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The Playoff had caused me to miss one of my favorite Convention week activities – Doug Saito’s Chip Chat Auctions at the Las Vegas Club. It was a little bitter sweet experience -, I missed buying some chips at Doug’s Auctions but I had seen Tiger Woods win the Open. Maybe I’ll make Doug’s Auctions next year. I arrived at Harrahs in Vegas about 9:30 pm. I checked into the room and then went downstairs and played some of my favorite slot machines until around 2:00 am. I was winding down from my San Diego experience and getting ready for the rest of the week at the Convention. While I was playing the slot machines the left temple piece of my glasses fell off, I put it in my pocket and kept on playing – I would deal with it tomorrow.
Tuesday morning I got up around 11:00 am and started an interesting day. I went over to see Chris of Tiny Treasures to get some tokens framed (more about this later). After I left Chris I went to get my glasses fixed at a place on West Charleston that I had called earlier in the day. I thought a screw had fallen out of the hinge, but the entire spring mechanism had fallen apart. They said they couldn’t fix the glasses until Wednesday afternoon. I told them I couldn’t come back at that time because of my Convention schedule. The owner came out and agreed to get the glasses fixed by 5:00 pm today – the shop closed at 5:30. I told them I would be back before 5:30 to pick them up. I had brought an old pair of glasses with me – you try to plan on these things when you are going to be gone from home for 28 days – luckily I had!! My next stop was a Laundromat about 5 blocks away on Charleston. After I washed my clothes, I found a Jiffy Lube and got an oil change, I had put over 3500 miles on the van since I left home and needed an oil change. I made it out of the Jiffy Lube and back to the glasses repar shop at 5:15 pm – perfect timing!! I left with my repaired glasses and headed straight for the Palms and Greg Susong’s Annual get together.
Greg’s party is the un-official kick-off of the Convention. I saw all my chip buddies from all across the country and had a great meal with John and Cindy Zoesch and Paul Liscio. When the check came Paul grabbed my check and said “This one is on me.” I said, “Why??” Paul said it was in payment for a bunch of (70 or 80) slot cups I had picked up for him 2 years ago on one of my cross country trips. I had forgotten about them, but Paul said “We’re even now!!” I was straying at Harrahs but I wanted to leave my van parked at the Riviera garage so I could easily unload my “stuff” the next morning. I saw Gene Lonestein, a friend from Florida and I asked him if he would follow me to the Riv and then take me back to Harrahs, where he was also staying and then we would go play some Craps. I got lucky and parked my van in the front row right next to the elevator in the garage under the Convention center – my plan had worked out perfectly!! Gene and I went back to Harrahs and played Craps for a while till he had to go to the airport and pick up a friend. Gene left just before I got to shoot the dice. I had bought in for $300 and after I was done shooting I cashed out for $850 - a nice profit of $550!! I went over and watched the “Dueling Piano Twins” at Harrahs for a while and then went and played some more slots. I had gotten a lot done today and tomorrow I was ready to set up for the Convention.
Wednesday morning I got up and took a cab to the Riv, got my Dealer badge and got all my stuff up to Table 15. The first thing I did was to set up and arrange my Exhibit. My Exhibit was called – “The Wonderful World of Roulette” and featured 7 cases full of items related to Roulette, including: roulette wheels, toys, ashtrays, postcards, scorecards, chips, etc. It took me about 2 hours to set up the display. I went back to Harrahs and got cleaned up and ready for the Early Bird Banquet.
At the start of the Banquet, Wayne Thompson, Club President called me up to the podium and I made a special presentation to the Club. If you remember from earlier Tuesday, I had gone to have Chris frame some tokens for me. Well the tokens I had framed were all of the #1 Club Convention Token sets going back to the first Convention in 1993 through the 15th Convention in 2007. I had purchased all of the #1 Token sets over the years, kept them as a set and had promised to give them back to the Club at some point. The time was now right and I donated the framed tokens to the Club to be put into the planned Club Museum.
