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Friday, January 10, 2014

Spirit of Savvy - Got the Spirit, Where's the Savvy?

Jan 10, 2014 With the rescheduled flights due to the Polaroid Vortex in Toronto, this would be our last full day in Vegas.

If you've been reading along, you'll know that we have suffered quite a bit of 'negative variance'.

However... while I was stuck in the room on the phone with the Royal Canadian Veeblefetzer plant back in Flusherville, ON, where I spend my days in a soul-crushing grommet production job, spewing out rubber disks to keep The Man off my back, Mrs. Flusher... the Quad Queen.... was busy having one of the most amazing parlay streaks ever seen.

See for yourself!

 



By now she is up to 605 credits.
Parlayed to five-play.

Up to 1630 quarters, parlay to ten-play!
 




Over the top with 4020 quarters.
Yup, she pushed the parlay up to $1000. Pretty savvy parlaying if you ask me. Thirteen quads I think she said, so thirteen scratch cards on top of it.


We had to see the host about some things (get our room rates picked up for the nights that were not comped) and that's when I spotted Hello Kitty. Was this the lucky charm I'd been missing?

"I need to touch Hello Kitty!" I whispered to the Quad Queen.

"You are not going to ask that woman if you can touch her pussy," she replied, savvily.

We took it easy on the play today and in the evening, on what was to be my last session of the trip, my last hundred of the day - I know it sounds too storybook, but that's the way it happened - anyway, I had a moral victory to some degree:

Royal Flush by Royal Flusher
 


The day ended with us both having a winning day - first time this trip we'd managed it.

R.F. Up $600 day
Q.Q. Up $600 day

We did a little bit of play this morning with coffee and whatnot and in two hours the only quad I could muster was dealt to me.

That's pretty much it for this time around. We're off to the airport in half an hour and by tonight we will hopefully be home in Flusherville.

We learned a lot this trip with our increased bankroll and it will be interesting to see what happens to the offers.

When we played mostly quarters we usually had a target loss max of $300 a day. We pretty much hit that, around $270 a day. Not that you ever want to do that.

The upside is that we can claim back maybe $2400 in tax for last year, and we got quite a bit in comps and cashback.

We played through $145K at Cal/MSS/Fremont. Well over quarter million coin in for the trip, which is kind of scary. No wonder my fingers are sore!

Here's the comp list:

Comps $2,461
Four Queens room $300
Four Queens Fremont NYE Bracelets $80
Four Queens food $192
Four Queens cash back $325
Wynn freeplay $200
Wynn 1 room night $200
Four Queens Freeplay $120
Cal food vouchers $40
Cal Suite 3 nights $150
MSS Buffet same day comp $22
MSS Buffet same day comp again $22
Fremont Seafood buffet comp $40
Cal prime rib dinner comp $30
Cal/MSS/Fremont cash back (to come) $250
Cal room charges (4 nights, food, internet) $490

*updated - the Cal picked up all of our room charges according to our credit card statement.

There were lots of high points and fun this trip even if it was without a doubt the worst vacation we've ever taken, and one of the most expensive.

I'm grateful for the chance to expose my incredibly bad play to the world on this blog for your entertainment, and grateful that you take time to hopefully laugh along.

Next time will be even better and even savvier!

Royal Flusher

Updated December 2014 - I wish I had had the balls to keep solid records on this. With the perspective of a full year's worth of dollar play behind us, I have a better idea of the swings involved.

Based on a careful financial reconstruction under the guidance of Jimmy Poon and using my somewhat trusty Jonny Quest Big Button calculator, here are what I think the final results are:

Royal Flusher Trip: -$3244
Quad Queen Trip: $-425

Combined: -$3669




Thursday, January 9, 2014

Pyramid O' Creamer, the Irish Thespian

Jan 9, 2014 Spirit of Savvy - Part 12 - Wednesday

This is the day that never was, this is the time that that didn't exist, these are the events that were never born, these are the creamers, never stacked.

- Pyramid O'Creamer, Famed Irish Thespian

We should have been headed back home to the Canada we love. (We just don't love it in winter quite so much.)

I don't have a lot of hy-larious details to offer you today, we mostly just went through the same paces as the last few days without anything really interesting happening.

Our video poker play continued to be pretty horrid, on par with most of our sessions this trip. It was basically lose, lose, lose for most of the day with a few high spots here and there.

After losing sessions, we'd run back to the room with a $20 keno ticket and sulk and rest.

I asked one of the keno folks how many numbers was a good choice. She said she'd worked at keno for 32 years and in 32 years the highest number of spots she's ever seen come in is 10 out of 10. And that happened twice in 32 years.

There have been a few 9 out of 9s and lots of eight out of eights. But she recommends the 7 spot ticket as the best bet.

So that's what we've got for tonight.

