11/30/09 Harrah's Rincon - Vegas Warm-Up

So, I'm fully aware the the primary point for these trip reports is for Vegas trips. I wanted to take this opportunity to write up a quick trip report about my recent one night stint at Rincon so I can see how it goes. I want to try to do a full trip report for my two upcoming Vegas trips.

I had complained earlier that my first trip to Harrah's Rincon in September was not a pleasant one. I had a comp'd room and $100 in food credits. When I checked in, I was not informed that this could not be used for alcohol. Long story short, all of the alcohol was charged to my card that I had left at check-in. When I called to inquire, they apologized, but couldn't undo it because of CA law. They offered me another comp'd night and a $75 FOOD credit.

Since I'm heading to Vegas in a couple of days and since Rincon was offering a 7x multiplier day for Diamond TR card holders, I thought I could go and spend a night, warm up and earn some extra comp dollars. It's only an hour or so drive, so it's not too far out of my way.

I got there around 1pm and got checked in no problem. I originally booked a 2 Queen bed in the Spa Tower because I thought I might have a few buddies show up after the Charger game. They bailed so I was offered a King bed in the 'new' Garden Tower. The room was serviceable and was similar to many Vegas style rooms.









I had some issues getting the in room internet hooked up. Engineering came up and had to pull the entire TV stand out to find the cable and properly hook it up. Apparently the jack next to the desk that I was plugging into is some sort of phone jack with an ethernet size plug. I found this out because Security called up to the room and asked if I was ok. They said they got a 'number' of emergency calls. Oops!

After I got fully settled in, I went down to the floor. I had recently lost a TON of money playing BJ with my online, off-shore sports book. Thankfully, it was money that I had 'made' there and wasn't really money out of my pocket. The gains were never realized, but it was still painful. This put a slight damper on the 'fun' of gambling for this short warm-up. Anyway, I played some VP and hit one 4OAK but nothing else of mention. I tried a few other slots (I normally only play the tables) and couldn't get in the groove. I lost $100 of the $500 I brought.

By this time, I'm starting to get hungry but the buffet & the oyster/steak place weren't open yet. I was going to head back up to the room, but I finally found where the Diamond Lounge was. I head in, and they have hors d'oeuvres (sp?) being passed. It was a small styrofoam plate with 2 meatballs, 2 chunks of cheese and 2 mini calzones. It wasn't bad. They also had a soda machine and a popcorn machine. I sat at the bar and they had the TV on ESPN2 and switched it to the Sunday Night Football game when that started. Brandy was a great bartender and served me $4.25 Heineken's for the whole game. She did a great job of handling all of the 'non-English speaking clients' who came up to get bottled water, Red Bull or Sugar-Free Red Bull, always 2 at a time. Everything but alcohol is comp'd. I can't believe how much Red Bull these folks can put down. Quite amazing if you ask me!!! I chatted with a nice couple for a while. I didn't try the deserts that came out at 8. I left just before 9 when they shut down.

I hit the casino floor. BJ payouts weren't posted on the felt or on the signage anywhere. I asked one of the double-deck tables if it was 3:2. It wasn't. It was even money on the double-deck and the "Fun 21". Whatever that is. He told me all the other tables were 3:2. I found a seat and bought in for $200. Walked away with $885 after about an hour.



I went back up to the room to drop off some cash and went right back down. I think I bought in for (I think) $500 and lost it after a short while. Back to the room to regroup and then back down. This time I bought in for (I think) $200 and walked away with $1000. This was at 11:30. Back to the room and then back down. This is my normal routine in Vegas too. It's how I regroup when I am up or down. It helps keep my losses small and my gains in my pocket.



I decided I needed to use up some of this $75 so I checked out my options for food. Now, because it's so late, the only thing open is Cafe. I enter through the Diamond line and go mostly ignored to get a seat. I finally walk up to someone and ask what I need to do to get a table. They seat me immediately. I order a Bacon Cheese Burger, Medium-Rare with fries an an iced tea. I was told the lowest I could get the burger cooked was Medium-Well. Hmmm... I'm sure this is going to turn out well. Sure enough the burger comes out scorched. It was literally crispy and only filled about 2/3 of the bun. The fries were pretty good and the iced tea was freshly brewed. I could tell because it was warm as there wasn't enough ice to cool it down. My waiter was great, but was getting worked over by this lady at the next table over who was still wearing her Bluetooth headset at midnight in a casino. I tipped cash and went to pay. I asked to speak to a manager and informed her that the food sucked and that Jose was doing a great job but that customer was being a pain.

Up another $900 and I cash it out at 1:39. Drink service on the floor was poor and shuts down at 2. Back to the room and then back down. I sat down at a table with a new dealer that I hadn't seen all night. I lost $400 QUICK and decided to call it a night.



