4/17-4/20 MSS: Craps equals good, VP and BJ equals bad

Sitting at the airport since I got here WAY earlier than needed and no earlier flights are available, so thought I'd get my thoughts down while they are still fresh.

Gambling: Well, usually my VP play subsidizes my craps action but that did not turn out to be the case this trip. I played mostly the 9/6 JoB at Boars Head at the dollar level and got my ass completely handed to me this trip. Last trip I was able to put about 10000 coin in and break about even, this time I did get about 30000 coin in through but it nearly broke my bankroll. To make it worse my quick slot machine hit and runs were not working out as they had in the past. Usually I could put in a 100, max bet a few times, get a bonus and cash out quickly 40-60 bucks up. 100s were quickly disappearing into the slots this time.

The progressive quarter 8/5 DDB bank at MSS was at 1600 one night. The next morning it was over 2000. I didn't see if it hit or not but someone got or will get a nice 1600-1 payout (or even better) when that hits. I left 200 in them myself.

No matter what VP game you like, the thing that keeps you in the game is the quads, and they were just not showing up this trip. I probably had 150-300 3oaKs on the deal and maybe got 2 or 3 quads out those.

Blackjack was not treating me much better, only had a few sessions and the best result was breaking even at the El Co single deck 5 dollar game. Lost a hundred in two back to back night sessions at Gold Spike (once that place gets their TITO system working it will be a great spot, the employees are fun and they have some nice beers on tap) and then had one terrible session at P Ho going down 400. Speaking of P Ho the only reason I went there was to sign up for CET TR and get some play on record to see if I get an offer for a September trip with 10 coworkers that are all planning to stay there. I did manage 780 tier credits playing their dollar 3 play 9/5 JoB but that didn't turn out much better than the BJ. We'll see what that turns into as far as a room offer later.

Okay, at this point I sound like Debbie Downer, but the bad is all out of the way. I had six craps sessions this trip and the worst one was losing 100. The first was at MSS in the afternoon. The Hawaiians were up to their dice rolling ways, always a blast to play with them, and got me up a couple hundred before cashing out.

The second session was at Binion's. I was feeling pretty down about how the VP was going so far so decided to just get drunk and wander Fremont a bit. Getting drunk was accomplished with the help of the wonderful people of the Triple 7 Brewpub and their selection of microbrews. More on food and drink later. Anyways after getting lubed up a bit I hit the FSE and wandered around, people watching and trying to ignore the awful sound the zip lines make when in use. The craps itch hit me and I ended up on the Binion's table. The current roller was tanked and had an entourage of similarly tanked associates. Luckily they were the friendly sort of tanked and much fun was had. He ended up rolling LOTS of numbers, and hit a few points. I bet pass + come with odds until the numbers are filled, so this turned out into a profitable roll for me. Table got choppy until the dice made their way to me, I hit a couple of points, sevened out and cashed out a bit over double my three hundred buy in. I've heard bad things about the Binion's pit crew and boxmen but experienced none of that myself. In fact I found them incredibly friendly.

I proceeded to lose that 300 profit quickly on a two game Top Dollar slot, with a 6 dollar max bet.

I decided to go back to my original plan of drinking, ducked into La Bayou and purchased a 20 dollar frozen concoction of dubious origins. Want extra everclear? Sure, why not! I was informed that I could refill for only 9 dollars if I kept my receipt, but declined and informed her that I only allowed myself one big ass fruity drink per year.

With said big ass fruity drink in hand I meandered into the Golden Gate. Walked around a bit and decided to play the slow bleed that is Let it Ride. I had a lovely dealertainer and after a half hour or so I took the hundred dollar buyin that was somehow miraculously still intact to the next table to try the Hold Em carny game. Spent another 30 or so on this and once again changed games with buyin intact. This time I gave roulette about 20 spins or so, playing 17 and the corners on 17. If I hit a corner number I'd take the winnings to put up the same bet plus straight up on 9, 22 and 26. I now just remembered why I was betting 22...the dealertainer's 'name' was Dallas and she said Emmit Smith was her favorite. Lovely girl she was, and she must have a strong back. Anyways, after those 20 spins were done I was down 5 bucks. How about that. Gave 5 to Dallas and took my 90 to the craps table.

