Two Times is a Royal Charm - Part 2

Thursday continued...

Now where was the 'Royal' part of that last post? Huh? Huh?

First order of business after winning was to do something reallllly important - get my ass to the Cal and...

...be reunited with my Bonebook power suppy charger thingy!!! YES YES YES!! The host office had it stored away for me, just like they said. OMG life was all caramel corn and chili dogs, as we say in Flusherville when things are all going your way.

I was peckish (means hungry) but didn't want to ruin dinner, so I had a quick snack of a chili dog at the Cal snack bar. What a feast it was.

Foodies be damned, I ate this and, well, it didn't kill me. That's something.

Meanwhile back at the Nugget, the Quad Queen had run the dollar machines up to $400 and then promptly lost back half of it.

I kind of avoided playing the end machine, because I'd gotten a dollar Royal on it last year this time, and I wasn't one of those superstitious nincompoops who has a 'lucky' machine. If fact, I felt like I'd sucked all the Royalness out of that machine already. So I played the one next to it.

$20. In. And in a minute or so it was gone.

So I tried another $20. Drilling test holes, you know. And it went a bit better but dumpered.

What the heck, I tried the end one. Put $20 in. Played a few hands and was getting a few wins, this and that. And then I was dealt, as one often is, three to a royal. Hearts. I watched the needed cards fill in and then the bass line starts with an ascending pickup to the main melody of the Happy Video Poker Orgasm Song with its walking bass that I often sing when times are rough and people are looking at me like I am strange.

"Got it!"

And I had. Finally, after almost a year of struggle, my latest Royal and, actually, my best, a progressive beauty of $4168 or so.

Fuck YEAH!!!!!!

It took them 25 minutes to pay me (less 30%, rat bastard IRS) but I still tipped them. Why not.

I was already having a great trip and this just blew it wide open. I can't tell you how relieved I was. Well, maybe I can. Imagine a ten ton anvil swinging from your dick for a year and all of a sudden it is removed (anvil). If you don't have a dick, you'll have to use your imagination for the dick part - ten ton anvils are a dime a dozen these days, when it comes to imagined self-generated anxiety and stress.

We made a deposit in the safe in the room (boy did it feel good to be stuffing the little envelope with hundies) and headed out on walkabout to the Four Queens, where we had a date with dinner.

Chicago Brewing Company at the Four Queens

Who wants pizza?

Right after dinner, Blonde4Ever and Kodidog tracked us down at the entrance to the restaurant. We had a happy reunion and headed to Binions for some drinks and video poker.

We occupied a bank of 4 machines and got caught up, having a great ole time. The Quad Queen was still struggling, but hit for $500 and that helped a lot.

Now THAT's a phone case. 

QQ.

QQ.

I had one in there somewhere and forgot a picture.

We headed back to the Nugget so we could sit and hear the band playing at the Rush lounge, and play 8/5 Bonus Quarters. The band played a lot of rockabilly, and a smattering of older pop tunes. They were pretty good. Didn't catch the name.

And just to finish off a great day, we got His 'n Her's Four Pointies.

RF: Day: +$2920 Trip: +$4930
QQ: Day: -$400 Trip: -$1870
Combined: +$3060

Two Times is a Royal Charm

Thursday October 29, 2015 - Day 8

The Golden Nugget has been throwing very consistent offers our way. Generally 3 or 4 nights and $75 or $100 free play each. I haven't maxed out my play here to $10K a day because the machines are lower paying than most of the rest of downtown. I think I am hitting more like $5K to $7K a day. But it seems to be enough and the extra percent or two of house edge is a cost that, to me, is worth it for staying at the best property downtown. The price of fancy light fixtures, a real pool, and plumbing that works...

We packed up the house in Laughlin - we managed to eat most of the fine Hole Foods food we brought, which I am proud of. I hate wasting food. It was about a three hour trip back to Vegas, very interesting drive, with some long stretches where you could see for miles.

I had to laugh - it was raining on the solar farm. Ha Ha Ha, I went. Ha Ha Ha.

At least 24 miles, actually, by my calculations. We'd pick out a mountain in the distance and time how long it would take to get there. And it would be like 19, 20 minutes of driving.

I took a minor wrong turn just outside of Vegas and ended up at someone's private driveway which led to, I surmise, a house named Cascata. I wonder whose it is.

The Golden Nugget was right where I left it, and we pulled up, valeted, handing the Chrysler 300 Grandpa de Ville and three bucks to the guy, and hauling all our crap in, which consisted of two full suitcases, CPAP case, carry-on, bag of half-finished liquor, and 5 partially consumed bags of potato chips of various flavors and colors. Basically, yer life-sustaining room camping supplies.

We got settled in to the Nugget and poured a couple of travellers - we'd earned it after such a hot dusty cross-desert trek - and headed down to (where else) the casino.

The triple play machines by the Grotto beckoned, so we engaged them in an act of war, using our free play reserves as cannon fodder.

