Birthday Update

My latest birthday has brought me the single largest haul of my chip collecting career.  Not counting a couple of doubles, I picked up 44 new chips in all including all 30 of the Tropicana's baseball stadium chip set.  That set comes courtesy of Julie who also had the best looking cake of all-time made for birthday dinner (picture below).  Besides the baseball set, I got 13 Las Vegas chips from my brother and his wife and a chip from the resort Geoff and Tasha stayed at on their honeymoon.  The blog thanks all that contribute for their dedication to the cause.

Only 500 of each Tropicana baseball chip were made so I think a complete set is pretty scarce.  My brother has one too... so I can practically guarantee we're the only pair of brothers with our own sets.  And, I have a second Tropicana Field chip so for the time being, there are only 499 possible sets out there.

I'll separate the new 44 chips into different posts.  Starting with Punta Cana, then Las Vegas and finally the baseball chips.  I'll also use the baseball chips to offer my predictions on how the coming season will play out.  But before all that... the casino chip birthday cake!

Birthday 2 - Punta Cana

I now have one chip from the Dominican Republic!

1.  Paradisus Casino -  Thanks to Geoff & Tasha Kimmerly for bringing me back this chip from their Honeymoon in Punta Cana.  It's from the Paradisus Casino where Geoff tells me he lost nearly every hand and spin of roulette.  Which sounds like fun!  The Paradisus is an all-inclusive resort with their own on-site casino which actually sounds like fun.  Kudos to Geoff and Tasha for not losing everything and having at least $5 to get a chip for me.

Birthday 3 - Las Vegas

These were all Las Vegas chips my brother (@ATRoss14) and his wife got me for my birthday.  In no particular order:

1.  Caesars Palace Davis Cup, USA vs. Sweden September 22-24, 1995.  I think we all remember where we were and what happened in that titanic tennis tournament.  I know I'll never forget it.

2.  Tropicana 9th Annual CC&GTCC International Convention May 31- June 2 2001.  That stands for Casino Chips & Gaming Tokens Collectors Club.

3.  Castaways New Years Eve 2001.  This Castaways was open from 2000-2004, and this chip clearly states that it is 1 of 1000.  Not 2, not 5, not 17.  1.  The other Castaways was once purchased by Howard Hughes and then Steve Wynn and was where the Mirage and TI sit now.

4.  Tuscany - The casino opened in 2003.  Haven't been yet.

5.  Fremont Celebrating 40 Years 1956-1996.  The Fremont opened in 1956 and at the time was the tallest building in Las Vegas.  It's downtown and a part of the Fremont Street Experience.

6.  Showboat - Was a hotel/casino/bowling center.  But is no more.  It eventually became the Castaways.  The one that closed in 2004.

7.  Four Queens Fremont Street Experience - The Four Queens is one of the 4 main downtown casinos (along with the Fremont, the Golden Nugget and Binion's).  They all sit on the same corner and anchor the Fremont Street Experience, which is an epilepsy-inducing laser light show.  Helps the city disguise who is having a seizure from the lights and who is having one from a heroin overdose.

8.  Arizona Charlie's - love the look of this chip.  I assume that's Charlie himself.  A mostly locals casino, there is also one in Boulder.

9.  Palms Preserving Gaming History.  Another of the annual CC&GTCC chips.

10.  South Coast - Another of the casino/hotel/bowling centers.

11.  Orleans 4th Annual Poker Tournament July 8-23, 2000.  Pretty self-explanatory.

12.  Hard Rock Black Crowes.  Pretty cool design for this concert chip.

13.  Flamingo - a house chip that has flamingos on it.  They had another flamingo inspired chip and I like both of them.

Birthday 4 - NL East

For the stadium chips, I'll break them up by division and as an added bonus, I'll list them in the order I think they'll finish in the 2013 season.  Starting with the NL East -

1.  Turner Field - Braves
2.  Olympic Stadium - Expos/Nationals*
3.  Veterans Stadium - Phillies
4.  Shea Stadium - Mets
5.  Pro Player Stadium - Marlins

Birthday 5 - NL Central

The five NL Central stadiums.

