RSS findIndex trimsentences createcard

gridCSS

AdCode

createItems and other JavaScript code

Item Render Code


Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Hip Checked by Luck

Dec 31, 2013 - There's nothing like losing a couple of thousand between you and then deciding that pizza would make it all better.

Chicago Brewing Company makes a good disk, and I tried their home brewed root beer for the first time. It was delicious, easily the nicest root beer I've ever tasted. Holy crap is it good!


The pizza was outstanding too.

We talked it over - what to do, what to write about... It's pretty hard to write down what a degen day we'd had and put it out there in public on the blog... but I have to man up and call it like it is.

Otherwise, what's the point?

We regrouped and decided we'd keep treating our bankroll like a long term bankroll, and not a daily bankroll.

That meant the walk of shame to cash more traveler's checks.

Holy shit was this BAD.

So we did, and I begged the cashier to give me my $400 as all twenties. And the Queen saw the wisdom in this and did the same.

We sat down at the Jacks machine.

"50 cent Jacks. Strict rules of Parlay," I proposed.

"Sounds good."

And we started playing, and thank goodness, the Quad Queen finally found some luck and I finally found a bit of luck too, getting a quad on the parlay and another playing degen Triple Bonus Poker Fucker Chaser Plus.




The Queen got another one too.


I had to go get the rental car from Avis (upgraded to an SUV because there weren't any other cars). Got that done and we kind of decided this would be a good time for a room break.

But I went up with $530, $130 more than the last-ditch traveller's checks $400.

I lay down and imagined Mr. Four Queens and Mr. Smug Nugget spreading our hundies on their beds in neat little rows and tweeting pictures of them and saying "Look how savvy we are!!!"

I got an email from Tomflush, a guy who knows about 3,000 times more about video poker strategy than I do. That's why I make it part of my strategy to be lucky.

And that's why on days like today, lucky fails if there ain't no lucky luck.

We met down in the casino for a beer and some Hundy play and traded trade secrets. It's always great to meet a knowledgeable player and a nice guy to boot.

So exciting to cash out $2.80!!! THANKS FOR PLAYING!
I lost $60 or $80 on Hundy play and the Quad Queen lost about double that. We wandered off trying to figure where our luck was and came across the good ole short pay Boner Deluxe machines. Of course!!!

I'd hit a few Boner Deluxe quads and be right back in it!

I played a 20 on 50 cent Boner, and then another 20. It lost too. I stood, got my gambling wallet out, took out another 20 and shoved it into the Boner Deluxe maw.

And I played like the wind and before long BAM! I'd hit four 7s for 400 credits!!! Except it wasn't 400 credits, it was 250. The fucking machine, in the 3 seconds it took me to fish another 20 out and cram it up the virgin bill acceptor ass of the machine (and maybe that's why) it changed games on me to Super Short Pay Fuck You Flusher Double Double Bonus Poker.


So I got 250 credits, not 400. For some reason this riled me, even though any win is a good win.

I cashed out the ticket and started again. Strict Rules of Parlay.

And what do you know, I did manage to get another quad - and it was dealt to me. What uncanny luck to have so many dealt quads in one day!!


Meanwhile Mrs. Flusher was on the 'race to zero' and was basically taking twenty dollar bills and throwing them into the air over her shoulder. Not really, but the end result was the same. The poor woman was really getting hip-checked by luck.

"You're getting hip-checked by luck," I said.

"That would make a snappy blog title," she said.

We finished our budget death-vigil on the Jacks machines, playing the Strict Rules of Parlay. I'd had a few beers and was doing okay, and even got a quad (YET ANOTHER DEALT QUAD!!!) and parlayed up to dollar play.


Meanwhile, the Quadless Queen's money ran out.

I got a quad on dollars and played away for quite a while, staying pretty much at the same credit level. I played for maybe an hour. this felt good to me. It seemed more normal. Then, the machine dive bombed to zero.


At the bar, my last two 20s in cash went into quarter Double Double. I was dealt my fourth four-to-a-Royal for the trip - with no success at getting the mysterious elusive fifth-to-a-Royal card. (I'd been keeping some cash-out tickets and playing my stake a 20 at a time. It worked.)

