rdw4potus
Posted by rdw4potus
Oct 24, 2012

Paying my mortgage:-)

I've made enough playing through freeplay this month to pay my mortgage. I did come out a loser on my trip to CA and NV, so I can't quite make the payment from gambling winnings. But the proceeds from the freeplay do cover my mortgage payment. free play winnings = $1200, mortgage = $1090, CA/NV losses = $380.

Given that I don't actually gamble locally, I wonder how long this will last. I do have enough offers to pretty much guarantee that November will end up paid for as well. Sweet! So far, I'm really liking Philly:-)

Comments

strictlyAP
strictlyAP Oct 27, 2012

ARE YOU LIVING IN PHILLY NOW? LET ME KNOW i HAVE SOME GOOD AP PLAYS IF YOU ARE HERE

rdw4potus
Posted by rdw4potus
Oct 17, 2012

Chip collecting frustration, and a shout-out to the folks at Paso Robles casino

I started today hoping to add 4 chips to my collection. I very much failed. Today was full of fail, actually. I spent 2 solid hours sitting in one spot on I-15, about half way between Vegas and Baker, CA. Somehow, a semi had come to a stop perpendicular to the road near the Cima exit. My plan for the day was to drive to Guadalupe, and then drive up the coast to Watsonville. I was hoping to have some daylight and/or see the sunset during the part of the drive that would occur on highway 1 right on the coast. Alas, the delay caused me to be in central SLO county when the sunset happened. Pretty, but not what I'd hoped or planned for. I also went 1 for 4 on my chip collecting.

Jalisco Pool Room (guadalupe): The internet doesn't say it's closed. Even yelp is free of complaints about a closure. But the phone number doesn't work and the storefront has a for-sale sign in the window. Looks like that sign's been there a while, too. Guadalupe was a depressing place.

Paso Robles Casino (paso robles): Tiny casino. 2 poker tables, 1 BJ table, 1 TCP table. BJ pays 6:5 with a $1 ante, TCP is 6-3-1 with a $1 ante. So the rules could be better (I'm not sure they could be worse), but the staff were some of the nicest people I've ever interacted with in my life. I'd pay that much to play there again, just like I'd tip more at a restaurant for excellent service. Also, and this was pretty cool, the casino's business card is a poker chip. I'll take a picture of it...

Ven-a-mexico (soledad): advertised as "open every day." The DOOR says "Wednesday-Sunday." I should've called, but DAMN I wish the internet was a reliable resource...

Caesar's Club (watsonville): open til "close" vexes me. Apparently, 10pm tonight was after close. I would have thought that was relatively early in card-club time. I might swing by again tomorrow on my way (it's NOT on the way...) to Visalia.

Comments

EvenBob
EvenBob Oct 17, 2012

God I hate Calif. Left 30 years ago and have

never regretted it.

rdw4potus
Posted by rdw4potus
Sep 04, 2012

My drive from MN to PA

Last week, I drove my personal vehicle from MN to PA as a part of my (frustratingly gradual) move from Saint Paul to Philadelphia. I decided to go through northern WI and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, since that route would help me collect many chips for my collection. Things deviated considerably from my plan. Here's an overview:

- I had to drive to Green Bay unexpectedly midway through the second day of the trip. Turns out it's a LONG way from Ashland, WI to Green Bay, WI to Marquette, MI.
-I played UTH wherever I could. I went to the OLG Casino in Sault Ste Marie & played for about an hour. I was up about $1,400 at the end of that session, on a $187 buy in ($200 USD, converted). It took about 45 minutes for the cashiers to verify that the chips were really mine. That's definitely a reason to play with a card (I didn't).
-I played UTH in Sault Ste Marie, MI at the Kewadin casino there. I hit quad 4s. They counted down the deck before they would pay me. I was playing alone, which means there were 5 cards on the board that were not 4s (3 community cards, and the dealer's 2 cards). Every time the count-down reached one of those cards, the PB and dealer acted like the deck was fouled and I had to *very aggressively* point out that the card was on the board. They made that process so stressful and time-consuming that it was barely worth the payout on the table-minimum hit. One thing that was cool is that they had both CAD and USD chips. So no money needed to be lost on a currency conversion (I already had a USD chip, so I was happy to play there with CAD).
-It's a really really really long way from Sault Ste Marie to Traverse City to Detroit to Cleveland.
-It sucks trying to cross the border (both ways) in Detroit with a car full of random crap. I was pretty much trapped on the Ambassador Bridge for a little bit there.
-It's really hard to find the Ritz Carlton from Horseshoe Cleveland, especially at 5am when you can't see straight after 20 hours of driving. I get the feeling that it's always tricky to find the hotel, but that it's easier when there are more people around (the entrance is sort of tucked away in a shopping mall)
-Pennsylvania is a long state. It's also funny to see how many turns and elevation changes exist on the Turnpike, but then at the same time there are also a handful of places where it just goes through a mountain. That was pretty cool. The $26.40 toll from OH to King of Prussia was a little high, though.
-Harrah's Chester is evil. EVIL! I like their PGP game, I like their racebook. I've never won at either one. I managed to reach Philly up a little bit on the trip. I sure wasn't up after I left Chester.

