What do you mean Vegas is Closed?

Like so many of you - hell, all of you - plans have been torn asunder with the arrival of the COVID-19 coronavirus this spring.

The Quad Queen and I had a trip booked back in December and oh, what a great trip it was going to be!

We had 8 nights in a row booked at Wynn from the Wynn Slots app, with options on 3 more. We had 6 nights at the Cal, with 3 nights overlapping, as a backup.

We had concert tickets and ultimate Flusher Room Camping plans out the ying yang.

All of it, of course, for naught - we, like you, had to put it all aside until this situation is resolved.

Instead of rocking out to ZZ Top live, I watched them on Netflix while I trying to get refunds on all the shit I booked. Actually, it's gone pretty well - the concert tickets are the lone holdout.

Big deal, now. Who cares?!

In between trips, I've slowly been going through all the posts on the blog, fixing spelling, adding the odd phrase, improving the photos, and creating artwork for entries on the Trip Report Index page.

And in so doing, I've come across a couple of trip reports that have never appeared in the index. They've basically been buried for the last how ever many years.

Damn ZZ Top, cancel already so I can get my money back!

I decided that since I can't go to Vegas and give you a trip report, I'd republish one of the old ones, just as if I was there. Kind of like a rerun.

We all need to pull together, after all.

I've told Jimmy Poon to turn off all the site advertising for the duration, just to do our little part in feeding your Vegas Jones with the minimal annoyance. It may take a while to kick in, so don't panic if you still see a few.

Yep, we're going ad-free and pretending we're in Vegas. Hope you enjoy the coming posts.

Royal Flusher

No Wynn Without an Encore

By popular demand, especially by Anna T., an Encore post - because a few more interesting things did happen...

Day 12

As I've written about, we've change how we go about our flights and stuff, because I am so over red-eyes home, and I'm not keen on the 2:30AM arrivals in Vegas on the way out.

Instead of tight timelines with single points of travel failure, we're now favoring this type of schedule.

Trip Out: Take Chippy to the Left-B-Hind Kennel, train to Toronto in the afternoon, stay over in Toronto.

Next day, leisurely daytime flight to Vegas, arrive fresh, ready to enjoy a decent first day. This means a stopover, but on the other hand, we can fly Delta - and I'm really liking Delta these days.

Trip Home: Fly out mid-day, arrive in Toronto in the evening, stay over.

Next day. leisurely train ride mid-day back to Flusherville. Go and pick up Chippy and get some milk, and start blogging the trip.

It takes more travel time, and it's a couple of paid hotel room nights in Toronto, but we save parking costs, and we don't have to deal with the stress of wondering if we will even be able to get out of Flusherville on Air Canada. If you've read the blog for any length of time, you know how many times I've had to run through Pearson to try to make the 9:00PM Air Canada Rouge flight out to Vegas. The stress is incredible, and on more than one occasion, we've had to turn around and go home.

The return trip was planned exactly as laid out above, but on United, with a stopover in Denver, which could be iffy this time of year. And by this time of year I mean from September through June.

What is this??... An airplane - for ANTS?

We had a 1:30PM flight out of McCarran - how stress free is that? There was time for leisurely tea and filters-with-ears coffee, and time to pack and even shower and shave.

It was all great.  There was time to play a bit in the morning but I didn't. I really didn't. That great feeling from the last wins was still with me, and I wanted to just enjoy it. So for probably the first time ever, neither of us did any panic last minute play at the hotel or at the airport.

The United lounge at McCarran was nice enough, I suppose. Good coffee, but they charge for premium liquor. The usual troughs of nibbly food that looks good but is never enough to make a meal out of, unless you want to fill up on a pint of oily hummus and 16 packs of Melba toast.

(Who the fuck was Melba, anyway, and why was she in charge of the toast?)

It was so long Las Vegas... we were airrrr borne.

Now, there was weather in Denver - snow to be exact, and our departure was delayed a bit as a result. We managed to get in and get out, and they even put us at the front of the wing freshener line.

A Wynning Trip

We arrived back at Wynn ready to take on the casino one last final time for the trip. This would be before playing one last final time for the trip in the morning and then playing one last final time for the trip at the airport.

Day 11 part 5

I had a good feeling about the row of newer IGT machines where I'd gotten the Pointies for $200. But I had unfinished business there, having been denied the kicker, yet again.

Triple Double Bonus once again was my video elixir of choice.

Because I am so crappy at getting kickers, I didn't bother to take a 'before' picture. Suffice it to say that I was dealt three deuces and a 3 kicker. That old saw.

We had a long discussion about what was the right thing to do. The Quad Queen leans toward keeping just the three deuces because getting four deuces would be great and you still might get a kicker. But drawing just one card, you have to get the one exact card. The cost in EV for this is maybe $2.50 over the long haul.

I, on the other hand, like to play the right strategy. If I only held the deuces and got the fourth deuce and a non kicker in place of the kicker I threw away - I'd be pissed. I'd feel like I lost $300.

The best thing to do for these kinds of hands is to decide how you are going to play it always, and always play it that way.

So far I've been holding the three of a kind and the kicker for Aces and 2s,3s,4s on this game as one should.

And that's what I did.

I pressed the draw button fully expecting to get the 8 of hearts or some other useless dog card. To my shock and amazement, the fourth deuce appeared!

My mouth literally fell open and I turned to the Quad Queen and said, my eyes wide in wonder, "I... got it. I actually got it!!!"

Four ducks. Got the kicker, though.

And there it is, in all its kicker glory. A beautiful $500 hand to finish off my trip.

The Quad Queen wanted to get in on the fun, and actually did get drawn three 4s or something, with a kicker, same game. But she did opt to hold just the three of a kind and sadly, it was a double thud, with two dogs showing up.

She didn't strike out completely, though.