Back in Black: A Rampage through the Pits (TR 3/16-3/22)
03-18-2022
, 06:15 AM
aria tables way too packed even at 12:30 am.
i give my girlfriend $100 for some dollar store slot with diamonds on it. machine swallows that bill like lewinsky and we bust in minutes.
uber back to caesar’s since TWO escalators broke on the way to the aria - just stopped mid ride while we were on them. lucky or unlucky? nobody was hurt ig
G&Ts - two lime- at caesar’s bar
first time Bacc. strategy: player only
in for $500 up to $1200 out for $0. got way too aggro pressing bets, so it goes.
we return to old faithful
knock a few tall boys down and a hard six with $50 on it. +1080 in an hour, completely cross faded and barely able to walk back to the hotel room. i was up at 7 for work and i must be going soft because it’s not even 24 hours and I’m woozy.
in $800 craps out $1880
minor profit today but after losing a lot in the mid afternoon and early evening i consider this a good first day.
good luck tomorrow
i give my girlfriend $100 for some dollar store slot with diamonds on it. machine swallows that bill like lewinsky and we bust in minutes.
uber back to caesar’s since TWO escalators broke on the way to the aria - just stopped mid ride while we were on them. lucky or unlucky? nobody was hurt ig
G&Ts - two lime- at caesar’s bar
first time Bacc. strategy: player only
in for $500 up to $1200 out for $0. got way too aggro pressing bets, so it goes.
we return to old faithful
knock a few tall boys down and a hard six with $50 on it. +1080 in an hour, completely cross faded and barely able to walk back to the hotel room. i was up at 7 for work and i must be going soft because it’s not even 24 hours and I’m woozy.
in $800 craps out $1880
minor profit today but after losing a lot in the mid afternoon and early evening i consider this a good first day.
good luck tomorrow
03-18-2022
, 02:48 PM
I woke up at 9 for some remote meetings with my volunteer work; have not had a hangover that bad in months. Hopefully I wasn’t slurring my words too hard - the tequila + gummy combo has to be what did me in.
Memories are fuzzy but I recall a stretch of hands where Player won maybe 15 of 20 and we skyrocketed, followed by my friends taking their winnings and running. I stayed to chat up the asian lady next to me and the next shoe started 9 banker to 2 player wins. I kept pressing after losses and drained it all away - quick baccarat lesson I suppose.
The full complement of boys will finally arrive today, with Louis landing at 3:00 and heading immediately to Sunset to cash his Rams future. Carl ended up $900 last night, his friend James won a couple hundred, and Andrew arrived too late to gamble after his red eye got delayed at JFK for >1 hour. My girlfriend lost a few hundred playing Ultimate and will likely stick more to craps going forward.
Plans for today include Jean Georges at 9, Sunset Station for some off-strip degening and so we can actually get a seat at a sportsbook, a dice trip down LV Boulevard (we’re going to win at every casino from Cosmo down to Wynn), and stogies with the lads at Resorts World. I’ll rally enough to drink later.
I don’t want to post an accounting until all is said and done, but things have gone well so far. The $10K target is very much in sight.
03-18-2022
, 06:27 PM
In for $1000 in craps. I hit hard 6 for $225 when the first point is set but lose on every roller after that. My throw gets interrupted by multiple mid-point buyins which I absolutely hate, but I know a lot of people just don’t know the etiquette so I can’t get mad.
Regardless, I reload $500 for my second roll and get housed the whole time. -1500 for the first session of the day, there’s only one person who I trust to bring me back.
Player baby. New friends are always the best friends. We sit solo against a very friendly dealer who patiently explains when she hits, some of the verbiage (“monkey”, three side, etc.), and she is the perfect wingman for Player.
I recoup $900 of my -1500 in a solid bounce back session. Time to grab a bath bomb and relax before we pick Louis up and hit sunset.
03-19-2022
, 11:03 AM
03-19-2022
, 05:19 PM
Last night was an extremely swingy session, expected at high minimums but I couldn’t get momentum until the very end. It started with a lot of Whistle Pig in the hotel room during our pregame, my friends hitting their college hoops tickets, and us taxiing to the Aria for Jean Georges.
The food was excellent but wait staff not so much. Kobe beef is a once a year type treat for me and I sampled a ton there - that, the butter, soy miso sauce, foie gras, and carpaccio dish served over a croquette were absolute highlights. I also liked the mac and mashed potatoes a lot while the brussels sprouts weren’t great.
