larry kubin

The weekend before Halloween, a group of 10 of us got together and spent the weekend in Las Vegas to celebrate Louis’ birthday and to just have a good time. Between us, we played a lot of craps, poker, and blackjack, and some even did some sports betting.

On night one I met up with Louis, Ali, Sara, and Amanda to have dinner at a fancy pants place called Andres. The name is so fancy that there is an accent mark above the ‘e’ that I don’t want to take the time to figure out how to type. We had all types of yuppie food like snails, oysters, and ribeye steaks. It was tasty, but really cut into my poker money.

After dinner, Ali and Amanda offered me a place to stay and said I could crash in their room, which was nice since I sort of showed up with no place to stay on Saturday night. So I dropped my stuff off in their room at the Monte Carlo, then we met up with Kenneth, Cassy, Brent, and his girlfriend at the MGM Grand. Brent was playing craps. I joined in and played for a while. Some asshole kept buying in and laying $20,000 on the table at a time. His bets were crazy and often he would put $300 on every number. He threw $300 at a pretty girl just for being there, then later threw Brent a $10 chip for a single cigarette. He was so drunk that you couldn’t understand a word he was saying though. He kept showing off about how he could buy this and that. It was hilarious sometimes, but mostly he just came across as a giant idiot. Not sure how he got all of his money, but he seemed way too reckless to have made it from gambling. He seemed as if he would have no problem lighting money on fire. It definitely made for an interesting round of craps. The table was fun — one roller went on a streak and I finished ahead slightly.

After our first round of craps, we went back to the room to chat for a while before walking around to look for some places to hang out. We ended up at the New York, New York for a bit, then Louis, Ali, and I headed back to the MGM for some more fun and games. This time didn’t work out as favorably. Apparently, some people actually do crap out frequently. So it goes.

The next day I entered a freeze-out poker tournament at the Excalibur, which was really fun. The tournament started out really well for me. After folding at least a dozen hands, a guy went all-in in front of me when I had pocket K’s so of course I had to call him. My heart beat really hard until I saw that the flop, turn, and river failed to produce an Ace. Relief. My stack was doubled early on and I was in good shape.

I won a few more pots, and was doing well until the blinds started rising rapidly. There’s a certain point in every tournament where you have to get aggressive even when you have nothing. I played fairly conservatively, and didn’t build up a large enough stack to survive when we got down to the final 10 players. I wouldn’t say I made any other major mistakes other than not being more aggressive towards the end. I failed to get paid off much when I was dealt pocket Aces. A simple 3x the big blind bet resulted in folds all around. I guess people were noticing that I only played good hands the entire time. My final hand, I was the small blind and was very short-stacked. Everyone folded and it was down to me and the big blind. I looked down and saw Ace-5 suited, and decided it was now or never. Sure enough, the big blind had pocket Queens. I still had a chance, but once the flop came, he caught his third Queen, no diamonds fell for me, and I was toast.

Afterwards, I got ready to finish the day with some live music. It happened to be the weekend of the Vegoose Music Festival, a Halloween-themed music festival being headlined by Rage Against the Machine and Daft Punk. Infected Mushroom was surprisingly good. Muse was fantastic as always, but Rage Against the Machine really stole the show. It seriously rocked. There is no boredom during this show. You are forced to engage as you put up your defenses just to avoid being taken down. All the while Zach de la Rocha is rapping lyrics like “All Hell can’t stop us now”, “Rip the mic, rip the stage, rip the system”, “The land of the free? Whoever told you that is your enemy”, and of course, “Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me!”. With Tom Morello adding a layer of the best riffs ever made, how can you not get fired up? Every time they perform Freedom it’s one of the greatest moments in rock and roll history. So yes, the festival was worth it.

On Monday, I spent most of the day walking around the strip, taking pictures, and buying a few gifts for Ashley and myself. I won a little at poker when my Aces got cracked at Excalibur and I got to “spin the wheel”. I lost a little at craps once again. Note: don’t gamble by yourself. I later went to check out the fountains at the Bellagio, since I heard it was a pretty sight to see. Like every other dork that showed up, I too, took a video. It was indeed pretty and worthwhile — the only downside was that I had to sit through a Celine Dion song.

Las Vegas is a strange place. So much money changing hands in the form of little colored chips made of clay, Las Vegas’ official currency. People pulling levers for a chance to “win big”, but mostly losing their hard-earned money. So many emotions, such a roller coaster. You’re always walking the fine line between having the best time of your life and feeling slightly depressed for throwing away perfectly good money. It’s strange to think that all of these ridiculously large and fancy hotels are built on greed and probability. They are all so over-the-top, and sprinkled with neon lights, inauthenticity, pig-out buffets, and assholes.

Yet both times I’ve been I had a great time, and I will be going back next year for Kevin’s birthday. If you enjoy gaming like I do, have a couple hundred bucks, a couple of friends, and a small amount of self-restraint, it can be a great cheap vacation.