Hit...Stay...Bust...Blackjack!

I start my new job on Monday. So I figured that today would be the perfect time (and my last opportunity for three months - the length of my "full-time temporary employment") to take off in the middle of the week for a day trip and go... gambling. Though it was tough to be inside on such a beautiful day, don't worry - I'm no hermit. I have enough freckles (and "racoon eyes" from my sunglasses) from sunbathing over the past week to last me a month.

I asked Keith earlier this week if he felt like going, and he was down, so I made reservations on this bus that picks up just two blocks from my place and goes to the River Rock casino - about an hour north of the Golden Gate Bridge. $10 gets you a roundtrip ride and includes a tip for the driver. And when you consider that the toll for the bridge is $5 alone (if we were to drive up), it's not a bad deal at all. Plus they give you three $5 match-credit coupons when you arrive at the casino, so it's like almost like you're getting paid to ride the bus. Yes, that's my logic and I'm sticking to it.

So we get there and I blow five bucks on a slot machine, but only because I had just gotten some nachos and wasn't allowed to eat them at where I really wanted to be: the blackjack tables. Exxxxxxcellent.

I had two hundred dollar bills with me (all I was intending to spend), and went to the cashier to exchange one of them for ten tens (so I wouldn't go through all my money in one sitting, if my luck was crap). Keith was already playing and I joined him after circling the tables and discovering that there were, unfortunately, no $5 tables. My first $30 didn't last long, so I switched tables, hoping the next table would be luckier for me.

It was. Though I wasn't having much luck with doubling down. Every time I got two cards totaling 10 or 11 and I doubled down, I would get dealt like a 3 or a 4. And every time I had 10 or 11 and I didn't double-down, I would, of course, get a 10. And of course I wasn't winning every hand. But soon I was back to what I had started with, and then some.

Here's my thing: If I have chips in front of me, I'll bet them. So every time I had about $50 or $60 in front of me, I would turn five of my $5 chips in for one $25 chip, and stick it in my back pocket. I continued to do this after I started playing with my second hundred bucks, and what started as $200 ended up as $275. Woohoo. :)

But I still had over an hour before the bus would leave. Keith was playing Texas Hold 'Em, and I wanted, well, more. But I didn't want to spend any of the $275... so--and I realize this defines logic--I went to the ATM and took out $60. And I went to an empty table (the dealer's eyes pleaded for me to sit down), and slapped down $40. At first, I wasn't having much luck. She really liked dealing me 12s. And, invariably, when I hit on them I would get 22. But I few bad hands aside, my stack started piling up. As did the $25 chips that I kept putting in my back pocket. After playing for a half hour, I was out of money... aside, of course, from the green chips in my pocket.

My $60 had become $150. Which means, overall, I won $165 today. Not too shabby, eh?