I Have Faith In This Guy

Noon. Fuck. That's far too late, especially when you're sharing a bathroom (note to MGM - put a door between the toilet/shower area and the sink area).

Anyway, we were downstairs by 2-something and hit the Showtime Cafe or whatever it's called in the MGM for some grub. As tempting as the carnivore's omlette was (5 types of meat I believe), I opted for eggs, sausage, hash browns, and "rye" toast.

We wandered the floor and found some bloggers (CK, Peaker, Jordan, and others) at the poker room. I said hi, but had an errand to run before committing copious amounts of time to things.

To M&M World! Where I picked up a gift for a friend to give to another friend of mine (from her to him, I'm just the delivery guy). I also managed to buy a bunch of M&Ms in colours I didn't know the candies existed in and got a free dispenser of my own. We wandered the store, and left to meet up with the remaining two of my now-dubbed entourage, now returned from golfing.

The debate was on - to see a show or not. I voted nay, for I had yet to play any poker, and knew my time was running short. X voted nay as well, for the show of choice was Wayne Brady and he'd already seen him on tour. So X and I went off to the Venetian to play in the 7pm tournament there. This was X's first casino poker ever, so it was a big event for him. I remember very litte from the game other than the annoying woman a couple to my right who talked incessantly about how she played poker. When you have no internal monologue, you seriously hamper your game as you explain to everyone what you're thinking while debating your next move. She made a boneheaded move when she folded AKo preflop with terrible rationale (she put him on 9's but was scared he could have KK after he reraised her, and she was afraid to push... the minor call for a small percentage of her stack never occured to her). I went out on something (I feel like it was my QQ vs Ax), but X was still alive. I won back my buy-in and then some at the Blazing 7's and returned to check on X... still breathing. I ventured to Caesar's to register for the midnight $65 donkament and caught the Mirage volcano show for the first time... better than I expected, but I didn't expect much. X got knocked out on my way back, and we killed some time.

By killed some time, I mean Instant Tragedy rang me up for a dial-a-shot and we wandered to the bar. I ordered us a couple Tanquery Ten martinis (at least 5 shots per) and toasted my buddy from Texas and wished he could have been there. Of course, I THEN popped some money in the video poker machine and the bartender promised me the next drink free. I won nothing, but when the rest of the posse arrived, I was able to offer them a free drink.

Two went off to play craps or something while the rest of went to grab some grub. The Venetian food court is convenient, but ain't cheap. $16 cheesteak, fries and Pepsi. We downed it and headed back to Caesars for donkeytime.

What a horrid structure. I was buzzed and maintaining and honestly didn't care about the game. I went out when I made a move at an unscary flop with overs, and got called by someone with a shitty flush draw that hit. Damn. Whatever. I enjoyed the Pussycat Dolls girls walking by to the employee area... a free show is always welcome.

A rookie hand of note. Two players got into a heads-up battle early on, and the board was Broadway by the river. Obviously, both were playing the straight now (betting didn't indicate the flush that was out there). Guy 1 bets, guy 2 calls and flips over A7o, showing what a donkey he was playing top pair no kicker on an AJTK board (Q on the river) by calling guy 1's bets all the way down. Guy 2 peeks at his cards, and I say "flip 'em.. FLIP THEM" (yes, he was a buddy, I won't name which one though), and he pushes them forward face down, figuring he's playing the board. Of course, the dealer mucks them and pushes the pot the other way. My buddy is wondering why he isn't getting any chips, and we all explain to him at once what he did. He was tilt for the rest of the weekend, depsite his protestations to the contrary. Oh, he had AJ, so had been ahead the whole way until the end. He'll always show his cards at showdown now.

Anyway, out and a bit drunk, I decided to go an win back my losses at slots again. It had worked so far. I picked the wrong machines... and went on slots tilt... and lost $600. Whoops. By 3am, 3/4 of my group were out, so we made our way to the IP. #4 made it as far as missing the money by 2 spots an hour later.

I'm a bit foggy on where I lost some more money, but I think we played some craps and it went not so well.

Then I sat down at let it ride with N, and soon enough, CK and VinNay found us and joined in the fun. F-Train opted out, as he didn't like losing money. I was about to call it a night, having $30 in my wallet at this point, but with the arrival of those two, I turned to the ATM game and won! Good call me, because I won some cash at the ol' LiR. Then we went to play more craps.

We visited the craps table again, most dear of inanimate Vegas friends. This time, the table was rocking nicely until they upped the limit to $10. We moved to the next table over and it was ice cold. I looked for Alan, but he was nowhere to be seen. Then the final guy from the old table moved over to a seat reserved for the stragglers (the limit increase was to clear us out). He says, "Just give me a spot that will get the dice. I didn't get to touch 'em at the last table and I just want to roll!"

I immediately felt good about the guy. N says, "I just want to survive until his roll." So we tightened up our betting. The guy gets the dice and I put $5 on the firebet, syaing "I have faith in this guy." He goes on a MONSTER roll. An hour later, he's hit 5 individual points, and about 8 or 9 total, with loooong rolls in between. As soon as a point was off, he cleared the 7's out of his system. He finally got the seven-out, and I was up hundreds from the rolling, and the $5 firebet paid 250-1 for $1,250!

I tossed the roller a green chip for his work, and was ready to go... except the guy two to my left (next to roll) says, "Fuck this! I want HIM to roll again. I pass." The ENTIRE table then passed the roll back to our new best friend. He grabbed the dice and rolled a point... then sevened out and I knew it was time to colour up. I flipped the crew a green chip and made my way to the cage, having recovered all my losses and a bunch more on one roll of the dice.

6am and back to the MGM, this time though, I set an alarm. For 11.