Heading To Vegas!!

Yea! Another Bags TR to look forward to.....hit that royal for me. I am on a six month drought for 2011.

Very nice...I hope someday to have dinner with you in that steak house Bag... Nice start...Can't wait to hear more.
PS: Are you going to be there over Christmas week?

Living Legend Bags TRs are back, what a treat !!!

Ok, even if it's day 4 for me, I'll go back and review day 2.

So now it's Saturday Sept. 10th and Faye's birthday. I've been having a tough time sleeping lately. This morning we both woke up at 2:30 am. As it was, we went to bed pretty late so we hadn't had too much sleep. But I started watching some stupid movie, and just couldn't get back to sleep. Finally around 630 am I feel in to a deep sleep. So deep, that I woke up about an hour later. I then realized that it was a college football day, and the games started at 9 am. What was the sense of even trying to get back to sleep. I turned on the laptop and went to brush my teeth while it warmed up.

Getting online, I went through my usual ritual of checking my email accounts before logging in to my sports book accounts. There really wasn't too many games to get excited about in the morning games. But I made a couple of small bets and went downstairs. I went to the center bar and took the third seat from the right side. I've hit about 3 Royals in that spot. Why not try for a 4th. The jackpot was now just under 5000. I wasn't going to play too long as she would want to be coming down at some point. I ordered my tomato juice so I could take my meds and vitamins. I slipped in a "honey bee" and started playing. I couldn't have been playing for more than 5 minutes when I got dealt two 4's. I started to order my Starbucks coffee when I hit the draw button. When I looked back down, I saw 4 4's with a kicker staring me in the face. It also gave me a 3 kicker....but....I wasn't playing DDB. This would be the first of four 4's that I would hit during the day. Two of the four were with a kicker, but only once was I playing DDB. That sucked, but as Faye would say, you probably wouldn't have hit it if I was playing DDB. The first hit gave me $220 since it's a progressive machine. Maybe 10 minutes later, I got dealt four 8's. Maybe it was going to be a good day after all.

Faye gave me a call, and I headed upstairs to help her come down and play. When we got back downstairs and got seated, she turned to me and said, "that skank better not call you on my birthday." I told her that she wouldn't. Fortunately, she didn't ask me how I would know that. Sharlene had already called me when I was downstairs by myself at the bar. I could hardly hear what she was saying as the reception at the Silverton really sucks. They are supposedly doing something to correct the problem, but who knows when it will be fixed. Same problem up in the rooms. You have to walk to the window to get decent reception.

We couldn't have been playing more than 10 minutes, when I hit my second set of quad 4's. Faye was right behind me with quad 2's. She only got paid $202 since I brought the jackpot down to $200. After playing a couple of hours...and a few more 4OAK's, she decided that she wanted to go back upstairs and get dressed for dinner. I thought I might jump in the shower and get dressed for dinner also, and since she takes a year and a day to get ready, I would make my way down to the bar and get more playing time in before she came back downstairs. And back to the bar I went.

I had bought a twenty play keno ticket, and I'd stop at the keno kiosk to see if I had hit anything. I switched from my regular keno numbers after I noticed that numbers in the "4" column kept on hitting. So I took 14, 24, 34, 44, 54 and 45. Usually at the bar they had one TV set to the keno board, but because there was so many college games being played, all the screens were set for football. So I had absolutely no idea what numbers had come in....if any. I handed my ticket to the keno runner, and much to our surprise, it showed I had won $97. That means that on one game, I had hit 5 out of 6, and if the 6th one had come in....I could have collect $1500. That would have been a nice way to "start" the day. But I was happy winning the $97 as it would help pay for my keno plays for a while.

Sat down at the bar to start a new session, but this session wasn't going to be like the last one. Couldn't seem to hit one 4 AOK, not ONE. Hundreds were being pissed away, and from being close to even, I was now about a thousand in the hole. Almost mercifully, Faye gave me a call to come up and get her. I hoped the next session would bail me out again.

