We Don't 69 Here

Day 7 and when I say 'Day', I mean 'The middle of the goddamn night'. Bobby G was headed back home on a 6:00 am flight. I promised that I would take him to the airport and that meant setting my alarm for 3:30 am.

Yes, I set my alarm for 3:30 am but that doesn't mean I would actually get up then.

There are Ubers and Lyfts available, right?

I got up at 3:30 am. Bobby G has bent over backwards for me (you should see it, he can chug a beer in that position, too) and it was the least I could do not to deliver him in Honda Cletus luxury style to the airport.

We met in the hallway at 4:00 and I asked Bobby how he did after I left him the night before. No details, but apparently he'd played almost all night long. I did not see pockets bulging with hundies.

It was a smooth ride to the airport - so smooth and fast I completely missed the Tropicana exit. So I tunneled Bobby G.

We said our goodbyes and I took the opportunity to do something I've wanted to do for so many trips - hit South Point for the graveyard specials!

I was there before 5:00 am and the birds were chirping. I made a bit of a booboo at the Coronado Cafe.

My breakfast was $4.95! Dirt cheap! Stupidly I ordered coffee, which cost $4.50. I could have gotten it after. Oh well.

Breakfast was good but for some reason the eggs were cold. And so were the machines, it turned out.

I thought I'd 'do a little play' while there, and found a Double Diamond machine. Still chasing that top jackpot, I played $100 worth at $2 a spin. You'll assume I didn't hit it and you'll be right.

After that, I tried some 50 cent Boner Deluxe. It didn't go well at all and then I went completely stupidly on tilt. I pounded in $300 more and played $1 VP and then $2 VP. At $10 a hand, you had better hit something quickly or your money is buttered toast, like what I had at my $500 breakfast.

Because that's how much I lost before rolling out of there less than an hour after I'd arrived.

SHIT. Boy, oh boy, what a dumb way to start the day. There were so many problems. Lack of self control. Bad choices. My bankroll was down to about $300 now. I was down about $1,500 on the trip now, which I saw as unrecoverable.

I drove back to Main Street and went up to my room. I looked up where Bank of America ATMs were near Fontainbleau (bear with me, this will make sense). I pondered checking with the cage to see if my line of credit was still active.

Vegasbebe and Mamacita were arriving in Las Vegas and I'd very gladly offered to pick them up at the airport, take them shopping for vital room camping supplies, and drop them at their hotel.

I basically just chilled in my room, napping, showering, and pondering the cascade of terrible life choices that had lead me to this hotel room, at this time, broke and forlorn.

Around noon, I headed back to McCarran, successfully located my passengers, and delivered them and their Budweiser, energy drinks, snacks, patent medications, Bobby pins, Jiffy-pop popcorn, electrolyte beverages, lip balm, $100 bill printed toilet tissue, henna tattoo kits, marked cards, newspapers, inflatable pool toys, Cup Noodles, ice cream cones, souvenir beer bong hard hats, "I'm with Stupid" t-shirts, cans of tuna, table cloths, pine tree air fresheners, Mr. Peanut costumes, combs, and a pint of Old Harper safely to their digs - the Fontainbleau.

It was wonderful to finally meet them and all their luggage (filled with jars of jam, I think, from the weight of those suckers).

All kidding aside, I am forever grateful for the support I received over the last 3 years and I made that known in person, which felt very good indeed.

These ladies seemed to think my luck would change, and as I pulled away from the hotel, I noticed a colorful envelope had been left behind. I opened it at a stoplight (which thankfully was red at the time) and found a thank you card and a generous (but unnecessary) tip to get me started back on the path to financial gambling glory!

So thoughtful - thank you Vegasbebe!

Back at Main Street Station, I took stock of things and decided there was nothing for it but to see what I could do with the money I had left, plus the tip money, which was earmarked for Lightning Link Flaming Golden Balls of Lucky Death play.

But first, I needed some lunch. The chicken and waffles at the coffee shop was amazing. Really hit the spot!

