By: Bishop

So a quick primer, from my perspective. I’ve been to Las Vegas before nbd, and really thought it was a good idea to go back. Well we quickly found out that flying in for 5 fucking days, was a terrible idea (your mom could have told me that right?). So after after a refreshing night of drinking, pai gow, and harassing hookers til 6 am, we slept and woke up to our wonderful hotel room, filled with the flippant noise of giant fucking construction vehicles, going about their day, right across the street. Probably building another hotel slash casino, no one wants or needs.

Grt’s comments over here

So we start a routine here that will become the daily for the rest of our trip: Alka-seltzer (I’m in my 30’s fuck off), wake up, drink, sit down, drink, stand up, drink (thanks Kendrick!).

We take the time to breathe and discuss and go over our list of shitty stuff to do in Vegas (oooh wow the Neon Museum! Burlesque museum! MOB MUSEUM), knowing full well we won’t fuck with any of that shit.

We walk to the front of the lobby and I call a L Y F T. We are very happily reunited with our main man GARY. I Love this guy. He is very excited to have us back again as customers and immediately starts with the early morning (3 pm) japes and southern slang. We are in a brief heaven, discussing how his old girlfriend here was a show girl, and he was super stoked about that. What he WASN’T stoked about was her becoming a prostitute shortly after. Bless his heart he tried to stay with her but he said the life just wasn’t for him, he couldn’t come to terms with her just taking all that dick.

Gary is the midget guy from last night.

He made it sound like it was her idea for him to be her pimp. I remain incredulous to this information

Gary then went into a tirade about how we shouldn’t fuck with any prostitutes around here since he was recently informed of a potential urban legend, SUPER gonorrhea. We have heard of this menace on a previous trip to L.A. where a billboard informed us that it does exist. Unfortunately for Natalie (reference to part 1).

Gary drops us off at a partner branch of my credit union, because my debit card conveniently stopped working a week before and I never fixed it, because you know I’m a millennial and we constantly fuck up. They quickly inform me that they can’t do shit and to never speak to them again. I call a lyft. The lyft driver has the most potent axe stench I’ve ever been assaulted with, and GRT and I struggle with breathing the rest of the trip, to our next destination.

We decided to get steak and be upstanding gentleman and checked out a little place called Herbs and Rye. It has 50% off steaks for happy hour and CLASSIC COCKTAILS. Like old world shit. ANYWAY, we show up, quickly informed that the wait is an hour, so we fuck off to find a bar.

We walk up to this bar that is next door, it’s entrance is pretty bland and the door looks like a fucking service door but they have a giant neon sign so, why not. We pop that bitch open and we are greeted to what looks like a long hallway leading into some old bro’s apartment and a vending machine, we quickly walk away because we are cowards. Then we walk around a desolate strip mall filled with usual bullshit, dry cleaner, cell phone repair man, three Korean restaurants, and a babbling homeless guy pushing a cart which we obviously ignored, because that’s what you do.

We can’t find anything near and its super fucking cold, so we walk back in shame to that bar. The G.O.A.T. We were expecting the worst, but were pleasantly surprised, that despite the cigar and cigarette smoke, it was actually kind of tight. We sit down, GRT whips out his wallet, says some incoherent bullshit, and starts playing video poker (oh no).

This place was actually tight. It had wacky art, good drinks, and it wasn’t too loud. There are GAME KING machines at the bar

I ask for a whiskey soda, GRT says TWO.

GAME KING is video poker

I ask for a whiskey soda, GRT says TWO.

The optimal strategy for JACKS OR BETTER (the casino-nerd name for video poker) has an expected payout with optimal strategy of 99.54% – I think this pretty good for having a bartender right in front of you

I ask for a moscow mule (which was advertised as winning an award in year of our lord 2016), GRT says SAME. He gets a whiskey soda and I get a mule that is great.

I wanted a mule

We sit for awhile wasting time until we get a text, we are handed the check which is surprisingly small , since we were gambling, he comped a bunch of drinks and GRT won a small homeless man’s fortune.

So we get to the restaurant, its fucking packed with assholes trying to impress their family or dates, and we are wearing hoodies and joking around drunk like scum bags. As platonic hetero life mates, it was a good place to be and order some fancy drinks and some big dick energy rib eyes. I haven’t had a steak that good in years, we promptly jizzed our pants, and walked out as fast as possible.

I haven’t had a steak that good

We thought it was a good idea to walk 20 minutes to the next casino (THE PALACE. OOOOO.) I get a call that I left my credit card like a belligerent fat piece of shit that I am, so we walk back. We take an opportunity to do a photo op with GRT and what appears to be a tribute to the trash gods.

