 6am since the table broke. At least I got all my $120 back from the other tables.

Remember the salt shaker that I was carrying around with me for all my tequila shots? I still had it in my cargo shorts pocket when I passed out in my bed. Woke up with salt all-over-the-[censored]-place. On top of the bed, on the floor, in the bed, on the pillow, in my hair... everywhere. I'm so brilliant.

Final tally on the day was down about $300, but up about 12-15 tequila shots, 6-7 jack-n-cokes, and one big bucket of beer. I can't wait for how I'm going to feel in the morning.

More to come later.