THARTED FROM FREEPLAY

For some reason, we both had to reset our numerical PIN numeros de PIN Numbers. (Or 'PINs'. Savvy peeps get this.) I suspect that the Nugget had a major security breach in which offshore terrorists 'harvested' thousands upon thousands of Nugget PINs, all of which ended up being "1 2 3 4". The Quad Queen burned through hers, and I played $50 through on Boner Pokus.

With the last portion, I switched to what is extremely sickening short-pay Double Double Bonus - 7/5 (ESSDDB). This is a full 3% costly than 9/6 and 5% than the 10/7 which hardly exists anywhere anymore.

First of all, don't judge me.

No don't. Don't message me or email me and say 'oh don't you know there are better games 12 minutes walk away at the El Cortez'.

And I agree with you, I should always play the best paytables available. And so should you.

I know this, but its the heat of battle. I have just arrived, or I am doing whatever I'm doing, I have a nice drink beside me, and I decide I want to play DDB and so the choice is ESSDDB.

The mitigating factor in all of this is a) it is extremely short term play, and b) I have gotten on some crazy quad runs on these various machines, more than once. And when that is happening on ESSDDB, it doesn't matter that the full house doesn't pay right. Because quads.

And that's what I was hoping for, lots and lots of 'em.

Who doesn't love a bride in Vegas?

I got things off to a great start nailing quad Aces for $200 from three.

 Played on for a while and then a weird thing happened. I held a King and got four Queens. Which means that you shouldn't waste your time holding a King's thing when Queens abound around.

Quad Queen does the Jacks her way.

I was very happy with the result of my freeplay and cashed out $202.50. WOOHOO! But I wasn't done yet. I decided to go for it and shoved $100 of my very own dollars into the machine's hungry maw.

First hand on my $100 I was dealt three Kings outta the gate, and nailed one.

Now we were cooking!

I wasn't done.

 In a very, very weird stroke of luck, I again held a lone King and ended up with a quad of a different card - this time Four Aces for $200. Oh yeah, baby.

 What was with the Kings? I don't know. But I got some more of them to top things off.

I played a bit more and then cashed out and went up the room to take care of some things while the Quad Queen tried her hand on dollar Jacks or Better in the hallway by the Hand of God gold nugget.

What a great start to the afternoon I'd had!!!

But, as the great Irish writer Forescin O'Shadow would have said, the best o' the day was yet unseen and yet undone, and you should expect soon that some stuff would happen that I not be telling just here, but will tell soon enough, in the next installment, and that you should be interested but kind of go along with the idea that you don't really know what's going to happen next - but believe me, its fucking o'great.

And I'm pretty sure he said it just the way I typed it, with an Irish lilt and little green suspenders.

Ghosts of Route 66

We hit the road and I mentioned that I'd seen a number of signs for old US Route 66, the fabled transcontinental two lane (and sometimes one lane) highway. I determined to go have a look see and we found ourselves on one of the longest remaining and storied stretches of two-lane blacktop you've ever seen.

Being out there completely made my day. The romance of the old road hit me deeply and when we got out to read the historic info signs, I swore there was no sound, nothing at all - it was dead quiet except for the ghosts on that old road, haunting it, to borrow a phrase from one American poet, "in the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets".

The highway would have taken us a couple of hours out of our way, up to Kingman and then back down on I-40, which had strangled that particular part of Route 66, the town of Oatman, and so many highway dreams of lost main streets, through which 66 was once the lifeblood.

I determined that someday I will return and drive that stretch through the desert, stopping often to listen to the ghosts.

Leaving Las Laughlin

Wednesday Oct. 28, 2015 - Day 7

We took a day trip up to Laughlin to check it out. I kind of wanted to see if I could find the casino where some of Leaving Las Vegas was filmed, and in particular an old coin dropper Universal Big Bertha - same as the one the D had for so long, most recently upstairs. Elisabeth Shue got kissed up against that machine in the movie and I understand the scene was filmed in Laughlin.

We headed up and played at the Aquarius, which was pretty acceptable. The paytables are amazing, actually. The place is brimming with full pay video poker including a Jacks game with a 350 coin straight flush that pays back around 100%.

We had a great initial run on those games and then I went to eat at the buffet, which could have been a huge error, considering there were all of 6 people patronizing the 5999 seat buffet.

Making up the shortfall were billions of little moth like bugs which have decided to pretty much invade and take over Laughlin, for Hallowe'en I suppose.

The Empty Buffet at High Noon

Laughlin has its own local love affair with huge vats of Country Throw-up Gravy.

Unfortunately, after lunch, we played some triple play Slutty Times Pay and I kind of went on tilt, dumping four $100 bills in quick succession - snatching defeat from the jaws of break-even.

The Quad Queen was down too until she made a last second comeback on Desperation Dollars.

"You know, if you had been playing Double Double Bonus...."

We headed back to the car and went to where, as near as I could figure it, those scenes in Leaving Las Vegas were filmed. Well, the place looked nothing like what I saw in the movie and all the machines were new. It was a complete bust. We played $100 on Megabucks - because you always have to play Megabucks sometime. It was fun alternating spins but you can guess the final outcome.

RF: Day: -$570 Trip: +$1810
QQ: Day: +$130 Trip: -$1470