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Wednesday, November 30, 2011

She wins some, you lose some


Keno, the old-skool way. I mean, really, really old-skool. Like 1950s.
We dragged our luggage from the Four Queens to the El Cortez down Fremont Street, past the Fitz, past the Heart Attack Grill, past Walgreens, past the never-open hookah cafe, past Insert Coin(s) past the El Cortez, past the Western, back past the Western and to the El Cortez and checked into a south facing tower room. They suit us just fine and have a nice view of the Fabulous Stratosphere and the Fabulous Las Vegas Fabulous Strip beyond.

The Quadruple Bypass burger has no calories if you have milk with it.

We hit the bar Double Double Bonus and while I lost most of the rest of my day's stake, the Queen de la Quad employed her 'press it' strategy. This consists of winning on quarters, then moving up to 50 cent play, winning on that, and then moving to dollar play, kicking my raggedy ass the entire time.

Do you have any idea how painful it is to try to cough up these snappy, colorful, humourous comments while I am being out-gambled at every turn? It's a good thing we are in a partnership on this and I can sneak some of her winnings into my stake every night immediately she drops into her bar-induced coma.

Honestly? I would never do that. I would wait 35-45 minutes for the bar-induced coma to really take hold, and then sneak some stake money.

The woman is amazing. While I got no (none, zero, donut, zip, diddly) quads, she was banging out $62, $200, $125, and $400 beauties.
A $400 beauty that I didn't get.
It's quite astounding and infuriating to watch.

Meanwhile, my day's stake was gone, gone, gone. (I'd take some time to think of other words for 'gone' here, but you get the picture don't you.)

Mrs. Flusher made a tender offer. "You can play for me."

What a sweetheart!

She continued, "But I keep the winnings."

Instead, I decided to apply some Euro-zone inspired pumping up of my day's stake.

We played in the new Parlour Lounge. I lost, generally speaking.

It's amazing how a great hotel casino like the El Cortez can take something like one of their great bars with great bartop video poker and completely fuck it up. Because that is what they've done with the Parlour Lounge and its a shame.

According to unnamed sources, business there has dropped by about 3/4. For a while they gave away rounds of drinks to folks waiting for their table at the Flame steakhouse, just to fill the place up and give it some much needed 'buzz. Instead, patrons have the feeling they should just 'buzz off'. At 9:00 last night there were 4 people in there. The fact that the bartop video poker starts at the 50 cent level doesn't help either.

This is the worst thing to happen to the ElCo since they took out the diner-style counter at the coffee shop, and threw out all the rubbies to go and play penny video poker at the Western. (Fortunately, the Western is closing, which should provide a bumper crop of replacement rubbies.)

The crew at the bar is as good as always, but it makes me wonder what the hell management was thinking. Like the time they removed all the cafeterias in the North American Veeblefetzer plants and replaced them with those revolving sandwich slot machines. That lasted about 2 months of work-to-rule and the cafeterias, with their vats of chili and their greasy Egg Veeblemuffins for breakfast were put back.

We played some more, and the QQueen hit a sweet straight flush on dollars for $250. She's been pressing it, playing back a decent amount of these hits, trying to hit a dollar royal or some other goodies.

Meanwhile, I've dumped $120. This is just the way it is going to be.

Sweet straight flush that I didn't get.
About this time, we'd had a decent number of drinks, and found ourselves in what we call the Dollar Cave - a little alcove by the cage filled with wonderful old school coin dropping dollar machines with old out of focus CRT screens, just like your mother used to play.

Norma, our favorite cocktail waitress, kept 'em coming about every 7 minutes while we played. Or I should say, while the Queen played. And actually, she cashed out some coins, and we sat side by side, playing coins the way we used to when we started on this gambling adventure, some 17 years ago. The rule was you had to put coins in, and you had to cash them all out.

So I've literally got drinks backed up on the counter between the machines. I'm on Bonus Poker, and she's on Double Double. We're pretty much hammered, our hands black from the greasy dollar coin action. I'm singing little congo line songs to try to drum up luck: 'Full. House. Full-house! Full. House. Full-house!'.

Norma kept 'em coming, and we are having a blast. I hit something stupid like three of a kind and we shriek like 20-somethings on a bachelorette trip. People look over to see if we've hit a huge Royal or something. We keep pounding the coins in and pounding the drinks back.

Yes, the degeneracy even goes as far as the men's room. God forbid I should be without my Jack on the rocks.
Something very odd happened on the Queen's machine. She hit three jacks for $15. And cashed the $15 in coins out into the tray, per our stupid inebriated coin-play rules. Then the machine display disappeared and it went into the boot-up sequence, just like the grommet calibrator on the size 7 grommet line back at North American, when you restart it. It said 'verifying game memory'. And then it paid her again, I shit you not.
Note the RESTART message. Strange things are a-foot at the El Cor-tez.
Not only that, it mis-paid at some point, because she ended up with 2 extra coins in her tray somehow, when all the payouts are in multiples of 5. Weird stuff. In fact, in the pic above, it says "PLAYER PAID 16". So I think maybe it payed out $16 the first time, realized it fucked up, rebooted, and then fucked up again and paid another $16.

The Quad Queen has me hit the button for her because she is double-fisting whiskey and cokes. Dealt three 2s. So she tells me to hold them and I do. She tells me to hit the Draw button and I refuse.

This is because I suck.

Well, she hits the button, and you'd think we'd just won at Keno or something, we are screaming like idiots, laughing, high-fiving, drooling on each other, the whole drunk gambling 9 yards o'fun.

Oh hell YEAH we've pulled in a $400 hit.

The $400 quad 2s that I didn't get any of the profit from.
Next hand, she's dealt... nothing. Razgu. Nothing to hold.

"Hit Draw for me", she says.

I do, and we hit...

nothing.

"LOSER!!!!", she screams, subtly.

We play around a bit, some Bonus Poker at the bar near Keno, and I manage to hit just my second quad of the day. Yes it is that bad.

"Oh my God, hit a quad", I say.

"Your winning, is just beginning."

We laugh like nuns on a roller coaster for the first time.

Don't ask me what the hell that even means, I have no idea, but it sounded good in my head, so there it is.

I tried the Deuces with the $500 prize for four deuces, and just for good measure hit two natural quads which are worth sweet fuck all on Deuces. Even so, the quad count is something like 17 to 4.

And the day's results bear this out. I'm down $600 on the day, and am now over $2K down on the trip. What a shitkicking.

And the ever ebullient Mrs. Flusher (except when she's had too many Jameson's, in which case, she can get kind of squibbly), is up $900 beans on the day, and is now up $575 on the trip.




Cash Back and Get Out - to the El Cortez


The BC Lions covered the spread and netted me $100. Woohoo!

I'd tried out a pretty easy-looking dollar Double Diamond machine Monday night in the High Limit area of the Four Queens, and it gave me back some decent wins, and earned a lot of slot points, and I'd cashed out even when I was done. So I decided to kick off my day by slipping it a hundy.

