maxev Live TR NYE Virgin in Vegas -- plus Venetian, Cosmo, Encore, Binion's 12/28-1/11 (now 2/11)

First handpay of the year and of the trip.

Then gave back $1600 chasing the stupid must hit by balloon in Wizard of Oz Over the Rainbow. Only had two bonuses and three Glindas. My balloon was $90 (must hit by $100) and didn’t want someone else to hit it.

Finally got the balloon with $500 more in. Not worth it, this game.

Then won $150 on The Bachelor, and $150 on Game of Thrones King’s Landing.

 

Tekka only has a few sushi rolls for takeout, and they only come cut.

This is the 16-piece yellowtail and toro for $25. Used my weekly $15 food credit so pretty good deal for $10. It also comes with the hot sauce, which is normally $2 if eating at the bar.

Love the little packets of wasabi and ginger.

 

The shuttle existed, but you couldn't take luggage on that. It was M just being ultra cheap, and it was particularly stupid.

No Bonus for hitting all three royals at once? That's pretty shitty of them. Especially at 8/5 DDB.

I haven't checked since 2019, but Bar Luca had decent games at the bar. Including 9/5 DDB for quarters+.

I remember when I posted on 2+2, and they just raved about that drink. Haha

Glad to hear you're sticking around longer. Nice win at $1.50!!

 

Morning slotting handily avoids peeps and crowds. Cosmo has been particularly crowded.

In for $400 while waiting to order at Va Bene (reopened!).

Baby unicow (unicow equivalent with moolah feature and a lot of spins) with the we’re multiplying feature.

Only one retrigger of 7 spins.

Expected more. Really hate the watered-down paytable compared with Invaders Return, but gotta pay for that multiplier.

 

This put me back even but I continued down $200 and then triggered with the Darlene progressive.

 

Picked up 3 bronze pull tabs for 2500 points each. Maybe I should’ve done 2500 more to get one silver pull tab, but you can lose a lot in pursuit of 2500 points.

Haven’t seen any of the bottom amounts on the pull tabs, so I’m guessing there are more of the second to the bottom. Good game design by Kevin, as small a sample as I’ve seen. But which made me consider going for silver to get $40.

I’m happy with the $15, $10, and $10 though. Had $25 freeplay already, and converted the whole $60 into $100 on video poker.

I think I’m calling it for Cosmo, won’t have time to play much more today.

 

I think around the third day at Cosmo, not only is the room completely lived-in, but it feels like an apartment over a home. I checkout tomorrow but don’t want to.


I envy the people who bought condos here. I think they must still be around. I remember when the rooms had dishwashers and microwaves but no washer/dryer.

Speaking of, I’m going to need to do laundry soon. As a temporary stall, I’m swapping out shirts in the freezer to kill any germs. I also left shirts on the balcony overnight with a dryer sheet, but it didn’t get that cold.

 

Here’s another Starbucks protein box.

Gone is that little soft cookie, replaced with crackers. Also gone is the fresh apple slices and grapes, replaced with dried apricot and dried apple.

The hard-boiled eggs are wrapped and come with sea salt and pepper, no more of the everything bagel seasoning.

Two added slices of gouda.

They flubbed this one. Definitely not worth $8.95.

 

Just got the new Wynn promo. Earn 1000 slot points between tomorrow and Jan. 17, then swipe at a kiosk and pick a money bag for $5 to $10k freeplay.

Too bad it wasn’t a weekend earlier when I was there, but I did get to play their similar promo with barbecue grill picks in September.

This one is structured the same way —
the fine print says it’s limited to Platinum and higher, max of 50 swipes, and only one $10k prize.

Don’t know why they would limit a big player to 50 swipes. If people want to play more, let them. And why not open it up to every player. And, I realize casinos want to limit their liability, but why cheap out with one $10k prize? They could just push odds way out there like it already is. I didn’t think Wynn would be sweating multiple $10k prizes. It also doesn’t say that it must be awarded, just that it can only be awarded once. So let’s say that the rewards desk people say someone won the $10k on the first day. Knowing the rules, is there any more big incentive to return the next days to play?

At least it doesn’t have “none” as a possible prize, like their September promo.

 

You know I have an answer for everything.

The preferred Wynn guest in Vegas is one (or a couple playing two people on the same card) who can comfortably make at least the Platinum tier within two three-night stays per year. Even more preferred (and truly host-worthy -- though exceptions exist) is someone who can make the Black tier and give at least three trips per year (basically, Platinum each and every gaming day without breaking a sweat). Wynn -- at least in Vegas (I have nearly polar opposite takes about Boston) -- wants to maximize the guest's focus on taking in and enjoying all that the resort has to offer. Far above that, Wynn has always rewarded loyalty with access, and access doesn't always mean, "My play makes me worth something. Give me my stuff."

