Casino Night

Even though I don’t start on my new job until Monday, I was invited to their Christmas party last light. The theme was casino night. Hmmm tough sell. I guess I’ll go. If I have to.

There are two other guys who used to work for my old employer working at my new one. And one more who will be starting with me on Monday. For those of you scoring at home, that means there are twice as many ex-employees at my new company as there are employees at the old one. We had planned to meet up at one of the guy’s houses before the party to hang out for a bit and so that we could all arrive together, since some of us didn’t know anyone there.

Just before my wife and I were about to leave it started snowing. By the time we left it was all out blizzard conditions. It was the worst kind of snow. Big fat thick flakes so you couldn’t see ten feet in front of you covering everything with a slippery layer of sludge.

We pulled out of our neighborhood, and to a stoplight. Then BAM! Some kid plowed into the back of our car propelling us into car in front of us. Great. That’s just what I don’t need. Of coarse this is my wife’s car, our good car, that got hit. My car is a POS ’93 Oldsmobile that I’ve had since high school and taken shitty care of, but since wife usually takes the train to work, so I rarely have to drive it. And I’m a cheap bastard, so I’m not going to buy a new car until this one stops running. And it’s a stubborn SOB so it won’t die. Now I’m going to be forced to drive my car while hers is in the shop. Also, I have to wait here in the cold for the cops to show up and I’m going to be quite late to the holiday party if I make it all.

About 45 minutes later, the cops have finally finished writing up the accident (I certainly don’t envy them since we were probably the first of about 400 that they would have to write up that night) and it is still snowing a ton. I want to say it was pouring, or a torrential downpour, but I don’t think those descriptions apply to snow. Anyway it was really snowing. I was very close to just turning around and going home, but I wanted to meet some of me new coworkers, and plus there was the gambling that I always enjoy.

We missed the pre-party at my friend’s, but we were able to make it to the actual party at about the same time they did. When we first got there, we were given five raffle tickets to enter into drawings to win prizes such as an x-box, an iPod, a digital camcorder, an entertainment system, and some other stuff. I split my entries between the iPod and the entertainment system.

The dinner was nice. They had a variety of meats and pastas, and salads and drinks and things. Definitely like the free drinks, although I didn’t partake too much since I’d be driving home in a blizzard. Although my car was already messed up so what’s the worst that can happen? Kidding.

After dinner they announced the winners of the raffle and I managed to win the iPod, which my wife immediately claimed. The rest of the people booed me since I won one of the better prizes and I don’t even technically work there yet. Ha-ha. Suckers. That iPod means that I got more of a Christmas bonus at the company I haven’t started at yet than I did last year at the company I had been at for five years. Although I could have said the same about the fact that we had free drinks.

After that it was onto the casino. They had a number of blackjack tables, a couple poker tables, a roulette wheel, a big wheel of fortune looking wheel thing, and a game that looked a lot like craps, but apparently wasn’t.

My wife is not much of a gambler, so we went over to roulette, which is probably the easiest to explain and doesn’t really take much stategery. I think she hit her number on two of the three spins. Before I get ahead of myself, I want to point out that at every table I sat down on the dealer/operator didn’t know some of the rules. In this case, he claimed we could only bet ten chips on any spin of the wheel, and that was state law. Never mind the fact that we were playing with play chips. It wasn’t just ten on any number, which might make sense because it could break the bank if you hit, it was ten chips total on the board. Maybe I’m wrong here, but I’m pretty sure that the few time’s I’ve played roulette, you had to wager at least 10 on each spin. If you are at a $10 table and you have $1 chips that means you have to spend at least 10 of them. Anyway, we eventually lost our buy in as you are prone to do playing roulette, so we moved on.

I sat down at the blackjack table and my wife went to the spinning wheel of fortune thing. The blackjack dealer was old, and senile, and would have been much better served spinning the wheel thingy than having to play a game where you had use math. Now I’m not great at totally up the cards either, but it’s also not my job.

You know how when the dealer has a face card or ace showing, he will check to see if he has a blackjack before continuing with the hand? Well this guy kept doing that, and whenever he wouldn’t have a blackjack, he would turn over the cards, and start dealing them out to himself as if we had already played. Once or twice would have been fine, but he did it almost every time. He also paid out blackjacks at 2-1 instead of 3-2. Not that I’m complaining. He was a nice guy though, just not the best dealer.

My friend Noah was just about broke from blackjack, so he wandered over to the poker table where he figured he could make it back. I wasn’t going to play poker because when I walked by the table earlier they were explaining the ranks of hands to people. While I love poker, playing against people who have no idea what they are doing for play money is probably not going to be all that great of an experience. I’d be better served playing roulette. But, my wife abandoned me at the blackjack table, and a seat opened up for poker, so there I was.

In keeping with tradition, this dealer also didn’t quite know the rules. The blinds were last to act on all streets, not just preflop. And I had to correct him on a split pot situation when neither player’s kicker played. Sorry Noah. Other than that it was a typical loose passive game. I really wanted to gamboooool it up a bit, but I didn’t have a ton of chips, and I kept getting cards that were unsuited, added up to less than twelve, and had at least a two gap in between them. I wanted to wait for a monster to try to double up.

My “monster” came in the form of [Ks Td] and a flop of [Ts 4s 6s]. I lead out, and there was some raises, before Noah sitting on my right puts me all in. I think there were two or three other people still in the hand but I’m the short stack. I figured I have top pair, decent kicker and a draw to the second nut flush. Maybe no one has a flush yet, and if they do, maybe no one has the ace and I have outs. And if no one has the flush, I do have top pair, so maybe no one else will improve later on. Right? Lets gamboool. [2s] comes on the turn and I win the pot. I’m sure there was betting after I was all in, but somehow I won those chips too. It probably wasn’t worth the effort to build a side pot. I gave Noah a handful of chips since I had just taken all of his and we kept playing.

Eventually Noah and I had taken almost all of the chips on the table, and were down to four handed poker. Then Tracy, I think that’s name, who will be my new project manager, stopped by to do a team bonding success celebration shot. Apparently last year her team had just finished a huge project before the party and did a number of group shots in celebration. In keeping with tradition we would do one this year too. Except the bartender wouldn’t do shots. I think last years celebration got a little carried away and that had something to do with it. Tracy talked the organizer into letting us do shots just this once. Of coarse they didn’t have shot glasses so we did a tumbler full. I’m going to like my new team.

There were some other drunken foolishness, but since I don’t really know the people that well, I think I’ll hold off on commenting for a while. Besides this post has grown quite long and I’d be surprised if anyone is still reading. Plus it’s almost time for football, so I have to wrap this up.