Day 2
Sunday August 7, 2005

Dining:
For a quick lunch on the way to Cannery I hit Jack in the Box for some beef monster tacos. For those keeping score I haven’t had 1 comped meal yet this trip (other than diamond lounge food).

Dinner tonight was something different than I normally do. I was meeting someone over at the Palms for dinner at Little Buddha. I’ve never been here before but I’ve heard it’s pretty good. I tried the Wok Fried Szechwan Style BBQ Beef. My friend had the Shrimp Chow Mien (Lo Mien to us east coasters!). Both were really good but WAY over priced at $16 each. Similar dishes can be had at any Chinese restaurant for half the price. The total bill for 2 entrees, a cocktail and soda was $42.

Gaming:
I found out the Rampart Casino in Summerlin was also running a VISA gift card promotion almost identical to Cannery (they are operated by the same people). Here you have to play $1600 to get the 2 cards, but it still works out to a great deal. My game was 8/5-bonus triple pay. The machine was streaky and I got few dealt winners. The machine loosened up a bit and I hit a quad on the bottom line and cashed in a coupon from the ACG for a 50 coin bonus. A lack of dealt winners and quads lead to a $147 loss before I got my 400 points to get my two $15 VISA gift cards. Unlike last night, this is NOT how promos are supposed to work!

From Rampart I went back up to the Cannery to get in on the gift card promo again. They are also doing their regular gift card promotion that they used to do on 5X point days. I wasn’t aware of this until last night and it kind of threw a wrench into my game plan for the next 2 weeks but I can work around it.

I started with the 8/5 bonus triple plays and in no time at all dropped $200 before getting dealt quad 6’s and drawing a straight flush. I just wasn’t getting enough dealt winners to stay alive and I was in a quad drought. After being down $300 I took at shot with half-dollar DDB. The pay table is not good but I needed a few quick quads. I hit one but it wasn’t enough. I dropped another $200 and barely had enough points to get the 2 VISA cards and some cash. It was now time for some craps action.

I got to the craps table at the tail end of a hot roll (according to a non-player at the table). For some reason the table was $5 this afternoon instead of the usual $3 it normally was. The table was choppy but I was holding my own. I got the dice and hit 2 points before going out. The next 2 shooters sucked but the third guy was great. He hit 9 points, and 4 different ones giving the suckers playing the fire bet a 25-1 pay out. Unfortunately he wasn’t throwing anything else other than his point or it could have been a great roll. I got the dice one more time and hit 1 point before going out. I colored up with a win of $300.

After craps I hit the VP machines again. For a change of pace I played DDB five play. I don’t usually play these but wanted a change of pace and hoped my lack of quads so far today could start to balance out. I got a decent mount of dealt winners, although nothing large. I also got a fair share of quads but as my luck runs, none of them were bonus quads. My luck started to change when I pulled another straight flush on a single card inside draw. Shortly after I hit quad 4’s with a kicker and then quad 3’s with a kicker a few minutes later. I was getting ready to cash out when I got the meter down when I held a pair of aces and on the bottom line pulled 2 more and a three for a 2000 coin hit. I played about another hour from here cashing out the machine for $1000.

I was just 100 points short of having enough points for another gift card so I hit a single line machine to get what I needed. This machine was rough but I hit 1 quad, and it happened to be kings, which is today’s card of the day for a 100 coin bonus! I cashed out the machine even but had the $25 from the card of the day.

After cashing out I hit the slot club and got my two $15 VISA gift cards and some other gifts cards for Wal-Mart and Home Depot. I walked out of the Cannery today with $120 in gift cards and over $700 in cash. A nice day I must say!

After dinner I headed up to the strip and did something I haven’t done in a long time. That was just walk around and sight see. I parked over at Bally’s and walked down the strip to the Mirage. I hit a craps table in there and it was choppy. My first roll I went out on the first roll after setting my point. My second roll was a little better hitting 2 points and rolling some numbers in between. The table was choppy though and I escaped with a win of about $160 before cashing out and heading back to Bally’s to pick up my car and come back to the Rio.

Total win/loss for the day: $800
Total comps for the day: $337