This is where things get kind of hazy due to the BAFD that was almost completely consumed by now. Here is what I can recall:
- I was making Pass plus Come bets with 5X (6X on five and nine) odds. I resisted the junk in the middle this whole trip and this was the best I ever did at craps. Coincidence?
- I must have been hitting a lot of dealer bets too, because they all remembered me the next night (will cover that later). I generally give them a dollar pass with 5X/6X shoes. If I hit a few yo's from the come I'll flip that over to a dealer field bet (the only field bets I made were dealer bets).
- Three shooters hit so many Come numbers that I tossed them a green as well.
- A couple from Arkansas kept calling me 'Mr. Las Vegas' even after I explained I was from Texas.
- The table stayed full nearly the entire session. Another coincidence?
- One of the waitresses at GG does NOT fit in there. I think I tipped her 10 bucks on accident for a water. No worries. The other players were complaining about her showing up right before seven outs.
- I cashed out for around 900, my best session of anything ever.
- When I left Fremont was abandoned. I looked at my phone to verify it was 230 AM on a Monday. I think I started playing craps at around 10 or 1030. Damn, how'd that happen?
- I ended the night with a bowl of saimin at Triple 7. First time I've ever had that but I love Vietnamese Pho Bo and Korean Nang Myeon, so I was sure I'd like another rice noodle soup. Turns out the broth is quite similar to Japanese miso soup. The cilantro and green onion gave it a Pho-like fresh taste while the eggs and fish cake were more similar to the Korean soup I've had. The BBQ pork was a nice touch.

At this point I'm getting a neck cramp from typing on my tiny netbook in an uncomfortable airport chair, so will continue tomorrow with part 2 of 2, including the next night at GG, more details on food and drink consumed, the next three craps sessions, a trip to the M Resort (BEAUTIFUL!) and a rant about driving in Las Vegas that could be 30 pages itself but I will try to condense down to one paragraph, or maybe three. I may even share the pictures I took (all two of them!) during my trip. Spoiler: they're both of food at Triple 7.

Apologies for the length, I tend to ramble on.

 

Enjoying the report so far. Looking forward to the rest.

 

I'm enjoying your report, too.
Will check back in tomorrow for more! Thanks.

 

excellent report dude...ramble on!!!

 

Yes, rant on! Can't wait! I feel like I've been to most of the places that you aptly describe.

 

Great start, looking forward to hearing the rest!

 

Great report! I am going to swing by the GG this weekend to check out the chick with the "strong back muscles"!

 

Golden Gate is one the the best venues for a drunken craps fest. Great fun crowd. The dealers and pit join in the fun and really love a hot table. Keep the report coming. I'll be there in about 4 weeks.

 

Awesome job man! Love those downtown TR's......I know those casinos so well I feel like I am right there when I read these things.


Bad news that the VP at MSS was a bit tight. Yikes. Besides tournament poker, that is my game of choice.

 

Enjoying the TR and looking forward to the next installment.

I enjoy DT as well: breaking up my week on the Strip with a one night comped room at the GG, mostly so I don't have to try to make it back to the Cosmo after enjoying all of the tasty beverages on offer

 

I'll be down in Biloxi looking for strong back muscles also.

Great report so far.

 

Sorry for the delay in part two. There is no better muse than having nothing else to do in an airport for several hours. (Un)fortunately I did not have that working for me yesterday. Anyways, so following my Monday night/Tuesday morning craps session at GG, I had decided after waking up that I was done with playing at MSS. I had plenty of coin in for the trip and switching to quarter VP now would only ruin my average daily play.

So after another good lunch at Triple 7 I decided to drive down LVB to P Ho for the previously mentioned attempt to get on CET's offer radar for my September trip. This leads well into my promised rant on driving in Vegas. Here is some observed behavior from within the first 30 minutes of picking up my rental:
1) Driving in the middle lane at ten MPH or greater LESS than the speed limit.
2) Deciding to turn right from the left lane about twenty yards before an intersection.
2b) Deciding to turn LEFT from the RIGHT lane about twenty yards before an intersection.
3) Doing all of the above without turn signals.
4) When actually employing turn signals, not turning or changing lanes. Going straight for miles like this.

Now, this kind of stuff happens everywhere, but it seems to happen there at a much greater frequency. I would love to get a research grant to study this further (along with my theories on variations in strip club pricing worldwide) but am not holding my breath for that to happen. My (KIND) estimate is that 80% of Vegas traffic issues could be solved by removing the 40% of idiot drivers from the road.

So, where was I? P Ho, that's right. I rarely go to the strip so this was actually my first time there. From what I saw, it is a very interesting set up. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seemed that if you are staying here, you actually have to walk through the mall to get from the towers to the casino. The self parking entrance brought me into the mall near a Sbarro's and I had to walk past seemingly endless shops to get to the casino, and then it took another bit to find the TR desk. A pleasant young man named Bjeorn (whose favorite movie is Bladerunner) helped me out there. After that....well, I already said how VP and BJ went this trip.

