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Mirage V-Day, Bacchanal, Harrah's bonus, but really the Steve Wynn's buttons report

Discussion in 'Vegas Trip Reports' started by saeldway, Feb 19, 2013.

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  1. saeldway

    saeldway Low-Roller

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    My Trip Report

    I think I have something for everybody in this trip report. A little bit for Beejay and Gaggles. A little for the craps player. For the video poker player. The foodie lover's and all VMB's around.

    By way of background, my wife and I live in SoCal. We used to go about 8x/yr for the common weekend-er trips. That was until our first child (son) was born in March last year. Man, talk about putting a crimp in one's style! But he's worth it. I don't want to make this TR one about kids, but my wife and I do not side well with the whole families on the strip thing. My thing is not as much the buffets or malls because you'll have that in most cities. It's more the evening, on-the-strip, everywhere we go kind of thing. My son is now almost a year and sister works on the strip, so we thought her home would be a good place to store the kid while the wife and I had some fun. Son has spent a couple of nights away from us already. My mom was joining us as well.

    So here was the plan. Wife, kidlet, and I would drive to Henderson on Tuesday, spend part of the day, Wednesday, and Thursday with Sis. Then Thursday-Saturday at Mirage with small kidlet breaks inbetween. Nothing of note happened Tuesday through Thursday. I went to Bass Pro shops, but really, I was trying to save up fun for later.

    2/14

    So the wife and I spend the morning hanging out with my mom doing business we have in Nevada. Wife and I had 8pm reservations at Scarpetta. My thought process was that I didn't want to leave the kid at 5 to wait and check-in and stress about making dinner on time. So at about 1, we go to check-in and it's a good thing we did. The line was about 30 minutes long. I used to bypass and go into the platinum line but the player's club status has taken a hit with the lack of time spent over the last year. We were up-sold for $10/night to a deluxe room. The double sinks and dedicated elevators are worth $10 to me. So we head back to my sister's house until about 6pm. Take our stuff and go right up to the room. I am eager to get my gamble on, so I head down about 7.

    Now as every VMB'er in the last month has done, I was eagerly following Nate's heavy swings. Roulette is too high of a HA for me but following his thread, so a little roulette was too much to pass up in the short time I had before my wife came down. (You are an evil, evil man Nate!) My pattern when I do play is to group a neighborhood with my lucky number being 26. So I bet 0,28,9,26 with splits all across the 26. From now on when I talk about Roulette, this is the same pattern. Maybe $20-30/spin. Nothing but a slow bleed. The wife meets me at 7:45 and off we go to Cosmo for dinner at Scarpetta.

    We get in the cab, take off, and all of a sudden this creepy pedophile-like voice tells me to touch his buttons. I was about to tell the driver what he could do with himself when I looked up and it was actually a video of Steve Wynn on the monitor. Seriously creepy as hell. So much so that I had to record a little bit. Hopefully it loads right. If so, close your eyes and listen to Stevie telling you about his buttons. My wife and I listen to his quarterly reports because they are pure entertainment so we are familiar with his voice and she said it sounded like they slowed it down to make it sound more sultry. But if I were an alter-boy and that voice were coming from a priest I'd be supergluing my backside.

    We get to Cosmo, up to Scarpetta and are sat about on time. For those of you who haven't been to Scarpetta but have been thinking of going, go. This was our second time. It is in a sexy environment, with great views of the Bellagio fountains and best of all they have pretty damn good food with great service. I had the prime NY steak cooked to perfection. It's not the best steak on the strip (Carnevino) but its still pretty good. My wife had fish. Doesn't sound appealing? I don't eat fish so I couldn't tell you what she had. Whatever it was, she said it was good. Cosmo really does have the best overall selection of dining choices and Scarpetta didn't disappoint.

    After dinner we head down to the casino floor. Being a creature of habit, I am superstitious and the last 3 times after we've eaten at a Cosmo restaurant I've had good luck at Cosmo gambling, particularly on LIR. I paid for a trip to Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland with one of those sessions. Unfortunately LIR was a failure. Not only this time throughout the entire weekend. Nothing would hit. Absolutely nothing. We head back to Mirage after dumping $300 where Nate's TR sticks in my head again. Plunk down another $300. About 5 rolls, then BOOM! 26. With about $15 including splits on the 26 I covered my Cosmo loss and some of my Roulette loss from earlier. I played a bit more but found nothing good. At this point its about 2am. My wife is tired and decides to go to bed. She knows I want to play some craps so she heads off to the room.

