Life's been good to me so far. I feel like I've been blessed in my time here on Earth. I've been through some good, some bad, and some ugly. This last weekend (and by last weekend, I mean some weekend in December) was a combination of all of those, yet the end result was nothing but another grand adventure. Going to Vegas usually has that effect on a weekend. As fantastic of a time it was, there was a point in the early going where it was on the verge of being a disaster (I guess we probably could have made the most of it and made it still really awesome, but since it didn't turn down that path, I'll just say it would have been close to the end of my blessed life as I knew it. You know, for dramatic effect). Shortly after I woke up after the first night of the weekend, I came so close to the edge of the cliff, I was actually falling off, until a mighty hand reached out and snatched me from what was to be certain death. This is the story.
Some time last year my boy Dave announced that he and Timmy Reynolds would be playing a small tour in December. That tour included two shows in The Vegas. Since Addy and I have never seen this dynamic duo and since we had pretty much seen every other concert that DMB had played on the summer tour, we decided that it would be pretty stupid not to go. Let's just get it out of the way and call me a super fanatic weirdo that would follow Dave anywhere. You can make fun of me all you want. I don't care, not even a little bit.
Some Thursday in December I arrived and quickly pulled up to the Planet Hollywood (PH) sports book to take in the Colts/Titans game while I waited with great anticipation for my friend Addy to arrive. Upon his arrival we polished off our typical weekend starter shots of Jameson and prepared for a wild ride.
This marks my fourth trip to Sin City and since I'm not a huge table game gambler, I've sort of developed my Vegas formula. I dabble in a bit of blackjack and craps, but I hate losing money. If I'm down quickly, I get pissed and walk away. There is a hidden gem of a game that I have grown deeply fond of. The name of this post gives light to that game. Pai Gow.
I don't think many people know how to play, which is a shame because if you want to gamble and drink for free without much risk of losing money, this is the game for you. I feel it is my duty to explain and share it with the world, and by the world I mean the three people that read this. It's a simple game really, based on poker hands. Each player and the dealer is dealt seven cards. From those seven cards you form two poker hands, one with two cards, the other with the remaining five cards. The only catch is that the five card hand must be higher than the two card hand. To win, both of your hands must beat the dealer's respective hands. Naturally this leads to lots of ties or pushes and of course no money exchanges. I'd give you an example of a hand, but I can tell that this is getting boring already. Just trust me, there are a lot of pushes, which in turn leads to you and your buddies sitting at the table for hours upon hours. If you get the cocktail waitress trained early, you won't be seeing straight by night's end. (Training the cocktail waitress: Step 1: Tip big on the first drink or two, after that she'll be back early and often. Step 2: Tip $1 everytime after that.)
After the Thursday night football game, Addy and I hit the Pai Gow table. The first night is a great example of how you win at Pai Gow, even when you lose. Addy had never played before, but that didn't stop him, nor should it stop any of you out there. One of the great staples of Pai Gow is that you can ask the dealer how the house would play your hand and they will tell you, EVERY TIME. This is good for Addy since he has the attention span of a 7 year old, especially when he starts drinking Redbull vodkas. It's really not that complicated though.
By the time 4 o'clock came around, we had the waitress bringing us RBVs every seven minutes. Addy, despite not paying attention and still having no idea what the rules were, had piled up a nice stack of chips. He also had made good friends with our good dealer Donna and the other patrons at the table. He had asked Donna to marry him a few times and the guys next to us kept gawking at him while he managed to keep stacking up chips. Like I said before, with all the pushed hands, it's rare that you lose much money, but in turn it's also rare that you win very much either. Chalk Addy's success up to drunken beginner's luck.
I said Donna was our good dealer. The bad dealer on this night was Chom. She was unbeatable and soon cleaned me out and took Addy's stack down considerably. Then Rainy came in (yes that is her name, 99% of the Pai Gow dealers are Asian, go figure) and really bent us over. Normally I have a rule that states if one is winning with a certain dealer, when he/she goes on break, color up and get the hell out of there because 99 times out of 100 the new dealer will absolutely anal rape you (figuratively speaking of course) and leave you feeling used and violated. I wasn't following my own rule on this night. I'll blame it on the waitress. She played hard.
When 5:30 came we decided it was time to call it and stumbled over for some food at the Earl of Sandwich. (sidebar: We had eaten before at some mexican bar. We pulled up and asked the bartender what he recommended on the menu. He highly recommended the menu item Drunken Nachos, $10. Seems really appealing and extremely appropriate right? Wrong. I remember the excitement I had for a huge plate of nachos with all the fixings and tons of chicken canvasing the delicious chips and cheese. When the bartender brought us our mini sized plates with seven chips topped with only a few shreds of cheese, I about threw my plate across the bar. What a let down. This little encounter left us thinking that we might never get a regularly sized meal in Vegas unless we either A) spent $20 or B) went to In-N-Out. Needless to say, we weren't looking forward to our food expenditures for the rest of the trip. This info is needed to understand the elation we experienced in the next part of our adventure. End sidebar) Little did we know, we would be eating the greatest sandwiches of our lifetimes. We decided to take the food back to the room, but when I turned around after nearing the elevators, I saw Addy standing in the middle of the casino floor, absolutely dominating his late dinner/early breakfast. I couldn't really blame him, as I would soon find out those were the greatest sandwiches ever made.
