They have redemption machines there I assume? Years ago I hit a quarter jackpot just before they closed the door on my flight, and I had to run through the gate with my pockets full of quarters.

No, there was an attendant who cashed me out.

So what is the minimum layover where a quick trip to the Strip would be possible/reasonable?

If you have 3 hour layover, and you have to board 30 min before the flight leaves, that's 2.5 hrs. Nearest casino for poker would be MGM probably, so that's maybe 15 min each way (down to 2 hrs now), plus you have to go through security again on your way back to your gate, so that's another 15-30 min (1.5 hrs to be safe). So you have to budget 1.5 hours of time getting from the gate back to the gate in time.

I guess it would depend on how desperate/degenerate you are...

Probably not worth it for poker. You might have to wait to get into a game and then by the time you figure everyone out, it's time to leave. In the good old days when airlines ran lots of flights, my flight got cancelled, probably because not enough people were on it. The next one was 3 hours and I ran back into town to lose more money. But I was playing blackjack/craps and it was before 9/11, so getting through Security only took 5 minutes at most.

edit: Speaking of dumb moves just for a short period of gambling, I'm actually seriously considering driving for 8 hours just to play that stupid Orleans Ultimate X promo Friday. What makes it even dumber is I hate Ultimate X. Damn leon has infected us all.

Do it! Flights not possible/affordable?

Nah, I hate flying to places so close. Can't stand the airport BS, being cooped up on the plane for 90 minutes, and being a slave to an airline schedule. By the time I pay for a rental, airport parking, and the flight the cost is $600 higher than just driving.

Alas, wiser heads prevailed and I decided not to go. I probably would have blown off a grand or two on vp, a couple hundo on poker tournaments, and 5 or 6 1/2 buy-ins. Not to mention a grand betting on McGregor. Initially I figured Mayweather to crush him, but then I figured all McGregor has to do is stay on his bicycle and not to engage. Mayweather no doubt expects to charge in and smash McGregor since he's the superior boxer, even though that's not his usual style. By the 8th or 9th round he'll be gassed and McGregor's better conditioning will take over and he'll submit Mayweather with ease.

I didn't get squat in the Ultimate X tournament last week. I'm going to give it a shot again tomorrow. It was pretty fun watching my run-bad in tournament mode also.

Nice level lol... He'll be gassed

Submit him? Pig on that old man game crossing the two sports

Excuse him, he's known for crafting 100% wrong opinions on every thread he posts in. It's quite hilarious how it comes together so wrong, every time.

are you confused about which one is mayweather and which one is mcgregor?

August 24-27 TR

This should be a fun one to write up... been looking forward to this for a while.



Shoes. Not pictured, but brought- fancy shoes. Whatever, only doing this bc it's mandatory.



Wife's shoes, bc why not.



Bankroll- two stacks.

Just me and the wife this time, short little 3 day weekend get away. No kids, no parents. She's planning on a lot of pool and spa, while I'm planning on... duh.



Almost there!



Never. ever. gets old.

We grab a cab to my parent's condo to pick up the car and 10k I left here last time (so plus 10k from home = 20k), then head over to the Wynn Tower Suites.




Your typical car in the garage at my parents' condo- bunch of rich retirees +/- famous people.



Got the 60th floor this time... not good for much except getting looks from people in the elevator as if I'm a baller (even though there's plenty of standard rooms on the 60th), and taking far too long to go up and down.



Home for the next 3 days!



Parlor suite entrance.



Main room.



Little VIP touch under the main TV.



Bathroom- not pictured, 2nd sink behind and to the left, and the bedroom.



This little "gift" bag was waiting for us... I say "gift" in quotes bc what it is are the tournament crendentials for the 1500$ buy in slot tournament I'm entered in, so we paid for it. Inside, though, is-



OK, the TV stick is a welcome surprise.

It's just about 8:30pm when we're all checked in, and both of us are pretty hungry. We head to Allegro to change it up a bit, and my wife has never been. I was more diligent about taking pics of the menus this time, hope you all enjoy.







Carpaccio and arugula to start. I'd give it a 6/10, flavors were fine but I've had carpaccio that was much thinner, almost falling apart and I prefer it that way.



