teddys's Blog

I played in a black jack tournament this weekend. Here are my impressions:

The casino I went to was doing "sit-n-go" tournaments. They would wait until five people wandered up to the table, and then they would start a tournament. The buy-in was $100 + a $5 dealer option which got you $2400 in tournament chips. Everybody always took the dealer option. They didn't seem to care how many times you played, and some people played every time. One guy who was playing in the high limit and would take a break and play the tournament.

The rules of the game were normal BJ rules except black jack paid 2:1. They dealt exactly twenty-one hands. Winner takes all (i.e., 100% equity to the player). I figured it was a fair 1:5 chance to win $400 (minus the tokes) assuming equal skill levels, so I planned to play as many times as they would let me. I ended up only playing in three. The first to act button rotated around the table and was determined by the first ace out of the shoe. (They reshuffled after the ace was dealt).

The first time I played I used the Wizard's method of betting the minimum each time. This worked well in the beginning as the high-roller and his wife were extremely agressive bettors and knocked themselves out early. However, a younger gentleman at third base was betting big and getting an incredible run of luck. It soon became clear I could not catch him no matter how much I bet. I was done by about the 16th hand. He won, and believe it or not, stuck around for the next tournament and won that too. (I didn't play that one). He left $800 richer.

I decided my strategy wasn't working and I switched my mindset to play the other players more than play the game. I entered another round with the high-roller and his wife, and two older guys. I decided to make medium bets of $100-$200 each round. As I had hoped, the high-roller and spouse busted out early again. But the other two guys were more prudent bettors and would not play crazy. They were betting big, and once again, first base was getting very lucky on double downs and BJs. I was done by about the 18th hand here, but at least I had progessed farther than before.

I figured my bankroll would allow one more shot. I hung around the tournament area, scouting the other players. I finally found a tournament pool to my liking. *WARNING* Misogyny ahead. There were two women in this tournament pool. Women are not known to be great wagerers in certain situations; this is just a gender difference. Empirically, they are not as successful in poker tournaments, etc.. Feel free to argue that point, but I liked my chances in this pool.

This time around I planned to vary my bets wildly and hope for a streak of luck. I would say for the first 15 hands I won exactly half of my hands. So I did not vary much from my starting bankroll. The two women did not bet very much at all, and also had not deviated far from their starting stack. I don't remember what the other two guys had; one busted out around hand 16.

On hand 17 I bet half my stack and got a 9 against a dealer 7. I doubled down and got a 10. Everybody else had stiffs. For some reason most people stood. Some hit and busted. Dealer turned over a 17, which was the best possible outcome for me, and a HUGE swing in my favor. I now had a commanding chip lead. The next hand (or maybe it was the one before), I got a blackjack on a medium-sized bet and that 2:1 payout also helped my stack.

We made it to hand 21 and I got to act last. I didn't even realize I had that position, and it turned out to be an enormous advantage. The women at first and second base both went all in. I had enough to cover First's doubled bet so I wasn't worried about her. Second base I did not have enough to cover. I bet enough so that if we both won, I would beat her by one chip. The other player was inconsequential.

The dealer dealt out the hands. Everybody had stiffs, and the dealer had an ace up. I made a comment that I'd never wanted to see a dealer blackjack so much in my life. The pit found that funny. Unfortunately, she did not have blackjack. First base busted. Second base hit to eighteen off a 12. I busted my 15. I figured I had to hit and give myself a chance because even though the dealer might have busted (and I would have won), she was most likely to make a hand and I didn't want to lose on the chance she made 17 or 18. I suppose the odds favored standing, now that I look at it, but it was very close, and anyway, I was looking good. Bottom line: Dealer turned over an 8 for a pat 19, I collected my $500 in chips, and left with a $185 net profit on the day's play. I enjoyed the tournament experience, and would like to play more in the future.

The Wizard wrote about meeting Colonel Rob Patton at the Pai Gow Tiles table at the Paris. What he didn't mention is that I was there, and we played some more tiles after dinner at Mon Ami Gabi after Colonel Patton and his wife left for the Rio.

At this second session, the Wizard was losing a lot of his bets, losing his cocktail waitress trivia bets to me (Sorry, Wiz! :p), and I think he had also ran out of religion questions to ask me. So he politely excused himself and went up to his comped room at Paris. I was breaking even or winning, at the minimum of $25 a hand, so I wished him well, and stayed on to play. At this point I had had a few Irish Coffees, but was still feeling okay.

