Hi...
My lovely wife and I spent 4 days last weekend in Las Vegas (1/20-24/06), almost exclusively playing at Caesars... a few notes on our trip.
- Our room was one of the corner mini-suites in the Augustus Tower. While not really a suite in the sense of having multiple rooms (besides the bathroom), it was very, very large and very, very nice. (Almost ridiculously so, considering that 90+% of the time we spend in the room, we're asleep!) Still, quite impressive and appreciated.
- I did a somewhat thorough walk of the floor, examining machines up to the $5 level, and the playable video poker inventory seems to be fundamentally the same as is reported on both VPInsider and VPFree. Only minor change is that what was previously [(6) upright 3/5-play 25c 9/6 JOB machines against the wall near the garage] is now [(4) upright 3/5-play 25c 9/6 JOB machines mid-floor near the garage] -- two machines were lost, and the remainder moved a few feet, in what just appears to be a remodel of the floor. We didn't play these machines, but this is very much a dead-end area of the casino, so I wouldn't be surprised if drink service here is lousy, if that matters to you. Otherwise, the key casino inventory seemed to be intact: (2) each of Super Times Pay (STP), SpinPoker, MultiStrike, and 5xMultiStrike with $0.25 9/6 JOB; several 3/5-play 25c 9/6 JOB scattered; (10) $0.25 NSUD uprights near the Elton John store; (15) $1 (and up, on some machines) NSUD in the Palace Casino; plenty of single-line 9/6 JOB in $0.25 through $2 scattered.
- For the first time in our many years in Vegas, we ran into the dark side of machine lock-ups. As Caesars LV devotees know, there are (2) 9/6 JOB Super Times Pay machines in the casino (near Bradley Ogden). For a significant part of the weekend, a gentleman (who I'm sure is reading this) occupied one of the machines, aggressively playing 10-play. No prob. However, he apparently had slot personnel lock up his machine when he went to sleep. The first night of this (Saturday night) my wife and I naively stayed away, assuming from the "out of order" sign (and on-screen "disable" notice) that the machine was actually dead. The next night we realized something was up, and asked the slot techs to release the machine, which they did since it had been locked up for over 2 hours without activity. ...I have no problem with someone actively playing a desirable game, or even locking it up for an hour or two for a meal, but trying to lock it overnight when there are only 2 such games in the whole casino just rubs me the wrong way. (It turns out this was also a slot tourney weekend that seemed to have drawn a number of VP players, so interest in these machines was stronger than usual... making the lockout all the more egregious IMHO.)
- As a break from the video poker grind, I've joined the ranks of live poker players. I thoroughly enjoyed the new Caesars poker room -- quiet, comfortable, good management and dealers, and still money to be made from lousy players. (On our previous few trips I've taken the ~10-minute walk to Bally's to play live poker, and so appreciated having a good poker room in my home casino.)
- Our host for the past year+ has been Liz Muramoto. Highly recommended.
And a question...
Many people (including us!) have recently been frightened of the "Harrahification" of Caesars -- especially having the decent video poker machines removed or downgraded. Clearly, up 'til now, the slot director at Caesars LV has considered it worthwhile to offer some fair gambles (9/6 JOB and higher) in his casino. My question: what level of autonomy does Harrah's give their senior casino personnel? In other words, is it reasonable to expect that this slot director will stay on and continue to be able to offer decent gambles? Or will (s)he be replaced and/or unilaterally instructed to cut back on the good games?
Thanks!
--Joe