Returning to the bar we grabbed the only two seats that were available since it seemed that everyone had showed up to watch the Notre Dame-Michigan game. I had forgotten about that game and wanted to bet Michigan getting the 3 points from ND. It was going to be the first night game in Michigan history, and I thought the team would really be ready to play their hearts out to win this game. Turns out that I was right as Michigan not only covered the spread, but won the game outright. It was time to start playing and get some money back.

I was hoping that a new "change of seats" would bring us some luck. And it sure did. Faye started us out by hitting the 4 Aces jackpot for $430. I came back and hit my third set of quad 4's. This started a run on quads that we haven't experienced in a long time. It's one thing to get one machine on a roll, but when you have two machines banging out 4 OAK's, it really is something! As I've stated in the past, when we get to a "round" number we cash out the ticket and insert new money. As you also must know, while Faye only plays Bonus Poker, I switch back and forth between BP and DDB. Well this session I was hitting those quads almost exclusively playing DDB. I wound up hitting 4 jacks playing DDB, and then two hands later, I hit the same 4 jacks. That was $500 right there. The tito's kept piling up in my pocket, and I would only cash them in when I ran out of hundred $ bills. We had our dinner reservation for 8 pm, so we didn't have too much time left before her family showed up. I finally wound up hitting four 4's again...my fourth one that day, but this time I had the kicker, and I WAS playing DDB. What a nice hit that was, and after a little bit I cashed out another TITO for $800.

Her family showed up and it was time for Faye's birthday dinner. When I finished cashing out the TITO's, I counted out the money, and we were now actually UP about $400 for the trip. What a comeback...but would it last?

We got seated for dinner, and Faye requested that for a birthday "present", that she would like to play in the High Limit Salon.....and play the $5 machines. She usually played the $1 machines there and I would play the $5 machines. But she usually did well there so I wasn't against it.

Since they changed the chef in Twin Creeks, things just haven't been the same. Not only that, but we didn't get our regular server as he was on vacation. I wound up having the Prime Rib, but everyone else seemed to have the steak and lobster and one person had the filet mignon. The one person wasn't even invited, and it was a girl that her nephew brought with him. When he showed up with her, he offered to pay me for her meal, but naturally he knew that I wouldn't take any money from him, especially when dinner was going to be comped. But I thought it was a lot of nerve showing up with someone BEFORE notifying me that she was coming.

Well this server wasn't the woman of my dreams. She seemed to screw up everything. Just because one person...the uninvited one...asked for her filet to be butterflied....doesn't mean that everyone else at the table wanted it to be served the same way. Not only that, but she kept forgetting to bring things that were ordered, until you were halfway done with your meal. Although the chef finally got the Bernaise sauce corrected from our last meal there, the Creme Brulee just isn't as good as it once was.

So after dinner, we headed over to the High Limit area. When playing there, you better hit something fast or you're not going to come out ahead. I put in $300 for each of us and began playing. I like to start playing BP, and if I should get ahead a decent amount, switch to DDB, and hope to make a killing. ANY 4 OAK playing DDB gets you a W2-G...or whatever it's called...a tax form, because any 4 OAK pays $1250. We didn't have to worry about getting one of those as we couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. When Faye lost her $300, I offered to give her more, but she only wanted $100 to play for dollars. When I lost mine, I pumped in another $300. We were now in $1000, and unless one of us hit something...preferably me...we were now going to be in the hole about $600 for the trip. Well, no one hit anything! So it was back to the center bar for a nightcap, and hopefully another winning session.

I always like to have Sambuca Romana after a good steak or Prime Rib dinner. Love that licorice smell when you go to take a sip. Well it turns out that it was almost a break even session, so up to bed we went down $600 for the trip.

Tomorrow, I'll write about the first week of the NFL season and how it turned out for me.

I have one question: How 'bout them Colts?

So on to day 3 which is no big deal so I'll give a quick synopsis and got to day 4 where a lot of action takes place.

