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Friday, October 24, 2014

Las Vegas Trip Reports by the Pantload

I've been writing trip reports for quite a while now, and it wasn't always easy to figure out what was where or read back through a trip... well, be frustrated no longer! It's now easier than slipping a twenty dollar bill into a video poker machine and watching it go up in smoke to read all the thrilling and degenerate content on this site!

Here's where you can find the chronological index of all the trip reports posted here on Las Vegas the Royal Flusher Way.





Saturday, October 4, 2014

Cavalcade of Disappointment!

I didn't post these throughout the trip report, but it's kind of interesting in a horror-show kind of way.

The Quad Queen says one or two hands make or break a trip. I think she's right. I get one of these, especially a two-dollar Royal, and it's a completely different result.

Anyway, here are the close calls.

One card off $8000.



Heart-lurcher.




















As far as wins go, I had one for $500, one for $400, one for $250, four for $200, one for $175, a couple of $150s. The rest were all $125 or less.

Over 13 days that is not going to be a winning trip. On the other hand though, I have these pens which are worth $670 each.



Jimmy Poon says: Did you enjoy the trip report? There are lots more here: Trip Report Index
 






Business Class Pack-Rat

Day 13 - Tuesday July 29, 2014

It's weird when you are on a tilt bender dumper humper degen losing streak. Everywhere you turn, you see signs. Signs of the gambling gods. Are they feeling helpful? Are they ready to smite you a mighty blow in your bankroll? Are they going to cut you a break or crap down your neck?

Everywhere I turned there were clear and distinct signs.

Breakfast, the venerable Magnolia's favorite - country fried steak and eggs with plenty of Country Throw-up Gravy - and also some strawberries. Because comped.
That oughta settle the pre-flight jitters.
They overdid the whipped cream.
Kenny-style!
Or maybe not - after scoffing at the portion… I ate all of it.
At least my room and food were covered.
Time to get my cashback, bid the Seventies Stag Suite goodbye, and check out of the Four Queens.
Why is this hole in the marble top of the endtable?
I got $78 cashback and thought…. Just one little lucky twenty on dollar Jacks before I go.

I got two quads, and got to play for a while, another last gasp chance at a dollar Royal.


It wasn’t to be but I savvily cashed out at $100 - profiting $80 on the play. That was a good place to leave it at.



That’s why I played another lucky twenty at the Grand. And hey, I ended up playing for a full hour on 50 cent Bonus Poker.

Checked out of the Grand - the match play coupons were still nowhere to be found. I gassed up the rental on the way to the drop-off, dumped the car in Avis’ very efficient dump-off area. It’s about a one minute transaction and then you’re outta that hole and back up on the street.

Shuttle to the airport, check in, run the security gamut, etc. Pick up duty free. The usual. I played a few twenties at the airport in my usual last-gasp display of ultimate gambling desperation.

And then, finally, it was over. There was nothing left, no more play, no more chances. It was in the books, and I'd gotten my ass kicked all over Vegas, and did not get a Royal Flush on this trip.

The nice part of the day was business class for the trip to Toronto. At least I had that.
Bye bye Vegas...

The young woman next to me was one of those pack-rat people. She had about 67 different carry on bags, purses, shopping bags, a knapsack.
And she kept pulling out things to eat. Little crackers. Half a sandwich.

She turned her nose up at the meal provided - not to her liking. I said ‘hey that’s too bad’ and she said, not a problem. And honest to Jimmy Poon, she pulled out a pizza box from somewhere with half a pizza in it.

It was the damnedest thing. In any case, I greatly enjoyed my business class meal.
Welcome a Broad!

Toronto came and went, and then the recently restored and overhauled Reapertech Airstream II Cannonball Express Bi-Motor Switchcraft 44A etc. etc. etc. flight home to Flusherville.
No trip to Vegas is guaranteed to be a winner and no trip to Vegas is predictable in any way.

