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Conferences, Concerts, and Casinos—March 10th-14th

Discussion in 'Vegas Trip Reports' started by ronc, Mar 10, 2015.

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  1. ronc

    ronc VIP Whale

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    Thursday, Mar 12

    Breakfast at Dupar's

    My wife woke up and said that we should go downtown for breakfast. We headed to the Golden Gate. It was a bit of a hassle...neither the guy at the taxi stand here at Aria nor the cabbie knew where the Golden Gate was located. What? Okay, just take me downtown and we'll go from there.

    Breakfast was very good...bacon, eggs, hash browns, and toast for me;a patty melt for my wife. We also split a shrimp cocktail. It was also free with a $25 food credit and some comps we had left from previous trips.

    Golden Gate

    I had $50 in promo chips. Lost both in short order. Played craps on a one dealer table. He had to do everything. The place was dead at 9 a.m. so the craps action went fast and I soon lost $100. Slots were not kind to my wife; she lost $60 or so.

    The D

    This went a little better for a while. I won two $25 match plays and my wife won $160 on slot free play. That would have been the time to leave. We didn't. We gave about $300 back, so we are still down for the evening.

    Casino Royale

    This place is pretty dumpy. The dealers are grouchy. The beer is not great. None of that matters. We stayed here several hours and I went from $200 to $450 on the craps table. My wife lost on slots but the combination of our play brought us to almost even for the day.

    Guy Fieri's Vegas Kitchen

    This was a great lunch stop. We had the lettuce wrap appetizer. Very good! I had a Caesar Salad that was huge. It was very good and I was barely able to finish it. My wife had some hot wings that were very good. All in all, it was a great choice.

    Olivia Newton-John

    The show was in the Donny & Marie Showroom. Our seats were right at the stage, at the second table with the two seats closest to the stage. The show was a magical trip through her career which we really enjoyed. There was nothing fancy and minimal costume changes, but she did a great job of singing the songs that she is famous for plus a couple of other choices she wanted to sing. My wife had thought that there was nothing to top Jeff Dunham from last night...but she left this show thinking that it was the best one she has seen in Vegas. The truth is that we have seen a lot of great shows here; it is one of the great things about a trip here.

    Evening at Aria

    A couple of hours of gambling was next on the agenda. My wife is just not getting any wins on slots here this particular evening. She is having fun, though. She works hard and deserves her fun! I might has well have stood in the middle of the casino and tossed $300 in chips in the air...I lost it so fast on craps that it seemed to disappear into thin ice. I changed tables and it didn't look much better, but then we had a rally and I left up for that table by $275 or so.
     
  2. ronc

    ronc VIP Whale

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    STATS Update

    We are down $2300 for three two days. It is still mostly at Aria, of course.

    I looked at MLife this morning; we show 7,500 more points.

    Win/loss shows $800 table game loss and $579 in slot loss.
     
  3. tringlomane

    tringlomane STP Addicted Beer Snob

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    Big comeback today! You can do it!
     
  4. Drambler

    Drambler High-Roller

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    Thanks for the great report..now let's see you turn around that luck!
     
  5. fadetheseven

    fadetheseven High-Roller

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    When the dice are bad, any right side strategy suffers.

    Do you press? I've become much more conservative and it's helped smooth out sessions. With heavy pressing, even choppy sessions will be losers.
     
  6. ronc

    ronc VIP Whale

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    I do press, but not too aggressively. This is just an unusually bad streak for me--I was actually up at Aria last time out; we're about even now... The math for either side is negative but we all hope to be the ones who get the positive variance and win!! The thing that gives you the best chance to be a winner is to go bet everything once and leave, win or lose...then you don't subject it to the house advantage time after time...but what fun would that be?
     
  7. ronc

    ronc VIP Whale

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    Last Full Day In Vegas....

    This morning was kind of lazy. I woke up and meandered down to play for an hour or so on a $10 table. It wasn't bad; I broke even. Stopped in and bought some drinks, pastries, and fruit and lazed around the room watching basketball until about one. My wife did an hour workout in the fitness center. She enjoys the treadmills there a lot and the staff is very friendly and efficient. Me? I don't even have anything packed to workout in...that was overlooked; something always gets forgotten.

