20 December 2009

The Meadows

Nine o’clock on a Tuesday morning at the end of April 1981, and according to the giant illuminated figures at the top of the Mint hotel the temperature was already 92°. At the entrance of Binion’s Horseshoe Casino stood the famous horseshoe itself, seven feet high painted in gold, and enclosing within its arch a million dollars in ten-thousand-dollar bills. The hundred dollar bills are neatly ranked and held, for whatever foreseeable eternity, in some kind of super-Perspex – bulletproof, fireproof, bombproof – the perennial dream of the Las Vegas punter visible to all, although not quite touchable.
The million-dollar horseshoe reflected the glare of the morning sun on Fremont Street. Behind it were the gloom and movement: a long, low, rather shabby room, full of noise, smoke and, unlike the other casinos at this early hour, full of people. Women in halters and men in cowboy boots and Stetsons jostled each other around the roulette and craps tables, rattled the armies of slot machines, and perched in semicircles before the blackjack dealers; even the seats in the little keno lounge were mostly taken. At the back, there was already a crowd along the rail that separates the casual punters from the area that, for five weeks every year in the last decade, has been set aside for poker.

Excerpts from “The Biggest Game In Town” by Al Alvarez – great book and an enlightening read.

I will be shortly travelling to 'The Meadows' or, in spanish, 'Las Vegas' for New Year celebrations and poker. I will be giving myself strict guidelines as to when I should or shouldn’t play. I will also try to post more information on key hands throughout different tourneys. This will be the 3rd time I have visited the promised land and I hope to continue my success as so far I have always left in profit, albeit once was only $2 – damn roulette.