It played like a champ, giving me wins on 6 of my first 9 pulls. Never seen anything like it in a slot machine. I ended up cashing out an $80 profit on the thing after playing for a while. I have yet to hit the top prize on any slot machine and I figure the 800/1600 simple Double Diamond machines give me the best chance.

We played some video poker, getting ready for our move to the El Cortez for the remainder of our stay here in  Fabulous Las Vegas.

A trend started to shape up. This trend consisted of the Quadus Queenus Maximus getting plenty of four of a kind lovin' satisfaction (and not from me) while I struggled to get even one quad. In fact, by breakfast time it was 6 to 1.

My lone quad for a good part of the day.
We ate at Magnolia's as usual, me enjoying eggs and sausage patties with hash browns, and she enjoying her usual club sandwich, hold the mayo, and fries. Apparently this truly is the breakfast of champions. We each had Keno tickets to keep the degenerate action going while we waited for food. God forbid we should spend as much as 1 minute without gambling.

While waiting to pay, I spied with my little Royal Flusher eye, a woman with something that looked like a passport.

It was gold.

And it said something like 'Four Queens VIP Passport'.

All she had to do with that little gold passport was wave it in the general direction of any FQ employee and they would bring her whatever she wanted. Food. Drinks. A manicure. Chippendales dancers who can crochet, no pun intended. (A Chippendales dancer who could actually crochet up some nice doilies, as opposed to just being a talented crotch, would indeed be a Godsend in today's troubled market economy. Like a Keno win, it would indicate that anything is possible.)

After breakfast, she hit for $50 and 1 minute later another quad for $100. And 5 minutes later another for $31.

Did you know that quads come approximately once every 400 hands? Apparently nobody has told Mrs. Flusher this. And I was still stuck with my 1. I was wondering if I was suffering the misery of Quad Drought. This might require a trip to the medical anaesthetic dispensing unit.

The one bright spot was that my Keno ticket won $70. We've hit that 3 times this trip, which proves that anything is possible. Winning at Keno??? A miracle.

It was time to do our housekeeping at the 'Queens, packing up for the trek to ElCo, get our cashback, and see the host. I gave our buddy Jay a hug across the counter at the slot club just cause he is such an easy going guy. Then I hugged the other slot club folks too, lest they feel left out.

The cashback was much more than usual, because we've been playing more, and hitting the high denom stuff more. In my case about $20K in action netted $65 dollars or so. But the QQueen had outdone herself, playing through 50 thousand bucks in video poker madness dollars, and getting back $171.

Maybe for next trip Mrs. F will qualify for one of those sweet little 'I own the world' gold passports!

We visited the host and he picked up all our room charges, no issues. So far, the trip, in terms of hotel rooms and hotel foods, has been free.

Unfortunately, there is the small issue of my gambling results. But don't worry, some of the 'new math' comparing comps to gambling losses could fix that, or at least keep me from hurling when I think of it.

I also talked to them about the general Elevator Etiquette - lack of cleaning, lack of fixing elevators that won't go to the 14th floor, and lack of signage to indicate same to save my sorry ass from elevator frustration.

These buttons weren't cleaned the 6 days were were at the Four Queens. C'mon guys, we love you but this is not acceptable button-cleaning etiquette. (Note that 14 remains unlit.)
Time for a change of pace... onward to the storied El Cortez.




Monday, November 28, 2011

Roar Lions Roar

Had a great time at the 99th Grey Cup championship in which the BC Lions defeated the Winnipeg Blue Bombers by a score or 34 to 23.

And thus locked in a $100 win on my bet on the Lions to win by 7.

It got pretty exciting in the last three minutes as the Bombers rallied to put a touchdown on the board and were within one touchdown of screwing up the spread, even if the Lions won the game.

My cousin Piffles, who set this thing up, had some family things to attend to that cropped up at the last minute and unfortunately was not able to make the trip to Vancouver. We've had this planned for a year so it was bittersweet to be at the game and not have my Roughrider bro' there.

I stayed with another cousin and hubby for the weekend and they treated me like Royalty, which I am.

Saturday night was spent in the most amazing man cave you've ever seen. It's all outdoors, covered, and heated, with a fantastic selection of scotches and bourbons at the ready and a built in BBQ for making big-ass t-bone steaks.

Add to that a humidor stocked full of cubans (cigars, not guys named Luis or Ernesto) and you have a great place to kick back, drink whiskey, listen to music and smoke a few Montecristos. I thought I'd found heaven - screw the game, let's stay here!!

They really took good care of me and as I told my cousin, she is really like a sister to me.

And now I'm at YVR ready to fly back to Vegas to continue the madness!

Meanwhile this weekend, the updates from Mrs. F were that she was had an up and down day on Saturday, but finshed up $20. And Sunday, she got hit badly and was reduced to drinking and playing Keno in the room.

Another $70 win (the second one this trip) rallied her and she picked up a straight flush on some high volatility Dollar game for $500 beans. So yesterday she finished up $200, and I finished up $100 thanks to the bet on the Lions.

Meanwhile, since all my readers have been so patient all weekend looking for the next posts, here is an account of some action from Friday.

The ultimate man-cave.

Fellow Roughrider fans were everywhere.

Nosebleeds, great game!

BC Lions win cup and more importantly, cover the spread.
Mrs. F. hadn't had had only one straight flush in 8 days of heavy play (not including the Royal, which is also a straight flush) so she compensated by having one dealt to her.

The Four Queens is a friendly place. We like the staff a lot and are getting to know them. It's nice when you come back after 6 months and people know who you are and are happy to see you back. It's even nicer when the bartender remembers your drink and has it waiting for you by the time you have finished buying-in on the bartop machine.

The Flying Quad Queen arrived in the room and said, 'the elevator doesn't go to 14'.

"Huh?"

"It doesn't go to our floor."

"What do you mean it doesn't go to our floor? It refuses? It's on strike? It knows that 14 is actually 13 and therefore unlucky and so it doesn't go to our floor? How did you get here then? Maybe you're not pressing the button right."

For some reason this last comment seemed to infuriate her somewhat. I made additional comments about her elevator prowess, and handling of the buttons and advanced technology in general.

Apparently, she'd had to switch elevators or something to get to our floor.



I bought in at blackjack for $100 hoping to repeat my long runs in the last two sessions. Dream on. I hit the most amazing run of bad luck. It was one of those things where you promise yourself you won't take it down into the dirt but your luck is so bad that you are convinced it can't possible continue.

Well, it can. And it will. And it does. And I dumped $100 in about 6 minutes 38 seconds.

Despondent over another lackluster day, I begged a benjy from the QQ and bought in at craps. She was heading up to the room for the night, so I had to bring home the bacon.

On the table, it was me, and two kind of drunk guys at the end of the table, one of whom was yelling and screaming at everything that happened.

He was from Minnesota.

