RaleighCraps's Blog

Cherokee 6/6/14 - 6/8/14

Wife has been very busy at work, but got a pass for this weekend. She called me as I was playing golf on Friday afternoon, and asked if I wanted to head to Cherokee for the weekend. Since I was on the course, I called our casino junket rep and asked her to see if I could get a room at Cherokee for Fri and Sat nights (GOP convention was there). Travel rep called me back 2 holes later, and we had our free room for both nights! Sweet.
Cherokee has added an Indoor pool, an Outdoor pool, AND a very nice bar for the Outdoor pool. 3' deep pool, and lots of rug rats swimming around, but still a refreshing respite from the noise and smoke.

Five hour drive got us in around 11:00 PM. We agreed we were tired, and we were going to go to bed, so naturally I end up going to the craps table, and my wife heads off to slots.
I buy in for $1,000 and decided this would be a go for broke trip.
$15 table, and I started with $75-$80 odds for first point, and $100-$150 for any point after that.
Mostly $135 across, although a few times I would play either $85 inside, or $51 inside if things were going south.
For the first 2 sessions, the Buy 4/10 progression was $25, $50, $75, $100, $200, $500, but after getting to the $500 level twice and not getting paid, I switched to the next progression. Trying to get a bigger pay earlier.

The Buy 4 and 10 progression became $25, $75, $150, $300, $600, $1000.
5 and 9 progression was $25, $50, $75, $100, and then by $100 thereafter.
6 and 8 progression was $30, $60, $90, $150, $300, $600, $900.

Over the 6 craps sessions I got to the $600 level six times, but never got a pay at that level :-(

Played for 1.5 hours Fri night. Started out slightly up, and then played in a -$300 range to +$300 range for about an hour. Got down to around $400 when I had a good roll. For the first 4 sessions, I had good rolls every time. No PSO, and made at least one point every time, and a few box numbers. This good roll was 4 points, and got me to +$180 where I called it a night.

Played about an hour Saturday morning and managed to book a $210 win, so trip was +$390. I had a good roll to start, and was up over $700, so I was happy with the win, but gave them too much back. Still, for as aggressive as I was playing, with a $700 buy-in, I was getting very lucky.

We went to Gatlinburg, TN for the day, and ate at Johnny Rockets. They were slammed, so we sat at the counter where we could see everyone working. As we were getting the check the manager came by, so I handed her two $10s and a $5, and asked her to give them to the two cooks, and the kid who was making fountain sodas. She looked at me like I was from Mars, and then said, "Oh thank you SO MUCH. They are going to be thrilled." All 3 of them came by to say thanks in person. Best $25 I have ever spent. Waiter also scored a 100% tip. I have a great time spreading the love when I have casino money in my pocket.

Came back to Cherokee late afternoon, and lounged by the pool until 7:00 PM. I was expecting full craps tables, but found a $15 table with only a couple of players, and bought it with the magic $700 again. Played for an hour, and was down to my last $100 a couple of times, when my wife showed up. I had her throw, and she went on a 5 point tear. Made the 10 point 3x in a row, the last 2 with $150 odds behind, and a $25 hard 10 netted an additional $175 payday on one of them.
The next guy also had a very good roll, but after a giving back about $500 over the next few shooters, I cashed out up $1,250 more. The low light of this session was the shooter who made 5 points to the fire bet, and none of us were playing it at the time.
Grrrrrrr, $1,250 oops. I kept forgetting to make the bet, but after that, my wife was right on the fire, anytime she was near me at the table.

Bought into a $25 BJ game for $600, and caught a nice run of wins with $75 bets on 2 spots. Cashed out for $850, and off to bed with the trip +$1,890, minus a couple of hundred dumped in slots by me and da wife. Decided that I would lock up all but $1,100, thus guaranteeing the trip would be positive.

