My wife and I took up an offer from the Encore for 4 nights at $129 per night with one being comped and then $200 FreeCredit and a Buffet for 2.
We arrived Sunday August 25 and left on Thursday August 29.
Overall this was a fun trip and even the gambling seemed to go in our favor (not a common occurrence).
Our room had a view of the Strat and the Riviera. Since we were on a high floor I was able to look down at the Riviera and realized after all these years, that the huge front part of the Riviera with all the flashing lights is just a façade. It is just a curved wall of plywood with nothing on the inside. I never really gave it any thought in the past and just assumed that this was the real front of the building and that it had several floors of hotel above it. Guess you always can learn something new in Vegas.
The usual activities we like on our trips are:
- Me : Live Poker, (Tournaments and Cash Games), Blackjack
- Wife : Shopping, Spa, Slots
- Together : Video Poker ($1 Jacks or Better)
When my wife is shopping or at the spa it takes away the guilty feeling about playing poker rather than enjoying Vegas together.
On our first night we were tired from driving from California (about 6 hours) so we only played a little at the Encore. However this was enough for my wife to shine. Within about 10 minutes she had sat down at a $5 Top dollar machine and won $150 which she then took to the $5 Wheel of Fortune and won another $530.
There is a tradition for the 2 of us which is that when she is playing slots that I always make sure not to be in the same area as her. We've learned from years of experience that I am a total cooler for her when she gets her 'slot feeling'. We've experimented many times to try to play side by side on slots but it never works out. However, the minute I walk away from her and turn the corner she starts hitting bonuses like crazy. So now I don't question it, I just stay out of her way and let the good times roll.
The exception to this rule is Video Poker, we both seem to be able to sit next to each other for this game (JoB) and while away many hours just chatting, playing, drinking and watching people. So we had the $200 FreeCredit and I knew that the JoB at Wynn/Encore sucked but we looked around anyway and could only find 7/5 at the $1 level so we looked for the $5 machines and found 8/5 (I think).
Time for the Good Mistake :
So in goes the $200 and I knew I had to also put in some real cash to get the FreeCredit started so I popped in $20 and off we went, counting the spins so we could cycle the FreeCredit through and cash out the real money. At $25 per hand we knew that would be 8 total hands. We didn't get much of anything but did end up with a few paying pairs. We get to hand 8 and we figure we've made about $75 real cash and I am going to cash out when my wife asks "Why is there still money in the FreeCredit display?". I look and see that we have $40 left. I think that's odd and figure it must have used up my original $20 first somehow and this screwed up our counting. So I hit the spin button again and get 3 Q, then the beautiful last Q pops up on the redraw. Bam - an easy $625 !!!
But wait ...
The credits only show $500, where is the other $125 ??
Okay, by now some of you will already know what happened but I had no clue until we worked it out together.
Turns out that the $20 I popped in at the start to get things going caused the machine to think I only wanted to play $20 per hand, not the full $25 per hand. This is why we ended up with $40 left from our original FreeCredit after the 8 first hands.
So I had made a rookie mistake but it worked out for us because without the extra FreeCredit at the end we would have cashed out and not had the credit to make that last hand which gave us the 4 Queens. So even though we missed out on getting the max payout for those 4Qs I was happy to take the $500 for them versus cashing out with just $75. Not a bad mistake after all.
For the rest of the trip the gambling stayed mostly positive and I also discovered $1 Triple Play Jacks or Better at both Wynn and Venetian. We hadn't played those before since they seemed too expensive for our normal $1 single line play. However, I spotted that the payout at Wynn on $1 Triple Play JoB is 9/6. At the Venetian in the High Limit room there are $1 Triple Play JoB as well but they are 9/5 which is still bad compared to the good old days but way better than any of their other JoB pay tables.
Question: Does anyone know how Triple Play affects the variance? Does it cause greater highs and lows or does it flatten out the variance?
So this trip we mainly played at these Triple Play $1 JoB games and had a blast.
In the Venetian High Limit room I noticed that they have built little alcoves along one side since we were last there. They have a sofa/couch in each one and a bank of 4 or 5 machines facing the sofa. Looks like a fun way to hang out with friends and play together without bugging the other players. Seems like a nice idea.
We sat and played at the $1 Triple Play JoB near the cage. The only problem with these seats is that there is really no good people watching in the high limit room (unless you are lucky and get a drunk whale or some ditzy trust fund kids wasting the family cash).
My wife popped over to her favorite Top Dollar in the High Limit room here for $5. You need to play 2 credits (i.e. $10) to be able to play the bonus. So she hits the 2 credit button on her first spin, hits the bonus, wins $600 and walks back to my seat with her ticket and a big smile. Nice !!
While we played in the Venetian I saw that the machine had a Countdown of 67. I know that every $67 I played it reset but I don't know exactly what this means. I figure it has something to do with my Grazie points total but I didn't really spot it until we were ready to leave so I couldn't experiment too much. I do know that we managed to put 2,714 points on my card during out 3 hours play.
