Vega$ and Beer
This weekend, we're going down to Tucson for a Beer Festival of some kind with Paul and Maureen. It looks like we'll be spending Saturday night at the Clarion down there. It's a mere two miles away from the U of A campus, so we'll likely run into the college alcoholic crowd.
We're also planning a trip to Vegas for the end of October. Paul and Mo are again joining us, this time with Paul's parents in tow as well. The rooms aren't reserved yet - we're still hoping to score a last-minute Priceline deal at the Venetian. Failing that, it looks like we'll be staying at the Aladdin. There's a comic book convention in town that weekend, so that's (ostensibly) what inspired Paul to want to make the trip. I always have a good time in Vegas; our past three trips, I've come back home a winner each time. The last trip in particular was fantastic - I came home up $700. I would have been up $1100, but I fell prey to the evil plans of the Gold Nugget casino downtown. Never again!
My strategy is fairly simple: I sit down with $100 at Blackjack, and leave when I'm up $50. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes, sometimes 2 hours. Usually it's on the short side, so I end up with a lot of time to kill while Ron, Paul and Vik fight it out. They come to play, I come to win. :) I don't particularly enjoy gambling in and of itself - I find it very stressful. I can't sit there for hours on end playing, as I'm too fixated on my money flow. So this strategy works well for the most part - I find that at some point in my blackjack playing, I'm usually up, and it's just a matter of figuring out when to cut out. In theory, I stop playing if I lose all of the $100, but that's where the Golden Nugget bit me last trip. I'd never actually hit the point where I'd lost all my money, and figuring that I was already up $900 at that point in the trip, what would another $100 hurt? That was a bad move - you should never continue gambling when emotions or pride might cloud your judgement.