TwoGun and I made it to Vegas about an hour ago and I’m already down $800. We checked into the Bellagio about an hour before the Nuggets vs. Lakers tipoff, so I made my way over to a $50 minimum blackjack table. If you play perfectly, the house edge in that game is pretty small. I don’t have a problem doing a little intelligent gambling in the name of trying to land free hotel rooms at various MGM properties.

I was playing by myself for the first twenty minutes or so before this obnoxious guy and a couple of his friends sat down. Normally I’d be put off about not only no longer having the table to myself, but having to play with drunk, annoying guys to boot. However, this instance was a little unique. The loud guy pulled out four $5,000 chips and said “yellows please” (yellows = $1,000 apiece).

As far as I’m concerned, you can be as annoying as you want if you’re going to be playing two hands at a time of $2k per hand, which he did. The table actually got a bit of a crowd gathered around because he was shouting with joy everytime he won a hand. I talked to him a little bit. Apparently he’s from Iran and claims to be the best poker player in the world. He said he’d play me heads up for any stakes I wanted. I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not, but I didn’t have enough energy (nor did I really even care) to inquire further.

After getting dusted off for 13 bets in that game, I’m back up in the room watching basketball now with TwoGun. We both have a pretty big rooting interest in the Nuggets in this series (he moreso than I). Anyway… hopefully they can force a game seven so as not to compound my nearly instant frustration after stepping off the plane in Vegas tonight!

My Uncle arrives in an hour or so. I’ll probably meet up with him after the game is over to head to the Rio and register for tomorrow’s $1k WSOP event. My mind isn’t really focused on poker right now, but I’m optimistic that will change once I sit down at the table tomorrow.