Sunday morning I got up at 7:00 AM, and hit the craps tables. Bought in for the magic $700. They had 2 tables, one had one open spot, the other had 2 players. I think you know I went to the empty table. Since I was on the side by myself, I did my $32 across player control tip for the dealers. Man do the dealers eat this up, and when I asked the pit about my rating later he told me he had me over $300. Later he walked by me and said, "you are taking great care of our dealers, and I will give you as much as I can."
I was making points from 1 stick right, with $150 odds, and the player at 1 stick Left was also making a large number of throws, although not as many points. Still, between the 2 of us, my rail was getting full. The other player was not helping me out much. Unfortunately our success did not go unnoticed, and soon the players betting that damn horn bet with weird amounts came to screw up the flow of the table. I called it quits after 1 hour, with a $2,500 cash out, so +$1,800 for the session.

Went back to the room, and woke my wife up to come play craps with me, since we were up over $3,500 for the trip. She comes back down with me, has another couple of great rolls, and when the table starts to fill up, we leave up another $500. She wants to play the Wheel of Fortune slot, so we head over there, and I put $300 in each machine and told her to play Max Bet. She loses $150, but I hit a $200 win, to cash out +$100. At that point I said, I am running so good it is High Limit room time.

I find a $1 Ultimate X 3 play machine, and not knowing much about the strategy, just played it like it was JoB. I put in $300 and played Max Bet, which I believe was $15 credits each time. I was ranging between $250 and $310 for about 10 minutes, and had been getting quite a few hand multipliers, but not really paying much attention to them. With hand multipliers on the screen, I held Aces in positions 2 and 4, and hit Deal. Screen immediately gets a big message on the screen, "Jackpot Handpay. Verification required, Please call Attendant." That message would alternate with the screen with the 3 hands, and I see the middle hand is Quad Aces at 800, with a 3X multiplier! Holy crap, I just won 2465. My wife says, "you just won $24.65." I said, "Uh, that is in dollars! It is $2,465!" My stunned wife looks at me, and calls me "the luckiest SOB on the planet"! We sat there laughing for the 15 minutes it took for the hand pay process to complete. Pic, or it didn't happen, is here
http://wizardofvegas.com/forum/gambling/big-wins/15297-high-limit-slot-win/10/#post368129.

After this, it is a bit foggy, but I remember we went to the room to check out, and when I counted in the room, I was +$6000 for the trip. We checked out, and hit the craps table, this time with a $1,100 buy in. Got crushed in short order. Wife wanted a run at her favorite slot, so off she went with $200, and I headed to Black Jack. Bought in for $600 on a $25 table, got down to $200 and then had a very nice shoe that had me around $1,500.
Would have been a great story, but had two nice $100 hands of 19 and 20, and the dealer showing an 8. YEAH. Dealer flips over her 2, for a 10 total. NO. Deals a 5 for 15. YEAH. Deals a 6 for 21. NNOOOOOO. Lost $200 instead of winning $200, and from there to the end of the shoe was murder. Dealer never busted, and always drew high enough to beat me. Dropped my bets back down, but could not win a doggone hand. Shoe ends with me up $100 or so.
Wife comes by, I give her $150 of my chips, to play BJ with me, and we play through 3 shoes. We were around $2,000 combined at one point. Just on an incredible roll. I end up with about $300, but my wife comes through with $950, so we end up making $650 on that BJ session.
Headed to the cashier cage when I make a bad mistake. If I go left to the main cage which is closer, we are out the door. Instead, I head for the cage that is closer to the garage, but also requires me to walk by the craps tables. Of course, the $25 table only has one player, which then becomes a requirement to make a quick hit and run, to get my $1100 back from earlier. I buy-in with my 2 $500 chips from the BJ win, and ultimately ending up cashing in all of the $1250. CRAP, no need to go to the cashier cage now. :-(
Pushed my luck a little too hard. We had some nice runs, where I had the bets pressed to $300, but just couldn't get that one big hit that makes the session extremely profitable. It did not help that I had 2 PSOs that session. Losing ~$300 after one throw is tough on the rail.


