Dude was Fu Goodlucky!

Day 3 Monday October 27

The deal at the Cal was pretty simple. Four comped nights, two meal books, one Parlour suite, which is the same as a normal room except it is 50% bigger and has a couch.

Our offers from Boyd have been weird. Our play has gone up, but our offers haven't. Others get things we don't get.

In fact, I stopped getting invited to some video poker tournaments. I'd even had a call with a marketing rep many months ago to see if there was some problem. Apparently I was getting everything I should get.

It didn't make much sense to me but I resolved to try yet again to find out why other places downtown such as the Four Queens gave us much superior offers with about the same or even less play.

In fact, our offers didn't include the meal book - we just ask our host for those and she has taken care of it the last couple of trips.

The morning in the casino started with the shrieking sounds of metal on metal, pounding, and some rather humerous farting like noises - in this case, courtesy of the construction going on where the Pasta Pirate and the cage were.

It was too noisy to play there, so we headed to the other side of the casino.

I opted for 50 cent double double. I like this level because Aces kicker paid a cool grand, without any tax issues. But to get Aces kicker, I'd need to get fours of a kind - of which I got none over an hour and a quarter.

It was about then that an interesting looking fellow with a fu manchu vibe going on, featuring a very long, thin beard - I'm talking a foot and a half long - sat down beside me and asked if I was having any luck. I told him what hadn't happened. He almost immediately hit $100 on Keno.

And I almost immediately started hitting some quads.

Dude was Fu Goodlucky!

Nice quad. No kicker, though.

Nice quad for the Queen. No kicker, though.

It was so noisy in the casino that the Quad Queen brought down her noise cancelling headphones and wore them while she played. She was playing all sorts of high volatility games in a desperation play since she hadn't hit any quads of note. Games like Ultra Mega Double Triple Quadruple Super Times Ultimate Fucker Bonus Poker. This proved 'unsuccessful'.

We headed to Main Street Station, whereupon the Quad Queen beat the shit out of 3-play, went to 5-play and beat the shit out of that, then went to 10-play and played like a maniac. She once again got over 2000 credits, but cashed at 800. She was still searching for that dealt hand on 10-play. A Royal dealt on 10-play quarters is not to be trifled at. It would be $10,000.

For breakfast, the almost Quadless Queen had Steakand, and I did the old order two eggs any style and add the buffet thing. Sadly, I mistimed the arrival of my eggs any style and peaked too early with the load of buffet slop. So my eggs any style were out of kilter with my country throw-up gravy.

Breakfast line we got to savvily skip to the front of.

It was a crime against breakfast, but I didn't let it stop me. Thus fueled, we resumed our run at Main Street Station.

I was surprised to see that the construction on Main Street (the actual street) was still ongoing from last July. And even stranger was the low-level sustained vibration that moved the entire casino.

"You feel that?" I asked.

"Yeah. I wonder what it is?" replied the Buzz Queen.

"It's not entirely unpleasant," I said, settling down a little lower in my seat.

And with that, back on 5-play, the Quad Queen was dealt four-to-a-Royal. This is always an exciting moment. It's even more exciting when it works.

She'd nailed her first Royal of the trip, number three for the team, on the morning of our second full day in Vegas. (Our record is six combined Royals, on the Victory Trip. With this early start, we wondered if we could possibly equal it.)

Royal Flush for the Quad Queen!

She kept playing and the machine kept spitting out tickets whenever a win took her over $1200. It was a great session indeed!

We planned to eat dinner at the Redwood Grille so we wanted just a light lunch. This meant salad trough at the Cal.

I actually had the half a sandwich (chicken salad), soup (split pea), and salad trough. The chicken salad was excellent with big chunks of real chicken (not fake chicken) and the soup was excellent too. The peas were split perfectly and the soup was nice and moist.

Salad trough at the cal has my other favorite cucumber salad dish - it's a spicy pickly cucumber dish called Spicy Pickly Cucumbers. I love that shit.

After lunch, we headed over to the Mike's bar at the Four Queens to renew acquaintances with the Mikes and drink some drinks and play that fab 9/6 Double Double progressive video poker.

Actually, some of the games have Royal progressives which get stupid high, and sometimes the QQ favors those choices. Do check out the quarter jacks and dollar jacks Royal progressives when you play there.

The lone quad from our bar session.

At the Fremont on Super Times Pay, I sat beside one of those guys that gives you a weird vibe. He was like a silent talk show host. He never stopped moving, not for one moment, whether he was fucking with his ever present cigarette, his drink, playing, whatever. He never looked at me or acknowledged me once, which suited me fine.

Sometimes you get those people. When you play the machines all day every day dawn to dusk with no breaks like we do, you do run into problem gamblers.

The Quad Queen made two or three hundred bucks while I lost about that much and finally insisted on getting the hell out of there.

We played by the keno area for a while but nothing magical happened.

Back at the Cal we headed up for a rest (getting four keno tickets on the way). We agreed to split the winnings.

At 7:30 we headed down for dinner at the Redwood Grille. I plan on doing a separate restaurant review later, as we ate here more than once.

Our server Janelle was terrific. I had a glass of red wine, and started with the escargot. They were piping hot, but kind of chewing and with little grits in them. I wouldn't order them again. (Hugo's does a better job of escargot, so that is my go to snail place... it just takes forever to get there.)

Mrs. F had french onion soup (made with the very finest of french onions) which I ate half of. Turn down cheese? Are you kidding?

My entree was filet with crab legs, both excellent, and Mrs. F had filet with a lobster tail. She reflects that they tend to overcook lobster in the west. Her family is from the east and they know lobster. She's found this to be the case everywhere we go in Vegas. Are we unlucky or is it a trend? I just don't know.

The filet's were perfect, delish and very enjoyable.

After dinner, we went up to change and looked at Keno on the TV. On one game, Mrs. Flusher had played our usual numbers except with one missing. We hit five out of five and the sixth usual number hadn't hit. So yay us!

We gave the Treasure Chest coin droppers a visit and we both hit quads. This meant carrying three huge heavy buckets of metal coins up to the fake cage on the second floor.

Lots of Jacks.

And more Jacks.

And even MORE Jacks.

The lineup was huge and my two buckets were getting very heavy. But I solved the problem handily by taking the two buckets up to the front and leaving them on the shelf there, and then returning back to the line.

On my way I asked no one in particular, "Anyone want some coins?...."

This caused consternation in many quarters. The Coin Queen was apopleptic. The other people in line were very uncomfortable.

I really didn't think anyone would take my coins, but it was a breach of coin protocol nonpareil. Even the security guy looked uncomfortable.

With a sigh, I went back to my coins and guarded them until the Quad Queen joined me in line.

On our way up to bed, who should get into the elevator but my lucky Fumanchu guy.

"How was your day?" I asked. "Any luck?"

"My day was allllll right," he said with a smile. "You?"

"It was pretty good."

Royal Flusher: Day -$500 Trip +$3150
Quad Queen: Day +$1185 Trip +$45

Combined: +$3195

More  pics after the break.