After waiting 2 1/2 years to hit the road again, I was very anxious to leave Houston, Texas and head northeast. It was around 6:00 pm before leaving the city limits on highway 59 heading towards Lousiana. Unfortunately, the first day of driving will be all familiar territory as I made my first major stop at Harrah's casino in Bossier, Louisiana at 11:00 pm. Bossier has become a place for many gamblers since there are now 5 large casinos here: Harrah's, Isle of Capri, Horseshoe, Casino Magic, and recently, Hollywood's.
(The week before, it was Memorial Day weekend, and I took a 3 day roadtrip to New Mexico, stopping short of Carlsbad before heading back to Houston. The weather was blistering hot at 110 degrees Farenheit (43.3 Celcius) at 5:00 pm New Mexico time- that was about 10 degress Farenheit hotter than Houston. So the Memorial Day roadtrip can be seen as a prequel to this road trip.)
The casino was the only event on the agenda today (there is really no agenda, except to head northeast). If this was how the roadtrip was to begin, then this was a bad omen. I lost $450 and was angry at myself for not showing more control. This was more than enough for gas money- probably enough for gas, food, and camp site fees for at least 2 weeks. Because of the disaster, I had about doubled the cost of the roadtrip. I should have been more prudent since I was too tired to count. And one of the rules of card-counting is to never play when you are tired, which I have broken many times.
After losing $135 at blackjack and $30 at craps, I had enough and left. The Cresseida has some alarm problems, and it was unintentionally set off, and when it's set off, the vehicle won't start for a long time sometimes. And this turned out to be one of those sometimes. So after trying to reset the alarm for 15 minutes, I gave up and went to the ATM to play some more to wait for the alarm to reset. That's when disaster happened. I was up and down with the $300 from the ATM until I lost it all on one shoe. That was enough, and I promised myself I would no longer gamble for the rest of the year. It turned out, I lied. I had about 6 bucks left including all the lose change in the Cresseida. Six bucks was not enough to cover most camp site fees.
After losing all my money, the Cresseida still would not start. So I decided to sleep in the casino parking garage. After about 3-4 hours of sleep the alarm still had the starter disengaged. So I woke up and decided this was enough. I had to play around with the system for quite a while before the engine started. Had the car started earlier, I would have saved $300.
The journey continued north at 4:30 am. Arkansas wasn't too far away and it was my next stop. After today, the roadtrip could only get better.
Casino journal: Hollywood's is probably the best place to play blackjack. The casino resort is the closest thing to a Las Vegas Casino. Blackjack rules include stand of all 17's, double down on any first 2 cards, double down after splitting, and resplit aces. The 2 things which seperate this casino from the other casino is the player-favoring rule of replitting ace rule and the casino allows the player to bet the minimum amount on multiple hands. (The other area casinos require the player to double the bet when playing multiple hands.) Horseshoe also allows resplitting aces, but double bets on multiple hands. Harrah's allows late surrender, and is the second best place to play since penetration is very good- most dealer will cut out a 1 to 1 1/2 decks. Even though I have won at the only time I played at Isle of Capri, the Isle is really the worst place to play since most dealers cut out 2 decks.
I arrived at Harrah's late in the evening and was very tired. There was a quick stop at Isle of Capri because I won there the last time I was here, but did not buy in after seeing how many decks the dealer cut away. I played blackjack and left and went over the craps table. Recently, I read a book on how to bet at craps- the only good bets are pass/come, don't pass/come, and the 6 and 8; all other bets are sucker bets. The higher the odds, the better for the player if the player has the bankroll to cover the full odds. Needless to say, I bet $10 on the pass and insured it, and lost- a total of $30 on one roll. So it was back to blackjack.
At one point I was up $50 and should have left, but instead lost $135. And then lost another $300 from the ATM. Needless to say, I was a little disgusted with myself for not quitting sooner.
I think my shuffle tracking is getting a little better. In fact it's not very difficult to keep track of where the low cards are in the deck. The dealers try to throw you off by inserting the unplayed cards behind the cut card randomly back into the discard tray.
