Today's featured shit

I have heard enough stories about the war, and now that Grandma is safely watching figure skating that Grandpa taped for her earlier today, it’s time to tie up some loose ends, of which some include writing this here trip report.

So hello from Napa. I will be typing away for a bit, and perhaps you’ll read it all. We’ll see. I am really beat, so there is no checks and balances system for my rambling this time. You’ve been warned.

So I got everything packed on the 11th except for my cell phone charger (forgot) and left San Jose at 10 a.m. It was just one thing after another that morning, and despite waking up at 6:30, it took forever to get going.

I stopped off at the credit union and took some money out. I told the gal I would be back in a week and a half to return it, along with some new friends, but like most 20-year-old blond tellers with low-cut shirts, she had no sense of humor and must have thought I was using it to loan a friend so he could stock up on Sudafed for his newest meth lab. (I don’t know when financial institutions decided to start hiring nubile chicks as tellers, but quite frankly I’d prefer my eye candy to be in a less-professional setting than my credit union. They understand what’s going on about as well as your standard slot club boothling and are about as attentive and polite. If you’re going to spend your life not using your brain while at work, that’s fine, but please be my server, bartender or hooker. I don’t want you to ever be my primary source of important information if you’re not going to use your two remaining brain cells — one is lost and the other is looking for it.)

Then again, asking for a bunch of ones for tips likely got me categorized as just another strip club visitor by her anyway. I need them for the cocktail servers when I play video poker, honest!

So I got back on the freeway. Things were pretty nondescript for a few hours. But I do weird things when I drive, and sometimes these things can get me in trouble.

I love cruise control. I think it is the greatest invention since sliced ham. And when I am on the freeway, I play “How Far to the Right Can I Be on the Freeway While Leaving Cruise Control On?” In other words, maintain speed, but don’t block passing lanes unless you’re passing someone.

I need to take 46 to get from I-5 to 99. However, an 18-wheeler is, unbeknown to its driver, in my way, but because I am so stubborn, I neither speed up nor slow down. I miss my exit. I can’t even do some weird maneuver to sneak in at the last minute. The truck was positioned perfectly and going the perfect speed so that I was passing him as we passed the exit. Oops. Well, what’s the next crossroad to 99?

That would be 58. 58 is normally what I take from 99 to I-15 anyway, so it just means I won’t have to take 99 anymore. I get onto 58, and there is no traffic. I am thinking, “Why didn’t I go this way before?” Once I enter Bakersfield city limits I quickly understand why.

It’s only 2:30 p.m., but traffic is awful. And there are a million lights. And they aren’t synchronized. And they are all red. At this point of course, I just need to deal with it, because I don’t know the side streets and don’t want to make things even worse.

I don’t remember much else after that. There’s road construction on I-15, but that’s no surprise. So then around 6:30 I pull into the Aladdin parking lot. Of course the whole way here I am thinking of the thread I made about the best way to get to Aladdin from the freeway. Well, because my Audrie issues were unresolved, I found out the hard way that the Bally buildings block a bon voyage to Audrie. Fine. I make a right at the next street and go through some weird kung fu hideout before ending up on the other side of Audrie. So I make a right onto Audrie and a left into the parking garage. I accidentally figured it out.

There is no one in line at check-in, and she gives me room 3687, which is the street number of my grandparents’ house, which is where I am right now. This is just a coincidence. It’s not even irony.

Aladdin is slowly becoming Planet Hollywood. Slowly. I think it is taking so long because all the construction workers have to traverse the Dessert Passage shops before reaching the construction site. Some days, they reach the site just in time to go home. Dessert Passage execs don’t mind this, however, because the extra foot traffic makes them appear to actually be selling things in the shops.

Back to 3687. It has a purple door. All purple-doored hotel rooms have some sort of theme, meaning an outfit of an actor from a movie is on a wall, and there are lithographs or photographs or cels or something from said movie on the walls as well.

In my case, the movie was Get Shorty. Bette Midler’s outfit is on a wall, behind what likely was some sort of thick glass protection. A mannequin is wearing it, and I do not know enough about Bette Midler to make jokes about her or the mannequin here. On the wall near the window is a framed whatever of John Travolta, and in the bathroom is another framed whatever of Travolta and three other stars of the film (not Midler).

Speaking of the window, I had a view of everything on the strip, including the Bellagio Fountains. I didn’t ask for all this fancy stuff, but I sure got it. Those who appreciate these things should ask for 3687, or at least an odd-numbered room on a high floor.

Aladdin has lousy video poker. I found 8/5 BP in single-line, 3P and 5P dollars. Hmm.

I should explain how I gamble. I call it the Rainman method. I run $100 through a machine every day that I stay somewhere. However, I am not Rainman. If I get the meter up to $1,000, I cash out. I just don’t have the attention span to lose that much money at once, so I say, “Fine. Give me your money. See if I care.”

So I played five-play 8/5 bonus poker dollars for about three minutes, and I had fulfilled my obligation for the day. Now it was time to play poker.

Aladdin’s poker room is in a different place every time I visit. Right now it is upstairs, near the aforementioned VP machines. All in all, quite convenient. I bought in for $120 and played the 3-6 game for four hours and made $20.

At the end of the 11^th, +$20 for poker and -$100 for VP. -$80 overall.

I woke up on the 12^th, ready for my first full day of action. First stop, the $15 Spice Market Breakfast Buffet. It opens at 7, and I am one of the first people there, right next to all the senior citizens that no doubt have been awake for two hours already. The buffet is fine, but it wasn’t breathtaking. At least they have chocolate milk. This is a big deal to me. And no, I don’t want to add chocolate syrup to white milk. That’s cheating. If you do it for me, Mr. Server, don’t tell me! Let me pretend not to notice that the second one you brought out is a slightly different shade of brown and that there is a big brown smudge on the side of the glass that you missed when you were stirring.

On my first day, I like to use whatever I’ve received in the mail and get them out of the way. That consisted of one thing: Get 300 base credits at Caesars and get a free collared denim shirt, which I could use at work, because it is business casual, which means “wear any damn thing you want to cover your upper body, so long as it has a collar.” However, there were coupons in the in-room magazines for a coupon sheet at Tropicana and a funbook at the New Frontier. (Actually, the Trop’s is for a deck of cards, and the New Frontier’s is for a $5 match play, but that’s not what you actually get. You still get those things, of course. The coupon sheet accompanies the deck of cards and includes a match play. The New Frontier funbook has a $5 MP as one of the coupons in it.)

The astute reader will notice that those three casinos are on the strip. Splendid. So I walked from Aladdin to Tropicana. As I passed the M&M place, someone asked me where the MGM was. I told her I was going that way so she could follow me, and this turned into an opportunity for her to ask me my life story while we were walking. Luckily, my phone then rang.

I refuse to check e-mail when I am on vacation. That is because when I am not on vacation, all I do is check e-mail. However, I always have my phone with me. You never know when someone is going to need you, and as a seller on eBay, it is important for me to be there for my suckers, er, customers. Such was the case here.