He rolled some numbers, cheered when he rolled his numbers, and cheered when he rolled numbers that he didn't have bets on and that no one had bets on - that didn't seem to matter. He high fived his buddy (who had the requisite 'football full of brightly colored alcoholic drink' with him.)

When he sevened out I had made $7.

My turn to shoot came along and I did okay, setting a point of 9 and hitting it two rolls later, then rolling a winner 7, then setting another point, 8 or something, and making it. Had a point of four.

Minnesota Louds is yelling at me, "Can you do it? Can you buddy? WOOOO! You can do it!!! C'mon SHOOTER! Bring the FOUR!!!!"

Well, I didn't bring the four but he was happy anyway. And I'd made $12 in profit. Leaving too much on the felt.

So his buddy gets the dice and gets on a pretty good roll, lots more screaming and shouting from Minnesota.  Unfortunately, he's not hitting any of my numbers and when he finishes up and I'm down maybe $25 or something.

Minnesota Louds takes the dice and gets on an absolute heater. I've never seen the likes of it.

He made two or three points, and is hitting hardways like you wouldn't believe. I got on that train a little late unfortunately, but some guy who'd come along had a dime on it or so and was getting $80 or $90 on the hard 8, which hit multiple times. Min' hit back to back hard 10s just for fun.

By now everyone is screaming along with Minnesota Louds. The table is just going crazy.

His last role was, ahem, epic. Point was 4. The guy rolled for half an hour looking for that hard four. I kept making come bets with $10 or $15 odds and they kept coming in. He kept hitting the hardways. In all, he hit hard numbers 7 or 8 times while he held the dice. He rolled 25 or 30 times looking for that hard four winner.

Unfortunately it never came and he sevened out. By the time he was finished, the table was full and there were people standing around watching. It didn't help that he was screaming like a banshee the whole time.

I left maybe $50 on the felt when the seven came and had $235 in my rack, so I made about $150 on this one guy.

Minnesota Louds colored up and there was a torrent of chips hitting the felt as everybody else colored up and got out of there - we all knew the table wasn't going to be the same without Minnesota.

Collectively, we took hundreds of dollars off the table on that one roll alone, maybe two to three thousand.

I've waited a long time to be part of a really hot roll and finally got a beauty. Thanks Minnesota Louds!!!

It was a great feeling to color up and carry my two blacks, one green and two reds up to the room. I got in the elevator and confidently punched the button for the 14th floor.

Nothing happened.

Punched it again.

Nothing happened. Until the doors closed. The elevator started moving, but the 14 button wasn't lit. We went to 16 and stopped and the doors stayed closed.

Punched 14 eight more times, nothing happened.

Punched 15, got off there and walked down a flight and went to our room.

"How'd you do?"

"I cashed out $235 from a hundred! And just so you know, the elevator doesn't go to our floor."





Saturday, November 26, 2011

Hot Player Hot Player!



Picture of Santa...
Thanksgiving in Vegas. Having had ours a month ago it doesn't make much of an impact, but I enjoyed all the greetings and well wishes we received from various casino personnel, and told them in return, to 'get stuffed'. After all, I'm losing.

Mrs. Flusher is a notoriously fast player. This, combined with the fact that Boyd properties rate your play on a daily average basis, has led to an interesting phenomenon. When we aren't staying at a Boyd property, but want to play in one of their casinos, such as the Fremont, we play without cards.

And often we play Pick'Em there, because other casinos don't offer the full pay version.

So, Mrs. Flusher pounds these machines very quickly, with no players card in, so as not to screw our daily average. And very often, she gets approached by a host to see if she wants to sign up for a players card.

This happened today, and we engaged the host, Lydia, in a conversation about it all, explaining our odd behaviour. We had a very pleasant talk, and it turns out the system (that is, the 'system' of all things casino in the Fremont) flags certain activities, and Mrs. Flusher comes up as a 'Hot Player'.

I think Lydia would like to have us stay at the Fremont and would like our business. And I'd like to give it a try sometime. And, to show her goodwill towards us Hot Players, she offered a comp to the Seafood buffet the next night - a $36 score!

This is the way it used to happen in the old days - a host would notice your play, and approach you, and you'd develop a relationship, sprinkled with love, littered with lost cash, and dusted with butter crab leg comps.

I felt bad about slagging the Blazing 7s promotion lady so much, because Lydia knows her and we talked about it for a while. So, I went back and revised the part where we said we'd pay $1000 to kick her in the *#$%*&. It's fine to be nasty when there is no personal relationship, but now that we are on a first name and 'free seafood' basis, I reserve the right to try not to piss off my new host.

This is going to be a short post, and I'll try to catch up when I can because actually, I'm sitting on the seats at the Verizon charging station near the 'B' gates - you know, the ones that can exert 10,000 pounds per square inch force directly on your sphincter. This is to prevent loiterers and it is working its magic on my very own Royal Flusher ass.

So where am I going - home?

No way!

This Hot Player has $100 on the BC Lions at -7, and I'm on my way to Vancouver, BC for the Grey Cup game. My cousin Piffles and I planned this a long time ago, and when Mrs. Flusher announced she was going to Vegas, with or without me, I figured out how to make it all work. Simple. A return flight from Vegas to Vancouver. So I'm out on the 1:20pm, and back on Monday morning - to collect my $100 in winnings.

Be warned that I may revise some posts once I get time to catch up - such as this one - to more accurately reflect reality - because I'm a day or two behind in my posting.

And you will really want to read about the singular worst and singular best streaks on table games I've ever had.




Friday, November 25, 2011

Cavalcade of 100 quads

Another day in Vegas. What would today hold? Would it hold wins? Would it hold losses? Would it hold steady? Would it hold water?

Today it was out of the Golden Nugget, and into the Four Queens. But first, I had a nice little run on Bonus Poker in the morning hitting three quads in 20 hands.

We poked around a bit and played some, and then I went to see the host. I was glad to hear that she would comp all three nights at the Nugget, about $150 worth. I also picked up $80 in cashback from our play, so that was nice.

Tried my nicest smile at Four Queen's check in to try to score some of the Funbooks that come with some packages, but not our offers. We've managed this before, but the clerk said they've been warned off of this behavior, so nothing doing. We still have a number of these from our visit in the spring, so we have a bunch of 2-4-1 meals to get, but no more match plays. I do have another tactic to try to get funbooks...  more on that later.

Had lunch at Magnolias - our usual - club sandwich for the Queen, Country Fried Steak and Eggs (with country throw-up) for me. Sourdough toast, strawberry jam. Hash browns. $6.25 with players card. How can you go wrong?

Played a lot of video poker and hit lots of quads. It seemed like Mrs. F was doing okay, maybe making a bit, and I was holding my own. In fact, she was dealt Quad 4s for a $200 score on dollar play and cashed $500 out of the machine.

I cashed out $nothing.

I decided to give blackjack a shot and see if I could play for any decent length of time. Well, I got on an amazing run.

Partway thought I got a call from the Quad Queen who was playing here and there. She had something interesting for me to see.




