Since I normally stay on East Coast time for my entire visit, it's not surprising that I woke up Sunday at 4:30AM. I'm not really much of a breakfast person so a sausage biscuit and OJ at the McDonald's in the Excalibur food court was fine. Working ladies were finishing up for the night and greeted me warmly!
It feerls strange to go to church in Las Vegas and then go back to casinos, but that's what I normally do. RTC ride out towards Summerlin this time with a threat of rain in the sky. After the service it was raining pretty hard and one of the members generously gave me a ride to the nearest bus stop. As I rode back towards the Strips there were a lot of flooded streets and I read that there were a high number of auto accidents as well. I imagine the LINQ parking garage floded as well.
You will recall that my plan was to play some poker on the southern end of the Strip, but I had no interest in walking in the rain so there was another change of plans. Rode the tram to Mandalay Bay where I won a few bucks and then to Luxor where I lost $60. I've learned that I get way too attached to AA, KK, QQ and AK and that's what happened again. I planned to play in the Excalibur 2PM tournament but when I got there I saw that it actually began at 1PM - dummy, dummy. The rain had stopped by 3PM so I decided to get on an RTC bus and go over to the Boulder Highway. I like to play BJ at the Longhorn casino where they have really good rules and $5 minimum. Unfortunatley no other palyers and I don't really like to play solo for both social and financial reasons. On to Boulder Station where I planned to play some video poker and pay for the buffet. Won $45. Station buffets are probably the best buy in town and dinner for did not disappoint. They had the busiest poker room I had seen yet with Limit, NL and Omaha games all running. Didn't play because I planned to return to Excalibur for the 8PM tournament. About 25 players, paying the top 4 and we ended up chopping when we got 5-handed. $55 profit. Excalibur dealers were rather poor, having trouble with chips and dealing an extra comon card on one hand. Still, a win is a win.
Went to sleep with dreams of the MRB book filling my mind.
Monday morning was checkout time at Excalibur after the Luxor buffet. Buffet reminded me of Circus Circus with self-serve beverages and generally unappealing food. Still, it was free courtesy of MyVegas so it's not nice to complain too much. For those unfamiliar with MyVegas it's a Facebook game that gives real MGM rewards for playing their games. You can only redeem 3 rewards every 30 days so my 2 nights at Excalibur and Luxor buffet were my choices. You can also do shows and there are some other partners, notably Station Casinos. On balalnce, the time spent playing is way too much for the value of the rewrds, but for those of us addicted to FREE stuff it's irresistible.
Onto the RTC bus sytem to get over to the Rio stop and then a walk to the Huntinton Press offices to buy the MRB. The plan was to spend most of Monday on Tropicana and Flamingo using the coupons before moving downtown for the rest of the stay. First stop was Palms where I lost my matchplay. Gold Coast is unique among the Boyd properties as it still offers 10xslots and 7xVP on Mondays so it was my second stop. Used the matchplay and slot free play but still came out $10 short. Took their shuttle to Orleans where I had my obligatory Baskin-Robbins milkshake. Used both the matchplay and the free slots coupons but somehow left down $20. I should note that I do not generally play a single hand of BJ and then run off so that's how I sometimes lose money. Usually play VP with the free slots and normally cash out a few dollars to the good. Took the Boyd shuttle over to Bally's (thank you, Boyd, for this service) and walked down Flamingo to Silver Sevens (former Terrible's). They now have a couple of 2-4 limit poker tables so I gave that a try and won a few dollars before a crazy guy came to the table, totally tilted after dropping $1500 on a $10 BJ table. I used 2-1 for 21 coupon and had to play about 40 hands @$10 until I got a BJ. Ended up $15. Off to Ellis Island, my favorite casino, both for games and food. Gambling gods were not smiling and I ended up with only a $2 win, even with MRB free play. Ditto for Tuscany which is one of the few casinos that allows BJ surrender. Final stop was Hooters where I actually cashed out $10 on my free slot play coupon. Then back to Excalibur to pick up luggage and take the RTX WAX Express to downtown (thank you RTC for WAX).
One of my reasons for choosing the weekend of the 10-11th to begin the trip was to see the Clarion implosion on the morning of the 13th, but that was not to be. You can see the actual implosion which occured on Feb 10th online. C'est la guerre.
