A Good Snag

Day 7 Tuesday Sept 10, 2024

I woke just before dawn and watched the sun come up over the smoke-shrouded mountains.

After yesterday's quad-fest, I almost wished I was going home today. I feel pretty satisfied with how this trip has gone. I've had fun, hung out with friends, and I'm up on the trip. I re-learned that I could really enjoy being here alone. The only box unticked is getting a Royal.

I decided I would set a limit of $100 for the day to ensure that this trip ends up a winner - something that is tough to do. Consider two trips ago, I was even until the last two days, and then lost $300 a day to finish down $600. And last trip was a complete blowout, with a loss of $2400 (but think of the comped rooms!).

And, I suppose it can be said that part of that loss has come back as the room offers I enjoyed this trip.

In any case, I intend to finish a winner. I just need discipline.

Does anyone have some they can lend me?

The morning went as usual, with some Punishment Nuts and coffee, and typey-typey.

Remember when I said I didn't trust MGM's accounting systems? I checked my folio and sure enough, $11 is on the bill for dinner Hussong's. I happen to know that I'd charged about $80 to the room, plus the $33 boofay - which the front desk Sheila told me to put on the room and it would be taken care of.

So, what clearly happened was that it was not taken care of, putting me over the $100 resort credit by $11 when you add the four things together. That's why half a Hussong was on there.

Same old shit. Another visit to the front desk.

I had a good idea how to deal with this though. I explained the situation and pointed out how crappy the internet is in my room - and it is spectacularly useless.

I'll cut to the chase. I negotiated the removal of the boofay from my bill, and the covering of the rest of Hussong's - and, the removal of one night's resort fee to cover the second boofay.

This is pretty good because I'd already had one boofay comped by the slot boothling on arrival, and now I've had a second one comped and I've saved the cost of a resort fee out of pocket for what the desk thinks is the second boofay - except I'm not going to pay cash. I'm keeping the $37 plus tax saving on the resort fee and using comp dollars.

If you followed all that, you deserve a medal.

On top of that, I still have $20 of room on my resort credit. I'll probably 'splurge' on a Johnny Rocket's $22 cheeseburger.

I can't believe it's come to this. Gouge, gouge, gouge, every time you turn around.

That sorted, I went to work on the video poker. I had a decent session, dwindling my hundred dollar stake down to almost nothing over the course of a couple of hours or so, and then winning most of it back. 

I had one quad in there, of little consequence.

Next stop, lunch, and the only thing worth noting was that I found a bag of drugs on the floor. I didn't touch it, and alerted the boofay staff, who sent the chef over, who happened to be standing nearby watching for people who might be stuffing green apples in their pockets or something.

The chef watched over the drugs until help arrived.

I had just enough comp dollars to cover lunch, which was made up of this and that and another omelette. 

I like a good snag as much as any larrikin, mate, but you can keep your apostrophes out of my bottom.

After lunch, I took a break in the room, including a half hour shower and a shave. I'm on a well at home, and do without such things until I get to Florida for the winter.

Then, video poker, the final conflict. The $100 lasted an hour and a quarter. I did get a few quads, but not nearly enough of them to keep it going.

And that's it. Gambling done.

Damn.

No Royal this trip. Again. The last one was May, 2022.

I took a walk outside to warm up - the casino is frigid. I'm not walking as much today, so I put a few steps on, anyway.

And that's pretty much it for this trip. I shut it down and stuck to my guns and preserved the win.

I had a quiet night at Excalibur, and I'm awake early to get my ass to the airport and get home.

Budget

Without a doubt, my goal to be a Cheap Magnificent Bastard has been accomplished. Not only did I pretty much stay within my budget, I managed to win money in Las Vegas.

And I had a great time doing it.

To date, I have not paid out of pocket for a meal on this trip, but that will change today during the trip home.

The most amazing part is the incredible support shown me by you savvy readers.

I thank you one and all for all of the ko-fi and PayPal donations. I don't have a huge readership, but my followers are loyal.

If I didn't have anybody to tell what happened on these trips, I'd feel a lot more lonely. You make it fun.

One of the best things on this trip - if not the best - was spending time with friends I've made through the blog. 

Actual Total Expenses so far are $501.

I spent a little extra on the flight by paying for window seats near the front of the plane. I'll desperately need that on the way home, because my layover in Philadelphia is less than an hour.

I also spent on Lyft, which I hadn't budgeted for.

My bill at Excalibur is $125 and I'd budged $176, so that kind of covers the Lyft charges. And I only bought one $10 three day bus pass, not two.