The (incomplete) Royal Flusher Pyramid o' Creamers.
Mrs. F. got a quad on the old dollar 9/6 coin droppers at the Cal.I dumped $120 in 2 minutes. The quad pickings were really slim today and we had much unrewarding play.
 

I retaliated by shoving a $20 bill into some slot and hitting this for $100 - which I kept and gambled back later.


We did a round of triple play at MSS - I bailed early and played some blackjack, which I lost at. I took my last $20 in reds and played them one at a time on roulette. One of my bets came in, $5 straight up for $175.

Shout-outs to Beeejay (and Bond James Bond).
Lots of VP.
Comped steak dinner at 777. We had t-bones.


Maybe the best part of the day was when we took a few quarters and dollars we had left and played old school coin-dropper 9/6 quarter jacks uprights - just like the machines we cut our teeth on. These ones were set to double up after every win. This reminded me so much of the very first time I spent any time on nickle video poker at the Luxor, trying to double up. My record was to go from 5 nickels to 640, doubling each time.


Basically, the overall losing trend of this continued for pretty much all day. I think I had one quad in the morning, two on triple play, and the one pictured above on quarters.

It should be noted that any lucky charms we had didn't do shit. I think we need to find Hello Kitty and fast!

Still, we enjoyed the day in many ways and feel very lucky that we can be here to enjoy each other's company and to support the local economy while being reamed in the ass with gambling losses.

R.F. (I can't bear to look.)
Q.Q. (Ditto.)

Because I was supposed to be back at the plant making size 7 grommets tomorrow, I will have to spend a lot of time on the phone answer Norbert's stupid questions about maintaining the machinery on the grommet line.

Last time this happened all the guys pretended not to know how to tighten a loose bolt that was causing the grommets to come out all looking like W.C. Fields.

So I coached Norbert on a two hour search for the metric pliers needed to tighten the bolt.

In any case, I will be in the room most of the day tomorrow, on the phone, and not losing my shirt.




Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Polaroid Vortex Turbo Lucky Streak

Jan 8, 2014 Spirit of Savvy - Day 11 - Tuesday

Our last day in Vegas. (Or was it?...)

It's been a pretty crappy trip in many way and I had to really wonder if and when I would ever see another Royal Flush.

In fact, I got my last one on the first full day of the previous trip, so some 18 or 19 heavy play days had passed since I'd achieved The Hand.

We walked down the hallway to start our morning video poker sessions and I said, "Well, today's the day. Royal day."

"That's because there isn't any other day," replied the Quad Queen.

"Exactly! They're always one step ahead of us!!!"

My morning started as usual with nothing good happening but before long it became apparent that the Quad Queen was on a tear.

QQ Quad number 1.
QQ Quad number 2. Note it was dealt on the redeal after holding the Queen.

QQ Quad number 3. Dealt.
And finally, after she used the Strict Rules of Parlay (Queensbury variation) to move up to dollars...


Yes, after all the hours and hours of play, all the losing, all the close calls, she finally nailed a ROYAL FLUSH.

I felt a huge, huge weight lifted off my shoulders. This was part vindication of our approach, which is predicated on eventually getting Royals, of which we had had exactly fuck-all none doughnut goose egg. Until now.

You also get a free t-shirt when you hit a Royal at the Cal. She could now wear a head-to-to 'go anywhere' outfit provided entirely by the casino - a Cal hat, and a blue t-shirt.

Obligatory money on the bed photo.
Carrying on with our day, we did some triple play at Main St. Station and then had our traditional rest break (for the sickly and weak).

I checked out the news and flight status and found that the Polaroid Vortex had completely cluster-fucked Pearson airport. They'd closed Pearson because, according to officials, "it was a bit nippy out there, and some of our ground crew did not have sweaters."

This stranded people on planes for hours, and caused huge backlogs in luggage processing, not to mention canceled flights and such - SOP (standard operating procedure) for Air Fuck You Canada.

The savvy thing to do in this case was to confirm that we could rebook our flights online without any penalties (confirmed) and rebook for Friday (rebooked).

As if being stuck in Vegas an extra 2 days is not punishment enough, there may be a looming Velveeta cheese shortage. Crikey!!!

Later, at the Fremont, where we went to play, weirdnesses continued. We sat down to play some Pick'em and heard the 'happy music' coming from the other side of the bank.

"Hit something good?" I shouted to the woman I'd seen settling in to play video keno.

"Hand pay," she replied.

Yes, it was a hand pay all right. But one I'd never seen the likes of before.



Someone trundled over, paid her a penny, and shut off the 'happy music'.


Mrs. Flusher continued her lucky streak hitting a straight flush on Pick'em for $300 less a quarter.

We tried some other stuff - I continued to lose of course until I had a moment on good ole dollar Boner Deluxe.

