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Low Rollin in Vegas and 10th Anniversary

Discussion in 'Vegas Trip Reports' started by spauls, Jun 4, 2013.

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  1. spauls

    spauls Tourist

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    My Trip Report

    Hi all,

    My wife and I flew to Vegas Last night, I figured while she was taking a cat nap before we head out to the Steakhouse at Camelot then Brad Garret Comedy Club, I would start a Trip report. I will try to provide updates through the trip, but clean it all up into a true trip report when we are done.

    Flight: Our flight on no frills air was uneventful, but that plane had the most uncomfortable seats of any plane. My wife was able to nap for about an hour in-between me bugging her, trying to make sure she was comfortable.

    Room: We checked in, and as the room was free I gave the nice gal at the counter a $20... I did it too soon, We got to the room and despite us calling and letting the hotel know we NEEDED a smoking room that morning, and being told no problem... the put us in a non-smoking room. After a 30 min call I was able to get everything sorted out. We got a Mandalay Bay Great Room Suite on the 33rd floor, Room 33-102. The room is very nice, and has a good view all the way up the strip.

    Monday Night: We were tired, and should have just gone to sleep, but rather we walked around looking for places to gamble. Looking to low roll, we decided not to play at the tables, but rather spend time with the $3 min Roulette and Craps games... I'm not sure if it was because we lost, were over tired, the poor drink service, or the lack of interaction at these dealer free games... we didn't enjoy it. I lost about $100 and my wife was only down $40. Not bad, but we missed the fun.

    We also were hungry so we headed over to the Back Stage Café at the Luxor. Huge portions and ok food. The fries were great, my wife's ham and cheese was quite good... just a bit salty, and my burger was forgettable. Prices are good and the food is ok if your looking for some late night fuel!

    Well, its time to wake my wife, I'll try to add more tonight, however if we wind up hitting it hard it might be some time tomorrow.

    Cheers,
    spauls
     
  2. Rush

    Rush MIA

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    Keep it coming! Enjoy your time out there, man!
     
  3. Suekel

    Suekel VIP Whale

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    Happy Anniversary and enjoy! Looking forward to more.
     
  4. sam_marques

    sam_marques Vegas Vlogs Youtube / TeamClareVlogs

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    Have a great trip:beer:
     
  5. spauls

    spauls Tourist

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    Bit Wasted

    Wow, had 3 drinks at comedy show... not cheap! but was feeling great! Then gabling at hooters... Ouch for me, wife up... I guess I deserve that for dragging her to hooters. After my loss, we stumbled to Tropicana... Loss, but had a great time. Will add more later.
     
  6. gotavegasjones

    gotavegasjones VIP Whale

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    Happy Anniversary. Hope your luck improves with the gambling. Enjoyed the read so far.

    later, GVJ
     
  7. spauls

    spauls Tourist

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    Tuesday, We had trouble sleeping and only got 4 hours. I ran across the street to get some supplies, if you’re staying at Mandalay Bay, there is a liquor store across the street that is quite easy to get to and the guys there were very nice. We then relaxed in the room for 3 hours to make up for lack of sleep, and then it was off to pick up a few My Vegas rewards. We started by heading to the Ka box office where we picked up our Brad Garret tickets. Then we each played $33 through Lion’s Share, we had a few small hits that kept us going long enough to get a drink… the drinks at MGM were big, and tasty. No Jackpot, but we had fun. Then we headed off to Excalibur to pick up two steakhouse comps $150 each. While at Excalibur we finally started playing blackjack! We only played for an hour because we needed to get back to the room, but I won $85, my wife was down $35… The rules for blackjack there were fair, and it was a continuous shuffler, but it was a $10 game and 2/3 so I was happy. We grabbed a quick pizza hut pizza at Excalibur then headed back to the room to rest for a bit.

