Like A Moth To The Flame
I love blackjack and I get ripped by it, whether in Vegas or the local casinos. Sometimes it's literally getting ripped, with blood appearing on the cards (new cards can be so sharp, edge-on, that when dealt, they behave like ninja stars and people get hurt.

Strange people too. Everyone trying to relax, and no one can....

Lots of Asians. It's funny how culture carries over into the game, and they assume because you are older you know what you are doing. Once during a winning streak, a pretty Asian girl, about age 23, gazed admiringly at my stack of black $100 chips, and asked in broken English: "How many year?" Well, let's see, that would be about twelve, mostly-losing years. "You winning now because you more experienced," she said. Is that true? I wondered about that.

Of course, age doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it. There was also an extraordinarily exasperated Asian man there of about my age. Every time things went badly, which was often, he would pound the table and make the cards jump. He'd fume and rage and throw things around. Kind of scary.

The only good times happen when the dealer starts losing....

Fleeting conversations - A Vietnamese man flirted with the Vietnamese-American dealer, and asked: "Do you like pho (noodles)?" The sheer randomness of the question startled the dealer and made her giggle. I related how I'd seen a restaurant in Seattle called "What The Pho" and everyone thought that was funny.

A 22-year-old college student told how he had made a living for four months playing blackjack in the San Diego area casinos before plunging so badly he had to call mom and dad for rescue. Making a living that way always seemed like it might be fun (if dangerously unreliable). People told tales of losing streaks (one player spoke of losing $19,000.00 in one night).

I told of losing $3,300.00 once at the Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas. When I came out of the casino, bleary-eyed, I saw a billboard advertising breast implants for $4,000.00, and I thought "Damn! I could have had breast implants instead!" Everyone laughed, but the college student was skeptical: $4,000.00 sounded too cheap for breast implants. This was six years ago, but maybe it was a ridiculous price even then. A loss leader - something to get customers in the door for the pricier body sculpting.

The best I ever did at blackjack was starting with $300.00 at the Palms Casino/Hotel in Vegas. The place is supposed to be among the best nightspots in Vegas, or so they say. The place is supposed to be a lady magnet too, but I found many 30-year-old guys instead. Kind of empty, too, on a Sunday night. Apparently we had a celebrity sighting: someone said "There's Mark Cuban!" (owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team). I stared at Mark: he stared at me. But since I don't follow sports, it meant nothing to me. The blackjack was good, though: I won enough to be $2,130.00 ahead.

Afterwards, feeling euphoric at 1 a.m. Monday, I drove over to the Strip, and ended up at Paris, Las Vegas. Five hectic hours later, after frenzied and aggressive gambling, I had won an obscene $12,527.50, for a total win of about $14,600.00 Amazing! So one CAN reach into the flame and come out a winner (at least, until one returns to the flame, like a moth, and loses it all back, and more).
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Fri 8 May 2009, 20:41, Reply)