I am a low level Grazie card (purple) so if anyone can tell me what each countdown means then I'd be grateful.
Or if you can tell me whether 2,714 points in a day is good enough to get me any future offers from Venetian.
I played in 2 Noon poker tournaments (one at Wynn, one at Venetian) while I was there and bubbled out before the cash each time but had fun and felt that I had played well. I prefer the Venetian poker room just for the seats and the space (Wynn tables are too close together). However, I preferred the structure of the Wynn tournament. It cost less, had less cash taken out for the house and the blinds didn't seem to go as steeply, to give you more play.
I managed to get all these buy-ins back (and a little more on top) playing cash games.
My wife had a great spa and even managed to fall asleep during one session which was a first for her.
We were both looking forward to going to Casino Royale (with cheese) since we got some great coupons last time we went in April. This time we were disappointed. The only good coupon was the $25 2-for-1 Blackjack. All the rest were for specific slot machines if you hit special coin payouts you got some more coins. the coupons we got last time were for Video Poker and had things like an extra $25 for any 4oak or an extra $40 for 4oak in certain cards. This is unfortunate because my wife and I have always adored playing at Casino Royale, it always seemed to have some old Vegas character with fun staff. That soul seems to have gone now.
During this trip, we did something that we had always talked about but never had the time - we went to go see George Wallace. We used to see his posters all over that said "Not too Early, Not too Late" and always used to make fun of that phrase and said we should do it someday. Well this time we actually did it and we thoroughly enjoyed it. He plays back and forth with the audience and I get the feeling that each night is different depending on who is there and how well they react to him. He has some slide screens that he uses to show pictures during his act and when he found out I was from Scotland he mentioned that he had been there about 10 months ago. As he said this, a picture of Prince William holding his new baby popped up with George's face photo-shopped in place.
Lows :
- Getting close in the poker tournaments but no cash.
- The last day (the only losing day) which sucked away $800.
- Casino Royale coupons back to being crappy again.
Highs :
- George Wallace !
- Making a mistake in Video Poker and ending up with more cash.
- Finding a new version of JoB (Triple Play) that has good pay tables at Wynn and Venetian.
- My wife falling asleep during her massage.
- Invited Guest check-in line.
- Winning my tournament buy-ins back in cash games.
- Managed to log quite a few $100 dollar bills through the wheresgeorge website.
- Ending up with more cash than we brought (even after our last day of losing) that covered all the room and food expenses.
Already talking about our next trip !
We arrived Sunday August 25 and left on Thursday August 29.
Overall this was a fun trip and even the gambling seemed to go in our favor (not a common occurrence).
Our room had a view of the Strat and the Riviera. Since we were on a high floor I was able to look down at the Riviera and realized after all these years, that the huge front part of the Riviera with all the flashing lights is just a façade. It is just a curved wall of plywood with nothing on the inside. I never really gave it any thought in the past and just assumed that this was the real front of the building and that it had several floors of hotel above it. Guess you always can learn something new in Vegas.
The usual activities we like on our trips are:
- Me : Live Poker, (Tournaments and Cash Games), Blackjack
- Wife : Shopping, Spa, Slots
- Together : Video Poker ($1 Jacks or Better)
When my wife is shopping or at the spa it takes away the guilty feeling about playing poker rather than enjoying Vegas together.
On our first night we were tired from driving from California (about 6 hours) so we only played a little at the Encore. However this was enough for my wife to shine. Within about 10 minutes she had sat down at a $5 Top dollar machine and won $150 which she then took to the $5 Wheel of Fortune and won another $530.
There is a tradition for the 2 of us which is that when she is playing slots that I always make sure not to be in the same area as her. We've learned from years of experience that I am a total cooler for her when she gets her 'slot feeling'. We've experimented many times to try to play side by side on slots but it never works out. However, the minute I walk away from her and turn the corner she starts hitting bonuses like crazy. So now I don't question it, I just stay out of her way and let the good times roll.
The exception to this rule is Video Poker, we both seem to be able to sit next to each other for this game (JoB) and while away many hours just chatting, playing, drinking and watching people. So we had the $200 FreeCredit and I knew that the JoB at Wynn/Encore sucked but we looked around anyway and could only find 7/5 at the $1 level so we looked for the $5 machines and found 8/5 (I think).
Time for the Good Mistake :
So in goes the $200 and I knew I had to also put in some real cash to get the FreeCredit started so I popped in $20 and off we went, counting the spins so we could cycle the FreeCredit through and cash out the real money. At $25 per hand we knew that would be 8 total hands. We didn't get much of anything but did end up with a few paying pairs. We get to hand 8 and we figure we've made about $75 real cash and I am going to cash out when my wife asks "Why is there still money in the FreeCredit display?". I look and see that we have $40 left. I think that's odd and figure it must have used up my original $20 first somehow and this screwed up our counting. So I hit the spin button again and get 3 Q, then the beautiful last Q pops up on the redraw. Bam - an easy $625 !!!