Foregoing the offer of some of Tomflush's Chicago style Deep Dish Pizza, I headed up, weary, to the room.

And hey, I had $50 more in my wallet than when I cashed the traveller's checks. I guess that's something to be proud of, like you might be proud of dropping your toast on the floor and having it fall butter side up instead of butter side down.

The final numbers are pretty ugly.

This was the single worst day we've ever had in 17 years of coming to Vegas.

Not very fucking savvy at all.

R.F. down $1050 on the day, down $1200 on the trip $10,448 coin in for the day at Four Queens, total $30,368 coin in
Q.Q. down $1250 on the day, down $2150 on the trip $5600 coin in for the day at Four Queens

That's a $3350 combined loss for the trip. But think of it another way. If we were playing quarters, that would be less than $850, which would be just fine, wouldn't it?

And look at it another way, a $1200 loss for me on $30,368 coin in is 96.65% return. All that's missing is a Royal.

Except we're not playing quarters. And we have no Royal.

And we are getting killed.




High Limit, Buy Limit

Dec 31, 2013 Spirit of Savvy - Day 3 - Monday - Continued

I licked one of my lips (the upper one). Then I licked the lower lip. Then I scuffed my toe into the dirt and applied some pine tar to my professional video poker player gloves.

Before drawing for the kicker.
I waited until the prevailing breeze swung around to the direction I wanted and visualized my credit counter going through the uprights.

"Okay, here goes..." I said, and pressed the Draw button.

Yay me! Got it!!!
And yes, I got the much needed 2, and my win went to $400. All of a sudden I was alive again.

What a relief it was!

We went and ate breakfast at Magnolia's and it was delish. We had the waitress that calls me 'baby' so I call her 'baby' back.

"Some more coffee, baby?"

"Yes please, baby!"

"Here you go baby."

Like that.

Anyhoo, instead of being tapped out, I had $400 to play. And I'd play very carefully, having learned my lesson.

We played more dollar Jacks and I took a flyer on a Very Horrible Triple Bonus Fucker Plus game. (Please don't ream on me for playing this horrid paytable! I already have the punishment I deserve!)


Had some luck with it getting a quad, but blew it all back on dollar Jacks. You'll note the only two quads I had at this point were dealt quads.

Because Mercy.

By the time we went to the Golden Nugget, I had no money left.

Did your jaw just drop like Miley Cyrus's pants?

Yes, that's right. I'd gone to the Mikes bar and played $100 in Double Double quarters, and $200 in 50 cent. And somewhere along the way I'd been waylaid and forced - FORCED! - against my will, to dump $100 in a Double Diamond slot. Boy was that a laff riot.

Anyway, $300 gone again into VP with nary a quad. It was as if the taps had been turned off.

Now, I kept reminding myself, if we are playing at higher denoms, the swings are going to be much larger than we are used to. Easy to say, hard to accept on the negative kick-in-the-nuts swings.

So anyway, did I mention the Nugget? Where we thought it would be a good idea to 'test' out our line there and take a $500 marker? And how at the last second the Quad Queen blurted out '$1000'?

Okay, so we played responsibly, good old fashion dollar play, starting with Super Times Pay, where I accidentally hit 'Bet Max' and played 10 lines at $6 a pop.

$60 hand of Video Poker.
Fuck me gently with a blow-up Bozo punching bag.

Needless to say, the reaming continued. We simply couldn't hit anything. For a real pant-load of laffs, we played $100 each in $5 9/6 Jacks at $25 a hand.

This is as close as we may ever get to a $20,000 Royal.

One card off $20K
It was still as if the VP world was tilted off its axis, and the machines just wouldn't play right. Hand after hand of nothing. I had like two fulls house the whole time at the Nugget.

This was now the single worst day of our entire Vegas career. Because most of our stakes from the day, and the thou from the Nugget, were gone.

And it wasn't over.





Monday, December 30, 2013

Great, kid... don't get cocky

Dec 30, 2013 Spirit of Savvy Trip - Day 3 - Monday
I had a good stake on the day ready to roll, lots of earned hundreds. I was feeling good about my rebound the night before and was in good shape for the trip. Maybe the dollar volatility beast would not bite us too badly.