I had 5 old fashioneds and one of Nina’s lychee bellinis to get a good base buzz that would build for the rest of the night.
$880 for my brother, my girlfriend, and myself before tip. Good thing I ate this expense before the gambling…
We stumble over the bridge to Planet Hollywood and hop into craps immediately. One of the worst tables I’ve ever been at with lots of mid-roll buy-ins, couple guys playing the dark side, and slow dealers. In for $1k we lose $400 across 3 rollers before I decide I don’t like the table vibe.
I move to another craps table and get the dice, spreading $400 on my roll. I hit a bunch of elevens and twelves but don’t make any points. Planet Hollywood is too far out for me tonight - I eat the $770 total loss and we move to Cromwell.
I see a former college running back & middle aged salesman that I met playing craps at the Aria in the cromwell high limit room sitting at BJ. I reload for $2000 + my $230 in PH chips to try to spin things up.
I can never get momentum over the course of 2 hours while Nina crushes Ultimate and Carl wins in triple zero roulette spinning red/black lol (I wasn’t around to advise him…) The high limit waitress was great about getting us miller lites and coronas, so I get progressively drunker.
My high point is $2700ish before a new dealer comes in and waxes us for 8 straight hands at $200 each. I tilt stick in $400 on back to back hands and lose 20 to 8/4/9 then 77 against a ten, pulling an 8.
There’s one last gasp - I have $800 more in my wallet and I’d really like not to go upstairs to reload. Around 3 am I buy into $50/h baccarat and let the player take the reigns. We go erratic with bets, having a very superstitious asian man to my right, and whatever the **** baccarat dealers do while I try to add to 9 pays off.
I get up to $2600 before backsliding to $2k and call that my stoploss.
-3k between cromwell and PH, +1200 at caesar’s last night. It could have been a lot worse.
Fortunately, we have two long days to rebound. I woke up today at 1pm to write, clear my head, and gameplan for a comeback.
03-21-2022
, 01:48 AM
Always the pain, the chaos of composition. He could not find order in the field of little symbols…
-Don Delillo, Libra
Had an absolute banger of a Saturday battling back from the brink. Menthols, whiskey, and topless women all over. We canvassed the majority of the strip looking for action, but found the greatest show of the night in a place we never could have foreseen. A day to forget but a night to remember, here’s what happened…
I started early, waking up at 1pm and losing -2300 on baccarat within half an hour while my friends went to Bacchanal. I can never eat with a hangover so the buffet would have been the catalyst to disaster.
I move to dice and things fare much better: only a -1500 loss across four horrible rollers. I get one point to break even on my own roll then call it quits.
Caesar’s Palace has not paid me well this trip and I want to say I have learned my lesson with baccarat, but that demon strikes again later tonight. I rack the afternoon session 3800 in the hole early, take an edible, a bath, and try to relax.
When the rest of the team recovers from dinner we move across the street. The Flamingo is more busy than I’ve ever seen, but my girlfriend burns off some free slot play and I take a look at a $25 craps table. The table instantly fills to the brim and it will take over an hour for me to get the dice - I play for three shooters, losing $370, but having a bad experience.
I hate so much time between rolls caused by slow stickmen combined with people not knowing what’s going on. I cash it, anticipating another loss… but I have $30 red.
The roulette wheel is my least favorite game in the casino, but **** if anything else has been working. Just one spin, I tell myself. $30 on 16.
It hits, of course. I collect 1050 and move the $30 to 22. Back to back. I move the $30 to 3. But finally, a deuce. I cash the $2100 instantly and start to claw my way back.
We walk through the Linq to harrah’s and descend upon a half-empty craps rail. I survive until my roll then throw for 15-20 minutes to post a $500 profit.
My friend has big money on St. Peters so we sweat the spread at the bar before he wins too. Suddenly the late evening sky doesn’t seem so dark.
We walk across LvBlvd to the Mirage, another source of big comebacks in my past. I win $500 finding a 3:2 quarter BJ game that let me both resplit aces and double after split - my favorite rule set.
The rest of the team posts minor wins in BJ and we decide it’s time to get a little grimy. To the Tez.
This dump is also packed but I haven’t eaten all day. I pounce on the hotdog cart and scarf down a $5 brat with onions while my girlfriend plays three card poker.
