day 1 even on 6 hrs video poker. 1 noteworthy had: Quad A on $1 BP for $400. nice comped suite. travel day- no scrabble. so-so early dinner at the 24 hr cafe sierra with son unit and GF. flung some grapes on a dare.
day 2 early bird 8 games of scrabble. won only 2, but all opps were rated much higher than me. lost 24 pts rating. averaged 370 pts per game. dropped 1300 on 5 hrs of VP gaming. Two jackpotty hands: dealt bonus quad 3s on $1 BP 3-line for $600 and a Quad A on one line of $1 BP 5-line for $400. I played 8/5 BP and 9/6 DDB almost exclusively on this trip. single, 3 and 5-line, a little 25c, mostly 50c and $1 denoms.
day 3 main event scrabble tourney day 1 of 3. 8 games, I went 3-5, playing some top players. I played them very good, got some respect. averaged 384 ppg. Played the word ZUZ using the Z and a blank calling it a Z also, for 62 pts. Rare indeed.
VP gaming I had a respectable run of quads, but I tapped out of my original 3K stake during my one hour lunch break in the high limit area, playing $1 3 and 5-play Bonus poker, which should be a "low variance" game which should not suck out so much money. Dinner at an Italian fancy place with GF, beautiful meals on big plates & impeccable service. Post dinner gaming was a downer going thru two ATM withdrawals of $1000 each.
Only one good hand ($400 or more jackpot is deemed worthy near nite's end Quad 2 on $1 DDB 3-line, no kicker for $400. down 3500 on the day for less than 5 hrs gaming.
day 4 I had a decent day on the boards, going 4-4 at scrabble averaging 361 ppg. the 7th gm I made a great play on my last rack to take away the only two spots whee my opp could play her Q. but then instead of carefully playing out my tiles to maximize score, I splashed them down on a measly 14-pt outplay which resulted in me losing by 4 pts. Brilliant play followed by miscalculation poor play. Luckily I don't kick myself much for such transgressions. Live & learn. 7-9 so far in main event. Oh yeah- I was one of 50 people in the top division. this was an open tournament- anyone can play UP, and this is the first time I did in my 5 years of tourneys. Not so scary. I think the top players have a far better 7- and 8-letter vocabulary than me. I am pretty darn good on the strategies, but a 15 minute conversation with my son or is top-rated buddies shows me there is still another level of strategy scheming that is achievable.
Dinner with GF at Charlie Palmer's steakhouse. An amazing 4 or 5 course meal, beautiful dishes. If I was more of a foodie, I'd have taken photos of all the my dishes this trip.
Gaming had an awkward twist- the ATM stated my financial institution had ix-nayed my account transaction. WTF indeed! SO, I figured out how to turn my "points" accumulation from my slot card account into downloadable freeplay on the machines. I drained $500 this way at lunch. I did some credit union transfers via their 800 number at the end of lunch, but wouldn't find out if that fixed the problem until I tried again after dinner. I tried to speak to a credit union rep, but it was sunday & nobody was there. I was hoping (for their sake too) that they had NOT closed up my account access due to "suspicious activity" like they did last July. That would hurt. But for the time being, I was a desperate, broke loser in a Reno casino with no access to my own money, on a holiday weekend. Ugly.
Lucky for them and theoretically for me, the ATM worked again after dinner. Another $1000. I decided it was a good time to take a taxi tour of the other casinos to collect some freeplay. Silver I had a $100 ticket that I forgot to redeem a month ago. CHeck. Taxicab waited for me at the curb. I slipped into the gift shop & scored 3 packs of backwoods on my comps there where I have a ~$700 comp balance from Jan visit. Next stop- Peppemill - forgot my new PIN number, so up to promo desk to get a new number. Back to a machine to dowenload my expected $500 freeplay promotion: Balance $0. WTF! Oh yeah, I drained itlast trip at Christmas on the way to the airport when my limo stopped in. No new promotion until Jan 20 when I get $650. Ugh. Taxicab waited and I returned to GSR with only $70 profit from the run.
I squandered my two 1000 ATM w/d's in about 2 hrs of play. 3 noteworthy $400 hands: a quad 3 on $2 3line BP, quad A on $1 bp 3-line and another quad 3 on $2 3-line BP. Mostly played $1 3-line BP this evening. Scarfed off another $300 from my points, leaving me not much to pay the dinner room charges, which were about $300.