On my way out I stopped at the Sin City Brewing storefront in the mall. The Czech Pils seasonal was okay (similar to Trumer Pils or Pilsner Urquel) but it seems I had just missed their IPA, my favorite style. The barkeep attempted to layer some stout over the red at my request for a second beer, but as he predicted their stout is just too heavy and blended down. He did give me the failed attempt por gratis, so it wasn't a complete failure. I may have stayed to everything they made, but I was driving so I left while still able.

I returned downtown via Maryland (experiencing everything described above about Vegas drivers to the nth power). Since I wasn't playing at MSS anymore for the trip I decided to follow the previous day's plan of drinking large quantities of beer and wandering Fremont. I started this endeavor where else but at the Triple 7. I was on my third Marker Pale Ale in about 30 minutes before a nice couple from Tuscon sat down next to me and we started discussing beer. Apparently I had been in the dark about the full line up of brews currently available at Triple 7, as the couple was drinking a Barley Wine! A Barley Wine!!! I decided I was going for that next but Shane, being the awesome bartender that he is, placed a fourth Pale down in front of me as I was finishing number three. No worries, I am a big guy and being delayed one more beer is no big deal. The Tuscon Couple was having none of that though, and politely explained to Shane I was planning on making a switch. He brought me over a snifter full of Barley Wine as a free sample. I knew there was a reason I tipped those guys so well...

Anyways, the Barley Wine ended up being more of an English style, dryer than the West Coast offerings I was used to. This was fine, and the flavors opened up quite a bit as the snifter approached the magical fifty degree mark (yes, I'm one of those snobs that claim we as Americans drink our beer too cold). Before I knew it the snifter was empty...and so was that fourth Pale. How about that. It was six PM, happy hour was over, the Tuscon couple were leaving and so were the day shift bartenders. I decided to follow suit and try out the Tuesday T Bone Dinner Buffet. More on that later.

The Mavericks were playing and I was going to chill for a bit before heading out, so I grabbed two more Pales from the casino bar and went up to my room. After the third quarter ended I walked over to where else but the scene of the last night's crime...The Golden Gate! I did a quick lap of the place, waving to Dong Mei-my carny Hold 'Em game dealer from the night before and ended up plopping down at a five line nickel slot, but only to mindlessly hit the button every minute or so while watching the Mavs finish up Portland.

Time to hit the craps table. While not so epic as the night before, this ended up being another great session. I bought in for two hundred, played for an hour or two, made and hit several dealer bets along with my Pass/Come+Odds. The dealers from the night before remembered my name and the ones that were not there were properly introduced to me. I didn't want to walk away a loser, so after a seven out (with all my come bets set!) I colored up 675. Not bad!

Earlier while playing that nickel slot I had noticed that my comp balance had jumped from 4 dollars the day before to 28 bucks. That was pretty generous I thought, but then again I did sort of lose track of time at the table the night before, maybe it was warranted. I talked to Curly the bartender about using the balance and apparently GG does not have a card swipe system set up as of yet. I had to go get vouchers from the slot club to use at the bar. I could do that later, as I was in the mood for some old school cocktails to match the old school setting.

Curly mixed me up an excellent Old Fashioned with Rye and then attempted a Sidecar for me, a drink I've always wanted to try. If you are familiar with the Food Network show 'Good Eats', on one episode Alton Brown speculates that the Margarita is the direct descendant of the Sidecar. It's basically the same except for a sugar rimmed glass instead of salt and brandy instead of Tequila. It was delicious!

I went over to the slot to get those vouchers and also picked up their two calendars, the historic one and the Dealertainer one. My friend will get a kick out of the latter. Returning to the bar I discovered that I need to use each ten dollar voucher on one drink. We remedied this with a couple of BIG pours (they called them doubles, but they were probably 2.5 times a single shot), the first of Patron, the second of Jeremiah Weed whiskey. I was not able to finish the second...I was pretty soused by this time. Despite this state, or because of, I did end up going back to the craps table, quickly losing a one hundred dollar buy in. I wasn't drunk enough to let craps end up like VP for the trip, and walked back to the MSS and passed out. I may have lost another 20 or 40 bucks on the way in various slot machines in the Cal, no card inserted to preserve my average daily with Boyd.

Next day was leaving day and I was feeling ready to get home. Got up, cleaned up, packed up and checked out right at 11. Had one last meal at the MSS to get rid of some comp points and since my flight wasn't until 630, I decided to drive down to the M Resort.

Approaching the place gave me the sense that this was what driving to Vegas used to be like when Bugsy opened the Flamingo. Just one single solitary oasis in the middle of a desert. The building was incredibly beautiful, loved the large slabs of polished marble and the cascading water wall near reception. The design is very open and spacey, some may not appreciate that while gambling as you get the feeling you're in the middle of a convention center or other large hall.