1.  Cinergy Field - Reds
2.  Busch Stadium - Cardinals*
3.  Miller Park - Brewers
4.  PNC Park - Pirates
5.  Wrigley Field - Cubs

 

Birthday 6 - NL West

The five from the NL West.

1.  Dodgers Stadium - Dodgers
2.  Pacific Bell Park - Giants
3.  Qualcomm Stadium - Padres
4.  Bank One Ballpark - Diamondbacks
5.  Coors Field - Rockies

Birthday 7 - AL East

The five from the AL East.

1.  Tropicana Field - Rays
2.  Skydome - Blue Jays*
3.  Fenway Park - Red Sox
4.  Camden Yards - Orioles
5.  Yankee Stadium - Yankees.

Birthday 8 - AL Central

The five AL Central stadiums.

1.  Comerica Park - Tigers
2.  Kaufman Stadium - Royals
3.  Comiskey Park - White Sox
4.  Jacobs Field - Indians
5.  Metro Dome - Twins.

Birthday 9 - AL West

And the five AL West stadium chips, with playoff predictions.

1.  Edison International Field - Angels
2.  Network Associates Coliseum - A's*
3.  Ball Park at Arlington - Rangers
4.  Safeco Field - Mariners
5.  Enron Field - Astros

Blue Jays over A's in wild card.
Nationals over Cardinals in wild card.
Tigers over Angels in ALDS.
Ray over Blue Jays in ALDS.
Braves over Dodgers in NLDS
Reds over Nationals in NLDS.
Rays over Tigers in ALCS.
Braves over Reds in NLDS.
Braves over Rays in World Series.

London

Spent a week in London to go to a couple of English Premiere League games and while I was there I visited 5 of the London casinos (they have lots).  All five were within easy walking distance of the hotel in Picadilly Circus and I played at two of them.

1.  Hippodrome.  Biggest one of the ones I visited.  Pretty nice.  Tried to play there twice; the first time they didn't let us in because we were too drunk and the second time it was too busy and we couldn't find an open table.

2.  Casino at the Empire.  Also denied access to play there due to drunkenness.  Hey, it happens.  And we saw people get asked to leave bars because the bouncer felt they had had enough.  Who knew the Brits were such hard-asses?

3.  Napoleon's.  Right next door to the Empire.  I don't remember not getting into this place so either we tried and were denied.  Again.  Or we skipped over it.

4.  Grosvenor Casino.  Played blackjack at the G two nights.  The first night, we were once again told we were too drunk, but managed to talk our way in.  Or we offered the door guy a chicken schwarma.  Either way.  We finally made it inside one to play!  The first night there were three of us and we had no trouble finding a 5 pound table with three open spots.  I guess at 4am that's not hard to do, once you pass a field sobriety test.  Luka was the best dealer I've had in years.  He even half-laughed at our Second Floor jokes.  Normal rules, nothing crazy, just good ol' regular blackjack.  Even won a few hands.

The next night we returned to the G and played the table next to Luka because his was full.  The new dealer was pretty good too - even comping us a couple of beers (they don't hand out free booze in London casinos)... but she beat our brains in.  The G is a fairly small casino with only a couple tables and no craps (none of the Picadilly casinos offer craps, you have to travel 15-20 minutes by the Tube to find that game) but they were really nice.

5.  Golden Nugget.  Played here the last night.  Couldn't find the Michigan-IU game on ESPN America, but they had no trouble finding MMA for us to watch.  Uh, thanks?  Rob and I each started with 50 pounds on a 5 pound table and played for a while before finally succumbing.  With a 6am wake-up call for my flight home and seeing how it was nearly 2am we would have been smart to call it a night.  Or would we have?  We re-loaded, hit the roulette table and played our favorite Michigan and MSU athlete numbers.  Remarkably, we won.  A bunch.  I think Tom Brady hit a couple times and maybe Andre Hutson once or twice.  Trey Burke hit once, but Denard and Stauskas came up empty.  We left after Woodson hit back to back and I hadn't played it, but we still got back most of our losses from the blackjack session.  All in all, a pretty good time.  And I still have roughly 20 casinos to hit the next time I'm there.