It's Sunday, day 3, and the start of the NFL season one. Up early again as it was time to scope out the lines and any major changes. I put on ESPN while I was on my laptop checking out the the various lines that were being offered by the "offshore" books. Nothing had really changed much since Saturday, except the Bears line dropped a half point to +2. What a suck in bet that was going to be. How could the public NOT be all over the Falcons when all they had to do was win by a field goal. Hopefully that was going to be easy money, as would the Ravens be playing the Steelers. How could you not take the Steelers getting 2 points or more. You know the public would be all over the Steelers getting points. After all, Flacco the Ravens QB had NEVER beaten Roethlisberger...0-6 against him. But that was one of the advantages of being a former bookie. When you're a bookie, you're "forced" to take the other side of what the public wants to bet. Well, that was the only two bets I won in my Hilton contest, other than my switch off the Jets and onto the Cards in my Leroys contest. The Rams, Colts and Jets all lost, or didn't cover in the Jets case. But I wound up having a nice day, as I piled on the Cards and Cowboys later in the day. I had a loser with my Giants as I couldn't resist getting +130 juice for a small bet. Even had on my Giants jersey with BAGIANT on the back of it.

When I went to cash in my Cowboys winner, the sportsbook writer told me I was one of the only people that bet the Cowboys. Even though I selected the Jets in my contest, the line had jumped to -6.5, meaning the public was all over the Jets. That automatically made the Cowboys my selection even though I had the Jets in two contest. But I was wary of the Jets pick after we put the play in, and felt differently on Saturday, but there was no way to take back the pick once it went in on Friday.

Getting a little tired, so I get to day 4 tomorrow. Lost about a grand playing video poker on day 3.

Loving the read bagiant!Hope the winning kicks back in for you.

J

PS JPC asked earlier but i'll ask again,you going to be around end of sept-early oct?

Back to the center bar for my daily tomato juice and vitamins. I couldn't have been playing for 30 seconds when I got 4 4's. What a way to start the day. Could this be a sign of things to come? I sure hoped so, as it will help getting back on track. A few minutes later, 4 Kings appeared and I just KNEW it was going to be a big day...but it wouldn't be until later in the evening. Got a call from Sharlene when I was sitting at the table waiting for breakfast.

Afterwords, Faye would come down and we played until it was time for her to go to bed. I decided I would take a trip to the High Limit Salon. It was going to be a nice trip the HLS this time, and I collect 3 W2_g's.

I deposited my usual $300 and played BP. When I finally got up to $500, I switched to DDB. When I got down to $225, I got dealt 4 4's. All I needed for a NICE score was one kicker. You just don't normally get hands dealt like that and I prayed for the best. But replacing the "garbage" card I had with the 4's, it got replaced by a JH. But the call attendant light came on anyway for a wonderful $2000 win. After my hand pay, I continued to play with the remaining credits. I switched back to BP and hit 4 8's for $675. But I wasn't done yet. Continuing playing BP, I got dealt an amazing hand. 10d, jd, qd, and kd's. All I needed for the Royal....and over 27000....was the AD. I closed my eyes and hit the deal button, and the next thing I saw was the CALL ATTENDANT light. But as I scanned the screen....it WASN'T the royal...but a STRAIGHT FLUSH!!! What a BITCH. BIG difference between $1250 and $27000. But it was another W2-G, so who should be complaining? But someone came by who had hit a Royal at the center bar when only holding the Jd, and the rest filled in. It was my GF's son's friend. I started going downhill from there and had to add more money. But the rush wasn't over yet, and I pulled out my 3rd 4 OAK hitting 4 Queens on DDB. My 3rsd W2_G. I decided to call it a night in the HLS. I went back to the center bar, and after going through $400, I hit 4 8's. I burned off another $300 or so, and went to bed.

After all, I had won some big coin on the Cowboys and OVER, so it was quite a good night.When I finally got up to bed, I emailed Star and sent her a couple of gift packs to make her happy. Hard to get this woman off my mind, and I see her bikini picture all the time as my screen saver. Oh well, I guess I just have a weakness for her. Who knows what will happen when she gets out of jail. I know I said it was over between us, but you never know. She just makes me happy, and there is nothing more I can say.

Wow, I guess ive been out of the loop! What happened to the skank ass Ho? I'm surprised Faye's son would have anything to do with you, as well as Faye!? I guess money can buy anything, disgusting, isn't it?

Oh well, at least the Silverton shows you the love! Good luck, along with a few thou trying to hit the progressive!

