The Real Thing...

Last weekend, I was on my way back to Jersey from Virginia, and stopped by one of those slot parlours in Delaware. Slots is not my casino game of choice, though I often make machine time for video poker. Machine time, keep that in mind. Lately, the slot parlours (don't call them casinos), have been adding video table games such as blackjack, poker and let it ride. These tables have a huge upright video screen on which the simulated dealer (sim) is projected. The players sit side-by-side before the screen and have individual video monitors on the console before them to place their bets, etc. Back to the sims. The sims have the creepy ability to make eye contact with the passerbys. The damn eyes follow you! Kinda like one of those haunted house portraits... The sim dealers are buff or buxom models, sometimes clad in bathing suits (if the background is an island casino, etc). The sim video loops between them looking at the passerbys (while they wait for the players to place bets), shuffling and dealing. Kinda clever, all in all. But it's not real.

I sat down at a $2 Let It Ride table. Can't find $2 tables out in Vegas, so this seemed like a good deal. All the components you would expect were there: Bonus Bet, Three Card Bonus, etc. It was the game as it should be. But it's not real. By the third deal, I was getting bad vibes. First off, I didn't have poker chips to play with. I had no tangible sense of the game. Sure I could look at the video and see my remaining balance, but that was too much like banking. Numbers on a computer screen is Excel to me. It's work. And, what's worse, it's reality. Poker chips have some type of charge to them. The weight. The softness. It just works psychological wonders.

The other thing that was missing was the cards. In the table game, three cards are dealt face down. You pick them up and look at them. You shuffle them as you want. You use them to scratch the table to indicate a bet should be taken down. The sound of a playing card scratching the table felt, it's almost religious. With the sim, all I had was a button to take down my bet. Lastly, the comradery of your fellow players and the dealer was gone. You can't replicate that. Generally, the dealers give you some consolation if the cards are against you. They react to the odds and the gods in the game. With the sims, you get nothing. No sympathy. No humor. No consolation. Just console.

After a few more hands I had to bolt. The sim was starting to make me realize how money-guzzling stupid the game is, especially when you strip away all the physical components: cards, poker chips, banter. Losing against a computer, any game, makes a person feel dumb. Add losing money to that equation and you feel like a flippin' moron.

Sometimes it is about the game pieces...