Despite the casino being a maze, we made it back to the room after only walking in a circle for 20 minutes. I'm not joking about the maze either. When Addy left the table to go to the bathroom, it was a forgone conclusion he would get lost on his way back, despite the bathroom being a 30 second walk in any direction. He'd be gone for 15 minutes at a time, which meant I would have to finish his drink so he could get a fresh one (bonus!). End of night one. Gambling tally: Dusty = down, Addy = up.
Some time last year my boy Dave announced that he and Timmy Reynolds would be playing a small tour in December. That tour included two shows in The Vegas. Since Addy and I have never seen this dynamic duo and since we had pretty much seen every other concert that DMB had played on the summer tour, we decided that it would be pretty stupid not to go. Let's just get it out of the way and call me a super fanatic weirdo that would follow Dave anywhere. You can make fun of me all you want. I don't care, not even a little bit.
Some Thursday in December I arrived and quickly pulled up to the Planet Hollywood (PH) sports book to take in the Colts/Titans game while I waited with great anticipation for my friend Addy to arrive. Upon his arrival we polished off our typical weekend starter shots of Jameson and prepared for a wild ride.
This marks my fourth trip to Sin City and since I'm not a huge table game gambler, I've sort of developed my Vegas formula. I dabble in a bit of blackjack and craps, but I hate losing money. If I'm down quickly, I get pissed and walk away. There is a hidden gem of a game that I have grown deeply fond of. The name of this post gives light to that game. Pai Gow.
I don't think many people know how to play, which is a shame because if you want to gamble and drink for free without much risk of losing money, this is the game for you. I feel it is my duty to explain and share it with the world, and by the world I mean the three people that read this. It's a simple game really, based on poker hands. Each player and the dealer is dealt seven cards. From those seven cards you form two poker hands, one with two cards, the other with the remaining five cards. The only catch is that the five card hand must be higher than the two card hand. To win, both of your hands must beat the dealer's respective hands. Naturally this leads to lots of ties or pushes and of course no money exchanges. I'd give you an example of a hand, but I can tell that this is getting boring already. Just trust me, there are a lot of pushes, which in turn leads to you and your buddies sitting at the table for hours upon hours. If you get the cocktail waitress trained early, you won't be seeing straight by night's end. (Training the cocktail waitress: Step 1: Tip big on the first drink or two, after that she'll be back early and often. Step 2: Tip $1 everytime after that.)
After the Thursday night football game, Addy and I hit the Pai Gow table. The first night is a great example of how you win at Pai Gow, even when you lose. Addy had never played before, but that didn't stop him, nor should it stop any of you out there. One of the great staples of Pai Gow is that you can ask the dealer how the house would play your hand and they will tell you, EVERY TIME. This is good for Addy since he has the attention span of a 7 year old, especially when he starts drinking Redbull vodkas. It's really not that complicated though.
By the time 4 o'clock came around, we had the waitress bringing us RBVs every seven minutes. Addy, despite not paying attention and still having no idea what the rules were, had piled up a nice stack of chips. He also had made good friends with our good dealer Donna and the other patrons at the table. He had asked Donna to marry him a few times and the guys next to us kept gawking at him while he managed to keep stacking up chips. Like I said before, with all the pushed hands, it's rare that you lose much money, but in turn it's also rare that you win very much either. Chalk Addy's success up to drunken beginner's luck.
I said Donna was our good dealer. The bad dealer on this night was Chom. She was unbeatable and soon cleaned me out and took Addy's stack down considerably. Then Rainy came in (yes that is her name, 99% of the Pai Gow dealers are Asian, go figure) and really bent us over. Normally I have a rule that states if one is winning with a certain dealer, when he/she goes on break, color up and get the hell out of there because 99 times out of 100 the new dealer will absolutely anal rape you (figuratively speaking of course) and leave you feeling used and violated. I wasn't following my own rule on this night. I'll blame it on the waitress. She played hard.