Ending tally was +$4,000 for the trip, and should be some good points, assuming I got the ratings the pits all told me they gave me. I have some doubts on some of them, and the longest session was only 1.5 hours, so that hurts. On one session, twice a 7 out came when I had over $1400 in bets on the table, and when I inquired about my rating, he told me I was at $270. I frowned and said, "that is too low. I lost over $1400 twice, and over $600 a few times." The box confirmed those losses, so he said he would adjust my numbers, but I have my doubts. I like it much better when the box is the one doing the ratings. It is much more accurate.

NCL Cruise Mar 8-15, 2014

I have some details of the trip in this post, so I will not repeat them here in detail.
http://wizardofvegas.com/forum/off-topic/other-casinos/17520-craps-on-the-ncl-getaway-cruise/#post342472

We were at sea for the first 2 1/2 days, so there were lots of opportunities for craps. Unfortunately, the tables were mostly cold, and I was not making points either. Since my company sent me into early retirement this month, I was trying to play carefully, and not lose much. We were going to be in Nassau on Friday, and I wanted to have money to play at Atlantis.
Cold tables sent me to bed on Saturday down $400.

Sunday was no better, and by the end of the day I was down $1000. I was getting in some good playing time, although they were really under rating us like crazy. Every session you had to check and complain about your rating to get anything close to fair.
By Monday, I was down $1700 (although $200 of that was to my wife's slots). I was teaching my daughter the game, and she finally had a very good roll that I won $1100 on, so I was now down $600. On her roll, there was a big bettor on the other end of the table. He had bet $32 across for the dealers, and would also make the first press for them. After that, he would have them press their own bet. He ended up putting over $400 in the toke box for the dealers on her roll. The table max bet was $500, and he had a few numbers at the max. Her roll got him $10,000, which was what he had invested this session, so he threw her a $100 tip.
Later that night, I lost $500, so I was back down $1100.

I did not play Tuesday, but played Wednesday evening, and got on a gambling tear. I played craps for a bit, went down, got ahead $100, and walked. Then played some $.25 video poker and won $100. Played $10 BJ with a CSM, and booked a $35 win. Played $5 Ultimate Texas Hold 'em, and was up $60 when another player sat down to my right. Watched him win the next four hands with my cards, while I had all losers, so I left up $5. Found my wife, sat at a slot next to her, and managed to win $20 on a $40 entry. I was going to say a $40 investment, but that really looked like an oxymoron.

On Thursday afternoon I went on a heater playing on a table by myself, with my daughter watching. I had bet $32 across for the dealers, having them press 1 unit on any hit. When my roll ended, they had over $375 in tips, and I was now +$2400 for the trip.
I played later Thursday evening, but the tables were like ice. I was quickly down $600, when I finally decided to go DARTH VADER.
There were 3 others on the table, and after they all 7'd out and I was playing the DP, they all left, grumbling of course. So I started throwing from the Don't. Turns out I am pretty damn good from the Don't.

$25 DP bet, set the point and bet odds to win $25 more, $25 DC bet, 7 out. Darn only won $25 net.
$25 DP bet, set the point and bet odds to win $25 more, $25 DC bet, 7 out. Darn only won $25 net.
are you kidding me? Okay I'll wait one more throw.
$25 DP bet, set the point and bet odds to win $25 more, roll a number, $25 DC bet, 7 out. Darn only won $25 net.
What are the freaking chances? But at least I am making money.
I give up on the DC and just start betting $50 DP. After 30 minutes I get back to my buy in amount. It was the same dealers that were there for my heater, and they are really rooting for me to not lose money. The base dealer knows I am back to even, and asks if I want to color up my chips (so I won't get sucked into playing more). Good idea.

