Day/Night 8: Wednesday 24th August (General)
After visiting Hooters the other day and picking up a $1 chip, I thought it would be a good idea this morning to get myself up to the 3 casinos in the far north end of the strip (Riviera, Circus Circus and Stratosphere) just to say that I'd visited all the casinos along the strip. I decided to choose the monorail as my mode of transport but this turned out to be a bit of a mistake.
The thing is, the lack of other passengers in the car kind of freaked me out! The London Underground this most definitely is NOT! I boarded the monorail car at the Harrah's stop and headed in a northerly direction, but couldn't help noticing there were very few passengers in the car. The car then stopped at a place called Convention Center - and every single passenger got off!
Now I watched this film once, I forget what it was called, where a magician is on the subway in New York (or "tube" as we would call it London) and he's doing all these magic tricks in front of this guy. Suddenly, he tells the bloke, "You wanna see me make all the white people disappear?" And then, sure enough, as the train pulls into its next stop all the white folk exit the carriage. The last stops, of course, were the roughest places in Harlem.
So there I was, in an unfamiliar part of the city that I'd never been before, in an empty monorail with absolutely no other passengers on board and heading towards the last stop on the line. What made all this even worse was as I looked out and approached the last stop, all I saw were vast empty roads and stretches of desolate car-parks in the middle of nowhere with no people or law-enforcement in sight. To top it all off I had over $600 in my wallet.
With all things considered, as I exited the carriage and stepped onto the platform, I thought it best to just catch the first southbound car back to the hustle and bustle and get the hell out of there! It wasn't all a wasted journey though as I got to see the impressive Wynn golf course and a spectacular view of many of the major casinos lined up along the strip.
I disembarked at Bally's and then headed on over to Planet Hollywood to play some poker only to get asked - for the first time on my tour - for ID! I tell the guy that I've been to virtually all casinos along the strip, including Planet Hollywood itself (TWICE) and have never yet been asked to show ID. Still, after it's clear that he just ain't budging I just tell him that I guess he's just got to do what he's got to do. I mean, it's not as if I'm suddenly going to get turned away from every place. Incidentally, although the floor manager started to rattle off something about it being a legal requirement - this was the ONLY place that I EVER got asked to show photo ID before allowing me to play poker. Funny, I only played 32 sessions in 20 different places without once being asked for photo ID.
After the shark-pool that was Session #25 I have a $5 blast at video poker and lose the lot very fast. Video poker - now there's a machine to shovel your money into if you want to lose money quickly, I tell ya!
Soon after a stop-off at Harrah's I visit the last two poker rooms on my list, completing the target of playing in all 20 rooms in exactly one week. Treasure Island is a 6-handed shark-pool where I feel like an unwanted player in someone else's home-game - and I'm outta there in 30 minutes. Wynn is a much friendlier affair and is a golden opportunity to win money from the loosest maniac I've seen at a $1/$2 cash game in Vegas. Needless to say his chips end up being added to other players' stacks with only a tiny few added to mine.
Later, I make the dodgy decision to head on down to Planet Hollywood with the mistaken belief that my Caesars' reward card will suffice as a form of ID. It's not; they want photo ID and that's that! To compensate for this disappointment I give the Bellagio a short 30 minute blast and this ends up costing me $100!
With the time at 6PM I suddenly start to feel totally exhausted and decide the best place for me at that point is my bed. 15 hours later, I'm up at 9AM next morning. I must have really needed that sleep!
So there I was, in an unfamiliar part of the city that I'd never been before, in an empty monorail with absolutely no other passengers on board and heading towards the last stop on the line. What made all this even worse was as I looked out and approached the last stop, all I saw were vast empty roads and stretches of desolate car-parks in the middle of nowhere with no people or law-enforcement in sight. To top it all off I had over $600 in my wallet.
With all things considered, as I exited the carriage and stepped onto the platform, I thought it best to just catch the first southbound car back to the hustle and bustle and get the hell out of there! It wasn't all a wasted journey though as I got to see the impressive Wynn golf course and a spectacular view of many of the major casinos lined up along the strip.
I disembarked at Bally's and then headed on over to Planet Hollywood to play some poker only to get asked - for the first time on my tour - for ID! I tell the guy that I've been to virtually all casinos along the strip, including Planet Hollywood itself (TWICE) and have never yet been asked to show ID. Still, after it's clear that he just ain't budging I just tell him that I guess he's just got to do what he's got to do. I mean, it's not as if I'm suddenly going to get turned away from every place. Incidentally, although the floor manager started to rattle off something about it being a legal requirement - this was the ONLY place that I EVER got asked to show photo ID before allowing me to play poker. Funny, I only played 32 sessions in 20 different places without once being asked for photo ID.
After the shark-pool that was Session #25 I have a $5 blast at video poker and lose the lot very fast. Video poker - now there's a machine to shovel your money into if you want to lose money quickly, I tell ya!
Soon after a stop-off at Harrah's I visit the last two poker rooms on my list, completing the target of playing in all 20 rooms in exactly one week. Treasure Island is a 6-handed shark-pool where I feel like an unwanted player in someone else's home-game - and I'm outta there in 30 minutes. Wynn is a much friendlier affair and is a golden opportunity to win money from the loosest maniac I've seen at a $1/$2 cash game in Vegas. Needless to say his chips end up being added to other players' stacks with only a tiny few added to mine.
Later, I make the dodgy decision to head on down to Planet Hollywood with the mistaken belief that my Caesars' reward card will suffice as a form of ID. It's not; they want photo ID and that's that! To compensate for this disappointment I give the Bellagio a short 30 minute blast and this ends up costing me $100!
With the time at 6PM I suddenly start to feel totally exhausted and decide the best place for me at that point is my bed. 15 hours later, I'm up at 9AM next morning. I must have really needed that sleep!
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