We both slept pretty well and the Quad Queen headed down to the Four Queen's casino around 5:00 am while I worked on the blog post for yesterday. Without coffee, even!

The QQ had managed one quad (dealt) before I got there and when I went down, I felt confident about slipping hundies into dollar 9/6 Jacks. Low volatility, nobody gets hurt right?...

Wrong.

Okay, so we combined for a $250 loss in 7 minutes. This is what happens when you get shit hands and no quads, let alone fulls house let alone flushes or let alone straights. Or trips. Or pairs.

Regroup - try dollar Bonus Poker. I lost $100 in 48 hands. I found myself down $250 in a total of 12 minutes. Meanwhile, the Quad Queen needed a loan so I gave her $100.
Something wrong with this card reader...

We went up to the bar at the Chicago Brewing Company and played 50 cent Double Double.

"I'm down $350 and I haven't had breakfast yet! What's going on?" I whined.

"Same problem here... keep playing!"


This is where I went on tilt. I kept popping in hundred dollar bills and blowing through them on 50 cent Double Double. There were no quads to be found.

I put the last hundred I had into the machine and switched down to quarters. Where before I was confident - cocky, even, despite the repeated warnings of Han Solo - now I had the feeling of a lead bowling ball in my gut.

I played through about half the quarters and at least Mrs. F had managed to hit something. And then she managed a nice straight flush, the first for us on the trip.



She took off to 'run an errand' and I thought, fuck it, the only thing that is going to help me is a big hand and quarters isn't going to do it, unless it is a Royal.

Now, you have to understand that each hundred disappeared this morning for both of us like half the cards had been removed from the deck. It was hand after hand of drain, drain, drain.

I actually managed to go up a bit in credits and survived until she returned, which was a victory of sorts.

And then... out of the blue, as if the Gambling Gods were having mercy on me since I couldn't hit shit on my own, they threw a dealt quad my way. Four 4s.

And you know what THAT means!

I gazed upon my $200 hand and held the fours. Now I would have to draw the kicker A, 2, or 3 to make it a $400 hand.

Dealt 4s for $200, adding the kicker doubles it... what happened next???

To be continued...




Hurry Harder

Dec 30, 2013 Spirit of Savvy Trip - Day 2 - Sunday

Sunday, our first full day in Vegas! There were exotic places to go (Four Queens casino), things to do (gamble), things to see (video poker screens), wonderful experiences to be had, soaking in the local culture (gamble).

Mrs. F. started enriching her life at around 4:00 am, heading down to the 9/6 Jacks. I met her down there around 5:00 am with the last hundred dollar bill currently available that I had. A thin stake for the day but who knows, right?

And I went on a quad tear. (Quad King...???) I nailed five of 'em and two of 'em were dealt. Including the Aces on Jacks. But I had no complaints, because I won back the $300 loss from the night before and another $100 to boot.



QQ's
 


Aces on Jacks. I'll take it.
"This gambling stuff is easy!" I said, followed with, "It's so easy, I never have to worry about letting my guard down, because we'll always win from now on!!!"

"You said exactly the same thing last night before your day went into the dumper," the Quad Queen reminded me.

"Well, we'll see about that," I said uninterestingly.

Breakfast time in Vegas, but first, a little walkabout. We had some things to grab at Walgreens so we headed on down Fremont to the El Cortez to see if we had any freeplay. (None.)

Slotzilla is actually looking pretty good, looming over the end of the Fremont St. Experience. I'm still not keen on having drunk yahoos with iffy stomachs flying over my head while I walk the street but if people want to zip down steel cables, we shouldn't stand in the way of progress, now, should we.

Slotzilla Looms.
It seemed like a quick visit to the dollar cave was in order, so we played $100 each on the old coin droppers - the pair of machines with one Bonus Poker and one Double Double Bonus Poker. I took the DDB machine.

No quads ensued.

"Don't worry, this gambling stuff is easy..." I said.

We had breakfast at the coffee shop at the Elco. I still miss the counter they used to have, and the diner ambiance (and diner prices).

I had a waffle with four meat tubes and the Missus had slab o' Secretariat and eggs. Coffee and tea. It was acceptable but overpriced if you ask me. Came to $27. Fortunately, we had enough points and comp dollars on our cards to just cover the tab.