So today was day 12 in Vegas. We were leaving two nights ago and had the car all packed up except for some clothing to wear and our toiletries for the next day.

Sorry to say that after that great night in the High Limit Salon, things kept going downhill except for a ton of 4 OAKS at various times. But they only seemed to get me even, or if I got ahead the money got poured back in by playing too long. Unless you hit that Royal playing dollars, or any other denomination for that matter, it gets to be a long road to hoe. And just like chasing that Royal two trips ago, it gets real expensive if you don't finally hit one.

Twice while playing..and one was already described in the HLS, I got dealt suited J,Q,K,10, and both times I hit the 9 instead of the highly needed Ace. But the HLS salon one hurt the most as it was for over $27,000. Now that would have really made the trip. I also got dealt 4 to a Royal in the HLS on another night, but just couldn't get the "gut" card in the middle.

While there, they were having drawings on Saturday night for a grand prize of $10,000. The first Saturday I didn't get called at all, but on last Saturday I got called and won $250. But get this. A couple that are locals which I mentioned earlier, were playing on Friday and Saturday. The husband was on a roll and hit a quarter royal on Friday. When they came in on Saturday, the wife talked him into playing $1's. After all, I almost single handedly pushed the jackpot up from about $4600 when I got there, to over $6000 by Friday. Although he didn't hit the Royal, he hit 4 Aces and 2,3,4's like they were a pair of jacks. Then the wife started chipping in and she hit her share of 4 Aces, 2,3,4's. About 20 minutes before the Saturday drawing, I saw them getting up, and thought they were heading for the drawing area at the aquarium. When they told me they were leaving, I asked them why they aren't staying for the drawing. After all, they put tons of points on during the week and had a good shot at being called. The husband replied that they never win those things. Well he couldn't have been more wrong than that night. The first person they call wins the 10 grand, and they have one minute to show up. If they don't show up, they call another name. Well the first person they called didn't show up. so they called another name...a woman....and even though I knew both the husband and wife's name, I didn't know their last name. Well later on that night, I found out that the locals who left before the drawing, the wife's name was called for the 10 grand. What a tough bet. But when I saw them the next day, she had found out about it from someone else. But as a consolation prize to partially make up for it, she finished 2nd in a slot tournament Sunday that paid her $2000. Boy what a roll they could have been on if they only stayed that night.

We were supposed to be leaving very early on Monday morning...like 4 am, rather than drive home in all that traffic on Sunday. But 4 am came and went, and the Silverton put me up for one more night. But days before we got kicked out of our suite as the owners son came in with a bucnch of friends and took over 3 or 4 suites. They gave us two adjoining rooms, but it just wasn't the same. Next, those rooms were accounted for and we moved to what we thought would be a good choice...a handicapped room. Faye was riding around on a rented scooter, and we thought that might be an ideal situation. But it wasn't!! How they could ever give this room to a handicapped person was beyond me. It was so small, I don';t know how a handicapped person could manuever with a scooter, or even a walker. Sure it had all the goodies a handicapped person would need like handrails by the toilet and a flat entrance to the shower with a detachable shower head, but the room was really small.

So to stay one more night, Faye wanted our suite back and since it was now open, we moved back into the suite. What a difference. But the overnight stay would prove costly except for the Monday Night Football game where I made some decent money. I was all over the Falcons and the over, and both came in. But what started out to be a decent day turned into a disaster. When I started playing about noon, I had about $1500 on me. Well that got down to $1000 and I finally switched machines and it some 4 OAKs playing DDB and BP. But that elusive royal kept on teasing me with hitting 4 to it and not fill in the last card. One time I had a five card redraw, and hit everything to a royal but the 10, instead it was a 7c to complete the flush. I'll tell you, if you could hold out 4 cards to replace anything in a hand, it would be all four 10's. They seem to be the most common card to miss hitting the royal.

But as I said, it got expensive. I had to get money out of the ATM 3 times, and blew off all my winnings on the Falcons and over. I finally gave up and went upstairs with no money in my pocket, and that's a rare thing for me to do.

