1/9-1/13/15: Teach the family to degen, and O-H the highs and lows! PICS!

Background
So I'm going to officially call this trip #13. I ballpark that I went 5 times from 2003-2010 on poker playing trips with college buddies.

My previous TRs:
6/2012 6/2013 8/2013 10/2013 1/2014 5/2014 7/2014 10/2014

This was part of my latest tradition of a solo January trip. I managed to interest my sister S into tagging along for her 3rd trip as we're both big football fans, rooms are comped, and I had so many Southwest points I bought her flight in. She was on the hook only for her flight out and gambling.

This then interested my cousin and his girlfriend, C&C. I had planned on splitting my nights north and south, Flamingo the first 2 nights, Cosmo the last 2 nights, so I offered them to use my comp the last 2 nights at Planet Hollywood. With them finding cheap flights and the Flamingo cheap for the first 2 nights, they were in.

My solo trip was suddenly a foursome, with my 3 associates VERY low rolling gamblers who needed to be shown the ways. I'm coming off of 3 straight losing trips (no royals) after 4 or so trips that were small-moderate wins. Anything that could turn my luck around, I was in.

As a side note, the icing was that not only are my sister and I big NFL fans (divisional playoffs weekend), but we're also OSU alums and C&C are big Buckeye fans as well. It got lucky that being in town for the CFB Championship would mean we'd get to watch our 4th seed Bucks go for the championship in Vegas. The stars aligned!

Off we go!

 

Friday 1/9

- In a word: shitshow. My memories of day 1 are hazy because of the sheer amount of drinking we accomplished.

- Love the early flights. Flight left FLL at 6:30am. Up around 4:30am, get through TSA Pre super quick and fall asleep before flight takes off. Sleep the whole 5 hours. Meet S at her gate 30 minutes after I land and off we go.

- At 9:30am, we had an hour to wait til our room was ready. No complaints.

- Sports bets down for the day. Got our drinking started.





- Love the All Star bartops that are widespread among CET now. 8/5 DSTP is by far the best bartop game on their properties. Nice hits to book a win for S and I both before checking into our comped Go Stripview room.



- Checked out the Harrah's diamond lounge real quick on a walk north since it's the only one I've never visited. Nice bar setup in there. C&C got in and texted us they were unpacked and ready to go. Their buddy M who lives locally picked them up from the airport and this is how I saw him when we met up, such a boss.



- We played some bartops a while at the Flamingo before he bounced and we went over to Caeser's beautiful new sportsbook bar. Put NFL bets down for the weekend and then hit a quad literally 3 hands in. Good omen for the weekend?



- By the time I played it back down to even we all had a good buzz going.



- C&C are such bad influences so before going downtown, we stopped the shop between Flamingo/Margaritaville for super overpriced Fireball. The consumption of large amounts of Fireball would be a trend this trip...



- Play $75 freeplay at D bartops on Boner Deluxe to $25 before cashing out. Still one of my fav bars anywhere in town to play/watch games.



- Meet up with C&C and S, where the waitress serving slots has no problem bringing rounds of Fireball.



- Brutal matchplay losses. Back to back black bets on roulette ($50 and $25 MPs) both lose. But my buzz was going full throttle!



- Caught some music on Fremont Street which wasn't that busy for a Friday.



- Highlight of the night! $20 freeplay at the Golden Gate and my smart decision was 50c Boner Deluxe. Boner delivered!!



- Cashed out up $200 and caught the last of the band in the front row outside.



- Finished the night drunkenly rambling all the way up to the Venetian from Flamingo. Haven't been there in YEARS but M works there so we went to bother him a while. On the way back watched a homeless man outside the Flamingo attempt to relieve himself on the sidewalk, couldn't get his long johns down, tripped over the curb and fell into a bush. A crowd form as C tossed quarters at him. I'm sure he's fine

- Ended the night where the day began... finished up a touch on VP for the day but lost all 4 sports bets, which were the savior of my last trip. Bummer.



Until tomorrow..

 

Good start!

Bugsy's now has 8/5 JoB w/DSTP too? That's a good thing!

Now I'm hoping TAG Lounge upgraded their paytables to that (or better)...Double STP is like crack to me!

 

Good start!

Bugsy's now has 8/5 JoB w/DSTP too? That's a good thing!

Now I'm hoping TAG Lounge upgraded their paytables to that (or better)...

I hear ya...10x DSTP AWESOME GAME!!

 

Saturday 1/10

- Not nearly as hungover as I should be. Pedialyte packets in water bottles + greasy Johnny Rockets and we're back in the game.

- NFL starts at 1pm so we decide to visit the Cromwell. Great drink service as always. My low rolling friends fall in love with the $3 min bubble roulette. I drop $100 quick at STP 9/5 JOB in the HL room. Switch to bartops, WOW these bartenders are hot. So is my luck, these two hands hit basically back to back.





- We then decide with 1 hour 20 minutes to Pats kickoff to go to Caesers to try to get seats at the book bar. NADA. One open, we're looking for two min so S can play beside me. Decide to bounce back over the Linq and TAG was full but their sportsbook adjacent bar had a miracle 2 seats open.



