Shame, That

Reposted from the 2013 classic 20th Anniversary Blue Moon Cheapstravaganza trip report.

With the end of the trip getting near, I played it safe, putting only $200 in my stake before heading out to get a latte at Lappert's.

Dropped $40 in Bonus Poker and $20 on dollar Treasure Chest - a quad on it still eludes me. I have sunken a shitload of Treasure into that Chest this trip.

Took a quick shot at various things here and there employing my patented "Hit and Lose" strategy.

I tried $20 in super volatile low pay Super Double Double Triple Quadruple Quintuple Bonus trying for any of the premium quads. Well, I got on a bit of a run, getting quite a bit of dollar play in.

No kicker. What a difference that would have made!

Ate a healthy breakfast in the room with wonderful cashews, luscious mango, delightful non-fat all natural yogurt - it was fucking horrid. But good for me. (It wasn't really horrid, that's just there for humors.)

Had an errand to run - return the car to the Four Queens. The valet guy at MSS was on track to set the world's fastest valet return - he took my ticket, grabbed keys and ran across the driveway into the open air lot, hopped in the car, pulled out. Stopped. Reversed back into the spot.

Yeah, he almost gave me the wrong car.

We had a chuckle about it and I dumped the car back at the Four Queens. Had a coffee with the crew there and found some luck on the bartops, with only $20 in.

$20 in, $120 out - and I found myself up on the day.

Played some dollar 9/6 Boner Deluxe (yes you VP mavens, I found a way to get to the full pay BDLX). I lost $120, pounding on it. No quads.

Took a flyer $20 on the super volatile low pay Super Double Double Triple Quadruple Quintuple Sextuple Fucker Bonus and ran it up to $100. Cashed it out. Put in another $20. It went away, and so did another one.

Enjoyed Health Lunch at the Fremont buffet and then some full pay Pick'em beside loyal reader Lyn, who I'd met yesterday. I was dealt a shot at the Royal (which pays $1500, which I've never gotten) and we shrieked as the fourth royal card came up, and then a suited card and the credits started to ring, but it was yet another near miss flush, and not the savvy Royal draw I'd hoped for. Shame, that.

Kept the profit, cashing out $60.

The Almost Pick'em Royal

Maybe I need to study Keno technique???

I took an interesting stroll through Emergency Arts, just across from the El Cortez, by The Beat coffee house. There are all sorts of interesting artists here and a relaxed, cool vibe in the place.

You should check it out!

Friendly Mike Dobez, ornamentation artiste. Check out dobezdesignz.com!

Lost some money at the El Cortez but they did give me a free White Castle Slider - my first! It was actually pretty delicious, although it's tricky eating one without touching it with your fingers, considering what the buttons you've been touching have been through. I probably have oral multilaria or some damn thing now.

Power walked back to the room in the 95 degree heat for a beer and to blog and regroup.

Keno update - the 500 game ticket has yielded at least one $50 winner (game 305) that we know about. One number off $4K... shame, that.

Treasure Chest ate yet more money and game me dick-all treasure. I settled into some quarter Bonus Poker, thinking I would parlay my way up the denominations as I (hopefully) won.

And I did win some dough with the Aces, and cashed out a $120 ticket.

Started again with a $20, and worked up to dollars. Futzed around. Ended up getting a quad, and then blowing through $100 worth on 50 cent Double Double.

No kicker. Shame, that.

Tried $20 in Bonus Deluxe, worked it up to 85 down to 5, back up, and then out.

I was looking for the killer shot to cement my budget for the rest of the trip, ensuring at least a break-even effort. If I lost $400 today, and $400 tomorrow, and a couple on Wednesday morning, I could still lose $1000 for the trip, which would be a shame, considering where I am after 2 weeks of banging around Vegas.

The long and short of it was I was down $100 on the day and had $100 left of my stake from the morning.

I hit the blackjack tables. An hour and three quarters later, I cashed out.... $100. I'd been up over $200, but wanted to keep playing and see what I could do. At least I didn't get hurt and I had a lot of fun at a good table full of fun people.

At one point Guido Metzger, Director of Casino Operations, stopped by to shake my hand. I am now 'juiced in' here at The Cal. He also shook the hand of 80 or 90 other patrons, but I know he was primarily interested in my blog and in me, personally. Really.

Saw an interesting scene when I cashed my black chip - one of the cage staff turning a clear plastic bag full of stuff over and over in his hands, up in the air.

"What the hell is he doing?" I asked the cashier.

"Lost a chip."

"Is that a bag of garbage???"

"Yeah. $500 chip too."

At that point the guy started crawling around on his hands and knees.

"Glad I don't have his problem," I said.

The cashier chuckled.

"Me too... " she said with a smile.

Enjoyed a quick 'diet' Prime Rib dinner at the counter in the coffee shop and back to it.