On Friday we went to Atlantis. Those tables hated me. I bought in for $500, won the first couple of rolls, and then qucikly busted out, on $15 tables. So I decided to play the Dark side again. But every time I bet the DP, the point was made. If I switched to PL, then it was 7 out. I was on the wrong side for 10 straight bets. I change tables with my last $300, and shoot from the DP on a table by myself. Made the first point, made the second point, and busted myself out on the third point. It is now official. The craps gods hate me. $1000 loss at Atlantis. I did manage to win $65 on a single spin on a slot, so I cashed out. It was then that I saw the Baccarat table. I wish I had seen it before I blew the second $500 at craps :-(

Friday evening back on the ship was no better. Lost $400 at craps on cold, full, choppy tables. Decided to come back later when fewer people were around. Around 1:00 AM I went back down. I took the $1000 I was ahead for the trip with me, meaning I was going home no worse than even. Tables were still cold, and drunks were still awake. I was making a little bit of money back playing the dark side, especially on my rolls, but other shooters would make a point or 2 on me, and I would barley break even on them. At 4:30 AM the casino manager says it is time to quit. I had $450. If the other 2 guys had left me to play alone, I am pretty sure I would have made it back to $1000. The casino gave me $80 in cash back for my play, so total win was $530.

The dumb part was, we had driven to Miami, so I only got 2 hours sleep before the ship docked and we were on our way to breakfast. We visited some friends in Florida for most of the day, I caught a 2 hour nap, and we left at 11:00 PM for home. I managed to get us to South Carolina, and then slept the last 4 hours.

I'm still working on my retirement numbers, but it is looking like I might be able to still squeeze in a couple of small craps trips. If my day trading hobby goes well, then I certainly will have money for craps. Here's to hoping you get to read more blogs from me..........

Paris 7/25 - 7/28

I've been remiss for not blogging about my Paris trip in late July. Some details of the trip wound up in various threads, but I will recap here.

The trip came about because I received an offer for an NCL cruise voucher for two, if I showed up in Vegas on July 27. It turned out our local junket operator had a junket for that time frame, so I was able to receive a comp'd trip/hotel for my wife and I. I used the vouchers for a March sailing on the new NCL Getaway, but upgraded to a mini-suite, so the cruise is costing me more than if I had just gone through CruisesOnly. Well done Harrahs! I got suckered right in. AND, we talked 4 others to go on the cruise with us, so this voucher was certainly a +EV, for CET and NCL. DOH!

Highlights of play at Paris:
Running one pit between craps and roulette and 1 box for two craps tables. End result was I never came close to getting rated correctly for any of my play, which admittedly, wasn't close to my normal amount. At Pai-Gow Poker, I played mostly $40 a hand, and frequently was playing 2 hands. Never got any credit for the second hand. Again, this was due to one Pit having WAY TOO many tables to cover. They had no clue what anyone was betting.

Met early one morning with superrick and went out to play craps at GVR. I had a good couple of rolls to start, and Rick was hitting my place bets too. Up $900 in no time at all, but stayed too long, and gave it, and a whole bunch more, back. Rick mentioned he had been throwing lots of 4s with a new throw, and I was getting paid on the 4s. So I decided on his next throw, I was going to strong press the 4. $100 Buy, press to $300, press to $900, press to $1000 and rail the $1700, and then down for $3000 on the 4th hit. Unfortunately, this was the time Rick set the 4 as the point. I went ahead and took my full odds, and then bought the 4 for $100 anyway. Rick hit it twice more which got me to the $900 level, but I lost the bet before I could get that next hit. He threw the right number 4s for me, it was just I had no money out when the 4 was set as the point. That was about the point that the table started getting away from us. Other people started showing up, and that disrupted the flow too. It didn't help that none of them could make a point.