- Ran fairly terrible though great drink service and atmosphere. Never hung out much at the Linq but they have 2 great sports viewing bars. Much different place than the IP. My one highlight



- Left with the Pats down not even close to covering the spread to see what was to offer on the walk to the High Roller. Lots of good restaurants, settled on Yardhouse. Great food. Great take on a tuna sushi roll that came as a big blob.. great delicious buttery brussel sprouts. Tons of bars on tap as well, had a great stout recommended by Rico our waiter.





- Walked back down to the Cromwell for some great drink service at the $3 bubble roulette, with TVs right beside the machine to watch my Pats bet not cover and my Carolina bet get demolished.



- Got some more Fireball in the Flamingo store before getting refreshing in our rooms. 0/7 sports betting so far. Walked to Bally's to meet my buddy B who happened to be in town and showed up in previous TRs. He was playing their nightly tournament so we played some VP at the casino bar and S hit 4 As on BP, first big hand ever. She's now pretty hooked on VP. My meager hits..





- Got bored waiting for B to bust so we went down to PHo area. S and I had Pinup Pizza (always phenomenal) then went back north for early sleep since the big NFL games started 10am Sunday.

Until tomorrow...

 

Great report so far!

 

Didn't you used to play nickles??

 

I've never played nickles, wrong guy lol

 

1/11 Sunday: The Night is Darkest Before the Dawn

- We get up time to skip breakfast, get packed, bell check our bags at Flamingo and head back to the Quad bartops for the 10am Packers game. It's POURING outside and rained all day long. Rare for me, not sure I've seen that much rain in this city. Bets were locked.



- Not a good sign when you drop your first $100 at 25c DDB in the 20 minutes before kickoff. I managed to dust off $500 at DDB by the 3rd quarter. My God. Switched to the Royal Flusher's perfect rules of parlay on BP to lower my variance. A few hits that got me near the 50c level bump but each time I lost it all.





- C&C found us and with the Packers losing, we walked back to watch the end at the Flamingo. Packers -5.5 on biggest bet of the weekend.. they go for 2 points when a FG would have covered. Then on a 3rd and 13? with the game on the line, instead of handing off to make it an easy FG to cover, they passed, got the 1st down and knelt down to win by 5. Kill me. 0/7 sports betting. Grabbed our bags and cab to head to the Cosmo. Terrace suite, premium view 2 nights for $140 upgrade view was worth it, especially with the funky rain clouds hanging at balcony level all night.



- Grabbed late lunch at Holstein's half watching the Denver game. My over bet looked terrible from the beginning and of course didn't come through. 0/8. At least the buffalo chicken dip and sliders were great, as was the Grasshopper milkshake.





- I get C&C checked into my comp room at PHo then it's nap time. Wake and go to Bally's to meet B on his last night in town. After getting hosed for $100 on the DDB progressive machines they were on, I moved over to a DSTP. This hand happened about 5 minutes in. This was the perfect feeling... the hand was dealt, held, hit spin, and the multiplier started. I shout "BIG ONE" and the 10x locks in. YEAH BABY. Things are turning around.



- $100 into $700 that quick and my VP losses on the trip were cut by 2/3. Meet C&C back at Cosmo for an awesome throwback band playing at the Chandelier bar. Loved the music and vibe. Mood was lifting and I felt good things on the way.



- S called it an early night, not feeling well. We walked to Aria to 1) show C&C who had never been, and 2) see if the asinine sportsbook bar rule of 30 minutes/drink was still in place. Michael was a bartender I had never seen there before and very very nice. He implied the rule was still in effect but I started with a Woodford on the rocks and that took me over 30 minutes to drink. Then he made us all these beautiful lemon concoctions.



- Walking back at 3am, we stumbled past Brad Garett with headphones on grinding video poker on the floor. Didn't see what denomination, but he wasn't in the HL room and didn't look to want to be bothered so we just had a laugh and moved on. Kind of a cool site on a slow Sunday night at 3am.

- Called it a night and chilled on the balcony of the Cosmo suite just taking in the lights. The view can't be beat. Love the Cosmo casino and its rooms, definitely my favorite place on the strip.

Until tomorrow and the EXCITING CONCLUSION...

 

10X quad in a TR again! I hope the forum doesn't take them all before I get there! :evillaugh

 

some tough losses.... I would have gone with the Panthers +11.5 as well.... I know I ate crow on it, but until that INT that Cam threw it was a close call...... Go figure...

Couple tough breaks on the the sports books !

 

Enjoying the report and photos, LOVE that chandelier bar photo! That's what it's all about

 

Hopefully you made all your sports betting losses back on a monster bet on your Buckeyes.

 

Dying to hear the story of the large OSU bet as well...don't let us down......

 

Dealt 10x quad---dreams hand!!!!!