    The drinks we had at while gambling got me started, so while we rested, I started mixing strong vodka gimlets. By the time we headed out, I had a solid buzz. We headed to the Steakhouse at Camelot and had a very nice meal. I wouldn’t call this a top Vegas steakhouse, but a solid value for someone on a budget. We really liked the look of the restaurant, the staff was wonderful… we just wished that they didn’t have TVs playing sports at the bar… or had the bar separated from the dining area, it removed a bit of the atmosphere. Ok now for the food

    Wine: Cheapest Cab (Camelot) – (2.5 out of 5)
    Appetizer: Crab Cakes – (4 out of 5)… great, but not spicy enough for us
    Salads:
    Hot spinach salad was odd… but wonderful (4 out of 5)
    Fresh motz salad (3.5 out of 5)
    Meal:
    Bone in Strip Steak was the chef’s special and forgettable (2.5 out of 5)
    Filet was out of this world (5 out of 5)
    Sautéed spinach was ok (3 out of 5)
    Potato… was huge
    Ice cream and coffee was a good ending

    Mmmm crab cakes!
    Crab Cakes.jpg

    We figured we spent about $50 more than the My Vegas comp… but we didn’t, we were still $7 under…. That’s a lot of food for $143. If you’re looking for a value steakhouse I would recommend Camelot… But get the Filet.

    Then we headed to Brad Garret’s Comedy club. Comedians were great, drinks were average. I wanted to keep my buzz going so I drank them too fast and wound up with a $80 tab, but it was worth it. This makes the 6th standup show in Vegas without a single bad one!

    View from our room... very nice
    View from the room.jpg
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2013
  8. spauls

    spauls Tourist

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    Thanks GVJ, I don't mind the losses, as long we have fun... which we have. Losses have also been quite small this far, so in all things are good.
     
  9. spauls

    spauls Tourist

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    After Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club

    We headed to hooters… with $3 blackjack and reviews of good drink service we were excited to try it out. I started chasing losses early and found myself just bleeding cash. As things started off poor at blackjack, I switched to Craps. The first roller had an OK roll, made two points, and a few place bets… however the next three rollers all had very poor rolls. That is usually my signal to walk away, but It was my roll… so I decided to stay for 1 more. I always bet bigger when I’m rolling. I started with a 7, then rolled a 6 and as 6 is my lucky number and this trip a focus (our anniversary is 6/6), I put 5X odds and threw $10 on the hardways as well as a bet for the boys. Once I had all my bets out, I rolled, and of course it was a 7. Already down $200 between blackjack and craps, I sat down at a single deck pitch game for $5. I was able to play for an hour without losing anymore. My wife on the other hand did very well. She was up $100 when we left. The drink service was SLOW! As our buzz was fading due to the lack of speed, we decided to leave and try somewhere new. We found a great game at the Trop $5 min 3/2. I was able to play on $100 for 3 or 4 hours… it was a blast. Great dealers, some fun players, and great drink service. I ordered a drink as soon as they dropped on off… and before long I went from buzzed to a bit wasted. By 3 AM, with the lack of sleep we were ready to head back. It was a great night, but I was feeling it a bit this morning.

    In all my wife was up $100 for the night, I was down $290… not bad in all.
     
  10. jaserocky

    jaserocky Tourist

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    Sounds like a fun trip so far. Will be there in two weeks so leave some fun for me.
     
  11. VegasSteven

    VegasSteven Low-Roller

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    Sounds like a great trip so far. Keep it up. And good luck to you both! :beer:
     
  12. spauls

    spauls Tourist

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    Wednesday, a bit hung over… I rolled out of bed too early again. I guess the excitement of the city is preventing me from sleeping… I’m like a kid the night before Christmas. We hung out in the room for a bit sipping our coffee, then decided we couldn’t stay at Mandalay Bay without checking out the pool. So we headed down to the beach to check it out. The pool was crowded and there were a few kids there… but nothing out of control. The dance music was pumping and the talent was showin off their goods with skimpy bikinis. We grabbed a few chairs next to one of the smaller pools to lie in the sun. After 5 min we were so hot we decided to go into the pool… wow was it cold, but refreshing. We left soon after, the huge crowds and the heat was just too much for me. In all, I would have to say that we enjoyed the blue pool at Bally’s much more… with the deep end in the pool, less crowded, and what felt like a more relaxed vibe.

