The Poker Report Goes To Las Vegas

5/22/01

Last Night's Wedding

My head is swollen from last night's wedding. It was a long, drunken affair filled with childhood friends. Noticeably absent were Herb and Aaron who are both doing time in the rehab tank. And Albert whose got three strikes and has to watch out because the next arrest is a class X felony which doesn't explain why he didn't show up to the wedding but does explain why they wouldn't hire him at K'Mart. I miss Albert. I didn't realize that you can get three strikes for one crime.

I have a headache and a pocketful of cash that I'm ready to double in Sin City. Las Vegas is a neon sewer joint run by the FBI and the mob, the ultimate mega merge corporation. A glowing pit lit with patronage and civil rights abuses set to the tune of false promises. I'm flying in from Chicago to meet with Ben, John, Julie, Jeremiah, Marina and Alice.

That we should culminate here, in the city of sin, the place where Stephen King predicted the final battle between good and evil, the place where Moe Green lost his eye, is no surprise. Poker night has always moved in this direction, with no respect for rules, a fly in the face of convention attitude. The palace on Folsom is a good place for a game of cards but it is getting small, the stakes are low, and our skills are high. We are ready for the big boys, true professionals, sharpies, counters, the best of their breed. We're gonna own a piece of that hotel before the weekend's through.

A Detailed Account Of A Game At The Bellagio

There's no poker game at Bally's. We sun and drink for five hours and I head to Bellagio.

I have a theory about beautiful women with tan legs and fake breasts stalking the marble gilded halls of Las Vegas's fanciest casino. I have a theory about the halls and the legs that fill it. I have a theory about the players at the low stakes hold 'em table playing four eight with a ten percent rake while paying two hundred a night for a room. The theory goes this: strictly amateur. The money means nothing to these people. These people are learning how to play. They've got money. If they knew how to play they'd be at the eight sixteen table or the thirty sixty table. My theory is they part with their money easy. But the ten percent rake has me scared.

There's no girls with fake breasts at the four dollar table. Scrims are playing tight. I get beat bad chasing a straight. Fat Boy's sitting two aces in the hole. But I have my run. I stack eight piles of chips. My luck heads south. I work my way down to three. Synapses pop. The guy next to me never has it, the girl across never folds. I'll fight my way back.

Three hours later I walk from the Bellagio thirty five to the good plus thirty five dollars dividend from a wise investment in the Lakers franchise.

Morning Time

Bally's got hot slots. Bally's got change redemption. It's early in the morning. The junkies are still up sucking blood from red chips. The black jack tables are filled with them, night of the living dead. I slept the sleep of the innocent.

I head to Paris for a cup of coffee in a Parisian cafe. The cafe is by the fancy stores selling suit jackets and designer underwear. It's early in the morning. The stores are empty. The stores are for winners. It's Sunday morning. The winners are in church praying for hard eights.

Last night we hit O'Sheas, a small casino on the dark side of the Flamingo. Alice copped pro at the blackjack table. Marina crossed high near the slots. Jon, Julie, Ben, Jeremiah, and I hovered for nickels at the craps table. O'Sheas doesn't have a poker room. Instead they have a Burger King and a Baskin Robbins, just as filthy as any Baskin Robbins and Burger King anywhere. Meat shipped in frozen from an IBP slaughterhouse in Nebraska, anti-union, minimum wage, fingers, meat, bone, innards, all with a thin chemical coating that smells like steak.

Marina and I left early. Ben said craps was a winners game. Ben was having a hard night. Ben assumed my debts. I was asleep on my feet. My friend John had gotten married to a wonderful girl out in the suburbs of Chicago the day before and all I had for it was a head full of hangover.

Ben, Julie and Alice came hours later. We're holed up on the twenty first floor, seven people to a room. Early in the morning after the sun cracked across the desert sky Jeremiah and Jon tumbled in screaming tales of hookers and Bruce Springsteen. Julie told them to be quiet. They had been out getting in trouble. Julie said Shhhhhh.