Someone paid for something with a money order, and I never received it, so she was calling to see where the item was. She needed it for a Christmas present. I told her that it had not arrived, and because of the situation, I would return it to her when I got home, because I would not get back in time to send her the item before Christmas. I don’t think people realize that when you live in Ohio and it’s 9:45 a.m. that it is 7:45 a.m. in California (let alone Vegas). Luckily, I had gone to bed early the night before and gotten up early on the 12^th.

By now, I have passed the entrance to the MGM, and this stranger had left my life (ostensibly) forever. I was off to the Trop.

I got my coupon sheet. All I could find that was playable was $1 8/5 bonus VP, so I gave them $100. I know when I was a member before I received stuff in the mail from them, so maybe I will again. I gave them and the New Frontier a lot of action this trip, which is sort of stupid because they both will not be around much longer. Then again, my play at Stardust did get me $10 in freeplay for staying at Orleans.

Incidentally, I had been away from the Trop for so long that I was considered new again. With 100 points I would get a T-shirt. I didn’t get enough points on my $100, but I have so many T-shirts, I decided to let it go.

The Trop has that $20 gets you $50 in the gaffed machines promotion. Years ago, I did it to get the stuffed Siberian tiger, which made an excellent gift for my mother. Surveying the consolation prizes, I saw the same tiger. Nothing else was catlike enough for Mom, so I decided I would have to find a gift for someone else. The dice clock will do nicely, I thought. And a few minutes later my $20 turned into one. I gave it to my friend that visited for the weekend. She didn’t want it but knew who would. That’s good enough for me.

While I was there, someone won $50, which was Ned Flanders’ favorite kind of surprise: mild. The way this promo works is that you must use your 50 credits (three at a time) on these gaffed machines, and each spin results in nothing, 15 credits, 30 credits, $50, $100 and $500.

You’ll notice that 50 is not divisible by three. I guess it would be more accurate to say you get 51 credits, because the last two are good enough for a spin.

So I got the dice clock and now had to carry that around with me. I forget about these things. If you obtain something, then you have to carry it with you.

Time to use the $5 MP that came with the coupon sheet. It requires a $10 bet. All they have are shuffling machines and shoes. I use a shoe.

Similar Rainman tactics are used for blackjack. Buy in for $100, but now the goal is to either double the money or lose it all. I am not going to turn it into $1,000. That would get me kicked out before I got that high. I use a simple hi/lo count and a 1-6 spread, although when the count is zero, I bet two units, not one. This makes it easier in my mind to get to six units when it’s to my advantage. I’ve never seen anyone do this, nor have I read of it, but I think it helps. At any rate, I lost my $100.

I check the poker room. They only have a $1/$2 No Limit game. No thanks. It’s too early for anything else, I guess. I would make a lot of money playing in these types of games. It’s early in the morning. Everyone is tired. I am not. I just don’t like No Limit cash games. Tournaments are fine. Similarly I don’t like fixed limit tournaments. I think it is important to stick with one or two things, and then if you improve, you can focus on other types of poker.

Trop: -$100 VP, -$100 BJ, -$20 slots. +1 dice clock.
 

Aladdin is on the way to Caesars, so I drop off the dice clock. It’s a nice day in LV, and walking to Caesars is quite comfortable and easy, and because it is December, I needn’t fear a sunburn.

I find the few remaining 9/6 $1 JOB machines. There are eight, with two 3P/5P machines near them. Sometimes they are all full, which is awful. I find a seat at a single-liner and get 220 of the base credits I need on my $100. I know I am returning for a couple of LVA meets, so I will take care of it then.

I visit the poker room. There is a wait list, and a tournament is starting in 20 minutes, so I decide to do the tournament. It was $80 with a $50 rebuy, which I used. Out of 107 people, I finished 38^th. I played well. That’s all you can really hope for. My table never broke, and it had a lot of good players. The dealers were competent and friendly enough. I recommend this poker room.

Caesars: -$100 VP, -$130 poker.

Now it is time to walk to New Frontier. It is about 3:20, so it is about as warm as it will get. The sun sets before 4:30 in Las Vegas in December.

I get my funbook and see the usual assortment of coupons for the restaurants and bingo. I use the match play at a double-deck table and make $130 pretty quick. I cash out and leave a $5 tip. It’s time for FPDW.

New Frontier has a 25-cent FPDW with a progressive on the royal. It’s one of the better percentage plays out there, especially when the progressive is up there. This time it wasn’t ($1040), but so what? It’s still an opportunity to get points at a strip property, closing down that it may be.

I don’t know what strategy to use when playing quarters, because it requires a royal, generally, to turn $100 into $1000. And losing 400 credits can take forever. I generally can only play single-line VP for a couple hours before my attention span starts doing other things, and then I make mistakes. I used to be able to play for eight hours straight. I blame turning 30.

So I get 4 deuces, and 1000 quarters come spilling out. Hmm, okay. I guess I will play off the 400 credits and keep the $250, meaning a $150 profit. And that’s what I did.

The machine ran out of quarters during that 1000-coin auto-spill. So I got a hopper fill. I don’t tip involuntary hopper fills. (If I cash out and empty the hopper, then I do.) I’d appreciate opinions of this. I tip hopper fills when I do it on purpose because I created the work. I don’t understand why I should tip for involuntary ones. I know it’s the same job either way, but I don’t tip for that reason. I tip people for doing something for me that I requested. Otherwise I’d give the cocktail server money when I decline an invitation for a beverage.

I got several natural four of a kinds and three natural straight flushes on this machine. Oh well.

I was hungry. I used the $1 off a rack of ribs and beer coupon at Gilley’s. I generally don’t eat meat, but I figured I would never get another chance to eat at Gilley’s, and as someone who doesn’t really like country music AT ALL, I figured I should try something new and make myself more well-rounded.

So if RAMPER has never been here, he should go. Methinks he’s been here by now, but just in case, get your SoCal ass in there. Having said that, you can imagine how my server was dressed. I wouldn’t say she was dressed to the nines. Maybe the sixty-nines. Fake Southern accent and all, she got me my order. Food was above average (not that ribs are an area of expertise for me), but maybe not worth $19.99. I watched a bunch of country music videos on the screen while I was there. A lot of people lost their jobs, girlfriends and horses.

New Frontier: BJ +$125, VP +$150

It was 9. It was dark. Time to go back to Aladdin. I thought the walk would do me good. But then I saw a Deuce pulling up. (That is what they call the bus on the strip now.) I still hadn’t taken one, and I love mass transit. Fine. I pull $2 out and take that back. The driver must have been an ex-security guard. He kept ordering people around the bus, including telling people not to stand in the stairwell between the decks. (It is a double-decker bus.) Great entertainment. So when someone asked me whether I saw a show and I said no, I lied. I saw the Deuce.

I got back to the Aladdin and lost $120 playing 3-6 and $100 playing bonus poker, and it was time for bed.

