Blackjack at the Hard Rock

Today we are in Las Vegas. We arrived here again last night from the Grand Canyon around 7pm. We checked into the Hard Rock hotel, which is just off the strip, and hung out in the gigantic room for a while, trying to recover from the 5 hour drive.

I needed alone time last night, so Mel and Walter went off on their own. I went downstairs to play Blackjack. What I love about blackjack is that if you sit down at the right table, you can have a fantastic time with the other players. I love players who are excited and optimistic. They stand up, or sit down, and they ask for the cards they want. They do it like they are commanding an army, demanding pushups or something: "Come on Dealer! Give me that 4! You know I NEED that 4!" And sometimes the dealer gives them a 4, and sometimes the dealer gives them a 10, but they usually don't lose their optimism. These are my favorite types of people to play with, especially on a hot table. They dance around, yelling for blackjacks and tens like they are preaching on a Sunday morning, inflamed with excitement and obsession. These are the type of people who make you look across the casino at their table and consider leaving your own perch to join their fantasy world, where the house doesn't always win.

So, I sit at a table with 3 guys (I tend to gravitate to these tables, because often they know how to play BJ by 'the book', thereby increasing my own odds of winning. I sit at 'Third base', as they call it, which is the seat directly before the dealer. I also tend to gravitate to this seat or 'First base' (the first chair, always the first hand dealt). What's interesting is that the luck of Third Base is constantly changing as people sit and leave, where First Base is always the first hand dealt. So I sit by this guy, I forget his name, but I'll call him Timmy for kicks. I sit down by Timmy and immediately like him. "What's your name? I'm Timmy." "Jeanne" I reply, "How's this table doing tonight?" So we carry on the intro conversation that's so common at these places. He makes me laugh, even though he's more of a pessimist than an optimist. He's also one of those guys who consistently interacts with the dealer, calling her by name, tipping her, etc. One of the other guys at my table is quiet, so he doesn't talk much. The final guy is a German from Bavaria. This makes for an interesting time when the dealer changes and a Bosnian-American sits down to give us our cards. She talks A LOT more than the last dealer, giving the German a hard time, casting out her opinions on everything from discipline for her stepkids to German-Bosnian relations to how effed up (her words, not mine) America is, despite her adoration for it.

At first, the dealers are consistently taking my money. I'm winning a few hands, so I stick around, but I get down to about $25 out of my original $100 after about 45-60 minutes. But then our table gets a great shoe (8 decks, the place the cards are dealt from) and I go on a roll. A while later, I'm up about $75, and I leave the table as it cools off. I head to another table after wandering around the Hard Rock lobby a bit, and win another $25.

I find a $10 single deck BJ table (my favorite type of black jack) and stand behind it. There are 5 guys at the table, with 1 seat open. I ask one of the guys if I can sit and he nods his approval. I sit after the deck finishes. These guys are AWESOME. They are what I would label biker-rockers. They have long dark hair. One of them has on a cowboy hat - but it's a rocker cowboy hat, not a genuine one. The first thing the one to my left says as I sit down (because I don't look like your stereotypical BJ shark) is "You better know to hit a 16 against a 17." I smile grandly at him, because I adore his no bullshit introduction, and assure him that I know most of the rules, and I ask if I don't. There is an audible sigh of relief as I tell him that and we play the game. Despite the fact that I lose $87 in probably 15 minutes, which is most of my winnings, this is my favorite table of the night. They tell me their favorite parts of Australia (Brisbane being the best, apparently) and wish me goodbye as the dealer takes the last money I am willing to part with.

This is how I end my evening - walking to the cashier's cage with $113. I realize that many people see gambling as wrong (and it certainly can be addictive and destructive), but it's purely entertainment to me. I walked away $13 richer and several hours of enjoyment later, I am happy to head to bed.