Road Trip

On my days off from my real job, I often go to my second job by heading to a casino for a day trip. Occasionally, I'll take a couple of vacation days around my off days, and make a road trip out of it. Past road trips have included Las Vegas, Tunica, upstate New York, and southern Indiana.

I usually go alone, but I have also gone with others. Either way is fine with me. It's cool to hang with some people, especially for the long drives. But going solo give me the freedom to be on my own schedule and do what I want. I also have a bit of Lone Wolf in me. It's one of the reasons that I'm still single.

This time I'm going solo to Northern Indiana and Southern Michigan. I leaving on Wednesday morning, and returning on Saturday in time for my weekly game. It's my first time in that area, and I'll be checking out five different casinos:

Ameristar Casino Hotel - East Chicago, IN
Blue Star Casino & Hotel - Michigan City, IN
Four Winds Casino & Resort - New Buffalo, MI
Harrah's Horseshoe Casino - Hammond, IL
Majestic Star Casino & Hotel - Gary, IN

I will spend a lot of time at some of these properties, and others I will just stop by and check out.

The one that I'm most looking forward to is Four Winds. They have the first poker room in the country to have all ProkerPro tables from PokerTek. I know that many players think that electronic tables are evil, but I haven't played on them yet. So I'm gonna spend some time there, and get an objective opinion of the tables.

I feel that over the next five years, about half of the poker rooms in the country will switch over to these tables. Not the big name rooms, nor those with big money games, but the little rooms with 6-10 tables that just spread $1/$2NL or $3/$6 Limit, and maybe a daily tournament. It's just more cost effective to have the PokerPro tables, than to have the extra dealers and floor people. Both Las Vegas and Atlantic City have rooms with PokerPro tables.