When 5:30 came we decided it was time to call it and stumbled over for some food at the Earl of Sandwich. (sidebar: We had eaten before at some mexican bar. We pulled up and asked the bartender what he recommended on the menu. He highly recommended the menu item Drunken Nachos, $10. Seems really appealing and extremely appropriate right? Wrong. I remember the excitement I had for a huge plate of nachos with all the fixings and tons of chicken canvasing the delicious chips and cheese. When the bartender brought us our mini sized plates with seven chips topped with only a few shreds of cheese, I about threw my plate across the bar. What a let down. This little encounter left us thinking that we might never get a regularly sized meal in Vegas unless we either A) spent $20 or B) went to In-N-Out. Needless to say, we weren't looking forward to our food expenditures for the rest of the trip. This info is needed to understand the elation we experienced in the next part of our adventure. End sidebar) Little did we know, we would be eating the greatest sandwiches of our lifetimes. We decided to take the food back to the room, but when I turned around after nearing the elevators, I saw Addy standing in the middle of the casino floor, absolutely dominating his late dinner/early breakfast. I couldn't really blame him, as I would soon find out those were the greatest sandwiches ever made.
Despite the casino being a maze, we made it back to the room after only walking in a circle for 20 minutes. I'm not joking about the maze either. When Addy left the table to go to the bathroom, it was a forgone conclusion he would get lost on his way back, despite the bathroom being a 30 second walk in any direction. He'd be gone for 15 minutes at a time, which meant I would have to finish his drink so he could get a fresh one (bonus!). End of night one. Gambling tally: Dusty = down, Addy = up.
I wrote the above paragraphs in December, right after this trip. I had some elaborate plan to hold the readers in suspense with how I ended the first paragraph, but now I can hardly remember the details of everything that happened for the rest of the weekend. I'll give it my best shot in a short summary below (considering I always give too much detail about everything that 100% of the people reading don't care about). What can I say? I've been busy.
Like the first paragraph alluded, something was avoided that would have been a weekend stopper. I woke up and couldn't find my wallet. Wasn't in my pants pocket or on the desk or really anywhere after we tore the room apart. The big problem with that, aside from not having my plastic and paper money, was that I was flying out on Monday....and what do you need to fly? That's correct, a valid form of ID. I no longer had that and I had to be in Wichita for work starting Tuesday morning. What does one do in that situation? Bend over and try to relax? I didn't want to think about that, so we put our effort into finding the wallet, no matter how unlikely finding it seemed.
After we retraced all our steps and realized I used it at the sandwhich place around 6 AM, we figured I left it there or it had to be in the room. We again tore the room apart and not until I lifted up Addy's bed did he crawl under and come back out with my wallet. It was way up by the head of the bed near the corner (so basically the darkest place in the room). We had both looked under the bed multiple times and couldn't see it. I don't even know why I decided to lift the beds up, we both KNEW there wasn't anything under there. Oopsy daisy. Addy and I then participated in a 5 minute celebration around the room. There was dancing, high fiving, awkward hugging while jumping up and down in circles. Thankfully neither of us broke our leg like Kendrys Morales. Complete and utter jubilation was upon us, and it carried us through the rest of the weekend. One of us would say, "Hey remember when we found the wallet? That was one of the best moments EVER!" and the same 5 minute celebration would occur. True story.
After that little mini-debacle I left my extra DL (yes I have two, don't ask) and a credit card in the room, so even if disaster did strike, I would be ok. I will also be doing this anytime I travel by air for the rest of my life. You should too. That's Life Lesson #1 from me, more to follow. Remember when I wrote that this part would be short? The rest of the trip was great, more of the same as day one, except we went to 2 concerts (SSWY came with the first night), managed to get free tickets the 2nd night (how? some dude literally gave them to Addy and told us to buy him a beer inside) AND then sold our original night two tickets within 30 seconds. Sunday was also good as we gambled on nearly every NFL game and watched all of them (except the Vikings because the Metrodome roof collapsed...awesome!)
Sunday night ended back at the Pai Gow table. Addy and I both proceeded to bank some cash at the table. We give all the credit to our good luck chip. There was one chip in play that was different from the rest because it had a picture of some dude on it. Addy dubbed the chip 'The Wrestler' and claimed that he could never lose a hand with The Wrestler in play. Soon everyone at the table knew of The Wrestler and its powers. It was so powerful that it would draw cheers everytime Addy won a hand. He was guaranteeing the dealer would lose and daring the dealer to try and take it from him. The Wrestler even radiated good luck to the whole table (or at least me). We walked away with around $300 between the two of us, including The Wrestler. It may not sound like it on paper, but just take my word for it, The Wrestler was awesome and helped bring fun and camaraderie to the table.
Oh oh I just remembered another sweet move I pulled. Some Pai Gow tables have this 'Fortune Bonus' side bet, which if you play, you get paid out some decent odds when anyone at the table gets a straight or higher. One hand I had a straight flush on my high hand, and there was a dude playing the Fortune Bonus. I was waiting for him to get paid out, but the dealer took the cards and put them in the shuffle compartment. I asked the dealer why he didn't get paid because I had a straight flush, so the pit boss had to come over and pull the cards out of the shuffler and find my cards, then pay the guy out. The guy then proceeded to give me a $25 chip, considering I had just won him a couple hundy, I thought that was mighty fine of him. Boom, LAWYERED.