    I start playing playing and its pure chop. I go down a little, up a little, down a little, but ultimately down. I'm down about $300 when it's my turn to roll. I establish the point, shoot some random number, then hit the point. I establish another point, and right away hit another point. I'm thinking to myself "man this is gonna be a good roll." when...TEXT.....TEXT....TEXT.... buzzing in my pocket. WTF its 230 AM, who is texting me? Roll or not, this is probably important. It was my wife texting me to come upstairs immediately. There was a guy screaming for help running up and down the halls. Having been in SoCal during the recent Chris Dorner incident I think there were a lot of things going through her head with this going on at 230am. So I headed up to a scene of like 10 hotel/ambulance people outside my room. It ends up a guy in the adjoining room either OD'd or went into some insulin-type shock. Luckily my wife was ok but that put a kibosh on the late night gambling overall with a loss. I'm sure the people at the table were pissed I left mid-roll but it is what it is.

    More tomorrow, including Beejay's dream board, Gaggles Mom?, Bachannal, and the TR 2,500 bonus! Video isn't loading right, I'll load it tomorrow.
     
  2. Watts

    Watts Low-Roller

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    Thanks for sharing so far. That sucks what happened the first night but hopefully it wasn't a buzzkill for the rest of the trip.
     
  3. Tbone3336

    Tbone3336 VIP Whale

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    Looking forward to more! Really good so far. That cab video with Steve is funny, on our last trip I must have been in 10 cabs and almost know the whole spiel by heart now. Thanks for all the details!
     
  4. natedog666

    natedog666 17 and 20 Expert

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    Great TR so far! I love the 26 hit! Everybody has their favorite numbers to bet, that's why it is no good to have two roulette players with different numbers at the same table :p
     
  5. saeldway

    saeldway Low-Roller

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    Fear not, the 3AM drama did not affect today at all. We wake up at 9 and lounge around the room for a little. Wife takes a lot longer to get ready so I head down at 10AM. My plan for the day gaming-wise is to low-play but play at Mirage and commit some time and money at Caesars. I've found the new daily bonus to be very advantageous for a player like me. My wife and I are planning on restoring our weekend trip schedule of about 8 trips and the new bonus schedule with TR allows me to re-establish at least Diamond level within 2 days.

    With Nate's TR's still firmly in my head I go back unwillingly to the Roulette table. Same bet regimin starting with about $300. Nothing happens for about 10 spins, then again, BOOM, 26. So that gets me about $100 above even. But after that comes the most frustrating board of my life. 10 of the next 18 numbers on the board were either 9 or 30. The number inbetween 9&30? 26. So I was recouping my bets when the 9's hit and the dealer kept hitting the neighborhood I hoped for but it just kept bouncing out of 26 continuously. I won't even say I went on tilt. I went on something much worse on the gambling floor, I went on Nate (sorry buddy, not picking on you, just gambling humor intended). My wife could not have come down soon enough. Before I left I snapped a pic of the roulette board you see below. In Beejay's terms I think that's good enough for 3 hookers and 2 kilos.

    From Mirage we walked to Caesars to meet my parents with Kidlet at Bacchanal. We planned to go today (Friday morning) because we knew the weekend line would be insane. With about a half an hour wait we were in. Let me start by saying I am not a foodie nor a buffet person, but I still know good food when I taste it and this place had it in spades. My only complaint is that some of the food was cold. Better heating would help. That said, everything from the prime rib to the dim sum to the potatoes to everything blew me away. Wicked Spoon I think changed the game with their individual platings, but the quality at Bacchanal is as good as advertised. But then came the reason I don't often at buffets. In the desire to taste the variety and get my money's worth.....full....tooooo.......full. My wife wanted Lotus of Siam for dinner but, uh...ya, that was not going to happen. How on Earth do those people buy the 24-hour pass?

    So after lunch my mom went back to my sister's house and my wife gave me some time to play while she shopped at the Forum shops. As stated before, I am accustomed to a certain card status and having been out of the game for a year my goal was to get it back with the least pain possible. I may have a Kalifornia edjimukation but even I know that the quickest point from A-->B with the lowest volatility is 9/6JOB. At the $5 level it would take 1,000 hands or about 2 hours to accumulate 2,500TC with the accompanied 5,000TC bonus. I found a 9/6 machine in the small high limit area, popped in $1,000 and went to work. I figured (without the Royal) I'd need 3 4OAK's to come out ahead along with the usual assortment of hands. I ended up getting 2 4OAK's but in my haste to finish hands I didn't snap pics. Everybody makes some mistakes. The only mistake I remember is selecting 2 suited high cards over 2-4's. A 3rd 4 popped up. I slowed my game up a little after that just to make sure I didn't misplay again. In all I think I kept my theo to at least 99% and fell within $250 of my theo as I ended down $350. I guess it could have been a lot worse, but it could have been a lot better. The upshot is a decent ADT for a casino that hasn't seen much play out of me lately and Platinum status. I plan on being out in early March so I'll hit the second half of the bonus and have Diamond for 2 years.

