Day 3
Wednesday March 29, 2000
Started the day by heading out to the Hard Rock Hotel for lunch with Gary from Gary’s news and views, which is a column on Las Vegas On Line. I still had almost $100 in comps from their old slot club system that had to be used up by June or they would expire. We both had the steak and shrimp special. This is a strip steak and 3 grilled shrimp, potato and salad for $5.99. This item is not on the menu and you must ask for it if you want it. The meal was very good and after eating lunch and talking for a while we decided to try our luck at some video poker. I tried some of the full pay Deuces Wild with no luck.
VG left and I headed back out to Sam’s town. I played some video poker on the Lucky Draw machines. I did ok but still lost after a decent run. At least I was getting some play for my money today. I was tired at this point so I went upstairs to take a short nap, then went to dinner at Mary’s Diner. I ordered the blue plate special. It was beef stew today. It was beef stew served over noodles. My only complaint was that it was not enough stew and way too many noodles. It was good though. After dinner tried more video poker. Lost. Lost. Lost. I moved over to Blackjack and things were ok until I split 6’s against a 5. I had $100 up on my original bet. I drew a 3rd six and split that one too. I ended up with 3 crappy hands and needed the dealer to break. She turned over a ten for a total of 15. Then drew a 2. I lost all 3 bets for a total of $300 to a lousy 17. I left the table even and went back to video poker. I tried double bonus this time and could not hit any 4 of a kinds. I decided to try a $1 Triple play machine. Got on a good run but never really got ahead. I did run over $5,000 through it but of course in the end lost my initial $100.
After being in town for 3 days now I have not been to the strip yet and decided that now was the time to go. I went to the North end of the strip starting out at Circus-Circus. The idea was to play smaller stakes and take some smaller wins instead of betting large and hoping for a big win. A few smaller wins would help recover my losses from earlier in the day. Well this didn’t happen at Circus-Circus. The dealer was on fire. Lost $250 in short order. I don’t think I won but 2 hands out of 10 here. Next stop was over to Slots of Fun. On my way over I grabbed the fun book they hand out at Circus-Circus and headed over to get my free pull on those famous machines located in the back corner. For the first time in a while I didn’t win my customary 50 cents. Has anyone ever won on these machines? The most I have ever won is 50 cents and I saw a lady win $2.50 one day. I went to a single deck blackjack game. They have very good rules here but it’s a break in casino for Mandalay Resort Group’s employees. Many of the dealers are very slow, and some can’t count very well. My dealer was no exception. She was slower than a turtle and couldn’t count a total if there were more than 3 cards. She actually was counting the number of spades, hearts, clubs or diamonds on the cards. She also didn’t know the pay off for a blackjack with a $25 bet. She paid the guy $36 and when he stopped her she had no idea what was wrong with. The floorman quickly corrected the problem. If you play here just make sure of your totals. I did well here winning $150.
After taking my smaller win here I moved next door to the Westward Ho. I sat in at a table and things were great. I couldn’t do anything wrong. Just about every hand I hit I pulled a 20 or 21. I was getting blackjacks one hand after another. If only I was betting like I normally do! I ended up cashing out up $165 here.
Took a walk over to the Stardust to try again. I was playing at a table where I was winning one then losing one. At this pace I would have been sitting there all night just to break even. Not that breaking even is a bad thing. I just didn’t want to sit there all night long. I moved to another table. Things were good here. I moved my bets up to $25 but never went higher than that. I walked away with a $300 win here. I went over to the cashier and they had 2 windows open. One guy was taking payment on a marker and the other window was doing a casino credit application. I found this unacceptable. It was after 3am and I was losing my patience. After 15 minutes of waiting in line I was actually able to cash my chips in. I told the cashier that it was bullshit that I was waiting there so long to cash my chips.
Walked back down to Circus-Circus and gave it another shot. Played up and down for a while and walked away with a $100 win here. Not a bad night out at all. Went to the valet and picked up my car, then headed back to Sam’s Town.
Stopped for a late night special at Mary’s diner. Had the steak and eggs special. It’s 2 eggs, toast, hash browns and a steak for $3.49. Another great deal. Got a hot fudge sundae to go and headed up to the room. I jumped into the Jacuzzi and watched TV while I ate my sundae. There was an episode of cops on that was taped in Las Vegas. The first scene was a family of low lifes having a domestic dispute in the parking lot of a North Las Vegas 7-11. The next was a traffic stop where the passenger was high as a kite, and said he didn’t do drugs for almost 7 months. Then they searched him and found 2 pipes on him. What a jerk he was. Then they pulled over a car that ran a stop sign and a search of their car revealed a machine gun. Then they said it wasn’t theirs and they don’t know how it got there. Pretty funny how they never know whose it is and how the stuff got there. After this entertaining program it was now 5am and time for bed.
Total win/loss for the day -$850
Total comps for the day $324