I bought in at the empty craps table for a hundred and quickly hit a couple of points. Before sevening out, but no come bets were up so it was a good roll overall. My play seemed to attract a few curious craps newcomers and before I knew it the table was almost full. Hmmm, I wonder if I could make a career as a shill. Things were going well until a cigar smoking high roller walked up and bought in for three grand. This slowed things down a bit and the table went cold. I cashed out for 104 and gave the four to the boys, breaking even monetarily but I called it a Karma win.

Driving back to the rental car from there I experienced my last bad Vegas driver of the trip (going 25 MPH in a 45 MPH zone...where do these people come from?). That eventually put me back in the airport where I began this yesterday.

To wrap up I had just a few last details about food. Thinking back, I am pretty sure that I ate every single meal at MSS, save for an egg McMuffin purchased right after getting my rental. The breakfast buffet for 6.99 is a great deal in my opinion. I like to get biscuits and sausage and bacon and make my own sandwiches. With the Hawaiian influence here I was able to add a bit of sticky rice to those and it worked out well. The fruit selection was a bit sparse, but the honey dew and cantaloupe were okay.

The T Bone Tuesday dinner buffet was a bit more lackluster. I asked for a rare steak and it seems that the way they judge which is rare is by color alone. I ended up with a rough piece that appeared to have been cooked low and slow, which is fine for a shoulder cut (and if done for 10 more hours) but terrible for a T bone. I did my best to wolf it down because I hate wasting food and then made up for that with some delicious Hawaiian pork dish. Those white dumplings that look like oversize Hershey's kisses were also interesting, the first one was great but the second was really dry and not that good.

Every other meal was at Triple 7. Along with the Saimin late night snack, I ordered the Filet Mignon Sandwich, a chicken Caesar salad, the jumbo shrimp platter, cheesy garlic bread, calamari, fried mozzarella, and sushi during the trip. The sushi was better than expected, along with ahi nigiri pieces I tried out the Brewmaster's beer-battered Tekka Maki roll, which was EXCELLENT. Everything else was above average and large portions, which is what Triple 7 is all about. Good, cheap and big is the way they roll. The Marker Pale Ale is my favorite brew there, very well balanced and not too hop-forward as to prevent its appeal to a larger audience. They say the Hefeweizen is a new permanent addition and it was okay, which is about all I can ever say about that style at most brew pubs around the nation. I had one black chip porter and one black cherry stout as well. I could have drank more of the latter but the call of the Pale was too strong. The barley wine was good but I would have preferred something more West Coast style, like Stone Old Guardian or Anchor Old Foghorn. The Triple 7 also shoots their well liquors out of a gun, which I think is cool, but the only one I tried was the whiskey, which was good. I ended up getting a few shots of that during the trip.

Downtown seemed busier than last year, we'll see how that goes for them. Even Las Vegas Club had a crowd, which was absent last time I was in town. Gold Spike is almost there, El Co was packed and had full tables and I've said all I need to about Golden Gate. MSS and Boyd in general are doing fine, but I was never worried about them like I was the rest of downtown. I'm kind of bummed that the group I'm going with is staying on the Strip in September, but I should be able to convince them to try one night downtown.

So....any questions?

 

Wow - great trip report. I stayed downtown at the end of March - and LOVED the MSS and the GG. Both were very busy (MarchMadness) but the people working their were very pleasant. I have converted both my friends to become 'downtowners' from here on out.

 

Drinking stamina man You don't acquire that overnight. It takes years of serious training.

 

Great report.

 

Great report!

 

Very nice report. To answer your question on PH, if you are staying there, the towers let out right down in the casino. Self Parking does require you to walk through the mall.

 

Great TR. Thanks.

Thinking of Staying at MSS over the Christmas holiday in December. Can you tell me something about the rooms? Are some rooms better than others? What about noise, is that an issue?

Thanks for any info.

 

From my experience the rooms are about the same, but I've heard some have mini-fridges. If noise is an issue request a higher room. I've stayed on floor 6 highway side and floor 7 train tracks side and never really been bothered...but I'm told I sleep heavily, so take that for what it is worth.

Oh, one other thing about the rooms. It has been often discussed/complained about that the shower heads in the bathroom are at a pretty low height. This time the one in my room seemed to be set much higher up. I don't know if that was just the luck of the draw or if they had started fixing those in all the rooms.

 

Thanks for your quick response. Debating between MSS an Golden Nugget. Thanks for the Shower head info. I'm 5' 3" so probably not and issue. However, DH is 6' 5". Could be an issue.

Have you ever stayed at GN? If so, do you have a preference between MSS and GN?

Thanks again for your quick response.