Started the day by sleeping in, followed by French toast at Hash House A Go Go - of course, if you know anything about HHAGG, you know the portions are ridiculously large. I finished only about ⅔ of the French toast plate I walked around checking out the scene and finally settled on a blackjack table.
As I was buying in, a lady at the next table became very excited and three pit bosses came over. Apparently, she was playing the $5 side bet for the progressive and she was dealt:Jack♦️Queen♦️and the dealer was dealt King♦️Ace♦️Voila! Progressive win--verified--however, despite having just banked an amazing chunk of change, the lady did not leave - -I heard her say "Im just gonna play a little bit more" - I remember thinking to myself: "famous last words" WOW!!!
In other news, I lost the first 12 hands of the shoe, with the dealer making 21 or blackjack on 6 of those hands. I persevered and, by the end of the shoe, made it all back plus another $50 - Trip +550
Took a nap for about an hour and headed back to play some more -- played in the High Limit room by the Wolf Den and, by the end of one shoe, picked up another $600 - Trip +1150
Headed to dinner at Bobby Flay's Bar Americain where I had the homemade potato chips (nice and warm with a bleu cheese dipping sauce) to accompany my NY Strip steak perfectly cooked with a house steak sauce. Yummy!
After dinner I played a little bit, once again running into the "billion hands" theme - meaning, I know other people's play does not affect me in the long rung but, in the short run, it usually kicks my a$$. Guy at third base refused to hit 12 versus 3 (tracking the cards thereafter, his playing basic strategy would have resulted in a table win). Of course, the lady next to me and I both lost the next four hands while third base enjoyed 2 blackjacks over the next four hands. I then hit a King, 2 versus dealer 4 (content dependent basic strategy move) and thirds base chimed in that I "didn't know what I was doing" - I replied, "you are probably right" and went about my business, losing about 1100 before heading to the COMIX comedy show headlined by @paulmecurio who did a lot of crowd work - passing by me walking through the crowd, he asked if I was "half-Asian" and said he would get back to me, which he did about 5 minutes later when he asked a man, woman and me to join him on the stage -- he asked me when the last time I took steroids was and I told him "not recently" LOL-- asked where I was from and, when I replied Long Island, got a huge response from the crowd -- he then asked me the last time I "cupped a man's balls" LOLOLOL - to which I replied "not recently" - the crowd laughed and he told me to "go f*** myself" and "he would do the jokes" LOL -- he took photos with us on stage and said he would post them on Twitter and Facebook -- so much fun!
After the show, I figured I would play some more cards and sauntered towards one of the high limit pits - to my surprise, the lady that had won the blackjack progressive side bet earlier was still playing - actually table-hopping - and she did not looked pleased - after all, by this time, 10 hours had passed since her victory -- why she didn't leave I will never know.
So I sat down at a table with another guy and we are playing a break even game for a few shoes until I finally get a few hundred back, at this point, only being down 500 for the trip. However, it was then we faced a dealer change and a chill wind blew through Mohegan Sun. I lost the next 20 of 25 hands, including 4 double downs. I had great cards (18-20 almost every hand) -- only to fall into the "lose by 1" pattern. It became a bloodbath but, something happened that surprised me -- since taking these few months off and vowing to not making gambling the primary focus of a trip to a casino, I did not go on tilt, I did not run to the ATM, I did not take a cash advance -- I just took it as the cost of entertainment, knowing I could have fun and a good time and, if I lost, ok, there would be another time where I could win or get a piece of it back. YEs, the cards were horrible, but, I did not become a horrible version of myself upon losing. Perhaps I have matured...?
As always, I welcome all of your thoughts and comments.