Friday, January 12
Day 3 – Day
of Recovery * (I see I have Day 3 here, but the post says "Day 4". This is Day 4 of Hipfest, but our third day in Las Vegas. I'll somehow have to resync this. . .)
That’s what
Kip said today was, we shall see. . .
So, when you
share a room with someone, sometimes there comes a time when the other person
is using the bathroom when you also need to use the bathroom. This happened to me this morning. As we were only on the second floor, and it
was still early in the morning, I put on some clothes and went down to the
casino floor to use the bathroom. I also
took the opportunity to check about my lost notebook (still lost). I also took
the opportunity to play a little DDW. I only brought a $20, since I wasn’t
going to be playing long (I still had to shower and all). I had a few nice
hands and cashed out for $70. It would have been nice if it was a ticket, but
this machine is a coin dropper, so I had to wait for the machine to drop out
280 quarters. Once that was done, I put
them in the coin counter and got a ticket.
The ticket automatically takes out 10%, which you can get waived by
showing a player’s card at the cashier.
I just took the ticket back up to the room and showed Kip, who was
finished in the bathroom. I said we were
off to a good start.
It was close
to lunch time, but I suggested that we play the “lucky” DDW machine that I had
played that morning. Kip usually likes a
$40 buy-in, but I said we’d do $20 like I did earlier. We were doing okay, when we got dealt three
deuces. We watched as the first card
filled in as the eight of hearts, then the last card turned into the DEUCE OF
DIAMONDS! YES! We hit the four deuces for $500 (since it’s
double deuces and all)! Since it was a coin dropper, we waited for the hand pay
(and we tipped the attendant a $5). We still had 60 credits in the machine,
which we played up to 200, and cashed out $50 in coin, along with the $495 in
cash. We cashed our $70 and $50 vouchers and headed to Siegel’s 1941 for a
celebratory brunch. We had a little bit
of recovery. . .
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| Deuce, deuce baby! The jackpot is actually 2000 coins, even though the machine says 1000. |
We got the
same window side table we got yesterday, and Kip was able to get eggs Benedict
again (it was around 11:40 AM this time).
I opted for steak and eggs this morning, and it was quite good. The meal came to $31.39, but we used the LVA
2-1 for a $15 credit, so the remaining total was $26.45, which Kip used comp
and points. I left a $6 tip.
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| Our table! But I think we're a bit happier! |
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| Kip's eggs Benedict, again. |
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| Steak and eggs, because I deserve it! |
We tried one
more shot on the DDW, since the only hand we hadn’t hit on the machine was the
4,700 royal, but we failed to complete this mission. We were able to turn our $40 buy-in to a $100
cash out, which we had to wait for, since we had depleted the machine of its
store of quarters. It had been a long
time since I had to wait for a hopper fill.
 |
| Damn you, coin dropper! |
Feeling
good, we decided to take a little stroll, and stopped by Gold Spike. I hadn’t been inside since they closed and
reopened. I knew they had games and such inside (and apparently outside as
well). It looked pretty neat, inside they had pool tables and table games and
sitting areas, and outside they had giant beer pong, giant chess, tetherball,
foursquare, giant Jenga, and other games.
There was a stage set up, and apparently there is a “room” in the
backyard (the Sugar Shack). We wondered
if the hotel was still in operation, and apparently you can book rooms at the
adjacent Oasis at Gold Spike. Looks like
it is still a pretty cheap place to get a room, but it looks like it could be
fun (and loud).
We
eventually make it to Downtown Grand, where we have a few coupons to use ($10
FP, $10 MP, and a free deck of cards).
Although it wasn’t our intention, we ended up going opposite on the
roulette wheel, so we halved our match plays. We did buy in for an extra $10,
where we placed our favorite numbers, which we didn’t hit, so we lost $20 more
than we needed to, but we had fun. We tried playing the best VP they had there,
Super Aces, but we didn’t hit aces. Kip did manage to hit 2s, but we still
ended up coming out even, and a $5 loser overall.
We then
headed over to Binion’s to use our $10 FP coupons there, plus play for the
Motherlode promo. For this promo, you
can earn 1-3 spins (1 for 5 points to win $40, 2 for 40 points to win $100, and
300 points to win $1,500). I say, “to win”, but that’s really, “for a chance to
win.” We took a calculated shot to go for 300 points and three spins. We were
playing 8/5 Bonus Poker, which was among the better games they have there. We
were doing okay. Kip had hit two straight flushes, but we only hit one bonus
quad (2s), and not many other winning hands, so we ended up down around $130. We
then went to do our spins. Kip got a
free drink (pretty worthless), Gift LV2 (which turned out to be a sewing
caddy), and $50 in FP. I got ML Gift1 (a deck of cards), $25 non-negotiable
chips, and $50 in FP. So we did get $100 total FP to try to cover our
losses. We went back to the machines and
played out our FP, which we both managed to get $40. I then noticed that three
of the machines had individual royal progressives. There was a guy playing on one of them, so
Kip and I each took a $20 shot at it. We didn’t hit and lost our $20s, but
shaved our loss down to $35 each.
