Progressive Tipping

I think it's customary to write trip reports on poker blogs, especially when your travel takes you to Las Vegas, the Mecca of gambling. And I'm sorry if I've let you down. Rest assured that the lack of stories does not in any way correspond to an uneventful time. I had a great time, and a lot of fun things happened, but today I'll just focus on one of them: My experiment with progressively increasing tips for the poker room cocktail waitress.

The idea is simple: I tip the standard $1 the first time she brings me a beer. Then I up it to $2 the second time around, etc. I didn't explicitly mention my intention of doing it - hell, I didn't even have the intention of doing it until I was already well under way. Besides, cocktail waitresses seem to have a very sophisticated sense of tip, so I feel confident that most of them will pick up on it without having to be told.

The end result of this was that as the session went on, my beers became more and more frequent, which is hardly surprising. But here's the kicker: About 90 minutes into the session, my waitress came by our table and went up to me and offered me a last Corona (my beverage of choice this evening). I say "offered" and "last" because

1) I hadn't ordered it (I was still working on the last one she had brought me), and
2) she was getting off her shift but wanted to make sure I wasn't without a drink in the time it would take the next waitress to start her shift and get to our table.

So: She had ended her shift and brought me a beer (that I had not - yet - requested) on her way out. Out of kindness and generosity and care for customers? Maybe. But I bet she also wanted the $7 tip that was coming. So that was funny in its own right.

What made it even more fun is that BelgoSuisse (from Cardschat) who was sitting two seats to my right had tried to order a beer from her just a few minutes prior to her bringing me this Corona and had been told "no, sorry, I'm getting off my shift now." Had I known about this exchange as she brought me the last drink, I would have tipped her $20, because that's awesome.