In the Cal casino, I didn't hit a big jackpot as instructed, but the most important thing is I had fun playing. And when I was done playing, I wandered away from that machine, and wandered to a machine that video Keno on it. Call it fate!!!!!! I could have wandered anywhere, but I wandered there.

It's kind of amusing. Instead of playing my typical upper right corner numbers, I thought, well, play all four corners. Two credits each, so that's 2 quarters, or 50 cents, or in other needless words, $2 a spin. Four 5-spots, but not interlocking like I often do.

It was different - you get a lot of hits, so it sounds great, but typically you win nothing, or maybe get a 3 out of 5 for 6 credits. Almost enough to get your bet back.

Well thank goodness, I hit a five out of five. Here's the kind of amusing part - my usual upper right corner numbers hit.

Believe me, I'll take it.

It was (I am pretty sure) the first five out of five I've hit this whole

Holy crapoli, what a frigging relief! That is a $405 hit right there. Just like that, I was no longer a pre-dawn degenerate, but a waffling savvy bastard.

I played for a quite a while longer but couldn't replicate the win. I cashed out the ticket with about $275 on it.

My next target of note was an upright near the lobby with a decent Deuces Wild game on it.

I played quarters for quite a while, hoping for those Deuces. In typical Deuces fashion, the machine taunted me by dealing me four Queens.

See the lower left corner there? Yup. That's what four Queens pays on Deuces - 20 quarters. It's the risk you take.

I've had quite a few dealt quads this trip and I thought, well, being I was on the second last day, that would probably be the end of it.

I played on, doing sort of okay, but dropping slowly. Emboldened by my win on Keno, I took a tippy toe step back into degeneracy and more risk by doubling the stakes to fifty cents.

Just four hands later - just FOUR - I was dealt the Deuces. $500 instead of $250! Boy was that a timely decision!

Now I was rolling!

I played out maybe $200 on other video poker machines. Triple Double Bonus, fifty cent Bonus, things like that. No hits.

I wandered the casino, looking at machines, trying to think of where I might be able to continue the streak.

That's when I saw a machine that someone had been playing multicard Keno on, and it had an interesting pattern of numbers selected, an open box in the lower right corner, with the center square, number 69, left open.

I sat down and looked at a bunch of the cards individually. They were all set up for different 5-spot combinations within the square of numbers. Fuck it, this looked interesting, and was something I've thought of trying before - 20 cards of interlocking 5 spots, all different.

I bet two nickels per card and got dinging. $2 a spin. Before too long, a bunch of numbers hit and I thought, oh that will maybe be something, and my jaw dropped when I looked on the left side of the screen and saw not one, not two but SIX five spot tickets had hit. And the credits rang up like the most angelic beautiful cash-grabbing song you've ever sung. 

I cashed a ticket out and kept going. And I got more hits! And cashed out two more tickets!

Unbelievable. Proof once again that where there are credits, there are hope.

My buddy 'Kevin' the (now retired) advantage video poker player, and his wife 'Mrs. Kevin' took me out for the most amazing meal at Andiamo's at The D. It was my first time eating there.

And in fact, it was my first time doing anything of any sort there, and I chose eating from the vast realm of possibilities.

We had a fantastic meal! We started with the Polpette sudate del gigante, which were amazing, and for mains, I had the tortellini, Kevin had a porterhouse steak, and Mrs. Kevin had the lobster rigatoni. The Mrs. and I shared the cheesecake (unpictured) which was the most delicious cheesecake I've ever had.

I hogged most of it, going so far as to scooping portions off of her fork before she could enjoy them. It was a cheesecake sword fight!

What a day! Three sets of good friends, an amazing dinner, and a gambling turnaround for the ages.

I went back to the Cal, wandered a bit, wondering what to play, and then realized I felt fulfilled - I didn't need to play anything. It was time to go back to the room and feel good about things.

Total for the trip? Down only $538. I'll take that!

One day to go!

Circa Canada Vegas At Par

Day 6 and this seems like the perfect day to do a walkabout downtown, check out the Major Multipliers game, and do the Circa Canada - Vegas at Par promotion.