Aladdin: VP -$100, poker -$120

12^th total: poker -$250, VP -$150, BJ +$25 and other -$20 for a total of -$395. For the trip I was at -$475.

I got up on the 13^th, ready to use my POV. I never used my POV in April, so I had some catching up to do. First stop Arizona Charlie’s Boulder.

This place was called Arizona Charlie’s East for years. They’ve changed their name, but many of the machines inside still have the old logo on them. It’s as if they started to rebrand everything in the casino, ran out of money and scrapped the project.

They have Kings or Better Joker’s Wild in quarters there (100.6%). This underrated game provided some enjoyment before my $100 went away. My $5 MP paved the way to a $140 BJ win, less $5 for tipping. I also had the $2.79 ham and eggs special at the Sourdough Café or whatever it’s called. Sorry. I’m a cheap bastard. I am not going to spend more money to not eat meat. It’s not about principal or the animals. It’s about the bottom line. I can spend $7 for an omelet or $3 for ham. I am taking the ham.

Arizona Charlie’s Boulder: VP -$100, BJ +135

There was an outside shot at a 3 p.m. meet at Ellis Island. Nothing had been decided when I left, so I figured I would risk it. Meet or no, egg nog was on my agenda. Granted, the signs all say “holiday nog.” My guess is that there are no eggs in this concoction. Rum must be cheaper than eggs. That’s why farmers don’t get their hens drunk. It is not cost-effective. The roosters must get their action on skill alone with this valuable weapon missing from their arsenal.
 

I arrived around 20 minutes early and played the 5P NSUD quarter machines. I had a holiday nog and a root beer. The root beer was sort of flat, almost like Kool-Aid. I will try it again some other time, but this time I was not impressed.
 

I got 4 deuces again. I cashed out $300. It was 3:15, and my guess was that no one was going to show. I had on my jersey with my name so I would be easy to spot, but no harm, no foul. And plus I put about 5,000 points on my card, so maybe I will start getting offers from the neighboring Super 8.
 

Ellis Island: VP +$200
 

With this aborted meet behind me, it was back to the POV and Arizona Charlie’s Decatur. They have 5P 10/7 DB in quarters, which is my favorite game in the world to play. I used to play this at the Club Cal-Neva in Reno when I lived in South Lake Tahoe in 1999-2000. A dealt four aces still doesn’t give a W-2G, so you can get a lot of 4OAKs because it’s 5P without worrying about tax issues.
 

$100 turned into $0 pretty quickly. Oh well. Then I had the POV’s $5 MP. That $100 also disappeared fairly quick. At the table was a leftover Texan from the rodeo, who was betting $100-$200/hand and some woman who believed in every kind of BJ voodoo you could imagine. She, like everyone in Vegas, just wanted to get even. The Texan left, and it was just the two of us vs. the dealer.
 

She was betting quarters two hands at a time. One of them involved a double down, but it was the third-base hand, and she “created” a situation in which she claimed she stood on 15 vs. an eight before doubling the last hand, but the dealer hit her 18 and busted her with the 10 that would have won the double down. And also the dealer would have busted instead of making a hand that beat her out of both hands. So all this woulda, coulda, shoulda cost her $75. The dealer said she motioned for a hit with her hand, and she said she did not. (I believe this was a double-deck face-up game.) Of course she waited till after the hand was over, so the floor was called, and they called upstairs to the eye in the sky to determine whether she inadvertently had been given another card or whether she legitimately tapped the felt for a card. I of course kept my mouth shut. What’s in it for me? The camera will show what happened, and because it’s not the NFL, they’ll get the call right.
 

I busted out soon after so I never found out what happened. At least I don’t have to worry about being caught for counting, because I didn’t win! Counting cards is not a guarantee, you know. It only puts the odds in your favor.
 

I went to the poker room, and the game had JUST broken up. Oh well.
 

Arizona Charlie’s Decatur: BJ -$100, VP -$100
 

The next coupon was for Big Dogs. There were three locations that were good, but the nearest one was on Sahara, west of Decatur. I figured, at 5 p.m., how hard could it be to go south on Decatur and make a right onto Sahara? Moron.
 

The light at Decatur and Sahara is a mess at rush hour. I really don’t see how they can make it any better. It was backed up in all directions, plus you have pedestrians. Stay away from this intersection during rush hour! It took three cycles for me to make my right turn.
 

Big Dogs has the Gamblers Bonus slot club, which I’d never signed up for before. Halfway through my session, I asked about it, and I should have done so right away. Every full house with 5s or 6s in it that night got 5000 bonus points ($5). Despite playing 6/5 BP for quarters, it’s not as bad when you are getting a bonus for some of your FHs. Of course because I was new I could not cash out my points. Next time. I ended up with more than 20,000 points on my card. The coupon is a $10 bonus for 4OAK, and I fondly remembered the last time I used it in 2003, when I got it on my second hand. Not this time. It took over an hour and cost me $60 to get it. However, the beer there is very good. The food seemed good too. Maybe next time.
 

I had a great view of the Phoenix Suns game. All in all, a nice place for locals, and if Question 5 goes a certain way, it will be smoke free. By now this may have been decided. I have no idea, and I am not going to check. Insert your own retorts here. I would play here because of the FH bonuses and the good eats.
 

Big Dogs: VP -$50
 

Time to head downtown. Binion’s is next, and I’ve never had so little fun winning money before. Please allow me to explain.
 

First I went to the slot club to get one of their player cards and use my POV coupon for $10 in free play. Turns out it takes 24-72 hours to get put on the card. This was an unsettling surprise. I wish that the POV coupon had said this. Lame. But it would get lamer.
 

Well, I was already there, so I had to do my obligatory video poker and poker room visits. They have FPDW in quarters, and with it being a double-points day, I figured why not. Well, I got four deuces for the third time this trip. I’d only gotten deuces once in my life before this trip, although I honestly don’t usually play deuces wild games. It spit out most of my thousand quarters and then required a hopper fill, so I waited for that. I had 160 credits left on my machine from my original hundred, and I was tired of playing, so I figured I’d go to the poker room for a bit and then play off the $40 afterward.
 

They are spreading a 4-8 game, so I buy in for $160 and get ready to sit down. As I am taking the chips out of my tray and setting up, the dealer suddenly looks at me and says I need to take “that” off the table. Whatever is he talking about?
 

Time for yet another sidebar to this story. When you play poker in a card room, you need to protect your hand. If something happens to your hand and it’s unprotected, it can be called dead, and you lose your hand (the cards, not your actual hand). Most people just use a chip. Greg Raymer is called “Fossilman” because he uses a fossil. Johnny Chan uses an orange. You get the idea. So what?
 

Well, the dealer keeps motioning at me without saying anything, and then he says, “you can’t have a condom at the table.”
 

I use a wrapped condom as a card cover. There are so many great lines you can use for this. “I like to protect my hand.” “I like lots of action at the poker table.” You get the idea. I’ve been doing this for years, and despite ripping off most of my material from other people, I am proud to say that I came up with this idea 100%.
 