I checked into the El Cortez Monday evening and will complete the trip report from there in part 3.
It feerls strange to go to church in Las Vegas and then go back to casinos, but that's what I normally do. RTC ride out towards Summerlin this time with a threat of rain in the sky. After the service it was raining pretty hard and one of the members generously gave me a ride to the nearest bus stop. As I rode back towards the Strips there were a lot of flooded streets and I read that there were a high number of auto accidents as well. I imagine the LINQ parking garage floded as well.
You will recall that my plan was to play some poker on the southern end of the Strip, but I had no interest in walking in the rain so there was another change of plans. Rode the tram to Mandalay Bay where I won a few bucks and then to Luxor where I lost $60. I've learned that I get way too attached to AA, KK, QQ and AK and that's what happened again. I planned to play in the Excalibur 2PM tournament but when I got there I saw that it actually began at 1PM - dummy, dummy. The rain had stopped by 3PM so I decided to get on an RTC bus and go over to the Boulder Highway. I like to play BJ at the Longhorn casino where they have really good rules and $5 minimum. Unfortunatley no other palyers and I don't really like to play solo for both social and financial reasons. On to Boulder Station where I planned to play some video poker and pay for the buffet. Won $45. Station buffets are probably the best buy in town and dinner for did not disappoint. They had the busiest poker room I had seen yet with Limit, NL and Omaha games all running. Didn't play because I planned to return to Excalibur for the 8PM tournament. About 25 players, paying the top 4 and we ended up chopping when we got 5-handed. $55 profit. Excalibur dealers were rather poor, having trouble with chips and dealing an extra comon card on one hand. Still, a win is a win.
Went to sleep with dreams of the MRB book filling my mind.
Monday morning was checkout time at Excalibur after the Luxor buffet. Buffet reminded me of Circus Circus with self-serve beverages and generally unappealing food. Still, it was free courtesy of MyVegas so it's not nice to complain too much. For those unfamiliar with MyVegas it's a Facebook game that gives real MGM rewards for playing their games. You can only redeem 3 rewards every 30 days so my 2 nights at Excalibur and Luxor buffet were my choices. You can also do shows and there are some other partners, notably Station Casinos. On balalnce, the time spent playing is way too much for the value of the rewrds, but for those of us addicted to FREE stuff it's irresistible.
Onto the RTC bus sytem to get over to the Rio stop and then a walk to the Huntinton Press offices to buy the MRB. The plan was to spend most of Monday on Tropicana and Flamingo using the coupons before moving downtown for the rest of the stay. First stop was Palms where I lost my matchplay. Gold Coast is unique among the Boyd properties as it still offers 10xslots and 7xVP on Mondays so it was my second stop. Used the matchplay and slot free play but still came out $10 short. Took their shuttle to Orleans where I had my obligatory Baskin-Robbins milkshake. Used both the matchplay and the free slots coupons but somehow left down $20. I should note that I do not generally play a single hand of BJ and then run off so that's how I sometimes lose money. Usually play VP with the free slots and normally cash out a few dollars to the good. Took the Boyd shuttle over to Bally's (thank you, Boyd, for this service) and walked down Flamingo to Silver Sevens (former Terrible's). They now have a couple of 2-4 limit poker tables so I gave that a try and won a few dollars before a crazy guy came to the table, totally tilted after dropping $1500 on a $10 BJ table. I used 2-1 for 21 coupon and had to play about 40 hands @$10 until I got a BJ. Ended up $15. Off to Ellis Island, my favorite casino, both for games and food. Gambling gods were not smiling and I ended up with only a $2 win, even with MRB free play. Ditto for Tuscany which is one of the few casinos that allows BJ surrender. Final stop was Hooters where I actually cashed out $10 on my free slot play coupon. Then back to Excalibur to pick up luggage and take the RTX WAX Express to downtown (thank you RTC for WAX).
One of my reasons for choosing the weekend of the 10-11th to begin the trip was to see the Clarion implosion on the morning of the 13th, but that was not to be. You can see the actual implosion which occured on Feb 10th online. C'est la guerre.
I checked into the El Cortez Monday evening and will complete the trip report from there in part 3.
