Over a span of 50 hours, I had exactly six hours of sleep, and saw precisely 1.5 hours of daylight. Vegas took me for $200, and I loved every second of it.
Over the past two years, ESPN has taken poker from a weekly gathering of middle-aged men running from their nagging wives and screaming kids, and has made it an official sport. There is a poker league called the World Poker Tour, which airs its tournaments weekly on the Travel Channel. The World Series of Poker currently runs 24-7 on ESPN.
The game's newfound popularity has created recognizable "athletes" such as Phil Helmuth, Daniel Negranu and more. ESPN has decided that poker is a sport and is marketing it as such.
Vegas has always been my Mecca. I've been playing poker religiously for three years now, and if I thought I could win, I wouldn't be in school anymore. I would be playing professional poker.
While in Vegas, I discovered I may never be a poker god, but blackjack is easy enough. There is no skill involved and everything you need to play blackjack you learned watching Sesame Street, Barney, or my personal favorite, Eureka's Castle.
Blackjack has everything you could want in a pseudo-sport: great characters, drama, and a game easy enough and addicting enough that it will fool millions of people into thinking that they too can be multi-millionaires and walk around in matching sweat-suit combinations.
The novelty of poker seems to be waning a tad, which is why ESPN should consider blackjack as the next "it" sport. I can see it now. In the World Series, JP Penybaker stays on 19. Dr. Von Nostrum hits on 15. Will he bust? ... Cut to commercial.
Naturally the name of the league would be the League of Blackjack, or LBJ.
I am sure that the LBJ would create mass hysteria with people spending hundreds of dollars apiece on official blackjack tables and players who can barely talk, let alone read, writing books on how to play.
This will all lead to HBO creating the LDBJ, or the League of Drunken Blackjack. The LDBJ would go from casino to casino, find the drunkest players, start them off with 100 dollars and see who can last the longest without busting. The player left standing gets a free breakfast buffet in the morning.
One character that I met at the blackjack table, that would be a perfect fit for the LDBJ, is this businessman and his "girlfriend/lady of the night."
I'm at a table at 2 a.m. This man and his girlfriend sit down. The person sitting next to me mentions how he would like two paper bags over his head. One so that he wouldn't have to look at the girlfriend, the second in case the first one failed. This 40-year-old businessman was into '90s rap as he continually sang "I like big butts and I can not lie, you other brothers can't deny..." Or my personal favorite, "push it, push it real good." It was quite the scene.
Don't tell me you wouldn't watch this.
The dealer would have to play a major role in the show as well. You haven't lived until you have sat at a table with a dealer who doesn't speak English and won't stop hitting 21. Not good times, bad times.
There are three types of dealers. There is the friendly, jolly dealer who wants you to win, the kind that picks up their check and they couldn't care either way, and the kind that pulls cards out of his or her butt and enjoys beating you.
While at the tables, I had the pleasure of meeting one dealer named Rose who thought she was a stand-up comedian. She rooted against herself, told the players what the right move was on each hand, and had this line that still has me giggling: "Seventeen is like your mother-in-law. You want to hit her, but you know you can't."
On my first trip to Vegas, I can say that at one point I was up $400. I can also say I played blackjack for seven straight hours on Friday night not returning to the room until 4 a.m., something I am very proud of, thank you very much. I can also say that on that night I lost the 400, I was up plus the 200 I started with.
That is what Vegas is all about. It lures you in, lets you think you can beat the casinos, and then kapowee! (or some other "Batman" onomatopoeia) your rent money is gone.
Just like that girl that only calls you when she's drunk, Vegas hurts, but it leaves you wanting more.
Vegas, my fickle mistress, maybe one day I will see you on the LBJ.
Photo: Courtesy of SUNY