The Convention began Thursday morning and I was ready at Table 15 to see all my old friends and customers and to meet some new collectors as well. I saw a lot of people and sold a fair amount of chips and had a lot of fun doing it. When the Convention closed for the day, I went downtown to Binion’s to play in the Club’s Annual Poker Tournament. Before the Tournament, I went to the lunch counter at Binion’s and had a “light snack” before the Tournament started – I had a bowl of their famous bean soup, a cheeseburger, a large pile of fries, a piece of cornbread (to go with the bean soup), a piece of apple pie and not to overdo it three “diet” cokes. John Zoesch and Paul Donohue were both surprised that I could get up off the stool and walk over to the Poker Room. At the Tournament, I was at the same as Dave Spragg (I call him Spraggie). I only play poker once a year and that is at the Club Tournament. I got lucky early on and got some real good cards, but I made a couple of stupid mistakes and got knocked out in about 70th position. The best thing was that Spraggie, who just shook his head over how I played and Gene Trimble both got knocked out before I did. I left before the Tournament finished and went back to Harrah’s.
On Friday morning, I checked out of Harrah’s and checked into the Riv. The Convention continued on Friday and one of my favorite customers showed up. I had a lot of stuff for him and as usual he was very pleased when he left my table and I was happy to see that I had “made his day”. Later in the day, I had one of my most memorable Convention moments. A woman from Florida that I had never met before – Mrs. Ryan – her husband is a Silver Striker came to my table. She was looking for a “Turtle” chip. I thought for a minute and said, “Sure, I have some roulette chips with turtles on them.” I found a St. Croix Casino roulette chip from Wisconsin with a nice Turtle on it. Mrs. Ryan said “That’s too happy go lucky of a turtle, do you have a more “serious” turtle.” I knew I was in trouble but I pressed on. The next turtle chip I showed her was a roulette chip from Trump Marina in A C. She looked at the chip and said, “That turtle is too plain.” By this time we were both giggling like a couple of school kids. I really went over board after that and pulled out a Desert Inn Golf Course roulette and told her “There’s a turtle by the pond, near the palm tree and she could see it better if see used my pocket magnifying glass to look at the chip.” She examined the chip with the glass carefully and said, “It looks like an “otter not a turtle.” I burst into laughter and said that was the best I could do. We both laughed and see walked off without finding her “serious turtle” but we sure had a lot of fun looking for it!!
After the convention closed for the day, I went over to the Splashbar for a few pictures with the “Splashbar Gang”. I went upstairs to take a short nap before the Club Auction – I didn’t get up until 9:30pm – I had missed the Auction. I didn’t have to buy the #1 token set any more so I just slept thru the whole thing. After I got up, I went to Kadie’s for a late dinner, then I went and played a little roulette with Dennis Shoop, finally I found my favorite Riv slot machine “Run for your money”. I just love that machine and watching the little guy run around is really fun for me. I played the same machine for about 3 hours straight and cashed out with $250 from my original $20 buy in – now I love the machine even more. After that I walked over to Slots-o-Fun, played a little $3 Craps and picked up a couple of slot cards. That was enough for the day and I went back to the Riv and went to bed.
Saturday is the last day of the Convention and things begin to wind down after a very hectic week but there were still some activities to fill the day. Earlier in the week I got a listing from Belinda Hixon of the dealers who had tables set up at ALL 16 of the Conventions from 1993 thru 2008. I thought it would be nice to have a picture taken of the 8 dealers who had participated in all the Conventions. I got Dick Covington to take a picture of the group, which included; myself, Allan Myers, C.T. Rodgers, Eric Rosenblum, Walt Dirzulatis, Steve Passalaqua, Henry Garrett and Stan and Betty Wilker. Hopefully we will all be back for Convention
# 17 next year. The voting for the “People’s Choice” award for the favorite Exhibit was also completed on Saturday. I was very pleased to win First Place and I had many collectors stop by my table to tell me how much they had enjoyed my Exhibit – it’s always good to hear a compliment from a fellow collector. As always I had a great time, but the time flew by quickly and the 16th Convention was over. I can’t wait until we get back together again in 2009.
My good friends Roman and Jeanette Delgado and their son Omar came from Los Angeles to visit me at the Convention on Saturday and we went out to dinner and toured Vegas Saturday night after the Convention. We hung out together on Sunday until around 1:00 pm when I left Vegas and headed East on my long journey home. I will post Part IV of my trip to the Convention report - “The Long Journey Home” in a few days – so stay tuned.
Take care,
Jerry.
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