Ensight - Jeremy Wright

Not sure I’ve ever reviewed a place I’ve visited before… But Vegas left an impression. It’s not on my list of Top 5 North American Cities (1. Montreal, 2. Toronto, 3. New York, 4. San Francisco, 5. Seattle)… But it left an impression. While chatting with Shel I mentioned that it was hard to say if I should be amazed and awed or disgusted and disturbed. From talking to others, it’s apparent that’s a pretty common sentiment.

From the Paris casino to the Venice sceneway at The Venetian to the glitz and glamour and everything else that Vegas is. It somehow manages to simultaneously pull you in and push you away. Quite a feat really.

I spent about 48 hours in Vegas all told. Missed almost the entire conference I was in town for, mainly because a bunch of deals were going down that suddenly needed my attention.

I didn’t manage to see any shows, managed to explore 3 of the hotel/resort/casinoes. Stayed at The Aladdin. The hotel was alright. Mall was amazing. The entire “personality” of Vegas was pretty cool.

I did manage to gamble for a few hours. Lost about 200$ on slots before realizing that while it was fun and relaxing, slots were designed to suck the money from 99.5% of people. And, while I believe I’m pretty cool, I don’t feel that I’m in the top .5% every day of my life

Eventually, I switched to Blackjack. I took a “course” offered by the casino that gave you the basics of the stats on the game. Things like always bet the dealer’s hand, not yours, that the dealer is about 40% likely to bust on an up card of 2-6, that you should “never” split 5s and 2s and dozens of other things. Learned to split and double-down properly. I still felt totally unprepared going into my first game, though. Managed to make 100$ last about 2 hours, playing 10$ hands, so that isn’t too bad.

Totally realized, though, that playing 10$ hands was an easy way to lose your money as well. Even if you play BJ really well, you’ll always have fluctuations of “up” 50-200% and down 50-80%. Being up 200% on 100$ wouldn’t ever even cover my loss so far. So I dropped 1000$ after losing my first 100$. Playing 50$ hands. My low point was about 200$, but managed to claw my way back up to 1700$. Betting mostly 50$ hands when I was close to even, 100-200$ hands when I was way up, and 10-25$ hands when I was down.

Lots of really memorable hands (doubling down on 12 when the dealer had a 6), lots of fun folk wandered through the table. A few great dealers. A few absolutely awful ones.

All in all, I came out ahead after almost 8 hours of gambling (between slots and BJ), had a good time, got my room and food comp’d and have a comp’d room next time I go to Vegas (I “played through” over 20K, apparently they start to notice you after about 10K). I was nowhere near the biggest or ballsiest or winningest player to come through the table, but I had a lot of fun.

Good times

Oveall, I’d probably give Vegas a 3.5/5. Amazing, disgusting, fun, boring, troubling, fantastic. Vegas is certainly without compare. Just not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing. Awesome food though