Poker massages

These are some scattered thoughts about getting a massage while playing poker.

1. In Las Vegas, they are available at Caesars Palace, Rio, Venetian, Palms, MGM Grand for sure. I assume they probably are also available at Mirage, Bellagio, and Wynn, though I don't play at those places often enough to have noticed. If they are available anywhere else in town, it's news to me.

2. The standard rate seems to be $2/minute, though I was surprised that the one time I indulged in one at the Rio I was charged $2.50/minute. At the MGM, you can't pay in chips--cash only. That's the only place I've seen that policy. I assume it was implemented because some players objected to anything more than trivial amounts of money being taken out of play.

3. Beware of a player contesting the pot while he's getting a massage. Most would rather sit back and enjoy the experience and sort of tune out of the game for a while, and will tend to play only premium hands, and get out of it if they don't improve. I have never yet seen a player caught bluffing while receiving a massage. It seems that there's some sort of fundamental incompatibility between trying to pull off a bluff while relaxing at the hands of a masseuse.

4. I think I've had a total of six table massages--all of them 10 minutes each--in nearly two years of playing here, so I can hardly claim a wealth of experience. But it seems to me that I don't play as well after it's over. I think I get feeling so relaxed that I lose both focus on and interest in the game. I kind of go through the motions, but tend to stay pretty much stagnant in chip count thereafter. So while I'd like to think that the massage is a nice way to break up a long session and get reinvigorated to keep playing, so far my experience is that it effectively ends any serious money-making. As they say, your mileage may vary. I'm sure there are others who get the opposite reaction, feel charged up by it, and can get back into the game even more aggressively than before. That's what I thought might happen the first few times I tried it, but it never works.

5. It's a sample of only one, but the young woman at the Rio was the roughest massage therapist I've ever encountered, in or out of a poker room. My shoulders hurt for two days after she was finished with me. Not a pleasant experience. It was also the only place at which the masseuses do not have cushions for their clients to use, which meant that I had to rest my chin on either my hands or the hard back of the chair--mighty uncomfortable.

6. Sometimes it feels so good that I want to propose marriage on the spot. Luckily, I have so far restrained myself. (Because, obviously, none of the young women would be able to resist such a tempting offer, and then I would be stuck.)

7. I usually only go for a massage when my infraspinatus is hurting me (see this post). I use this not only to help direct the therapist's attention to where it is needed, but as sort of a test for whether they are really licensed massage therapists, as all claim to be. If they don't know where the infraspinatus is without me telling them, they probably didn't go to school. So far, all have passed with flying colors.

8. You know that there has to be something to gripe about on this subject, right? Well, here it is. Several times, in the larger rooms, when more than one massage therapist is present, I have overheard men planning to get a massage, and discussing with their pals which one to choose. Invariably, the selection is made not in a rational manner (e.g., by having watched their styles as they work on other players, and picking what looks like it more or less matches what you know you like), but by physical attractiveness. It seems uber-important to these guys to be sure to get their massage from the "hottest" woman on duty.

This is so messed up it's hard to know where to start. How does the therapist's attractiveness tell you anything about her skill or technique, or even her personality, for that matter? Why do her looks matter, when she's going to be standing behind you, out of sight? Do you harbor some fantasy that she's going to want to date you as soon as she has touched your back? Do you think your friends watching will think less of you if you get a table massage from a rather plain therapist? Hear this, you meatheads: HER LOOKS CAN'T POSSIBLY MATTER!

One time at Caesars Palace there were two therapists available, one of whom was substantially more conventionally attractive than the other, and after watching for a couple of hours, the more attractive one was frequently busy, but the other did not get a single client, as far as I noticed. I had been watching to try to see which one looked more my "style" (I like gentle--I'm just a big ol' softie, you know), but I couldn't get any information on the second young woman, because she never got hired.* It was a horrendous imbalance, and the reasons for it must have been painfully obvious to both women. So when I had seen enough, I waited until the underemployed one wandered by, and asked her to work on me. It was a complete crap-shoot, as far as I was concerned, which one would be more to my liking, and I found it an easy call to let the decision be made by doing my small part to even the score between the two of them. I'm willing to say that the players who made their choice that night based on comparing these young women's looks were loathsome, shallow, warped pigs. I'm no hero for making the opposite choice, but I think that a touch of human sympathy is a far better motivation for a choice than the misguided ego-stroking that appeared to have behind the selection made by everybody else that night.

I think that a male trying to make his living doing poker table massages would go broke fast. But how does that make any sense? I'm ashamed of the degree and prevalence of sexism and chauvinism in the poker-playing population. Most of them seem to be about as shallow and homophobic as George Costanza (below, in two parts)--and how unflattering an assessment is that?

Oh, and by the way, that massage was the physically nicest, most perfect of the six I've had. I'd pick her again in a heartbeat.







*Yes, I know that I can tell them what I want. But as with picking a barber, it's just a lot nicer and easier to luck into one that automatically "gets it" than one that you have to direct in minute detail.


Addendum, May 18, 2008

I was at Mandalay Bay's poker room last night, and saw two massage therapists working the room. I had never noticed them there previously. However, it's not one of the places at which I spend the most time, so they could have been there for a while without me knowing it. Or it could that they're only there on weekends, so I just haven't been there at the right times to see them. Anyway, you can add Mandalay Bay to the list of places where table massages are available.

Addendum, October 31, 2008

Since writing the above, I've also seen massage therapists in the poker rooms at Red Rock and Excalibur.

Addendum, February 3, 2009

I can now also add Aliante Station and Boulder Station (yes, Boulder Station!) to the list of poker rooms in which massages are at least sometimes offered.

Addendum, February 7, 2009

Last night saw one wandering around the poker room at Imperial Palace offering massages, so the list grows again.

Addendum, February 14, 2009

Yet another addition: I saw massages being offered at the Harrah's poker room last night.

Addendum, March 1, 2009

Treasure Island has them, too.

Addendum, April 30, 2009

Now Bally's, too.