I think they also learned their lesson with the status match last summer. In both markets, Wynn still has a bunch of things to make right and properly fix within its loyalty program.

 

And to finally finish Saturday's Wynn bar-hopping hooker story...

I was at the corner end of the Tower Suites bar and my friend F was next to me to my left, around the L, closest to the entrance. There was an empty seat to his left.

F started talking about tattoos, and I joked that they're like tree rings and based on the design, you can tell how old a person is. Tramp stamp? 40s. None? 50s. Scarlett Johansson? Ageless!

He brought up tatts because he eyed a woman with a whole monochrome sleeve up her right arm.

She caught his look, and called out, "Is that one or two chairs next to you?"

He said one, and she then asked if she and her friend could scoot in the middle. She also asked for help dragging a chair over there.

I thought they were just looking for two chairs together, but they sat in between us -- her, F, her friend, and me.

F completely shut down, looking irritated, and I reveled in his uncomfortableness. I tried maintaining some closed-off answers without appearing too friendly. It seemed there was only one talker in her group too.

"Don't be shy," she said. It was very hard not to notice herself falling out of her dress. But I knew the second I looked down, that would be an invitation.

Eyes up here, I kept thinking.

"This is much better," she said after she sat down. "It was so boring over there."

She motioned to the guy to my right, who was staring the whole time at the TV screen.

I glanced at Billy the bartender, but he avoided eye contact and was suddenly busy.

We were all alone in this.

We answered the typical, "Where're you guys from?" and then asked it back, and she said, "Guess."

Oh no, here we go. Might as well have fun with it.

I said definitively, "Nebraska." I kind of say Nebraska when people ask to guess, thinking it would be a smaller less-populated state not many people would normally guess. Sometimes I'm right and then I look like I state profiled them and they want to know how I did it.

She said no, so I guessed others -- Montana, North Dakota.

She finally said, "Texas."

I said, "No, that's not it. Vermont."

Dammit, don't do anything that sounds like flirting.

She said, "No, Dallas."

"Are you sure?" I said. "You don't mean Dulles, Virginia?"

Dammit. I like the banter, but this isn't going to go anywhere.

"Texas barbecue. Tacos."

Tacos, ugh. An opener. She's a professional and got us to that point. Don't say anything suggestive, I'm thinking. Should be like my friend to the right: sealed lips and glassy stare straight ahead. Or should be like F and just look mightily uncomfortable.

"They have tacos in Nebraska," I said.

This went back and forth a couple more times, including asking what we do for a living (I said I'm here for CES and have a booth for my AI sex robots) and that I can see auroas above people and mentioned her color.

I need some new tricks, as that's something else I'll do when lying. I just have to remember what colors I said in the first place. She was impressed when I pointed at each bar patron and rattled off colors.

Then a lull in the conversation, and her friend asked me, "So where're you from?"

I didn't mean to laugh out loud, but I did. I guess she missed the whole conversation.

The friend then got a bit annoyed, stood up, and made a motion to leave.

They then bid their goodbyes, and we were back to our drinks and suddenly the bar came to life again, as if everything had been paused.

“They probably went to the B Bar,” Billy said

Billy and the guy to my right started sharing their hooker stories, the time he was in Saigon with opportunity but he loved his wife.

F and I closed out the Tower Suites bar, finished our drinks, then passed by the B Bar, which was pretty hopping.

We didn't see our friends but hoped that meant they found some work.

Not eating dinner, I was pretty buzzed and told F that it was time for me to gamble.

Which I'd posted before that I then dumped $3k, starting with poker and then slots and then $2500 just in $2 video poker with no quads.

But sometimes I just imagine that I was with a $3k hooker from Nebraska, and the loss doesn't hurt as much.

 

Getting into it with some locals.

 

You have to update your tattoo age identifer to include tribal = 50s.

Source, I and all my friends who turned 50 last year have tribal tattoos.

 

Thanks for the photos! They had a little segment on the Bellagio conservatory on the news this morning, but I haven't had a chance to check it out in public. From what I've seen, it looks great, though I'm not a big fan of the tiger sculpture (it looks like a dinosaur skeleton). And thank you, as well, for the deep dive on Starbucks protein packs!

 

@maxev - excellent hooker story.

I once worked with this guy who was a regular at a strip club. He used to tell the girls he was a stuntman. Geeky, out of shape looking dude. He looked like he would hurl if someone made him run around the block.

Maybe you can be a stuntman for your next hooker encounter.

