The Legend of Shangri Vegas Club

Saturday
RF Stake: 500
QQ Stake: 380

Because I am such a savvy gamblester, I purposely booked this trip over a month-end. We’d blown through our $50 each freeplay at the Four Queens and because today was the first day of the month, we each got a second $50 freeplay. Now that is the Royal Flusher Way.

There is nothing like starting the day in Magnolias with a light, refreshing breakfast served on crisp linen, after you’ve played two solid hours of eye-burning video poker while pounding Jack Daniels and coffee on an empty stomach in a smoky, hazy casino.

And the light refreshing breakfast was my standard Four Queens Fueler – the country fried steak and eggs, with hash browns, sourdough toast and jam. And don’t forget the country throw-up gravy all over the country-fried ‘steak’. It's actually pretty delicious. I tend to work up quite an appetite while casino-hopping and this always sticks to my ribs.

And pants.

Having popped a Royal the day before I was hoping I’d broken the trend of generally not getting enough quads to make some money. The Quad Queen was pretty much smoking me in that department.

For example, pre-breakfast she’d hit three of them to my one.

Exiting the blast doors of the Four Queens, after having checked our provisions of boiled goats milk in stainless steel bottles, and slabs of last falls pemmican, we started to make our way due west. The going was tough and our sledges heavy. They dragged through the snow like coffins, as if their rails had never been greased with the runoff of the mutton we’d roasted the week before at base camp.

The temperature outside was a full 6 degrees cooler than in the ‘Queens – which we now viewed as an oasis. But I knew that if we persevered, glory could be ours. Surely the rumors of the Las Vegas Club’s existence were too persistent not to be based in reality.

Our energy flagged as the hours wore on and I even considered cutting the sledges free in a last-gasp all-in effort to reach The Club. If I did that, we’d have to press on without stopping because the sledges held our last bundles of reindeer dung and without a fire, we’d surely freeze to death in a matter of weeks in the unforgiving Nevada desert. I put the idea out of my mind as madness.

We pressed on. And on. And then… we pressed on some more.

Oh how we pressed on.

And then… it appeared. As real as the legends had said. The Las Vegas Club!

Yes, a full 4 epic minutes after leaving the safety of the ‘Queens, we had reached salvation. We were greeted with an abundance of indifference and once seated at the Deuces Wild machines, were at least offered complimentary libations known as ‘cocktails’. Gladly we partook of the local bottom shelf nectar.

I felt I was way, way overdue for quads, so surely this was the right machine to be playing. After having seen the Queen nail the deuces for $500 cash, I wanted my piece of the deucy pie.

I dumped in $60 bucks. And in my run on the machine, hit three natural quads for sweet fuck all each. Okay, so they were worth $5 each but might as well be fuck all. Oh my God I was annoyed! Mrs Flusher didn’t fare much better.

Rare photo of Royal Flusher (top).

To turn things around, I tried to replicate my first success on the Four Queens dollar 69 Jacks machines using my fifty Four Queens Bucks in freeplay. The results were as follows.

RF: $50 -> $37.50
QQ: $50 -> $00.00 <-- br="" fail.="" freeplay:="">

<-- br="" fail.="" freeplay:="">I quickly blew my $37.50 in quarter Bonus Poker, not getting anything out of it except more points on my card.

The Quad Queen did manage to nail two more of the four-card beauties.

Binions Double Double Bonus yielded a return of zero as well.

It was time to take stroll out of the canopy down to the Elco. I finally found some luck on their craps table, drinking a nice iced vodka and buying in for $60, cashing out $91 after a decently long session. 
<-- br="" fail.="" freeplay:="">Meanwhile Princess Q nailed four quads on various games.

Including back to back quads on consecutive hands. Nicely done!
<-- br="" fail.="" freeplay:="">
We still hadn’t won free meat at the Fitz so we gave it a crack with the loose change we had in our pockets, putting the quarters in one at a time to reach five, real old-school.

I was dealt four to a Royal but couldn’t pick up the needed card.

And sure enough, the Quad Queen hit again on Triple Double Super Ultra Mega Bonus. Four sixes for a cool $100 (in quarters) plus a FREE MEAT COUPON. All that on about 15 loose quarters we had between us.

I wasn’t worried though – Vegas had a way of getting our winnings back from us. Just don’t ask me how they do that.
<-- br="" fail.="" freeplay:="">