A dealt quad on hundred play video poker. Mind you, it's just 5 cents a hand, but still, that's a $600 win.

I sat at the blackjack table for a full four hours on just a $60 buy-in. I lost my $60 but decided to talk to the pit boss about getting something to eat.

Score! Old-school comp. $30 at Magnolias. Not a bad deal, four hours entertainment and dinner thrown in for $60. Lots of drinks, too. And for the most part, really good dealers.

We decided to take a break, so we went to the bar to get drinks. Slipped a $20 each in the machine to get comped drinks, and I ended out cashing up even. Just for laughs, Mrs. F hit two quads, one for $62 and one for $100.


We did an accounting and she is up $700 on the day. Absolutely amazing. And she's played probably 6 or 7 hours.

Dinner at Magnolias was magnoliaificent - especially because it was comped. I was told I could skip the lineup with the comp but there wasn't one when we got there. I wanted to come back when there was a line so we could skip it, but was overruled due to hunger.

Had a nice rib eye steak, and the QQ had her usual club sandwich. I also had crab cakes. I didn't know crabs could bake anything, but these were delicious.

Mrs. F was pretty tired and went up to the room while I tooled around trying to figure out how to get something going. But in the end, I blew through my budget. I didn't want to go too deep so when $280 was gone, I called it a night. Mrs. F had taken care of the winning today.

The accounting said she was up $700 on the day and is now again positive on the trip by $25.

Meanwhile, I'm down $-280 on the day and almost a grand in the hole for this trip.

I really, really need a Royal now.




Thursday, November 24, 2011

Worlds Most Dumbest Extreme Blackjack Stories

We thought we'd give the Nugget some play - even though we are paying for rooms, there's always a chance for a comp from a host.

I sat down and played simple, single-line quarter VP and boy, what a marathon run it was. And Mrs. Flusher kept up with me for most of us, in fact we were trading off quads like touchdowns in the Grey Cup game.

In the end I hit four of 'em and she managed to keep pace with me, closing five. My coin-in was about $2500 over some 2,120 hands of video poker. Once it was done, I felt satisfied. It's like a good workout. For my fingers.

We headed to Main St. Station for lunch buffet on points and then I decided, stupidly, to try $100 at $2 double double bonus. Perhaps the use of the word 'stupidly' is telegraphing the results and ruining the suspense for you. Needless to say, it was brutal and over in about 82 seconds.

Mrs. F decided to use $100 of her high stakes money in a similar fashion on $1 Triple Double Bonus - a real flyer on this high volatility / high premium quad game. Same result: $-100.

I texted Clevedge to come and pick us up at the very convenient porte cochon (forgive me if I seem snooty, but I am Canadian and I do know how to properly use more than one language). He did and off we went to Stratosphere.

Happily, Cleve did seem to occasionally part his bangs to check whether we were on the road or not. After a pretty much uneventful drive, mostly on the road, we arrived at the Strat, where I wised him up on valet parking. I think he actually smiled underneath there when he saw how effortless it is.

The Flying Quad Queen and Lamondo wanted to do the rides up top and frankly, Clevedge was having none of it. I could take it or leave it, so I left it and they left, and we made a left for the right craps table. Cleve had minimal budget so I bought in to match him and he got to get a bit more experience throwing the bones. For a moment we looked like we might be doing okay and I bought in an extra $20 to make some place bets. But $20 or even $40 doesn't go far at craps and before very long we were both tapped out. We did win a few rolls but really, never got going.

Next stop, some live dealer blackjack, something he really wanted to try before blindly pinballing his way down the I-15 back to L.A.

Again we bought in for $20, and again, the action sucked. The dealer was nasty, refusing to give any advice. Before long, Clevedge was broke, and despondent, and I was down to a chip or two. He hung in there to root me on.

I managed to hold on until a dealer change, and the new guy, James, was a beauty. And, oddly, I started to win.

"Clevedge, I'm taking $60 out of this table to match my buy-in, you mind if I play on?"

"Unhhh," he grunted from behind that curtain of shaggy hair, and I took this to mean, "I can't really drive away without my girlfriend back to L.A., and I have no more gambling budget so what the fuck else do you think I would be doing???"

I can read people pretty well.

James the dealer was so much fun. It added a whole new dimension to the game. I was piling up some reds and James was making jokes. He'd lay down an Ace for a blackjack and fist bump me.

"That's a fist card," he said.

Another time, everyone had stiffs, 13s, 16s, 15s, and he dealt out about 5 cards to himself and busted with a face card. So he hides the facecard under another card and says "17! Dealer has 17!"

He made us all call bullshit, and finally pulls the card out, and we all win like we're supposed to.

So I keep racking up the red chips, I'm betting $10 and $15 a hand, it's crazy. At one point I had three 9s split with $10 on each, got tens on all of 'em and I think I'm sitting pretty on three 19s. He ended up getting 21 or something to beat them all. That hurt my bankroll quite a bit and took me back down to maybe $80.

I work my way back up and then this cute little 21 year old girl sits down next to me and buys in for $25. Nothing wrong with that.

She doesn't have a clue how to play basic strategy.

Nothing wrong with that either.

James is telling her - begging her - to make certain moves.

"You have 11, you want to double that."

"Uhhhh...."

"You want to double that? Double? Double that???...."

"No."

This happened just about every hand. And sure enough, I had a big bet out there, and I've got Ace 7. Dealer is showing 6.

Little miss blackjack stupid-pants has 16.

She motions for a card.

James: "You want to hit that? Really? You probably want to stay, right?..."

"Uhhhh...."

"You want to stay?... don't you?..."

She motions for a card and takes a ten. She's busted but now I'm doubling my bet and thinking, that 10 would have given me 18, a pretty good hand. Sure enough I get a fucking 4.

Stand and pray for James to bust. But of course, he ends up with 17.

"Oh, too bad, dude...," 'pants says.

I don't stay at it with a negative vibe like that going on. I don't like to think other gamblers influence my luck or the outcome, but I didn't like how pissed I was getting, and I was up, and I didn't want to sit there and radiate anger towards 'pants. She's got a right to play her cards however she wants to. I have a right to save my sanity and my money and bail.

I color up an even $100 and leave the table, but not without a parting word to stupid-pants, "James gives good advice, you should listen."

Clevedge and I grabbed a coffee just as the Flying Flusher's arrived back from their excursion on the Big Shot. Cleve gave us a lift downtown, hitting only two of those 'Mature Women' magazine stands on the way. Fond farewells were bade all around, Mrs. F and I hopped out, Clevedge parted his bangs and hit the gas just as I got a quick look at him. He actually is human, and not bad looking. For a sheepdog.

Back at the Nugget, our avuncular duties well disposed of, we plunked down at machines and ordered doubles. And they were brought to us. One was a mis-fire, a double Jim and Coke, but I was on vodka, so I downed the Jim as well. What the hey. In an hour we were somewhat lubricated.

