UWSWSOP: The Jury is Out -- Day 3
joshzero
I woke up at 6 AM, put on my clothes (shower? Vegas?) and leave in
search of chap-stick. My lazy friends are still asleep at 7:30 (can
you believe this shit?) so I head to the poker room to make some new
ones in the $20-40 game. These guys have clearly been up all night…
there are so many chips on the table and I can tell that more than a
few of them are in this game for 5 or 6 racks, easy. The guy to my
left is a good player and evidently a regular, as he is having a
conversation about a graveyard waitress who worked here 6 years ago.
She was "really hot." The guy on my right flew in the day before from
London, and is completely wasted. The fellow a few seats over had
ordered a pair Grolschs and reeked of early morning beer and bad
beats. Very fun game. I played for about an hour and a half before I
decided to stop putting the hurt on these poor people, and cash out a
$260 winner.
I eat some breakfast at Denny's with Peter (who is also, strangely,
awake), and decide to opt out of the orange juice because it costs
$2.50. Now, I am not a cheap guy. I live on my (rather conservative)
graduate student stipend and credit cards, but with a tendency to
overspend. However, I have this thing about maximizing my winnings
with respect to my expenses. It's weird. I like spending money with
other people, but for myself, I always take the $150, 8 hour,
1-layover, Vegas flight, year-after-year.
After a dip at the Mirage pool, I shower (sorry), and the crew and I
head downtown for the first time this trip. All 9 of us were hungry,
so heated arguments followed. Wayne wanted to hit the sandwich shop
at the Golden Gate. I swindled him into stopping by an Orange Julius,
not believing or caring about the rumors (they make them using raw
eggs). While I was paying the OJ girl, Wayne was on the phone with
his fiancé…
"It went up to $52?"
"Sell 600 shares! Sell! Sell!"
"Okay, I'm at a food court in Las Vegas. It really sucks here."
After this last bit, the girl working in the deserted food court
looked a little stunned. I pointed to my mango drink and said, "Don't
look at me, I bought something." We chatted with her for a while and
convinced her to quit her job at the drink stand.
Back at the Golden Gate everyone was eating their nasty sandwiches, so
I decided to play a little double deck. Now, there are a lot of
misconceptions about card counting… A few points:
1. It is very easy to do.
2. The advantage obtained (averaged out over time) is quite small.
1-1.5%.
3. The variance is huge.
All this adds up to: If you want to make money at blackjack, you must
bet big. Varying your bets with lots of money out will get you
closely watched (especially if you are a young white guy). Your
bankroll better be enormous. My prediction: 5 years from now there
will not be a beatable blackjack game. Or it won't be practiacal to
try to beat them. Casinos have gotten pretty good at face ID, and
team play can be busted up quite quickly.
So I start spreading $3-$25. Playing this small will never attract
any heat. It also won't make any money (maybe minimum wage). The
count is negative, so I keep winning with 3 dollar bets out. Once
Peter finished his sandwich (Peter eats REALLY goddamn fast. Whatever
consumption rate is in your mind right now, double it.) and comes
over to play a little. Peter got interested in counting last year, so
now both of us are moving our bets up and down together. This could
potentially be bad, but not playing for these stakes. Finally, the
count goes up to about +3, I've got a $15 bet out and hit blackjack.
HOOOOOooooooo! Peter gets two facecards with $10 out. Sweet. The
count starts to go back negative, and I've got a small bet out. I get
a 12 vs. dealer 5. I say to the dealer, "Well, normally I stand, but
since the count less than -1 I'll hit. Isn't that the right strategy
variation?" I got up the next hand. We decided to parlay our
winnings at the deep fried twinkie counter. Wayne, Greg, Peter and I
all order one, while Rob looks on in disgust. I thought I could gain
a little respect back from Rob by throwing it out half-eaten, but, I
don't think I was successful…
After we picked up the new UWSWSOP bracelet from the engraving stand,
we head over to the Nugget to check out the new poker room. It's a
temporary room, and if you play there you will feel like you're
playing in an atrium. Greg and Rob start busting up the $4-8 game.
Brandon is sitting at the $20-40, which he describes as "a horrible
game." I decide to play a little $10-20, and to my surprise Wayne
sits down next to me. This is a huge fucking deal. Now, I know all
about bankroll considerations and whatnot, but I choose to ignore them
until I get out of grad school. Wayne has a good job in Silicon
Valley, and is annoyingly conscious of bankroll limitations. In the
last 5 years, he's never played higher than $6-12. But he is on
serious tilt from losing lots of money in the last 48 hours, so he
does what any one of us would do… raise the stakes! Every time he's
in a hand without me I make him show me his cards. After a few
minutes he got pocket queens, and raised from early position. He got
played with (about 4 callers) and the flop contained a king. He
eventually lets it go, but gave away a few bets in the process. I
immediately rip into him about misplaying the hand (I'm such a jerk)
and I think he went even more on tilt. Then he took a few bad beats,
and lost a rack in the game. I try to console him, saying that $500
isn't much at $10-20, but I don't think he really cares too much
anyway. He knows he's a good tournament player, and feels confident
he can come back. I cash out up $170. Everybody else gets up too,
and heads back to the strip to set up the UWSWSOP. I'm happy that
Greg posted a win.