It's a beauty promo! Circa, Golden Gate or the D will take your ravaged $500 in Canadian currency (or maybe that old wad of Canadian Tire money stashed in your sock drawer?) and give you $500 USD in play.

It seems simple but there are a lot of conditions - see the details here.

It was a very late night for yours truly on Day 5 - I was up till 3:30 Eastern time and I was feeling it this morning.

We headed out on a rainy, dreary, cold morning to Magnolia's for breakfast.

The omelettes were good and we brought them with us to the El Cortez, post consumption.

A few people have mentioned this Major Multiplier video poker game. If you get dealt a pair, two pairs, or three of a kind, random multipliers up to 100x appear next to the various possible paying hands.

It was a lot of fun and ate $100.

Once that was done with, we headed to Circa.

I went to the Club One desk and showed my Canadian ID and got a voucher for the promotion.

I took the voucher to the cage and gave the Cage Sheila $500 USD (which seems odd for a CAD at par promo) but the point was that I received, based on the current exchange rate $685 in promo play, which was loaded onto my card.

Roughly, the rules are you can't use them on video poker, you have 72 hours to play them all, you can move from slot machine to slot machine, you can only cash out your winnings (if any) and you can't play on any wide area progressive slots.

And with that, I was off and running! I started with $50 in BUFFFALO!!!! and cashed out $47 or so.

Fair enough, I tried it again. $50 of slot play netted $7 and change.

This was not good. I thought I heard Bobby G whimper a bit on my behalf, and it was not out of place.

Next, I tried a Double Top Dollar machine, and this went a bit better.

That kind of made up for the bum BUFFFFFFALO!!!! sesh.

It was extremely exciting knowing I could play any machine I wanted - and in fact, knowing that I had to play.

I tried out this reel slot, 9 quarters a spin, and hit paydirt.

Holy crap, a win of $271.50???! It was starting to look like this was going to end all right.

Next on the agenda, one of those lucky flaming balls machines (aka Golden Century Lucky Flaming Balls). I played $2.50 a spin.

As I was going through the various games, I was calculating roughly how many spins it would take to play through whatever amount I'd loaded onto the game.

In this case, $100 meant that after 40 spins I could cash out. Great. Or maybe not so great - after 19 spins I had exactly won pretty much nothing. Spin number 20 turned out to be a beauty.

I hit the bonus round (three red flags?) and within that bonus round got the Lucky Flaming Golden Balls of Death round. And within my balls was a MINI jackpot, which a quick look up ascertained was worth... $250?!!!!!!!

We screamed like little girls on the baby ferris wheel set up in the corner of the supermarket parking lot.

By the time the bonus round was over, I knew I was going to at least break even on the promotion.

The total win for the bonus was $414. Sweet!

Bobby G went off to play some video poker and I futzed around on various slots, using up the rest of the $685.

Then it was time for an accounting.

My $500 investment had netted a total of $998. I killed it.

I took a break, grabbed a shower and a nap, and did the blogging. We would reconvene for dinner.

Bobby G had a hankering to hit Jerry's Nugget to do some Freeplay he had there, and we decided to have dinner there as well.

I'd love to rave about the food, but it was only so-so. There was certainly plenty of it.

We played a bit in the casino and I fooled around on some video Keno, and then Boner Deluxe.

Peek-a-Bobby-Boo!

Back at Main Street, we split up. Bobby had some business at the Four Queens and I had business trying to win more money.

The Double Super Slutty Spewing Times Pay was fun for a bit. But then I tried the 10-play version of it. And that did not go well at all.

Roughly $200 went for no good.

Next stop, the Loose Doose, and playing quarters went very nicely, netting me three wild royals in quick succession.

I was up $50 or so, and then I made the major blunder.

I switched up to 50 cents. And of course, the whole thing went crashing down.

And sadly, this turned into a Flying Hundies Death March. I wandered from machine to machine, trying this, trying that, always with no win, and that sick feeling growing in my stomach as I could see my wonderful day going off the rails.