I politely asked whether he was kidding, and he flatly said no, so I said fine, I’ll play somewhere else. I am not interested in making a scene. Despite my flowery writing and social skills, I am not compensating for anything and do not explicitly seek undue attention. I can respect a private operation to have its own rules of operating.
 

So I go back to the brush to cash out, and he says, “that was fast.” I briefly explain (accurately!) what transpired, and he seemed a bit perplexed. He said he thought it was creative and wanted to talk to the floor about it, but she was not there at the moment. I said I would wait for a bit for him to get her, although I really didn’t want to. Undue attention, etc.
 

The floor arrives, and he accurately restates the situation to her and asks her opinion, and she agreed with the dealer! Makes sense, I suppose. What dealer is going to voluntarily tell someone at a seven-handed table that he can’t do something? A seven-handed table is at risk of breaking up because many people do not like to play short-handed.
 

To be clear, I was not kicked out. But because I refused to not use a condom as a card protector I was not allowed to play. I could have stayed if I used something else.
 

The floor gave me a keychain for my trouble, which I found odd. The whole thing was quite cordial, I must say. But I refuse to go to Binion’s again, POV coupon or no. It’s an easy choice to make, given the competition out there.
 

Needless to say, I didn’t play the last $40 at FPDW.
 

Binion’s: VP +$190
 

I drove back to Aladdin around 10 p.m. and did the usual video poker/poker combo to “earn my keep.” I lost the $100 pretty quick at VP, and things weren’t looking good at the 2-4 game, either. Why isn’t there a 3-6 game? Well, they started one, and I moved. The game wasn’t full for long, though, and it got short-handed, and this one guy was a maniac, and after two hours of playing virtually nothing because of crap cards, I was able to take advantage of this tight image when I got a run of cards at a four-handed table. I made $103 before realizing I could barely stay awake. It was a great opportunity to make more money, but I knew I could easily give a lot back because of my tired state.
 

Aladdin: VP -$100, poker +$103
 

13^th total: poker +$103, VP +$40, BJ +$35 for a total of +$178. For the trip I was -$297.
 

The 14^th turned out to be a fun social day. I started with a drive to Boulder Station. I used some accrued points to have the Feast Buffet for breakfast. I love Stations. I can play an hour of dollar positive VP (900 hands, or 2250 points) and eat their buffet for free ($4.99, or 3000 points, but it is 25% off if you are gold, which I think involves leaving just 500 points on your card). I think just being gold gives you that 25% discount, even if you pay cash. After molesting their omelet station, I was good to go.
 

I used their 3X points coupon to play $1 10/6 DDB. It didn’t last long, but it was the attempt that was brave. My results sure looked as if I were in the Special Olympics, anyway. I would have had better results if I had wildly flailed at the buttons, I am sure. (And for the record I covered Special Olympics for high school yearbook and my best friend as a child had cerebral palsy, so although that doesn’t make it OK to mock the disabled, it *does* make it funnier.)
 

I went to the poker room and sat in on a 4-8 game. Boulder Station is one of the last smoking poker rooms in LV, although I was at a nonsmoking table. I had nothing but hot cards for the first 20 minutes. Talk about a way to build your table image. I felt sort of bad, because the table was full of sheriffs wanting to call down this arrogant brash kid, except I was polite and actually had the hands I was representing! It was a shame to leave after two hours up $57, but I had to go to an LVA meet.
 

An aside about the poker room here. I told them the story of Binion’s and the condom, and the dealer said, “Binion’s will do anything to drive business away.”
 

Boulder Station: VP -$100, poker +$57
 

I took Boulder Highway to Tropicana to get to Orleans. I’d never been before, but the following day I would be there again to check in, so it was nice to get a good look at the place. Brendan’s was closed, so we went to some bar to hang out. There were eight of us. I really think that this is the ideal number for a meet. In many ways this was my favorite meet because we could all sit together.
 

I generally won’t even try with names. There was a fellow Bay Area native that was there who was a lot of fun. He will also be there when I am next month for business, so hopefully we will be able to get together, although it’s hard to tell at this point. I’ve never gone to Vegas on business before, so I don’t know what to make of it all.
 

I also met Catherine (bigfus), who has similar goals as me in the gambling department. She also takes mass transit everywhere in LV, for which I have tremendous respect. I take mass transit all the time at home, but in LV, I tend to drive.
 

Everyone at the meet was a lot of fun, and I apologize for not remembering the names. I honestly don’t even try anymore because I just forget them anyway (plus I hate misspelling names, and when I only hear and never see the names, it becomes to easy to do this). That’s enough disclaimers for today.
 

After the meet, some of us tried our luck at the 3P nickel progressive. They had 9/7 DB, and after the recent gutting of their VP, this was about as good as it was going to get. One of the royals was over $600, and considering nickel royals are $200 without a progressive, this was amazing. None of us hit it, but we did help get it over $700. One of the smaller royals hit, which was nice.
 

My $100 lasted five hours. 3P is exciting enough that I can play it for that long, but even after five hours, I was really fried. Catherine stuck around, and I offered her a ride back to Main Street Station, where she was staying. Coin-in is coin-in (except at Coast casinos, which uses a coin-out system), so I figured I could play anywhere. Besides MSS does send good offers out, I have heard.
 

Orleans: VP -$100
 

We stopped at Gold Coast on the way to use a 2-for-1 buffet coupon. It was much better than my last experience there (see April trip report). I raided the Mongolian grill and desserts. It’s what I do. If my pants fit, I need to eat more.
 

So off we were to MSS. With the FPDW gone, I decided to play some 10/7 DB. These machines had the double up feature. I like it. The hell with you. I know everyone hates it. I like it. Double up? You bet.
 

I lost $50 in eight minutes. I still like double up. Then someone tells me about More for 4. This promotion gives you a scratch card for every hand four of a kind and higher. Well, if I don’t play double up, then I can get more scratch cards because I am not wasting time playing Card Sharks.
 

I lose the other $50. Normally I’d leave, but I am here hanging out with Catherine, so I don’t want to just leave. I figure okay I will just play another $100. It’s quarters. How bad can it hurt?
 

I get a straight flush and a 4OAK. Both scratch cards are $2. I manage to get the second $100 back to $100 again and decide my original $100 loss is sufficient, but at least now I have 1000 points on the card. I go back to Aladdin. It’s the last night before I have to check out.
 

MSS: VP -$100
 

By now it is after 2 a.m. I sit at a 2-4 table because that is all they have. Stupid Aladdin. Why can’t they keep a 3-6 game open? Well, after nearly four hours of playing, I have made $4 and decide to go to bed. Wait, I forgot to blow $100 playing VP. OK, done.
 

Aladdin: VP -$100, poker +$4
 

14^th: poker +$61, VP -$400 for a total of -$339. For the trip I am -$636.
 

I call for a late checkout and get a whole hour. I actually use an alarm and set it for 11. (I never use alarms, even at home. I love flextime.)
 