Day 5. Scrabble. I go 1-2 in three games, average 410 ppg, close games, my finish is a reasonable 8-11.
Son unit is at 10-6, in 13th place at the start of the last day. He figures he has to win all 3 games on today to finish IN the money. And he is hungry. He needs the dough. His three roomates are the prodigy "yutes", sitting in 1st, 10th and 12th in this scrabble-celebrity filled tourney. Son was sitting on the bench in the hallway after the tourney last nite with a sad and mean hang-dog expression that said non-verbally "If you stop to talk to me I will bite your head off". I braved this "dare" and heard his game story. We went to dinner at Johnny Rockets for double burger, fries and milkshake HEAVEN. I think that settled him.
So, soony boy won all three games this last day of the tourney to finish in 4th place to earn a prize envelope of $480 CASH. YAYYY. He even squared with me some cash I lent him (back on day two when I had money). SO, off he goes to catch the Shuttle to the airport his flight home.
After the scrabble award ceremony GF & I had from 1:00- to 2:45 for last chance gaming before catching the limo to the airport. I was again "lucky" that my ATM spit me out $1000 to game with. I also bottomed out my points of the remaining $200. Well, I hit the $1 3-and 5-play BP for maybe 45 minutes and dropped 400. I did some math and figured I was stuck over $7000 for the trip and a Royal at $1 denom would be $4000. I'd take that of course, but my whole play plan hinges on playin a denom that will put me in the black if a jackpot comes. <sigh> Sounds good when I write it, but you try making $700 last even the 60 minutes I had left to play, when a fella pays $30 to play 3 lines of $10 hands (five $2 credits each) and wants to hit that deal button 15 times per MINUTE!
So, I settled in for that final run. I put in $300, selected $2 denom, selected triple play Bonus poker. It's getting to be 2:15 and I'm feeling happy just to have not had to reach for my last four hundreds in my near empty pocket. I hit two Quads in about 30 minutes of play, so my $300 session starting stake oscillated up to maybe $500 at times. But now that stake is down to $40. I don't really notice, and one of my superstitions or axioms is "never reach in your pocket prematurely" anyhow. I process the dealt hand in my usual one second and hold the QJT suited 3RF, yada yada. I take that microsecond glance at my credits: $10 and think ever so quickly that something better come in or I might have to reach. Two tens on line 1. a pile of clubs on line 2 - good, a flush that means I can play on without reaching into my near empty pocket - and shoot, looks like a high pair on line 3: good. Wait a minute- there's and extra zero on line 2 payoff box- ooh maybe I hit a straight flush for 250 creds -oooh, I'll have to write that down on my index card ... oh shoot, the machine's froze up. Crazy - music's playin. Call attendant. WTF! Shit, I got a limo to catch. Can't delay. Hold on. that's three zeros in the hand amount. 1000? WTF?? no wait 4000. awright. $4000. YAY - wait! it's a ROYAL! SHIT! SHITTTTTT! 4000 credits, hey that's $8000! Happy Happy Joy Joy. Thats about ten seconds of thought. See photo posted on vpFree. Cooolio. YEAH! Back in the black! Long puff on cigar. Attendant shows up, asks if I want "publicity"? WTF? She says, you know, a photo? I say in no uncertain terms NO WAY!. She says you want all cash? I say "YES, of course, the casino doesn't accept MY checks why would I accept theirs?" She goes off and I go over to where GF is playing slots nearby. It's 2:30 I say, hey, you might wanna cash out and come over to high limit to look at something... She tells me later I was so calm and cool, she had only a little idea it might be something photo-worthy. She gets caught up in the excitement, and so do I. I start figurin how cool and how big is this impact and timing and wow. My money comes, GF is shooting photos left and right, we do a celebratory shot provided by the music-chasing waitress, cash a few remaining tickets, it's 2:45 and we are swooped away to the airport in the limo.
I see a bunch of scrabble buds at the airport and show off my photos and a flash of the "wad". Full plane, but easy flight back. I pay for the car park in cash, nice not to HAVE to charge it.
OK, that's the long version.
FUN trip, even coming home up just a little ahead. Fondling Benjies. Seems to me my visit to Pepps last Sept I hit an $8K RF playin 3-line $2 denom Bonus poker in high limit on the last day to get into the black. Hmmmm. Not quite the last minute dramatic finish as here, but deja vu-Y.
~MARK
aka mr dipt.
aka Royal boy
