The week was starting to take on a nice rhythm. Get up early, get free coffee, sneak a $20, watch the sunrise, eat punishment breakfast, get out to GrommetCon 2016, find some way to sabotage that mewling sycophantic boss Norbert while he chatted up the booth babes or played that Makeover game on his phone, make some excuse to work in the room in the afternoon, get back to downtown Vegas, eat a great lunch, do some computer work in the room and keep the phone nearby in case Norbert beckoned, and then rock out in the casino.
So let's pick it up at lunch. As you know I have been eschewing the Four Queens somewhat - and why? Because I never win there. And I don't really want to stay there, but I do like eating there and I love playing at the bars there.
But why no play some at Starship Binions and generate offers there? They've got parlayable full pay games in their VP Hovel or whatever it's called and those machines are slant tops. Good drink service, a Spin 'n Wipe promo that you can do three times a day if you earn 200 points, and some good eatin' in house too.
On my way out, I stopped in the Downtown Grand casino for a quick play - Strict Rules of Parlay.
I was still counting failed three-of-a-kind to quad attempts. Fool that I am.
59th time a charm. |
No kicker, though. |
I grabbed a seat near a window and ordered. The little coffee shop used to be right in the middle of the action. And it had a counter, which I adored. But they couldn't leave it alone and a couple of years ago, expanded it, and built walls around it, separating it from the hooting, hollering, gambling, and drunken ass-grabbing going on in the casino. With the new walls, the opportunity to pelt drunken revelers with cold fries is a thing of the past. Not that I would ever do anything like that.
We'd stopped eating the burger at Binions Cafe because we'd sensed it had dropped in quality. That was about 2 years ago or so. Maybe it was just bad luck. I would see.
The Binions Hangover Breakfast Burger is described this way:
HANGOVER BREAKFAST BURGER
Binion’s famous burger topped with a fried egg, 2 strips of bacon, 2 slices of American cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, and served with French fries or hash brown potatoes $10.25
Their basic (but Famous!) burger is depicted thus:
Let's see how the real article stacked up.
If you ask me, it looks just as and maybe even more appertizing than the original. I should know, because I had a big appertite.
I have no complaints. None. I had added grilled onions to the assembly, then laid on a lot of foreplay condiments - mayo, mustard, and ketchup, and dug in to an oral explosion of hot greasy beefy burger mouth sex.
The best part of this was I had enough comp dollars on my Binion's card to cover it. A Gra-tis Free Burger!
Now on to the gambling.
Well, I'm happy to say that it went perfectly. I played about $3000 coin in - enough to get a stake in the ground for future offers - and had enough hits so that I only lost $100 (which made me even on the day.)
I'd earned $20 comp dollars (more burgers!!!) and three free Wipe 'n Grope kiosk attempts. You can win freeplay or match play chips at this. You can also win dice, decks of shitty cards, and logo merchandise that you will never use. Like a flashlight swizzle stick, or a picnic sushi kit.
I bombed and got the Gift on all three Diddle 'n Slap attempts. I checked what the top level gift was.
Slotzilla three foot plastic drink cup with a strap that goes around Blonde4Ever's neck. Yup, the very same one as last fall.
I just took a pass on it.
So, $3200 coin in on a $100 loss, generating $20 comp burger dollars... that's pretty respectable. It's 97.5% return. Bonus Poker returns 99.2% roughly, but that's with a Royal, which I didn't get. The Royal is around 2% of the return, so really, its 97.2%. I'd come in a hair above that. I had no complaints.
I headed back to the Grand, finished my day of work, packed up all my stuff, and got ready for my next move - back to the strip, to a hotel I've never ever stayed in.
It should be noted that I chose not to go back to Binion's and try for more play. I just felt that that would be inviting disaster. Finally, a savvy gambling move!
When work was done, I checked my bill - zero - I'd had some comp dollars to cover the breakfast the day before - and fired up Lyftber on my piPhone.
By the time I got down to the main entrance, Peter was just pulling up in a snazzy silver importo-box. He hopped out and shook my hand.
"I'm Peter... what's new?"
And off we went.
Burgers, fries, and shakes, and slaw
Cram 'em in your hungry maw Greasy food is all the rage So why not like my Facebook page? Burma-Shave. |
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ReplyDelete"Slotzilla three foot plastic drink cup with a strap that goes around Blonde4Ever's neck. Yup, the very same one as last fall."
omg...lololol!!!!
Savvy play today. 'Even' is a win.
ReplyDeleteHe looks like Mr. Mansbridge.
He sure does...
DeleteWith what looks like at least a 20% boost from that Canadian loony exchange scam, how are you managing to lose on this trip??? I mean. maybe the Grand isn't aware that the Canadian dollar is now worth less than Kleenex, and they offer you this deal day after day, so they're, well...idiots, but why not just do that day after day until they wake up? Why play anywhere else?
ReplyDeleteI kind of see your point... it's really only about a $125 boost a day. You had to be staying at the Grand to get the deal. And I had all kinds of offers I wanted to take advantage of. I didn't want to hole up in the Grand for 16 days. I don't play just to try to make money - I guess that's the real reason. I could have maybe made $50 a day or something on average after expenses - but it wouldn't have been fun.
DeleteWhile I enjoy your "war stories", what makes you think that you can get an edge over the house. Unlike Blackjack, where you can win session after session, in video poker you MUST get those royals in order to win in the long term.
ReplyDeleteOnly losers think they can get an edge over the house. Winners know that its impossible.
DeleteI didn't see any mention about the cash back you earned at Binions, gotta count that in as well, but I suspect many gamblers don't even know about it.
ReplyDeleteThose wheel spins at Binions also have some cash prize amounts, and over the years I have hit 100, and 50 bucks several times. Never the 2500 though.
Yeah, there's a little cash back with $3K coin in, almost $10, hadn't even thought about grabbing that. Next time!!! I think the Whiz 'n Hurl promotion is pretty good, I've gotten free chips a few times. Would love to hit those bigger free play amounts. One of these days I'm going to sit and watch a bunch of spins, and try to figure out the EV of them.
Delete