Day 6 Saturday July 19, 2003

Well the alarm went off before I knew it and I had to get ready for my first tournament session. I had to be there at 11:15 for my 11:30 session time. I picked machine 36 for this session. In this tournament you get 20 minutes or 1000 credits. When one of those is up the session is over. The game is DDB so a royal or 4 aces and a kicker will probably be needed to be in the money. I finished my session with a weak 700 points and that placed me 233 in a field of 375. The food offerings were lame this morning too with bagels and croissants. All they had to drink was water or coffee. Maybe Sam’s Town should take a lesson from Rio on how to run a tournament. They also handed out another free gift today and it was an insulated water bottle (junk).

Yahtzee was here for my session and afterwards we went out to hit and run at a few casinos. The plan was to head up to Monte Lago to see it and as we were passing the Longhorn Mike pulled in. He wanted to use some POV coupons so we went in. This place is pretty much a dump although no where near as bad as the Klondike was back in the spring when we went there!

We finally got up to Monte Lago. This place is very nice but I can’t see it surviving. I signed up for a slot card and got a free play on a special machine. I racked up 2 points and we left! I also got to enter the nightly drawing.

Next on the list was Hyatt Regency to hit and run there. We started off with the craps game here and both did pretty well. I cashed out with a win of $88. Next was blackjack and some match play coupons. Mike played his first and lost both of his bets. I took his seat after he lost and got a blackjack on my first hand using the $20 match play and lost the next hand on the $10 coupon. I finished here with another $40 profit.

Our next stop was of to Barley’s to get free pizza and use some match play coupons. I needed to sign up for their slot card and then we went to order the pizzas. Next we went to the blackjack game to play the $20 match play coupons and we both lost. Looks like those free pizzas were actually $20 each. I played some deuces wild while we waited for the pizzas. I dropped a quick $20 without hitting any four of a kinds. I tried another $20 and it worked out better. I hit a dirty royal and a few quads and cashed out up $5 so my free pizza only worked out to be $15!

I had to get back to Sam’s Town for my 3:30 session so it was back to Sam’s we went. This session I picked machine 25 and scored 1070 points. This is still a weak score but anything can happen. Just like with the Rio tournament my 2-session total is less than many players 1-session total. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have better luck because I sure could use the $7500 that first place will bring!

After my session me and Mike played some video checkers for pennies and I hit the bonus round a few times. This game was pretty good to me and I netted a $4.15 win. After this Mike headed back up to the Fiesta and I came up to the room to rest for a while before tonight’s crapsfest.

At about 5:30 I headed up to the Fiesta to go to the buffet meet before the crapsfest. There wasn’t much of a turn out other than the few people that said they would be there. We all had coupons for free or 2 for 1 buffets and the food was very good tonight. They actually had some prime rib that was very good for a change. Usually I find buffet prime rib to be pretty crappy.

After dinner it was time to start playing craps. We all went to the $1 table and as Yahtzee goes to take a spot I called him away from the table. I asked him if he recalled me mentioning the people known as Mr. and Mrs. C. He said he did and I pointed out that they were right next to him and to be warned that Mr. C. might have pretty bad BO so be warned!

This table was up and down and things were looking bad when I had a pretty large roll and Carl, a member of the crapsfest, the next shooter also did well bringing me back to near even. Unfortunately the table went to hell after this and I finished down another $200. I can’t believe how bad the dice have been the last week. Other than a few small hits I still haven’t had a winning craps session.

After the crapsfest I called it a night and came back up here to the room to get some much needed rest since I have had 3 hours of sleep in the last day.

Total win/loss for the day -$100
Total comps for the day $138