Comments

odiousgambit
odiousgambit Sep 05, 2012

>the PB and dealer acted like the deck was fouled



were they really trying to find a way not to pay you? Could they do that?

AZDuffman
AZDuffman Sep 05, 2012

Yes, the PA Turnpike is an interesting road. PA a very long state, seemed longer as a kid going to AC for the beach, not casinos. (Well, my dad went to the casino I guess.)



The PA Turnpike has some weird features. The weirdest was one it lost about 10 years ago. There used to be a church where you could actually park on the side of the road, then take some steps up, and sit for Mass if you so chose. This lasted into the 1990s and how they managed to get the state to allow it I have no idea. I never went by when there was a service so never saw any parked cars, though doubtless there were several each week for people who just wanted to add it to the list of what they did.



As to the toll, it is indeed high but adjusted for inflation it is far less than when the road opened, believe it or not!

rdw4potus
rdw4potus Sep 05, 2012

Odiousgambit - I don't know if they were trying to find a way not to pay, or if they were just very assishly dotting Is and crossing Ts. I suppose if they wanted to refuse to pay me, they could. They're an unregulated indian casino, after all.



Duff - I don't remember the name of it, but one of the tunnels is pretty much 2 in a row, with maybe 200 yards outside in between them. In that 200 yards is a turnout to a little path that goes up the second mountain. When I went by, the car in front of me went up that "road" (being charitable there...). Any idea what that is? There's no toll booth or anything, and it's a very primative "exit," so I assume that the only way back onto the turnpike is to come back to that same place and continue in the same direction.

AZDuffman
AZDuffman Sep 06, 2012

I am not sure exactly what that was but am 99% or so sure. What you saw was a path to the "old" turnpike. When they built the road those tunnels were 2 lanes only, not 4 like today. This amazingly lasted to the early 1980s for a few. As you can imagine, a 4 lane road into a 2 lane tunnel will cause major backups. That "double" tunnen (Blue Mountain and I forget what other one) is only about 13 miles from the next. So they moved the road over a little bit, making new tunnels and road. The way to tell you are on the "new" section is that it is the only part of the mainline turnpike with a real median, the rest is just divided.



So anyhow, they moved 13 or so miles of road and still had the "old" road left. Into the late 1980s they rented it out to the auto manufacturers for testing that the proving grounds just did not do well for (try building a proving ground to replicate a mountain road!) As it deteriorated they made it a bike trail and now anyone has access.



Here is a link--congrats on noticing it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandoned_Pennsylvania_Turnpike

teddys
teddys Sep 23, 2012

LOL at the sweaty quads payout at Kewadin. At MotorCity in Detroit, which has probably the most advanced UTH players/dealers in the country (they LOVE it there), that payout would go without a blink. When I hit a SF there with $10 trips/$10 ante, the dealer practically threw $800 in chips across the layout at me and continued dealing the rest of the hands. I don't even think she was thinking about a tip.

rdw4potus
Posted by rdw4potus
May 22, 2012

Luck? Fate? A sign from above?

I received an offer letter for a new job today. I've been wanting to move from a purchasing role to a sales role for a while, and an opportunity has presented itself. I treated myself to Chinese for dinner after I received the letter. Here are the fortunes that I received:

Comments

Wizard
Wizard May 22, 2012

I wouldn't make much of that. Those are pretty standard fortunes. They are almost never bad, and usually suggest that some big change is about to happen to you, in a good way.

FinsRule
FinsRule May 23, 2012

At least those are actual fortunes. When I get fortune cookies, they usually try to describe something about me.



"You enjoy being around others"



First - No, I really don't

Second - That's not a fortune!

konceptum
konceptum May 23, 2012

Personally, I would love to see more 'negative' fortunes, instead of them always being so happy-go-lucky. Like, "Don't leave your house next Tuesday." or "Your iPhone was made by children in a third world country."

Ayecarumba
Ayecarumba May 24, 2012

The most important bit of information are lottery numbers on the back. That should be the real test of cookie prognostication...

