Casino!

Well, yesterday was the dreaded Poly conference that happens twice a year. We had to be on the bus at school, on a Saturday, at 6:45 am, in order to go to Seoul for the most useless conference in the history of all conferences. What a waste of my Saturday.

Despite there being many St. Patrick's parties happening in Daejeon, Mikey and I decided that we might as well take advantage of being in Seoul and headed over to Walker Hill Casino for some gambling fun. Then we also met up with some Daejeon friends, Jeremy and Christine who happened to be in Seoul. The plan was to sit down at a Texas Hold'em table and show off our poker skills, but upon getting there I felt a little intimidated and thought that maybe my poker skills aren't quite as good as Facebook Poker has allowed me to think they are.

Instead, I sat down at a roulette table and left it all up to luck. I played for a while on fifty dollars but eventually the numbers let me down and I threw down another fifty. I started to have a hunch about the number 21 and played it for several turns. Finally down to three chips I put them all on 21 and it came up, winning me close to three hundred! Despite the fact that others at the table were throwing thousands down per hand and I was just a small fish I think I was the happiest person at the table after that!

The casino was pretty nice actually, it was in the basement of the Sheraton Hotel, which was one of the nicest hotel lobbies I've ever been in. There were no bells and whistles going off like at home, so it wasn't quite as exciting, but they have free drinks and ice cream (ice cream, at a casino??) so it was nice to be able to take advantage of the freebies. The funny thing about casinos in Korea is that Koreans aren't allowed in them so it was like multi-cultural night in Korea with a lot of Japanese and Chinese people, and as the night got later, lots of Americans, who were probably from the army base.

Unfortunately, caught up in our gambling bliss the last train to Daejeon left at around ten o'clock and we were not on it. So we ended up staying at the casino ALL night until the first train left this morning at 5:30. I ended up leaving a hundred and seventy up; it would have been way more but I had a hunch about the number 9 and played it for a good hour and a half and it never came up so that dwindled my winnings a little.

At five thirty this morning, the four of us trudged sleepily onto the train and set our alarms to ensure we didn't miss the Daejeon stop. By seven I was in my apartment and ready for some sleep. Now it's 3:00, the weekend is almost over, and I have the poker finals at JRock to go to where I am sitting in second place!

Overall, the Poly conference was a huge waste of time, but the rest of the weekend has been full of gambling fun! Hurray!