Las Vegas the Royal Flusher Way

August, 2009

We are going to Las Vegas and we are going to win!

Win money. Cash. Long green.

The next trip is planned and Mrs. Flusher (aka the Quad Queen) and I are going to be winging our way to Vegas next month! I've challenged her though - because she's never had a Royal Flush on dollars.

"You've never had a Royal Flush on dollars," I said the other day. "I challenge you to get one!"

Part of the reason we play Video Poker at the quarter level is that we're cheap bastards frugal. See, we get dinged 30% tax if we hit a Jackpot over $1200. That adds up on a dollar royal. It adds up to pretty close to 30% of $4K. Now, if we have a losing year, we can claim some of that back based on our losings for the year - but that sounds like a pretty lame-ass consolation prize.

However... what if we both nailed dollar Royals??? So what if we lose some dough off the top. It's a minute portion of the EV of playing.
So that's one of the goals for the next trip - get some dollar royals without killing our bankroll. And after all, if you don't have goals, how do you know what the hell you are doing? It is not lost on me that some of the goals we set for ourselves have resulted in spectacular results, like our triple-royal trip.

Another thing I'm going to try is playing more of the high volatility games with big-ass payouts on the quads, both at 50 cent and dollar levels - so I can still stay under the $1200 taxable limit.

I've only got a few weeks so I've got to put WinPoker back into my Windows Startup folder and make some post-it notes and some calendar entries to remind myself to PRACTICE!

If you are going to play video poker for hours a day, (and long enough to generate comps) you've got to minimize that house edge until it is smaller.

You need to get it down to, like. an apartment edge, or maybe a stylish 2 bedroom 2 1/2 bath condo edge. If you are really, really good, you can get it down to a tent edge.

What theme?

Mrs. Flusher and I have had some great themed trips, especially recently the inaugaural First Ever Gambling Olympics of Las Vegas. We've had comp whore trips and the infamous 'Escape from the 'Ho' trip.

We're kicking a few ideas around to make this trip a little more fun (and give me more crap to write about) but right now it's simple.


BRING. HOME. CASH.

The Winning Trip. Always the goal - to cover expenses and have a lot more left over and to stick it to the (Vegas) man. So it never hurts to reduce expenses, and maximize comps and winnings.

We're off to a great start. We got our flights on points, which means they are free if you don't count the $927 in reservation fees, convenience fees, 8 different taxes, take-off fees, landing fees, flying between take-off and landing fees, security fees, greens fees, improvement fees, dismantling fees, just-because-we-can fees.

We're comped at Main Street Station for the first two nights, which is great, because its a Saturday arrival. We're over to Four Queen's for a few nights, and then back to MSS.

Mrs. Flusher has an invite to a video poker tournament at MSS and I'm trying to wangle an invite for myself through our slot host there. There's a lot more play on her card than mine since we wanted to get at least one of us bumped up to the Sapphire Blue tier.

That puts me on the Loser tier, and means that I didn't get invited to the fancy tournament.

It's shaping up to be a great trip but there are a lot of details to be ironed out.

Like who gets the limo.

Our flights leaving Vegas take different routes. Mine leaves at 6:00am in the morning, which is the only possible time 6:00am can happen as far as I know. Hers leaves at a leisurely 11:00am.

I can't see going to bed at 2:00am or something, sleeping for an hour and a half, then trying to get my sorry ass to the airport. No, I think the last night, I'll just stay up all night.

Yeah, that sounds like the Royal Flusher Way.

Lots more to come!