Chip Quest

I've climbed out of the rut that I call life long enough to try to put a few words and pictures on this here bloggie thingie.

On Wednesday I headed out on a mission to pick up a few dozen chips (some for myself and some for some crazy guy in England). My journey began at Mandalay Bay. Crazy English Guy wanted 40 $1 chips and 5 $5 chips, preferably uncirculated. Buying chips directly from the casinos is sometimes an adventure and you never know if they will have received a new order recently. If they have, you may get chips that haven't been on the tables for years with rounded edges, gouges, ten layers of snot, spit and other unidentifiable gunk on them. Some casinos even recognize that there are daft people who collect those funny little clay-like disks and actually keep a box or two of uncirculated chips in the cage incase a certifiable person walks up and wants to buy a chip for their collection. Mandalay Bay isn't one of these places! I headed to the poker room and purchased four racks of $1 chips, a rack at a time and commenced to sorting them on a dead table. Speaking of dead tables, there were a lot of them there.

Grand total of poker games at Mandalay Bay(1:30 PM)........ONE.

My next stop was the Luxor. Crazy English Guy hadn't requested any chips from Luxor but I have been on a mission to pick up at least one of the $4 drop chips that they use in their poker room. I've tried at least 4 time to no avail. The fifth time was the charm. I know someone who knows someone and, well, I finally got the chip.

Grand total of poker games at Luxor......One at 2:15ish PM. Three at 3:30 PM.

Next stop MGM Grand. If you park in their parking lot be prepared for a loooong hike. Me? I always park at the Tropicana and walk over. Trust me, it's closer than the MGM garage. If you are really lucky, you can snag one of about 9 spots near the bus parking and avoid the Trop garage. Those parking spots were my little secret. Now you all know about them and I'll never get one again.

In any case the MGM is usually helpful with chip requests....unless you want one of their $3 poker room drop chips. They guard these like gold. Why? Who knows. The MGM is one of the casinos who keep boxes of uncirculated $1 chips for collectors. I grabbed a few stacks of those for the Crazy English Guy. Then I angled for a stack of the $3 chips. The poker room, as usual, wouldn't sell them, but the cage sold me a stack. Go figure.

NOTE TO CASINOS: The chips cost slightly more than $1 to buy from the manufacturer. If I pay $3 for one of them and walk out the door never to return for the purpose of cashing them in......YOU JUST MADE NEARLY $2 PROFIT. Figure it out people.

Grand total of poker games at the MGM at 4:00PM....Twelve.

My next chip stop was to be Bellagio, but wait! I have free slot play at Tuscany and it's (almost) right on the way. Three hours later (damn machines):

Grand total of poker games at Tuscany...One when I got there 4:15ish and one when I left after 7:00PM.

Next stop Bellagio. The only casino in town where you have to open your trunk for inspection in order to enter the parking garage. I've ALWAYS wanted to have someone hide in my trunk for the purposes of scaring the hell our of the attendant when he looks in my trunk. If you want to volunteer for trunk duty, please let me know. We'll also need someone to follow us into the garage and video the whole scene. I KNOW it's been done a few times but I think Halloween night would be a good time to do it again.

I hit the Bellagio poker room in search of uncirculated $10 and $20 chips. HA! The $20 chips are so worn that I don't even buy one. I got a few $10 that aren't in good shape but hopefully nice enough to please the Brit.

Grand total of poker games at Bellagio 7:30ish.........Twenty Four!!

The rest of the town might be dead, but Bellagio chuggs along (even tough 24 games isn't a "busy" night there).

The conservatory is in the Fall mode:

Yes, those are real apples.

Meanwhile, back at the Palms, a $200-400 mixed game broke out on table 10 on Friday. This is highly unusual for us. Unfortunately it played short-handed, mostly heads-up, and broke 30 minutes before I was to deal that table. Although most dealers would rather knaw off their own arm than deal to one of the players, I was looking forward to dealing it if for no other reason than we are all hold 'em all the time and I'd like to deal other games once in awhile.

I guess I should be careful what I wish for.....