Not long after the Wizard left, two friends came to play at the table. One was a Chinese gentleman who spoke perfect English. The other guy was white, and was with his wife. The Chinese guy took a marker for $10,000, and sat next to me. The Caucasian friend ("Stu") sat on the other side, and took $1,000 in chips from "John's" (Chinese guy's) stack. It soon became clear that the friends were business partners in a factory in Guangzhou, and that John was willing to bet a lot -- a lot -- more than Stu. Stu would bet only one black chip, and his wife would bet a green every once in a while. John had no problem betting stacks of black, and even the occasional yellow ($1,000) chip.

After a few hours, Stu was losing, John was breaking even or winning a little, and I was doing really well. I had turned over two pair three times, an extremely rare hand. (To demonstrate how rare, the Wizard had insisted on taking a picture of it when I got it the first time). Stu and his wife excused themselves, and left. John remained, and a couple more Chinese people took the other spaces. I was now the only white guy at a table betting $25 every hand, while everyone else was betting at least $100.

This is when things started getting serious. John called for a cocktail waitress and a wine menu, which came immediately (he had been tipping the waitresses $100 every trip, and the dealers $100 every push). He ordered a medium-priced wine from California called Cakebread, but he was rebuffed by the beverage manager. She insisted on providing a bottle of 2008 Opus One. This is one of the most expensive wines you can buy -- most restaurants in Vegas sell it for $600-$800 a bottle. The server brought a bottle, a stand for the wine, and glasses for everyone at the table. He asked, "What do I owe you," and the pit boss said, "Nothing. Just let me know when you are ready for the next one. I already have it comped."

So I was now drinking ridiculously expensive, ridiculously good wine, as well as winning money. The table got on some really good streaks, and when it got bad, we co-banked against the house and somehow turned it around. John pushed his bets up to $5,000 a hand. We needled the pit boss to raise the maximum to $10,000 (for some reason Paris sets the limit on tiles at $5,000), but he said to talk to his vice president. Meanwhile, they kept bringing more bottles of Opus One, which I kept happily drinking when it was offered to me.

Finally, at around 7:00 A.M., the table broke. It just wasn't possible to win anymore. We all cashed out a ton ahead, John at least $50K, and bid each other farewell. It is hard to replicate this kind of gambling session. I went back the next night to try and get on the game, but it was New Year's Eve and minimums were $100. I saw many of the same people playing, including John, but they didn't seem to have as many chips this time. Ah, for more winning nights...

Ate at NOVE Italiano at the Palms last night. Probably one of the best meals I've ever had. The restaurant is on the 52nd floor of the Fantasy Tower. You give your name to the hostess, get on the elevator, and they maitre d greets you by name when you get off. We went for the Thursday 6-10 Happy Hour, and sat at the bar. The view is amazing for those who sit at a table near the window. Appetizers were $7, and drinks were $6 including a selection of four wines. We ordered from the regular menu as well. The total bill came to $122, and I paid for it with the tons of Palms points I have on my card.

For drinks, we first tried a Sangiovese blend from Italy, which was a nice to start off with and very easy drinking. After finishing, we ordered California Zinfandel, "Old Vines," which was a real beast of a wine. Probably my favorite. My friend got two glasses, and some Tawny Port for dessert.

We ordered five appetizers from the happy hour menu: Nana's meatballs, Rock Shrimp Polpette, Oysters Rockefeller, Fried Calamari and Prosciutto sliders with basil pesto and fontina cheese. They also brought out a comped bruschetta with pate and pesto. The first four were uniformly excellent; just the best expression of those dishes I have every had. The calamari had hot peppers in it, and was lightly fried with a spritz of fresh lemon. Just delicious. The polpette were dough balls with shrimp baked inside. Surprisingly tasty. The meatballs had amazing depth of flavor. The one app I think they were weak on were the sliders. The bread was not toasted, and there was very little prosciutto or pesto on the sandwiches. Good, but didn't measure up to the other stuff. The sliders also came with a side of sort-of-meh shoestring fries.

The bartender gave us two comped cocktails; one a cantaloupe juice and tequila and something else mixture, which was really good. He followed that up with a shot that had chilled fresh-brewed espresso and some other liquor in it. It was even better if that is possible. I really need to drink more fancy cocktails. Just outstanding.