I expect I will incur some charges on the way home - there will be a Lyft to the airport, not the bus, and I'll have to eat something at some point - I'm finishing the last of the punishment nuts as I write this.

The gambling, compared to other typical trips, was stellar.

I'm leaving Las Vegas with more cash than I arrived with.

I had 4 winning days and 3 losing days for a total win on the trip of $242.

If that isn't being a Cheap Magnificent Bastard, I don't know what is.

Stay savvy,

Royal Flusher

I am a Cheap Magnificent Bastard

Day 8 Wed Sept 11, 2024

The final, ultimate, ending wrap-up results and comp accounting spin post...

But this trip is not over.

My flight home was LAS to PHL, and then PHL to Watertown (ART) with only a 35 minute layover.

Take-off from Vegas was delayed by 45 minutes, and I was re-booked for Thursday by the American auto-bot. When we touched down in Philadelphia, there was probably just enough time for me to make my flight - except there was no gate, and we sat on the Tarmac (TM) for almost an hour.

American Fuck You Airlines would do nothing for me. The pilot had said the delay was because of a mechanical problem, but what does he know. It was probably the extreme California smoke wildfire in Vegas.

I booked a room at the Hampton Inn Philadelphia International Airport room on the HHonors app for $150 and took the free shuttle over there.

It's ironic that I spent a total of $125 for 7 nights in Vegas, and this place is $150 for one night.

And oh my God, what a dump.

People love to say places are a dump, but when I say this place is a dump, I'm in serious dump city. The dump factor here is off the dump charts. From the dumpy carpet to the dumpy walls to the dumpy bathroom - everywhere you go there is dump stench and eye-searing dumpitude.

Calling this place a shithole would be a compliment.

I could disgust you with a plethora of photos of the filth in the joint - but I'll just share a couple.

I had dinner at Ruby Tuesday's - right next door, and the only option.

It was okay but the dump proximity to the Dumpton Inn had rubbed off on the staff. These dishes stayed there... and stayed there... until I finally asked the server to take them away.

I asked for more napkins (because wings) and she brought me a small handful of cocktail napkins. I have no idea.

Back in the room, I buried myself in TV - I was actually afraid wary of going to bed. There was no pull-down blind - somewhere along the line it broke, and was never replaced. So there was just a sheer valiantly attempting to block the two hundred parking lot lights just outside, each giving approximately 1M candlepower of sun-blinding white light.

My eyelids did their work and I managed to sleep.

No way was I showering in that bathroom, so I brushed my teeth (no cups in the room, big surprise) and went down to enjoy the included complimentary breakfast, which was - do I really have to say?

I managed to find a few calories, but refugee oatmeal in a stolen California Hotel and Casino mug would have been 99 Michelin fucking stars by comparison to the Dumpton hotel breakfast.

As soon as was humanly possible, I took the shuttle out of there to the airport, where I had about four and a half hours to kill.

While having a coffee in terminal F, I went over my options for compensation.

My flight was booked through RBC Avion program, on points. And I used the RBC card for the fees. I always make sure to use the same card, as I have a vague recollection that there might be some form of trip interruption insurance - if you use the card and points to book.

Which I did.

I called the 0.75 pt font 800 number hidden on the back of the Visa card... it probably isn't that small to you kindergarten youngsters under 55 - but for this 'almost senior' it's laughable.

Fortunately, my piPhone 3.14 has a magnifier app and I know how to fumble it open.

I had a nice chat after making sure not to 'appuyer le Numero un pour Francais' and the agent, Nadine, confirmed that yes, I do have coverage for trip interruption costs such as my hotel and some food.

She's sent an email with the deets on how to make a claim.

Some wandering around left me with... just four hours to kill till my flight to Watertown, and then an hour and a half or so drive back to Flusherville.

There are some cool art exhibits in the PHL airport.

I wandered back, I wandered forth, I sat in various places.

Dead on noon, I called lunchtime, and enjoyed a delicious burrito bowl.

It was $13, tax included, and hopefully would be covered by my insurance claim. I wonder how much a cheeseburger is at the airport? I bet it's cheaper than on the strip's $22, which tells you how far wrong we've gone as a species.

Just before boarding my flight, the gate agent announced they needed three passengers to volunteer to get bumped in return for a free flight voucher.

I thought seriously about this - for about 0.82 seconds. No. Not today. Not after an already 32 hour journey.

We got loaded up, waited in line with 10 other planes for the runway for about half an hour, and then it was wheels up and bye bye Philly.

We landed (obviously), my car was there, the Tercel keys were still with me, it started, and besides making a quick stop for some supplies and duty free liquor, I skedaddled across the border and made it home to Flusherville at suppertime.