EvenBob
EvenBob May 24, 2012

Good enough for me. Sell the house, pack the wife

and kids in the covered wagon and go west. Go west...

rdw4potus
Posted by rdw4potus
May 16, 2012

WOVcon ][ weekend blog

I've determined that it's too hard to write the transitions in and out of the WOVcon related items in my narrative. So I'm just going to put everything here. This might get long...

I left Minneapolis at about 5pm local time on Friday. I flew United, and didn't check a bag. Usually I like United. They're not the nicest people, but they're consistent about their assishness. I can handle a jerk or two, so to me that's preferable to the passive-aggressive experience that I've had with Delta and American. I really should have checked a bag. I always forget how much I hate lugging it around, and the baggage from my flight had reached the conveyors at LAS before I made it to the baggage claim area. Plus, I always sit in the first row of economy, which means that all of my bags needed to go in the overhead. I feel like a jerk when I take up a whole bin by myself. I probably am a jerk for that, although it's not my fault that the airline places their own equipment under the seats in the last row of first class. Anyway...

I arrived in Vegas at about 8:30 on Friday night, snagged my car from Hertz ($74 for 3 days, prepaid), and headed out to Sunset Station. This was the first time I'd used the text alert service from Hertz. That was super sweet! When I landed, an email was waiting on my phone telling me what stall my car was in, and I got to bypass everything at Hertz - including the group of people trying to read the Gold Plus board.

I got to Sunset Station around 9:10, checked in and dropped my bags in the room. I'd requested an upgrade to a suite, which was granted. The kid at the desk said "OK, so your room is comped, and you're upgraded to the suite." I think that the kid at the hotel front desk out semantic-ed me, which was unfortunate but I didn't find out until it was too late. When I checked out, I realized that he meant that I'd pay $0for the room, plus the upgrade fees. That's what I'd expected to happen before I talked to him, but it's not what I thought he'd told me. All trip long, I thought I had avoided the suite upgrade charge on the room. Oh well.

Later friday night, I headed down to Main Street Station to find the folks at the craps table. On previous trips to MSS, I've found no room in their ramp and parked in the surface lot across Main instead. On friday, I tried the ramp and easily found a spot near the stairs. Off to a good start.

When I arrived in the casino, Tiltpoul, Doc and Nareed were playing on a $10 table (they were grandfathered at $5). I am a craps novice, and that was more than I was comfortable spending to learn the game so I watched for a few minutes. It looked to me like everyone was doing relatively well. Some nice easy wins on the pass, some numbers hit, but very few closed out numbers. At least that was my impression. After a few minutes, TIMSPEED and his mother arrived and we decided to go somewhere where we'd all fit at a $5 table. People pleaded with the boxwoman to let us stay at that table for $5, but she was unswayed. Doc, Nareed, and Tiltpoul colored up and went to the cashier. As soon as they walked away, TIMSPEED and I realized that there was a half-empty $5 table right next to the one we were standing at. So we ended up playing at that second table for a while. People were hitting lots of numbers, but never the point. That really kind of sucked when my frightened ass was betting the pass line only with odds. I lost $100 pretty quickly betting $5, usually with double odds. I think most other folks more or less broke even. The crew at MSS, inflexible boxwoman not withstanding, was wonderful. Very lively, good interaction with the players, and no delays or miscues. At about 1am, I called it a loss, said my farewells, and headed to Sunset Station to sleep...Only I didn't go to sleep.

At about 1:30am after arriving at Sunset Station, I decided to play some Pai Gow Poker. I think mostly, I wanted to win back the $100 that I'd lost at MSS, and I wanted to do it on a game I knew. So I played PGP for a couple hours, banking in turn. At 3:00, I called it a night and cashed out with $320 (+120. Succeess!). I like the PGP game at Sunset Station. The dealer button just passes in a circle, the dealers can handle a player bank correctly, and the other players didn't mind too much either (at least not this night.) As an added bonus, around 2am, there was a girl fight at one of the blackjack tables. Sunset is a nice place, so that was a little surreal. The floor supervisor told me that it doesn't happen often, but the last time there was a fight (many months ago, apparently), a guy jumped off the craps table WWE-style onto his opponent on the ground.

On Saturday morning, I stopped by Arizona Charlie's Boulder (f/k/a Arizona Charlie's East), Fremont, and Ditzgeralds on my way to the 4 Queens for WOVcon ][. I'd been hoping to score a new chip from each venue for my collection. I struck out 3 times. All I could find were Arizona Charlie's East chips (Doc had better luck later - Thanks again, Doc!), Fremont only had the same chip that I already had, and the D chips weren't in yet at Ditz's. I lost about $80 total playing at Arizona Charlie's and Fremont while I was looking for chips. Ouch!

