Short Rincon trip report 8/14 to 8/16

Returned to Rincon after a full 3 weeks away. They have moved and /or mothballed a lot of the VP machines(please see my comments in the Harrahs forum).

I had made an online reservation for a Palomar room/suite in the Garden Tower, but ended up with a La Jolla suite in the Spa Tower. I haven't stayed in the Palomar suites and thought I would since it came up comped & the Garden tower rooms were redone a couple of years ago. I didn't complain as I have stayed in the La Jolla suites before and they are nice. So our suite had as you entered 1) a small bathroom with potty and a sink. 2) a living room with a pull out sofa bed, a chair?(has a back, but the bottom cushion area is very long), a small table with 4 wooden chairs, a small frig, and a bar sink. There was also a flat acreen tv and additional dresser drawers as part of the tv cabinet. 3) main bedroom king bed, a firm upholstered chair with ottoman, a closet, and a tv in the cabinet/dresser. 4)the main bathroom had a jetted tub, a large walk in shower with both overhead and wall shower sprayers, a potty, and 2 sinks and 2 lighted magnifying mirrors.
These La Jolla suites are smaller than the end bay Coronado & Catalina suites and don't have the outside balcony of those suites. Maybe I can get one of those again when they open the new tower.

Wednesday was one of those wonderful days when things were going my way. I played one of the two Ultimate 4 of a kind poker machines and got me 4 aces playing JOB. On these machines, when you get certain hands you get to pick from a screen of 1 joker worth 3996 additional credits and other items worth additional credits varying from 200 to 500. With the 4 aces on JOB you get 3 picks from the screen. I didn't get the joker, but got a total of 700 additional quarters to add to my 125 credits for the 4 aces. I got 2 other 4oaks worth only 1 pick each time and of course I found those 200s, not that elusive joker. I hadn't played this machine for a couple of years as it wasn't very giving for me.

The "Jungle Wild" slot I like was all ablaze and I hit it for $120. However, I need to learn to take my money and not look back. It got some of it back the next day.

They've added a few new slots scattered in the section running between the main cashier cage to the oasis lounge.

Note:
The newer slots reset to max play amount once you've cashed out. Also they don't show the last cashed out amount.

We drove up to the Mt Palomar observatory. The weather was very warm and it's a short walk from the parking area to the Observatory building, but slightly uphill so it was taxing us some at that 5500 ft elevation. Hard to see the telescope as they keep it dark inside with the dome closed. There weren't any tours on Thursday when we were there. There's a museum with information about space and the telescope and how the light now emitting from cities has reduced to 1/2 the viewing ability of the telescope from it's original power.

There are ferns growing on both sides of the walking path to the observatory, there might also be rattlesnakes in the ferns as there were many signs warning people to stay on the path and to stay out of the ferns do to rattlesnakes.

We also drove over to Santa Ysabel casino from Rincon. It's about a 30 minute minute drive. Santa Ysabel is a very small casino, not in a tent. They filed bankrupcy a couple of years ago as I remember, but never had to close their doors. It's mostly older slots and VP with about 5 tables for cards. They have a restaurant, but we haven't tried it. On weekdays from 7am to 10am, once you've joined the players club, you can get $30 of freeplay on your card for $20. They have a website if you want to know about the beers, wines, and tequilas they stock.

Thanks for the report. Way to go on your 4 aces!!

Yes, thanks for the report and good going on the hits!

As for not taking a nice hit and leaving, I remember that once at Morongo Casino, I saw a couple get about a $120 hit and then just continued playing on and ran it down to $0. I had actually seriously considered suggesting that they take the money and run but I didn't do it.

But another time also at Morongo Casino, a woman sat next to me playing a Joker Wild game and asked me for help but I couldn't help her because I don't know that game but she ended up hitting a Royal Flush. She didn't know what had happened and was shocked when I told her that she had won $1,175 (it paid 4,700 coins). She thought she was playing on a Nickel machine and I told her that she was actually playing on a Quarter machine. She continued on playing and hit some more nice hands and I said to her, "Can I make a suggestion for you?" She said, "Okay," and then I said "When you get down to $1,200, I urge you to get up and cash out and take the money and run! You don't want to kick yourself later and say that I could have left when I had $1,200 but didn't." And she said, "You know, that's a good idea." And then she did that!

When I hit something nice, my attitude tends to be, "This is my new money, not the casino's money (to play with). And what do I want to do with it? I want to leave with it to enjoy it (at least for a bit if not a lot longer) and to live to fight another day!"

RecVPPlayer

Also, another thing that has helped me is (if it's possible) to get the machine (at least this will work with Video Poker and maybe it can work with Slot machines as well) to list the money in Dollars and Cents instead of in Credits.

What this means is that instead of 6000 Penny Credits, it would say $60.00. This can help people to keep themselves in line better rather than to stray and just think of this 6000 as a number instead of the money that it actually is.

So try that out!

RecVPPlayer