My Las Vegas Vacation

By LaCoatRack

My Las Vegas Vacation
by LaCoatRack

I went to Las Vegas just this once because I had never been and because, I hoped, it would be a nice and cheap place to lay in the pool when I was not watching the World Chess Championship finals. Everyone said that if you did not gamble, Las Vegas was a great place to eat good cheap food, swim, and see the sights. So I made my arrangements before the final pairing became known. What an interesting place to have the World Chess finals, I thought.

As I prepared for my vacation, I read some of the ongoing commentary with anticipation. Leading up the quarter finals, some highly rated players were making gaffes and getting eliminated. One noted commentator guessed that the reckless errors were attributable to something in the air in Las Vegas. Arghh!! For a second I worried. Would there be any names I recognized in the finals, now that my air travel and hotel reservations were set? Then I remembered that I did not know many of the names anyway. Hee hee, c'est la vie. I would go breathe some Las Vegas air too.

But just to watch chess, not to gamble.

I checked in at Caesar's Palace. I asked where the chess tournament was, but they did not know. So I checked with the concierge. They looked it up and looked it up and, tick, tick, tick, found out that yes, as it happens, there did appear to be some sort of chess match going on. I wended my way through blinking lights and sad-looking gamblers to the chess tournament desk, but they were closed until the afternoon. Someone standing nearby said they would be charging a lot to watch the game. (I think it was $10, but I lost track of money in Las Vegas, as I shall further explain below below).

So I went to the fabulous, fabulous Caesar's pool complex, read the New York Times on a floating pool chair, and thoroughly enjoyed myself for 40 minutes. Then - and I really should have predicted this before I booked a vacation in Las Vegas - I became thoroughly bored with the pool. So I called my boyfriend on the East Coast and announced that I was going to take $50 and try to gamble it until the chess game began. He cautioned not to gamble much: I pointed out that I would play until I lost my $50 stake and then simply wait for the chess game to begin.

I tried blackjack and kept winning. This annoyed some other players at the table, given that I kept asking for clarification on the rules and occasionally asked the dealer what she thought I should do. I took a brief break to buy one of these $1.50 cards that gives you free advice on when to do what in blackjack and, in the course of two or three hours, began to understand the game fairly well. I often wonder why chess players like to gamble so: these games, even blackjack, are so trivial in comparison to chess's complexity.

So I remained at the table, kept betting, sometimes foolishly but increasingly expertly, and always cheerfully. After all, I was in Las Vegas to watch chess and not gamble, so I regarded my growing pile of chips as a frivolous pile of "play money." I even tried to lose half of it at one point by betting it on one hand after I realized that the chess game would start soon. But I won that hand. The dealer tried to strike up a conversation about why I was at Caesar's. I explained that the World Chess Championship was here. She said, "Really? Which hotel?" I explained that it was here at Caesar's. She seemed skeptical. She asked where. But I was new to Caesar's and all I knew was that the match was up some escalators past a whole bunch of blinking lights - a set of directions that would apply to most venues within Caesar's large palace.

Play continued in silence, with my chip pile still getting higher. So much so that as the time for the chess match appeared, I worried I should perhaps skip the game. The chess game.

But common sense prevailed, and I left behind a game where luck counts for much for a game which I liked as much as anyone who doesn't really know chess. I asked the dealer how one goes about cashing in chips (not ever having done that before) and she, perhaps masking her surprise that I was really that stupid, directed me to the same place that I purchased the chips from. Clever people, these Las Vegans.

My boyfriend assures me that if I should just stop playing each chess game so uncritically, with honest curiosity about what will "happen" if I make a move, I might get better and I wouldn't get dispirited losing. But I point out that I do not get dispirited losing and I just like to play. He points out that I should not like to lose and that I am not really playing chess well if I am not upset when I lose. Strange game, this chess, which is supposed to make you unhappy. And so I paid the admission (which I think was $10 but really I had so much money at that point I did not notice) and watched two very tense people stare at the board.

They looked a little unhappy. Hmm. I gathered that they were probably actually trying to win. Or maybe their significant other's mean and workaholic boss had prevented their significant other from joining them in Las Vegas (the only sad part of my trip.) The finalists were both young and intense and I watched with great interest along with twelve or fifteen other people. I believe that anyone who plays at that level is quite the artist and I watched with great reverance and interest. Chairs for 150 or so sat empty. And for another $5 (hey, I remember that because I remember thinking that wasn't much - just the price of one of those little plastic red chips) I bought a headset to receive commentary by Grandmaster Walter Browne and others.

Where were all the people? Was this really the finals? We settled into the game and I relied (heavily) on Browne's analysis to try to understand what was happening. It was actually great fun. I missed watching all the commentary on ICC; actually, watching the chess artists square off face-to-face was a good second best.

Grandmaster Browne and other commentators kept commentating, apparently not dispirited that so few of us were paying to hear them. Wherever they were broadcasting from, they were definitely allowed to eat. The commentators announced they were taking a brief break, and when they came back I could hear them eating something crunchy. I tried not to giggle. Then I distinctly heard a aluminum metal soda can fall over, followed by a cry of alarm and some quick squishy sounds consistent with quickly mopping up a soda spill. I looked around the room - all of us wearing headsets were biting our lips, trying not to laugh.

It was an interesting game. I enjoyed trying to think about it at the time. I cannot now tell you who won and I never could have told you why. But it was great fun. I went to sleep that night in Las Vegas happy - a little richer, not very sun-burned, just as in love with chess, but not a wit smarter.

The next day I bought the LA Times to read in the pool and there was an article about how very few people were showing up to watch the World Chess Championships in Las Vegas. It made me think - perhaps for the first time since I had arrived in Las Vegas. It had cost some money for the airline and the hotel and I could have received just as expert grandmaster commentary on ICC. While I was happy to see the match in person, it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing: in general, watching the match on ICC would be almost as good and much cheaper. I was certain that the LA Times had erred in failing to emphasize sufficiently that more people than ever were probably watching the games online.

Most of my days were pretty much the same: an hour of the pool, more than an hour of gambling, then off to the chess game. Not a very intellectual place. Perhaps not the best place for a chess match. But it was tres fun. And yes, I won some, I lost some, but I left Las Vegas with a little more money than I had brought. I came to watch chess and ended up learning a lot about blackjack. From what I saw of Las Vegas, it would be quite unlikely that the converse would happen.

I went on trips to the Hoover Dam, I saw the beautiful light/fountain show at Bellagio. I loved just walking around and watching the show that is Las Vegas. And the pool was heaven on earth. Until ICC actually gets a lovely pool and free drinks at blackjack tables, I might be tempted to take another "chess vacation." But I am here to tell the membership that, when it comes to the actual match, I had no more and no less fun than the rest of you. Did you miss me?!