I get up on the 15^th, load up the car and check out. One last shot at VP and the poker room, and I am down with the Aladdin a la Dean (Martin).
 

The poker room is full, so I get on the list and head to the VP. My $100 on the 5P machine works its way down to $5, and I cash out and head to the single-line machine. I build it back up to $30 and head back to the 5P machine. Down to $10, I head back to the single-line machine. And again, I get to $25, so I go back to the 5P machine.
 

Several 4OAKs later (including 4 aces twice), I cash out $1070. My $8k coin-in helps get my trip coin-in to $11k. I doubt it’s enough for a four night stay to keep getting casino rate postcards, but I guess time will tell. I get my .25% cashback and head to the poker room. They still don’t have a seat for me, but five minutes later they do. Another 2-4 game. Jeez.
 

Well, I won $53, and I guess that’s all that matters. Two-third of the table is part of a wedding, and it makes for easy pickings. They all left at 3, and so did I. I wasn’t part of the wedding, no. (How could I be, having never read Neon Nuptials?) But I did have to check in at Orleans.
 

Audrie/Harmon/LV Blvd/Tropicana wasn’t too bad, despite it being Friday, and I was off to check in. I had a little time to kill, needing to pick up Sasha at 7 at the airport, so I combed the floor for better VP than what I had played before. I did find 25-cent spin poker in 8/5 bonus, so if you need to rack up the coin-out points in a hurry, nothing will beat this $11.25/spin option that I could find.
 

That $100 didn’t last long. I watched a little TV. I wanted to nap but was afraid I would sleep through an alarm. Oh, and the bottom nickel 3P royal had hit and was back to $300 again. That bank of machines seems to always be popular.
 

I picked up Sasha, whose flight was on time. I decided I would break with alphabetical POV tradition and go somewhere new for dinner. So for the first time in my life I went to Wynn for the 100-point two buffet promo.
 

Parking was easy. There was one person in line at the slot club. This is a Friday night? Well, it has to do with it being the slowest weekend of the year.
 

I went to the 100-play 9/6 JOB $1 machine. You can play any number of lines on this machine, so I figured I would just put $100 in and max-line it until I got 100 points ($900 coin-in, I believe).
 

Wynn: VP -$400
 

Ahem. But we got the $81 comp, and it was the best $400 meal I’d ever had. I have no regrets. I won $2250 on a 50-play $1 JOB machine at Caesars in 2001 when I was dealt a full house with max coin in. What goes around, comes around.
 

Only two people ahead of us at the buffet to get in, as well, so indeed, a slow Friday night.
 

Wynn has a lot of people there just checking out the place. We even had the “guy in a stained sweatshirt, short pants and fanny pack” walking around. And in the buffet we had more than our share of people dressed to the nines (just the nines).
 

Overall, mildly trashy. Bellagio is much more dignified by comparison. Personally, it’s all a big whatever, but it is noticeable.
 

We went back to Orleans, and I lost $200 playing random slots. My notes aren’t clear, but my end-of-day stats are. There must have been slots involved.
 

15^th: poker +53, VP +$470, other -$200.
 

Thankfully, Sasha is using my player cards while visiting. My Orleans trip as a whole ended up with something like $15,000 coin out, and she lost over a grand, so I expect good offers from them.
 

Ahh, the 16^th. I We took the shuttle to Barbary Coast to get to Caesars for a member meet at the Diamond Lounge (ooh la la). I decided not to eat because the DL would have food. We got there around 2:40, so I tried another 100 to get my shirt, and I barely got any points at all. Then Sasha had the genius idea of getting me points by playing slots. Then it was 3.
 

I called Mare, who was supposed to get us in, and she led us to the DL. The DL had a line of people waiting to get in, and I found several LVAers waiting among them. It quickly became apparent that we would have to go somewhere else. Fine. So we went to the Seahorse bar. Funny. That’s where the following day’s meet would be.
 

There were actually nametags. Awesome. I’d never been to an LVA meet with nametags before. This meet was super. I didn’t have enough time to talk to everyone I wanted to, because we had to head to the Las Vegas Wranglers hockey game, and of course, we needed to eat first too. Sasha is quite patient with my idiosyncratic quirks and was fine with having waited this long without eating.
 

I have leftover RCs on my Harrah’s card, so we ate in the food court after leaving the meet. I am a sucker for soup in a bread bowl, so I had the lobster chowder. They had vegetarian options, but none involved soup in a bread bowl! I am such a poseur vegetarian. Don’t you ever tell someone you know a vegetarian that eats meat. I will not be responsible for the downfall of an entire group of people. I am just a poseur.
 

Caesars: VP -$100
 

We went to Bellagio to meet my friends Joby and Tracy. This is how I know Bellagio is still dignified (see above). We met at valet, and they drove us back to Orleans. I showed them the room, and then we went to get tickets to the hockey game. We got eighth-row tickets (Row H) for $20 each. Not bad.
 

The Wranglers are funny. Their mascot stands in front of a giant wall with a slot machine arm on the right side of it. They superimpose three reels on the wall, and then he pulls the handle. The reels line up with the symbol “#” and the two numbers of a player, and then the player skates through the wall onto the ice.
 

This is about as clever as it got. I used a coupon for a free hot dog, popcorn and soda. (It’s free!) TOO MUCH POPCORN. Ugh. I could not eat it all, which is hard to believe, I know. It was soo freakin’ salty. After eating about half, I needed help. Well the people in front of us were sort of dumb. Not loud, like the people behind us, but dumb. I decided it would be funny, if the Wranglers scored, to jump up, cheer and accidentally throw my popcorn bucket in the air. There really wasn’t a lot of people around us, so there weren’t going to be innocent bystanders.
 

Well, it took so long for the Wranglers to score that I had hardly any popcorn left, and I totally botched it when I jumped up, so the only place the popcorn went was at my feet. Oh well.
 

The Fresno Falcons (San Jose Sharks minor league club) beat the Wranglers (Calgary Flames) 4-2. The Wranglers looked like crap.
 

One more thing: The backs of the tickets had coupons for a free a drink. And when we walked in, we were given 2-for-1s for the Orleans buffet, which were printed on the same stock as our actual tickets, so they also had free drinks on the back. Decisions, decisions.
 

The four of us had some drinks, and then the women stereotypically went off to play slots (both with my card – yes!), and Joby and I went to play blackjack. He is smart enough to count cards, so together we could have been a gruesome twosome. However, we ended up at a shoe, and the game just never got that good. I did win $65 though (and he $50). A new shoe started, and every player but one was dealt a 20, and the dealer also had a 10 showing, so we decided to reverse wong our way out of there.
 

They went off to bed (Fitzgerald’s), and so did Sasha and I. It had been a long day.
 

Orleans: BJ +$65
 

16^th: VP -$100, BJ +$65 for a total of -$35. For the trip I am -$348.
 

Got up on the 17^th and had no obligations until the evening. I found a Spam slot machine and wanted to get the bonus round to show Sasha how cool it was. I spent $60, and she spent $40, and it never happened. Bah.
 