    Still trying to recover, wow we are getting old. We head up the room to find we were locked out of our room. Even though we worked with the front desk, and were told we had the room for 4 nights and everything was worked out with the two reservations, they changed the key code and we couldn’t get in. So I called down to the desk to let them know, and they sent some keys up with the bell hop… after getting tired of waiting in the hall, I ran down to the front desk and just grabbed the keys myself. As soon as I got back up to the room the bell hop showed up. Once back in the room, we rested for 2 hrs, then got ready to pick up our tickets to Tournament of Kings for Wednesday and Australian Bee Gee’s for Thursday. Once we got our tickets we decided to sit down and play some blackjack. My wife lost a little, I won $150 so we were ahead for the day. The drinks were going down well and we still had some time so we decided to drop a few bucks playing Double double bonus poker. I have always been a fan of jacks or better, but after reading this board, I wanted to play and have the game “rain quads” on me. It seems whenever my wife and I play video poker, she gets tons of full houses, and I get the 4OAK so it made sense to try it. The game was not nice to me, I think a straight was the only hit other than a few Jacks or Better / two of a kind I had, wife had same luck.

    Being a geek who spent lots of time in Europe touring castles, and who loves the medieval theme I figured the Tournament of Kings would be enjoyable. We sat front and center in “Russia” section and met a nice couple who were also there from My Vegas. The drinks and food came quick, and was better than I expected, but it’s a good thing I had low expectations. For anyone looking, I had a hard time seeing what was on the menu, so I’ll provide it to you; a Cornish hen, 2 red potatoes, a biscuit, broccoli, and an apple pastry for dessert. The show seemed more like a high school pep rally than a show. They spent so much time trying to pump up the audience that they didn’t leave any time for the show. If you want to see people dressed in renaissance garb run around (or ride around) trying to get you pumped up for the event, then this is your show. If you want to see something interesting, do something else.

    Well it was finally time, Wednesday night was going to be our all nighter, headed out to Golden Gate to drink and party. We had a great cab ride out there and back. Both took the freeway (I’m not sure what the preferred route is) but it sure was nice to get there and back quick. Both times the ride was about $24, I was expecting something in the 30s so we provided big tips and got a big smile… it sure is nice when you can help make someone happy. Feeling good, we headed in to get our club cards and play some blackjack. My luck started out better than my wife’s but neither of us was winning. After both losing $100 we decided to walk to the D to check it out. I have read over and over about the loud music at the D, but it was quieter than the golden gate by far. As we only had 3 or 4 drinks at the golden gate, we were still working on getting our mojo up so we sat at the bar and played quarter double double bonus poker. My wife hit a few full houses, and I had a few flushes, but no quads for us. We were playing 1 credit… I know I know, but this was blackjack night… Down $40 (would have been over 100 if we played max credits) but with 3 more drinks in us we decide to take on blackjack again. We headed back to the golden gate and found our old table empty… there was a gal there who was learning to be a dealer… not sure she will make it, but it was great for us. The game was so slow that despite our poor luck, our cash was lasting very well. After our dealer in training left, a fun gal came by and the table filled up. My luck had changed and I started re-building my stack. Then at 2 AM it happened. I had 19 losses in a row… ok, it was 20 hands and one of them was a push. Though I didn’t hit my stop for the day, I was discouraged and felt it was a good time to call it a night. My wife’s luck was better but not much during that pain. In all I was down $430, and she was down $250… The drink service was great, and we had a blast though I was a bit upset at myself for not sitting a few hands as I usually do after a string of losses. My frustration faded as we reached our hotel and we only made it to 2:30AM, getting old stinks, we decided it was best to go to bed.
     
  13. spauls

    spauls Tourist

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    I figured as my wife is still grabbing some sleep, I thought I would share two blackjack stories with ya.

