Out of the 'Woods

[ornoth]

I started taking casino blackjack seriously about ten years ago, and the venue for three-quarters of my gambling junkets has been Foxwoods. Over those years, they’ve been very good to me.

A frequent birthday ritual has been to take the day off and drive down to Connecticut, play some blackjack, and then stop off at Purgatory Chasm on the way home.

The timing of this year’s trip was a little interesting for three reasons. First, it occurred during my last week working at Buildium. Secondly, the remnants of Hurricane Patricia—one of the most powerful storms on record—passed through New England the night before. When I left that morning, the overnight rain clouds were just beginning to break up, promising a beautifully warm and breezy day. And finally, this would be my last trip to Foxwoods before moving away.

Upon arriving, I first went to their Fox Tower casino. I wanted to check it out, because I hadn’t been there since a 2011 loss, back when it was the MGM and brand new. Sadly, all they had were $1 tables, which was an obvious waste of time. So I hoofed it back to my usual haunt at the Grand Pequot.

Once I sat down and started playing, all the chips just got sucked into my gravity well. It took a mere 23 minutes to achieve my predetermined “win” threshold, so I got up, took a deep breath, and cashed out.

It might seem silly to drive four hours and only spend a few minutes at the table, but I don’t go to a casino to play games; I go to win. Winning makes me happy, and you can’t win if you don’t walk away when you’ve won. And if it only takes 20 minutes to achieve my goal, then the sooner I get out of the casino the better! Except, well, I did stop to have a big ice cream before I left…

So that was my last expedition to my favorite casino. They had the most favorable rules I’ve come across, and I’ve only lost on one of my past eight trips, which exceeds all reasonable expectations.

However, that may not be my last opportunity to find a good game of blackjack. There’s a casino right in Pittsburgh, and their state law mandates rules that are even slightly better than Foxwoods’, who annoyingly started hitting soft 17 a couple years back. So we’ll just have to test whether the Pennsylvania government are going to be as generous to me as the Mashantucket Pequots of Connecticut!

Of course, since I was in the area, a stop at Purgatory Chasm was also required. It’s always an amazing, fun, breathtaking, spiritual place, which inevitably provides a dramatic juxtaposition with the overstimulation and consumerism of the casino. The warm weather was a special blessing on what will probably be my last visit there, as well.

And because I was in a self-indulgent birthday mood—and because it was National Cat Day—on the way home I stopped by Boston’s Angell pet adoption center and socialized a few cats, just for fun. It’s been just over a year since I lost Grady, and there’s been a lamentable lack of feline presence in the house.

So overall it was a good day, even though it was the last time for this particular set of rituals.