Sparty On!

Since I lost some money to a bunch of poker-playing touristas yesterday, I was determined to hit the Strip and recover my lost cash.

So by 9 a.m. I was pulling into the fifth floor of the parking deck at Bally's and making my way toward the poker room. It was pretty quiet and I was able to grab a seat at the only $1-2 No Limit game that was under way. I bought in for $100 and for the first 20-30 minutes I patiently waited for decent starting cards. Then I picked up a couple of small ($20-ish) pots and was able to keep my stack in the profit range.

There were really no big hands for me for the next couple of hours. I would win some small pots with a pair of Kings and a pair of Aces. Eventually, I was up $62 when I took a break to eat around 1:30 p.m. Lunch was a comped chicken salad on rye, along with a diet Pepsi. I was glad to leave the game because there were three mouthy 20-something guys who were trying to intimidate other players and even the dealers - complaining loudly when they lost, berating others for playing decent starting hands. Just being jerks. So I had no trouble taking my profit and leaving.

While killing time, I watched some action at a blackjack table where 3 players were playing. One hand stood out. A guy was routinely betting $50 to $100 and winning more than he lost. On one hand he bet $130 and got 8-8 against a dealer's 7. He split the 8s and received a 3rd 8. So now he had 3 bets of $130 each. On his next card he received ANOTHER 8!!! Four bets of $130 each. On his eights he got an Ace (for a 19) a Ten (for 18) a 5 and 7 (for 20) and a King (for 18). He made four decent hands!!

The dealer flipped over a nine in the hole, for 16. Then slapped on a 7 for a bust! The table erupted and the guy was high-fiving everyone in sight!! It was big fun to see someone win $520 on a single hand...

Then, I went to the sports book to get some hoops bets down. I put $25 on a teaser with North Carolina -3, Arizona +14 and Syracuse +6 - a loser...but I also put $25 on MSU -1 over Kansas and that was a winner.

So my profit for the day was $12 in poker and $47 in hoops bets for a total of $59. Not a bad day!

While I was gone, Helen put a lot of work in on her sewing project. She was also online emailing family. To celebrate our profit today, we ordered pizza and chicken wings from Papa John's. Tasty....

Tomorrow night we're thinking of hitting the Strip in the evening to see the Mirage volcano and the TI Pirate show - both are FREE attractions that we haven't seen yet. So it's pretty certain that our adventure will continue...