Three days is not enough

First trip report for a long-time lurker - be kind.

Weds Feb 7th

Left the cold and dreary East Coast on Weds Feb 7th after work. I normally go in the morning and I think that prefer the earlier trip. Flight left at approx. 8:30. America West service was fine. Flight landed 15 minutes early, and another plane was at our gate. From my seat I could see up the Strip. It felt like torture to just sit there, and sit there. Finally, our gate freed up and I was on my way.

Cab line was short and I was at the MGM in just a few minutes. I met up with the group (bachelor party), had a few drinks, and a group of us decided to head to the Hard Rock. My last few trips I've really enjoyed the party atmosphere at the Hard Rock, tonight however, it was really dead. Center bar was 3/4 empty, half the tables were closed. Definitely not happening tonight.

That being said, I found a $25 double deck BJ game, with OK rules. Table was choppy and I couldn't hit anything. Dropped a few hundred, had a few more drinks, dropped another couple hundred. Was getting ready to leave, when we stopped by the craps table. 45 minutes later the craps gods were smiling at me and I cashed out for $1100, which put me up a for the night.

Group decides to head back to the MGM. We all find a BJ table, get some drinks and continue to party. OK - Here comes the "PitBoss" Incident. My friend was dealt a pair of Aces, puts his money out to split, first card is another Ace, my friend reaches for some more chips and the dealer gives the not to the split hand, but to the other one. So one hand is now AA and the other is AJ. Dealer apologizes and calls over the pit boss. Pit Boss is a jerk and tells us our options are to play the hand as is, my friend can pull back all his money, or we can all pull back all of our money. My friend wants to know about option 4, where he can resplit his pair. Pitboss says this is not an option. He already gave us our choices. Another minute or so of discussion and says the hand is cancelled and starts pushing us back our money. I really like the MGM and have never had an issue like this, but this seemed like a bad ruling. After this I proceeded to lose back all my winnings from the Hard Rock and then some. We wandered around the south strip MB, NYNY, ect for a while and then finally went to bed around 6AM.

Thursday Feb 8th

Wake up around 10AM. It was 20 degrees on the East Coast and 70 in Vegas, so we figured we'd play in the morning poker tourney at MGM, then hit the pool.

11 AM poker tourney is full, OK - we'll walk up to Paris for the 11:30 tourney, we get there and only three people are signed-up. After a short debate, we head back to the MGM, stopping to get some beers for the walk back.
Now we figure, we'll head to the pool, get some lunch at the snack bar, have a few frozen drinks and life will be good. Uh Oh - nothing is open at the pool (except the pool itself) - no drinks, no snack bar, etc. And in our infinite wisdom, neither my friend or I brought our wallets - we figured we'd just charge everything to the room.

So back up to the room to get some cash and over to Hooters across the street. I had not been in Hooters since the change over and I was impressed with one feature, the numbers of bars for such a small casino - gotta love that feature. We had some wings and few pitchers of beer - standard hooters fare.

After a quick trip back to the pool, we decide we'll go over to Mandalay and play in the 6PM tourney. Got to MB around 5PM and bought in for the tourney and sat down at the 2/4 game. Fun friendly game, not too tough, lots of drunks - my kind of game. Won about 50 before the tourney started. Didn't have much success in the tourney - and after about 45 minutes was on the sidelines. For the $60 entry fee, it was a good time.

Head back to the MGM to meet up the rest of the crew. Decide to hit Caesars for dinner and some gambling. The consensus was to hit the Sushi place, only when we got there, I had the urge to for some more Black Jack, ended up getting slice of pizza and some beers at the food court, and then on to the tables. The tables were kind and I hit a nice streak and got my first banana chip of the trip and walked away up around $800.

Find the group again and now with money to burn I'm ready to go out. A few of use decided to hit the Rhino. I'd never been there before, and have the following observations:
1) Hottest women of any Vegas strip I've ever been too (and I've been to most)
2) Completely packed - hard to walk around
3) For some reason, just not my kind of place

Cab it back to MGM and go to bed.

Friday Feb 9th

Woke up around 8AM and decided to go on my normal walking tour of the strip. Not much new since my last visit, but I always like to do the touristy thing and go check out things. Walked up one side of the strip to Wynn and then walked back.