Final Accounting Spin and Results

The Cheap Magnificent Bastard Trip is done.

And by God, I am a certified Cheap Magnificent Bastard!

I did it!

I killed it!

My out of pocket expenses were $516. I won (!) $246 gambling. That brings the net cost out of pocket to a measley $270 for a week long trip to Vegas, all in, including airfare. Plus, I was the beneficiary of a number of ko-fi donations that covered the $270 cost! What a fantastic result, and again, I thank you for your support!

I'm not including the expenses in Philadelphia, because I will be getting those back from credit card insurance (I hope).

Match Plays

The expected value of match plays in the long run is way positive, so the conventional wisdom is to do every match play you can get your hands on.

Through the Las Vegas Advisor Boner Book of Interstellar Values, the El Cortez boarding pass promotion, the Circa 'Say Hi to Matthew' promotion, and the gift of four Golden Gate match play chips from Dr. Shiboubou, I had a decent number of attempts to work from. Here's how it ended up.

Match Plays done: 12
Match Plays won: 6
Match Play win rate: 50%
Bets cost:  $310
Amount won: $470
Profit: $160

With a bit of luck, I could have done a lot better. If I'd won just one more $25 match play, my take would have been $235. But as it is, I won the expected number of bets - exactly half of them.

Comps

This is where it gets fun. I valued the rooms by looking at the going rate for the dates of my trip. Because they were within range of what I would actually be willing to pay out of pocket, I kept those values.

Between airfare ($400), rooms ($697), resort credit, food and buffets ($238), match play wins ($160), and all the bits and pieces of free play, the total comp value comes out to $1,827.  

Add the out of pocket cost of $516 and the total value of the trip was $2,343.

I think that's extraordinarily good - a $2300 trip for about $500, and I won $246 gambling on top of it.

There's not much more to say - this trip was a total success. I had a fantastic time, got to hang out with friends, won in the casino, and enjoyed amazing support from savvy readers. 

Thanks again for reading, and if you enjoyed the report, a ko-fi is always welcome. It does take out of pocket costs to run the blog, and of course, it takes two to three hours per blog entry to put it all together.

Yrs,

Royal Flusher 

Turning Point - The Quad King

Day 6 Monday Sept 8, 2024

Being up $24 with a couple of days of casino money-stirring to go, I knew today would be important - probably the turning point for the trip. I needed to win, or if losing, shut it down if I were to keep my $600 budget.

There was one wild card though. I had received a donation to the blog with specific instructions to go on a mission. Huge props to the donor - thank you!!!

When you're charged with a mission, you have to carry it out.

One nice thing about the dungeon room in the Excalibur Correctional Institution - it was very quiet, and receiving almost no sunlight, stayed fairly cool. I didn't need to run the window-mounted wood chipper during the night, and still slept just fine.

I have been making sure to be in the room between 2:37 pm and 2:46 pm when the sun would fall just right between the 8 story brick walls outside my pen and shine onto a 2 foot patch of the greasy carpet. 

Anyway, after doing my morning work and having my in-room coffee, I decided I'd had enough and asked to see the Warden.

Around 8:00 am, I headed out and went to the boofay. It was time to see if the Front Desk Sheila had actually done the needful or not and put 2 of 'em on my room. The instructions were to charge to my room, so actually, I guess I wouldn't find out until later. Either the boofay would appear on my folio... or it wouldn't.

Breakfast was good! I kept it simple and you can never go wrong with a gigantic, freshly made omelette.

I kind of feel bad for the staff. Back in the day, they'd get your drink orders for you, top up your coffee, as well as keep the table clean, removing your used plates. This warranted a tip.

Now, it's set up so not only do you get your own food, you get your own drinks too. The staff's only job is to remove dirty plates.

The strategy is to be extra chatty, and make a big deal about bringing you extra napkins. They hide the condiments after each guest has left, forcing an extra step for them to retrieve them.

It must suck to rely on being obsequious to shill for those tips.

I fall for it every time.

At the front desk, I was instructed to see the Warden around noon, when possibly a better cell might be available. What on earth was I going to do until then?...

I decided to try some triple play nickel video poker. And I was glad that I did! The quads started to come on in!

As you can see, I even bumped up to dimes in time to hit Pointies!

I played for ages - a little over two hours - and cashed out up about $50. An excellent start to the day.

The next hour or so were spent changing rooms. I'm now up high, and have the airport view I enjoy. Watching the planes is cheaper than gambling.

It is sad to see the venerable old Tropicana stripped bare 'n naked. She was a lovely old girl and it's hard to believe that the lush pool area with all it's greenery is nothing but a patch of sand.