I woke up at 6 and couldn't really fall back to sleep. Business calls start getting routed to my phone at 8 so I was up, showered and ready to go by then. I was hungry and was hoping to grab a breakfast buffet. No luck. Other then the coffee shop, my only option was the Cafe again. Great. I was seated promptly this time, but didn't get silverware or a drink order for over 10 minute. There was only one waitress trying to cover an entire half of the restaurant. It wasn't her fault, but it still didn't make me feel good about things. I ordered a coffee & orange juice, fruit salad bowl and their 2 egg breakfast, over easy, with bacon, potatoes and wheat toast. The fruit bowl came quick with my drinks and it was quite good. A lot of good melon and strawberries. It took a while for my breakfast to come out and when it did, it looked ok. The eggs were cooked well, but the potatoes were warm at best. The bacon tasted like the microwave stuff, which isn't bad in a pinch, but wasn't what I was hoping for this morning. I went to pick up a piece of toast and the 'butter' was literally dripping off of it. I had to take the back of the knife to get the excess off. I gave up on the breakfast plate and ate more fruit and asked for my check.

Went back up to the room to pack. Took my bags out to the car then came back in to check out. I actually had Monday comp'd too, but couldn't use it as I had our house-sitter coming over later in the day for a walk-through for when she takes care of things when we're gone for Vegas and Christmas. No problems checking out early, but I wasn't able to use my TR credits to pay the $11 for the internet. I was told that it was "non-comp'able". Oh well.

Overall, with all the beers, tips, etc. I ended up with $1500 in my pocket. A $1000 profit. Not noted above was a $197.50 cash out on a Gold Fish machine. I know I fed at least $140 or more into that thing for it though. I was playing max bet which was $3.50 on a $0.02 machine! This is the ONLY slot machine I enjoy playing because of the 'Fishy Food' bonuses. Obviously, my math probably doesn't match up properly. I recored all of my 'wins' by taking a picture of my chips before I cashed them out. I already know that I need to keep better record of what I sit down with.

Thanks for taking the time to read and feel free to leave any comments on how I might be able to improve my next ACTUAL Vegas Trip Report!!! As you can see below, my trip is coming up SOON!!!

 

That was quite a roller coaster. I'm glad to see it ended in a profit. Love the close-up photos of the chips!

 

Nice TR and nice hotel room
ummmmm where is Rincon~ is that the one near San Diego? (too lazy to search that out lol)

 

That's the one. I refuse to call it San Diego because I don't consider it all that close to San Diego. Google maps has it at 48.2 miles from downtown San Diego...

 

Valley Center (pop ~7000) to be exact athough we'll also accept:

The middle of nowhere
Podunk
In the hills above Escondido

Valley View Casino is about two miles away and is much smaller than Rincon.

 

That room looks really nice. I'll have to try Rincon sometime. Currently I do my local gambling at PALA. For anyone in the area I recommend you sign up with PALA immediately. They send me offers for free rooms and free play pretty much every week. The free play is separate from the room offers so I've been using them all the time when I have sales calls in SD. On my way back I stop at PALA and use my $75 on high dollar slots and see if I can turn it into something else.

If it works I'll play some table games before I leave. Pala often has a bunch of promotional programs and events going on as well.

 

Why is it that a photo of casino chips gets me excited and makes my heart start racing?

You could show me a photo of a million dollars CASH and I'm not even going to flinch. But dang, those chips are SEXY!!!!

And let me give props to Harrahs for having new and clean chips. A couple things that I don't like about many casino chips at various properties . . .

1. Advertisements ON the chips: I hate this. I'm losing my ass and now I got Bette Midler or Carrot Top giving me the stink eye? I don't see any of your money on the table, Bette, so please, take a walk, Lady!

2. Dirty chips: Sometimes the chips are so scratched up and worn (how about when they start blackening?) that I feel like using hand sanitizer after each win. Could they at least steam them once in a while or something?

 

Nice TR, love the chip pictures!!!

 

Thanks for the room pictures, that Harrahs really looks nice. Do the California casino's have craps, or just slots and cards?

 

They have craps, but they call it California Craps. I'm not sure of all the rules/variations, but I do know that dice can not determine the outcome of a wager. For this reason, the crap tables I saw there had card shufflers. I didn't see them in action, but from what I'm told, they deal out two cards... 1-6 each that act as the dice. It looked like the dealers would pull these cards, not the player. Seemed to take the fun away.

Also, the roulette tables use a bingo 'hampster wheel' sort of thing to determine the number versus using a ball and a wheel... not sure about that either.

It's not that I don't TRUST the casino, but when I see dice I know there are 6 sides each. When I see a roulette wheel, I know all the numbers have a chance. How do I know the deck isn't stacked or there aren't extra green zeros??? Maybe it's just me...

 

There are two versions of California Craps. Neither is as fun as real craps, but one still has a little bit of fun left, while the other has NO FUN AT ALL.