Stopped in to the MC brew pub for lunch. This is one of my usual stops on every trip and I've never been disappointed, until this trip. Can't put my finger on what was wrong, but this might come off the list of required stops on every trip.

Headed back to MGM for a short nap. Got up around 3PM and decided to hit the BJ tables. First table was up and down and I left exactly even. Next table was much better and the second banana chip of the trip was collected. Wandered around MGM for a bit, played some poker and the head up to change for dinner.

My one great find for this trip, was the back way up to my room, via the west wing bar. Our room was in the same hallway as the West Wing rooms, but not in one of the West Wing rooms. From the poker room, it was much shorter to use these back elevators rather go all the way back through the casino.

Before dinner we hit MIX for drinks. I love the view from this place around sundown. We stayed for about an hour and the grabbed some cabs over to Smith and Wollensky for dinner. We had a large group 20, and S&W was one the only places that did not require us to sign a contract (everywhere at MB wanted this) and would let us all order off of the regular menu. Food was all good to very good, had the bone in Cajun rib-eye. Bill came to around $125 a person with lots of appetizers, and drinks. Food was good, but with so many other steak houses to choose from, I don't think I'd go back.

After dinner we had a great limo - 20 person Excursion - we stocked it with drinks, and decided to head to Red Rock Casino just to check things out. This gave us some time to drink in the limo. Got there and was very impressed. Casino was very nice, nightclubs were packed, poker room was packed, beers were only $3 at the bar, won $300 in about 15 minutes - what is not to like. Only things was it was really far from the Strip - not sure when I'll make it back out to Red Rock, but I would encourage everyone to check it out.
Back to the limo and off to Sapphire. After some negotiations with the doorman / host, we were all inside. Sapphire is huge inside and was maybe 50-60% full. Girls were mostly 6-8 and not as hot as the Rhino. Won't go into the details, but found this place to a pretty decent place to spend a few hours and few hundred $$.

Back to MGM and too bed.

Sat Feb 10th

Had two free buffet coupons that I need to use, tried to go down and use them, but the line was crazy long. Settled on a few Crispy Cream's and a Bud Light.

My flight was at 4PM and I wanted to get in a few hours of Poker. Headed to the Bellagio for some 8/16 limit. Game was OK, a few good players, a few bad players. I was worried about playing this game, but that was unfounded - I didn’t see much difference between this and the 2/4 or 3/6 games I normally play - just more chips in action. Ended up down about $300, but had a good time.

Cabbed it back to MGM, got my stuff and head back to the airport. Reviewed my funds at the airport and after paying for my room, drinks, etc. I had almost exactly the same amount of money as when I landed - Which is always a good thing. Already planning my next visit. Hope you enjoyed this report.

 

Nice TR any time you leave Vegas with the same amount of money as when you came it was a good trip. I'm not understanding why the PB wouldn't let your friend split the second pair of AA. Is there something in the BJ rules that say that if you get dealt another pair after splitting the first you can't split them.

 

I could be totally off here, but I thought there was a rule at some places where you can split up to 4 times??

Anywho...
Sounds like a great time, Bill. Thanks for posting.

 

Nice TR. I fell in love at the Rhino my one and only trip there. ok, maybe not.

 

Great trip report.

The only thing I would have done different would have been to leave the MGM casino after the PB incident. And let it be known why you are taking your business elsewhere. But that is just me.

 

The MGM is one of the places that lets you resplit aces. Seems pretty strange to me.

 

"Settled on a few Crispy Cream's and a Bud Light."

Classic Vegas. Good report.

 

To clairfy the splitting Aces issues:

After splitting the first pair of aces,

Next card out is another Ace, instead allowing my firend to split,
The dealer quickly dealt another card. This was an error by the dealer (which the dealer quickly admitted to). The rules allow resplitting Aces.

 

Where else in this country can we go on vacation and come back with what we spent on it??? Your trip was a real winner to me!

 

Now I see...

...poor, lame me had to do a google search for the Rhino as to not be in the dark here.
But now I know!
I love to hear about those non-stop, steady going trips in Vegas. Indulging in all areas, which it sounds like you were able to do.
Thanks for becoming a poster rather than a lurker. Appears you have a lot to offer this board!