Last weekend I had to take a trip to Burbank, CA from Phoenix, AZ
in order to pick up a vehicle. After flying into Burbank, I drove the
new auto to Vandenberg AFB which is about 160 miles north of Burbank.
My son is a 1st Lietenant at Vandy and we had a nice visit. I decided
to take a southern route home to Phoenix via Interstate 8. The shortest
route would have been Interstate 10, but I wanted to stop at a couple of
casinos in the San Diego area.
I booked a two comped nights at Harrah's Rincon. The only full pay
JoB machines I saw were two $5 9/6 machines. These two machines pay no
bonus points. For those familiar with the Harrah's system, you usually
receive more bonus points than base points at Harrah's. Both the base
(tier) and bonus make up your earned reward credits.
I also wanted to stop again at the Barona Casino and Golf Resort.
The Barana Casino and Golf Club is now one of my favorite casinos and
resorts. There is plenty of full pay video poker options at The $1 and
higher level and is a very friendly place. After a little play, I
requested and received a comped room and meal. I had taken out a
players card a number of years ago, but never gambled a penny. They had
sent us a mailer for a couple of free nights. It was before I gambled
at all. I do not know where they got our names for that mailer.
The first machine I played was a $1 9/6 JoB. It had an auto hold
feature. I asked the person next to me if there was a way to diable it.
I was told no and decided to not request help. Acutally, part of it is
convenient in that you certainly will not make a simple careless
mistake. However, it was extremely inaccurate. One quickly learns the
type of hands that are held wrong and you just make the correction.
Sometimes this is slower, but many times play is faster since it
obviously make a lot of correct holds. I leaned to live with it and it
was no problem correcting the machine to play what I know as perfect
advance strategy. Was it slower? Yes, but what is the big hurry to
play a slightly negative game?
The second day at Barona I played in the high limit room on a new
bright red and blue "All Star Poker" multigame machine. You may have
seen these and I think they are fairly new machines. It had Super Times
Pay incorporated into the machines, but were not the standard STP logo
machines you usually see. These machines also had "Auto Hold". As far
as I could tell, they played perfect advance strategy. I was playing a
10 play 9/6 Job game. With the auto hold on a $1 10 play ($50 a draw)
you could certainly play very fast at what I thought was perfect advance
strategy.
Does anyone know if these machines are as accurate as they appear?
They would be a great tool for teaching someone some of many penalty
card situations. I really like the Barona Casino/Resort and I am
thinking of coming back with some less experience friends and using the
machines to help teach them better play.
I also stopped and played a little, or at least observed, the Pala
Casino, Valley the View Casino and the Viejas Casino. I cannot write as
humerous a trip report as many, but I could give you some general
impressions and comments if anyone is interested. I was traveling alone
and was mostly an observer. I looked at enough machines to have a feel
for what was available. I talked to a few people at casinos and usually
at least looked at the buffet. I assume the database and the blog is
probably a more accurate source of information.
Thanks for any help,
Bob