So today I took the opportunity of my free PokerStars.com sponsored hotel room to live like a true degenerate Vegas gambler. Woke up at 8:30am, showered, put on my Alexei Kovalev AK Bars Kazan hockey jersey, and headed down to the casino. Sat down at the $15 minimum blackjack table, bought in for $400 and ordered a bloody mary. I played for four hours, won $250 and headed over to the Imperial Palace to get in on their 1pm poker tourney. Unfortunately they were already all sold out for the tourney so I had to head back to Treasure Island in the 105 degree heat. Fortunately I’ve gotten wise to the ways of getting around while minimizing exposure to the Vegas heat. From IP, I walk over to Harrahs and cut thru there since they always have kicking air conditioning. When I get out the other side of Harrah’s I only have to cross the street to enter the Mirage where I walk over to the tram connecting the Mirage to TI. All told, there’s probably only about 5 minutes of having to walk in the heat, depending on how long you have to wait for traffic lights.

Back at TI, I stopped to check my emails, then headed back down to the blackjack tables. Sat down at the single deck table but quickly realized it’s not the most advantageous game since blackjack only pays 6 to 5. While single deck gives a better weighting to the card count (a +3 count for example means a helluva lot in single deck, giving you a very precise read on when to up your bet), the 6 to 5 payout on blackjack nullifies the advantage of having a deck rich in ten/face cards. I lost $150 there and jumped back over to my now favorite $15 minimum table. I have yet to have a losing session on it. All I can say is that it really seems like their minting money for me at that table. I proceeded to knock back bloody marys and play blackjack ALL DAY. It’s now midnight, and I am up over $1700 for the day, and remember, that’s playing at a $15 minimum table! Typically my biggest bet would only be $50 and even that was in very rare circumstances where a flood of low cards had just been purged. For the most part I just kept varying between $15 and $30 depending on the card count. I realize that I still haven’t taken a large enough sampling of results yet, but I’ve been beating this game since I’ve been here. Did I mention I bought a Mac PowerBook with my winnings from the other day? Man, this is pretty unbelievable. Yes I’m tired, and I’ve had nothing to eat all day except for the olives in my bloody marys. Yet somehow, I feel fine and have not passed out from drinking all day. Maybe I’m on my way to being a degenerate gambler for real… (just kidding)