Overall in roughly 90 hours in Vegas we were inside the PH for 88 of them. The only exception was when we walked (which I don't recommend, it's tougher than you think to get across the interstate) to In-N-Out for some delicious double-doubles. The only other meals we had were from the Earl of Sandwhich and the bar where we went to watch football (still inside PH). After the first night, EoS became standard lunch, dinner, and breakfast, in that order because we were going to bed at 5 and waking up at noon. Those sandies were that good (and inexpensive!). Good times; and that's all I have to say about that.
Like the first paragraph alluded, something was avoided that would have been a weekend stopper. I woke up and couldn't find my wallet. Wasn't in my pants pocket or on the desk or really anywhere after we tore the room apart. The big problem with that, aside from not having my plastic and paper money, was that I was flying out on Monday....and what do you need to fly? That's correct, a valid form of ID. I no longer had that and I had to be in Wichita for work starting Tuesday morning. What does one do in that situation? Bend over and try to relax? I didn't want to think about that, so we put our effort into finding the wallet, no matter how unlikely finding it seemed.
After we retraced all our steps and realized I used it at the sandwhich place around 6 AM, we figured I left it there or it had to be in the room. We again tore the room apart and not until I lifted up Addy's bed did he crawl under and come back out with my wallet. It was way up by the head of the bed near the corner (so basically the darkest place in the room). We had both looked under the bed multiple times and couldn't see it. I don't even know why I decided to lift the beds up, we both KNEW there wasn't anything under there. Oopsy daisy. Addy and I then participated in a 5 minute celebration around the room. There was dancing, high fiving, awkward hugging while jumping up and down in circles. Thankfully neither of us broke our leg like Kendrys Morales. Complete and utter jubilation was upon us, and it carried us through the rest of the weekend. One of us would say, "Hey remember when we found the wallet? That was one of the best moments EVER!" and the same 5 minute celebration would occur. True story.
After that little mini-debacle I left my extra DL (yes I have two, don't ask) and a credit card in the room, so even if disaster did strike, I would be ok. I will also be doing this anytime I travel by air for the rest of my life. You should too. That's Life Lesson #1 from me, more to follow. Remember when I wrote that this part would be short? The rest of the trip was great, more of the same as day one, except we went to 2 concerts (SSWY came with the first night), managed to get free tickets the 2nd night (how? some dude literally gave them to Addy and told us to buy him a beer inside) AND then sold our original night two tickets within 30 seconds. Sunday was also good as we gambled on nearly every NFL game and watched all of them (except the Vikings because the Metrodome roof collapsed...awesome!)
Sunday night ended back at the Pai Gow table. Addy and I both proceeded to bank some cash at the table. We give all the credit to our good luck chip. There was one chip in play that was different from the rest because it had a picture of some dude on it. Addy dubbed the chip 'The Wrestler' and claimed that he could never lose a hand with The Wrestler in play. Soon everyone at the table knew of The Wrestler and its powers. It was so powerful that it would draw cheers everytime Addy won a hand. He was guaranteeing the dealer would lose and daring the dealer to try and take it from him. The Wrestler even radiated good luck to the whole table (or at least me). We walked away with around $300 between the two of us, including The Wrestler. It may not sound like it on paper, but just take my word for it, The Wrestler was awesome and helped bring fun and camaraderie to the table.
Oh oh I just remembered another sweet move I pulled. Some Pai Gow tables have this 'Fortune Bonus' side bet, which if you play, you get paid out some decent odds when anyone at the table gets a straight or higher. One hand I had a straight flush on my high hand, and there was a dude playing the Fortune Bonus. I was waiting for him to get paid out, but the dealer took the cards and put them in the shuffle compartment. I asked the dealer why he didn't get paid because I had a straight flush, so the pit boss had to come over and pull the cards out of the shuffler and find my cards, then pay the guy out. The guy then proceeded to give me a $25 chip, considering I had just won him a couple hundy, I thought that was mighty fine of him. Boom, LAWYERED.
Overall in roughly 90 hours in Vegas we were inside the PH for 88 of them. The only exception was when we walked (which I don't recommend, it's tougher than you think to get across the interstate) to In-N-Out for some delicious double-doubles. The only other meals we had were from the Earl of Sandwhich and the bar where we went to watch football (still inside PH). After the first night, EoS became standard lunch, dinner, and breakfast, in that order because we were going to bed at 5 and waking up at noon. Those sandies were that good (and inexpensive!). Good times; and that's all I have to say about that.