It's morning. The rest of the team is still asleep in room 7105. There's nothing special about the coffee in the Paris casino. I've got a hundred and forty dollars and my atm card doesn't work. Bellagio stands just across the white washed Las Vegas Boulevard behind a dark pool of water. My guess, Ben and the gang won't be up for hours at which point they'll head to the pool. My guess, Bellagio has a game going, four eight, ten percent rake. Early morning's a great time for suckers.

A Detailed Account of Poker At The Bellagio Day II

The vibe is strong right off. I was right about the Bellagio last night but wrong in the morning. These guys are talking world class poker, straight odds. They have wrinkled hands, thin and drawn from years of playing aces in the hole. These are solid players. This is breakfast for them. They talk about Vegas weather. They talk about Vegas slow months. They talk years spent as a pro, years spent dealing. There are no suckers at this table. I'm the mark. I'm going to try not to learn any lessons.

I'm trying to be careful. I win a big hand on a pair of jacks. I lose a big hand with jacks tres.

I'm trying to catch. The old lady with the coifed do plays tight. The Jew in the corner folds easy. I pull some amateur moves. My stake is sinking fast. I get made for a sucker. They talk Binions, they talk Horseshoe, they talk local cuisine. I take two hands, one big, one small pure bluff.

Then I do the worst thing imaginable, I throw in a winning hand, I realize too late, eighty dollars that belongs to me slips into the hands of the bald guy on the end. I want to cry. The bald man has my chips. The Bellagio has cameras in the parking lot. Tourist robbed at gunpoint. Suspect flees to west coast. California secedes from the union. California refuses extradition.

There's new players at the table. Ben and Jon are at the pool. The casino has no clocks. I can't leave. I'm chasing the bald man. He is my ghost.

I bluff out for clubs. I'm even. The casino has no sun. When the Eagle goes I'll go. The Eagle's afraid of burning his scalp. I've got it figured. I pull the Eagle big with two pair. I take my money back, I move ahead. I better go soon. The old timers are losing chips. Maybe they're not so smart. Maybe that's why they live here.

The Eagle has flown, the old people are looking like withered stalks in the desert. I stack my chips, one eighty five large, color me up baby.

Philadelphia Wins By A Point

We hang poolside all day. Philadelphia wins by a point. I head back to the Bellagio for two more hours of good times.

This is the worst. A table full of college kids and grouchy Lebanese. My jacks and kings lose to his aces and nines. I hang my head and scooch back on electric sidewalks to 7105. I thought I was invincible. I thought my deal with the devil was fool proof. But the Islamic God is stronger. His aces Jihad my queens. The Ottoman Empire ascends to heaven. I lose the Children's War.

Morning Time Day III

I lost big last night at the Flamingo. Word has it Ben lost big, Marina lost, Alice lost, Julie lost way big. I'm back at the Parisian cafe drinking two dollar coffee. I'm fond of Ben, Julie, Jeremiah, Marina, Alice, and Jon, they're my favorite people in the whole world, though they clearly infected me with some kind of loser germ. There's a convention in the hotel. Twenty of them sit at the table behind me talking slots. I think suckers but I remember what Ben always says, "The winner played perfect, the loser made a mistake."

My Tuesday night skills failed me last night. I can't blame my friends though it would seem like the easy thing to do. There was no Abby to buffer the table. Donahue is sitting at home, all of his money safe. Ben has hopped a plane. Julie, Alice, Jon, and Jeremiah are about to go. Marina is still here. We're going to go shopping, we're going to catch some pool time. I have to watch out with Marina, she bites sometimes, she's got a mean streak like Sunny Liston.

Marina splits, her purse is still in the window of a fancy store. Nobody buys her anything. He what gives, gets. She goes back to LA. I sit by the pool. My flight splits in three hours. I think poker. I think I've got a good book, a real page turner. I think I've got to rent cramp-ons and climbing gear on Tuesday. It's hot by the pool. The sun is burning my brain. I think I'll skip that last game of poker, pack my shirts, and catch a plane to San Jose.

San Jose is ninety-one dollars from San Francisco when your editor has an emergency and all the line breaks in your book are gone and the thing goes to press in the morning. He says he's coming over, I say make yourself useful with a six-pack. We get to work. He asks about Vegas. He says, Did you win?

© Stephen Elliott 2001

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