Well, it's diet because it's part of my diet, right?

I played $20 at a time and on my last $20 I finally hit quad 7s. I was down to $10 left at the time.

Well, see for yourself, I went on a nice little Quadstravaganza on the Cheapstravaganza trip and finished up for the day, winning back my $200 stake and more!

Had lots of Royal Scares but couldn't nail them. Shame, that.

And as of now, I'm up $200 on the trip! Zounds!

And there are still Keno games to be played...

Roll Over, Wallow, and Win

Reposted from the 2013 classic 20th Anniversary Blue Moon Cheapstravaganza trip report.

I love that feeling when I wake up and kind of roll over and wallow a bit and try to decide whether I want to get up and them I remember - I'm in Vegas! Another adventurous day stretches out in front of me like a mountain road full of daily ups and downs with pullover viewpoints displaying meals centered around beef, mostly.

The Flusher Frame was in Fine Form even though yesterday had been Fucked a debacle. I put it behind me, did my ablutions, and headed down to start today's bright, fresh, sparkly, clean, all-natural lightly scented debacle.

Having learned some sort of lesson the past few days, I crunched a $100 bill into twenties and spread the love around 5 different machines, netting exactly zero, but netting it less quickly than I might have.

No worries - I had plans, and I had a financial windfall in the form of freeplay from the Four Queens - for today was the first day of September (fall, I feel first starts Sept. 1). (What the F?)

But first - Vegas power walk time. I did a full 30 minutes cruising through various casinos and up and down Fremont. The Golden Gate has unveiled their reworked entrance. Looks like someone had a stroke of genius and came up with the innovative idea of putting... another bar under the canopy! Well played, boys!

The Downtown Grand starting to look like something

I greeted the Mikes with my new tradition - yelling loudly "Great kid!!!... Don't get cocky!", something which they hear 8,274 times a day courtesy of the nearby Star Wars slots.

Cold water was in order - I was sweating up a storm, and had a two day stubble. At least my shirt was clean, if not sweaty damp. What better time than to meet a reader for the first time?

Lyn said a quick hello and we shared a few tips. I pressed a couple of hundred of my 20,000 Flusher business cards into her hand.

Sadly, the freeplay was not going well for me. Not well indeed. Drain, drain, drain.

Having done my body some good, I decided to do it some bad and enjoy a fresh, lucky Vato cigar.

And, I thought, I might as well go up to the cigar lounge to do it. With the last of my freeplay loaded, I played on and it wasn't going well at all. As you know, the Royal Flusher Way is all about strategy, technique, practice, mathematics, statistics, the best paytables, and expected return, unless I get a hunch. And on a hunch, I punched cash out and got a ticket for my freeplay remainders.

And then I promptly pumped the ticket back into the machine. (I think I heard it give a little machine burp.)

And I played onward and in a few hands, was dealt four Aces!

Man that was a lucky casino cigar!!!

SWEET!!!

And then the next part... I realized that I didn't have the kicker, and I had a chance to draw for it, which is always fun, unless you don't get it. Then, you feel like you've lost even though you've won. That one little card could be the difference between a $200 hand and a $570 hand (the value of the Aces Kicker progressive at the time.)

I took a deep breath, and thought about all the loyal readers that read this blog and tell all their friends to read it as well so they can tell their friends and relatives and people they might just bump into on the street. Yes, those loyal readers...

...

And that's when I remembered the noise reducing half-off Audio Technica headphones that Stapleses was bringing in for me.

I gave them a call and finally connected with someone who knew about it.... and yes they were in the store.

So, I thought, yeah, I'll grab a quick lunch at the Cal counter and head down there. The daily lunch special was a sirloin steak and fries and am I ever glad that I went ahead and had it. A reasonable portion of beef, and some really tasty fried onion and pepper gravy with it, some fries... heaven on a plate, if heaven served comped steaks.

I find the I-15 500 always an exciting white-knuckle challenge and I finally perfected the route to Fry's, Stapleses, Whole Foods and more. It's actually incredibly simple - take I-15 south, take the 215 East exit, get off at the Car Rental Return exit, turn left, over the "I designed this on Acid" bridge and boom - you are there. Coming out, exit by the same bridge, take a right south onto LVBLD, and another right onto the 215 entrance and back you go. Now you know.

Got the headphones and did some shopping at Whole Foods. I swear, showgirls shop here. Yowza. I bought some fresh fruit and tubs of mango and fruit salad and best of all a bag of 479 degree popcorn.

Drove back to the Cal and on a stroke of near-genius, realized that it would be far easier to valet park at MSS than to navigate the Cal's horrible munchkin parking garage.

I bought the Famous 500-Game Lucky Keno Ticket.

I dumped my stuff, posted the Keno blog, showered up, shaved, changed and headed over to Main Street. At the bar, had a beer and a shot of Maker's and lost $80 in full pay JoB. I never seem to win there...

