Day 3 Friday August 9, 2002

I slept great last night. That was until about 8am this morning when a baby in the room next to me decided to start crying and screaming like it was on fire. It was so loud it seemed like the kid was in my room. Since I was up anyway I figured I might as well get up and start packing up for today’s move over to the New Frontier.

When I got over to the New Frontier the place was packed like I had never seen it before. There was a line at the front desk a mile long. I have never seen a line more than 2-3 deep here and this was amazing to me. I decided I wasn’t going to wait in line so I wandered around the casino for a while. The line didn’t seem to be getting any shorter so I figured it was a good time to go to the store and get some stuff.

When I got back a little while later the line was finally gone. I was able to check in with no wait. In a few minutes I was up in suite 1284. This room has a view of the north end of the strip and the pool area. The suites here are all identical to each other and have a living room, and separate bedroom with basic furnishings.

After I got settled into the room I went down to the casino. The VP here isn’t nearly as good as it used to be and the FPDW progressive is gone. I decided to play 8/5 Aces Bonus. It’s a variation of standard 8/5 bonus with a super bonus on the aces is you get them in the right order. Each ace has a letter on it and they spell out ACES. If you get 4 aces in that order it pays the same as a royal flush. The first $20 I put in went quick so I tried again. This time I was getting some play for my money. I was dealt a flush with 4 to a royal in spades shortly after I put in the second 20. I of course dumped the odd card and drew for the royal but missed it. I got another spade to retain a flush. Quads were non existent other than the 4 6’s I hit. A few minutes later I was dealt 3 to a royal in spades again. This time it actually happened. The rest of the royal filled the machine locked up and the music “We’re in the Money” started to play. This is just what I needed to get back ahead for the trip! I finished my session here playing out the rest of my credits with no more big hits. I moved over to a triple play jacks or better game. I got quite a bit of play in and cashed out even.

After cashing out here I went up to the room to rest for a while. I was supposed to meet my friend Anne and her mom over at the Las Vegas Hilton at 7 for dinner at the Steakhouse. Our reservation was for 8pm. I got there a little early so I hit the craps table. There were a few good shooters and I got ahead a little bit. The good shooters were followed by some bad ones and most of the profits went away. I cashed out ahead just a few bucks but it was better than losing.

The Steakhouse was pretty slow tonight so we got right in. In the past we’ve had to wait even though we had reservations. Our waiter was Mark as always. Mark is a friend and takes care of us when we go there. We were started off with cheese bread and a cocktail. Mark brought me some type of Martini. I ordered the prime rib tonight based on Marks recommendation that it looked good tonight. He brought out a slab of prime rib that was huge. It was very good and super tender. I also had the au gratin potatoes like I usually do when we go here. We skipped dessert tonight since we ate like pigs. The total bill was $144 for 3 of us including tax.

After dinner we went out to Boulder Station to play. I haven’t played here in years so thought it would be a good change of pace. We started off playing blackjack. It started out really bad here and I was glad I was playing lower limits again. Then it turned around and got better. I bumped up my bets and got back to where I started. I started hiding chips (a la Max Rubin). It started getting rough again so I quit down $150 (or so they thought). I actually had $225 in my pocket. This gave me about a $100 win for the session. From here Anne played some $1 VP and got killed then we all went and played craps. There were a few good shooters at this table including myself. I was up quite a bit for a while and then a few bad shooters (including myself!) wiped out some of those profits. I cashed out here up another $100. It was now about 2:30am so I came back here to the New Frontier for bed.

Total win/loss for the day +$1150
Total comps for the day $90