Bobby G came back and he was suffering the same fate. The machines at Main Street simply would not pay.

By 9:00 pm I'd had enough - I'd burned through $600 or so.

We had an early start planned - Bobby G's flight was at 6:00 am and I was going to get up at 3:30 am to drive him to the airport at 4:00 am.

I went to bed frustrated, down $200 on the day and now $1000 on the trip. Still, we had had a ton of fun all day long, even if the result wasn't what we hoped for.

Biting the SPAM that Feeds You

Day 5 part 2 - The messages from Bobby G notated an airline shitshow of colossal magnitude. Frontier clearly didn't know what they were doing.

The plane was there, but the flight was delayed - weather? Bobby G was waiting. But other flights were still taking off as the snow came down.

Finally they started boarding, but partway through the line stopped for 10 minutes. What was going on?

And then Bobby G was in his seat. And they waited. The pilot said something about the landing gear being iced up. And they waited.

After a long wait, a really bad sign - everybody was to get off the aircraft. We both figured this indicated that the plane had problems and the flight would be canceled.

I watched the estimated time of departure (and arrival) get later and later as time went by.

Shockingly, 20 minutes later, they did re-board the plane. It looked like departure would be soon, so I went down to dabble in the casino.

I fucked around with 10 play nickel Triple Double Bonus for a bit. It was fun but cost me $100. I tried the Loose Doose, hoping for another comeback miracle.

No deuces, but I came close - three ducks and a wild royal on the re-deal, which is pretty unusual.

I'd put in a hundred and cashed out a hundred. And then I headed for 10 cent Super Slutty Times Pay - the machine I'd hit $2K on last trip.

Bobby G's plane was finally on the move to get de-iced. It started to look like he would actually get here.

I managed to breathe a bit of life into my day. I was in for $600 on the day, but hit a few things and managed to claw back $200, putting me at $400 down.

How I wished for a multiplier!

Boy did it feel good to cash out a win! I threw $5 into the Loose Doose just to see...

And I cashed that out! $35. I was clawing my way back.

And Bobby G managed to get a message out that he was in the air! I hopped in the Cletus and headed for the airport.

Finally, finally, finally after about a 13 hour trip, Mr. G was in Vegas. He'd been through hell and I really, really appreciated that he would go through all that just to hang out with me. We hadn't seen each other in a year and a half, and it was a very happy reunion indeed!

Back at Main Street, he checked in and got a room on my floor. We sat and had a visit and shared a couple of shots of Slane Irish Whisky. In a manner that I won't divulge, he had managed to store a flask full of the good stuff here in Vegas where it could be retrieved. Brilliant!

We were both hungry and headed to the coffee shop at the Cal for a meal. I had the Hawaiian Hamburger Steak, and he had the plate lunch Wednesday special, which featured chicken, Portuguese sausage, and of course, SPAM.

I forgot to photograph the calories, but I don't think it is a big loss.

And then it was on to the casino, where he fired up 50 cent Double Double Bonus, and I opted for 50 cent Bonus Poker. I was kind of wondering how my night was going to go and whether I was going to end up in good shape or down $700 or $800.

The Maker's rocks appeared and my first $100 disappeared in scant minutes. It was disastrous.

And then a whoop from Bobby G and he'd hit Aces Kicker for $1000 - DEALT to him. I was very happy for Mr. G and that's my story. OK I admit I was more than a little jealous.

Bobby G's Savvy Dealt Aces Kicker - $1000!

The drinks and the jokes and stories flowed and we had a blast. I ended up on quarter Triple Double Bonus and got a quad.

And then, I scored a big one for myself!!! Got the kicker too!

Four 4s with the Ace for $500. What a huge fucking relief!!! The comeback I'd been hoping for! We played on and I hit a few more quads. Bobby G got as close as you can get to a Royal without getting it.

Trust me, I made no mistake this time. When I got to an even 2000 credits I cashed out the $500. It was 3:30am on my Eastern time body clock, and I wobbled off to bed, down only $100 for the day, down only $800 for the trip, and one loyal friend to the good.