We awoke, still stuffed and a little hung over after our excursion to the Strip and the fancy life. To start the day off properly I threw open the curtain, letting the exceedingly bright sunshine of Vegas flood the room, scar my retinas, and send HH into a screaming fit. Luckily, the pillow he kept pressed over his face prevented the screams from bothering anyone on any other floors of the hotel.
Eventually we dragged our way from our room to Fitzgerald's, a fairly crappy little casino almost at the end of Fremont Street, or at least the covered portion of it.
I wanted to play poker but when I got to the poker room there all I saw was a single bored dealer who promptly began shilling fot the tournament which would start at noon. The entry fee was only $35, so I decided to give it a try and paid in advance since I could hear the siren sound of the craps table downstairs and it wouldn't be unusual for it to suck all the money from my pocket.
The craps table was empty when we arrived, but to be honest, so was most of the casino. Usually shooting craps with only one or two players creates a money hemorrhage, but this time it wasn't as bad. We lost money, made money, lost money, etc, etc. I can stand that, so we stayed until the poker tournament started at which point I went upstairs and HH continue to roll the bones. There were a few other players by that time. Usually when I leave, HH promptly starts making money, probably by cheating which he knows I wouldn't allow, or else he just lies to me about how much money he makes. Either is possible.
I played for about an hour and a half of the tournament before busting out. I didn't mind too much as I caught a bad beat and was about ready to leave anyway.
A word about poker etiquette. Since poker has made its' way onto television and people like Mike "The Mouth" Matusow and Phil Hellmuth have become household names, a lot of players have become enamored of the "trash talking" method of playing poker. It may be effective if you've got the chops to back it up, but really it usually makes you look like an asshole.
Take this game for example. We had a table full of polite, competent players. We were all enjoying the game until tables combined and we picked up a player who was LOUD. Apparently he believed everybody wanted to know all about him and his life and pitiful excuses for experiences. At one point he called the waitress over and asked if the bar could make him a Jagermeister and Red Bull.
First, GAG!
Second, when the waitress assured him the bartender would make it for him we were treated to a 15 minute diatribe, in a loud voice, about how that was his favorite drink, how the drink always got him f**ked up, how he was gonna have a bunch of them, how he was gonna get f**ked up, how f**ked up he'd been before, etc, etc.
If you're going to be an asshole at least be a quiet asshole.
Anyway, I busted out of the tournament and we began our usual method of gambling, wandering from casino to casino playing whatever we felt like. Luckily, in Downtown you don't waste much time walking as the casinos are very convenient and nowhere near the size of the ones on the Strip.
We eventually ended up at the Vegas Club, which served as our home base for the rest of the day. Be sure and read an earlier blog entry about their "liberal rules" blackjack table.
Nothing really exciting happened that day other than a lot of gambling with a lot of ups and downs. We decided to end our last night in Vegas by eating an early morning meal at the diner in the California Casino. They are the home of the best .99 cent shrimp cocktail in Vegas and have an excellent ham and eggs special for a few bucks. This is one of the best tasting for the best value meals in Vegas.