I wanted to show her downtown, so we drove to El Cortez. I got her a Jackie’s Club player card. (It has Jackie right on it. How cool is that?) While she checked out the slots, I played a little BJ. I knew they had single decks that paid 3:2 for BJs, but I couldn’t catch a break. My $100 didn’t last long.
 

EC used to be a nice hole in the wall. It is so clean in there, and although they haven’t gotten rid of the smoky smell, they have covered it up with standard room freshener. The result is a unique aroma. That’s one way of putting it.
 

El Cortez: BJ -$100
 

I found Sasha, and we walked to the Western. God, I love that place. Wood-paneled floors, and the only machines that take actual pennies in Las Vegas. The six-coin progressive was up to $613, by the way. We did not play. All six machines were in use. Remember when they said they were going to fix up the jernt? Not yet anyway.
 

Oh, and their pit games made me smile. The table betting limits were not on plastic like they are at every other casino. They are printed out on paper! Classic. The way Las Vegas was meant to be. Take that, Tropicana!
 

We then walked down Fremont to La Bayou, so she could try all the frozen drinks. Those fartknockers no longer have the $1 small ones, but they do give free samples. We did eventually get a half brain freeze/half mudslide in the really tall plastic container. Other changes: they now say 21 different flavors, not 26, and the drawings are every 30 minutes, not every 20. However, all the signage does not reflect these three changes.
 

The place was nearly empty, which was sad, although it could just be the season. Because of this, I won the drawing and got to use the slot machine. I got the bottom prize: $2 or any of the fancy beads on the back wall. I took the ones with the Japanese good luck kitties on them. They became part of my grandma’s Christmas present. (She is Japanese.) She loved them, by the way.
 

We played the Wild Cherry Bonus Pie slots while we were there. The pie was almost full. I ended up winning $5. This is the one place that really needs my money. After all, they can’t even stay open 24 hours! (They close from 2-6 a.m.)
 

La Bayou: other $5
 

We needed to get to New Frontier because Sasha likes Bingo, and I had $1 off coupons! We did not win, but it was nice being the two youngest people in there by at least 20 years. Bingo really is a trip. Sasha is a San Jose Sharks fan, and they had a teal dauber for sale, so you know she had to get that one for her eventually losing bingo cards. I am sure she still has the dauber as a souvenir.
 

New Frontier: other -$13
 

Sasha likes steak, so I took her to Ellis Island so she could have the $4.95 special. I figured we could use the 2-for-1 in the POV. It can’t be said enough. YOU CAN’T! I don’t know why I thought I could. Maybe because I read here that you could? I dunno.
 

I ordered mine medium well; she ordered hers medium rare. They both were rare. I refuse to complain about food in a restaurant unless it’s some sort of code violation. Rare meat isn’t going to kill me. Our server, Suzi, had a bad New York accent. It was entertaining enough to leave a $10 tip.
 

I was going to use the match play from our placemat. I could not use hers too, and they insisted she have a player card. (Yes, there is a space on the MP to write the name and card number on it, but I have read that no one ever asks for it.) And then (also in a bad NY accent) he asks whether I am going to use mine because the game is about to close. I said, “Well, you can’t close it if I play for a while,” and he said he could because he has to go home. I have never heard of a pit game closing while people were playing at it. I remember secondary pits staying open all night because one player at one table wanted to keep playing. Shows what I know.
 

I didn’t want to deal with the situation because I needed to get to the airport to drop Sasha off, so I just said, “Not tonight Howie, but thank you.” This is funny for two reasons. It was Sunday, and he had on a Howie Long Raiders jersey. Also, when I lived in Tahoe, I worked with a bartender from New York named Howie, and he had the accent, believe you me. At any rate, I knew I would be back because EI is in the POV, so I would just take care of it then.
 

While we were waiting to be seated at the restaurant, incidentally, I played more 5P 25 cent NSUD and lost $13.75. Sasha put $100 in a penny Star Wars machines and, on her second spin, got four Han Solos and a Wild for $100 and cashed out $207 total.
 

EI: VP -$13.75
 

So I took Sasha to the airport and headed to the 9 p.m. member meet at Caesars. This time the Seahorse Bar was the correct destination!
 

I got to Caesars a bit early and decided to get the rest of the points I needed. I left my card at Orleans and needed a new one. I decided to inquire about the shirt while I was there. She said I had been away for too many days from my first play (the 200 or so tier credits day), but if I promised to play more, then she’d just give it to me now. So with shirt in hand, I played a bit. The guy next to me hit a royal and was answering all the questions that go along with it. Then I got 4OAK. It was getting near 9, and I cashed out $200.
 

The meet was fun, although much smaller than the previous afternoon’s. I received wonderful Cayman Islands propaganda. I used to know a cocktail server from the Caymans. She was originally from Ireland and had the accent and everything, but I digress.
 

Catherine was also at this one. Now she was staying at El Cortez, so I offered to take her back again. I cashed in my $200 instead of playing it off. Like Caesars is going to send me anything anyway.
 

Caesars: VP +100
 

There are two slant-top TITO 25-cent machines with 20/7 KBJW and 10/7 DB, and we finally, finally found them. They are on the same row but not adjacent. Not as much fun as playing neighboring machines. I got another straight flush and several 4OAKs. I ended up $80 ahead and decided to call it a night.
 

EC: VP +80
 

17^th: VP +166.25, BJ -$100, other -$68 for a total of -$1.75. For the trip I am -$349.75.
 

When I checked into Orleans, they had the same Vegas mags that were at Aladdin, so I had another Trop and New Frontier coupon to use, so it was déjà vu all over again.
 

First stop on the 18^th was the Trop, and it was all bad. I thought I had found the 8/5 BP $1 machine I had used earlier, but actually it was a 9/6 $1 machine. They also have 3P/5P in dollars, but the machine is not TITO. My $100 quickly became $20 on 5P, and when I cashed out, 20 tokens fell from above.
 

I dumped them into the $1 single-line machine, and they didn’t last long. Neither did the $100 at the shoe game, as the $5 MP didn’t do a damn thing for me. The $20 for $50 ($51) promo netted a tote bag that Mom would get for Christmas, and then it was time for a trip to the poker room.
 

Their poker room manager was a character. I swear he was fulfilling every Asian stereotype he could come up with. He said a $60 tournament had just started, so he sat me down at what was essentially a winner-take-all single-table tournament. I finished seventh. I just wasn’t getting any cards.
 

I checked to see whether I got 100 points so I could get my shirt. Well, I shouldn’t have gotten it, because I had waited too long to get all the points, and I was not considered “new” anymore (story of my life). However, he decided to give it to me anyway. I wore it yesterday. I still have my Trop shirt from when I was new years ago. In a few years maybe I will do it again.
 

Trop: VP -$100, BJ -$100, poker -$60, other -$20
 

I drove to the New Frontier, thank you. The following stop was going to be the Cannery, which was even further north, so walking did not make sense.
 