Dollar Boner Deluxe Quad for the R.F.
I rustled up grub - same-day comp seafood buffet - and we ate crab legs and about six cheesecakes each. Why? Why not!

They label the cheese for your convenience. In case you don't know what sliced cheese is.
We did some triple play and this and that at the Fremont and we were getting very close to another of our goals for this trip - to get my card up to Emerald status.

The last of the Quad Queen's turbo luck streak.

Luck did finally turned for the Quad Queen and I started my usual slow slide into an unrecoverable losing day.

Another weirdness. Never seen this display issue before on a VP machine.
We had more points to get so after a brief refresh in the room (this coughing 48,184 times a day tires one out) we did the final march on triple and five play quarters at MSS.

It ate quite a bit of dough with no wins but I now own a couple of shiny new Emerald cards that I can use to skip the lines at the Cal coffee shop with and up my bonus point return from 0.2% to a staggering 0.3%

Q.Q. up on the day $3200 (would have been more, but taxes withheld on the $4K, don't forget).
R.F. down on the day around $500. What else is new.

Down on the trip a low quality beater used car.




Tuesday, January 7, 2014

MGM Grand Lion's Share Progressive Slot!

Jan 7, 2014 Spirit of Savvy - Day 9 - Monday


The Cal casino in the morning. The attentive cocktail waitresses bringing freshly brewed coffee, the gentle chiming of winning machines, and the World War Three roar of the new enemy of the people, the carpet Zamboni.

This machine seems to resurface the carpet and is self propelled, with, I think, the same Pratt and Whitney J-2 turbofan jet engine as my brother-in-law's Megalon Ultra-Fryer employs.


We played some and again, I had trouble getting much at the Cal in the morning. I did get another 'almost' Loser Flush though.



 Triple Play at MSS was more fruitful and included this nice dealt set of Deuces.


The day was unfolding in a less dramatic fashion than others, but I had an idea. It was time to hit MGM and the Legendary Lion's Share Longshot Progressive.

But first, a trip to the Peppermill for lunch.



The Quad Queen had a burger with sweet potato fries. She said it was absolutely delicious.


I had a Philly Cheesesteak and rings. I said it was absolutely delicious.


Server Crystal, with gum.
The Peppermill is old school Vegas and it seemed right for a bash at the Lion's Share. Here's the Fireside Lounge, which looks like a great place to hang out and pretend to be color blind.


Just as we were about ready to leave, the guys opposite got up and one of them dropped something on the carpet. It rolled right to me and settled at my feet. A $25 chip.

"Hey buddy!" I said to the guy, and returned the chip. He said thanks and off they went.

"Twenty five dollar chip. Maybe that will change our luck," I said to the Queen.

"Maybe."

"You gotta do the right thing though. He was right there..."

"Yeah. You gotta do the right thing. Maybe he dropped more of them."

"Let's not look until they are out of the parking lot!" I responded, savvily.

Sated, and unable to find more lost chips, we scooted down to MGM, self parked, and found the Lion's Share right where I'd left it last time, still ringing up higher and, fortunately, unoccupied.

This 20 year old machine, because it is part of a progressive, can't be taken from the MGM Grand casino floor until the prize is won. It's been sitting, by itself, the last standing member of what was once a bank of machines, for years. You win the progressive of two million dollars plus, you get to keep the machine.

Jackpot as of January 7, 2014.
She's 20 years old now!!!

We put in $101 each for a total of (wait for it...) $202. And we bashed away for all of 20 minutes. We had two hits of $60 but that was all and before long, the $202, along with our dreams of $2.3 million, were shattered.

We played $100 each in the high limit room and I lost all mine. Mrs. F cashed out $170, so she did okay at MGM.

Time to haul ass back downtown, drop the QQ off at the Cal, and return the rental, but not before buying gas at the Fort Chevron, just a few blocks from Fremont, where barricading the booth jockey includes pill box like fortifications, two roof mounted 50 cal. machine guns, and various tank traps and incendiary devices. Things must be kind of tough in that neighborhood.

I slipped my bucks through a little slit in the stationary tank 'booth' and pumped my gas without losing life or limb.

Car returned, I headed back to the Cal. We rested up and repeated last night's shenanigans.

Play triple play, get scratch cards, drink whiskey, get comp buffet (fortunately without any Mambo Hamburgler incidents), roll up the coin in.

I relaxed and just enjoyed the play and didn't worry about the money.


Did any Royals show? No. But we did get $49 in scratch cards. The Quad Queen was in fine form and at one point, she'd hit 15 quads to my 2.

We did maybe $25K in coin in and as for the Royal, we had lots of time for that - with one day left in our trip.

R.F. Up great meals, whiskey and experiences, down blah-blah dollars on the day.
Q.Q. Ditto but didn't lose as much as me.

Trip: down a high quality used automobile

Note to self - rename this blog post something along the lines of  'Loin's Share and Peckermill'.