Day 5
Sunday October 26, 2008
Even though I was up late last night I was up early today. My plan today was to go to Bally’s and play a little bit. The reason for this was 2 fold. One was that I was very close to being diamond again for next year. The second reason being I had stiffed or short played the Harrah’s properties non – stop for the past 2 – 3 years and wanted to continue to get mail offers for those places. I opted for $1 triple play 7/5 bonus. While not a great play, for my purposes it would do the trick. I was holding my own here. Quads were lacking but I was hitting lots of dealt winners to keep me going. I eventually hit a few quads but none were of the bonus variety. I had achieved the coin in level I was hoping to hit and I was only down $25 after an hour of play. I thought this was a small price to pay to be diamond again for another year and to potentially continue getting mail offers from the properties out there.

Since it was about lunch time I decided I’d walk across the street to Bill’s and grab another one of those free hot dogs with an ACG coupon. As always there’s no hassle with this coupon and I grabbed a soda at the bar instead of a beer. While I ate I played a variety of penny slots. I got a lot of play here once again at Bills. My comp balance on my card went from $5 (that I earned last week) to over $17. After it was all done I was up a quarter! I guess that’s not a bad day, free lunch, play for a while, earn $12 in comps AND win a quarter! This is the big time baby!

It was time to get moving for the day so I ran up to my room at Planet Hollywood and grabbed my things and took the 676 miles trek back to the car. I won’t miss doing this the rest of the trip. From Planet Hollywood I went directly to the Hard Rock to check in. I had to park in the garage because my surface lot I used to like was now a building! They’re doing a major renovation and expansion here at the Hard Rock. Inside it was a little different too with lots of new things added since I was here in the summer.

I walked into the VIP check in room and Becky remembered me instantly. This is one of the things that keeps me coming here. The staff remembers me. I used a marketing offer this time instead of booking through my host. The reason for this is that marketing doesn’t take comps to “pay” for the room and my host does. I thought since my play would be very light this trip it was the way to go. I would also be getting $100 free play, $50 food, and $100 travel cash along with my 3 nights. In just a few minutes Becky had me set up with room 562 with a pool view. Now only was it a pool view it was a construction view of the new hotel tower. It was kind of fun watching put the glass on it from my room. This room had 2 queen beds and the standard Hard Rock furnishings. One thing they have added since my last stay here was HD TV stations on their 42 inch plasmas! If you’ve never experienced HD on a big screen, the color and detail is amazing.

I got my things up to the room and headed out. I had plans to go to Sam’s Town for an event later on but that wasn’t until 4pm. My first stop was the 99 cent store on Flamingo to get some survival supplies for the short week. This place was packed today and there were long lines but they moved quickly. From here it was onto Pecos and Tropicana and the Pinball Hall of Fame. As always this place is just plain old fun and a great way to preserve bankroll.

After I was done playing games it was off to Sam’s Town. My main reason for going there today is to watch WWE Cyber Sunday. They show WWE Pay-per-views at Sam’s Town Live for free every month and this is the first time in all of my years I’m actually able to go! They also have a cash bar and stadium style food for purchase. It is open seating and they also give away prizes (crap from their giveaways they had left over). The food prices aren’t exactly cheap and neither are the drinks. I had a small hamburger that they got $1.75 for and a Diet Coke that was $2. Later in the show I had nachos supreme for $5. That was a good bargain. It was a huge mound of tortilla chips with gooey cheese sauce (Dee’s favorite, ha-ha!) and seasoned ground beef.

During the event I got a call from Yahtzee Mike. He and Dana were in town and we set up some plans for tomorrow afternoon. After the event was over I went out to the Cannery to play some video poker. Today was also their Neighborhood Partners day so I would be able to get some gift cards for the points I earned. I decided that since I was up for the trip I would try some $1 triple play. This worked out well and I got lots of dealt winners and hit a fair share of quads. By the time I maxed out on the number of gift cards I would be able to get I was ahead over $300. After waiting in a huge line at the slot club I was able to get $80 in Wal-Mart gift cards. I also qualified on another promotion they were running that I didn’t even know about. For this one I got $10 in free play and a free buffet any Sunday for the next month. Unfortunately the buffet was closed already so this would go to waste. I ran the $10 in free play through a penny slot and cashed out $10.75 so it all worked out well. This is the way playing promos is supposed to work!

From the Cannery it was back to the Hard Rock. I hit the craps table to play lower limits than usual to preserve bankroll. The table started out good then got choppy then got good. I was able to press up my bets and get ahead almost $1000. This was a great amount of money considering I wasn’t betting like a maniac. It was one of those tables that if I were betting like my old self, I would have won 7-10k. I finally cashed out up around $600 and called it a night as it was going on 3am.

Total win/loss for the day $900
Total comps for the day $448