Walgreens provided the usual wonderful drugstore shopping experience it promises and we bought exciting things like shaving gel and nuts. (Write your own damn joke here.)

The weather outside was a little chilly I suppose, but we didn't bother with jackets - it felt like summer to us, compared to the icicle storm winter weather back home.

We did a session at the Mikes bar losing about $60 and $40 with no pictures to show for it.

"Two thirds of video poker sessions will be losers, right?" asked the Quadless (except for 1 so far today) Queen.

"Yeah, so?"

"It's amazing that we come here all this way to experience something that is going to disappoint us most of the time."

"Savvy observation, Quad Queen," I said.

Luck seeming to have abandoned us, we decided to play a little Bonus Poker. I played dollars and the QQ played 50 cent. She managed to bag four queens, appropriately.

I was missing the $25 QQQQ promotion they had last summer, I cleaned up on that thing.


I realized that I hadn't won anything since my morning session back on Jacks. In fact, I even had to borrow a hundy from the QQ.

Yes, I'd blown through all my winnings from the morning, and my day's stake of $100, and I was broke. Mrs. F was in a similar situation having blown through five or six hundred. Uh oh.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so we camped out in the room, eating Subway for lunch. It was actually pretty good. It had vegetables in, and they crunched. That's good, right?

The Picturesque View from Subway at the Four Queens.
Degen Lunch
While munching on my Subway I realized something very perturbing.

"Why are there no Curling themed slots?" I asked the QQ.

"Huh???"

"Curling, you know, on ice, with brooms and beer and shouting and stuff. Curling themed slots! You know, like Curler's Gold. Bonspiel Bonus. Rocks Off with the Hurry Harder option. I think it's the next big thing."

Curling is definitely underrated as a potential sports theme for slot machines. Are you listening IGT???

And so it was that we both did the walk of shame to the cage to cash some traveler's checks. They even fingerprinted us like felons.

We went at the dollar play again and you can guess how it went in the end. There were some quads, but nobody was keeping any dough.




Mrs F tried some 100 play pennies for some reason and I ambled to the bar. To get there, I ambled off my seat, ambled along the carpet by the cage, took an ambling left by the men's room, and ambled my ass to a bar stool, amblifically.

I played a bunch of bucks and got nothing. Mrs. F showed up so I moved over where we could sit side by side. Finally things started to happen for us. I put it down to good luck from talking to Charles from Texas.

We had a really interesting chat during which I got a very detailed Texas history lesson (the Alamo is not just a car rental company! Who knew??!!) and we also managed to solve the world's problems. We know just what to do. Unfortunately, drink may have dulled my memory of the brilliant solutions but take heart - they are in there somewhere, they are just in a coma for now.

We had a stellar session, as you can see below.

Aces... on Jacks progressive for the QQ.
Oh hell yeah! Dueces kicker on DDB for me! $270-something dollars.
 


His'n Hers Simu-Jacks. We both held the same two Jacks too. It was kind of weird.



QQ why you no play Doubly-Dub?!!!
 

Still feeling somewhat desperate though, we re-punished ourselves with vegetables. Yes, Subway a second time. I don't know why we both wanted it, but we did. Do they sprinkle opium in there? I hope so. Because it could be an inexpensive source of fresh veggies and opium, and tasty to boot.

The Quad Queen was down pretty hard and had had it for the day. But not me. I had a feeling...


So I went back to the dollar Jacks and played a hundy and got this very odd re-deal quad. It's the hardest way to get a quad that there is. Redeal into four spots instead of five.


Well, that was great. I decided to try Bonus again so headed over to the Blinding Uprights of the Keno Area.

And by gum, didn't I finish off the day with this little beauty? AAAA for $400. I had exactly $500 on the meter and I cashed it out and went to bed.

I'd totally salvaged my bankroll!