I had a wake up call for 3:45 am and was still tired so we postponed leaving until about 7 am. But I couldn't get back to sleep, so by 6 am I was up and about brushing my teeth and getting ready to leave. On Monday I went to the Bass Pro Shop and bought some underwear and shirts to wear for the trip home. As I said, everything was packed in the car and it wasn't worth the bother to try and go through things to get something to wear.

Finally, we were headed down to the car to take the long ride home. I was really feeling disgusted at how much this trip cost, and wish we stuck with our original plan to leave the Tuesday after we got there on Friday. But that didn't happen so there's nothing I can do about it. But it will be a long time before we go back again. Probably some time during the football season, and hopefully to collect money from the Hilton contest. I'm only 5-5 for the first two weeks, but with the upsets, no one is running away with the contest and I'm only 3 points out of first place. So a few good weeks can get me right back into the race.

We pulled out of valet at 6:50 am, and I knew that traffic wouldn't be too bad at that hour. We knew we were going to make a planned stop at Tommy's World Famous Chilli Burgers in Barstow. Barstow now leaves a bad taste in my mouth since that "incident" with Sharlene. But when we stopped at Tommy's, the place only had two people seated. We thought about trying their breakfast burrito, but Faye chose her tamale and I stuck with my double cheeseburger.

After eating, the rest of the trip would turn into a nightmare. First of all, I didn't have the same car that I started the trip with. Came out to valet one day only to find our rear view mirror was detached from the window. Seems like the glue which holds it to the window had given out from the heat is my guess. So over to the Avis rental place at the airport I went to get a new car. I got the same Chevy Tansverse, but not quite equipped with the same goodies as the last car. No satellite radio for one thing. Had a "normal" AM-FM radio and not all the other extras that the other car had.

Anyway, for those of you that travel to Vegas by car, I'm sure you know of the "Highway Station 98-99" that plays good music and gives you traffic updates all along the I-15 from Calif. to Vegas and vice versa. The usually play popular music mixed in with some oldies. But when I tuned in what I thought was the channel, I was getting the type of music they play in the background at the red rock. If you've been to the red rock, you know what I mean. It used to be that the "Highway Station" was the only station you could get while driving through the desert. But as the years progressed, more stations were added for your listening pleasure. They added a country-western station and now whatever else. But as I kept listening, they didn't call themselves the "Highway Station" any longer. I thought I must have had on the wrong channel and a new station had been added to the mix. But I checked the dial and knew I had on the right station. But now the called themselves the "Highway Jive" or something like that. They must have bought out the "Highway Station" and changed the program format. But, they still had on the traffic reports, and earlier I had heard of some problems on the Cajon Pass. But when I heard them, I knew we were hours away and it would probably be all cleared up by the time I got there. Boy was I wrong!!! When we were just outside of Victorville and starting to head down the Pass, all I saw was brake lights in front of me. There was a CalTrans truck with a sign lit up saying 'BE PREPARED TO BRAKE". Just wonderful. Apparently, a big rig had caught fire and overturned, and was blocking the two right lanes. But I heard that information HOURS ago and it must have already be cleared up right? WRONG. I had just passed one exit and should have gotten off and gone back to Victorville and taken another route. But it was too late. I got off at the next exit and prayed there was another way out of this situation. But the GPS had no solutions until AFTER I passed the accident. I still thought about turning around and going back to Victorville, but Faye said, "oh it can't be that far until we pass it"!! WRONG AGAIN. It would now be 1.5 hours until we passed this mess. They had what was left of the big rig loaded on a flatbed trailer and were still cleaning up the mess. I pitied those people that had just hit Victorville, and found out it was now 2.5 hours from Victorville to past the accident. What a mess. Really screwed up my timetable. I had never encountered a situation like this, and when I did, I was still close enough to Vegas to turn back and get my room back.

So my normal 4.5 hour trip with a stop, or 4 without one, turned into a 6.5 hour nightmare. We got home at 1:30 pm when we should have been home at 11:30 am. So actually it cost us two hours. Not my regular kind of trip.

Sorry I didn't give you more regular updates, but something happened to my laptop, or maybe it was the connection at the room, and I couldn't get online. Sorry about that. Well, until next time....thanks for reading my thread.