Commentary: A winning hand at FTC’s Casino Night

By Grace Bonamico

I spent much of my summer learning to play poker, so when the campus events calendar for September came out and I saw Casino Night was returning, I naturally got very excited. It was one of my favorite events of my sophomore year, and I was pleased to see it return for my senior year. Walking into the Upbeat on Thursday, September 17th, the atmosphere was perfect, with the lights dimmed and music gently playing in the background, mostly the likes of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

There was blackjack, poker, and poker darts. From the start, each table was packed with barely any free space. If you wanted to get in on a game, you had to wait for a spot to open and grab it quickly, and they would remain like that all night, but in a way it’s more fun to play when squeezed in at a table rather than if it was empty. I took the $1,000 in chips everyone was given to start and was ready to grow it. Every $200 in chips earned a raffle ticket that could be entered for one of four prize baskets, and the prizes were good. There was an arts & crafts basket with a coloring book and stickers, a hydration set with a water bottle and electrolyte powders, the big prize of an HP laptop, and what I was going for: the latte set with syrups, a tumbler, latte mix, and a milk frother.

7-8:50 p.m.: Blackjack

Blackjack: Beat the dealer’s hand without going over 21.

Truth be told, this was my first time playing blackjack. I had a vague knowledge of the rules, but I really only knew you had to get to 21, and as it turns out, it’s really hard to get to 21 without going over! If you get less than 21, you have to hope the dealer draws less than you or goes over 21, and if both you and the dealer get 21 in the same round, you get nothing. That unfortunately happened to me several times. Most of the time, though, I was hitting 22s.

Needless to say, I lost, and I lost a lot at blackjack. I only stayed afloat for as long as I did because of small wins here and there, but usually never more than double what I put in. Eventually, I left with only $100.

​8:50-9:12 p.m.: Whiskey Poker

Whiskey Poker: With the five cards in your hand and the five cards on the table, make the strongest poker hand. When I said I had spent my summer learning to play poker, I meant Texas Hold ‘Em, not Whiskey Poker. This is important for what I’m about to say: I lost the rest of my chips in two hands. The most crushing part is that on the second hand, I had a full house with three fives and two fours. Another player just happened to have a better full house.

9:12-9:58 p.m.: Casino Spectator

With my chips gone and no raffle tickets bought, I was mostly hanging around, watching my friends play and trying to have fun after going broke. At that point, it didn’t look like I would be taking home any prizes, especially since I didn’t turn any of my chips into raffle tickets before going broke. For a while, it seemed like my casino night gambling career was officially over.

9:58-11:00 p.m.: Texas Hold ‘Em and Raffle

Texas Hold ‘Em: Using the two cards in your hand and the five on the table, make the best poker hand. Bet your chips on how strong you think your hand is, or try to bluff your opponents into folding before the cards are revealed.

By sheer luck, I was given another $1,000 in chips, and the poker table had switched to Texas Hold ‘Em, the variation of the game I had spent my summer learning. I was excited because I had a second chance, and this time I actually knew how to play the game. I won a small pot of a few hundred chips in the first round thanks to a two in my hand and a two on the table. I really shouldn’t have won that pot, since almost every time someone has something in their hand that can beat a pair of twos, but it was just more luck coming my way.

The second hand got me excited: two queens. No matter what, I already had a pair of queens, so it was looking good from the start. I was betting a lot more than I usually do, which is strange for me even when I have a good hand, since I’m usually quite reserved in that part of the game. My feeling paid off when the third or fourth card put on the table was another queen, giving me three of a kind.

I was excited, but I tried not to show it and kept my face neutral because I didn’t want to give anything away. By the last round of betting, I had gone all in, meaning I needed to win the pot or I would be broke again.

Thankfully, I won, and altogether I had about $3,000 in chips. After everything that had happened earlier in the night, I wasn’t about to push my luck any further. I cashed out and got 15 raffle tickets, immediately putting them all towards the latte set.

It wasn’t long before the last hands were played, the rest of the chips turned into tickets, and the raffle drawings began. First to be given away was the art set, then the latte set, so I spread my tickets out to make sure I could see all the numbers easily.

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