Four Aces, Four Hundred Beans
R.F. up $150 on the day, down $150 on the trip. $10,928 coin in for the day
Q.Q. down $700 on the day, down $900 on the trip.  $16,912 coin in for the day




Sunday, December 29, 2013

The Spirit of Savvy - Day 1, part 4

Dec 29, 2013 As we were coming in to land at McCarran, I changed the chip in my piPhone 3.14 to use Roam Mobility* again (which I now happily pay for). I also reflected that the four overly cologned twits in seats D,E,F and G had not stopped talking drivelous crap the entire five and a half hours we'd been on the plane. These pony boys talked more than 11-year-old schoolgirls.

No wonder they had seats DEF.

Wheels down, I checked my phone to see what time it was... 11:11. Could this be some sort of an omen? Where could I find a video poker machine that could deal quad 1s?

 

We'd set up with Presidential as usual, and the guy was there waiting. We'd booked a stretch limo - because you always want to arrive at the Four Queens in style.

In fact, limos can't even pull up to the front door at the FQ porte cochone, because it is so tiny.

In the stretch's place they sent an Escalade decked out in the latest pink and purple porno motif. I hopped in, we popped the champagne and I felt like I was Behind the Green Door, Pile Driving Miss Daisy.


We arrived - home at last! - and got our room assigned, but of course, it wasn't cleaned yet, since it was barely noon. So we had to ditch the luggage for later pickup. This gets pricey - $5 tip on drop-off and $5 tip on pick-up. But it had to be, because we had bidness!


And so, we embarked on the next part of our gambling journey, committing to the dollar jacks machines. The moments of truth were at hand and we would see if we could fade the variance. (That's gambling lingo for 'see if we would get fucked sideways or not').

We hung in there for a full hour without getting bent or hurt, (I got the first quad of the trip!) and then trundled off to Magnolias. I must continually remind readers that photographs of the country fried steak with throw-up gravy consistently look worse than they really are.


Chicken-fried steak with patented glue-like country throw-up gravy.

Magnolia's prides itself on its salad dressing portion sizes.

After lunch, we headed back to work at the Jacks.

I had to chuckle - after chiding Linda Boyd in my review of her book where she said 'it's not like they put signs up in the casino telling you where the better machines are' and I said 'oh yeah?' and posted a picture of the Four Queen's 'play 6/9 jacks here' signs - because those signs are gone. (They've since returned.)

They've re-done the carpeting in the place (as of last week) and so I guess the signs went away then.

The carpeting is beautiful. They've managed to find a weave that exactly matches the Four Queen's carefully concocted color scheme of gold, red, blue, white, purple, green, black, and magenta.

And now, the day's cavalcade of quads:







After two more hours - yes we survived! - of dollar Jacks, with lots of quads, we ambled over to the Mikes bar for a happy re-union.

Big Mike greeted me with one of his patented 6-way handshakes. I got mixed up partway through and ended up grabbing his ear by mistake. All those finger snaps and thumb twiddles and explosions and stuff in the fancy handshake get me all mixed up. I promised to practice for next time.

Our room was ready and we headed upstairs. It's a pretty standard Four Queens room, except less so, with crappy repairs, no fan in the bathroom, broken this and that in the bath and tile... I'm kind of getting tired of it.


Room service? That means an even larger vat o' dressing.

A quick accounting showed that after a combined 6 hours of dollar VP I was up $30 and the Quad Queen was up $200.

"This gambling stuff is easy!" I remarked, followed by, "It's so easy, I never have to worry about letting my guard down, because we'll always win from now on!!!"

After a rest for us weary travelers, we went back down to complete our target dollar play.

I had not one but two 'four-to-a-royal' draws - but obviously, I failed to press the button very well, or you'd have heard about it.

In fact, the last session sucked keno balls. When we finished our gambling day I was down $300 and the Queen down $200. You can get hurt fast on dollars if the quads and fulls house ain't showin'.

We consoled ourselves with room service for dinner (some sort of horrid chicken breast melt sandwich swiss fries thing for me and Cobb salad for her). The free downtown internet wasn't cutting it for uploading pictures of glue-covered meat and fours of a kind so I splurged and paid for net access. And did some blogging, which you read up on last night and this morning.

So that's where day 1 of the Spirit of Savvy ended.

R.F. down $300 trip on $4816 coin in
Q.Q. down $200 trip on $6048 coin in

*Roam Mobility went in the dumper, not recommended any longer.