So I finally suffered a losing session of blackjack today, and it was pretty devastating. I bought in for $500, lost it all, bought in for another $500 and lost that too, all in under less than 2 hours. The dealer was simply not busting at all, and even worse, drawing to 21 over my 20 on multiple occasions, especially crushing when I had upped my bets. Hing was right, playing blackjack at the Mirage is a losing proposition.

On the bright side, I entered the weekly Wed night Mirage poker tourney and came in 4th, for a prize of $843, but the entry was $130, so I’m still down about $300 for the day. No hands were memorable enough to recount here, but I am pleased with how much I’ve improved as a live action player now. I’ve become pretty good at picking my spots and pushing people around especially if I suspect they’re internet players who haven’t played much in casinos (easy for me to spot since I was once one of them!). I grabbed about as many chips as I could, maybe made one or two mistakes on not capitalizing on a few pots, but in the end I couldn’t win the tourney because others from the other tables had amassed vastly superior chip stacks by the time we got down to the final table. Fourth is about where I deserved to finish, so no regrets there.

And it was another day of not eating anything, although I didn’t have any drinks at all today. Just got back to my hotel now, and the only food I could get other than going to the buffet is from Canter’s Deli. So as I’m typing this I’m having their hot pastrami which is decent, and the chopped liver app which I really like, but most people would probably think it’s like cat food.

It’s 12:39am now, and while I only have 2 more days here, I feel like I may need to just stay in and go to sleep. I feel pretty good about my poker tourney finish, so I’d hate to go downstairs and risk ending the night on a losing note. *meow*