one for the money

thanks to all members of this message board. even though this was the second trip of at least 3 this year, and i have been to las vegas more than 20 trips, i always have new questions before each trip, and the answers i got to those questions helped make this trip one of the great ones, though a little short.

we left on an allegiant flight 8 pm our time on friday night, and made the 2 hour direct flight. this was our first time not doing the drop into salt lake, the sprint to change planes, and then the next leg. it was great to fly direct, and we will try allegiant again when it fits our travel dates, since we only have two flights a week from them out of our airport. we got to move our clocks back an hour, and after a pretty long taxi line on a friday night, and the haul from the airport to downtown, we got to the golden nugget just before 11 friday night. quick checkin, made the walk to south tower, ninth floor. threw the bags in the room, and was pretty sure that if we did the lv terry pit stop in the room we would not make it back out of the room til morning, so postponed and headed back downstairs. the nice thing about the 9th floor is that there is a bank of elevators for the 9th and higher floors, so when we got on that bank, it is straight to casino level without ever stopping at in between floors.

made our way to the grotto restaurant, and thanks to the advice of hoyaheel, ate from the bar menu. sitting in the bar, right alongside a large aisle leading from the golddiggers nightclub that merges with the wide hallway going toward the pool and then the south tower, just like times square. sit there long enough, probably would see everyone in the world pass by! people watching was great, my wifes description for the pretty gigglers passing by on the way to the nightclub...trashy barbies. entirely appropriate. then there was grandma walker, with her walker. and lots of mommies. lots and lots, of every classification, you know what i mean, dont pretend you dont.

grotto was not inexpensive, a couple pints of microbrew for me, a kahlua and cream for the bride, then an order of calamari, a split spinach salad, and a very good thin crust, oval shaped wood fired pizza, with a good tip for the british lady who was our server, came to about 75 dollars. at that point, just glad to be able to sit down, eat and drink and people watch.

played a little after supper, found my favorite big split poker machine, two of them in the whole casino. never have seen them anywhere else but the golden nugget, til i saw one in the el cortez on sunday, more about that later. cashed out a little ahead on the big split, and headed on up to the room, it was about a 19 hour day by that point, and we had a trade show to get to the next morning, so called it a night.

more later.

 

Direct flights are always the best if you can get them. What is this big poker machine you speak of? Good food and good girl watching nice way to start the trip.

 

bigsplit poker, which is how i started my saturday morning, is just absolutely fascinating and addictive, for me. can play regular poker, deuces wild, joker and joker joker, but i mostly played regular, with a try at deuces costing too much too fast. you can play for 10 units, quarters, half, dollar, and two dollars, so playing max at quarters is 2.50 a hand. there is no progressive, so a person would not have to play for max, but i was.

you are dealt 8 cards to work with, to be divided into a 5 card hand and a 3 card hand. the 5 card hand must qualify as a winner, and the machine will tell you if you have a winner, just not what it is! conversely, if you are not a winner, a game over flashes up there, and it is not uncommon to have a streak of 8 or 10 hands without a winner, at the rate of whatever you are playing, 2.50 for me. that should be enough to scare me away, but it seems that the wins even out the loss streaks, i can play a long time before a hundred turns into fifty and i quit, and i often cashed in for 150-160, never getting a huge hit.

the minimum qualifying 5 card hand is 2 pairs, with one pair being jacks or better, on the regular game. three pairs dealt within the 8 is common, but if none are jacks or higher, it is still a losing hand. there is a pay table for the 5 card hand, starting at 5 for the two pairs, on the 10 unit bet, going on up to 1000 for the royal flush. there is also a pay table for the three card hand, which is a multiplier table, 2x for a pair, 4x for a straight of flush, on up to 12x and 14x for three of a kind and a straight flush. so the max payout would be a royal flush times the 3 of a kind, i think, for 14000units, or 3500. dollars on the quarter units.

as i said before, the machine lets you know you have a winning hand, just not what it is, but it will let you move the cards around between the two hands to check various combos. sometimes it was advantageous to break up a flush or straight or better type hand in the 5 card combo, to leave a straight of flush or straight flush in the multiplier. one hand might be worth 20 units one way, 40 another, and 80 another.

it is sort of like paigow, in that the better way to set a hand might not be with the best hand together.

had gotten up and going about 7, spent some time at that machine, and also some at the paigow table, and then down to krispy kreme in front of the fitz. back to catch a cab to the lvcc for a day at a trade show, shopping for handmade jewelry, glass, pottery, etc. for our retail store. fun day, productive, and wrote some orders, got out about 4pm, and waited for a cab a few minutes. why this trade show was on a weekend i cant figure out, but obviously the cabbies were not used to it either, i would have hated to have been looking for one at closing time of the show!

cab driver was to take us to caesars, took us a back way to avoid traffic, and we came into the caesars area in the back off of industrial, and ran into a huge jam. he just shut off the meter, apologized, and we inched through the property and had a great conversation with him. turns out oprah had taped at caesars that day, with cher and someone else as guests. we did see limos and security people waiting in the back and hoped for a sighting, but at least we and he figured out why there was so much congestion there.

in caesars, had a drink at the shadow bar, 23 bucks for two tangueray and tonics, which i though was a bit much, because the only shadows in sight were the playoff hopes of the denver nuggets as they finished going down the drain to the lakers.

oh, the reason we were in caesars, we got CHER tickets for one of her shows in august, when we will be back for another trade show, second row, first mezzanine, just like gregrio recommended, and i did not have to do it online! seemed like seats were very available, and we paid 140 plus 5 handling for each, while i seem to remember that those same tickets were 175 earlier when i tried but could not get the transaction done online.

put 20 in a vp machine, played through once and cashed for 30. so kept my harrahs points alive, and partway paid for the drinks.

back to the golden nugget, dinner to be at vic and anthonys, then all day sunday to play. one for the money refers to playing poker with jackie g. for a couple hours down at the elco on sunday, but it could also refer to the one hand of video poker that paid for the whole trip, which happened monday morning.

more later.

