Tunica, Miss. - Help Me Out

Update:
I didn't get to Tunica on this specific occasion, but found myself their on a bachelor party weekend trip a few weeks ago. We stayed at Sam's Town and played a round of golf at a links-style course called Riverbend or someththing like that (it's at the end of the same street Sam's Town is on.) The course was nice -- open but punishing with some high rough if you weren't accurate. We paid the twilight rate of $27 for 18 and a cart.

As for the gambling, I played blackjack, pulled some lots and played poker and never left Sam's Town. I was sitting at a nickel slot machine with a good view of the poker room, waiting for a seat to open up, when lo and behold I hit a $380 jackpot. It took forever to collect and the bells and lights went off like I'd won a million, but it was worth it. My seat at the poker table then opened up.

The poker room was teeming with local sharks. I was sitting next to a few of them at the $1/2 NL Hold 'em table and could hear them passing along information about the guys at the other end of the table ("Seat three is a mark, he's given away a lot of hands, seat two is a decent player," etc.). They were very tight, and I didn't fare well there. Later, the blackjack pit boss told me The Grand and Horseshoe were the best places for poker. The others were all shark games. I bought in for $300 at poker, and played for about 5 hours before I finally got impatient and busted out. There were basically zero big pots I was anywhere close to being in on, so I never had a chance to build up a stack. I threw away more hands than I ever have in my life, and got caught bluffing a couple of times. Tight tables aren't my forte.

Onto the blackjack tables, where I turned $100 into $1,300 after a couple of hours, and then lost about 9 out of 10 hands for the next four hours to get down to about $200 left in my stack. This was in the early morning hours and I was at a table by myself. The pit was trying to close out the section, but she didn't want to make me move, so I played by myself for hours. When someone would try to sit down the dealer would tell them they couldn't sit there, and needed to go to the other section. That happened two or three times. It was quite funny, especially since the last person who tried to sit down was the bachelor, and they made him leave. He thought I was being a real bigshot. Things eventually came back, though. I went back over $1,000 again and eventually walked with $700.

They were pretty generous with the comps, giving me $2.50 in food credit for every hour of play at the poker table, and and the blackjack pit boss gave me another breakfast when I asked, seeing as how I had built up to playing $800 a had at one of the points when I was hot.

After I cashed out at the blackjack table, a $0.50 slot caught my eye, and I put a $100 in there. A few pulls later it hit for $530. I played it down to $350 and cashed out my winnings for good.

In all, it was a fun trip. Next time I'll try poker at Horshoe or The Grand. The comps were much more generous than the Choctaw Pearl River gaming resort in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and I had better luck on slots and blackjack. Pearl River's poker room is pretty sweet, though.

ETA: Thanks all for the scouting report on Tunica.

 

Damn. You did OK.

 

Dig a tunnel.
Quickly.

 

My (late) words of advice -- if Brett Favre calls a news conference in Tunica, run the other way. If you stay, you're wasting your time.