Checked out in a hurry the last day, and did not notice I had been charged a resort fee, until I got to the airport. Because they rated my play so little this time, they barely covered any of my meals. Called Paris, spoke to a casino host, and they said I should not have been charged that, and they would take it off. Next month, I noticed the charge card was charged the full amount. I figured that they decided since I was no longer Diamond that the Resort Fee was correct and just wrote off the $67 charge. My junket operator also agreed it was a Fee I had to pay.

Last week, someone confirmed in a forum post that a Platinum TR card DOES NOT have to pay the Resort Fee. While I was booking my comp'd trip to Harrah's Cherokee, I asked about any Resort Fees they might have, and mentioned the $67 I had been charged at Paris back in July. She told me I should call the CET Billing Dispute center, and gave me the number, 1-866-209-4732.
I just called them, apologized for having waited so long, and told them the story. Melanie couldn't correct the charge fast enough! I was shocked. I was off the phone in under 5 minutes! Props to CET for easily correcting that mistake. Of course, it would have been better if the front desk knew enough not to charge me in the first place.......... I wonder how many fees they collect from people who don't know any better? Score another one for the WoV Forum !!!
And I now have another $67 to bet at Cherokee craps game in a couple of weeks.

Beau 3/1-3/4 trip

Well, this was the 4th trip in 4 months, and will be my last for a while. AND it kicked my ass. BADLY. Largest single trip loss I have ever taken. :-(
On the positive side, I need to get back to working on residing the house, so I am no longer distracted.......

The junket flight left early on Friday evening, as it does most of the time. We got in around 9:00 PM, instead of the scheduled 10 PM. I was on the 2nd week of a nasty head cold, and I had a 10:00 AM tee time for Fallen Oak on Saturday, so I declared on the plane I was going to go straight to bed, and not gamble. Everyone got a hearty chuckle out of that, at my expense! I went to check out the craps game, and the $25 table was 1/2 full, so I grabbed my corner spot. A good roll was in progress, which I hate to interrupt, so I did my usual. I throw $100 on the table, and announce $90 inside, and the $10 change I put on the point. If I get a win, it goes on the point, and then the rest of the wins I bank. Gets me into a hot roll, but does not disrupt the rhythm of the game. I make $60 on the first shooter. For the next shooter I put $5 each on the Small, Tall, and All bets. The shooter proceeds to make the Small, Tall, and ALL. SWEET +$1230 (175+175+880). I LOVE THIS BET!!
I'm up about $1700 after 20 minutes. Mindful of my morning meetup for golf at 8:00 AM, I decide to head to bed by 11:30 PM. This gave me time to not be greedy and donate 1/2 of my winnings back to the table. Went to bed +900.
Unfortunately, my head cold would not allow me to sleep. This was a theme that was repeated all weekend. Total rack time asleep was probably 8 hours for 3 nights there. This left me A.) Tired and B.) Awake and playing craps. So, off to bed by midnight, awake by 5 AM, and off to the craps table. This allowed me to easily drop $1,200 before we left for golf at 8:00 AM, and starting a very bad trend on craps. Golf was fun, but is was cold and the wind was howling. I was not able to swing a deal at the course, so the $200 fee to play golf at 46* left me a bit disgruntled, but only internally (and I got my host to comp part of it in the end). My craps session that night epitomizes my weekend. I get on a $25 table again, and the dice are coming to me next. I don't do anything, and the dice pass to a lady on the other end. I am still settling in, and by the time I get my $15 ready for the ALL/Small/Tall bet, the dice are already being pushed at her. I start to yell my A/S/T bet, but decide not to be a pita in the first 2 minutes at the table. If you do not already know she makes the A/S/T bet, I am a shitty writer. Great, I just pissed away another $1,230 win because I did not risk trying a call bet. For the rest of the week, I personally had the Small and Tall bets down to the 2 or 12 Five times, and could not complete the DAMN thing. And I am usually a craps rolling machine. One time when I needed the 2, I rolled the 3 five times, but could not get the 2. IT SUCKED. Craps killed me. After the lady rolled the S/T/A bet, that I was not on, the next 4 shooter all went PSO! UNREAL. Then the 5th shooter went Point, 11, SO. Nice- NOT. Next shooter makes 1 point, SO. Dice come to me, and I go Point , 5 ,11, 2, SO. Down $700. grrrrrrrrrr I never had anything close to a great roll, or even what I would call a good roll. I did come close to making the S/A/T bet five times, but even those were not great rolls. I hit each number a couple of times was all. I don't recall ever getting any bet above $150, so repeating winners was not happening.

