Last minute July 4th weekend

At about noon on July 4th, I decide to drive the 7 1/2 hours to the place we all love. Now that is long enough drive to have time to question my sanity but as the pictures I am posting now from LV show, I am glad to be here.

The first 5 are from the Palms where I ended walking with a $900 profit on my 100 buy in and the RF and last pic was me just messing around on this 2 cent machine.

Oh yeah, the heat is not bothering as much as I thought it would. More details when I return o Monday

 

Wow, talk about having a hot hand.

 

Nice hits Travelfriend!

7 1/2 hour drive would be a little much for me for spur of the moment. Glad/Sad I don't live that close!

 

Wow, what a crazy blowout weekend it was for me, will have more details later but am just now leaving Las Vegas for 7.5 Hou drive home after fun playing session until 3 am this morning.

But if anyone is reading, would like your thoughts on this. I was playing Pai Gow last night (actually I should say early this morning as in 4 hours ago). I bought in for $200, and playing 20 a hand, lost $100 almost immediately. Then it was up n down for a few, but then the bonuses started hitting and I actually hit a straight flush for a $600 payout. I gave dealer a $50 tip, question being was that okay or was I being a cheap ass?

 

I would consider $50 to be a very generous tip!

 

Yea $50 on $600 win is way high to me...I would do $20 in this situation

 

Sweeetttt. Congrats

 

x2

 

I don’t play much PGP, but $50 sounds pretty generous to me. The only way I think it could be considered “cheap” is if you are the type who only tips when you are winning. Then, if you had been at the table for several hours without tipping at all, I would call $50 cheap. But if you had been tipping “normally” or if you had only been at the table for a short time, $50 can’t be considered anything but generous, IMO.

Congrats on the hits!

 

I agree with the previous comments. If you had not tipped at all yet 50 is def ok as well as generous. If I had been tipping along the way or only been there for a short while I'm in the 20.00 range here which I feel is more than fair.

 

I had been there maybe 30 minutes or so. Got there with first dealer and he dealt about 5 hands, then got replaced by another dealer and I had played for her once with her winning nothing, was probably 20th hand or so that she dealt when I got the straight flush. The reason I asked was because her body language and tone suggested she did not appreciate the tip. I could have misread her, who knows.

 

Okay, time for the wrap up of this crazy trip. Sorry, this is probably my shortest trip report, basically all I did was gamble and drink. I know I ate at Earl of Sandwiches twice at the Palms (nice surprise, didn’t know they had one there, very small and in the food court), In N Out Burger once and FatBurger inside the Sunset Station twice. Also on last day, I had the Tbone and egg special at Sunset Grand Café, honestly, not the best steak I have had but it was 12.99.

Entertainment wise, I did finally make it to Big Elvis at Harrah’s, he really does have a good voice. Cost me a $100 though playing Video Poker on really bad pay tables at the bar but by God those 2 beers were “free.”

Anyway, back to the gambling. If you saw all the pictures in my first post, the first day, Friday was just fantastic. The goal was to hit a Royal Flush and I did that but sadly on a 2 cent machine. I did have some losses at the Gold Coast and Harrah’s and Flamingo so final tally for Friday, I was ahead about $750 and when your bankroll for the weekend is $400, this is not a bad thing.

Saturday, July 6th

I should have realized that I used up all my luck on Friday. It was a ridiculous 4:20 in the afternoon before I hit my first Quad but then I hit another at 4:24 and another at 4:45. Sadly, these hits still had me down 2-300, so I decided to switch over to penny 50 play and hit one or two nice ones. All this was at the Palms. Also played some Pai Gow during the day and I probably shouldn’t have. By end of the day, I had given back about ½ my profit from Day 1 but still ahead almost $400.

Sunday, July 7th – Gambler’s Dilemna

Now if I do no gambling for the rest of my trip, I can come home with a $400 profit, but noooo, I cannot do that. I decide I will risk $200 today and lo and behold that $200 goes fast and it is like 2pm. My mind says go to a movie, my heart says eff it, I am in Las Vegas. I play at Sunset Station, I play at Flamingo, back to Palms, can’t win anywhere. Now I admit, I am a bit miffed with myself, I should have driven home on Sunday as the original plan. But I was dealing with aftermath of drinking on Saturday and couldn’t stand thought of driving 7 hours on Sunday so I had booked a comp room at Sunset Station and planned to drive home on Monday. Spent Sunday evening around sunset walking the strip a bit, met up with one of the MyVegas folks, that was fun, and then promptly lost $120 at Pai Gow at Flamingo, which had me pretty close back to even and in disgust head back to Sunset Station to call it a night. Probably about 11pm now.

NOW, do I go to bed when I get to Sunset?? Of course not, buy in with $200 and immediately as in 5-6 hands, lose $100. This is ridiculous and I am pissed at my lack of control but I am talking to myself saying, hey, I had a great weekend, just what I needed played for hours, drank a bunch, had a great time and then the cards slowly started turning. I got dealt a 3 of a kind, small bonus, then a full house, then a flush with a pair of aces. I sense a little run, bump up my bonus bet to $10 and BOOM. Straight flush time! That is a 50-1 payoff and a 100-1 payoff on the $1 progressive bet for a nice $600. Oh yeah, the 6th and 7th cards to the 7 card straight flush were in seat next to me. If I had got 7 card straight flush, that would have been 176,000 payoff. This all happened somewhere between 2-3 am Monday morning! I played a few more hands and cashed out with $650 total, very tired but also pretty damn happy.

Bottom line for the trip. Once again, I didn’t do good job of keeping gambling money and spending money separate(anyone have good ideas, please share with me here) but I took $400 out of bank on drive out of town and I deposited $600 when I returned and had almost $100 still in wallet. I paid cash for all my cheap meals so I did all right.
I am posting some Las Vegas general pics I took Sunday night, nothing you haven’t seen before, but hope you enjoy them. I think you can tell some of them were taken from the top of the Flamingo parking garage, not a bad spot for views but just a little creepy up there too.

OH, almost forgot, updated the ongoing Pai Gow Table Conditions database, it now includes 25 different casinos. Check it out at http://bit.ly/PaiGowtableconditions