WOVcon ][ itself was lots of fun. It's too bad that we couldn't all fit at the same table, but at the same time that's a testament to how good the turn out was. The meal & company were great, and the trivia was fun. I didn't do as well with this year's trivia as I did last year, but I did do well enough to score a new copy of Mike's book (thanks, Mike!). After the lunch and trivia, we headed to El Cortez to play BJ. It was surprisingly crowded, so Doc, Nareed, and Tupp went to play craps while Wiz, Loach, Paisiello, Tiltpoul and I played BJ. The BJ game was good for the most part. Very few suckouts, and only one dealer BJ, so we were all able to stay pretty flat (as far as I could tell). The theatre trivia was really flying between Tiltpoul, Wiz, and Paisiello. At around 4, the last of us called it an event and went our separate ways.

For me, that way was to Laughlin. I wanted new Riverside and Edgewater chips, and I wanted to show Harrah's some play. It turns out that Laughlin was VERY busy for the holiday weekend, and there were shows at both Riverside (George Lopez) and Edgewater (Paul Anka) on Saturday night. I had very different experiences with respect to both shows. At Riverside, I played UTH and won pretty big (+400). There were no big hands, but i didn't lose a hand that I didn't fold in my entire 45 minute session. I did get my new chip, and I remembered why I didn't take one previously. They're creepy as hell. Riverside has two basic chip formats. One has pictures of the property as a then and now kind of thing (that's the chip I had already), and the other has a picture of Don Laughlin. I don't want a picture of Don Laughlin, but I took a chip anyway. When I left Riverside, security tried to deny me access to the ramp because I didn't have a show ticket (apparently, the open air venue is the roof of the garage?!? It took about 10 minutes of wrangling to get the guard to agree to watch me push the down button in the elevator and let me head out to Edgewater.

At Edgewater, I played PGP for about 30 minutes. It was up and down, ending flat (up $3.xx, which I gave the dealer). I found a much less worn $5 chip, so I was happy with that. And I'm pretty sure that I could have seen Paul Anka for free. I know that because I took a wrong turn and walked into the show tent, and nobody stopped me. At all. I only left when i thought to myself "If I stay in here, I'm going to have to listen to Paul Anka...I'd better leave."

Then I headed to Harrah's. I didn't play as much at Harrah's as I'd thought that I might. Mostly, their game selection is really awful. Worse than Edgewater by an order of magnitude, which is really all that needs to be said about that. I did check into my hotel room, but decided to drive back up to Vegas instead.

On my way back to Vegas, I stopped at CalNevAri to see about their 1 table game. The table is there, in the corner, covered by a table cover, some extra restaurant items, and a lot of dust. So much dust that I probably wouldn't use one of the napkins that was on there. Anyway, it was pretty funny. The bartender and all of the patrons were singing along to the radio when I walked it. They're all upper middle aged women. I'm a 31 year old guy. I could swear that the music stopped when i entered, but in retrospect it was only the bartender who stopped singing. And she only stopped long enough to get me to go away. I struck out on that chip.

I got back to Vegas around 12, played at Sunset again until 4, and called it a night. No fights at Sunset this time, and the UTH table was open so I played that instead of PGP. I got pretty well killed, except for one hand where I got quad 9s. That made up for the losses plus a little bit.

I played at Sunset for about 6 hours on Sunday before I headed to Fiesta to meet up with everyone to annoy Dan. I banked on the PGP table for about 4 of those hours. For about an hour, there was a woman at the table who clearly was against the idea of me banking. Only she kept kicking my ass. On the last round of banking, she audibly tsked at me - and then she pulled a royal with $15 bet on the fortune bet (a $2,250 hit). I sure am glad that bonus isn't player banked!

At Fiesta, I'm convinced that the games are rigged. That dirty unethical Mr. Lubin has stacked things against the player for sure! The craps game is so cold, even the dice run away from the table. And the PaiGow Poker game has some kind of rule where the players don't win if the dealer's hand is queen high. But the dealer's hand is only queen high when the players have monster hands. It's trickery, I say! Trickery! Ok, enough...Fiesta was fun. We had a good time, and it was nice to meet Dan. But the craps table couldn't have been colder, so it would have been good if a spot elsewhere had opened up sooner. I bet $3 pass with 1x or 2x odds. I lost $97 in 20 minutes. I won 1 bet (one!) in that time. And that wasn't even a winner 7 - someone closed out a point of 5. So i licked my wounds and sat at the EZ PGP table when a seat opened. That's a great game. Fast and elegant, plus nobody has to play with quarters. I've liked it ever time I've played it. Alas that table was cold as well. The only time I got a really good winningly powerful hand, the dealer was q-high and we pushed. At about 11pm, I bid farewell to Doc, Nareed, and Tupp, and headed back to Sunset.

