First Vegas Trip of 2011

I went on a short trip to Vegas just this week. It was the first time I made it out to Vegas this year. I ate a ton of food and drank a lot, which I imagine wasn’t great for my health. I actually gambled for less than two hours for the entire two-night stay, but I managed to make over $300, through a series of lucky cards.

I tried out the 1-3-2-6 betting strategy I learned in blackjack for the first time with real money. I was hoping that with my half-assed mathematical analysis from last time that I gave up on after realizing it was all wrong, somebody would figure out the actual expected value of the betting strategy, but nobody did, and I haven’t sat down to do it, either. But I went ahead and did it. Statistics professors everywhere would be spinning in their graves, if they cared.

The first night, I managed to make $300 in profit after 25 minutes at a $10 minimum blackjack table. I managed to actually make it through the 1-3-2-6 cycle twice with a win at the end, which means I managed to get streaks of at least four wins twice. Amazing luck. On one of those, I got an 11 against a dealer 8 on the 6-bet stage, which was $60, and so I had to double down. I drew a 9, thankfully, and won the hand for $120 profit on that one hand.

The next day, blackjack didn’t go so well. In the span of 15 minutes, at a $15 minimum table, I lost it all. Oh well. At least I came out ahead overall in blackjack.

I played some poker, but not nearly as much as I usually do. I only played for about 45 minutes, where I only had one big hand. I was at a $1/2 no-limit table, and there were two limpers, one guy under the gun and one guy in early position. I had KQ offsuit on the button with about $240 behind and raised to $12. One of the blinds called, and both limpers called. The flop was K63 rainbow. The blind checked, and then the UTG guy bet $40. The other limper folded. The UTG guy was this European guy who played aggressively, but not super-loosely, at least judging from the 15 minutes or so I had been watching him. I had a bad feeling about his bet. I thought he had a really big hand, like 66 or 33, since he bet out into three people. But I called, since he could have just been bluffing like he had done before. The other guy folded, and we went to the turn, which was another K. Great card for my hand, but it also didn’t really change anything, since if he was ahead on the flop, he’d still be ahead on the turn, unless he had 63, which seemed really unlikely. He bet $100, when I only had about $180 left. Obviously, he was prepared to call an all-in bet, so it really seemed like he had a full house on the turn. I thought there was a slim chance he had a hand like KJ or KT that he tried to limp in with, maybe because it was suited. But I just went with my gut and pushed all my chips in, which he instantly called. I couldn’t tell if it was because he was already pot-committed, or because he had a full house, but that wasn’t comforting at all. The river was a fortunate Q, giving me the nuts. I turned my hand over, and he angrily mucked. From his reaction and the way he played the hand, I’m guessing he had 66 or 33 and turned a full house. But I’ll never know now. At least I won the ~$480 pot! Because I probably sucked out on him.

And then I just slowly bled chips over the next half an hour, and I ended up at about $460, for a $260 profit. Not bad for 45 minutes! I know, I got lucky. But that’s why it’s called gambling, right?