But wait ...
The credits only show $500, where is the other $125 ??
Okay, by now some of you will already know what happened but I had no clue until we worked it out together.
Turns out that the $20 I popped in at the start to get things going caused the machine to think I only wanted to play $20 per hand, not the full $25 per hand. This is why we ended up with $40 left from our original FreeCredit after the 8 first hands.
So I had made a rookie mistake but it worked out for us because without the extra FreeCredit at the end we would have cashed out and not had the credit to make that last hand which gave us the 4 Queens. So even though we missed out on getting the max payout for those 4Qs I was happy to take the $500 for them versus cashing out with just $75. Not a bad mistake after all.
For the rest of the trip the gambling stayed mostly positive and I also discovered $1 Triple Play Jacks or Better at both Wynn and Venetian. We hadn't played those before since they seemed too expensive for our normal $1 single line play. However, I spotted that the payout at Wynn on $1 Triple Play JoB is 9/6. At the Venetian in the High Limit room there are $1 Triple Play JoB as well but they are 9/5 which is still bad compared to the good old days but way better than any of their other JoB pay tables.
Question: Does anyone know how Triple Play affects the variance? Does it cause greater highs and lows or does it flatten out the variance?
So this trip we mainly played at these Triple Play $1 JoB games and had a blast.
In the Venetian High Limit room I noticed that they have built little alcoves along one side since we were last there. They have a sofa/couch in each one and a bank of 4 or 5 machines facing the sofa. Looks like a fun way to hang out with friends and play together without bugging the other players. Seems like a nice idea.
We sat and played at the $1 Triple Play JoB near the cage. The only problem with these seats is that there is really no good people watching in the high limit room (unless you are lucky and get a drunk whale or some ditzy trust fund kids wasting the family cash).
My wife popped over to her favorite Top Dollar in the High Limit room here for $5. You need to play 2 credits (i.e. $10) to be able to play the bonus. So she hits the 2 credit button on her first spin, hits the bonus, wins $600 and walks back to my seat with her ticket and a big smile. Nice !!
While we played in the Venetian I saw that the machine had a Countdown of 67. I know that every $67 I played it reset but I don't know exactly what this means. I figure it has something to do with my Grazie points total but I didn't really spot it until we were ready to leave so I couldn't experiment too much. I do know that we managed to put 2,714 points on my card during out 3 hours play.
I am a low level Grazie card (purple) so if anyone can tell me what each countdown means then I'd be grateful.
Or if you can tell me whether 2,714 points in a day is good enough to get me any future offers from Venetian.
I played in 2 Noon poker tournaments (one at Wynn, one at Venetian) while I was there and bubbled out before the cash each time but had fun and felt that I had played well. I prefer the Venetian poker room just for the seats and the space (Wynn tables are too close together). However, I preferred the structure of the Wynn tournament. It cost less, had less cash taken out for the house and the blinds didn't seem to go as steeply, to give you more play.
I managed to get all these buy-ins back (and a little more on top) playing cash games.
My wife had a great spa and even managed to fall asleep during one session which was a first for her.
We were both looking forward to going to Casino Royale (with cheese) since we got some great coupons last time we went in April. This time we were disappointed. The only good coupon was the $25 2-for-1 Blackjack. All the rest were for specific slot machines if you hit special coin payouts you got some more coins. the coupons we got last time were for Video Poker and had things like an extra $25 for any 4oak or an extra $40 for 4oak in certain cards. This is unfortunate because my wife and I have always adored playing at Casino Royale, it always seemed to have some old Vegas character with fun staff. That soul seems to have gone now.
During this trip, we did something that we had always talked about but never had the time - we went to go see George Wallace. We used to see his posters all over that said "Not too Early, Not too Late" and always used to make fun of that phrase and said we should do it someday. Well this time we actually did it and we thoroughly enjoyed it. He plays back and forth with the audience and I get the feeling that each night is different depending on who is there and how well they react to him. He has some slide screens that he uses to show pictures during his act and when he found out I was from Scotland he mentioned that he had been there about 10 months ago. As he said this, a picture of Prince William holding his new baby popped up with George's face photo-shopped in place.
Lows :
- Getting close in the poker tournaments but no cash.
- The last day (the only losing day) which sucked away $800.
- Casino Royale coupons back to being crappy again.
Highs :
- George Wallace !
- Making a mistake in Video Poker and ending up with more cash.
- Finding a new version of JoB (Triple Play) that has good pay tables at Wynn and Venetian.
- My wife falling asleep during her massage.
- Invited Guest check-in line.
- Winning my tournament buy-ins back in cash games.
- Managed to log quite a few $100 dollar bills through the wheresgeorge website.
- Ending up with more cash than we brought (even after our last day of losing) that covered all the room and food expenses.
Already talking about our next trip !
