After getting motivated my plan was to go down to the strip and play a while at the Sahara. I had a coupon for a member’s only funbook. It has a few good coupons in it that I wanted to take advantage of. One is 100 slot club points when you earn 100 points ($1,000 coin in and works out to be 1% cash back), $50 in chips for $40, and a free ace.
I started off with some 8/5-bonus poker. Things were tough here. I played for quite a while but losing $200. It’s tough to win when you only get 1 quad in 1500 hands and go 10-15 hands in a row with no wins. Since I was still ahead I took a shot with some $1 video poker. This was a bust too costing me another $200.
I went back to the slot club and used the coupon to get my points. I also grabbed a comp for the buffet. When I got up to the buffet the line was 3 miles long and they were closed. This is one of those buffets that close between meals. With the high quality of food they offer it would be a tragedy if someone paid the lunch price and got dinner.
I went back down to the casino and used my $50 for $40 coupon. I got the funny money chips at the cage and tried some blackjack. My plan here was to play long enough to get rid of the funny chips and see how much real money I had. I also used the free ace. You can’t double dip and use the funny chips with the free ace but after you win a hand you can. I used the free ace after all the funny chips were gone. I hit a blackjack with it. I cashed out with $60 in chips for a small $20 win.
I went back up to the buffet after playing blackjack. There was no line and I got right in. This is a low budget buffet. You seat yourself, you serve yourself, and you even get your own drinks. The food here is basic. Nothing really fancy to be found which is fine with me. Lots of foods like chicken, pork, and beef with typical side dishes. They also have an Italian section with pastas and pizzas. There is also a carving station with prime rib, turkey and ham. The food was good and fresh since it was a peak time of the day. I didn’t run into any of the dried out French fry light foods that I normally get at buffets. The only thing I did experience is parents allowing their small kids to run free through the buffet and letting kids that are way to small to be serving themselves do so. I’d say this buffet is worth the $6.99 they normally charge for it. It wasn’t worth the $380 it cost me though!
After dinner I went back up to the Suncoast. My plan is to play here tonight and hopefully hit another royal! When I got back to the room I had a message on my phone. It was from my friend Anne. She would be coming up here tonight to play too. I still had some time so I rested for a while before going back down to the casino to play.
When Anne got here we played video poker. Things didn’t go too good for her and I wasn’t having much luck at all. She went to play blackjack and I continued on my machine. She lost at blackjack too and I eventually lost on my machine. She decided to go home and I went to play more video poker. I played for quite a while on another machine and cashed out even. Then I tried some of the 100-play video poker. This wasn’t a good idea though. I lost here pretty quick because of a lack of dealt winners which is a must if you’re going to win on a game like this.
I was going to call it a day and go up to the room but I thought I’d take a chance with some blackjack. I’m trying to cut out the blackjack for the most part but I enjoy the game and since I was still ahead for the trip I thought I’d take a shot. This was a shot I shouldn’t have taken. The dealer was on fire and wiped me out of $300 in about 20 minutes. I was betting $25 a hand but never bet more than that and only doubled a few times. The way it worked was every time I would hit I’d bust and every time she would hit she’s make her hand. Now that all the winnings I had from last night’s royal flush are gone I quit for the day. I was actually hoping that those profits would have lasted longer then they did.
Total win/loss for the day -$900
Total comps for the day $116