Won,Won,Wonderful Wednesday

Yesterday was one of the most interesting - and profitable - of our LV adventure so far.

It started with a morning visit to the Red Rock Casino where I played blackjack for about two hours and posted a win of $210 before returning to the apartment for lunch with Helen. Broccoli cheddar soup and hefty salad was the fare and it was tasty.

We watched some TV together, then at 2:30 p.m. I drove down to Bally's to play in their Wednesday freeroll tourney. Got there about 3:15 and  spent some time just walking around Ballys. Made the long walk down to the sports book, one of the most out-of-date and shabby joints on the strip.

No interesting games going on, so I went back up to the casino floor and sat down at a blackjack table. After about an hour, I walked with a profit of $250. No big hands, just steadily piling up $10-20 bets, aided by some timely dealer busts. Then I took a stroll to the Nosh café, a sandwich place next to the poker room. Enjoyed a pastrami sandwich., then about 5:15 I checked in for the 6 p.m. tourney. I was assigned seat 10 at table 13.

Still had time to kill, so I walked through the slot machines and my eyes caught a 25-cent Haywire machine, one of Helen's favorites. So I sat down and shoved a $20 into the machine. Got a few small payoffs and I was up about $5-10 when I hit TRIPLE BAR, TRIPLE BAR, HAYWIRE LOGO!!
That paid 200 quarters, or $50!  I played a few more spins, then cashed out with a $55 profit.

It was almost time for the tournament, so I walked back to the poker room and got settled into my seat. The tourney started promptly at 6 p.m. with 62 players. The top 20 will get $300 each, so I needed to beat out about 2/3 of the field to get the cash. So the dealer dealt out the cards and I was dealt K-Q of spades. Everybody checked around to me and I bet $600, everyone folded and I took down the blinds of $100 and $50. First hand win, a good omen.

A few hands later, I got dealt A-4 of Hearts and won a nice pot when two hearts hit the flop and another landed on the turn giving me a flush. That was a healthy pot that left me as the chip leader at the table. I later won pots with A-A, A-K suited and J-J. After 90 minutes of play we took a 10-minute break and I was able to assess my situation. There were 32 players remaining and they had an average chip stack of $9,500. I was sitting on $12,400, so I was feeling pretty confident.

I called Helen to give her an update and she told me she was doing some drawing and had been on the phone with Norm's wife, Lorraine. They talk a few times a week since we've been here.

As we were preparing to resume play, an elderly Asian guy was screaming at the TV showing the UNLV-Arizona game. "Shoot the ball, draw a foul, shoot the ball, shoot the damn ball!!!" With 18 seconds left in the first half the score was 37-25 with the Rebels in the lead. Turns out the guy had bet $100 on Over the Total of 63.5 in the first half. He was two points short of winning his bet as the clock wound down. Arizona never got off a shot, never drew a foul and the guy came up just short of cashing...

When the tournament resumed, I was determined to play VERY cautiously and just let the blinds whittle down other guys' stacks. That strategy worked well as the blinds rose and the number of players dropped from 32, to 27, to 22, 21, and finally 20. I never played a hand after the break, but CASHED!! We started high fiving each other and sharing stories. It took about 10 minutes to get the $300 and I drove home.

For the day, I won 460 in bj, 300 in the tourney and 55 on Haywire. A great day and tons of fun!!
And so our adventure continues...