While Greg and Rob set off to get the liquor, Brandon, Wayne and I
head to the blackjack tables. Wayne has never gambled a dime at
anything but poker, having always resisted my peer pressure. However,
he is on mega-tilt, and I convince him to play some $5 blackjack. He
pulls out a $20 bill ($20?) and we realize that the tables are $10
minimum. He doesn't seem to like this. As he starts to head towards
the door, I grab the money from his hand, and tell him that we'll
combine bankrolls. Brandon loves to be in action, so before I can ask
his cash is already in my hand. We decide to play until we double our
stake, which happened in about 4 minutes. After coloring up we had a
black chip and a few reds. I tell Wayne in no uncertain terms that we
must bet it all on a single roll of the dice. Wayne looks wary, but
since he's on mega-tilt, says, "Josh, I don't know, you decide."
Brandon has already started scoping out the craps tables for us, and
says he found a good one. We jump in and throw down $120 on the pass
line. I personally don't like craps, but I'm informed enough to know
that a smaller bet on the pass line backed up by odds is a better bet.
But, I also don't give a shit. 1.5% of $120 is less than $2. So
collectively we are losing a can of soda on this roll. Anyway, the
dice come 7, and we cash out for $80 each. A nice little parlay and
we are freerolling in the UWSWSOP (entry fee: $60).
I couldn't help but feel sorry for Jim's ladyfriend from California
who had just arrived to hang out with him. At least she plays some
poker. Her friend must have been really shocked at the scene. But
"Red Girl" (which is, for some reason, how I refer to Jim's friend) is
game, and put up the sixty bananas to play in our little tournament,
while her friend sat on the bed forming (no doubt, bad) opinions about
us. Everybody was there, and everybody was yelling. Mostly because
of this "trick" Dave kept doing, which was to bounce up and down on
the bed a few times, and then jump sidewise feet first into the
headboard. We were laughing so hard, when John Bacon and I both
asked each other if either of us had been drinking, but we were both
stone cold sober. (You don't think I'd jeopardize my chances in the
UWSWSOP by having a few gin and tonics, do you?!)
Red Girl busted out first, and Jim went out next. Chonko (Jim) has
become a very solid player in the last 5 years (he still puts in a
little money with his namesake, the 35o, though), and Red Girl seemed
to be pretty familiar with NLH, too. I thought they both secretly
wanted to bust out to get the fuck away from the rest of us. Even
still, they hung out as Greg Kennedy, AKA "The General," a no-limit
neophyte, picked up the rest of our chips. A few words about his
nickname. It came from deep in the recesses of Robert's mind. He has
this talent for coming up with nicknames for his friends. A few from
the past that I can mention:
Brandon AKA "Fancy Shoes" AKA "Jewel"
Me AKA "Crunchy Numbers"
And of course, himself, "The Factor"
I couldn't put anything together in the tournament, and was short
stacked with 4 of us left from the original 10. I busted out next,
and then the final three including chip counts were:
Wayne – 35%
The General – 55%
Peter – 10%
2nd place gets paid, so I thought Wayne would play pretty tight, but I
had neglected the tilt-factor. His pockets 3's got him involved with
the big stack, who was holding AK, and Greg spiked one of his over
cards, leaving Peter to the second place prize. General Greg sailed
into victory. HOOOOoooooooo! We all congratulated Greg and decided
to disband for dinner, and of course more poker.
Later on I wander upon Peter walking around outside the Mirage poker
room. I tell him that I feel like playing a little blackjack, since
the poker lists are so long. He tells me that he's already been
playing "over there," and points to an array of blackjack tables.
He's pointing to the csm (continuous shuffle machines) and I am
immediately laughing hysterically at the thought of Peter counting a
csm game, and praying that that's exactly what he did. Unfortunately,
though, he swears up and down that there is a 6 deck shoe game, but I
like to think that he was lying to cover it up.
Up over $1500 at the point, I decide to sit $20-40 some more… what
could it hurt? A seat opened up, and I bought in for two racks of
red, right next to Norm McDonald. No one gave him too much
unnecessary attention except the kid next to me who talked to him
non-stop, and another big guy in the 2 seat, who never said a word,
except when Norm would bet into him, and he'd respond, "Norm, I call."
I got dealt pocket queens 3 times in 4 hours, and lost with them
every time. Once there was multi-way action and an ace on the flop,
and I had to get out. Another time, it was an overpair the whole way,
but I lost to pocket Kings. And the 3rd time…? I don't even remember
anymore. I got up a $520 loser.
Wayne also took a beating, and so we head up to the hotel room to
drink some bottles of wine he brought from California with Peter and
his friend Charlie. Two bottles later, we are a little drunk, and
ready to gamble. I sit $10-20 for a while, win a tiny pot to pay for
the blinds I paid for half an hour. The game is super tight and
super boring, so I decide to get up even, and head over for some 3-6
action at Wayne's table. It is a very fun table, and Wayne and I are
talking a LOT. Everybody sees that we've had a little to drink, and
think they can take advantage of us. Playing 3-6 isn't brain surgery,
though, and we are both winning and getting lots of action on our
hands. On one hand I flopped an up-and-down straight draw with a
rainbow flop, and get 3-way action for 3 bets on the turn after I hit
my eight-outer. Incredible. A while later this late-20's-something
guy (I'll call him JD) sits down with something to prove. I took his
nuts on one hand, and then for some reason he asks Wayne if he went to
MIT. Wayne responded, no, I went to a good school, Carnagie-Mellon.
JD asked him if he spent much time in the weight room, and that it
looked like he didn't. What a freak! I tell JD, "That is a WEIRD
thing to say! You are so WEIRD." And to the girl next to him, "This
guy is a freak!" Then he starts talking about recently getting a JD
degree. He was so insecure. After beating him out of a pot again, I
debate asking him "I guess they didn't teach you how to play poker
when you got that GED degree, huh?" but think better of it. I cash
out up $46 at about 5AM.