Day 6
Wednesday December 20, 2000
Caesars, Reserve, and Binion’s

Got up kind of late today. It felt good to sleep in though. I finally got motivated and had plans to meet Gary "VG" Vegas from Gary’s News and Views for lunch at the Reserve.

We met at 1:30 and went to Congo Jacks Cafe. I ordered some Chinese food. I ordered wonton soup and sweet and sour chicken. This ended up being way too much food to eat. I was expecting a small bowl of soup but this was a meal in itself. It had about 10 wontons in it. It also had a giant pile of noodles, big chunks of meat and vegetables. The wontons weren't traditional wontons though. They were fried wontons that would normally be an appetizer but then were thrown into the soup. The sweet and sour chicken could have easily fed 2 people too. Gary had a French dip sandwich, which he said was good too.

After lunch we played some video poker. I was on the 50-play machines but didn't do well at all. I lost $300 in pretty quick time. After VP Gary showed me the Yahtzee machines. These are those 5-cent, 9 line, and 5 coin machines. I played all 9 lines with 1 coin each. I did ok hitting a few bonus rounds. Gary did even better hitting a Yahtzee in 5's for 1200 coins.

We left the Reserve and I made a quick stop at Sam's Town. I didn't go to play but I needed to change my room reservation and make reservations for Billy Bobs. I tried to find my host but she wasn’t there. I just went to the front desk and they changed my room reservation. Then Billy Bob's said they had no openings until Sunday. I was hoping for Friday though as I had plans to meet VG and CC there for a comped meal. Tomorrow's plan will be to call my host and see if she can get me in. I took a quick look around the place and they have done a nice job with the renovations and additions.

I left Sam's and went downtown. I valet parked over at Main Street Station and walked over to Binion's for some blackjack action. I sat at a table with 1 other player who would have lead the top of the strange chart. As strange as he was though, he was winning. I was winning too. I was playing 2 hands at $25 each and couldn't do anything wrong. I was pulling good hands when I hit and winning my doubles and splits.

When the dealer hit she broke and when she didn't hit she only had 17 most of the time. I was quickly up $750 and this was only flat betting. A few times I bumped up my bets and lost so stuck to the base of $25/hand. A new dealer came in and seemed to be on fire. I lost most hands and decided to get while the getting was good with a $550 win.

I went back to Caesars and rested for a while then headed down to the casino. The first thing I did was walk past some of the Jumble machines. I spotted one where most of the words were filled in so thought there was a good chance to win some money. These are also 9 line 5 coin machines. I played 1 coin on each line again like I did on the Yahtzee games earlier. I played here for quite a while hitting quite a few bonus rounds. I even hit the bubble bonus one game and had the meter up over 1,000 coins. I kept playing hitting a few bonus rounds but then bumped my bets up and then ended up losing. I got a lot of play for the $10 bill I put in though.

After this I went to the 50-cent video poker machines by Cleopatra's again. I quickly hit a quad in queens but that was about all as far as hits go. I hit enough small things to keep me playing for a while but eventually lost my $50. Then I moved over to the triple plays. Things were good here. I played for about 2 hours and cashed out ahead by $100 so up by $50 between the 2 VP machines. I moved to some quarter progressive bonus machines. They were short pay but paid a progressive for the quad aces, quad 2,3,4 and royal flush. I hit quad 3's for a $55 win. I was also hitting a bunch of other good hands to keep me playing. I cashed out up $50.

I was getting hungry now so I walked over to the Barbary Coast again for the late night deals. It wasn't time for the late night deals yet so I walked over to the Flamingo.

I played some blackjack for a while and won $100 in bout 15 minutes so I left with the win. Back over to the Barbary Coast and the Victorian room was open tonight. There was a 15-minute wait to get in so I tried $10 on an I Dream of Jeannie machine. Yeah, it's another one of those 9 line 5 coin games. I did my usual 1 coin on 9 lines. This machine was tight. I wasn't even hitting the small hits to keep playing. I did hit one big payoff of 254 coins. I played most of the time I was for my table at the restaurant. Of this whole time I never hit any bonus rounds though.

I finally heard my name called and went to eat. I ordered the pancakes and bacon late night deal for $2.45. I've heard reports that say the bacon here is road kill but I've never had a problem with it. The only problem I have here is the service. It plain old sucks. I waited 15 minutes to have my order taken, then when it was taken, the people sitting behind me ordered too. So you'd say our orders went in together but yet mine didn't show up until about 10 minutes after they got theirs. They ordered the same thing I did. This isn't the first time I've had this happen before. It happened on my last trip and the trip before it as well where my order was taken at the same time as another but arrived so much later. The food was good when it finally arrived though and well worth the $2.45.

It was now getting late so I went back up to the room and hopped into the Jacuzzi and watched some TV. I am now sitting here typing up this report with the glow of the strip shining in my windows! Time for bed.

Total win/loss for the day $350
Total comps for the day $109