Once again, I managed to make money playing Pai Gow poker, and I played BJ on this trip as well. I have been playing the BJ trainers on the web, and realized that I have BS down pretty well. I may venture into counting, but right now that just seems like work. I played BJ Switch, and must confess I do not know the strategy of that game. I recall reading on here that playing regular BJ strategy is deadly on Switch. I need to checkout WOO. I decided that a dealer 2 is not the bust card that you think it is in regular BJ, and adjusted to play 13s and 14s against that 2 card. I also looked for any chance to double down, and would switch to set myself up for more double down chances. I ended up with a small win, probably dumb luck. I played two other regular BJ sessions, one at $25 table and one at $10. Both were 3-2 BJ which is about all I know to look for (they were 6 deck, hit on soft 17, no surrender, resplit A up to four times).

On Sunday, I was playing Pai Gow Poker, and as usual, I was not betting the fortune bonus. I never get premium hands, so it is a waste of money for me. I was playing 2 hands with buddys playing on either side of me. So, naturally, I get a straight flush, shortly after my buddy next to my second hand had told me he felt a st flush coming. I think it would have paid me $250. My buddy then asks me if he can play the fortune bonus on my 2nd hand (which the casino was forcing me to set the house way). I say sure, so he throws the $5 on the bonus. The dealer frowns, and the Pit frowns even bigger. I say, "really?" and the Pit says "Yes, that is Not Allowed."
So I hand my buddy his $5 back, and put a red from my stack on the circle. I then turn to my buddy and say "When Are you going to pay me back for the $5 I loaned you last night?" He says, "I can pay you now. Here's a $5 chip." The Pit shook her head and walked away. It was not but 6 hands later my 2nd hand hits the straight flush too! They pay me the $250 which I pick up, and then set in front of my friend. The Pit again turns and walks away. LOL. My friend shared back a black chip with me, which fueled me to a $175 win that session.

On Sunday morning I scheduled a couples Swedish massage for my wife and I. I had a gal and my wife had a guy. As I mentioned in another thread, the only downside was there were no coed saunas. I had to use the steam sauna and the dry sauna alone, which was not as fun as it would have been. I have NO IDEA why I have not done this before! The money I spent was much less than I would have lost for the same time span spent in the casino. I definitely see many more spa appointments being made on future trips. It was so relaxing.

This will likely be my last trip report until fall. I have overspent all of my free money, so it's back to concentrating on finishing my house residing project for a while.

Cherokee 2/14-2/16

Took some friends from PA with us to Cherokee, NC for a couple of days. Even though my TR status was Gold card in 2013, I was able to get a comp'd room for Thur and Fri night. On the NYE trip to Vegas, I did manage to get my Platinum level on 12/30/2012, so I'm not sure if that is what got me the room comp, or if the comp came from the nice win I had playing craps at Cherokee in August (+$5,500). I suspect it was the platinum level.

One interesting note about the room. When I went online to do the reservations, if I did not enter my TR player number, when I tried to book a room, I received a a message that they were Sold Out. But when I entered my TR number, not only were the rooms available, they were fully comp'd! Last year when I was Gold player trying to go in August, the rooms showed as Sold Out with or without my TR number. I have a suspicion that they must hold a number of rooms open for comp'd players, I guess figuring they would rather have a comp'd casino player gambling, rather than a paying hotel guest who may not be gambling much........

