27 MAY 08: CASINO K.C. ROYAL

KANSAS CITY, KS -- In southern England in 1992, I refused to do it. In Puerto Rico in 1995, I also refused to do it. But on Memorial Day 2008 in my home area, I finally did it. Call me an infidel if you wish -- but I set my feet inside a casino.

BLOG SPECIAL EVENT: “I hadn’t told you about this,” I confessed to my older brother during a Sunday evening dinner with some of his friends. “But if Ryan can do it, I can do it.” I followed the lead of my youngest niece’s new husband, and went to a casino to play poker. Even after discovering my brother is a church treasurer and his wife co-chairs the church board.

Ryan plays poker often, and even had a seat at a World Series of Poker event a couple of years ago. But I didn’t ask him for advice about how to play in a casino. He might have challenged me to a game on the spot, and emptied my wallet.

The Kansas City area has become filled with casinos since I moved away 26 years ago. The Wyandotte Nation of native Americans even opened one recently, inside an old historic church. This seemed so wrong to me -- until I remembered how many Catholic churches have bingo nights.

I wanted to play poker at a famous-name casino, where the chances of being cheated were slim. So I went to Harrah’s in North Kansas City, where they normally have two poker tournaments every day of the week. And unlike the Columbus poker games, people actually will park your car for you -- and bring it back.

The Harrah’s casino in North Kansas City is NOT quite like Las Vegas. I learned this while walking to the casino -- when I passed the buffet restaurant, and found dinner Monday night cost $13.95. Maybe more gamblers win here than I thought....

This casino also includes a Starbucks coffee shop (as if free soda isn’t enough for staying awake) -- and a “Toby Keith I Love This Bar and Grill.” Now I understand how Keith led a recent magazine list of the most successful country singers. He does NOT simply go around asking, “How do you like me now?”

My plan was to play in the 1:00 p.m. poker tournament, so I arrived a bit before noon. Harrah’s required me to submit a photo ID for a “Total Rewards” card, because Missouri law states gamblers can lose no more than $500 every two hours. Sadly, the baseball Royals have no such limits -- and they’ve now lost eight games in a row.

My timing was perfect for arriving at Harrah’s, because the staff was handing out free T-shirts to customers from 12:00 noon on. So what do you know -- at least I could take home a consolation prize: a fine limited-edition T-shirt.

But when I reached the Harrah’s poker room, the tide suddenly turned. Because it was Memorial Day, the 1:00 p.m. tournament had been canceled. Isn’t this wonderful? They think this much of the people who died for our country -- the people who gave their lives, so we could blow all our money in casinos....

Funny thing, though -- Harrah’s didn’t care enough about our armed forces to shut down the casino completely. Cash games kept going in the poker room, like any other day. And there was no sign saying the proceeds would go to any American Legion post.

But the good news for me was that the 7:00 p.m. tournament was still on. And since seats can be purchased as early as 8:00 a.m., I reserved a seat for $50. Before your jaw drops at that price, consider something -- a seat aboard any flight from Columbus Airport probably will cost at least twice as much.

Hold on here, some of you may be saying -- aren’t you a Christian? Yes, I am. So I set personal ground rules for this casino trip. I would NOT play any “gambling” games -- no blackjack, no dice, no slot machines. In fact, when a roulette hostess I passed called “Six Black,” I thought she said “Six Flags” and told her that was in St. Louis.

A poker tournament is different from the “cash game” format, where people buy chips and sit down at a table with the potential of losing it all. The $50 “buy-in“ at a tournament is like an entry fee. You don’t lose any more money -- unless you’re silly enough to spend at least five dollars for valet parking.

So I returned to Harrah’s at 6:00 p.m., and had The Buffet (the name of the restaurant) before tournament time. If you’re planning a trip like this, take my advice -- go to Golden Corral or Ryan’s Buffet instead. The cost is lower, the food every bit as good, and the staff won’t forgot to bring you silverware.

Up the stairs we went to the poker room at 6:45 p.m. -- only to see the tide turn again. The evening tournament was canceled as well, blamed on the “Memorial Day holiday.“ Perhaps all the veterans filled the cash game tables, and I didn’t realize it.

“It’s not for lack of interest,“ the cashier told me about the tournament cancellation. I reclaimed the 50 dollars for my poker seat -- but now what was I to do? I’d already walked away from The Buffet without leaving a tip....

At that point I started doing a bad thing. I utilized human reasoning -- but in a casino, such reasoning usually isn’t logical and is based more on intestines than brain.

I decided to take 25 dollars in chips to a poker cash game. In one hand I had a pair of aces on the flop -- but was forced to fold, when someone else seemed to have a straight on the river. Then I lost my last chips to a woman with three 10’s. And she didn’t even look like a perfect ten.

With my losses for the day cut to 25 dollars, I wandered around the casino for awhile -- then stopped downstairs at a blackjack table. I watched one man with a small stack of chips slowly build it over several minutes. If he could do it.... well, maybe he was counting cards and not telling anybody.

I dared to claim six five-dollar red chips, since the minimum bet in blackjack was ten dollars. For a short time, I climbed from 30 dollars to 60 -- enough to reclaim my poker loss. But my human reasoning kicked in again. And blackjack doesn’t work the way mutual fund managers do.

(The blackjack dealers actually DO root for players to win. As one of my three dealers put it: “If you don’t make money, we don’t make money.” They want tips every bit as much as the servers at a Waffle House.)

On my second “all in” push of ten dollars, my chips were cleaned away. And this time, I walked out the door. The lessons for me were learned, and obvious. Don’t change your ground rules, even if the house does. And at $55 each, casinos offer the highest-priced T-shirts in the world.

E-MAIL UPDATE: We planned to wait on your messages until after we returned home, but this one is an exception because it relates to our trip....

I hope you were not caught up in the Wiz.of Oz. tornados that hit Kansas on Friday.

Thankfully, all is safe in Kansas City -- but western Kansas and Oklahoma had some truly scary storms. I used to live 20 miles from Hennesssy, Oklahoma, where you may have seen a twister tear apart a hog farm. When I saw that video, I thought of one thing -- people have hog farms, in a cattle state like Oklahoma?!

But would you believe someone plans to build a giant tornado monument near Kansas City? I read online the plans call for something as tall as the Seattle Space Needle, with a revolving restaurant at the top. This seems even stranger to me than the bole weevil monument in South Alabama -- and makes me wonder if Home Depot is funding it.

COMING WEDNESDAY: Why I had my mail stopped during this vacation.... (special pre-produced editions the next two days)

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BURKARD BULK MAIL INDEX: Suspended for vacation

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