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| We got our picture with the $1M because we can! |
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| And we got two, because we have two players cards! |
There was a drawing at 7:00 PM for some cash and points at El Cortez, so we hurried back for it. We only had a few entries, so it was highly unlikely that we’d get called, and we weren’t. It was around dinner time, so we decided to eat at Siegel’s 1941 again. We got there around 7:50, and there was around a 10-15 minute wait. We didn’t get our “usual” table, but were seated near where we had breakfast a few years ago, in the back. Kip got a coupon in her key packet for a complimentary bottle of wine with a $30 purchase, and she was told by the hostess that it would be good, even if she paid with comps. She ordered the salmon and I got the prime rib special, but our total came up around $28! Really? So, after thinking about getting coffee, she said the truffle fries were good, so we ordered them. She was correct, as they were quite tasty. The wine we got was nice too, a good addition to our meal. We only had about half the bottle, but we were allowed to take it with us. I should have asked for a baked potato with my meal, as it came with mashed potatoes. I don’t think the waiter even offered a choice, and he left without asking how I wanted my steak prepared (he did come back later and asked).
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| Our comped wine! |
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| The truffle fries to get our comped wine. |
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| Kip got salmon. |
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| The prime rib special. |
We thought we were going to go back to Binion’s, since I still had the $25 in non-negotiable chips, plus we didn’t turn in our 2x point coupons, to double the 300 points we put in for the Motherlode promo. But I had activated my 5x points at El Cortez, and I hadn’t played that much there (not that I was getting any offers there), but it was going to end at midnight, so I told Kip that we should just stay and play here. After our horrible experience at Ike’s, we decided to play at the lobby bar. We went up to the room to drop off our wine and stuff and headed back down to the bar. . .
Originally,
it was a bit crowded, and there were not two seats together. I found two machines that were free, but
there was only one chair. I was going to stand and have her sit, but I noticed
there was a low seat on the end and an open one next to it. I was going to
suggest that, when the man sitting on the end said he was leaving and that we
could take his seat. How fortunate. . .
So we set up
at the end of the bar. We could see that they had Patrón tequila. Not too long
ago, I shared what was left of a small airplane bottle of Patrón Añejo and it
was excellent. We saw they had that there, and we asked if that was comp-able. The bartender said no, but he could comp us
Silver and well, that would have to do, so we asked for two shots. I typically
leave $5 for our first round of drinks, so we usually get good service. So,
with Silver in hand, we started playing; me with $10 cash and $10 FP, her with
$10 cash and $10 + $45 in FP. Not too long after playing, I hit quad 4s, and
then 3s. Already a good start after the beating we took at Ike’s on
Wednesday. The bartender noticed we were
sipping our tequila (and probably noticed our $5 tip), and said that he’d comp
us the Añejo and gave us larger glasses, since he also noticed that we were
sipping it. Score!
So, I had
already doubled my buy in, so I bumped up to 50c. I was doing well, then
poorly, and I was thinking about dropping back to quarters, when I was dealt
Jh-X-X-Kh-Qh. I held the three to the
royal and hit deal. . . Then the music
started. We always joke about the little
jazz bass line for the jackpot music, and finally we were hearing it for ourselves! Kip couldn’t believe it. First she looked
over and noticed I was playing 50c, then she saw the royal (I said we wouldn’t
have heard the music if I was only playing 25c.) I made a short video where I
was trying to record the music, but apparently the two little speakers on top
of the machine was not where the music was coming from. (There's actually a
speaker under the machine.) It took them a while to pay me, but I didn’t mind. Of
course, while we were waiting, a guy came over from the other side of the bar
and said that he noticed that we won, congratulated us and said, “I’m not a
beggar, but. . .”. No, you are a beggar,
and we said we wouldn’t give him any money. So it turned out that Kip was
right, it WAS a day of recovery! After I
got paid, I excused myself and went up to our room. I had carried a “victory cigar” the first
day, to celebrate a big win. After we did horribly, I decided to leave it in
the room, but since we were so close to the room, I went and got it and had a nice cigar,
relishing our win. Later, I held a
Qh-X-10h-X-9h, and drew the Kh, Jh, for a king-high straight flush! Later I hit quad 10s, needing only aces to
“hit the cycle” on the machine (for those not familiar with baseball terms,
hitting for the cycle means getting all of the hits (single, double, triple,
and home run) in one game. If we were
playing Jacks or Better, I would have already done that, but since we were on
Bonus Poker, I needed aces to hit every pay line. Unfortunately, I never hit aces, but still
cashed out a ticket for $70. Kip was up
and down, but cashed out a ticket for $20, losing FP, but still over her cash
buy in. I, of course, was way over my
$10 buy in...
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| Cheers! |
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| Oh baby! |
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| Victory cigar! |
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| No royal shot, but still nice, and a bummer. . . |
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| Not totally Barbaric Deuces, but still good! |
El Cortez housekeeping tip: $5
Siegel’s 1941: $6 tip
Siegel’s 1941: $6 tip
Siegel’s
1941: $10 tip
Drink
tips: $21
Jackpot
tips: $30
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