It’s a new year and there’s always something to look forward to. Before we look forward, I want to reflect on my greatest night of playing blackjack. I typically play a variety of casino games. However, on this specific trip, blackjack was the only game that my two carloads of people played.
Among friends this is called “the greatest night of gambling,” but about half of the action took place the morning following the night. There was no sleep and the sun didn’t rise until we started to leave Atlantic City for the second time.
This is a tale of blackjack that has ups, downs, and ups again. At least that’s how my night went. Not everyone who made this trip to Atlantic had the same experience. In fact, half of the crew didn’t even make the second part of this most memorable gambling trip.
One Night In Jersey
When I was living on the east coast I visited casinos in Connecticut and Atlantic City. This visit to Atlantic City had two cars and a total of eight people. The drive from northern New Jersey to Harrah’s was uneventful. So was the blackjack. Only one of the eight people on this trip had a great session. The rest of us lost at least a little. Harrah’s had the worst blackjack games of the trip for me. I was annihilated, had to hit an ATM, and lost most of that.
The Tropicana was our next stop and my cold streak slowed down. I had to make a very rare cash advance so I could stay in the action. My blackjack session was up and down but I left with a small profit on the cash advance.
The trip continued up the boardwalk where we stopped for mediocre cheesesteaks on the way to Bally’s. My bankroll was on the way to being restored but it wasn’t all the way back. We were ready to hop back in the cars and head home since it was about 4 am or 5 am.
BORGATCHA!
On the way back to the Garden State Parkway my car decided to slide over to the Borgata for one final blackjack session. The lowest minimum for any blackjack game that night was $50. Only one of us, we’ll call him Ralph, was up big to afford this minimum for more than a few hands. We sat down anyway since we were MOAM (Men On A Mission). The rest of us bought in for a couple hundred bucks just to have the experience.
We sat down at the only table with room for four players. This blackjack game was on the opposite side of the pit of where a professional football player, some friends, and one loudmouth were playing. We were captivated by the blackjack but sweating over the $50 hands. It wasn’t pretty. Bang – one guy is out! Bang – another guy it out!
Only “Ralph” and I made it more than a few minutes. We were still playing when there was a fight on the other side of the pit. Voices raised and then things got slightly physical. The loudmouth got a little too aggressive with the football player.
There wasn’t a fight since the crew kept control of the situation. Not only was there yelling but with all the pushing around, the table flipped and all the money went flying.
The casino was dead silent until a scene out of a movie happened. One person yelled…
BORGATA!
This was like a scene out of a movie. Shortly after the chaos, everything resumed as normal after this scream. We can swear he yelled BORGOTCHA but we probably just heard the name of the casino. A few hands later Ralph was almost broke. While that was sad, I was up almost twice as much as I brought with me plus the cash advance!
Three of the four people from my car busted out so we started to leave.
The pit boss offered to comp us breakfast so we didn’t leave. While the breakfast at the Metropolitan is great we all decided it was best to get out of Atlantic City.
The Night Ends With A Big Deal
The sun was up by the time we finally left Borgata. The epic trip saw some amazing swings up, down, and sideways. My crew got to see a professional football player flip a blackjack table while we were all playing limits above our head. It was an eventful night and day.
The night remains special to me mostly because I ended up with a massive win after losing a lot of money quickly. The topper on this trip was the drive home when we found out that Ricky Williams was traded to the Miami Dolphins.
The driver is a Dolphins fan and was ecstatic. I’m a Jets fan and was the opposite. This made for an interesting drive home. We hardly talked about the wins and losses at the blackjack tables. It was about two hours of football talk.
This happened in 2002. We’re now in 2020 and this remains the single most amazing night of blackjack I’ve ever been a part of. I can still hear “Ralph” telling our friend that he’ll stab him if he keeps talking about splitting tens…again. Damn, I just got the chills.