5.5 hour drive out, made slightly longer thanks once again to the stupid Garmin wanting to take me through Maggie Valley. Why that damn thing wants to go that way is beyond me, when there is 4 lane highway that gets you there much more easily. Driving along, chatting with friends, and it was too late when I realized what Garmin was up to. Oy vey ! (is that French for Piece of Shit?) Actually, I really like the Garmin 95% of the time. For some reason, it really screws up on routing any trip in that region.

Gambling report for this trip is simple. Cherokee but my gonads in a vice and just kept turning the vise tighter and tighter until I puked. Does that paint a visual enough picture? I have never seen so many shooters fail to make a point, shooter after shooter, including yours truly. The only guy making any money was the Don't player, but he was just barely ahead after losing so many come out roll bets. And then even he walked away broke, when one shooter kept knocking off his Don't Come bets with odds. The only trip around the table I did not lose money on, was when I finally decided to bet the DC. I will bet the Don't Pass if someone is shooting from the Don't, otherwise, I will wait for them to set a point, and then play the Don't Come. That way, I don't feel like I am directly opposing the shooter. Anyway, I managed to win about $200 on the DC, until one shooter hit 3 repeat DC bets and wiped out that gain. Ironically, he did not make a single point though, so the DP paid off.
On table this cold, I quickly went down about $1,200, but then had a good roll (well, good for these tables). I only made one point, but I hit a lot of box numbers, and my Place 6 was pressed to $300 and my Buy 10 was at $400 when I 7'd out. That got me back to within $200 of my starting amount (so with the $900+ that was on the table, I was positive for the trip). How many times have I written that I am going to walk away when this scenario happens to me? EVERY DAMN TIME
Why didn't I do it? I thought about it, but it was late at night, not many people on the table, and I reasoned that if I left now I would just come back the next day and have to play on crowded tables, not to my liking. So I reasoned it was better to stay and play now, in conditions that I liked. And that is SHITTY reasoning.
Lesson has been learned. My next blog will talk about how I was down, got back to near even, AND WALKED. Even if I only walk away for 15 minutes, I am going to learn to walk away. I Must Learn To Do It.
Friday was more of the same losing. Win enough to stay at the tables, but no hot roller. Only saw one 4 point fire roll, and I was not on the Fire bet. Hell, hardly anyone could make 1 point, let alone 2. I put the full 10x odds down ($100) more than 30 times, and NEVER got paid on a single one of them. I got paid on quite a few $75 odds, and $50 odds, but never on the max.
I woke up at 5AM Sat morn, our last day there, and went down to play for 3 hours before we checked out and left. 5 tables were open, and I picked the one with the least amount of players on it (two at the other end). It was doing okay, and I was up about $300. This kid comes in next to me and is shooting. He is a 100% chatter box, saying all kinds of stuff to the dice I could not understand. But he had energy, which was sorely lacking. He makes a point, and then asks for new dice! He makes another point, and again asks for new dice. He's also rolling some box numbers, so I am making money. He then sets a point of 10. He curses, lays $200 on the 10, and then rolls 4 more time before he 7's out. Dice pass to me, and naturally, I set the point as 10. He immediately lays $200 on the 10, but then starts CALLING for the 7 every time I roll the dice. He won, I lost. I went to another table. Played for 2 hours, was up $550 for that session. Took a break to go to the room, no one up yet, so went back down for another hour, and lost $300 of the $550, so Saturday was a plus $200, but was not close to making up for the beating of the previous 2 days.

I forgot the Blackjack session I played! Cherokee does not have Pai Gow Poker, so I opted to play some BJ instead. $10 table, bought in for $100, 3-2, no surrender. I played BS, except for a couple of variations. I hit a 12 against a dealer 4 showing, and busted, and I took a couple of double downs against dealer 4 and 5 up cards.
1st shuffle I ended up +$100
2nd shuffle I ended up +$25
I was up $300 but lost a $100 on one shoe and quit with a $200 win.