 

got back to the golden nugget, checked on availability of a table at vic and anthonys, the steakhouse there, and it was either immediate seating, at all of 6 pm, or 9:15, so we chose the latter, giving us over three hours for fun, which we had. checked on my baseball bets of the morning, had only bet three games, the over on runs scored on all three, two were big blowouts, winning easily, the other was a 4-3 game, with the over at 7.5, so i barely lost that one, cashing out 86 dollars on my total of 68 bet. good enough for me on sports bets. played a little more big split, some paigow, and even got a little nap in back at the room before dinner.

at vic and anthonys, i had lobster bisque, a bone in ribeye with steak fries, wife a salmon dish with included sides, and her soup of the day was good too, but my bisque was better. also had a bottle of california cabernet, 45 dollars at the very low end of the wine list. i like the wine list at delmonico better, and the wines i have found on it, for value. the wine wasnt the highlight of the meal, for sure. the total tab with tip was 175, we had an enjoyable meal together, place was a little noisier than i expected, but ok, as was the service.

played more big split after dinner, and wound up quitting for the night about 12:30. at this point we thought we might go back to t he trade show the next day.

woke up on sunday morning, while in the bathroom shaving and trying to be quiet, i was hoping that wife did not want to return to the trade show, which was correct, and also hoping it was late enough to get going, i was ready to explore downtown! to my surprise, it was almost 11 in the morning. guess after a winter of work i needed to sleep in. we laughed about me thinking it might be early when i woke up, and i hurriedly went down to the casino, wife does not understand my concept of quick, so i got in quite a bit of play, and a few baileys and coffee, before she joined me.

walked up to the el cortez, based on the reports of dougie and others, and was pleasantly surprised by the place, but i guess if you spend 20 million or more on the interior of a building, it should be spruced up a little, and it sure did not look like it did when i was t here the last time over 20 years ago. signed up for a players card, took about 5 minutes to earn enough points for a 2fer breakfast at kittys coffee shop, and that is where we went. nothing special, but exactly what was expected. we then split up to play for a while, wife said she got a lot of video poker play for the money, though no big win, and i would up at the one table of poker going in the four seat poker room.

room boss pointed me at an empty seat, next to an elderly man in a nice suit with monogrammed shirt, and from the info from this board, i knew that this was jackie gaughan. this man used to own the plaza, among other places downtown, and is now renovating the el cortez. spends much of his afternoons in this 1-3-6 game in his poker room. he was fun, when the dealer would prompt him to cal a 1 dollar bet, he would throw it in, with the statement, one for the money. he had a few other pet lines, and ofter asked what the suits were of the cards out there, as if he was trying to make a flush, and i think, tho not sure, that he probably knew darn well what the cards out in the middle were. he did not converse much, but was still pretty sharp, and it was a pleasure spending some time playing cards with him. in the end, i bet a hand hard that i had no business in, and lost the profit i had worked up, and had to dig 50 cents out of my pocket to get my original 100 dollar buy in back. cheap enough for the over 2 hours of entertainment.

more later

 

leaving el cortez, did sort of a pub crawl back toward the canopy, starting first in the large pint that is hennesseys. had some irish nachos, and since there was no smitticks on tap, just settled for a plain old hefeweizen. from there to the boars head bar at main street station, did the black chip porter there, thanks becky! stopped back in the cal and got 8ish reservations for redwood grill, and then up to chicago brewing co. in 4 queens, for the garlic knots, wings, and something to drink, though i cant remember what, wife had a vanilla infused beer, not bad but a pint would have been more than i wanted of it. at least here, they comped our beers as we were playing bar top poker, at hennesseys they did not.

dinner at the redwood grill was a little disappointment, will take some of the blame myself for filling up all afternoon, but where the steak the night before was medium rare like ordered, the steak at redwood was all of medium and more on t he outside, and rare at the bone. unlike last night, certainly not prime, maybe choice would have been a stretch for it. passed on the wine, and with sides included rather than ala carte, it was 70 total with tip and a cocktail each, so for the budget it was just ok.

played a little while at the golden nugget, still pretty crowded on a sunday night, and turned in a little early, just to be a little more pleasant for the return home tomorrow.

 

Thanks for the info on the Bigsplit poker game; I'm going to have to look for it when I'm there in June. It's got to be something to sit down and play poker with Jackie. When he passes an era will end. How many other casino owners sit down and play low limit games, or any games for that matter, with the common folk.

 

When you talk with Jackie, you find out that he is common folk. He is one great human being.

 

one for the money...first thing on monday morning, went down and decided not to grind it out on big split, and the paigow table open had a dealer i had decided i did not like, so as i was walking out the corner of the nugget toward fitz, i stopped at a multistrike poker machine. put a hundred in, on the second hand, had a pair of aces and drew two more on the third level. with the kicker would have been two grand, but was 800 anyway, and the hit a full house on the fourth 8x level, so cashed out for 1011, maybe 5 minutes of play.

used the profits to go have a little fun, played one session of craps, woound up 18 ahead on the session, but the highlight was having a guy walk up while i was shooting, point was 6, and having him throw 50 bucks on the hard6, which i hit on the second roll. he tipped the dealers, but not me, and walked away. too bad, because i hit the hard 6 twice more during the roll!

anyway, one play, and one big hit, and all the gambling and some of the meals and drinks were paid for for the trip, the cash is socked away for the next trip, and already starting to plan it.

sorry we missed you by part of monday, don d. maybe next time. and thanks for reading, everyone.