 Vegas November 2008 |
| Day Two |
| There is a bit of a pattern to my Novembers in Vegas. Usually I get off to a bad start and never recover. This time out, I keep drawing down my bankroll and then craps keeps bailing me out and keeping me away from those bad days...
|
| Started out watching football at the IP. They have a great setup here. Tommy bet a parlay picking 5 games to win I think 21.5-1 on his money, and although I never, ever bet on sports I decided to take a 3 game parlay. Actually it went more like this...
|
| I was going to drop $100 each on the Iggles and Packers. But I logged in this morning and told my dad what I was thinking about doing (through YIM) and he told me I should bet on the Ravens to cover because the weather was atrocious in New Jersey at the Ravens were 6.5 point dogs. I don't want to risk the spread, but the over/under is 40.5 and you've got two very good defenses in bad weather...a no brainer, right? So I decide to go with Pack by 3.5, under 40.5 on Giants/Ravens and then I look at Eagles by 9 and I'm in a tough spot. Eagles on the road, but Cincy is soooo bad and Eagles have struggled against NFC east but have put up big numbers against bad teams outside the division...so I decide to lay the 9 points.
|
| Things are bad right from the start. Eagles 3 and out on first two posessions, then Donavan McNabb proceeds to give up I think three turnovers in the first half (fumble, two INTs). Meanwhile, Giants score on their first three drives and score at halftime is 20-3. At least the Packers are holding up their end of the bargain, they're embarassing Da Bears. But the Eagles game is close, and they can explode at any time.
|
| Then a quick score by the Giants in the second half, couple more turnovers by the Eagles and it's looking very bleak. Well, long story short, final score Giants/Ravens was 30-10, my under held up. But then the Eagles couldn't score to save their lives and ended up having the first tie football game in years so I get two out of three but that's not good enough.
|
| Meanwhile, Tommy is 3 for 3 on his picks (Pack, Giants and Lions +14.5 manage to only lose by 9) and has Tennessee in the afternoon and Redskins on Sunday night football. And like me, was given hope only to see it dashed. More about that later.
|
| So we decide to go to Bellagio Buffet for lunch and now Tommy understands what I've been raving about. As good as always, although I filled up so much on real food I didn't get to have my vanilla with caramel this time. Then we went over to Harrah's for their 3:30 tournament. We were a little concerned about getting done there in time for the 7:00 at Caesar's but it turned out we didn't have much to worry about. I again was card dead, getting a little frustrated at this point, and I busted out around middle of the pack. Tommy was up and down but made it to 12th with 6 paying. I don't recall any notable hands for either of us, tho, it was fairly ABC poker and it just didn't work out.
|
| But while we're playing, the Titans are on the TV and they came up with a come-from-behind victory. Tommy is just one win away from $450 on his $20 wager.
|
| So on to Caesars for the 7:00. This time I actually got some cards, but unfortunately I couldn't seem to get paid very often. I tried trapping, I tried betting out...it was very frustrating because I felt good about my read on the table but when I had hands I just had bad timing. Meanwhile, Redskins take an early lead on Dallas.
|
| Finally about two hours in I get some hands and I start to build a chip stack. Things were finally going well, but I never get paid big on any of them and then I go card dead again. So long story short...I get chipped down a little, push with my first pocket pair, get a coin flip and they don't hold up. And just a few minutes before that the Redskins blow their lead and lose.
|
| Meanwhile Tommy is in suckout city. They way he put it, at his first table the worst hand was winning every time. He had pocket Js cracked by pocket 3s, then with 10-4 he flopped a 10, got all the chips in against either a better 10 or an overpair (I forget and he's asleep) but hit runner-runner straight. He had another similar story from that table, then got down to final two tables with 9 paying. And he milked a somewhat short stack all the way down to 11th place just short of the money.
|
| Tommy wanted me to point out that he's outlasted me in 3 of 4 tournaments. My only retort to that is that he's won just as much money as I have...none...
|
| So at this point I'm a little down (mood-wise), we have dinner (at 1am) at the 24 hr cafe at Paris and we're going to call it a night but Tommy says something about playing Blackjack. We can't find a $5 table, but I spot a $5 craps table and I am somehow drawn to it...
|
| Small crowd, our first turn with the dice doesn't go well. At some point I've got all that's left of my first $100 on the table, but I'm about to shoot again so I pull out another $100 and decide that dammit, I'm betting on myself.
|
| Timing is everything folks.
|
| If you don't know craps, this isn't going to make a lot of sense to you, but I think I got on the biggest roll I've ever been on. I hit four points, hit about 8-10 hardways, hit my new favorite spur of the moment bet, a three-way craps bet (single roll bet on each of 2, 3 and 12, hit the 3 which paid 14-1) and did something else that never happens. I generally bet the pass line and make come bets with odds. And usually I have this sixth sense about when someone is on a roll and it's about to go bad, and what I'll do is just stop making come bets to try and get my money back off the table. Well usually I wait just a little too long to stop and all those odds bets go out the window. This time I was exactly right. I didn't make the come bet, dealer pointed it out to me, I said "I'm bringing 'em all home". I was on all 5 numbers. Right then I hit three in a row and 4 of 5. Got greedy, put a little back out, hit a couple of 8's, hit the above-mentioned 4th point, put a couple more come bets out and then finally seven-ed out. Just like that I was ahead $340. Put my stop-loss at $300, bet off the other $40 and walked away from the table a happy camper.
|
| Well, I'm running out of steam. Monday is going to be a shopping day whenever we decide to crawl out of bed, may or may not go to Gambler's General Store, definitely going to mall at Caesar's, and who knows where else. And considering we've both gotten very deep in the $150 at Caesar's and we can just feel a cash coming for one or both of us we'll definitely play in that again. |
| Post a comment |