We decided to order grilled baby octopus from the main menu just to try it. It was delicious; very meaty, not fishy tasting at all, and well seasoned. I'd take this over a steak any day. It came on top of some sort of green salad.

For dessert, we got chocolate ganache, and cannoli. The chocolate ganache is not on the menu; you have to special order it . The staff said it is one of their favorite desserts. It is a spread, kind of like nutella, but richer and more chocolately. It is seasoned with sea salt, and comes with a side of raisin bread. It was very good, although the bread was kind of heavy for dessert. I really like the make-you-own cannoli. This is a real highlight: they bring you five small cannoli shells, a pastry tube of mascarpone cheese, and a sectioned dish with nine toppings, like chocolate chips, white chocolate, granola, and raspberry and apricot spread. Fun to experiment with combinations, and scrumptious.

All in all, NOVE did not disappoint, and the staff was great, as well. One of the lesser known restaurants, I recommend venturing off-strip for a trip there, either for happy hour or the regular dinner service. Five stars.

Stop the insanity!



I've made my way up the Strip from Harrah's to Circus Circus, but even that movement is not enough to offset the amount of pounds I am putting on. This is the dark side of American eating. Man was not meant to eat so much Spam Musubi.

So, I did the breakfast buffet at Harrah's twice ($10 comp value with a coupon), and the Mirage buffet for dinner (used MLife comps). Surprisingly, I thought the Harrah's buffet was better than the Mirage's. The Mirage's room was weird and I can't say I liked the layout. Something was off about the food, too, although I liked their peeled jumbo shrimp. Afterwards, I took a shot at the double deck blackjack game again and lost about $200. Between that an a horrible video poker loss at the Palms the other day (why do I always lose there?), I am well on my way to giving back the value of that royal.

I dragged my bag up the Strip to Circus Circus and checked into my West Tower room. (Review forthcoming, suffice it to say that it is very nice). I checked out some of the restaurants and gaming options. I fear I will have to eat at the buffet for reviewing purpose. I am not looking forward to that. The Steakhouse looked meh. I will have to ask the Wizard if he wants that reviewed. Surprisingly good gaming options at the Circus, including full pay video poker and good blackjack rules. But good lord, the children. (I blame the adults for having and rearing them. The children themselves are innocent).

This particular evening I had plans to go to Bradley Ogden with (non-Wizard) Mike. This is in return for a meal he treated me to this summer at Nero's at Caesar's Palace. Since I had a $680 comp to any Caesars property, I told him he could pick any restaurant in their hotels. At first, he wanted Spago in the Forum Shops, but they wouldn't accept comp dollars, so the second choice was Bradley Ogden at Caesars Palace. I have to say Bradley Ogden definitely impressed, although I had never heard of him before. For appetizers, we got seared foie gras with foie gras poppers, blue cheese souffle, and a kind of duck confit(?) soup. They were uniformly excellent, especially the blue cheese souffle, which was so light and airy. The soup was poured over a smattering of fruits, nuts, and onion custard already in the bowl. The foie gras was, well, having never had foie gras before, pretty f---cking good.

For wine, I selected a bottle of Stratton Lummis 2008 Napa Cabernet. It was very good initially, but it was a little to lightweight to stand up to the later cuisine. It was smooth drinking, with very little acid and tannins. I prefer a more "beastly" wine like Shiraz. Not to say it wasn't good, but for $95 I expect better.

The entree was braised short rib with mashed potato and mascarpone polenta for Mike, and some kind of free-range chicken breast with butternut squash pasta and poached egg on top. I knew I would regret ordering the chicken and I did. Just a big boring breast, although cooked almost perfectly. The pasta was very good. I tasted the braised short rib, and it was excellent, just amazing depth of flavor. I should have gotten that. As it was, I got the chicken to go and it was very good for breakfast the next day. We also got three sides: broccolini, wild mushroom fricasse, and creme fraiche mashed potatoes. The potato was incredibly rich and decadent. Of the three, I thought the broccolini was the best, even though (or perhaps because of) it was drowned in butter. Who said cooked vegetables are bad for you?

