Summer of Tournaments – Day 19
Today is the slot tournament. Here at the Orleans, they have you play both sessions in the same day, add the two together and the top 100 players are in the money. The top pay is $2500 and only the top three are paid in cash. Everyone else is paid in free play. My first session was at 9:30. After registering and getting my machine assignment, I watched Martin (who played the session prior to mine). He ended with a little over 15,000 points. My turn came and I end up having a terrific run and actually had the highest score in my session at just over 20K. All I needed was to have my second session around the same score and I’d have a good change at one of the top prizes.
The next sessions weren’t for three hours, so we decided to play some 2/4 live poker. The poker room at the Orleans is a very popular one and there were soon nine tables already going strong. Their 2/4 game here only has one $2 blind and there are assorted specials and promotions throughout the day. This morning there was a random table picked each hour that was given a $50 splash pot. We played until the next slot session was about to begin. I had played for over two hours and finished losing exactly $2 (considering I tipped the dealer a dollar after each winning hand, I won more like around $10). Martin left up a few bucks.
The second session was important for me to have a good run. As these things always seem to go, I had a terrible one and finished with only a little over 12K points, so I’m confident I’ll end up in the money but most likely the bottom $50, which is what places 30 through 100 pay. We had lunch at the café (excellent food). There was also a video poker tournament going on today. If you put 100 points on your card, you can play a 15 minute video poker tournament worth $5000 in total prizes. We both got our 100 points play the nickel triple play progressives. I lost $15 and Martin won $7 and played the tournament. Neither of us got any quads, so no need to see the winners there.
Martin went to hang out at the pool for a while and I went back to the room to rest for a couple hours. At 6PM, we walked down to look at how we did in the tournament. Martin came in 83rd place and won $50 and I came in 17th place for $100. I was only 7,000 pts away from winning the thing—close! That second section really killed me. But a win is a win, so it’s all good.
We headed downtown to check things out and parked in the Fremont Hotel’s valet. It didn’t take me 5 minutes to find and sit down at a Pick ‘em machine. This is a favorite game of mine and the Fremont is the only place in Las Vegas that has the full pay schedules. I was only aware of six machines but Martin found quite a few more on upright machines in the casino. I put in a hundred and things were going badly and I was all the way down to $20 when things began to turn and I finally hit a quad for $150, so I cashed out with nice little profit. We visited the D and the Four Queens checking the video poker schedules and was disappointed to see that they have lowered all their Jacks or Better schedules down to 9/5. The bonus poker 8/5 and the bank of progressive 10/7 DB is still intact.
It’s Tuesday night and the Fremont Experience was simply packed with people. They’ve instituted a ban on cans and bottles outside the hotels, so now at all the exits have tables of plastic cups for the customers. Supposedly, they’re also suppose to clamp down on the costumed panhandlers that are too scantily clad; however, we noticed one guy with a red, white and blue top hat and a red, white and blue sock over his genitals and absolutely nothing else. I’m not against Vegas being “sin city” but the Fremont Experience is jam full of parents with small children, so the cops need to get a little tougher here.
These two were playing rock and roll songs on two cellos. They were really good.
It was time for dinner and I have plenty of points on my BConnected card (Boyd properties), so we went to the café at the California. I had a sandwich and Martin had the buttered fish (very good). We headed back to the Orleans and called it a night.
Martin had gone to the Bellagio and took some good pictures of the atrium, so I’ll share them here.
The Bellagio Atrium
The front desk area of the Bellagio.
More tomorrow.
Totals:
Tournaments: 12 Cost: $153 Won: $1100 Balance: $947
Today is the slot tournament. Here at the Orleans, they have you play both sessions in the same day, add the two together and the top 100 players are in the money. The top pay is $2500 and only the top three are paid in cash. Everyone else is paid in free play. My first session was at 9:30. After registering and getting my machine assignment, I watched Martin (who played the session prior to mine). He ended with a little over 15,000 points. My turn came and I end up having a terrific run and actually had the highest score in my session at just over 20K. All I needed was to have my second session around the same score and I’d have a good change at one of the top prizes.
The next sessions weren’t for three hours, so we decided to play some 2/4 live poker. The poker room at the Orleans is a very popular one and there were soon nine tables already going strong. Their 2/4 game here only has one $2 blind and there are assorted specials and promotions throughout the day. This morning there was a random table picked each hour that was given a $50 splash pot. We played until the next slot session was about to begin. I had played for over two hours and finished losing exactly $2 (considering I tipped the dealer a dollar after each winning hand, I won more like around $10). Martin left up a few bucks.
The second session was important for me to have a good run. As these things always seem to go, I had a terrible one and finished with only a little over 12K points, so I’m confident I’ll end up in the money but most likely the bottom $50, which is what places 30 through 100 pay. We had lunch at the café (excellent food). There was also a video poker tournament going on today. If you put 100 points on your card, you can play a 15 minute video poker tournament worth $5000 in total prizes. We both got our 100 points play the nickel triple play progressives. I lost $15 and Martin won $7 and played the tournament. Neither of us got any quads, so no need to see the winners there.
Martin went to hang out at the pool for a while and I went back to the room to rest for a couple hours. At 6PM, we walked down to look at how we did in the tournament. Martin came in 83rd place and won $50 and I came in 17th place for $100. I was only 7,000 pts away from winning the thing—close! That second section really killed me. But a win is a win, so it’s all good.
We headed downtown to check things out and parked in the Fremont Hotel’s valet. It didn’t take me 5 minutes to find and sit down at a Pick ‘em machine. This is a favorite game of mine and the Fremont is the only place in Las Vegas that has the full pay schedules. I was only aware of six machines but Martin found quite a few more on upright machines in the casino. I put in a hundred and things were going badly and I was all the way down to $20 when things began to turn and I finally hit a quad for $150, so I cashed out with nice little profit. We visited the D and the Four Queens checking the video poker schedules and was disappointed to see that they have lowered all their Jacks or Better schedules down to 9/5. The bonus poker 8/5 and the bank of progressive 10/7 DB is still intact.
It’s Tuesday night and the Fremont Experience was simply packed with people. They’ve instituted a ban on cans and bottles outside the hotels, so now at all the exits have tables of plastic cups for the customers. Supposedly, they’re also suppose to clamp down on the costumed panhandlers that are too scantily clad; however, we noticed one guy with a red, white and blue top hat and a red, white and blue sock over his genitals and absolutely nothing else. I’m not against Vegas being “sin city” but the Fremont Experience is jam full of parents with small children, so the cops need to get a little tougher here.
These two were playing rock and roll songs on two cellos. They were really good.
It was time for dinner and I have plenty of points on my BConnected card (Boyd properties), so we went to the café at the California. I had a sandwich and Martin had the buttered fish (very good). We headed back to the Orleans and called it a night.
Martin had gone to the Bellagio and took some good pictures of the atrium, so I’ll share them here.
The Bellagio Atrium
The front desk area of the Bellagio.
More tomorrow.
Totals:
Tournaments: 12 Cost: $153 Won: $1100 Balance: $947