I was on that addictive Super Times Pay and hit a good portion of what I described earlier as the Holy Grail of STP Video Poker - dealt a quad on triple play. (Didn't have a multiplier in action but I'm not complaining.)



So that was a nice, nice win. And I am a stupid, stupid man sometimes and not very Goddamned savvy... because, as my notes say, "Lose it all back - DUMBASS".

Yup, I lost it all back, chasing. What a tool.

We both dropped $120 (but got free drinks - doubles!).

Mrs. Flusher decided that since we were loaded and making stupid gambling decisions, she should do some more high stakes play - in this case, $5 Bonus Poker. Hey, on her last hand, she hit a dealt straight to win back her buy-in, and then got a flush. So she cashed out $200, for a $100 profit on the venture.

A visit to the Four Queens bar was in order to keep things going, and we played two hours there. I played about 1000 hands, lost $200, got no quads.

Headed over to Du-Pars for dinner and our streak of new employees continued. Our waitress came over and tentatively got us going, menus, drink order, etc.

"How long have you been working here?..."


"This is my second day, actually," she said. She was full of smiles, a little nervous, but I could tell pure of heart, and stout of countenance. She probably came from a very strong line of Dutch or German waitstaff, the kind that could handle 18 one liter steins of beer at a time, or milk a cow while turning a sausage grinder with one foot. Yes, very good stock indeed, I am sure.

Mrs. Flusher had a very delicious chicken noodle soup which really tasted like it was homemade, as they say everything is. We both had prime rib and it was delicious.

I took much pleasure in handing our new waitress my ridiculous (but savvy) business card, and then imploring her to recite all the types of pie that Du-Pars serves.

She did a good job of it, and then I asked her, "Is the apple pie is made on the premises?"

"It is."

"What about the pecan pie?"

"It is."

"What about the coconut cream pie?"

"It is."

Then I asked her to recite all the types of pie they have again. After all, she needs to be able to do this, if she wants to avoid going back to the fields of Germany to milk cows and make sausage by hand. Or rather, by foot.

"What all kinds of pies do you have again?"

She brought me a menu.



We hit up the Vegas Club blackjack and I think I found a fourth employee on their first or second day on the job. Gerardo had a thick South American accent, which I could barely understand. I think he said he was from El Placenta, Argentinia or some place.

Half the time, I would have to help Gerardo count his own hand. He was nice enough, and I laid out some tips for him, but for goodness sake, on one hand, I had 16, and he was showing 6. I stood, and he turned over a facecard for 16.

He looked at his hand, looked at mine, looked at his hand, looked at mine... and thumped the felt.

"Push."

I didn't have the heart to tell him he was required to take a card, he looked so proud at his math skills. I can easily see how someone could mistake a 10 and a 6 for a total of 17.

In the end, I lost $100 at blackjack, and Mrs. Flusher fared not much better on the machines. She went up to bed, and I bought in for $100 at craps at the Nugget. Lost most of it, and with my last 18 put some chips on single number spins on roulette. Won nothing. This is why casinos exist.

How bad was the beating?

Bad.

I dumped $500 on the day and Mrs. F dumped $300. We're down a combined $-1010 on the trip.

Now how the hell did that happen???

Oh yeah.

Gambling.

By the way, Du-Pars pie - I chose the pecan - was fantastic.

There's something about high heels in a diner. Maybe its like that salty and sweet thing that everyone seems to have going on these days. I still don't see how you could serve roast beef for 12 in these things though. But I guess if you can afford to eat in a diner, then you wouldn't be having company much.




The Keno Results Will Not Be Televised

The Keno display in the room runs on the oh-so-reliable Microsoft Windows.

Headed over to the Tickets 4 Tonight booth at the Four Queen's to see if we could get something good to take Lamondo and Clevedge to. I seriously thought about buying just 3 tickets because I doubt Cleve would be able to see anything at all with those greasy 10" bangs hanging in front of his face.

Honestly, after a year of knowing the guy, I still have no clue what he actually looks like.

I wonder if Lamondo even knows.

Picked up four tickets to Mystere for something like $77 each. We haven't seen this show in about 10 years and it seemed like a good first Vegas show for Lamondo, so we went for it. I had no idea if we were really saving money or not.

Hit the bar at the Four Queens to have a few and play some Double Double. One of the bartenders, good guy, lots of fun, was sort of going nuts off to my right and I stopped to watch.

First he threw something over his shoulder in the general direction of the garbage can - ice went everywhere. Then he start this funky pelvically-oriented dance and I realized the object of this attention were three good-looking, inebriated women, sitting at the bar.

He lined up three martini glasses and poured some stuff in them and he also had a glass of cream. More pelvic motions and interesting looks on his face.

I should have known where this was going.

Using a straw, some grunting, and some rhythmic pelvic (there's that pelvis again!) motion, he squirted cream into the glasses, one by one.

I didn't know whether to laugh, cringe, or smoke a cigarette.

The women enjoyed the show, cheering him on, and he said, "Drink up ladies - it ain't gonna hurt you. All my kids are priceless!"

I went back to my game and heard him mention something about "Magically Delicious!".

I must, I simply MUST get the name of that drink, and make sure that I never, ever, ever order it at the Four Queen's bar.

We hit a few quads and Mrs. Flusher made $218 on her $60 freeplay, thanks to a spectacular four Aces hit, from one held.


We've done okay on that freeplay in the last couple instances. I love taking money from the casino!

The bar was great fun, and we even had a possible Elvis sighting.



Lamondo and Clevedge took the bus downtown and we showed them the ropes, old school. Starting, naturally, with the El Cortez.

We had some drinks, some laughs, and played some coin droppers. I played two of the three remaining non-computer driven slots and got my ass kicked on them. Mrs. Flusher hit a couple of $100 quads on Bonus Deluxe and the kids plunked merrily away a quarter at a time.

Of course, Lamondo put some coins into the wrong machine and jammed it and we had to call a couple of techs over. The first guy opened the machine and told us that the guy to fix the problem was named 'Long'. He used to delight in paging him as "Mr. Schlong".

We were killing ourselves joking about all this and sure enough, here comes a little chinese fellow with the badge on his shirt confirming his name.

I looked at him, he looked at me, and I said, "So, are you long?"

He was a really nice guy and loaded up the machine with 5 quarters for Lamondo to play, which took her awhile as her bad eye kept leading her to press buttons on the machine next to her.

I gave the kids a craps lesson on the three dollar table at the ElCo and we had fun, even though our luck sucked. I made both of them throw the dice. We were in a row next to the stick, me, Lamondo, Clevedge, and then the stickman.

The dice got pushed to Clevedge for his first ever roll, so he promptly took two of them off the table and trotted down to the end of the layout for his roll. The crew freaked - "HEY, HEY, KEEP THE DICE ON THE TABLE!!!"

I have to admit, I snickered a little bit. I never thought to tell him that you shoot right from where you are. Maybe he's seen too many movies through those 10" bangs where the shooter is ALWAYS conveniently at the end of the table.

