I decided to go to Reno at the last moment in order to ski: there had
been heavy snowfall in the previous few days, and the weather was
forecast to be sunny.
I booked a hotel around 5pm on Friday for the same evening. Regular
channels showed everything sold out except for cheap motels, which I
wanted to avoid; I went through Hotwire, where there was only one
hotel left. I ended up at the Holiday Inn, which was acceptable but
wouldn't be my first choice.
The casino at the Holiday Inn didn't have anything remotely good at
all when it comes to VP.
At the Peppermill, I had dinner at the Romanza on Saturday night. I
had some prosciutto, some lobster bisque and some gnocchi. All of it
was really excellent, pretty much as good as food gets. Very highly
recommended.
I also had lunch and dinner at the Oceano on Sunday. Sushi for lunch
was good, I was somewhat disappointed by the crab cake sandwich for
dinner (the sandwich was only "good", the fries were way too salty).
I played a few hours of 100-play pennies JoB. Didn't hit a single
royal in about 5 hours of play (i.e. roughly 6 or 7 RF cycles), ended
up down by about $60. Swiping gave me a card-of-the-week card, which I
hit in a few minutes (one of the advantages of 100-play). The
resulting Mister Money brought me $43.
I played a few hands of dollar DB at the high-limit bar. The place is
certainly very pleasant, but I don't have nearly the kind of bankroll
to play at that level. I ended up even. Excellent service at the bar.
I also played DB in the (10-coin) 5c prog bank on the second floor.
Broke even. The meter was almost $500, i.e. approximately 100.6%.
The more I look at the machines in the Peppermill, the more I think
it's impossible to keep an inventory. In the 5 100-play machines, only
one has a 2c denomination. In the 50-play machines, some have 20c and
some don't. On some machines, JoB is 9/6 at all denominations, on some
others (apprently the ones that don't have 20c) JoB is 9/5 in 10c
while it is 9/6 in 5c and 25c. In a nutshell: be very careful to check
paytables before playing.
Stepping away from the machines, I played some Pai-Gow poker, which
was a welcome change of pace from VP. I lost a bit of money, but it's
entertaining, and probably safer than VP after I've had a few drinks.
I had a great time skiing, partying, playing. The hours driving at
night between San Francisco and Reno are not as fun.
JBQ