Every time I figure I learn something else about how to get more out of Vegas than it gets out of me. This time, I seemed to have forgotten all those lessons. Or I was unlucky. Or both.

In a sense, how you deal with the ups and down of gambling is a microcosm for how you approach life (and in some cases it supercedes it, for those gambling over their head, which I never do).

Are you going to look at the positives? Get stuck on the negatives? Stay optimistic or become depressed? Are you able to enjoy what life gives you in the moment regardless of what has happened up to this point in the trip? Think of that in the bigger sense, and it is like life itself - can you carp the diem and live today, not yesterday, not tomorrow?

That last night at the Grand, I found a way to just enjoy what I was doing, nevermind the dizzying losses I'd endured.

All these things keep it fascinating for me, and I keep going back over and over to try to get it 'right'. It's a beautiful puzzle that I never tire of.

This trip report was hard to write. I hope it was entertaining. Clearly, sometimes things don’t work out the way you want.

I decided I wouldn’t post any of the report until it was all written, because I didn’t much feel like writing parts of it. And that turned out to be a good strategy, because it took six weeks plus to bang this sucker out.

And having posted it all, and having had to review it all and paste the pictures in, I can see that actually, there were many happy moments offsetting the not so happy moments.

Now, Evel Knievel said after crashing, “I will never… ever…. do another motorcycle jump...” or words to that effect.

I now say, “I will never… ever… do another trip to Vegas.”

Evel did jump again though, in fact it didn't take long.

And I am sooo full of it.

Final

Royal Flusher: Day $-00 Trip $-4610
Q.Q. (by proxy): Trip: $-300


Financial Spin

And now for the financial spin that is a sad attempt to virtually reduce the loss of ridiculous amounts of gambling bankroll!

Comps
California 3 nights 150
California Meals 100
2nd Street Grille Comp 100
California Cashback 78
Encore one night free 109
Encore Freeplay 100
Encore Pointplay 25
Mandalay Bay 3 nights 300
Mandalay Bay Resort Credit 75
Mandalay Bay Meals 100
Four Queens Room 150
Four Queens Meals 300
Four Queens Freeplay 300
Downtown Grand Room n/a
Downtown Grand Room Freeplay 50
Downtown Grand Pointplay 20
Four Queens Cashback 78
Air FU Canada Rouge Business Class Upgrade 450
Total Comps $2,485

So, my gambling losses were offset by almost $2500 in comps. That leaves $2160 gambling losses, plus car ($300) plus airfare ($800) plus tips and miscellaneous ($300).

Total $3710 for 13 days, or $273 a day all in.

Man I must have had a good time!

What was wrong with Kenny Blankenship?

Poor Kenny picked up food poisoning the night before flying to Vegas. It manifested itself in an odd way, and I think this was compounded by dehydration. In fact, the dehydration probably caused the worst symptoms, which he had the last couple of days. Kenny tells me that he's had a prior episode similar to this - in Mexico of all places.

I felt just terrible for him all that time, and all our fun together went down the drain. Who knows, maybe there is a Kenny II trip coming someday.

The good news is, he is just fine and hasn't lost any body parts on the grommet line lately.

Will there ever be another Royal Flusher Trip Report?

The next trip will include the Quad Queen… for luck. I’ll see you then.

For now, it's back to the grind at Royal Canadian Veeblefetzer, cranking out those size 7 grommets. Make sure you tell your degen friends about the blog, and thanks for reading.

R.F.


Hey, we're not quite done... there's always the Cavalcade of Disappointment!


Jimmy Poon says: Did you enjoy the trip report? There are lots more here: Trip Report Index
 






Royal Flusher Dollar Jacks Expeditionary Force

"Don't take a marker."       "Don't listen to him! Take a BIG MARKER!"
The Downtown Grand awards slot tournament entries and I’ve been playing those like crazy. I had a couple on my account and started the day honing my two handed screen tapping technique - whilst spinning the reels, you also have to shoot little point-bearing duckies that appear across the top of the screen.