We brought the kids back to the Four Queens bar where I forbade the bartender to put on any 'performance art' in front of Lamondo.

If she hadn't been there I would have ordered one of those 'special' drinks for Clevedge, who still hadn't actually said a word to us. I don't know if he can talk, or if he even has a face.

Had dinner at the 777 brewpub on points - quite good. Lamondo and I had prime rib, Mrs. Flusher the chicken philly - so good! - and Clevedge grunted out an order for a mushroom laden cheeseburger of some sort. The three of us agreed it was a good meal, and Clevedge, I think, was nodding because his 10" bangs were swaying back and forth.

We grabbed a cab down to Treasure Island - thank goodness, a sane cabbie for once. Played some there and lost $100 but then had some luck on Super Times Pay. Mrs. Flusher was getting clobbered on straight quarter triple-play.

Super Times Pay has me addicted. I can barely stop playing that stupid thing once I get started. First of all, the version I chose was 10 play. I played dimes.

So, you are dealt cards and you play 10 hands at a time. You hold the cards for the base hand, which also get held on the other 9. When you hit deal, each hand is played independently with differing results from the same base set of held cards.

Along with this you play 1 coin per hand extra to enable the random multiplier. Every so often, the multiplier comes up and it multiplies everything you win by between 2x and 10x. So the holy grail of the game is to get a good, winning dealt hand, and get a big-ass multiplier.

I managed to win $100 on this to get even at T.I.

We headed into the 9:30 show and it did not disappoint. Everyone was impressed by the two, very strong, male acrobats. Who knew that doing handstands with your crotch one inch from another guy's face could be so artistic.

I also liked the baby act and since the show, every 6 minutes, I look at Mrs. Flusher and whisper "Pa pahhhhh". You had to have seen the show to make any sense of this, I suppose.

So we get back to the room after bidding the kids good night and sending them off down the strip, and the truth comes out.

Mrs. Flusher, unbeknownst to me, has dumped $900 on the day.

This is definitely NOT the Royal Flusher way.

Meanwhile, I managed to get through the day with a measly $25 loss.

So on the trip, I'm up $115!!!! Which is some sort of a miracle.

And Mrs. Flusher is actually down now, $-325 under water. How is it possible???

"Pa pahhhh!!!!!"





High stake through the heart of the matter

Off to a good start today having one both of my football bets. The BC Lions will meet the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the 99th Grey Cup game - in BC. Kind of cool that one of the two teams will be playing in front of a home crowd.

I'm going to have to figure out who I want to bet on - right now BC is the favorite at but the spread is 7 points.

Anyway that was $42 bucks out of the sports book and into my wallet.

Our morning Bonus Poker session was okay, the QQ hitting 3 Qs while RF hit 1 Q. That seems more like usual.

I played the last of my high stakes dollars in a $10 slot and hit - nothing.

Today was the day for some serious high stakes Video Poker action on the La Flusherina's part - she was going to go for it on the $25 Bonus Poker machine in the high limit area of the Golden Nugget, $125 a hand x 4 hands, hoping for lightning to strike.

First hand dealt Q 4 9 A 6. Oh great. What a stinker. Hold Q A unsuited, draw nothing.

Second hand 7 10 Q A 9. Another stinker. Hold Q A unsuited, draw... a pair of Queens for $125 returned.

Okay...

Third hand 2 8 9 3 Q with the 8, 9 and Q suited. Possible straight flush??? I'm doing the math in my head 250x25=...  a shitload of money.


Hold 8, 9 and Q suited, draw... K of hearts, 7 of diamonds. Nothing.

Fourth hand 6 5 K 3 8 rainbow. What is going on, not a dinger in the bunch so far, just crap, crap, crap. Hold the lone K and pray. And draw..... another K for a pair. $125.

Fifth hand 7 A 4 9 9. Well, at least its a pair, even if it is a non-paying pair. Hold the 9s and get... 8 8 4 for two pairs. An actual profit hand. Returns $250, profit of $125.

Sixth hand 2 9 4 K 4. Wouldn't four 4s be sweet... 200x$25=... still a shitload of money. Hold the 4s and get... 6 K 5. Nothing. SHIT SHIT SHIT.

Seventh hand J 2 2 6 9. Replay of above math. Hold the 2s and get... A third two! Win $325! Is there hope? We think about how close she came to getting a quad... just one deuce away. I swear its like the casino doesn't want you to win.


At this point, she's back to even on the excursion, with 20 credits again.

Eighth hand hold 9 9, get nothing.

Ninth hand, hold Q, get nothing.


Tenth hand, hold Q, get nothing.

You can see where this is going, just like we did.

Last hand, hold a pair of 7s and... get sweet fuck all.


So how do I feel about this? It's a lot of money for such a short period of 'fun'. But it was 'found' money, a gift, to be played in this way. And it was the QQs choice. And she had a SERIOUS shot at some REALLY SERIOUS money (is money ever trivial?). And she took the shot.

You have to respect that. Because 2 months from now while I'm digging out my driveway which will be piled full of 8 feet of God's gift to Canada, snow, I won't look back and think 'I wish we'd taken a shot at winning something HUGE. Why didn't we pony up, show some stones, and do that????'.

No, I'll be thinking instead, "SHIT SHIT SHIT."




Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Golden Nuggets and Sharing Lions

Take me to the Heart Attack Grill!
At the Golden Nugget, we are booked in on a pretty decent offer - something like $42 a night for 3 nights with two breakfast buffets and two tickets to Gordie Brown thrown in. Our VP play will probably get us a night or two comped so it is a pretty good deal.

We wheeled our luggage down the very long hallway at the Cal, through the casino, and out the side door into the street. Down to the corner, across the little stream of water that always seems to be running down the crosswalk, and up beside Binions. Made it to Fremont St., one of my arms fell off, kept dragging along past the Golden Nugget, and down the side to the entrance by registration, where my other arm fell off.

I've had a lot of problems with jaws and limbs today.

At check-in, I used my savvy casino hotel check-in skills to arrange (ahem) a 'complimentary' upgrade to the Gold tower from the run of the mill Carson tower rooms which can be literally a two block walk from the action in the casino. The desk clerk was very attentive and very appreciative of our business. I watched with interest how wiley the clerk was at squirrelling away the bill I'd sandwiched between my credit card and driver's license.

So, we have a very nice room indeed in the Gold tower, the elevators of which dump you pretty much in the center of the casino. It's got a sweet pool view as well, which the includes the 'european bathing' area. I think this means that the women you don't want to see topless, go topless, the men you don't want to see in any kind of bathing attire are there as well, wearing mirror sunglasses and hoping for a free show.




To kick off the gambling at the Smug Nugget, we went for some of our high stakes play.

This meant the $5 video poker in the high limit room - that's five credits a pull, so $25 a hand. Sadly, with only four hands to play each, you are really taking a long shot, and that's what this was. We both ended up down our $100 buy-in each within about 37 seconds.

