"Cocktails"
"Drinks"
The cocktail waitress shouts out as she walks by.
"Crown and Coke"
I shout back while looking at her direction. She writes down the drink order and takes some more before disappearing back to the bar well.
And so it starts, again.
She comes up behind me after a few minutes and lays the drink on the table. I give her the standard tip.
I take that first sip, too much coke and not enough crown. I down this one quickly and count my cards. I wave my hand across the cards, motioning to stand.
I am monitoring my chip stack. I catch a good run of cards early and my chip stack nearly doubles. We played through a six deck shoe.
The cocktail waitress comes back a little later.
"Cocktails"
"Another Crown"
I continue to play and take in the atmosphere. Besides me are a few of my friends, playing alongside and we have this table to ourself. In front of me are the "sexy blackjack" dealers.
They look like the attractive girl next door who happens to know how to deal cards. They are wearing short black dress and low cut shirt, just showing enough skin but keeping it classy. Tonight there are three of them for the late shift and rotating between the tables.
The music playing is the usual contemporary hits but soon a hip hop song came on, then a little show is being perform by the dealers. These are the types of moments I love hip hop.
I lay down a dealer's bet, for some dealer's karma.
The waitress comes back, places the new crown on the table and removes the empty glass. Feeling a little generous because of my growing stack, I give her a tip that maybe she will remember me by.
I take a fast sip and this one was on par, just the right amount of crown and coke.
We reach the end of the shoe, this is about the second time so far tonight. There's no automatic shuffle here. The dealer picks up the six deck of cards and begins to shuffle them manually. We continue to exchange friendly banters with the dealers, pushing the boundary.
Then there is collection of memory I am recalling at this moment, connected by times I have had with crown. Usually during vacation and always a good time.
"Cocktails"
As the waitress shouts out behind me. I turn around, make eye contact and just give her a quick nod. She comes around quickly and exchange drinks and I leave another good tip.
The drinks are getting beyond par, a lot of crown in this one as expected.
I love manual shuffle, besides the extended time taken do it, the cards are not uniformly distributed. They tend to come out in groups of high or low cards. We run through the rich part of the deck, high value cards are being seen more often. This shoe had the most blackjack during the session and the dealer would bust more often. Just so you know, blackjack pays 3 to 2 here.
During the course of this shoe, we do several pound with explosion to celebrate and make exchanges with the dealers as well. I expanded to toke the dealer every hand. Dealer karma is at its highest point.
"Thanks"
"I appreciate it"
Sweet voices.
I continue to play, we go through a fourth shoe. The waitress is coming back in rapid succession. Slowly, I am losing my ability to count my own cards. I am on autopilot after a few drinks, relying on my basic strategy reflexes and help from the female dealers.
"So what should I do with these cards? Honestly, I can't add or count anymore"
She laughs.
"I don't know, I don't want you to lose but you have a soft 16, I would take a card"
"Alright, I trust you"
Cards come out.
"hmmm, I am sorry"
I can't be mad at a face looking like that too long.
I check my chip stack, I am about even. A few hands later we change to the third dealer, the most attractive of the girls of the bunch but quiet. We slowly work her up.
Another shoe change and we start a new. During the course of this shoe, my stack starts to slowly dwindle but like all game of chance, volatility is to be expected. I jokingly take out my frustration on one my friends, he is deviating from basic strategy.
"Really? Dealer showing a 5"
"And you are hitting on 14?"
Looking towards him.
He takes the 9, bust. Dealer turns her card over, has a solid 15.
The 9 would of been the bust card. She gets the next card which was 5, gives her a 20. I lose having 19.
This type of scenario goes on throughout this shoe, some go in his favor and many times not for me.
"Let's trade him to the other table" I shout
Everyone laughs but they are all in agreement. I inquire with the pit boss about the trade. But then I hear.
"Cocktails"
I see her in the distances. I look over her direction again. She writes down on her pad and walks away.
We get through another shoe and for the first time tonight I am to reaching into my wallet to re-buy in. The waitress comes back in time and the usual exchange is made, old drink out, new drink in, tip given. The continue flow of crown will make me feel better and it does for my recent losing effort.
We eventually rotate through the female dealers one more time. I played through several more shoes, had some brief luck on some runs followed by extended times on the losing end. Dealer karma at this point was all but exhausted.
Late in the evening, the pit boss informs us that the end of the girls shift was nearing and we are given the equivalent of a two minute warning. I am disappointed but relieved at the same time that the session was to coming to an end. We play several more hands and a little later we reach the cut card in the shoe.
I decide to call it a evening and donate the rest of my stack to the dealers toke, which at this point is not very much. The rest of my friends color up and two of them actually had a positive session.
After a little break we make a trip to the cashier cage, everyone except for me cashes out. I enjoy my last crown for the evening.
We go back to the tables and say our goodbyes to the friendly dealers.
"Come back soon"
"I will and when is the next time that you are working?"
"We work for an agency, so we'll be at a different casino tomorrow but I will be at ..."
I digress.
It was a negative session tonight but I thoroughly had a good time. It was one of the rare times that I did not feel too bad about losing.
Obviously, the crown and coke helped a lot. But besides that and gambling, we entertained each other, traded jokes and stories, flirted with the attractive female dealers and was drinking like there's no tomorrow.
So good times and is that not what being on vacation is all about.
