Casino Municipal

I saw my chance when the complaining started.

My family's legs hurt from walking and they had to use the bathroom.

I knew the perfect place for some rest: Viña del Mar's Casino Municipal, located on the beach of the Pacific Ocean.

My family is visiting me here in Chile, and we traveled to Viña del Mar on Monday to see the town. How could I pass up the casino?

The casino has a bunch of slot machines but only a few table games. They have roulette, draw poker and blackjack.

Unfortunately, no hold em was to be found. If they had hold em in that casino, I may have never left.

So I sat down with my dad and my brother to play some blackjack.

One thing I really like about the casino is that they mostly use plaques for the betting. For example, a 5,000 peso plaque is a small orange rectangle with the numeral "5,000" printed on it. The 10,000 chip is a pink, thick oval. The 50,000 chip is a larger plaque, maybe 5 inches wide, with a kind of see-through hologram in the middle.

My blackjack knowledge is quite limited, but I knew enough to more than double my 40,000 peso buyin ($69) to 89,000 pesos ($153). The dealer kept busting, and I kept making money. Hello, spending cash for March!

We left after a short time because my family was getting restless. Then we walked on the boardwalk along the beach and through the city before heading to the sister city of Valparaiso.

That's my brother Michael and I in the picture above. The picture below is a shot of Casino Municipal.

In other news, there's a World Poker Blogger's Tour event at Full Tilt this Sunday. It's open to anyone who wants to play some poker with bloggers.

These are the details, lifted from Guinness and Poker:

$5 tourney
Sunday. March 13th
9pm EST
Name of tourney: WPBT HORSE Tournament
password: thehammer