Eventually we decide to go back to the dragon. There’s an old asian man in seat 1 and his wife in seat 2, so my friends and I take 5-7. The middle seats are, very fortunately, empty.
This guy goes absolutely berserk, firing $100-400/hand, covering every stupid ass side bet, talking **** about his wife, the cards, the dealers, anyone who bet against him, and the chairs. “Addicted to crack for 35 years but 3 years sober that day” was the line he took between dick jokes, although his demeanor left a lot to the imagination. He likes “rainbow bets” with like 12 blues stacked on 12 reds atop 12 greens, constantly redeposits with random crumpled up bills of all denominations, and generally provides great entertainment during the entertainment.
Then comes war. Man may have seen some things in Vietnam so I truly withhold judgment on whatever demons he was battling. But he took that fight to the baccarat tables with a frenzy. He’d use his chair as cover, scamper left to right frenetically, and occasionally disappear for 10 minutes at a time. He was - by far - the most erratic person I’ve ever met
I of course lose $700 tracking this guy’s ****ing bets, although I was only down $300 before dumping the last $400 on our final hand. Player bricks and the asian is broke; he jumps off his chair, kicks it, and storms away. His wife has sat silently the whole time and remains stoic; I doubt we will ever see the two again.
The night hours are a blur; we get all sorts of crossed on our walk from Cortez down Fremont to Circa. Jell-o syringes (I couldn’t do the jello dong…), mini pre rolls, and a couple nice menthol drags I pull from my friend’s cig have me at an 8. The back to back whiskeys I pound as soon as we arrive at Circa get me to a 9.
Blackjack goes well, and I post a $700 win over an hour to redeem the Cortez. The late night vibe is a little weird - it’s less seedy than Planet Hollywood and the dancers are often cute, but I am not there for the women. Until we walk to the cage next to the second floor lounge (above Barry’s) and see some ladies going absolutely berserk - a group of bachelorettes all wearing cowgirl hats are pulling each other’s dresses down, seemingly having fun but also yelling at each other?
A drink or two at that bar couldn’t hurt any of us…
I’m very uncomfortable with photographing or recording people without their consent; I would have loved a memory of this. But as soon as we sit at the bar, two of the blonde bachelorettes actually begin fighting. One throws water on the other, both of them begin slapping, and security is nowhere in sight. The cuter one gets her thin top torn off her chest and eventually gets covered up by her friends before she takes an absolute beating. The bartender has gone to look for some help. And one of my friends is egging the situation on. I sit back and sip my old fashioned.
A few tits and tats later they leave. I give my girlfriend $200 to go halfsies tracking her bets on slots and roulette and we lose both, but she redeposits $100 at roulette and wins $300 back. I’m by this point plastered so I’ll take the casino win, and Circa was a good vibe.
One last stop, we decide at 1am. To RW to show my friends the new casino, for breakfast, cocktails, and gambol.
Resorts World is my new favorite casino in Las Vegas. The atmosphere, restaurants, prices, minimums, and lack of overcrowding make RW great. But the quality of eye candy and club goers there make it elite. We knock down breakfast sandwiches and mimosas at Suns Out Buns Out to people watch then Gatsby’s for drinks. At 2:30ish we reach a sufficient stupor to feel a team craps play.
Inspired by crack general Jim, I marshal the troops and lay down the game plan. We need the dice to take 90 minutes for a full trip around the ring. Anything else would be defeat.
In for $1000. First roller three rollers break even over long stretches of insignificant rolls. Nina craps out quickly, but I post a solid three-pointer with a $50 hard six. A russian guy across the table from us begins to get hype as I shoot - he runs over to lift me and spin me (!) after one of my points.
Back up to $1600. I lose $400 back on Louis’ roll after he gets all my inside bets pressed to 150 but throws the dice out of the ring 3 straight rolls. Next up? 7.
Finally, I spread $200 across the pass and inside numbers for Carl’s roll. $15 min and max odds, he knocks down the first three points. 4, 6, 10. Russian guy runs back and forth between his spot and our side of the rail to scream and dance with every hit. I press everything. The russian does too. Carl gets my hard 6 up to $50. Sets the 6, then knocks down 3-3. Perfect. The russian, Carl, and I jump around and mosh a bit.
I press the hard six to $100 + dealer 25. Carl sets the five. He’s only two numbers from making them all - 2 and 9. First roll is another hard six. I’m up big at this point. The Russian doesn’t have the hard six but comes over to celebrate for me anyway.