    Todd English Pub

    We headed back here for some delicious mussels and they also had reuben spring rolls. They were very good. A couple of beers and watching some basketball rounded out the afternoon.

    Top Of The World/Stratosphere

    This was our event for the evening. We headed down and arrived about thirty minutes early for our reservation (I timed it to be in the restaurant at sunset), so we signed up and gambled for a bit. I played (whoops!) on a "crapless" craps table. The game is different overall, but not so much if you just bet the 6/8, so I stuck with that. I was doing okay; staying about average when it came time to place one last bet and either win or be a few dollars down. I put $30 on the 6 and 8. My wife comes up and I realize it is time to go. She goes to check in for the restaurant; I decide to toss $10 on the "12"...one roll bet...shooter tosses them...they bounce around..."12"...that paid off $290 (beware...Stratosphere has a $1 lower pay table on all the inside bets than the already bad pays on them...most places it would have been $300). Bets down, please...with a nice profit that will pay for dinner!

    The view was amazing. We had the four course sampling menu with a wine flight. It was very good. The first course was lobster bisque, which was very tasty. The daylight slowly turned into dusk. The second course was a scallop over some risotto. The scallop was good but it wasn't the best risotto I have ever had. The main course was a 10 oz. filet. It was prepared perfectly and was a decent cut of meat. It wasn't seasoned very much; a bit of seasoning could have gone a long way. The dusk is now turning to night and we're looking down the strip as it lights up for the evening. The last course was a chocolate pudding and some fruit in a white chocolate basket. It was very good. The wines all matched with the food.

    The total bill for the meal was $279, which included an extra glass of chardonnay for my wife and a cup of coffee for me. They just started taking 10% off with your player's card here; that made it valuable to sign up right off the bat. With tip and all and the discount, the cost was around $325 when all was said an done. That was what I expected and I felt like it was worth it. The view is amazing and the food was good. They could step that up a bit, and it would be even better.

    My wife was totally thrilled by the whole deal. I have pulled it off--she has enjoyed each of our three big events and liked each one better than the one the night before.

    We decided to stay and play, since we are not having the best of luck at the Aria. That was a good idea! I played a bit of craps on a table that played even for an hour or so. Everyone began leaving and it turned downhill, so I picked up my chips and moved to the adjacent table. It started out decent and I never went below my buy-in over 5 1/2 hours of play. Two shooters brought me into the $900 range (on a $200 buy-in) at about the 3 hour mark and at about the same time my wife brought me a ticket for $391 for a win on "Planet Moolah"...we are up enough for the day to cover our $450 in meals easily. We played even-Steven for the rest of the evening and headed out at about 1:30 a.m.

    Donating to Aria

    We spent the next couple of hours playing at Aria and it did seem to go a little better, but we ended up down a couple of hundred overall. Not nearly as bad as the past few nights. The difference in a winning session at craps and losing one for me seems to be that one shooter who lasts through a couple of sets of modest presses and gets the rack full enough of chips that you just know you can't give it all back. This session had no shooter; it was up $100, down $100 all night. My wife had some longer play on the slots but nothing to write home about. Both of us lost in the $100 range. It is well past three...where did the night go?

    All in all, one great evening in the books!
     
  8. ronc

    ronc VIP Whale

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    Departure Day...

    I was up at 8, took a quick shower, and headed down for what has always been one of my best sessions...I have one many times on my last session of the trip. I guess i should have ran when the dealer told me the table was not going great, but I didn't and lost $50 instantly. I switched to the other table and did a bit better, but found myself down $150 and decided to call it quits. Gambling is done for me for the trip and I am off to get some pastries and stuff for the room.

    My wife played later...she packed everything and headed down to play until departure time. I lazed around the room and packed up the few remaining things and headed down with all the luggage. She won about $30 and played for an hour; sadly, that was one of her best runs on the slots at Aria.

    The limo driver was on time and we were at the airport and checked in in short order. I ditched my wife at security--I was selected for TSA pre-check and she was not. Sorry, honey, I am not going to strip down for them today! She wasn't mad at all...and said that she would have ditched me if the circumstances were opposite. We ate at the Sammy Hagar place. Average, as usual. Somehow we ended up at the wrong gate but figured out just in time to get to the right gate just as our section of "A" boarders was getting on. No harm done, other than some quick walking through the terminal! Nice flight back and we're home safe and sound!!
     
