Night 1 recap

So I'm here by myself, and for me the fun could be rated as fun^x, where x = # people, so basically I can't wait until some people show up tonight.

I decided to get to know home base, the Monte Carlo. I was walking around the table games and I found one empty table, which happened to be WAR. Yes, war, where you get a card, and they get a card. Higher card wins. The casino makes its money on the game when you actually tie and go to war, you have to match your bet to go on and the casino only matches your original bet, so you get paid 1 to 2 on your war bet. There's also a tie bet where the player wins if he ties, and gets paid 10 to 1 on that, where the true odds would pay 12 to 1. Other than that, it's all 1 to 1. So I was sitting there playing war and chatting with the dealer when a group of other young people walk up to the table and start watching. After a few hands they ask the dealer is this is really like the war that little kids play. He replies yes, and they're all amazed that the casino actually offers such a game. Then they turn their attention to me and ask my name, I give it, and then they say they're going to root for me. Okay... And that's exactly what they did for about 15 minutes. I was playing by myself, and there would be an "ohhhhh" from everyone if I lost and a "yeah!" from everybody if I won. Believe me, I never expected to get a fan club in this way. So naturally as this was the only shouting in the area at the time, others gathered around to see what was going on. Eventually about 12 people were standing behind me, watching me play war, all reacting to every card laid down. I was down to my last $10, then went on a rush to get it up over $200. With this came a lot of yelling from the crowd, and a lot of looks from the other nearby table games. After some dealer tokes and a few bad wars, I got back down to my original $100 and left, but wow, if playing war by myself attracts a loud crowd of 12, I can't imagine what playing in the WSOP with 8000 will bring.

I also played some roulette, craps, video poker, and blackjack, ending the night up a little bit. I was so tired from hardly sleeping the night before and from jet lag that I just crashed at about 11:00 pm. This will likely be the last time that I'll get a good night's sleep for the rest of this trip, so I'll enjoy the energy while I can. What to do now? I'm pondering the gym (which is an additional $20, boo), pool, visiting the Rio (where the WSOP is starting in 1 hour, 12 minutes and 4 seconds, but who's counting?), or just going downstairs and see what happens. Regardless, that's enough time alone in my room on the comp for now.