Money to burn

There's a new aggregator of poker blogs at http://www.pokerwonks.com/. It's a convenient way of scanning recent posts from a wide variety of poker blogs, just to keep abreast with what people are doing and saying in this strange segment of the world.

I was browsing the site this morning, and was reminded that I hadn't checked in on the Prof's poker blog in a while (http://www.lasvegasvegas.com/pokerblog/). A few days ago he posted this:

While the Monte Carlo resort on the Las Vegas strip was ablaze last Monday
the poker room was doing business as usual. Poker players continued betting and
dealers continued dealing the cards to the nonchalant crowd of gamblers. The big
screen TV's in the poker room were tuned to local channels where the fire on the
upper floors exterior facade could be tracked in real time. This devil-may-care
behavior is reminiscent of the time when flood waters flowed through the casino
at Caesars Palace and blackjack players rolled up their pants legs and continued
gambling. Neither flood nor fire will keep the dedicated gamers from their
appointed games.

This was the first I had heard of how people inside reacted to the fire. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

I've played poker through many fire alarms before. As I wrote a couple of months ago (http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/12/mesquite-flavored-poker-part-1-eureka.html):

The final interesting thing that happened on this visit was a fire alarm.
It happened just as I was leaving--literally the instant that I stepped through
the door. In fact, I wondered if I had triggered some security thing, like when
the alarm blares at you in the public library because they didn't de-activate
one of your books.

I've heard lots of fire alarms in casinos before, and they're actually kind
of funny, because nobody does anything. They just keep doing what they were
doing before. Every previous time, a recorded voice has come over the PA system
saying something like, "Our staff is investigating the cause of the alarm. We
will notify you if you need to take any action." In other words, they give
people permission to ignore the alarm.

But this time, the overhead voice was actually telling everybody to
evacuate. By the time I got to my car, a few people were trickling out, but it
wasn't anything like you see in a fire drill at a school, for instance. I think
most people will keep playing their slot machines until the reels melt from the
flames and won't turn any more. Even then, they'll complain that it was just
about to hit.

I have enough confidence in modern building construction and fire safety codes (well, except maybe in Harrah's properties; see http://www.lvrj.com/news/12530566.html and http://www.lvrj.com/business/14450797.html) that I don't worry that a towering inferno is going to result from most of the stuff that sets off the hotel fire alarms (an overdone souffle in the oven, somebody smoking in bed setting his sheets on fire, etc.).

But I'm just telling you all in advance, so you don't think I'm being rude when it happens: If I'm playing poker, and there's a fire in the building large enough that it's being featured live on all the local television stations, and that coverage is on the big-screen TVs in the poker room--I'm going to be leaving. It's possible that I'll finish the hand I'm currently playing. I might even cash out my chips if there isn't a line at the booth. But I'm done for the day.

Hundreds of people needlessly died in the World Trade Center because they obediently followed directions (both automated recordings and what they were told when they called security for advice) to stay where they were and not evacuate the buildings. That's not going to be me. Yeah, maybe the fire is only on the roof, and the poker room is on the ground floor, but fires do crazy things sometimes. They spread. They drop flaming debris to lower levels. They cause floors and walls to collapse, pancaking the stories below. Smoke gets into the ventilation systems. The sprinklers might turn on, dowsing everything and everybody that's still there. And if you wait to leave until the crisis is obvious and imminent, you might get trampled by panicking idiots.

Call me paranoid, but when a building is burning in a major way, I've got other places to be. With more than 50 poker rooms in the city, I don't need to be sitting in the one that's on fire.