 

Here’s a fun little reverse tell against locals at low stakes no-limit hold'em that’s usually pretty accurate.

I’m big blind, local raises, all fold and I call.

Flop is low cards. I check-call.

Turn pairs. The only hands I put him on are AK AQ KQ and missing. I start to make a bet while looking to my left and see that the local is reaching for a lot of chips.

If against an inexperienced player, I would then check, expect him to bet, and I would fold. But the reverse is true here, and I count out a 3/4 pot bet.

Then he takes a moment, taps his cards, and folds..

The tell is that he thinks that I'm looking at him (he's right) and that he's immediately ready to make a big bet or call whatever bet I make (another move is when they have a whole stack in their hand, ready to bet or call), the message being that I'd better just check and not bet. He may even say something like, "Careful." But don't check here, he's just posturing to try to get the check so he can check back.

Won $49 at the Caesars 1/3 while waiting for my cousin (not the cousin from last week, but his brother -- what a gambling family, eh?).

Then headed to Bacchanal.

 

I move to Paris tomorrow but considered Caesars Palace instead because of their jacuzzi tub and poker room proximity. I'm using my 7 Stars retreat, so my resort credit could go toward a massage and haircut.

But I can also do the same at Paris, and Paris also has a fridge.

That's mainly what pushed me over to Paris, despite the heavy construction for NOBU, Martha Stewart, and Vanderpump. Also I can easily walk to Planet Hollywood's Starbucks to get drinks, and Ocean One for $5 entrees (that I can then put in the fridge), and do Bally's poker room.

Glad I stuck with Paris, because Caesars tore up a big chunk of their floor by Julius -- mainly all the video poker machines that I usually play.



Back to Bacchanal.

I saw that crab legs are $25 a pound at the grocery store, so my plan was to eat as many crab legs as I could.

It wasn't too crowded at 8 p.m., not even a regular line. They close at 10.

Used the $10 daily food voucher, found out the drink vouchers don't work on buffet drinks, and paid the whopping $75 each using points, glad that tax still comes off.

The two of us were seated in the bread/cheese section at a table for 4. I always like a bigger table to spread out dishes.

First order of business was the sushi area, white fish, and some pumpkin spice horshata.


Then prime rib. Two stations next to each other with the same meats. The first guy gave me a good-looking piece of prime rib, but when I saw the cut my cousin got from the other guy, I went to that guy and got another piece. Perfectly cut and cooked.



Two crab legs stations -- one is self-serve, the other is steamed and a guy stacks your plate. But not as high as you might like. He might've been told these legs are $25 a pound.

Crab legs were very good, the claws were better.


And dessert. No pumpkin pie that my cousin was looking for.


All in all, still very good but probably not worth $80. I don’t think I quite got value.

Didn’t see the guy from last time who pushed a cart with dim sum, wagyu hotdogs, and lobster bisque from a teapot.

 

Holy crap. That construction by Julius wasn’t there last time I was there! I should be okay in Octavius tower, right?

 

My cousin is passing through Vegas on the way home, and he was able to get 2 free nights at Caesars Palace in their Augustus room (CP's best tower).

Last year he earned 1000 total tier points on small bets at Harrah's Southern California. He hasn't played at all at a CET in Vegas.

He showed me his Caesars Rewards app, and it lists all these comped weeknight rooms, even this Friday. He was originally going to book 1 night but when he saw them comped, he decided to do 2 nights.

He still has to pay the resort fee.

When he checked in at the kiosk (no human to possibly upgrade him) and received Augustus on the top floor, he said he thought I'd pulled some strings to get him a nicer room.

Don't know how he got Caesars, or any CET property, for 0 play. He said he thought it was because he was Gold, but that's what everyone gets for signing up.

Maybe CET is struggling for guests?

 

Updated! Maybe I should just get a tattoo of the identifier itself so when I've had too many drinks, I have something to refer to.

Here's what the Bellagio/Caesars connector area has -- looks like just a plant. Usually it's also decorated in the same theme as the Conservatory, which I guess it is since it’s a plant.


Heading into Bellagio is a big Money Tree (complete with bird... "I’m good at identifying birds.” “What's this one?” “That's a bird”).


There's one more protein pack I'm waiting to find -- apples (I'm sure they're converted to dried fruit), carrots and dressing, cheese stick, small bag of chocolate raisins, peanut butter & jelly sandwich. That’s my favorite one but don’t see how it survives.

Stuntman added to my repertoire!

It was the casino floor in front of Julius, all the way to the hall to the Barge. I'm surprised they blocked off that much of the gaming floor, but I figure it'll be finished by this weekend.