    I met up with my wife at about 5PM and with 3 more hours until we dropped the kidlet off with my mom we decided to take him to the Shark Reef. He seems to do really well at the Long Beach Aquarium but he's almost a year old and at the stage where he wants to crawl all over the place and he was getting fussy being held. We got some good pics underwater nonetheless and before we knew it, it was time to meet up with my mom for prisoner exchange.

    After dropping off the kid we went back to Mirage, which at this point was packed with the Friday night crowd we were used to. My wife went up to the room to drop off a couple of things and rather than play more roulette I decided to play 15 minutes slots. I found a $1 blazing 7's machine by the elevators. About 10 minutes in I hit 2 triples, and a 7 for a cool and quick $450, wiping out most of my daily losses. My wife, ever the shopper, wanted to go to Sephora and VS, so off to V/P we went. Now, if you've seen my prior trip reports, you'd know I have some insane luck at V/P. But in keeping with the theme of this trip I had none today. The best I could muster is the feeling of winning $500 by finding $500 I thought I had dropped outside the cashier cage folded within my money fold. Net win was $0 but it sure felt like a win. My wife is a big 80's rock fan so we found our way between the Bourbon Bar and the gaming area outside of it the rest of the night. Not much to report in the way of gaming other than the 4OAK you see. Nothing funnier to me than watching a bunch of Midwestern (White) conventioner-types almost slow-dancing to "Baby got Back". But to each their own. It's 2am and we are DONE. "Are you hungry? Nope. You? Nope." We thought it prudent with the alcohol to get something in our bellies so we got a dish at Noodle Asia. The restaurant hits that 2am spot pretty well and by 3am up to the room we went.

    2/16

    There's not much to report. We got up at about 10AM and went to eat at China Poblano. It is a favorite of my wifes at Cosmo. I would recommend the Barbacoa taco as well as the 20-veggie fried rice. After that it was back to my sister's house. We picked up the kid and the dog and headed back to California.

    Parting thoughts:

    Vegas is different for everybody. For me, Vegas has always been a place, especially with its proximity to where we live, that my wife and I could escape to for a couple of days and reset. The last few months had been very tough personally and I had to cancel 2 of these 2-day trips before going on this. It was great to be able to reset and let loose for a couple of days, lighter wallet or not.

    I am a finance guy who goes to vegas semi-often and for me there is no better deal (numbers-wise) than the 2-day to diamond that TR offers. The clubs vascilate. Two years ago V/P were on my $hit list. This year its MGM. I just don't get Wynn. I can put 40k coin in a day (on 9/6) and I can't seem to get anything better than a free night when I pay for 2. I think its because I make fun of Stevie. But TR is it for me right now.

    Again, being a finance guy (Real Estate) my personal belief is that a crash greater than 2008 is coming, but the vibe and money being thrown around this past weekend is telling me that the people and the market feel much different. People were confident in their spending and consumption. I think the market is wrong, but I'm smart enough not to fight it.

    Bacchanal is the S#!T

    I think my kid got overstimulated with the 10 total minutes he spent in Caesars going between the buffet and the parking garage. I don't know how other parents do it.

    Roulette is evil.

    We ate twice at Cosmo in our 2 days there. We have eaten at almost every restaurant there and with the exception of Jaleo we've had an amazing experience every time.

    Roulette is still evil.

    Pics and video to follow.
     
    Last edited: Feb 21, 2013
  6. saeldway

    saeldway Low-Roller

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    Pics are here. Why do I always get 4OAK A's on JOB and never on DDB?
     

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  7. natedog666

    natedog666 17 and 20 Expert

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    Great TR! That board is pretty sick!

    I like China Poblano as well...luv the beef tongue taco....
     
  8. SandsFan

    SandsFan VIP Whale

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    We went to Horseshoe Bossier City a couple weeks ago and I made diamond in two days playing $5 JOB in the high limit area. As you said, about two hours to reach 2500 points. Don't remember where I ended up with the first day but the second day, I started with $300 went up to $1700, down, up, down and finally ran out as I was reaching 2500 points.
     
    The 3 P trip (Paris, Palms and ??)
    The 3 P Trip (Paris, Palms and ??)
  9. BeeeJay

    BeeeJay President of The Red Lobster Hostess Satisfaction

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    god dammit!!!!

    4 17's and a 20 out of 17 f'ing spins!!!!

    4 of the other numbers are break-evens for me. damn. :grrr::grrr::grrr:

    great TR, loving it!!! :beer:
     
  10. saeldway

    saeldway Low-Roller

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    Thanks all. Next trip is March 8-10. Gonna go for the 2nd half of the bonus to Diamond, Lotus of Siam, Ping Pang Pong, and maybe some more roulette.
     
