Time to Get Lucky?

Jan 1, 2014 Spirit of Savvy Trip - Day 4 - Tuesday

Video Poker is weird. And casinos can be weird. But they can also be nice. Like when you want a special order from the cocktail waitress after you've had your two cups of coffee and you tell her to tell Mike at the bar that the weird drink you ordered is for 'Flushiepants' and he'd know what to do.

And then the next day the same cocktail waitress sees you setting up to start your day at the Bonus Poker machines and says, "Good morning, coffee, cream and sugar, right Flushiepants?".

Sometimes I get myself into more trouble than I am worth.

I decided to lowball the VP machine and loaded a $5 bill into it, starting at 50 cents. (Strict Rules of Parlay.)

Three hands later it was gone.

So I put another $5 bill into the VP machine and started over. Daft Punk's 'Get Lucky' came on.

Perfect.

I hit a full house out of the gate and another hand or two and switched to dollars. I never looked back.

After the ass kicking we took the day before, I played like the wind on that $5 bill, hitting $3,000 in coin in before bottoming out. Now THAT is some savvy playing, notwithstanding the fact that I was still $10 poorer than when I'd started, but withstanding the fact that I'd earned some cash back on the three large.

Gosh, I should have said 'a cool $3,000 in coin in'. Shame, that.

Our luck had been so bad - and I can't find the plastic 'Hello Kitty' from previous trips - that I thought we needed a new lucky charm - but maybe not???...

Quad Queen's Quad Kings out of the gate.

And a dealt 9er for QQ.

Flusher on the board with quad 3s for $200

Quad Queen 8s with a view of the lovely Keno lounge.

$3040 in coin in at 8 bucks a point. That's 99.99835526315789 % return on my $5.

Another QQQ.

Still wondering about what lucky mascot we might come across, and still playing Strict Rules of Parlay, I played $20 in Jacks for quite while netting another $1376 in coin in.

It's times like these I think it's going to be okay in the long run. We still need a damn Royal though.

We stopped in at the bar and I was greeted with a nice quad on the third hand.

I played the winnings through.

Not that it is of much interest to the casual reader of this blog, but I'd been sick for about a week prior to the trip with a nagging lung issue.

Not much else in the way of symptoms, just a nagging lung cough in which I would regularly cough up a lung, and squeeze it back down into my gullet. Once a spleen came up by accident - I got rid of that.

However - it looked like the Quad Queen was also getting sick. In fact, it was irrefutable. So we are both not having much in the way of energy to do much other than eat, blog, rest, and gamble.

She ate up in the room (Subway!) and I had something at Magnolias, and then got back to work. Jay came over and rubbed my machine for luck and I guess it worked, as I was dealt a quad.

And then dealt another quad.

Have you noted how many dealt quads I've had? Someone up there likes me.

Desiring a change of pace, Flushiepants I sidled over to the blackjack table and entered a very profitable relationship with the dealer. My $100 buy-in built up to $200 over an hour. I dropped down a bit to maybe $160 and then... they sent in what must be their cooler.

This guy... he's kind of creepy looking and has these long creepy fingernails that are way too long for a guy. I'm talking long enough to put polish on and do hand-modeling gigs for Macy's.

Well, the cooler burned me for about 7 or 8 consecutive losses and I bailed, taking my last $70 in chips to the craps table where I threw them away in about 4 minutes of blistering seven-out action.

Fuck that, I needed to find some new lucky charms. Plus, Mrs. Flusher was begging for some sick supplies. And, we had two keno tickets to check at the El Cortez. I headed out.

Lots of choices here, but what's lucky?

A quick fix with a marker could make this say ROYAL and be lucky.

Another classy lighter design. Kenny Blankenship would like it but is it lucky?

At the El Cortez I tried 5 or 10 bucks in some slots, and then headed for the dollar alcove and played most of a hundy alternating between BP and DDB. Well, okay, I played all of a hundy. Then I thought it would be a good idea to put a $100 bill in the DDB and play it and get a big quad and save our bankroll.

This did not happen.

I headed to Walgreen's and got the stuff the QQ wanted and then back up to the room.

"How much did we win on the keno tickets?" she asked.

I'd gone to the El Cortez for the sole purpose of checking these tickets, blown up my bankroll by dumping $200, and forgot to check the keno tickets.

We played some more dollars and the QQ actually cashed some money.

Simu-quads.

Another dealt quad for me??!!

So, the good luck 'charms' I'd found were his 'n hers poker chip magnet thingies with tiny dice on them and our initials. R, and Q.

The magnets blew out two of our player's cards, so we peeled them off. Lucky as stink.

I R LUCKY

After this not bad dollar session, I retrieved my cashback ($131) from the slot club.

Why?

Because I'd lost my $400 stake. So why did I think that was a good session???

We went to ABC for consolation New Year's Eve supplies and got.... SUBWAY!!!!

Savvy money-saving recreation... or degenerate???

I had my $131 to get me through New Years Eve.

It was a weird day, fun in some spots, lots of quads, but we were still losing money.

Maybe New Year's Eve would turn it around.