Matt Holthe's Fleeting Thoughts

I had a quick trip to Las Vegas. I didn't do all that good gambling, ended up losing $100. I had one very interesting hand playing $20 blackjack, though. On this hand, I had a $2 tip for the dealer next to my hand.  I get dealt 2-2 against a dealer's 4. Split. First 2, get a K. Stand. Second 2, get another 2. Split again (now 3 hands, 1st one is standing on 12). Second hand, get a 7. Hit, get a 6 for 15. Stand. 3rd hand, get another 2. Now I'm at 4 hands - $80 on the table for me and $8 on the table for the dealer. On the 3rd hand, get a 9. I have to double down on my 11. I only had a single $1 chip left, so dealer got a "double for less". I have $100 on the table, she has $9. On my double, I get a 5 for 16 total. On the last hand, I get a 3, drew a couple times, ended up with 16. So at this point I have 4 hands - 12, 15, 16, and 16. I need help, right? Dealer busts. Made a cool Benjamin on that hand (but also "lost" an extra $7 on tip money....) Wi...

Once again this year, I bet the line and total for all 67 games of the NCAA Tournament. I didn't do the money line this year. The results were rather depressing. 45% correct - 58-71-5. I was much better at totals (over/under) than lines. On totals, I was 35-32. On lines, I was 23-39-5, which is a dismal 38%. Good thing I didn't make it to Vegas for this year's tournament. I obviously wouldn't place money on every single game like I did in this exercise, but I can't imagine that I would have done that much better to make any money on the games I would have bet.

The NCAA Championship game is tonight. It features 7 seed Connecticut versus 8 seed Kentucky. To show how much I know, I picked both of those teams to lose their first game in the tournament. It's the highest combined seeds between the 2 championship game participants. A 7 seed has never won a national championship, and an 8 seed has only won once (a long time ago). So history will be made tonight.

I have a trip to Southern California coming up. Since I haven't been to Las Vegas in a long time, I'm making a side trip to Sin City. I'll only be there for less than 24 hours, so I have to make the most of it. I will be there for one dinner, and I think that should be at Secret Pizza . After dinner, I think I'll head down to see the Mirage Volcano . I will obviously see the High Roller Wheel , but I don't think I'll ride it this time. I'll just look at it and take pictures. Since it's been a while since I've been there, I might be spending a decent amount of time just walking around and seeing what has changed. I haven't been to The Linq , so I'll want to walk around there. Obviously, it's never a bad idea to see a Bellagio Fountain Show . Since I'll be driving from Southern California, I think I should stop on my way into town and take a picture of the Welcome to Las Vegas Sign . Anything else I should do?