Boring shit happens and we screech about how cold it is, but we get the card and a lyft to the Rio, the promise land of pai gow. Our lyft driver is a cute lil lady, that quickly informs us that she is the cashier of a strip club called the little darlings. She also tells us its a 18+ (ew) and there’s a 35 dollar cover (lol). Being from the land of strip clubs, I am very offended. Immediately.

I still want to go to the strip club

Rio is a fucking bust. So many tables, but they are all full. Or rich dudes playing two hands (FURY. ANGER. SELF HATRED.). We move on to the Gold Coast with high hopes and frozen dicks. We get inside and same. FUCKING. STORY. We leave in a rage, and squeal in the cold until we find the land of H O P E. FREEDOM. FREE DRINKS.

After hours of fumbling around and fucking up our lives, we walk into the Palms. We are immediately worried because its fancy as fuck, and we know its going to be expensive. OH CONTRAIRE MON FRAIRE . We finally find $10 pai gow tables and screech. BUT WAIT. THERE IS FAT FUCKING TWO HANDS. Taking up the entire fucking table. And drunk old people talking about bullshit I don’t care about. I sit down cause I’m fucking tired of walking and hating myself, and GRT scurries to the bar to play video poker, his new found obsession.

Ok. so, the OPTIMAL STRATEGY for jacks or better OBVIOUSLY depends on what payout you’re using, be it DOUBLE BONUS POKER, DOUBLE DOUBLE BONUS, DUECES WILD etc. I think the important distinction is in strategy is whether you hold onto a low pair and how aggressively you chase flushes and up. I should stop.

The bartender was a super model and I fell in love with the dj

I get bored pretty quickly and begin texting that freaky lady of the night, Natalie, where the conversation goes back and forth, accusing each other of being the police, until we send send a selfie that it’s us and she immediately begins bargaining for deals of the flesh. I am not interested I tell her I am in the business skiing in the alps on that fresh, fresh powder. She says her winter tourist guide is currently not responding and can’t help us. She continues bargain for us to have paid intercourse, I politely decline.

My boy loves that bad medicine.

I am just drinking a lot. After all, the bartender can see your glass when you’re playing video poker at the bar.

I begin suffering through hellish small talk at the table, all the while yearning for my life partner and hoping one of these rotting carcasses FUCKING LEAVES. FLASH FORWARD. I switch tables, and and open spot pops open, I SCREAM BLOODY GRT and he arrives promptly.

We play hours of uneventful games until I run out of money (quickly) and we had back to the bar, where there is a wonderful young woman, with a mile of fucking side boob waiting for us.

I think I was scaring bishop with my autistic brain and weird body hunched over the machine speed-running losing money but I wasn’t about to stop:

HAND            PAYS -PROBABILITY- -RETURN-
                         SIMPLE          OPTIMAL             SIMPLE      OPTIMAL
 Royal flush        800     0.000025        0.000025            0.020076    0.019807
Bartender    50  0.000111    0.000109    0.005552    0.005465
 Four of a kind    25  0.002363    0.002363    0.059067    0.059064
 Full house    9   0.011517    0.011512    0.103657    0.10361
 where did the Dj go   6   0.011087    0.011015    0.066521    0.066087
 Straight    4   0.010637    0.011229    0.042547    0.044917
 Three of a kind    3   0.074543    0.074449    0.223629    0.223346
 Side Boob    2   0.129552    0.129279    0.259104    0.258558
 Pair    1   0.214437    0.214585    0.214437    0.214585
 Boon Size   0   0.545729    0.545435    0   0
 Total        1   1   0.99459 0.995439

GRT comps me $40 dollars large, and we start gambling again. All the while we are talking up the bar tender, with the side boobs, about all types of interesting, intellectual things. While a bunch of fucking goons, in shitty clothes and dumb ass hats, try and woo her with their toxic masculinity, and their obvious troglodyte heritage. No one is impressed, we keep drinking for free, those guys have to go home and jerk each other off, we all win.

I’m reasonably sure I lost money?

Oh yeah. I won $170, and immediately pay off my indentured servitude at the poker machines and we ESCAPE. To another land of blatant vulgar cleavage, of the breast and the butt.

mango hooteraid

That’s right, HOOTER’S, but not just any hooters, it’s mega hooters casino hotel steak n shake etc. We order a fuck ton of wings, and fried garbage, and our waitress is a sweet ASIAN WOMAN, who GRT immediately tried to marry (in his mind) and we proceed to have polite and inquisitive conversation over wings and go home and crash in a pile of our sweat from the previous night.