Day 9 Monday December 21, 2003

Hotel:
Checked out of the Rio and moved across the street to Palms where I’ll be staying for the next 3 nights. Oddly I’m booked in here on a mailed offer of $39 per night. I say oddly because I rarely book rooms that have a price and this is the second time this trip I’m doing it. The room offer also comes with $10 in free play and $10 in food. I booked this rate because I figured I would be able to use the POV coupon for 50% off and if I can’t get my host to comp the rest of the charges I could use my points. I already have quite a few points and after playing I should have more than enough to cover the room.

I’m in room 25109. It’s got 2 beds with a nightstand, and wall unit with TV, 2 closets, dresser, safe and mini bar. There is also a small table and chairs by the window. The bathroom is huge but most of it is just empty space. It’s not anything special other than it’s large enough to move around in.

Dining:
For lunch I just stopped of at the food court and had an order of fried rice from Panda Express. This was really just a snack until I was a little hungrier for dinner.

Dinner was over at the Sunrise Café using the $10 food credit that came with my room. I went with the T-bone special. It’s 10 ounce T-bone and comes with soup or salad, vegetables, and baked potato for $7.95. It wasn’t that great and if you’re in the area I’d go with the steak special over at the Gold Coast across the street.

Gaming:
When I got to the Palms it was a bit early to check in so I started off by hitting the FPDW machines. Staying with the theme for this trip I couldn’t hit a thing and dropped $150 before I even checked in.

After settling into the room and eating lunch it was time for another session of the FPDW progressives. Things started out horrible here again. A lack of wild royals hurt early on but then the machine gave up a few of them and got me back into the session. I still finished down another $100 and went to dinner.

After dinner I had a message on the phone from Yahtzee Mike. I called him back and he swung around the Palms to pick me up and we made a quick coupon run out to Castaways. He had a pile of match plays that needed to be used by the end of the year. I lost my first one and won the second one. I played a few more hands and ended up finishing the session with a $50 win. Mike did a little better and then hit a match play on the roulette table.

Our next stop was Terrible’s to use some match plays. We both lost because the dealer had a blackjack. Terrible’s was pretty tough on us and would only let us each use 1 coupon. We went to the slot club to get a free T-shirt and funbook. The funbook is average but it’s good through the end of 2004.

After out little mini coupon run we went back to the Palms and played the FPDW. Things were up and down here for both of us. Mike had to leave after about an hour but I stayed and played until about 3am. I finished this session down another $100.

Total win/loss for the day $-300
Total comps for the day $33