VEGAS: 26th August (General)

Day/Night 10: Friday 26th August (General) 

This morning, I felt it was time to get some photos done for the blog. This meant one last walk all the way down to the MGM and NY/NY for a photo of me in front of NY/NY which has the most impressive facade of all the strip hotels. You can see these photos at my post entitled; "Pics and Chips".

Now I'm not much of a camera expert but the main problem here was that I was using my daughter's antique Vivitar digital camera, which I had never used before. It's where you have to press the button half way down, momentarily, and then fully press the button to take the picture. As I had to ask complete strangers to take pictures of me in my full Wobblebottom regalia it was kind of an awkward moment when the guy who took the photo asked if it was ok - and I couldn't figure out how the hell to check if it had actually been taken! Anyway, he was very understanding and patient, took another one in case the first was no good - but through my incompetence with technology was STILL unsure if it had actually been taken and saved properly. I just had to thank him and hope that it was all right after all.

After this, I do a terrible pose in front of the Bellagio and Caesars palace for the next photo and regret not just turning around and have one taken of me in front of Paris. That's ok though, cos the little fella is outside O'Shea's doing his patter and it certainly would have been the biggest regret of all, had I not taken a photo of him and me by the O'Shea's sign. I then get one photo taken of me next to the Harrah's sign and one of me doing a silly razzle-dazzle pose by one of the Harrah's harlequins.

At 1:30PM, it's time to see what I can do with $122. With a total of $622 made on the trip I had an interesting but enviable dilemma: Do I just extract $122 from my winnings and use this as my stop-loss amount, knowing that the worst case scenario will be that I leave Vegas a $500 winner? Or should I just carry on as normal, buying in for full amounts, throwing caution to the wind and go for broke in true Vegas style (or at least break-even)?

For better or for worse, I decide to go for the stop-loss option. This is a typical decision. I know that if I ever want to take my game to the next level I HAVE to stop putting these petty stop-loss limits on my game because stop-loss limits almost always inevitably mean "when" the money runs out rather then "if." Nevertheless, yet again, I go for the conservative option and establish myself as one the games most average nits. 

At 1:30PM, almost 48 hours after my last poker session, I plonk the $122 on the table at Bill's for Session #29 and am pleased to have a comfortable winning session by spinning it up to $174. After this, it's time to try one of these all-you-can-eat buffets. At this late stage of my trip I have accumulated over 20 hours of play at the poker tables of Caesars properties and so use this reward card to pay the $22 or so for the lunch-time meal:

As I was so pleased with Harrah's, I decided to stay loyal to the place and eat right there. The meal was an absolute winner, of course, and I ask myself why I had left it so late to go for one of these buffets in the first place. As I was a first-timer, I was kind of unsure what to do but went for the Mexican option first, leaving space for a second helping which was the seafood option. This was all followed by a sumptuous cheesecake (minus the buttery biscuit base) from the dessert section which was an absolute delight.  As it was a comped meal, I decide to transfer the $20 I would have paid for it over to my poker money - meaning I still had $194 to play around with at the tables.

With my appetite fully satiated by the banquet at Harrah's, I head on over to the Mirage and blow $44 at the poker table before I take my seat for the 7PM Cirque De Soleil: Love show. It's a circular stage and I sit right up high at one of the outer circles but this is fine. I start to wonder if there is going to be any sort of plot but as the spectacle unfolds it's all about tumblers, acrobats and trapeze artists wearing a sparkling array of magnificent costumes all swirling and dancing and rollerblading to The Beatles' tunes.

The choice of Beatles tunes is spot-on, consisting as it does of mainly all their finest sounds from their mid to late era. It's all pretty wild and crazy with plenty of memorable moments but the highlights for me has to be: the roller-bladers swirling around to "Help" (one of the few earlier Beatles numbers included); the bizarre piece where jelly-fish type "beings" just hang from the ceiling, all set to the double-tracked(?) rendition of "Octopus's Garden"; the tap-dancing/rollerblading stomping routine set to Lady Madonna; and the piece where they trampoline and bounce off nets around a red telephone box in the middle of the stage. (I've forgotten the song that was playing to this.) The "Hey Jude" / "Sgt Pepper's" finale was also good, if not a little predictable, but all told it was a worthwhile break from my usual routine. 

After this I really should have stayed on a high and let the invigorated feeling, that the show had injected into me, linger a little longer. I should have kept away from any poker tables and enjoyed the rest of the evening doing non-gambling type things safe in the knowledge that I still had a comfortable $150 to play around with tomorrow on my last full day. What did I do? Took it to Bally's and ran a nut flush right slap bang into someone's flopped full-house that's what. But worse still, ended up tilting my last $70 away on a flopped flush-draw against a villain who was never going to fold. 

Therefore, instead of looking forward to spinning up that $150 at the tables tomorrow, Saturday was going to have to be spent where I would have to force myself NOT to play poker - just to preserve the $500 profit made. Not the best end to the trip, but still; you pays yer money and takes yer chance.