It sounds like Rincon uses the NO FUN version. They have big ugly card shufflers sitting on the table. The machines are stacked with only A-6 and the boss pulls out two cards. 2 and a 3 . . . . FIVE, Whoopee!!!! Seriously, this game sucks so hard I can't even describe it. People that play it look so miserable. They lean on the table and look so bored and sad it hurts. Morongo uses this version as well.

OK, then, let's cheer up and talk about the SORTA FUN version. This version at least lets you throw dice. The dice are (like the poster described) not the determiner of the "roll" though. These dice are specially drawn with sets of numbers on them so that there is never two of a kind and one die is always the higher. Oh, and I should mention, one die is green and one is red. Throw the dice. Green one is a 3, red one is a 5. And then . . . well, once again, your fate is determined by cards but these cards (two pulled at a time) are placed face down in corresponding red and green squares. Based on which color die is higher, they flip one card and that's your roll. These aren't standard playing cards, though. Each card has a pictoral showing a graphic of a dice outcome. If it shows a six and a five, well, just like in Vegas -- there's your "Yo". I know it's just a slight difference in play but it slows it a bit and at least lets you feel like you have some input into the outcome.

I recently found out about a wacky bet that is enabled by this style at PALA. For a dollar you can place a "PALA" bet. If the active card flipped over is a 12 and the other one is a 2 (snake eyes) or vice versa your dollar wins like $500 or something. I've not played that bet as it seems like such a waste (I'll buy lottery tickets if I feel like throwing my money away) but some people at the table seemed addicted to it. If I ever see a Fire Bet payoff maybe I'll feel differently about that stuff.

 

I've not tried the weird roullette yet. It looks pretty lame.

As for other games, they have most of the table games you'd expect -- Mini Bac, 3 Card Poker, Pai Gow Poker. Some (Cache Creek in Sacramento did) even have Casino War.

 

I was just there and stayed in that same room. Garden Tower, second floor, right over the Laguna Suite. Nice views of the pool area and some mountain, with the spa tower looming. It is a very nice, comfortable room.

IMO, Harrah's Rincon is a great property, gaming wise. They have lots of machines, a pretty decent layout, and a variety of poker based table games that I like to play. "Carny games." Like Flop Poker, Mississipi Stud Poker, Let It Ride, 3 Card with a new 6 card bet, etc.

I also like it becuz they have 3 different video poker bar areas, each one with a totally different vibe: the sports pit is what it sounds like, all kinds of beer on tap, lots of TVs, video games, food, etc, but the pay tables suck for quarter and fifty (7/5, ridiculous). The "lounge" area is two circle bars right next to each other, with live music and dancing at night, plus they play tunes during the day, too. The other one is a very mellow, small poker bar right by the steakhouse. But they machines are excellent, choice wise. You can play either .25, .50., $1, $2 and there's 9 or 10 different games to choose from, including one I"ve never seen before called "Royal Aces" where any four aces is worth as much as a royal. The catch is is that it's Aces or better.

Food wise is where they fail. The buffet is awful. The Cafe the same. The Steakhouse is pretty decent, but you can't eat every meal there. My room room service was okay, nothing special. I haven't done the Noodle place yet, but.. compared to Pala, they need some serious upgrades in the grind department.

Just my .02...

 

Ran into internet not being comped last year in St. Louis - was provided thru a 3rd party company or something. However, this year they took it off. Who knows?

 

Just curious . . . Which, overall, did you like better, Harrahs or PALA?

 

What's Cool and Exclusive to Harrah's Rincon

Hello just wanted to give some clarification on what Harrah's Rincon has to offer in terms of Craps and Roulette. Hopefully you all find this helpful. Thanks and Good Luck on your next trip to Harrah's Rincon Casino and Resort!

The craps cards are an exact duplication of the dice: dice have six sides, thus, six cards, ace through six. Two dice, six cards for each die. The selection of two cards is a mathematical duplication of two dice - Exactly the same odds with total random selection. And Rincons cards are not " pictoral showing a graphic of a dice outcome". They are regular cards - Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Whats cool and exclusive to Rincon is that a roll of the dice determines the cards selected, not a dealer pulling them out of a shoe like at Pechanga.

Roulette - The roulette balls are an exact mathematical duplication of a roulette wheel - 38 balls for 38 numbers on the roulette wheel. No cards like at pala, pechanga, etc. On Las Vegas roulette, one ball spins and lands into one of 38 spots. At Rincon 38 balls spin around and land into one spot. It's the same odds exactly plus it fun!

 

Thank you for taking the time to clarify for us. Can you please explain a little bit more about the Rincon Roullette?

38 balls? I'm not sure I picture it properly. Is it like a Bingo/Lotto tumbler and each ball represents a number on the board (i.e. spin the tumbler and out comes black 26 -- everyone on black 26 wins)? Still not the same as Vegas, but it does sound funner than the weird stuff I've peeked at at some of the other Tribals.