Day 4 Tuesday December 17, 2002
I got up and got ready to roll for the day. I’m going to spend a portion of the day gathering casino chips. I’ll also be attending the meet at the Monte Carlo microbrewery that was organized on the Las Vegas Talk Discussion Board at 2pm.
Once I got ready and out the door it was a little after 11. My first stop was over to the Las Vegas Advisor offices to drop off a renewal payment. From here it was up to the strip. I parked at Monte Carlo and walked all of the way to Mandalay Bay stopping at NYNY, Excalibur, Luxor, and Mandalay Bay to gather up some $1 chips. At Mandalay Bay they only had a few at the cage so I went over to the craps table and bought in for $100. I played for a little while getting ahead a little and then down a bit. After shooting twice I decided to move on. A count of my chips showed I lost $2. Not bad for about 20 minutes of entertainment if you ask me. I made my way back to Monte Carlo but still had a little time to kill before the meet so I went over to Boardwalk. They don’t have a regular craps table. They have one of those bathtub sized ones. I played here for about 20 minutes and finished up ahead by about $20.
It was about time for the meet so I went over to the Microbrewery and met up with everyone. The meet had an official start time of 2pm but by the time I got there about 20 people had already arrived. This was a pretty strong turnout for a meet. A picture of this meet can be seen by going to http://www.lasvegastalk.com/meets/2002/12172002/mc121702.html.
After the meet was over I stopped at the dumpy little casino known as Wild, Wild, West. It’s operated by Stations but really, they should be ashamed of themselves being a part of this place. They only have bathtub craps here too. My main reason for going here was only to grab some chips but I played a little bit too. I lost here and for some reason couldn’t seem to make a point.
The next stop was back to the Orleans to rest up for a while and then I went downtown. My plan was to go to the 4 Queens and get in some VP. I have a coupon from the Las Vegas Advisor that offers a free meal at their coffee shop for earning just 50 points ($250 coin in). I started off at my favorite 8/5 bonus machines with $1199 royals. Unfortunately they all had the stupid double up feature turned on. I moved over to standard bonus instead.
This didn’t work out too well. I dropped $150 and only got about $700 in play. I was getting flashback of my trip in August where I couldn’t hit anything on VP here. I had enough points for the free meal but I chose to play craps first since I wasn’t hungry yet.
I was still up $200 for the trip so I bought in for the whole $200. It was a $3 game with 10X odds. This table started off great. People were hitting numbers and making their points. I was quickly up $200. This is about the most I ever got head on craps before. It got tough after this and I lost most of what I was ahead. Then a guy next to me got the dice and did a great job. The piles of chips started to pile up again. Soon all of my reds were being turned in to greens. I pocketed what I bought in for and a little bit more. After 3 hours the table started to empty out with people taking their profits and running. I could see the pit boss in the back getting upset that his table was getting killed. I liked it. They then raised the game from $3 to $5 and everyone quit, including myself. I cashed out with a $500 profit for my largest craps win ever.
The pit boss came over and told the dealers they did a great job (sarcastically) and was seething that the table lost thousands. I don’t get how some of these pit bosses act like it’s their money that went out the door. This guy was really pissed. I hated to have to ask him for a food comp but he was actually nice to me and gave me a ticket for $20 at the coffee shop.
By now it was after 11pm and there was no line. I got right in and service was good. I had a booth overlooking the blackjack tables and watched dealers at 2 different tables totally destroy every player that sat down. Every time one of them doubled, split or had a 20, the dealer would pull a 21. I felt bad for the players because I know how that feels all to well. As you may have noticed, I haven’t played blackjack yet on this trip!
I started my order off with a sampler, a platter of a few pieces of each of their appetizers. It had 4 mozzarella sticks, 4 chicken wings, 2 potato skins, and 2 chicken fingers. This was a meal in itself for me. I also ordered the hot open turkey sandwich. I think they put a whole turkey on it because this thing was huge. No way I was going to finish it. The price for this sandwich was only around $7. Not a bad deal even if you had to pay for it. The waiter was cool and packed up some chocolate cake to go. I figured I’d eat this later on.
It was now about midnight so instead of walking around Fremont Street I just decided to leave the 4 Queens and come back to the Orleans. One thing that happened on my way out of the parking garage was a bit aggravating. They give you 3 free hours and then after that there is a fee to park like most of the garages downtown. My total was $4 and I gave the cashier a $10 bill. She gave me $4 change and said thank you. I said I don’t think so. You owe me $2. She started to get mad and then realized she screwed up. She did give me the $2 but it was a task, then she apologized repeatedly and I could still hear her saying she was sorry as I was pulling out onto the street.
When I got back to the Orleans I brought my food up to the room and then realized I hadn’t gotten any chips here. I figured I’d take a shot at the craps tables again. They have $2 games but only offer double odds. This is a bit confusing to me. This place literally has 100’s of full-pay video poker machines but yet they only offer double odds on craps. Go figure. I bought in for $40 and played for a while. Everyone seemed to do well shooting except for me. I played for about 15 minutes and then quit with about a $20 profit. This isn’t bad considering it's only double odds.
It’s now about 1:30am and that wraps up another day. I’m beat and heading to bed. Tomorrow is moving day again (these 2 nighters are killing me). I’ll be checking into 2 hotels to take advantage of mail offers.
Total win/loss for the day $300
Total comps for the day $63