Day 5 Friday July 18, 2003

I got up pretty early here today so I could finish up the hit and run fun before heading back up to Las Vegas. Before I checked out I got onto the craps table at Harrah*s. This was the table from hell. Of 7 players only one made their point the whole time. I left here with a $187 loss.

After checking out and waiting quite a long time for the valet to get my car I went over to Ramada Express. Things started out ok here and some guy even decided to come and bet the don’t. I wiped him out of $100 straight. Then the table turned and I started losing. The table stayed bad and I lost $51 dollars here.

The Flamingo was next and this table was no better than the other 2 I played today. For every number that was made there were plenty of 7’s to wipe everyone out. I dropped yet another $59 here.

The final stop today would be the Riverside. The game here was pretty good with a lot of numbers being rolled and people winning. Then a few bad shooters killed everything and I ended up down $35.

I had to gas up the car and the gas prices in Laughlin are insane. They were getting $1.87 a gallon so I drove across the river into Arizona and got filled up for $1.61. It’s not that the 2 or 3 bucks would break me, but it’s the principle of it.

At noon I was on my way back to Las Vegas and headed to Sam’s Town. Traffic was slow on the way back for part of the trip but I still made it back to Las Vegas in good time. When I got to Sam’s Town there were just a few people in line to check-in. I would be staying here for 3 nights and playing in a video poker tournament. I haven’t stayed at Sam’s Town since December of 2001 and didn’t give them much action back then but still get decent mail offers from them to this day. Of course the offers are no where near what I used to get from this place. My room wasn’t ready yet so I just headed downtown to Main Street Station for the meet that was organized on the Las Vegas Advisor Message Boards. I got there early and played some craps here. This table sucked just like everything else today. I dropped $150 here and headed to he meet.

The meet lasted a while and I met up with Yahtzee here. He was in town this weekend for the crapsfest meet tomorrow night. After the meet we both went to Sam’s Town so I could get into my room and register for the tournament. They gave out the gift tonight too and that was a replica of a classic radio that looks like it’s from the 40’s. I thought it was a nice gift and better than the gift the Rio gave out for their tournament. The food spread and beverages at this party weren’t anywhere near what the Rio gave to its players but the food was good.

After the welcome party Yahtzee played some VP and I came up here to go online and check e-mail and a few other items.

After I did my online things Yahtzee and me went up to the Fiesta in Henderson. We played craps and other than a few shooters this was the table from hell. I dropped load here and decided I was done for the night. It was early but I was getting killed on every table I played today.

When I left the Fiesta I was heading back to Sam’s Town but for some reason started driving towards the Rio. I guess this is where my head was thinking I was still staying there! Instead of going all of the way there I stopped off at the Hard Rock. This place was packed. I’ve never seen so many people in here. I think this is why I usually don’t go to the Hard Rock on weekends.

I was able to squeeze into a craps game here and bought in. The table was up and down all night long. It was pretty entertaining to watch some of the characters in this place on the weekend. There seems to be a totally different crowd here on the weekends than there is during the week. This was probably the longest session of craps I have ever played hitting the 7½-hour area. I finally left at around 6am. Unfortunately I lost here too finishing a terrible day on the same note it started. Finally I got to bed around 7am. This wasn’t what I had planned today since I had a tournament session at 11:30am!

Total win/loss for the day -$1400
Total comps for the day $110