It was really windy when I got to NF, and it was hard to find close parking. I stubbornly wore just a T-shirt as I made my way inside.
 

The match play was bad news. Some old guy saw someone split and double down and win all his bets, and the old guy said, “That guy’s luckier than a two-peckered goat.” If you say so. I was as lucky as a zero-peckered goat, losing my $100 rather quickly.
 

It was time to take one last shot at the FPDW progressive, which was up to $1,070. Well, I got four deuces again. Other than that, my $100 didn’t do a thing, so I only kept my two buckets of 500 quarters each.
 

New Frontier: VP +$150, BJ -$100
 

My phone rang. A friend from back home called to tell me how our fantasy football teams were doing. Long story short, I could not change my lineup because I did not have Internet access, so he was going to beat me in the playoffs because of it. I never do well in fantasy sports leagues because I do things like go on vacation during key pivotal times of the season. Whatever was I thinking?
 

I got off the phone and realized I had just taken the Craig exit off of 15. That was a nice way to pass the time. I figured the Cannery would take up the rest of my day, and I was right. It was already 5, and the Cannery had a MP in the POV, plus a poker room, and none of their positive VP was in dollars.
 

It turns out the Cannery was giving away a jacket for people that got 1000 points ($1,000 coin-in) in one day (M and W only). So not only can I play FPDW and get .17% cashback, but I can also get a jacket? Nice.
 

I got deuces again. Five times in one trip. Who needs a royal when you can get deuces five times? Also this machine was turned all the way up. Despite it being an upright, I was cranking out the hands. It took 800 hands to get 1000 points, and it took me 45 minutes. So I was playing over 1,000 hands per hour. Go me. I only saw two mistakes, and luckily neither affected the outcome. I actually hit 1000 points with less than $250 left, the amount of my deuces, so I decided to play till I got to $250 so I could “pretend” I wasn’t playing for the jacket. Four hands later I ended up with $250, so I put 1005 points on the card. Nice coincidence.
 

Next up was the MP. My $100 became $240 in about 20 minutes, so I tipped the guy $5 and got out of there.
 

Last up was the poker room. It was about 7, and they have tournaments that start then. $35 buy-in, with a $20 rebuy and a $10 add-on, I figured I would have a little harmless fun. There were 20 entrants, and it paid three places.
 

The blinds nearly doubled every 20 minutes, which meant aggressive play was necessary, and to make matters worse, I was not getting any cards. Shortly after the first break (and hence after the rebuy and add-on), I was in trouble. I limped with JTo after four people limped in front of me. The button raised, and everybody called, so I did too. The only problem is that I had very few chips left. I was pretty much pot committed, although I had enough left for 15 or so hands if I had folded after the flop.
 

The flop was T-high, but the texture of the flop and the betting in front of me indicated I was beat. However, there was so much money in the pot that I had to stick the rest of my chips in. When the guy to my left raised, I knew I was in trouble. When the guy to his left called all-in, I was convinced that I was dead.
 

Everyone else folded, leaving just the three of us in the pot. We turned our hands over. The guy to my left had ATo, typical of the trash he had been playing that night, and the guy to his left also had JT. We needed a jack, and obviously there were only two left because we each had one. The guy with ATo was ready to knock out two players at once.
 

Even nice guys get miracles. The jack hit on the turn. My stack was huge. I was a commanding chip leader at the final table, but the guy to my left knocked out five people in a row, and when it went to heads up, we were about even.
 

I was able to outplay him, but I was not patient enough, and I put him all in on a draw, and he called with top pair. A few hands later, I went all in with middle pair, and he called with top pair and a flush draw. Still, second place was not bad, and I learned a lot en route to my $327 prize. I tipped $37 (in a row) and went on my way.
 

The poker room at the Cannery is nice, but their dealers are a mixed bag. I think Gary was his name: He was obviously on something. He could not do the arithmetic necessary in a NLHE tournament. We had to tell him how much to put in side pots and how much change to give back to players. And everyone knew each other. It was like it was some big joke. There were several pots that were not configured correctly, but I was not in the hand, so I said nothing. There is no benefit for someone not in the hand to point something out, especially in a locals joint in which everyone knows each other. You can only make it worse for yourself.
 

The competition was generally easy enough that it justified going. (I mean, obviously. I won, after all.) And I love the Cannery because I always win there, regardless of the game, and they always try to dress me in shirts and jackets. I swear, if you are a local, you would never need clothing. You could just go to the Cannery every day and add to your wardrobe.
 

Cannery: BJ +$135, VP +$150, poker +$225
 

On the way home, I took side streets. It was too late to go somewhere else, and it was too early to go to bed, so I figured I would kill some time by taking the scenic route. I was on Rancho, south of Palace Station, when these white flaky things started hitting my windshield. It was snowing!
 

I wish I had known to drive to Henderson. Maybe I could have totaled my car! Instead I settled for a tour of Summerlin, where it was snowing somewhat steadily, although it wasn’t sticking. After about an hour of this, I was tired enough to sleep, so I went to Orleans, found my room on the first try, and passed out.
 

18^th: poker +$165, VP +$200, BJ -$65, other -$20, for a total of +$280. For the trip I am -69.75
 

The 19^th was the observed 10^th anniversary of The Orleans. I had to be back by 6 p.m. for the big drawing. Throughout the week they were supposed to be giving out tickets for said drawing to all players on the floor, although I never received any after the member meet on the 14^th. (Thank you to everyone who gave me your drawing tickets!) I have no idea what the deal was, but I am sure it was disorganized. But the drawing was not for hours, so I had to go off and use more POV coupons!
 

Finally, my official visit to Ellis Island! I used my placemat $5 MP and my POV $5 MP. I asked whether I could use both, and the dealer said yes. He didn’t have a New York accent, but he did have a convincing Indian one. It might have to do with the fact that his name was Ravinder.
 

EI has $1 BJ from 10 to 2, and I got there right at 10. I was the high roller with my $5-$30 spread. I dominated that six-deck shoe. At the end of it, I had $295. The pit boss said “wow the dealer really took care of you,” and I said, “and I will take care of him,” tossing him $10. I always wonder whether they think I am counting or just lucky.
 

I ran $100 through the NSUD 5P quarter machine, but nothing doing. I cashed out my cashback and got out.
 

EI: BJ +$185, VP -$100
 

Time for Fiesta Rancho. I don’t know why I took 95 to get here. I must have thought I was going to Santa Fe Station. Just take Rancho north out of downtown, geniuses.
 

Fiesta Rancho has the $25 MP. My dealer was a temp. She normally works at the Trop, coincidentally enough. She was not very good at dealing, either, but sadly it was not exposing hole cards that characterized her poor skills. She just couldn’t add. Maybe she should date Gary the poker dealer at Cannery.
 

I never benefited from an arithmetic error, but I almost did. It didn’t matter. I made $105 on the double deck game after about 15 minutes and tipped her a nickel of it.
 

