I roll into Vegas around 3am and call Michael as I exit onto Flamingo Blvd. He informs me that the gang is up at Excalibur abusing the cowboys in town for the rodeo finals. I drop my stuff off in my room and take a cab up the strip.
It looks like things are winding down and I’m too brain dead to play any poker so Michael and I donk around on some slots and I take $300 off the blackjack tables while I power drink to catch up to my compadres who have been in Vegas all day. When I finally feel like I’m about to fall to the floor we head back to the Imperial Palace where I run into the crew from work who is at a $10 blackjack table. How can I resist? What’s a little thing like exhaustion and extreme drunkenness to keep me from playing a –EV game?
WINNING BLACKJACK TIP: If you play a –EV game while in a –EV mental state (completely ripped) you have a massively positive expectation due to the fact that two negatives equal a positive.
-EV Black Jack * -EV Mental State = +EV
I go on an early run of good hands and my previous $300 win at the Excalibur finds some friends in the way of Imperial Palace $100 chips. Pretty soon I’m up a good amount and I’m completely and totally trashed. This is the part of the evening where things get a little fuzzy but I decided to push my luck as far as it would go. As the dealer pushes hundred dollar chips my way I keep stuffing them into my pocket and figure when I lose what’s on the table I’m going to bed. Of course, that never happens since I feel lucky so I dive back into my pocket and pull out some of my previous winnings.
Now, rumor has it (like I said, things got a little fuzzy) that I was running so good that I was trying to bet $500 a hand but the pit boss and dealers refused my action as the table maximum was $200. That resulted in a few words between me and the Imperial Palace blackjack team and a few threats to leave and go to another casino able to cover my action (like I’m really going to get my butt up and leave to another casino). But being the spiteful prick that I am I decided to show them how powerless they were to slow me down by hitting on 21 and catching a Q to make 21 again. If they could have gotten away with taking me in the back room and breaking my fingers they probably would have.
Somewhere around 11am I cashed out, went to bed and was woken at 8am by the telephone. Do the math there kids because it wasn’t 8am, it was 8pm. I had slept the entire day. On my way to the bathroom to shower I look over at my desk and it’s covered in $100 bills. I count it out and I had cleaned the Imperial Palace out of $2700. Ehpro, who stuck with me all that morning at the table (and was probably the lone reason I wasn’t taken into a back room for a finger breaking session), would later tell me that when I sat down they dealer had a full rack of $100 chips and when I got up there was barely a few chips left.
Yes!