Particularly poignant is this area - you can see where the theater was. Now it looks like a recently unearthed ruin at Pompeii.

This was the home of the Folies Bergere, one of the first opportunities in North America for men to see boobs. The show ran for 49 years and it's long gone.

I don't know what men will do now.

Time to plan my next move. The Mission.

The mission was pretty simple. I was directed to play at the Mikes bar at the Four Queens and hit Aces Kicker.

Did I really want to go all the way back downtown on the bus, in the heat? Did I really want to leave my now beloved triple play nickel video poker and ride the Deuce and get accosted by ranting potential killer men?

No sir or madam, I did not.

So I took a Lyft downtown instead.

My food expense have been significantly lower than what I budgeted for, so I figured I could absorb the expense.

It was a swift, easy, beautiful ride, and the driver didn't talk to me. Oddly, though, he had a fairly large towel on his right knee, which he would occasionally hold up to his mouth.

Are strange occurrences automatically attracted to me? Maybe he'd had a tooth pulled or a drooling problem. I don't know.

Mike was in attendance at the bar, and set me up with an Ultra, and a very large Jameson Irish Whiskey for the Quad Queen, and we had a mini-wake, remembering the oh so many good times we'd had at that bar.

I settled in and played away, and it was a good thing I was well bankrolled for the session.

After half an hour, I said to Mike, "It looks like Karen isn't drinking her Jameson. Is it okay if I help her out?"

So, I knocked that back, and it was replenished, this time to the brim. Hoo boy, I could see double trouble coming.

It was really good to be back at the bar, and I was having a blast. Just around the corner from me, on a side of the bar that was empty, sat a really attractive young woman. She played there alone for maybe ten minutes when a middle aged cookie-cutter southern man sat right beside her and started chatting her up. He had the full get up, foot long beard, scrawny, sunglasses, and apparently, an incredible wit, because in no time he had her laughing her ass off.

I had reason to laugh too, because thing started hitting for me too.

Fours kicker for $210 and change!!! Hayll Yeah!

And it didn't stop there. I was dealt three Aces, thus:

I thought about keeping the four, but didn't. That would have been the right move on Triple Double Bonus, but not Double Double.

I hit Draw and nailed the fourth Ace!

Pointies!!! No kicker, though.

POINTIES!!! For $210!

Oh man, I was GOLDEN. It felt incredible. I cashed and stashed, and started again with one of the last twenties.

This one turned out to be lucky as well.

I did another cash 'n stash, and started again.

This one ran out, so I added another $20.

And the quads kept coming. At some point I did a third cash 'n stash, and added the final $20.

I would say that even though I didn't get Aces Kicker, it was Mission Accomplished. What a haul!

Without that kick in the pants, I never would have gone and played at the Mikes bar. I'm so lucky I did!!!

It had been a crazy couple of hours and I slid off the seat. The southern man was off in the Men's room and as I wobbled by the very attractive young woman I gave her a huge smile and slurred, "Have fun with ZZ Top."

She's easily amused, I could hear her laughing as I weaved away.

I played cashed in the tickets, and played $20 in a weird slot that my cousin Dr. Shiboubou recommended, and $20 on Keno at the Kings bar. Neither yielded any results.

I would have played at my throne seat, but some mook occupied it, and he wasn't even playing.

I walked through the Smug Nugget and hid a business card. On my way out, looking at the doors, for some reason I thought "Got Nuts?"

Somehow, I ended up at the Plaza and no, no way was I taking the People's Limo back to the strip. My three day pass had expired anyway.

I took another Lyft and was swyftly deposited back at Excalibum.

Back in the room, I put some of my dough in the safe, and chilled for a while, enjoying the feeling of being well up on the day, and the trip.

Hunger made itself known, and I did the 1000 steps to Hussong's Cantina. Dinner was good (a burrito bowl) but not great. I think it lacked appeal because it was barely warm.

I've been getting a good number of steps in here in Vegas. This was the count at noon.

For my last gambling of the day, I played the triple play again on dimes, and some on quarters. Of course, the quarters went terribly, and I dumped $110 or something before quitting.

The Pointies, when they arrived, of course were on dimes.

The thing is, you gotta understand, I have not even pictured all of the quads I got today.

The grand total is 24 four-of-a-kinds. Today I am... the Quad King.

Budget

Today was inexpensive on the food front, but expensive on gambling.

I had a really enjoyable day, notwithstanding losing $220, and almost getting attacked at a bus stop.

Actual Total Expenses so far are $499.

Gambling Day +$320
Gambling Trip +$343

At this point, it's up to me. Completing the Cheap Magnificent Bastard trip on budget is within reach with one full day to go!