Wife's linguini with clams. 4/10. Flavor meh, pasta store bought.



Veal parm. 5/10, bumped up to 6/10 on sheer size alone.

After dinner we go to...


Let the degen begin!

The machine swallows up 200 pretty fast. My wife decides to keep me company for a bit then is going to call it an early night. We head straight to high limit and I sit down at the same UX, TDB machine that dealt me and my dad the 36k/dealt 4 aces w/kicker hand last trip.

We start out on fire- trip 3s. I have her push draw. Miss. A few hands later- 4 to a royal! I have her push draw again...



Ugh. Come on now- the draws are great, but let's not have this been just a bunch of almost's. Then, we get trip aces with a kicker. I tell her to draw, but she says, "no, your turn". So I do...



And THAT is how you start!

SO SO different than most of my trips, starting out up 5 figs. My wife heads upstairs, and I proceed to continue the sun run...



Smashed this guy about 10 min after the aces.



Technically a hand pay... Man I hope I make quads in two spots with premium trips!



Uh, ok then!



Uh, ok then! What the hell?!! Of course I'll take it, but lamenting the lack of kickers here given I turned a PAIR into quads twice.



AGH- kicker!

I probably played about 4 hrs total- never did hit my "usual" machines since the UX ones were so hot. I know I went upstairs around 2am. I basically was shoveling in hundos as fast as I could, losing 500$ in 1-2 min most of the time, every once in a while turning the 500 into 2k (which I then would play off), and hitting the jackpots above... it was a fun and honestly just a manic session. At my high point I was up 16k- I know that for sure. However, I quickly went down to about up 13k and hovered there most of the time. It was when I gave back 3k in about 10 min with no result I knew I had overstayed my welcome, but MAN you know that feeling when you just keep hitting, hitting, hitting, and you can't stop... yeah, until you look back and realize you actually should have stopped about 1 hr before.

No matter- I'm up 10k on the day. When I get upstairs my wife is STILL AWAKE! She started watching a movie and now wants to finish it. The TV is ridiculously bright and I can't sleep until about 2:30am, combo of being flush with victory and the light. I know I'm going to wake up early tomorrow, be tired the whole day, and run off of coffee and gambling fever the whole time... Ah, Vegas.

Day 1 result- +10k.

To be continued...

Awesome start Leon! Finish strong

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

NICE! 458?

No. I don't know that feeling.

Man, I'm so glad I didn't know you were going this weekend. Otherwise I could not have resisted making my own trip hoping to get a glimpse of The Legend. And losing a bet on McGregor. OTOH it would have been worth it if I could have talked my way into a ride in the Ferrari.

The "I can't lose, keep playing" feeling only happens when- you catch rungood and have no stop win. It's also how I gave back 6k that first night. "Keep playing, keep playing, I can't lose... oh wait".

To be clear, that's not my parents' car.

I'll take your word for it because that doesn't happen to me.

Never thought it was.

It's yours, right?

I thought we already established you don't play enough...

Haha. I just wanted to make sure bc I have no issue with posting pics of good food and big hits (which I obv give back), but it seems douchey to me to flaunt one's wealth so obnoxiously (had the car been ours).

You had to pay the slot tournament entry? I knew Wynn was stingy, but geez, for as much as you play, figured it would be comped.

Pretty standard from what I've seen. The 5 and 10k buy-in ones are filled with the high rollers and they're all paying. Haven't seen the 25k one personally but I'd imagine it's the same. I think they had about 300 runners for this one (prize pool based on 250 entrants) and any additional buy ins supposedly got added to the prize pool. It was 500k in total prizes based on 250 entrants- so, more if they got 300 people. I'm sure the Wynn isn't looking to just give away 500k.

I guess if people are willing to pay, they have no reason to comp. I get comp invites to 100K events frequently at my relatively meager play level, but that's mostly at CET.

That's true enough. It's not easy keeping it that way either, after reading all the adventures in this thread. The temptation to throw double handfuls of hundos at the machines is very high. But I'm lucky enough to be on the good side of variance right now on vp and I know that won't last if I play for too long.