From midnight Sunday/Monday to about 1:30pm on Monday, I played about 9 hours of PGP. I went on a pretty big roll, and from about 3am-7am, I only really lost when I was banking. That's supposed to work differently, but it never comes out that way for me. Oh, well. I know it's the best play, so I'll keep making it.

All in all, this was a great trip. It was good to see people again, and to meet new folks as well. It's always interesting to meet up in real life. And I even managed to win a bit net for the trip. i think this is the first time I've ever left Vegas a winner.

Sunset Station Notes: $16 resort fee is a bit excessive on a "free" room. $90 upgrade fee is about right for the 2 room suite, with 1/2 bath in the living room and wet bar/kitchenette. Still, when the kid said "your room is comped and you got upgraded to the suite," I really did expect the room to then be free. Oh, well. Overall, the property was excellent. Good mix of table games, slot variety looked OK, VP options were good to great. Food was excellent, though with the holiday I never did brave the buffet line. I booked my room when I thought my fiancee might join me. Looking back, I'd probably use another free room offer (so, $16 room after the resort fee), but not try the upgrade. I didn't need that traveling by myself. Never had a problem parking by the hotel/cafe entrance, though the bowling/theatre side parking was much busier (there was a PBA event in the bowling center).

I do have a couple gripes about the dice table at Fiesta: 1. As I said, I'm a novice player, but I've never seen the dice leave the table that much. Especially shooting in the direction of the steakhouse. Many people had that problem. This is something that Tiltpoul mentioned was a problem as we were waiting to play, so it's not like it's new either. How much does it have to happen before the table surface is deadened in some fashion? 2. Saw a really really horrible call after one of those no-rolls. Guy stick right calls "my bets are off" after the dice left the table. dealer takes down his buy bets, but not hardways. Shooter 7s out. Dealer collects hardways. Guy complains that those are bets too and should have been off given his call. box rules that they need to be called off separately. Box was a real ass about it, almost as if there wasn't someone's money on the line. Borderline unprofessional behavior, and on a cold table where no players were happy. A little goodwill would have gone a long way.

Maybe I'll think of more to add later, but that's what i've got for now. I'll cross-post or summarize in the wrapup thread.

Comments

odiousgambit
odiousgambit May 17, 2012

Quote:

around 2am, there was a girl fight at one of the blackjack tables





HB was at wov con II?

Tiltpoul
Tiltpoul May 17, 2012

Good posting rdw! Mine will be coming sometime soon, though it mirrors yours except in a few ways: 1) I stayed at Rio, 2) Your UTH references should be changed to Tiles, and 3) I didn't get down to Laughlin.

TIMSPEED
TIMSPEED May 17, 2012

rdw,

Good blog post...

On the subject of the dice flying off the table A LOT...I'm betting it's because the wall is very short (JANugget has the SAME problem; LONG table with SHORT wall, so they always FLY off) You'd think they'd put something on the felt to make them bounce LESS...however, one time they actually put like a "sponge" under the felt and it made them bounce MORE..LOL

teddys
teddys May 17, 2012

Wait, what? Stations charges a resort fee on comped rooms? Remind me never to use a comp there. By the way, I should have a review of Texas and Santa Fe Stations coming up if the Wizard approves. Craps hardways should have been taken off with the other bets.

rdw4potus
rdw4potus May 17, 2012

Yes, there were resort fees on my comped room. I used a comp offer for the rooms, but also asked for an upgrade. I got the upgrade for $90/night, and they also charged $16/night for the resort fee. Maaaaaybe they wouldn't have charged the fee if I hadn't upgraded the room?



Next time I'm in town, I'll probably try to move back to Paris/Bally's (if free) or Aliante Station.

RaleighCraps
RaleighCraps May 18, 2012

Thanks for the report. It is good you are learning to hate craps now, before it gets in your blood and you can't get away from the darn game......

kneelb4zod
kneelb4zod May 19, 2012

I'm also in MPLS, and really enjoy flying Sun Country. They have a 4 oclock direct flight, and you can usually get through security in a manner of minutes in the HHH terminal.



It's tough keeping the dice on the table at Casino Royale too.