Second roll is unbelievable - the first die lands in the ring as a three, second die bounces off the felt over someone’s rack, against their stomach, and into their drink on the little wooden rail below the racks.
One guy at the table starts screaming same dice, the pit (deservedly) refuses to put a soaking wet one back onto the table, Carl says he doesn’t care and just wants to shoot again, and the rest of us know what is coming.
After a couple minutes of back-and-forth between this random who’s tracking our roll and making a massive fuss while also holding up the game, the dice come back. The Russian curses the guy in an unknown language. Carl finally shoots - three, four. Another amazing roll that had so much more potential, but all of my team got a turn with the dice over 75 minutes. Not quite 90 but we’ll take it. Out for $3k. The sick part of craps - the hottest of rollers only gets one bad throw.
At this point it’s 5am - we say our goodbyes to the Russian and tip the dealers, taxi back to Caesar’s, find nothing good in the pits, and call it a day.
I have nothing left in the tank, but promise to give Sunday my dying gasp.
-Don Delillo, Libra
Had an absolute banger of a Saturday battling back from the brink. Menthols, whiskey, and topless women all over. We canvassed the majority of the strip looking for action, but found the greatest show of the night in a place we never could have foreseen. A day to forget but a night to remember, here’s what happened…
I started early, waking up at 1pm and losing -2300 on baccarat within half an hour while my friends went to Bacchanal. I can never eat with a hangover so the buffet would have been the catalyst to disaster.
I move to dice and things fare much better: only a -1500 loss across four horrible rollers. I get one point to break even on my own roll then call it quits.
Caesar’s Palace has not paid me well this trip and I want to say I have learned my lesson with baccarat, but that demon strikes again later tonight. I rack the afternoon session 3800 in the hole early, take an edible, a bath, and try to relax.
When the rest of the team recovers from dinner we move across the street. The Flamingo is more busy than I’ve ever seen, but my girlfriend burns off some free slot play and I take a look at a $25 craps table. The table instantly fills to the brim and it will take over an hour for me to get the dice - I play for three shooters, losing $370, but having a bad experience.
I hate so much time between rolls caused by slow stickmen combined with people not knowing what’s going on. I cash it, anticipating another loss… but I have $30 red.
The roulette wheel is my least favorite game in the casino, but **** if anything else has been working. Just one spin, I tell myself. $30 on 16.
It hits, of course. I collect 1050 and move the $30 to 22. Back to back. I move the $30 to 3. But finally, a deuce. I cash the $2100 instantly and start to claw my way back.
We walk through the Linq to harrah’s and descend upon a half-empty craps rail. I survive until my roll then throw for 15-20 minutes to post a $500 profit.
My friend has big money on St. Peters so we sweat the spread at the bar before he wins too. Suddenly the late evening sky doesn’t seem so dark.
We walk across LvBlvd to the Mirage, another source of big comebacks in my past. I win $500 finding a 3:2 quarter BJ game that let me both resplit aces and double after split - my favorite rule set.
The rest of the team posts minor wins in BJ and we decide it’s time to get a little grimy. To the Tez.
This dump is also packed but I haven’t eaten all day. I pounce on the hotdog cart and scarf down a $5 brat with onions while my girlfriend plays three card poker.
Eventually we decide to go back to the dragon. There’s an old asian man in seat 1 and his wife in seat 2, so my friends and I take 5-7. The middle seats are, very fortunately, empty.
This guy goes absolutely berserk, firing $100-400/hand, covering every stupid ass side bet, talking **** about his wife, the cards, the dealers, anyone who bet against him, and the chairs. “Addicted to crack for 35 years but 3 years sober that day” was the line he took between dick jokes, although his demeanor left a lot to the imagination. He likes “rainbow bets” with like 12 blues stacked on 12 reds atop 12 greens, constantly redeposits with random crumpled up bills of all denominations, and generally provides great entertainment during the entertainment.
Then comes war. Man may have seen some things in Vietnam so I truly withhold judgment on whatever demons he was battling. But he took that fight to the baccarat tables with a frenzy. He’d use his chair as cover, scamper left to right frenetically, and occasionally disappear for 10 minutes at a time. He was - by far - the most erratic person I’ve ever met
I of course lose $700 tracking this guy’s ****ing bets, although I was only down $300 before dumping the last $400 on our final hand. Player bricks and the asian is broke; he jumps off his chair, kicks it, and storms away. His wife has sat silently the whole time and remains stoic; I doubt we will ever see the two again.