If your entry is only 1500 then there's an overlay being paid by the Wynn, so that's pretty nice.

The sun is shining, the birds are singing..Leon posted a trip report..

Yeah, definite overlay. Even my mostly-non-gambler wife came to that conclusion in about 5 min. I did teach her to play LHE back in 2002 and she understood the game well enough to beat the droolers for a couple of years before she lost interest, so she's not totally naive to EV/statistical concepts.

Day 2, part 1

After going to sleep at 2:30 I wake up at 6:30... Jesus. Grab 5k and head downstairs for some coffee. I head to the UX machine again in hi limit, which proceeds to drill me for 2k in about 10 minutes. ****. I really had only intended on losing max 2k for this morning session, but I'm sure my wife is still asleep and won't be ready for breakfast for more than an hour. I don't want to head up to the room and sit there in a half-daze... so I decide I'll go back to my usual TDB/25$ a push machines.

Generally, I try not to pull out my phone to take pics of the draws in hi limit, but I'm totally willing to here. Not sure why- it seems kind of lame to be doing that in hi limit with a bunch of slot attendants and hi rollers around most of the time, but of course I'm willing to take pics of hits, and no one cares anyways. The spacing of the machines outside definitely are more conducive to just doing your own thing, taking pics whenever you feel like it, etc. Anyways, I pick up some good draws pretty fast.





Which of course don't go anywhere. I actually had a few more there as well but after the first two blanked I got a little discouraged. Suffice to say they all missed. I switch over to deuces wild bonus just to slow it down a bit... which fails utterly. I lose 1k playing DWB in about 15 min, and the highlight was picking up... AAA2 as a draw playing 10 handed! I knew if I made 5 aces with the natural 4th ace I was going to be super pissed- of course, I never caught the 4th ace, let alone another deuce and my 4 of a kind (20 credits) didn't improve 10 ways.

I finally head up around 8am stuck the whole 5k and pretty pissed. Whatever- I'm still up. My wife is still sleeping, but I subtly make more noise than I have to and she's alright with the time. She wants to hit the pool soon anyways. We grab a standard room service breakfast.



So the plan for the day is-
- wife hits pool until lunch, I play +/- join her at the pool
- lunch at Red 8, then 2 of 3 tournament rounds at 2pm at the Beethoven ballroom in the Encore
- wife spa session in afternoon, I play from about 2:30pm until 6 (here's a potential "donk off the whole roll" situation)
- 7pm show at Palazzo, Baz Lurhmann's "Star Crossed Love", comped by Mr. Wynn
- 9pm dinner at Mizumi
- play until ???

I grab another 5k, swearing I'll play slower while my wife heads to the pool. This session is totally icy as well- about the best thing that can be said is I lost more slowly. Interestingly, I was dealt this as my very first hand, which of course makes the degen gambler in me think, "ok, here's the comeback. They're giving it to me". It's like the machine knows...



I'm playing next to a guy who is playing TDB, but 3 lines. I turn a pair of aces into quads but no kicker, which of course I'm sort of disappointed about. He sees it, and the very next hand HE turns aces into quads, also no kicker. Meh. I'm tired of getting crushed by TDB and go back to deuces wild bonus. Fairly soon after, I make-



I don't know how to feel about this hand. Sure, it's a handpay. TDB, it's a nice draw for 4 2's w/kicker (which the dreamer in me thinks I could hit twice). Clearly the right move is hold everything, but I actually wanted to toss both 3s and just go for 4 deuces bc, well, they're cooler... anyways, I took the jackpot but with a slight feeling that the universe was playing with me.

The machines now turn to ice AGAIN. Frustrated, I take my last 1.5k over to UX, but some jerkoff is playing on one of the machines and of COURSE locking up the other one. I head out to the main floor where there is one full pay UX TDB machine, but no sound. It takes the first 1k pretty fast, then I make-



Yeah BOOOYYYYYY!

Outta nowhere. No sound. Bang. I can't believe it is only 11am. I play on, lose 2k back before I come to my senses and join my wife at the pool, only stuck 1k for that session thanks to the UX hit.

To be continued...

These reports never get old, Leon. Keep doin what ya do.