Day 2 Tuesday July 15, 2003
I woke up bright and early today at 6:30am. This is way too early to be awake on vacation. The problem is I was wide-awake. I tried to get back to sleep but that didn’t happen so I just got up. I know this will catch up to me later in the day!
After I got ready I figured I would go to the casino for a while and play a little video poker before my tournament session. I don’t have to play until 1:30pm so it gives me plenty of time to gamble for a while!
I started off by playing the 8/5 bonus progressive in the Masquerade Tower. The progressive was just over $1100 This machine wasn’t very good and even though I hit a quad right off the start and later pulled a straight flush I dropped $100 and got $850 worth of action. I moved to the other end of the bank to try again. This machine was better giving me smaller wins to keep me going and then I hit a low quad. I held steady for a while and then the machine decided to slowly suck everything away again. Things on this machine were getting so bad I was losing 10-15 hands in a row before hitting something. I was also missing royals by one card quite frequently. This aggravates me. I’d rather miss it altogether than by 1 card. I had to watch the clock while playing so I could make my tournament time. As my credits disappeared it looked like it I’d time it just right. I was down to just 30 credits now. That’s when I was dealt king, queen, 10 of clubs and pulled the ace and jack to take the progressive which was now $1124.69! The machine locked up and 75 cents dropped into the hopper and the attendant paid the other $1124.
After playing off my last 30 credits I headed to the tournament. They offered a mini lunch buffet today consisting of hot dogs, hamburgers, and salads. There was a huge dessert selection today compared to last night. Cocktails and other beverages were available again too.
I drew machine 68 for today. The machines are Red, White, and Blue. This tournament gives you 400 credits (200 spins) and 22 minutes to play them. I like it this way because you don’t have to sit there like a maniac hitting the button like you overdosed on speed. As usual when I play in a tournament I couldn’t hit anything. I was only able to hit red, white, and blue 7’s one time. My final score for the day was 5900. That’s less than half of what the highest total was in my session. I was hoping to be lowest because the lowest total after tomorrow wins a special booby prize of $500. Unfortunately there were people that sucked worse than I did during this session.
After the tournament was over I headed downtown to the 4 Queens to give them some action and to make use of a few coupons I have that they mailed me, as well as the LVA coupons from the POV.
When I got to the 4 Queens I played their 8/5 bonus machines that have a royal that pays $1199. Things were pretty good here and I got to play for a long time. The highlight of this session was being dealt a 9 high straight flush in clubs. I also hit a few quads and cashed out the session up $100. I didn’t hit 4 queens so I wasn’t able to use the free gift coupon. I did earn enough points to redeem the parking lot coupon for free dinner in the coffee shop. By earning 200 points ($1000 coin-in) you get a dinner entrée and a drink.
After I got my comp slip I went up to my room to rest for a while and catch the baseball all-star game. I knew that getting up so early as going to catch up to me. I guess I was a little more tired than I thought because I fell asleep for about 2 hours and missed half of the game!
After this nap I went to Magnolias to have dinner. I ordered the rib eye special and it was very good. It also comes with soup or salad, dinner rolls, vegetable of the day and choice of potato for $8.95. I had the gumbo soup and the vegetable was asparagus.
After dinner I played a little more video poker but nothing exciting happened but I did cash out ahead by a few dollars. It wasn’t any amount that was impressive though. I usually do pretty good playing at the 4 Queens and they have a pretty good comp system so when I’m downtown it’s one of my top places to play.
It was about the top of the hour and there was a light show on Fremont Street about to start so I went outside to catch it. This was the classic rock show featuring songs from Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, and a few others. I don’t recall ever seeing this show and since I’m a fan of classic rock I liked it.
I left the 4 Queens and decided I would stop in at the Palms for a little while. I got in on a craps game and this table started out pretty good but then went to hell. I moved to another table and it was worse at the beginning. Every shooter would throw 3 numbers and then 7 out. This will kill a bankroll in a hurry. I had one decent roll that brought me back but then the next 3 shooters killed me. I left the Palms after dropping a chunk of cash and came back over here to the Rio.
It was still pretty early not even being midnight yet so I went back to the progressive video poker bank again. This machine just sucked me dry too. I can’t recall the last time a machine gave me so many low pairs without turning them into winners on the draw. Somehow I was able to get over an hour of action on this machine despite only pulling 1 quad the whole session.
Next to the progressive bank there was a bank of Monopoly slots. I tried these out and they weren’t very good. This game offers 3 different bonus rounds and after blowing through $40 I had only hit 2 of the 3. I don’t play these types of slots very often but I think half the fun of these games is hitting the bonus rounds. It really sucks spinning the reels that many times and never hitting the bonus round. By the time I was done gambling today a good chunk of the royal I had hit earlier today was gone. It was really a bummer finishing the day on such a down note after it started out so well!
It was now near 2am so I figured I’d call it night. I was a little hungry so I stopped at the gift shop to grab some sort of snack. I was a little aggravated in here though. I couldn’t believe the prices of the snacks in this place. Candy bars were $1.19, bags of chips that are normally 50 cents in the super market were $1.79 and the real laugh was a can of Pringles was a mere $3.79. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a business making a buck and in a resort I expect higher prices but this was absurd. I found some giant cookie made by Bon Appetite that wasn’t too over priced and went with that. It hit the spot but was the most tasteless cookie I ever ate. It’s now 2:20am so it’s bedtime!
Total win/loss for the day $400
Total comps for the day $118