Fiesta Rancho has $1 10/7 DB with a five-way progressive. If I had an unlimited bankroll, I would play this all day. These machines are sort of hard to find and a pain in the ass to get in and out of. If you don’t want to have them, then don’t have them. Making people suffer just to play them just alienates them. Maybe that’s what they want, though.
 

Fiesta Rancho also had a promotion. With 1200 points, get a fleece. That’s $2,400 coin-in on these machines, so that’s 480 hands, or about a half hour of work. No problem. My $100 lasted for more than 2700 points, because I got four 4OAKs for $251 each. (Because of the progressive, that is the lowest they could be.) I did give it all back eventually. My highest credit total was $402. No problem. That kind of coin-in should generate an offer or two.
 

It was time to go. I had to get to the 777 Brewpub at MSS at 2 for the last member meet.
 

Fiesta Rancho: BJ +$100, VP -$100
 

I played a few hands of $1 10/7 DB because I was early and broke even. I went to 777 at 2 sharp and reserved the long table that we always seem to use for this sort of thing. I ordered 23 oz. of Blackchip Porter and watched the WSOP on ESPN.
 

Twenty minutes went by. Nothing. Oh well. Might as well get out.
 

I drove to the Hard Rock. I don’t know the best way to get there from downtown, but I took Fremont to Maryland Parkway. I made a right on something and a left on Paradise. That seemed to take care of it.
 

The $10 MP was interesting. I started a six-deck shoe with this younger-than-me guy, who was one of the most social dealers I had ever seen. We were talking about hockey most of the time. (I had my hockey jersey on.) The count got pretty good, and I was up about $60, and then the bottom fell out. Despite good counts, he just completely crushed me, and my $100 was gone. Time for the $10 slot play.
 

I found the well-hidden 9/6 25-cent JOB. Why not play the FPDW, you ask? Because the POV also has a 2X points coupon. The FPDW doesn’t give points. I know that JOB + 2X points is still a lower EV than FPDW by itself, but I like using coupons. You can’t put a price on that. I just ate a pizza two hours ago that was $19, but normally it would have been $20. Coupons cause me to do all kinds of strange things.
 

So I wanted to just blow through the $100. 400 credits on quarter JOB will take forever. No such luck.
 

Two 4OAKs helped me get up to $200, and I realized that I was not going to get through 800 credits, nor could I expect to raise the credit meter to 4000. My $100 à $1000 concept was not going to work with quarter JOB. Well, it was getting late, so I decided to cash out my $100 profit and get to Orleans for the drawing.
 

HRH: VP +$100, BJ -$100
 

The Orleans was giving out tons of cake and champagne. I bet they went through 400 bottles of champagne. Talk about a thankless job. I decided to play some BJ while waiting for the names to be drawn. I found out that they were going to broadcast the names of the winners over the intercom, so I just needed to be somewhere on the casino floor.
 

All the dealers of the double deck BJ games have one thing in common: lousy penetration. They were all between 45% and 55%. Yes, I said 45%. When you feel happy because you see a dealer cutting the cards at 55%, you know you’re in a bad place.
 

Between the 6 and 9 p.m. draws, I played $5-$30 BJ. I managed to lose $110. This wasn’t what I had in mind, but oh well. The play was tracked. Who knows? Maybe I will get stuff in the mail because of it.
 

No, they did not call my name, although they were having so much trouble pronouncing some of them that maybe I just misheard them and did not realize that they were calling my name.
 

I noticed the 25-cent WOF progressive went from $350,000 to $5,350,000. I wonder what happened. I decided to throw $10 in because although I am sure it wasn’t positive, it was likely as close to positive as it would ever get. I spun for 100 and cashed out $33. Fine.
 

I had $10 in freeplay that I got in the mail, and I also threw $40 into that triple play nickel 9/7 DB again. Two of the royals were over $300. One of them hit next to me. In my $50 I didn’t hit a single 4OAK. However, I really don’t get to complain about VP on this trip after getting deuces five times.
 

Because it was the 10^th anniversary, they had a special $10 buffet. Despite Coast having comps and cashback redeemable at the same rate, I used my points for this buffet, because that way I did not need to pay tax. I guess there is something to be said for not automatically taking the cash back. The buffet there is always good, but there was nothing special about it because it was the 10^th anniversary. It was just a promotional price.
 

Orleans: VP -$40, BJ -$110, other +$23
 

19^th: VP -$240, BJ +175, other +23 for a total of -$42. For the trip I am -$111.75
 

The 20^th was my last full day. I just wanted to spend the whole day at the Pinball Hall of Fame on Tropicana and Pecos, but it didn’t open till 11. So I could use one more casino’s worth of coupons. Next up was Imperial Palace, the last “Oriental” thing on earth. (Everything else has since become “Asian.”)
 

Their computers had also forgotten me, so I was new for them as well. They let me use both $5 MPs in the POV, despite them saying on the coupons themselves that I could only use one per day. It didn’t matter. My $100 was gone in a hurry. Their dealers were on fire. I played an eight-deck shoe and did what I could, but it was not enough.
 

IP has no good VP. The best I could find was 7/5 bonus. However, I just wanted to be done with my $100, so I put it in a 100-play nickel machine. The best games were 7/5 JOB and 6/5 bonus, so I took 6/5 bonus. So of course I was dealt a full house. Well, short-term swings got me to $240.50, and I said, “fine!” I decided I would end on this note and not think about what should have happened. And I earned 67 points. Maybe they will send me something in the mail.
 

I went to the poker room, but they only had 1-2 No Limit. Everyone looked tired and easy, but like I said, I’m not interested in NL cash games.
 

IP: VP +$140.50, BJ -$100
 

So I went to the Pinball Hall of Fame. There is no admission, so you can go just to check out the machines, or you can pay money to play them. That’s what I did. I was there from 11 till 10, less time to take a break to eat. I spent about $25 in quarters while I was there and still didn’t have time to play everything I wanted to, but I do enjoy pinball more than the average person. I got the high score on Funhouse, High Speed and Surf N Safari. I also am the loop champion on Popeye. My friend’s high score is still on Pirates of the Caribbean. POTC is the only new machine they have. Everything else is from the ’90s or early. I think the oldest machine I saw was from ’48.
 

I went back to Orleans and fell asleep. That’s what happens when you go to bed.
 

20^th: VP +$140.50, BJ -$100 for a total of +$40.50. For the trip I am -$71.25.
 

And that’s all I remember at this time. I woke up on the 21^st, got my $30 cash back from Club Coast, filled up at the Chevron at Tropicana and 15, bought a quart of egg nog (the kind I can drink while driving), and hit the road.
 

The radio game ended in a tie. Snoop Dogg and Red Hot Chili Peppers both had seven, although Snoop Dogg won later that night in overtime with eight. Evanescence had six, and tons had five.
 

Breakdown by game: poker +$152, VP +$26.75, BJ +$35, other -$285
 

Let me know of any spelling or grammar errors, and I’ll fix ’em. I am not about to reread 12,000+ words of this crap. I know some of y’all like to read this stuff so bully for you!