    At the Excalibur we had this very energetic, older (late 50s?) Asian gentleman stop by our table. He had $100 in greens in his hand, walked up to the table and put $50 down. His 16 facing a dealer 10, he starts ask the shoe for a 5… Boom he gets it! Nice. He doubles his bet, different cards, same thing… asks for a card, gets it. In less than 10 min, he is up over 1K, and some others come to join him. He slides $300 over to a younger gentleman and they proceed to kick butt for 15 min (bringing luck to the table as well). They were a blast, at one time he was up over 4K with his 100 initial bet, and the younger guy was over 1K. After they took a few big losses they walked away, together up over $2,000. These guys were a blast, and even though we only spent 20 min with them… I will probably be yelling for a “pit-chr” the rest of the trip.

    At the Golden Gate, a young man slides in to 3rd, looks at me and asks if I know how to play blackjack. As soon as he asks I’m worried, I can’t stand people yelling at others about not making the right play, so to scare him off I state, no… I just saw this table and decided to try it out. He rolls his eyes but proceeds to buy in for $100. As he is waiting for his chips he tells me he is a local and he knows what he is doing, he is going to make his $100 and walk away. I’m thinking great! This won’t last long. First hand, bets $10, doubles and loses, next hand bets $20… I ask him if he plays with a betting strategy, and he tells me that he is an aggressive advantage player. Um ok, why are you playing on a continuous shuffle game and not the shoe one table over? I don’t think he fully heard me, because his reply was I hate these continuous shufflers, but it was all they have. Again I pointed to the table next to ours and he shrugs it off. In full chase mode he bets all he has on the next hand and wins. Then he goes all in again, and gets a double hand. Looks to his buddy and says I need cash. Out comes a wad of bills, he buys in for another $200 and proceeds to lose. His buddy now buys in and I stop paying attention as my losses are starting to rack up as well. But I noticed when he was way down in chips he looked to his pal to give him some more cash, and the pocket was empty. By this time I was right in the middle of my 19 game losing streak, got up and went to another table… where I finished the streak with 1 push and 6 losses. I’m not sure why this guy bugged me so much, I think it was his confidence and his looking at me like I was doing it all wrong. His suggestion that because he was local and an “advantage” player who was going to do it right, hit it and quit it once he was up $100, but proceeded to lose over 1K… it just annoyed me. When I’m playing I always hope the people playing with me do well, however I wasn’t disappointed to see him lose. Its probably that my luck was going great until he sat down.
     
  14. Vegas Lover

    Vegas Lover Low-Roller

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    hang in there. That guy sounds like real peach. I would try not to sweat it, which is easier said than done. I've had similar encounters with gamblers like that, & it always gets under my skin. Just remember who the better person is, & maybe have another beer :)
     
  15. hillwood24

    hillwood24 High-Roller

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    I hate people that complain when other's make the "wrong" play. I play basic strategy like everyone else, but people that do stupid stuff have "saved" my table just as many times as they've "screwed" the table.

    They always shout out nonsense like "don't take the dealer's bust card!" I guess they somehow know the EXACT order in which the cards are going to come out.

    Cool trip report, though. I was just there last week and am reliving my trip through your report!
     
  16. Lhammer28

    Lhammer28 High-Roller

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    Great TR, Happy Anniversary!!!
     
  17. spauls

    spauls Tourist

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    Thursday, our 10th anniversary

    I had the best night sleep in a week, with a full 6 hours I wake up refreshed and ready to go. My wife slept in even more… so I snuck down to the Excalibur to get a head start. Starting with a 5 cent 10 play double double bonus poker. I dropped $50 with very few hits, but then I got my first quad of the trip! Best part was there was a 3x multiplier on it (some odd game… ultimate X multi play…).