  9. ronc

    ronc VIP Whale

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    Final Tally

    These figures are not nearly exact since we paid for a lot in cash the last day, so I am adding that and all our tips on to the bankroll. By my count, we lost $2,000 on the trip. The vast majority of the losses were at Aria.

    Aria's Figures


    My win/loss shows us losing $900 on table games and $768.51 on slots. I don't think they are accurate on the table games loss. That doesn't surprise me; they were off last time also. I will make notes next time when I buy-in and when I leave the table. I assume the slots are more accurate.

    Total points for the trip was 30,390. The MLife desk said that my average bet was $50 over 10.5 hours of play. That may be fairly accurate because there were no good nights with pressed bets but there was enough pressing that I would have expected it to be a bit higher. My wife played slots the same amount of hours at about $0.60 a bet. Not sure what all that works out to as ADT/Theo.

    Comps


    Upfront the offer was one night in the hotel and $150 resort credit. I also have $35 or so dollars of Express comps.

    I called the host office and asked but they were unwilling to comp anything else--the other nights or $100 or so in additional room charges--but my expectations were that I would get minimal comps.

    I don't know how those comps look on my play but I would note that the losses came so fast, overall, that both my playing time and average bet suffered overall on this trip. This trip featured faster losses than usual (with no difference in playing style; I play pretty much the same every trip) and more nights in the room before midnight than other trips. Usually even a losing night on the bankroll I have can last hours beyond that.

    Overall, it was a great trip and we had a lot of fun. It was a successful trip!!!
     
  10. ronc

    ronc VIP Whale

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    Stratosphere Host...

    I did get a call from a host at the Stratosphere asking could she do anything for us on this trip. She called while we were at the airport. She was very nice and said that we would be hearing from her. Honestly, I am not sure if I am interested but I will see what they offer and go from there.
     
  11. PayTriple

    PayTriple VIP Whale

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    Enjoyed reading your report, thanks for sharing! I once played Crapless craps, and got paid on a 3 with full odds!
     
  12. CaptainJack

    CaptainJack Low-Roller

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    I'm surprised they were unwilling to pickup anything further considering your loss. Given the information you provide, I'd put your theo between $600-700 and your compable amount around $235 including EC's. I guess they factored in the free night/resort credit and called you even. Still, with the loss exceeding theo I would have thought they'd pick up the extra charges. At least you had a fun trip and you'll probably continue to get decent offers from Aria.
     
  13. ronc

    ronc VIP Whale

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    I don't think I got the benefit of the doubt on the average bet that a lot of folks get (and I have gotten at other places) for tipping well. My tip bets did not win often but they were regular and I was thanked, which is all that is really required. I wish I'd have asked how one short session was rated when the dealers won well over $150 on tip bets in about an hour.

    Do you guys ask directly over the table for everyone to hear or do you pull the rater aside and ask? I saw both on this trip. One larger player at Caesar's asked and they told him he was rated at $510. I think he was above that because he started out with a decent pass line bet and $540 across and pressed pretty aggressively but I am no expert. They ended up putting him at $600, which he was happy with. I saw others pull the rater to the side but I don't know if they like the box getting up during the game or not.

    I'm still a bit shy about it but getting less so....
     
  14. pphold

    pphold pp Park Place Degenerate

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    Aria and MGM properties only count your Place bets and pass line bets. They do not rate Odds. that might be the difference.

    And Yes always get your rating when you leave the table on TIME, AVE BET, and What you won or lost right there. I say it all the time but do not do it all the time. Only winning times I do but if I lose I just don't care and just leave, but that is the times I really should check.

    thanks for the TR very nice insights I'll be there in a week in a half.
     
  15. breanna61

    breanna61 Super Moderator

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    Sorry you didn't have a winning trip.....it's always more fun to get a lot of play for your $'s even if losing in the end. A daily event is always fun with something new to look forward to each day.
     
  16. tringlomane

    tringlomane STP Addicted Beer Snob

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    Great detail! Thanks for sharing despite the outcome!
     
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