Next stop, the lowly quarter play where we belong.

There's nothing like a streak. I love streaks. I love the feeling of a streak where it seems like you just can't lose. Even if its on quarter video poker, you have to respect the streak. And I got on one. It didn't seem to matter what I held, if it was a non-paying pair, another pair would show up for a winner, or a three of a kind would happen. Hold four to a straight, it comes in. The credits kept piling up and I hit a $50 quad in there as well. Ramped that sucker up from $20 to $120 in 10 minutes, and when I felt the streak turn on me, I bailed and kept the profit.

This is what a savvy gambler does.

Cashes out the profit, feels good for 8 seconds, then dumps the profit into some other stupid machine in the next row, probably.

For lunch, we headed over to Binion's snack bar for one of their amazing cheeseburgers. Added grilled onions and cheddar, with fries, and a big ole styrofoam cup of milk. The milk dissolves the grease and fat in the burger so that it has, actually, zero calories.

My niece Lamondo and her boyfriend Clevedge were driving in from L.A. so we were heading down to Excalibur to set up their room for them, and meet up when they arrived. So, next stop... the MGM Green, where we needed to continue the high stakes journey with the lone, lonely, ancient Lion's Share slot. I was able to confirm that this slot was manufactured in November, 1993.

We grabbed the WAX bus from outside Binions and $4 and 24 minutes later found ourselves outside the MGM Green. The Lion's Share progressive was up to $2,249,891.66 - but who's counting. I played my hundred first, got a few small wins but eventually got tapped out without having won $2.2 million.

Sometimes I wonder just what it is I am doing wrong, because I fully expect to win this jackpot.

Mrs. Flusher hit it up next for $100 and had some better wins along the way to a face first crash into the sand just like mine. So we both blew $100 and had nothing to show for it.

Headed over to Excalibur - what is with Tropicoconut these days, you can smell the fake scent from a hundred yards away, outside the hotel. Maybe the plan is to scent up the entire city of Las Vegas.

We exchanged a few texts with Lamondo that said they were about an hour out of town, so plunked ourselves down on the 9/6 Double Double Bonus machines outside the Jester's Lounge and started drinking heavily. Mrs. Flusher hit a quad and I actually won on the Freeplay that came with the room, turning $25 into a $90 profit thanks to a straight flush and a quad.

Lamondo and Clevedge arrived and I was very happy to see them. It was very exciting to be able to show Lamondo our favorite vacation spot after so many years of sharing stories with her as she grew up. And now here she was. Once they got settled in their room and showered up, we hit the same machines so I could teach her how to be a savvy gambler like me.

Clevedge poked away at the buttons, playing one quarter at a time. He didn't have too much luck because of his 10" bangs - they sort of block his view of the cards. (I did wonder what he does while driving. I have yet to sort this out.) But looking right is more important in his estimation, I suppose. And why stop at one earring when you can have 19 of them, right? On his knuckles he has tattooed LOL! (right hand) and WTF? (left hand). Clevedge is definitely a product of the current youth culture.

Lamondo cast her good eye over her machine and made pretty good progress. The lazy eye got her confused sometimes and occasionally she would play cards off of my machine by mistake. I guess looking in two directions at the same time has been a challenge for her. I'm hopeful that her movie making career might right it somehow, through more eye exercise.

We had a grand time pounding back drinks and playing video poker. The kids were plunking a quarter a hand at deuces wild and it so reminded us of our gambling beginnings. I felt a tear form in my eye just as I was dealt another beauty.

Four deuces, on Double Double Bonus. Worth $200 right out of the gate, and worth $500 with a Ace, 2,3 or 4 kicker, as I pointed out to Clevedge. He then asked me how I would get a fifth 2 for the kicker - did I have some way of cheating or something?

Maybe Clevedge is a deep thinker, to pick up on that gaffe on my part.


Hit the button and drew a stupid 8. But hey, I was still pretty much on freeplay and $200 would keep me in 'free' drinks for a long time.

We hit various and sundry other quads and then headed off to get some grub at the good ole Pyramid Cafe, which thankfully, still bears pretty much the same decor as it did in 1995. It makes me nostalgic for the days when I could look down towards my toes and see something else besides a fairly hirsute Molson muscle.

We had a $50 resort comp with the Excalibur room so I dumped dinner on the room charge to eat it up. The room deal worked out well for us, only $22 a night plus stupid resort fee of $12, but we got the $50 comp and $25 free play and I made enough on the freeplay to cover all the room charges.

And I got to look generous in front of Clevedge and Lamondo.

We bade the kids good night, saying wistfully to them, "Good night."

And another Vegas day and good night were in the good books. And just how did those books look about now?

Well, I was up on the day a very sweet and most savvy $900. The Mrs. continued her post-Royal slide into oblivion with a $-630 day. (What is going on with the Quad Queen???) Between us, though, we are still up on the trip $715.

And I might add that with my big-ass Aces win today, I am winning on this trip now, to the tune of $140.


But there is a lot - and I mean a lot - of quarter by quarter gambling action to come.

Oh yes... and some $125 a hand video poker action too...





Monday, November 21, 2011

Dealt quads drop jaws

Another new day in Vegas, and today is the day Lamondo and Clevedge are driving up from L.A. for a couple of days as our guests. I'd booked an offer at Excalibur for a ridiculous $22 a night, which included $25 free play, and $50 resort comps. Not bad, even after the $14 a night resort fee clawback tactic.

Mrs. Flusher promised to keep better track of her progress and know if she was down a large amount from now on, so we were good there.

And really, on the trip we were still up $450 or something, so its not that bad.

The day started out at Main St. Station with the sun pouring in the front doors. Got coffee, shots, video poker, we're good to go.

And I started to bang out quads like nobody's business. In fact, I knocked out 6 of 'em before breakfast. And in fact, I had 4 more than the Quad Queen. Was I becoming the Four-of-a-Kind Flusher? The Four Flusher?

I had breakfast alone at the counter in the Cal coffee shop - eggs over hard, a mountain of hash browns, two sausage patties, and sourdough toast with strawberry jam. Coffee. Prices have gone up quite a bit there but we have a large backlog of points to use for meals at Boyd properties so I didn't pay a dime, save the tip. In fact, I didn't pay the same dime I didn't pay for the chicken the day before.

I found the QQ - she'd lost $100 in high stakes money, on bank of $1 video progressive Double Double bonus machines with a $7800 royal flush. It would be a fine prize if we could knock it off.

We girded our loins for some high stakes play, in my case, this meant the second hundred of my palty $325 so earmarked.

I slipped a hundred in and started playing, while Mrs. Flusher played behind me on a bank of quarter machines. Things weren't really going that well and it wasn't very long until I had gone through three quarters of my buy-in. It looked like this would be another disappointment...and then I started making little excited mewling noises and calling out for Mrs. F.

Because I had been dealt a very, very sweet hand - four Aces, worth $800 and change. Ho-lee shit.