  11. Kickin

    Kickin Flea

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    Beeejay and Natedog should get royalties from the roulette lobby for all the people they've enticed to play the game.

    I'm glad you got through the 2500 TCs on $5 JoB without a hitch. Not to be a wet blanket but you should tame your hopes in terms of what kinds of offers you'll see based on that play. I'm also new to the game and just started playing it last December when I did the 3000 TCs the same way for DIAD. It also went fine, actually made a little money, but my offers are pretty much the same so far. Maybe just a little more frequent now. If you do it repeatedly I'm sure it'll be a different story though. But you're right, the new 2-day Diamond is a good deal if you don't mind the risks. I'm sure I'll be doing it in AC soon.

    By the way, how many of the $5 single-line JoB machines did you see at Caesars? vpFree2 only lists them as having four. Is that right? Are they in good shape? Wide-screen slant tops?
     
  12. dummy18

    dummy18 Tourist

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    I thought v/p was 1 tier credit per $10 coin. Wouldn't you need $25K coin in to get 2500 tier credits?
     
  13. Kickin

    Kickin Flea

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    It's right. He's talking about $5 max-coin or $25/spin. So 1000 hands for 25k coin-in or 2500 TCs. Then you get 5000 bonus TCs. Do that twice over seperate days and you have 15k TCs total for Diamond.
     
  14. saeldway

    saeldway Low-Roller

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    Ya, I agree there are much better ways to get "free" offers. I personally find value in the Diamond perks aside from room comps. As stated, I'm a California weekender, and as such I try to pack a lot into those less than 48 hours. I find value in getting into Qua. I find value in not spending 45 minutes in every cab line. I find value in not having to worry about restaurant reservations. Some people go to Vegas for 5 days (or 30 in Nate's case) and have the time to wait. Vegas is re-setting for me. I'm going to gamble anyways, so is $500 theo worth it for 2 years of not having to worry? Yes. Is one deviation @ $1,000 worth it? For me, yes. Even when staying on a comp room at Mirage or V/P I still hit up Qua and the Diamond lounge, which should tell you how much I value the Diamond.

    As far as the Full Pays, why should I tell you? All youre gonna do is steal "my" machine :Þ The machine I played is in that small high-limit rotunda just as you enter the casino from the Titty-barge. The Goss Room. I guess they don't count as slants anymore. It's a bank of 5 and the FP was the middle one. Brand new machine, almost like the new Penny Slot game boards.
     
  15. BeeeJay

    BeeeJay President of The Red Lobster Hostess Satisfaction

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    funny got my DIAD in 2009 at the exact same spot! almost considering doing that again....but not quite....I do like Qua, diamond lounges, etc.
     
  16. LA2VegasTrekkers

    LA2VegasTrekkers High-Roller

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    I agree with you. We're in CA, too, and make around four trips a year for a long weekend, so maintaining Diamond is valuable for the reasons you state. Line cutting and Diamond lounge, especially. I don't think I knew that Diamond could get into the spas for free and get priority restaurant reservations. Is that true? Cool!
     
  17. Jinx

    Jinx VIP Whale

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    Qua is reduced price with Diamond, the others are free I believe. I haven't used for priority reservations, but even some of the mid range spots, have different procedures for Diamond, definitely some value if you are in Vegas a number of times through the year, if it's not big outside of your regular play.
     
  18. saeldway

    saeldway Low-Roller

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    Ya I should have clarified, Qua is not free, its reduced. But I was told that they limit the quantity of loungers on busy days (people without massages) but Diamond have a higher priority on the cutoff, so unless it's NYE and jammed you should be able to get in even if most others cant. As far as restaurant reservations, ya its great. I've walked right in on a Saturday morning through Hash House past a 90 minute wait. Mesa Grill one time I asked and they had no availability then said I had Diamond and they fit me in. So its saved a lot of time on reservations.
     
  19. nsideirish

    nsideirish Low-Roller

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    Do you know if there is a strict limit with how many people can be with you? Say I was to go to Hash House on a Saturday morning with a group of 5 or 6 and I was the only Diamond card holder, can we all skip the line and get a table?

    I've always wondered this and of my group of buddies going to March Madness, I will be the only Diamond member (damn my degeneracy) and I am hoping we can all skip the lines at buffets and restaurants
     
  20. LA2VegasTrekkers

    LA2VegasTrekkers High-Roller

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    I only have anecdotal experience, but I am Diamond and I got myself and 7 others through the Diamond line at Rio Carnival Wold Buffett when the line was huge because the Star Trek convention was there. Yes, we were at the convention and yes, I am a huge nerd.
     
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