 

Monday 1/12

- If ya'll are looking for a big Bucks bet win... well, I got too conservative and played the jinx role. At this point in the trip I was down $600 sports betting and only a few hundred at VP on a bankroll of about $2k. I decided when I woke up game day that I couldn't put all my eggs in the Bucks basket or I'd be heartbroken. I either wanted to watch my #4 seed Buckeyes do the unthinkable with a 3rd string QB and gloat for a year, or win some money. Contemplation in the thin air this high up can do that to you..



- I had also read that "big betters" would be moving in on the Ducks before the game to move the line back from -6 to -7+ again, so I wanted to get my good odds in ASAP (this never happened). After S and I grab bloodys at Book and Stage, her bankroll is basically fumes (she only brought a few hundred total to gamble with), so we run to the sportsbook.



- I know, I know, but I've also read a lot about savvy sportsbetting is to not bet on teams you have emotional investment. All would be fine though. After the bet, I decide we need to grab one more drink before heading toward Caesers for lunch. We sit at Queue bar, where I almost never play, and make a verbal agreement she gets 10% of any wins on my money. Quickly S hits this.



- That's a few premium quads and four Aces for her this trip! I have taught her Royal Flusher's perfect rules of parlay, and although she wouldn't do it on her own money, I told her to go to 50c. 5 minutes later, she grabs my shoulder and says "OH MY GOD".





EPIC. Not only was this her first time playing this denom, she also discard all the dealt cards for a REDRAW dealt Royal. OMFG.

- During the handpay, the floor is super cool and let's us swap seats real quick since it's my Identity card, my money and my coaching. I didn't want her to worry about the tax liability. After her hands stop shaking, and we're waiting to be paid, I tell her to play my machine. 2 hands later..



- Comments welcome here: I tipped out $20 to both the attendants and $60 to the bartender who served us 1 drink and was friendly enough but I didn't know him by name or chat at all.

- I end up paying sis $500, with me taking tax liability. We both found it fair considering the circumstances. Deposit to the safe then down to Bond bar to wait for C&C.



- Bond bartender was super cool. Made a flowery vodka drink for S and I had his take on a white russian with vanilla vodka, good stuff.



- C&C showed up and we headed up to Bacchanal which was great as always, used my $100 diamond voucher to cover $150 of our bill.



- While everyone else decided to nap I had 2 hours to drink and play some more before gametime. Played back at the Royal machine at Queue. Nothing like a quad when you're down to the last few credits of your $100.



- I overhear the bartender talking about me with the other bartender who has the huge fake rack and a local who is playing and I heard the tip mentioned ($60), probably negatively. Meh. B, who has tons more VP handpays than me, laughs that I tip at all. He's like "for what?". I kinda agree.

- Off to Blondie's we go. Great recommendation by you guys on here. The place was blasting Hang on Sloopy during commercial breaks and tons OSU fans were out of control. Fireball was pouring. M met up with us since he was off work so we had a fun group.







- C&C and S had both bet Bucks moneyline (stupid me) and while they were in the long line to cash it at PHo, M and I jump on the bartops to grab another drink. He hits quad 2s on BP within 2 minutes then I hit this within 5 minutes. $50 win and a drink by the time they cashed their ticket!



- We stumble back to Book and Stage and we find 5 seats but 2 are on the end which have triple play. I didn't know how to select to play 1 hand at 5 credits (is it possible? I know how on STP obviously). My sister is playing 1 credit and his this. Are you kidding me?



- I bury my face in my hands and almost cry. The bartender (bald black guy I've seen like every trip, super nice dude) has a huge laugh. SECOND ROYAL OF THE DAY and ONE CREDIT. Gahhhhhh. My luck keeps rolling..



- Finish the night packing and enjoying the view again. I will make it a point to stay at Cosmo my next trip (April?). Just love it.



FINAL TALLY
Up net ~600 gambling, ~1150 comp rooms/food

I call that a win for a moderately quiet low rolling trip and running god AWFUL sports betting. I'll take it.

Thanks for reading!

 

Great read. Loved the pix.
Congrats on the nice win.
Time to stick with VP and forget those sports bets - LOL

 

Holy shit! Can I fly your sister to play at bartops for me?? A redraw royal for her first royal???? A redraw royal tends to happen in 1 for every 350 Royals for JoB/Bonus games (aka 1 in 14,000,000 hands).

As for the 1 coin debacle...which isn't that horrible considering what previously happened. On standard 3/5/10 play games (not STP nor Spin Poker), you have to bet all the lines to bet more than one credit. There wasn't a way around that unless you wanted her to bet $6.25 a spin. Another reason why STP/DSTP rocks.

Also screw that bartender if $60 wasn't enough. I probably give $20 to the slot attendant and maybe $30 to the bartender if I ever get so lucky. If you're tipping standard normally, why should the bartender get that much more on a handpay? Also technically the slot team did you a solid (since you're a good guy obv). It is technically HER tax liability since she pushed the buttons.

Awesome finish!!!

 

Wow... On the redraw!!!

And fuck those bartenders. You were being kind by giving them the $60, if that isn't enough they can find other jobs.

 

Very good and entertaining trip report.

And if the bartenders were talking shit make sure to never tip them a dime again when you're there.