Now came the fun part. Because it wasn't over... the dealt hand had a 6 as the fifth card, and I still had the chance to draw for a 2,3 or 4 card as the kicker. If I hit it, it would be a cool $2000.

What a great position to be in! I took my time, and actually, a small crowd gathered, some nice elderly Hawaiian folks to cheer me on, some talking about their similar experiences.

Finally, I hit the button and I wish I could say that the fireworks went off, but they didn't. I think the Colonel and Aunt Jemima had conspired against me because I slagged their food products. In any case, I got a boring 7, but had a very non-boring win.


An $811 win, to be exact.

I played a few more hands, as long as it was winning more credits, and cashed out when it turned. Not to be outdone, Mrs. F picked a machine of her own and played $100 of her high-stakes flyer money. We agreed that it would be tough to follow getting Aces dealt.

She played away for only a minute or two and on one hand, had a pretty crappy hand, just a lone Queen to hold. She held the Queen, and drew four new cards to complete the hand and our jaws dropped. Literally. Our jaws detached from our faces and dropped onto the sticky carpet so that we had no jaws on our faces because they had dropped.



Quad deuces on the redeal! I have no idea what the odds of this hand are but they are astronomical. I knew for sure that it was a sweet $400 win for the QQ!

She cashed out, we picked up our jaws, re-attached them, and floated out of there. It was time to check out of the Cal, and move to the Golden Nugget.

And we had a matter of $25 in Keno tickets from the chicken dinner at the Fitz that we hadn't checked yet.




Ask me who's your Royal Flusher Daddy

I had $4 in my wallet from scratch cards, and that was all I had, I was so broke. So, I bought a Keno ticket for four games and sat at the machine on the end where I could see the Keno board.

When you have stooped to relying on Keno for a bolt-of-lightning win, you are pretty much a degenerate gambler. If I'd had a fifth dollar I would have gone and bought some moonshine cough syrup off the bootlegger on the corner.

If you're expecting some amazing win about now, forget about it. As with most longshots, this ended with a flatline whimper.

And then...

...the Cavalry rode in, in the form of Mrs. F handing me - well, lending me - a benjamin to play with. I felt like a just-bailed-out Eurozone country. I deftly slipped that hundy into the machine and chose my weapon... in this case, super volatile Super Double Double Bonus.

SDDP pays only 1 coin for two pair instead of the usual 2, and the full house and straights are shorted as well, all this to fund the cornucopia of premium quads that are available. Stuff like getting four Jacks, Queens, or Kings with another Jack, Queen or King and you get 800 coins. That's a sweet $200 to a guy like me who's playing quarters.

All I know is, I needed premium quads to get back in the game and I needed them now.

I pounded the Max Credits button and started in. And I played like the wind, deftly holding cards, deftly hitting Draw, deftly watching my credits drain away.

Deftly I held a pair of fours, which was nothing particularly unusual, and deftly my eyeballs scanned the images being beamed into them with laser-like precision from the gambling console in front of me. Deftly I held draw and the cards I deftly needed deftly fell right into fucking place. Another couple of fours!

Deftly I noticed that I had not got a kicker, but I had won $100, so I deftly cried tears of deft joy until they were deftly running down my deft cheeks. (That's upper cheeks, perv!)

Super Double Double Bonus Quad Fours - no kicker, though

Things started to happen for us around then, because Mrs. Flusher answered with not one, but two Pick'Em quads, each worth $150. Very timely, because you can go through a lot of credits playing hours of Pick'Em, listening to annoying women on the public address system, being emotionally damaged by witnessing the ethnic cleansing of the canine race from the casino, and getting hammered on the ersatz Crown Royal they pour for drinks ordered from the casino floor.


Video Poker Four of a Kind on Pick'em
Ersatz Crown Royal drink poured on the casino floor.
I turned to Mrs. Flusher, flashed a shit-eating grin, and said, "Ask me who's your daddy!"

I don't know why I do this, we've been through it a thousand times and it always ends the same way.

"Ask me who's your daddy", she responded.

"No, Ask me who's your daddy."

"Ask me who's your daddy," she responded.

"No, I'm not telling you to say the words 'ask me who's your daddy', I'm telling you to ask me the question 'who's your daddy'. Now. Ask me who's your daddy."

"I'm not doing this again, stop asking me that, we've been through this a thousand times."

"I know, but I am giving a command to ask a question, and you are just repeating what I say."

"Ask me who's your daddy."

"NO NO NO! Look, if I said to you... I want you to ask me a question. Let's say you want to know what time it is. And I say, Mrs. Flusher, I want YOU to ask ME the question, what time is it - what words would you say to me to ask me that question?"

"It's 6:30. Now SHUT THE FUCK UP AND DEAL."

I kept playing.

And things were really going nicely, I was floating along, not losing too much, enjoying life again. There's no dramatic way to say it, I held a couple of Aces and was gobsmacked to see the other two of 'em, PLUS the kicker, pop up.


A swift, and much needed $500 win, and just like that I was back! In fact, up a little bit - $115 - on the day, and beating the casinos!

After this marathon 3 hour session we cashed out and headed upstairs at the Fitz to enjoy their Flusher-legendary freshly made 'The Colonel can go fuck himself, this is the best fried chicken I've ever tasted' fried chicken.

Hmmm, now that I think about it, Du-Par's specialty should be renamed the 'Aunt Jemima can go fuck herself' pancakes.

We bought some Keno tickets to watch while we ate, and hit up the bar for a few rounds and some quick VP and then headed back to our table just as the steaming, juicy, deep fried chicken arrived. It was fabulous as usual and didn't cost a dime - we used two of our FREE MEAT for four-of-a-kind coupons for the meal.
 'The Colonel can go fuck himself, this is the best fried chicken I've ever tasted' fried chicken
Back at Main Street Station to finish out the night, we played various things, and Mrs. Flusher took a regular back alley beating on triple play. I had a decent craps session, buying in for $100, getting on a heater which took me up to about $180, but then having some stiff hands rolling me back down. There's nothing worse than stiff hands at a craps table. Cashed out a thrilling $12 profit.

In spite of the big video poker hands we'd had, Mrs. F didn't feel she was doing too well this day. But she didn't really know exactly how much she was down.

And in fact, the planned marathon of high stakes play on her birthday had been postponed due to her luck not being good. Maybe this was wise.

Just before retiring, she decided she better do at least some high stakes play and opted for $100 in a $2 machine - $10 a hand video poker. The woman got on a really nice little run, hitting some fulls house, and some straights straight, and ran that sucker up to $300 plus in credits, and then cashed out at an even $300 for a $200 profit. Nicely done.

Back in the room we did the accounting. Without the last win, Mrs. F would have been down over a grand on the day. As it was, she finished down $-820 - the single worst daily loss either of us have ever sustained, I think.

And for myself, I managed a moral victory - an entire day of gambling, drinking, in-bad-taste magazine gifts, and fuck yourself pancakes and chicken - and broke even.

To me, that's a win.