Last Thursday after work, Pam, Casey (our son) and I headed off to Las Vegas (driving) via Laughlin. I had made reservations at the Colorado Belle for late Thursday night and Friday night and intended to leave early Saturday morning (maybe even very, very late Friday night) for Las Vegas. Well, you know what they say about best laid plans....

Once we got to the Bell we played some and then turned in. Friday morning, just after breakfast I noticed that the Belle was running a "daily" blackjack tournament (using their poker room NCV 5's (red) and 100's (black). I signed up, they issued me 2500 in chips (they upped the 5 to 500), so I had two reds and ten blacks. I played 15 hands and ended up with 8000 points. Since I was the first game of the day, my name went up on the tournament board in the number one position. As I was asking how good a score 8000 was and would it stand up to other contestants during the day, I was informed that it was strong, not great AND the "daily" tournament was actually a two-day tournament, not scheduled to end until 9:00 Saturday night! And it was only Friday morning!!!

For the next two days I saw my name slowing slide down the tournament board all the way from number one to number seven (the final remaining qualifying slot). I was lucky and the contest qualifier closed with my name still on the list. We then went to a play off of the seven qualifiers. I ended up as number 2 (I lost by a single 100 (black) chip!!!!!!) I had 4500, the winner had 4600. She got $500, and I got $225. Positions 7 and 6 got $25.

By then It was late, so we stayed another night at the Belle. When we got up Sunday, it was late, we had a check-out of 1:00 pm and used every minute of it, and stuck around awhile to play. At around 4:00 it was time to get to Las Vegas, as I had an 8:00 pm flight out of McCarran. We arrived at the airport at 6:00, I went in and departed at 8:35.

What started out as a two or three day visit to Las Vegas, ended up being a couple of hours. But had a nice time in Laughlin and actually found some time to do a little research on the demise of the original Colorado Belle, which I will write about sometime.

While in town I did come across a .25¢ Crystal Palace chip in a Thrift Store at which the person who ran the store insisted on face value only for all chips. I stocked up on the Edgewater's new .25¢ chips, and also got the new Edgewater 20th Anniversary, serial numbered, 750 LE. These are dated November 1, 2001, so I do not know if they have been posted here yet. If not, I will scan them. Otherwise, the only other LE's I got were the Belle's 3rd Annual, Blues and Brews and the Edgewater's September 22, 2001 Professional Bull Riders, LTD 500.

All for now.

Jim Follis