    IMG_20130606_125152_091.jpg

    This hit brought me back up to even. But right then wife calls as says she is ready to meet at more buffet at Luxor… so I collect and head that way. We got our free buffet passes, and had a great discussion with the gal at the player’s desk. Why they make My Vegas such a manual process for those folks I have no idea. Tickets in hand, we head to the buffet… Yuck. We have been to 6 Vegas Buffets… and this one is so far behind the rest, do yourself a favor and go somewhere else. I sampled a bit of everything looking for something worth eating, and the only item that was even worth going back for was the alfredo… and its only redeeming quality was that it was better than the rest. Once we were done with the buffet, we headed to Excalibur to play some blackjack. Our plan was to get 4 or 5 hours in, I walked away from the table after about an hour of losses, my wife was doing well, but then things went south after I left. She was up $80, I was down $250. We low played some video poker, she hit 2 4OAK and broke even… my losses continued. I saw some electronic smokes for sale, and as we have been thinking about getting these for a while, we decided to check it out. They allowed us to try them out , and we decided that this may make it easier to quit so we gave it a shot. As we were walking back to the room, we started to feel a bit ill… I think trying all the different flavors they had got to us. That upset stomach feeling stuck with us the rest of the night and kinda put a damper on it… but we weren’t going to let it get us down.

    Not wanting to carry a bag around all night, we went back to the room for 2 hrs… then headed out to see the Australian Bee Gee’s. In our 40s, it’s not often we are in the youngest 5% of a crowd, but we were here. Between that, a bit of an upset stomach, and lacking a buzz I was worried this show would be a bust. It wasn’t, It didn’t blow me away, but they were good. The middle of the show was a bit slow, but in all I really enjoyed it. If I were feeling better this would have been a great show. Mind you I’m not a huge Bee Gee’s fan, but I do like some of their music… I would recommend this show to anyone who likes the Bee Gee’s.

    We then went to the Steakhouse at Camelot for the second time this trip, armed with our previous experience, we changed up what we ordered this time, and it was great. We both got the filet this time, asparagus rather than spinach, better bottle of wine, I got the tomato bisque soup, stuffed potato and my wife had an iceberg salad. The food was even better this time than the last. They were busier so the service suffered a bit, but was still good. We sat on the other side of the room, so the bar’s TVs weren’t in our view making this a wonderful experience. Despite our stomach issues we over ate, not smart… but damm that food was good.

    We went back to the Excalibur casino to play our last round of blackjack of the trip. We made it about 2 hours before we decided that it would be better to relax in the room and be comfortable… on our way out, I dropped the rest of my chips on one spin of roulette… of course I didn’t win, but at least I didn’t have to go the casher for $26. In the two hours, including the roulette bet, we were down a bit over $180, we were sharing chips so I’m not sure who was doing worse… we took turns.

    After 4 days of eating too much, drinking too much, smoking too much and sleeping too little we were feelin’ it. So after exchanging some of our favorite experience over the last 10 years of our marriage, and the things we most look forward to… it was time to sleep.

    Friday morning, still feeling a bit ill, we hung out in the room until checkout (11AM) and headed to the Airport. We grabbed a few sandwiches at the airport to take on the plane… then did our last round of gambling for the trip. We each put 20 into a video poker game and played till it was gone. We were playing 1 credit, to make it last longer… I hit a quad that brought me back to even.

    IMG_20130607_125133_730.jpg

    As I have no desire to try to find a casher for $20, I upped my bet and burned through the rest to finish off the trip.

    We are on the plane home currently, and looking back at this trip, I have to say it was wonderful as Vegas always is. We are getting older, and are finding it harder to keep up. Our biggest take away is the next trip needs to be more relaxed or shorter. I’m thinking we should shoot for a longer trip, so we aren’t trying cram everything into 4 days. We are coming home $1800, which is just about half of our overall bankroll. As that is better than we expect when we go to Vegas so it’s a win to us.

    I'll work on putting together a summary tomorrow...

    Thanks for reading,
    spauls
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2013
  18. breanna61

    breanna61 Super Moderator

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    Belated Anniversary Wishes! I really enjoy Blackjack at The Trop; always seem to get on a table with fun dealers and players.
     
  19. spauls

    spauls Tourist

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    Thanks!

    We agree and were thinking that might be our next destination. The tables were great... the drink service was very good. We really liked it. If we weren't overbooked this trip, we would have spent more time there.
     
  20. LaRae

    LaRae Low-Roller

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    Nice report. Happy Anniversary!
     
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