The night hours are a blur; we get all sorts of crossed on our walk from Cortez down Fremont to Circa. Jell-o syringes (I couldn’t do the jello dong…), mini pre rolls, and a couple nice menthol drags I pull from my friend’s cig have me at an 8. The back to back whiskeys I pound as soon as we arrive at Circa get me to a 9.
Blackjack goes well, and I post a $700 win over an hour to redeem the Cortez. The late night vibe is a little weird - it’s less seedy than Planet Hollywood and the dancers are often cute, but I am not there for the women. Until we walk to the cage next to the second floor lounge (above Barry’s) and see some ladies going absolutely berserk - a group of bachelorettes all wearing cowgirl hats are pulling each other’s dresses down, seemingly having fun but also yelling at each other?
A drink or two at that bar couldn’t hurt any of us…
I’m very uncomfortable with photographing or recording people without their consent; I would have loved a memory of this. But as soon as we sit at the bar, two of the blonde bachelorettes actually begin fighting. One throws water on the other, both of them begin slapping, and security is nowhere in sight. The cuter one gets her thin top torn off her chest and eventually gets covered up by her friends before she takes an absolute beating. The bartender has gone to look for some help. And one of my friends is egging the situation on. I sit back and sip my old fashioned.
A few tits and tats later they leave. I give my girlfriend $200 to go halfsies tracking her bets on slots and roulette and we lose both, but she redeposits $100 at roulette and wins $300 back. I’m by this point plastered so I’ll take the casino win, and Circa was a good vibe.
One last stop, we decide at 1am. To RW to show my friends the new casino, for breakfast, cocktails, and gambol.
Resorts World is my new favorite casino in Las Vegas. The atmosphere, restaurants, prices, minimums, and lack of overcrowding make RW great. But the quality of eye candy and club goers there make it elite. We knock down breakfast sandwiches and mimosas at Suns Out Buns Out to people watch then Gatsby’s for drinks. At 2:30ish we reach a sufficient stupor to feel a team craps play.
Inspired by crack general Jim, I marshal the troops and lay down the game plan. We need the dice to take 90 minutes for a full trip around the ring. Anything else would be defeat.
In for $1000. First roller three rollers break even over long stretches of insignificant rolls. Nina craps out quickly, but I post a solid three-pointer with a $50 hard six. A russian guy across the table from us begins to get hype as I shoot - he runs over to lift me and spin me (!) after one of my points.
Back up to $1600. I lose $400 back on Louis’ roll after he gets all my inside bets pressed to 150 but throws the dice out of the ring 3 straight rolls. Next up? 7.
Finally, I spread $200 across the pass and inside numbers for Carl’s roll. $15 min and max odds, he knocks down the first three points. 4, 6, 10. Russian guy runs back and forth between his spot and our side of the rail to scream and dance with every hit. I press everything. The russian does too. Carl gets my hard 6 up to $50. Sets the 6, then knocks down 3-3. Perfect. The russian, Carl, and I jump around and mosh a bit.
I press the hard six to $100 + dealer 25. Carl sets the five. He’s only two numbers from making them all - 2 and 9. First roll is another hard six. I’m up big at this point. The Russian doesn’t have the hard six but comes over to celebrate for me anyway.
Second roll is unbelievable - the first die lands in the ring as a three, second die bounces off the felt over someone’s rack, against their stomach, and into their drink on the little wooden rail below the racks.
One guy at the table starts screaming same dice, the pit (deservedly) refuses to put a soaking wet one back onto the table, Carl says he doesn’t care and just wants to shoot again, and the rest of us know what is coming.
After a couple minutes of back-and-forth between this random who’s tracking our roll and making a massive fuss while also holding up the game, the dice come back. The Russian curses the guy in an unknown language. Carl finally shoots - three, four. Another amazing roll that had so much more potential, but all of my team got a turn with the dice over 75 minutes. Not quite 90 but we’ll take it. Out for $3k. The sick part of craps - the hottest of rollers only gets one bad throw.
At this point it’s 5am - we say our goodbyes to the Russian and tip the dealers, taxi back to Caesar’s, find nothing good in the pits, and call it a day.
I have nothing left in the tank, but promise to give Sunday my dying gasp.
