First of all, thanks to the administrators and members for
maintaining this group. I'm a real newbie to VP and Casinos in
general. I've been lurking here for a few months and the wealth
of
information has been invaluable. I hope I can make some meaningful
contributions in the future.
After reading as much as I could find and weeks of practice on WP, I
figured I was ready to give the real thing a try. Weekend #1: With a
little trepidation and a reasonable wad of cash I headed for Reno and
two days at the Peppermill. Wow! The Peppermill is a real sensory
overload: A seeming endless maze of mirrors and purple neon lights.
The place is really over the top tacky but strangely appealing. I
registered for a player's card at the booth and headed out to
find
the "good" machines. Just as advertised in the vpFree
database, a
bank of six machines in a dark hole near the Fireside Lounge had FPDW
at the quarter level. I fed a twenty dollar bill into a likely
looking machine (after checking the paytable three times just to make
sure.)
Before I had even settled into a comfortable position in the chair,
that $20 was gone! Now I had practiced and checked the math and I
knew what to expect, but that was real money disappearing into the
machine. I took a deep breath fished out four more twenties and fed
them into the machine. I hit the deal button and stared in confusion
at the machine. I was reaching for my strategy card to figure out
what to hold with four deuces when I realized: That's
$250
excellent!
This game's not so bad after all! Six hours later (and one more
quad
deuces), I staggered over to the information booth to see if I could
score some free food. Without even batting an eye, the booth hostess
printed out a $15 voucher for the coffee shop. Somehow, free food
tastes better.
I started in again bright and early Sunday morning. The casino was
more subdued. A few people were playing the odd machine and a small,
rather haggard looking group was grumbling over the dice at the craps
table. I fed a slow steady stream of cash into the machine. By two in
the afternoon I was down $500 when I hit another quad deuces followed
shortly by back to back wild royals. Figuring this was a good place
to quit, I cashed out and steeled myself for one last task. I found
the VIP lounge near hotel lobby and stepped inside. I have no idea
why, but asking for a room comp made me really nervous. I figured I
had played about $13K for the weekend. I asked the gal at the desk if
I could get a casino host to evaluate my play. She quickly looked up
my room number, jotted down a few figures and credited my card for
cost of the room (but not the $11 for breakfast). Wow! That is really
cool, six months ago I would have never dreamed a low roller could
get a weekend in Reno at a nice hotel for free. Total for the
weekend: $13K coin in, up $273 and $105 in comps.
Monday morning at work all I could think about was my big weekend at
Reno and when I could get back up there. At lunch I called up the
Peppermill reservation line to get a room for the weekend. There was
a two night minimum in place but I figured I could get out of work
early enough on Friday to make a long weekend practical. Weekend #2:
After an agonizingly slow week I was finally crawling up interstate
80 in a heavy snow storm. I made it to Reno late in the afternoon and
checked into a tower room on the sixth floor with a view to the
south. I headed downstairs to find my favorite FPDW machine.
This time I decided to up the ante and play at the 10 coin level.
What followed was a dismal spell. Over the course of 17 hours of play
on Friday and Saturday, I dropped $1300 without quad deuces or a
royal and not much of anything else. The player's club booth did
give
me $50 for dinner at the steakhouse. A very nice free meal put me in
a much better mood. Sunday morning started out about the same for the
first hour before I finally hit quad deuces. About thirty minutes
later four to a royal in diamonds came up. I'd had a bunch of
those
over the weekend and none had even resulted in a wild royal. I paused
for a second then hit the draw button
king of diamonds ($2,000)!
The
slot attendant came over and (after congratulations) took my drivers
license and social security number. In spite of what I had read, she
did not ask for my social security card. After a 10 minute wait, she
came back with the dreaded W-2G and a big pile of hundreds. I was so
excited, I completely forgot about a tip for the hand pay. I realized
the breach of etiquette an hour later and tracked down the attendant
to give her my apologies and the tip. This time, I was much more
confident when I headed to the VIP lounge on my way out. The host
reviewed my play and comped the entire bill (only one $10 food
charge). Total for the weekend: $38K coin in, up $1,155 and $310 in
comps.
I think I'm hooked. VP can be pretty tedious, but the occasional
payoff and the free rooms/meals are cool. I need to start working on
a Vegas trip for this spring.
- Martin
