My son, David, turned 21 on Friday, so our family took him to Tunica to celebrate; we stayed at Hollywood, where we gave them plenty of play, but then visited several other casinos, as well.
Had a _great_ time; no Royal, somewhat shorted on quads, but one SF, and I still had losses of only about $30.00 before cash back and bounce back (which should reduce my losses to only about $10.00 total for the weekend). I earned three comps for Hollywood's seafood buffet with broiled lobster tail, which, along with all the usual seafoods, was absolutely fabulous, and that alone made this a winning weekend. I also earned plenty of other comps for other meals at other casinos, so I did well; the rest of the family also earned various comps, so we always had plenty and my son ended up giving some comps to a few folks in line who didn't have any. David definitely had beginners luck: he won about $750.00 for the weekend, although he never touched a VP game (he just played black jack and other table games). By the way, when he registered at Sam's Town and they found out it was his birthday, they gave him a case with matching 'his and her' watches. Goldstrike offered him two free comps for his birthday, but we didn't need them. I don't think anyone else gave him anything, though. Anyway, David had such a good time that I think he wants to go back in a couple of weeks to see the few casinos that he hasn't visited yet.
For those interested, Horseshoe's JoB machines are still 6/5 -- including their dollar machines, and also including their _MultiStrike_dollar_ machine as well. Yep, 20 bucks a pop at four levels full-coin, and for Job they only offer a stinking 6/5 paytable (I figured it would be a waste of time to check the paytables on any other game, so I didn't bother). The only redeeming quality about Horseshoe for me is the buffet; it's always very good and seemed even better this weekend for some reason. Both their crawdads and catfish fillets seemed better than usual, and their egg rolls and mussels at the oriental section were also especially good.
After dinner at Horseshoe on Saturday, we went next door to Goldstrike, and found that they had gutted their Job to 6/5 just like Horseshoe. I made a remark to the bartender and he said he's been trying to get them to change back because all the good players take one look and walk away. I checked Goldstrike's MultiStrike again, and it's JoB is 7/6, which is better than the 6/5 but losses would still be even higher to play it full-coin four levels. My boys wanted to stay to play blackjack there, so I walked over to the Sheraton where I was pleased to confirm that they have, indeed, installed _many_ new JoB-9/6 machines (I was too busy playing to walk around and try counting them). They are _fast_, TITO machines, too. After playing a _long_ time at Hollywood earlier, I noticed a big difference in the speed of the two different machines.
Aside from David's overall big winning weekend, my wife just about broke even or is slightly ahead, and my losses were very minimal -- in fact, no one really lost much (I think that two of my other boys might have lost about $80 each, and my daughter even less), so this was a very good trip even though no one hit a Royal.
Cheers.
Bill Velek