After the meal we were planning to go to the Riveria comedy club, but we missed the start time and instead drove out to Sam's Town to do more gambling. They have a $3 minimum craps game with 20x odds, and good dealers. It started off horribly, and the table almost cleared out. Our above flea level buy-ins allowed us to weather the storm. We then made a slight recovery, and finally a profit off of one shooter who I think was practicing dice setting. However, he only bet $3 on the don't pass. The box kept telling him to hit the back wall, and he was hitting box numbers like crazy, especially the four and ten. Then he did something I've never seen before. He said, "give someone else a chance," passed the dice, colored up and left. I finished his roll, hit two more come bets, and sevened out. Nobody could fathom why he left, and some people, including Mike, were understandably angry since he was one such a hot roll. Myself, I didn't care. Anyway, I played my own turn, and a couple more, and colored up with a small profit.

I writing this from the McDonald's on the Strip and one of the homeless people just came in with his Starbucks cup full of change, spread out a napkin, and dumped it out to start counting it. Gotta love Vegas.

I've made my way down from Main Street Station to the Strip, with some twists and turns along the way. Since my last post, I played some more craps at Main Street (Pit boss: You're back for more, huh?). Lost both sessions. Played more Double Bonus video poker, and hit aces again for $200. So about even at MSS, and when I left, the host I talked to was more than happy to comp our meal at Triple 7.

(An aside: My host at Main Street was Ipo Boast. Not only is she a great host, she has a very sonorous name. I spent the rest of the day saying "Ipo Boast" every couple minutes or so, like a mental patient. Brain bug!)

I played some more Pick 'Em Poker at Fremont while waiting for the Centennial Express bus back to the Strip, which I stayed on for too long and had to get off at Hughes Center drive, and drag my suitcase through a parking garage and that no-man's land between Koval and the Strip. Finally, I made it to Harrah's and checked into my comped room in the Mardi Gras tower. It is nice with a Strip view, and you can see the Mirage volcano show.

That evening, Mike had acquired tickets for the Adam Carolla comedy show at House of Blues Mandalay Bay. We ate the House of Blues restaurant beforehand. (Great Jambalaya, but loaded with salt). Adam's act was good. He had a Macintosh computer which he used to project slides up onto a screen behind him, and he would comment on them. The theme of the show was "Adam Carolla Hates the Holidays." So he did a lot of stuff with old family photos, which were funny. I thought his strongest bit was where he put his Social Security/Medicare earnings statement on the screen, and scrolled down it slowly showing how much money he made over the years. In the beginning, there were a lot of zeros and a couple thousand dollar years. Then he increased to 300K, 500K, 1m, etc. He also told jokes about how poor he was, how you should follow your dreams, etc. It was actually pretty inspiring.

After the show, Mike and I drove over to Joker's Wild in Henderson to play some craps. Usually, I do pretty well there. Not this time. There were just no good shooters at all. Even at only $1/$10 odds, I went through about $250. I always find the other players there very entertaining, though.

My friend got into town late that evening. They had not been to Vegas in about six years, so the next day we hit up all the Strip casinos south of Harrah's. We started off with the breakfast buffet at Harrah's, on a $5 off coupon using Total Reward credits. I thought it was pretty good. They had two kinds of lox, and some good Chinese buns, noodles, and samosas, plus all the usual American stuff. A well-done buffet, though not overwhelmingly good.

We didn't play at all until we got down to MGM, where we put in about 40 minutes at $25 blackjack, winning. At Tropicana, we took advantage of the $200 rebate for new players (even though we were not new players, they let us use the promotion). This is basically like a freerolll at slots. I played multiline $0.25 bonus poker, and was breaking even or increasing for about 15 minutes. I got bored, and was chatting with my friend while hitting the buttons. Suddenly, I saw "Royal Flush 4000 credits" pop up at the bottom of the screen quickly and then disappear. I had hit a Royal while I wasn't even looking! Cash out $1,300 -- I 'll take that win. I did my friend's rebate and fortunately was able to lose $200, so I got $100 back in free play right away (the other $100 comes in one month). I played it off on $1 Bonus Poker and made $115.

At the MGM properties we played Blackjack, and I played Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em at Mandalay Bay, making $210. We had a meal at the deli at Luxor, using MLife comps, and I played Tiles at Aria, making $23. At Mirage and Bellagio, we both had winning sessions at BJ, although I lost $180 at the WPT 3x All-in Hold 'Em game. Hopefully this winning streak keeps up. For now, I am looking for a dentist to get my teeth cleaned. I haven't seen one in a couple years, and I need to use my winnings to get some cleaning done!