Do you honestly think I could win one of these by having the highest score of the day?

I actually managed to get on the board once - eighth place for a time, a measly 10,000 points short of the leader, who had 49,000 and change.


I replenished the Flusher coffers by taking the long, long walk of shame to Main Street Station.
I was really saddened to see the reckless abandon with which living palm trees outside the Vegas Club had been scythed down in the name of... new sidewalks or something? It reminded me of my scythed-down gambling self esteem.

At Main Street Station, I took a marker for $1000. I even played a bit, without my card of course. On the walk back to the Grand I scoured my memory to see what free play I might have that I could use. I scoured deep into every synapse, examining every bit of memorized useful info that I possess. This took about 12 seconds.

I played at the Grand quite a bit, and then headed to the Four Queens for day three of the Royal Flusher Dollar Jacks Expeditionary Force - also known those with ‘street cred’ as the Cavalcade of Disappointment. Breakfast at Magnolia’s again, of course. Reliable and always delish.

Well, I did manage to hit my day three goal, but it cost me. I had three quads and lost $500.

Of course its fucking Aces kicker on Jacks. Of course it is.
Of course its fucking sevens with 10 kicker on Jacks. Of course... oh nevermind. That makes no sense at all.
My favorite street entertainer on Fremont. Steel Drum player.
Forty bucks disappeared at the El Cortez, and then I hit Le Thai for lunch, one of the more successful endeavors of the day.
Back at the Grand, I noticed the Double Double progressive was at $785 for Aces Kicker and $1179 for the Royal, so I chased that for a while.

This was my last full day in Vegas, and it was ending with a whimper. I reflected on the events of the trip and took an inventory of how much I had enjoyed it and how much had been gambling torment. Right now, the good was outweighing the bad, but I was pretty spooked at what was shaping up to be my second worst trip ever - and the fact that the two worst trips were both in the last three trips.

I felt like I’d lost savvy and reverted to degenerate.

I also reflected that this whole time I hadn’t really played blackjack or craps. What the hell???!!! Those games often provided wins which subsidized my video poker losses. Maybe this is the key for next time.

Upshot - I lost $100 at craps, roulette, and blackjack.

TIme to regroup. I had some business with Air Fuckyou Canada, changing my meal preference. And I had to check in online and all that crap.

After the break, I went at it a little more with a bit of success - the goal now was to see if I could just manage to enjoy myself. When Vegas is over, it’s over and it was my last day.

For dinner I thought I’d get a keno ticket and order the best steak Magnolia’s serves.
Breakneck Keno Action at the Four Queens Keno lounge.
For some reason, the server, who I didn’t recognize, seemed to think it would be a good idea for me to have something else. He kept pushing this prime rib thing saying how good it was and that it was much more to eat for less money than the steak.

I flashed the VIP passport at him - the price didn’t matter.  I think he was honestly trying to do me a favor but I wasn't in any mood to do anything but be easygoing and say 'sure, whatever'.

I gave in, and ended up screwing up my last dinner in Vegas.

I ended up with the most incredible, sickening, Fred Flintstone, Old 96’er slab of prime rib… an amount of meat that nobody should ever eat at one go - because it was bigger than my head.

Don't get me wrong, it was delicious - for the first 73 bites, but good God, who thought a slab of animal the size of a truck tire was a smart thing to consume, unless you are a Neanderthal?

Table for Stupid? Right this way sir.

I did my best and resigned myself to the fact that I’d ordered it - and nobody else. Live and learn.

One moment of weakness around self-esteem and degeneracy and I end up with the Woolly Mammoth cut.

My keno numbers lost of course, and back at the Grand, the Aces had been hit. I even came across the machine that they hit on. I was going to play it.

And then I didn’t. I just went up to my room and watched Ramsay yell at people.

I’d gone through most of my marker and was now in preservation mode again, needing to keep some cash on hand for the trip home.

Royal Flusher: Day $-900 Trip $-4610