Tried my slant tops - The Loose Deuce... $20 in and halfway through it I panicked. I just didn't want to hit more natural quads on the Loose Deuce, so I switched to Double Double. I had the feeling a quad was due.

And I was right.

I proceeded to go on one of those great runs, playing for a long time on 50 cent, and a long time on dollars, going up, going down, hitting quads... twice I was down to 15 credits on 50 cents and worked my way back up over $100. I had five quads in all, including back to back quads. One quad is missing, not sure how that happened. Maybe I just forgot to take a picture.

So, I generated lots of action and points for future offers, and cashed out $200 plus five $2 scratch-cards.

Grabbed dinner at the Triple 7 Brewpub - a BBQ bacon burger with cheese - and it was absolutely delicious. Good enough to have again today, I think. And, it fits the Las Vegas Diet, because you can eat only half the bun!

Regrouping a bit, I took a break in the room, and then headed down to the Cal casino for some blackjack. I bought in for a hundy and pushed hard. Got hurt on a $20 bet that I had to double on, but recovered and made it up to $265. I put $250 in the vault and played three $5 hands which I lost.

And I cashed out after half an hours play for a $150 win. Why push it, right?

So, the day was a good one.

Oh, did I forget something???

Savvy kicker draw!

Yeah, back at the Chicago Brewing Company, I got the kicker!!!! A $570 win.

This was my biggest winning day of the trip so far.

And, even bigger news - I'm actually up on the trip by $40!!!!!

Gamble Along With Flusher At Home!

Reposted from the 2013 classic 20th Anniversary Blue Moon Cheapstravaganza trip report.

My Dad once told me a story about when they were teaching nuclear theory in school. The question posed was 'how do you throw a grain of sand through a little tiny hole just bigger than the grain of sand itself' - the idea being that it is pretty fucking tough to get atoms to run at each other and hit and split and blow up. Hell, it's almost as tough as getting a comp at the Smug Nugget for video poker play.

"So," the teacher had asked, "how do you get a grain of sand to go through a little tiny hole?"

Dad was so proud when he blurted out loudly in front of the whole class, "You throw a handful of sand!!!"

Anyway, this story reminded me of Keno and I realized I've been going about it all wrong.

"Mrs. Flusher, the Quad Queen, we've been approaching Keno all wrong! Do you know what happens when, instead of a grain at a time, you throw a handful of sand at a tiny opening in the wall?"

"You get a sandy hole?" she replied, without hesitation.

"Queen, we are talking Keno here, not the beach."

I never win at Keno for two reasons:

• It is the shittiest game in the casino with a house edge of about 20% and only a complete dipmoron (like me) would ever play it
• I don't play enough games!

So, I've decided, instead of playing a handful of games at a time - like 20 dollar games, or 40 fifty-cent games...

...I am going to become a Keno Stupid High Roller.

And what does a K.S.H.R. do instead of throwing 20 games at a Keno hole in the wall?

He throws a handful of sandy Keno games at a Keno hole in the wall.

I'm going to play FIVE HUNDRED GAMES OF KENO on one ticket. That's right. 500 games.

The best part of it is, you're going to play along!

You see, you can watch the California keno games online.

Now, one of the big questions is... which numbers should I play?

Loyal reader and savvy player Jon says "What about using the winning keno numbers from the MGM as your keno numbers for the keno extravaganza?? 7, 10, 14, 22, 30, 33, 41, 52, 54, 80"

An interesting prospect indeed! The numbers certainly worked out for Sid Caesar.

On the other hand, he was so excited to finally win, he kicked the bucket right in the MGM Green Keno lounge (which sadly no longer exists).

I have other lucky numbers that I usually play though - on the other hand, I haven't ever won diddley fart fuck all on them.

But I promised the Cal folks I'd always play 50 in their honor.

There are so many choices here! (Up to 20 out of 80 to be exact.)

The online Keno Action will be just as riveting and thrilling as if you were sitting in the California keno lounge on a green vinyl seat replete with cigarette scars, a thin line of keno drool making its way to the obnoxious casino carpet below.

Maybe you'll see me hit 7 of 7! It'll be marginally fun!

Ready for the lucky numbers?

Here they are.

5 ,6, 8, 12, 18, 19, 21

The nitro-fueled, blistering All Keno Action starts with Game number 40 and continues to game 539.

Go here http://ikenocloud.com/california/ plug these number in under 'My Lucky Numbers' on the left, and stay up for the next two days and nights.

Celebrate the thrill of agony, the victory of keno defeat along with me live!

Here's what I could win:

4 out of 7: $ 0.25
5 out of 7: $ 3.75
6 out of 7: $50.00
7 out of 7: $4000.00

Yeah, that's four thousand dollars. Well, here's hoping!