Ongoing video poker "TR", how long will this last?
06-12-2017
, 11:40 AM
Vegas June TR
We just got back from a short, family-oriented trip. My parents were still in town so I figured this would be a good chance to visit with the wife, kids and nanny (who is more like a member of the family). We all stayed at the Wynn- got in Thurs night and left Sun afternoon.
You may remember from May's TR that it was refreshing to do different things last time, even if that only meant eating at different restaurants. I looked it up ahead of time and both my kids are now old enough to attend most of the shows in Vegas, which opens up a ton of "new" possibilities. As anyone who has kids knows, Vegas is not a very kid-friendly town, and we've long ago tapped out most of the options close to the strip (eg, Mandalay aquarium, Circus Circus, etc). Of course, I'm still planning on doing a ton of gambling- probably less than I would on my own, of course, with more Walking Dead sprinkled in (since that's what my wife will want to play), but overall that probably HELPS my roll so there is that. Plus my wife will want to play craps and the two of us haven't played together in years and I'm actually kind of looking forward to it.
Bankroll pic- nothing to see. I left 5k in Vegas last time and have another 5k on me.
Day 1
We start off with some run bad- our flight gets delayed by 1/2 hr, then another hr. We're supposed to get in at 6:15pm which will set us up for a nice, normal dinner time, but now everything is thrown off. My mom changes our reservation while we wait at the airport. The kids are pretty well-behaved, all things considering. Hopefully we'll see the "run bad at travel, run good at gambling" phenomenon kick in!
We FINALLY touch down in Vegas around 8pm and take a limo to the Wynn. I apologize now for all the semi-blurry pics- a lot of them were taken on the move.
FINALLY.
It actually makes sense for us to use the limo since it's available- trying to cab it with 5 people, 2 kids is annoying. I'd never pay myself, but since it's comped and the kids/nanny get a kick out of it, why not?
Always love walking in here for the first time each trip.
We get to the Wynn and meet up with my mom who has already checked us in- more run bad: my parents and the nanny have two rooms in the Tower Suites, but my family is on the main side. It looks like there's going to be slightly more walking and shuffling the kids around on this trip, but oh well. My parents have a Salon suite, the nanny has an attached regular room, and we have two regular rooms attached.
Home base for the next 72 hrs.
Decent view of the golf course- tried to kill as much glare as possible.
Standard room view.
Standard opposite room view.
Dinner, in an ongoing attempt to change it up, is at Wing Lei, the fancy Chinese restaurant. I've been a few times and honestly don't find it much (if at all) better than Red 8, but my wife/kids/nanny have never been. For anyone who is interested, I'd avoid it if you're pinching pennies- it's about 3x or more expensive than the Red8 but the food isn't that much better.
Pretty beautiful place setting, IMO.
Amongst the food we ordered, we get Peking duck carved table-side.
One serving of the "premium" part of the duck- the breast, with crispy skin and the rest of the pancake. 8/10- we all had 2-3 of these.
The rest of the duck, chopped. Honestly I've never been a fan of duck or chicken served this way- it's too hard to eat, there's bits of bone everywhere, etc. 3/10, which is probably the highest I could ever give this particular preparation of poultry.
The kids got pot stickers which were served on individual little baskets- that was pretty cool. No pics bc, well, kids gonna grab food.
King crab prepared "two ways". This was the simple boil/open/serve method. It was alright- pretty delicate flavor as one might imagine, but nothing special. 6/10.
The "other" prep of the crab- breaded, fried, with chilis. Much better flavor, but the shell was left on which made eating it pretty annoying. Each piece needed to be cracked open and you had to dig the meat out, which ended up making a mess and 90% of the outside was then removed, along with the flavor. Honestly a pain in the ass- I've never had crab this way and won't in the future. 2/10 with irritation factored in.
Roast pork belly with sweet sauce. 7/10.
Mixed vegetables stir-fried with black bean sauce. 5/10, would have been 6 or 7 but the addition of the "harder" vegetables such as the romanesco and cauilflower were a mistake. It changed the texture of the dish from crunchy to soft within bites and it wasn't pleasing.
Dessert... it's late, the kids need to go down to bed so I can gamble, but hey, first night in Vegas. We basically got half of what we ordered- the waiter either messed up the order, the kitchen did, or both. Whatever- by the time we noticed there was no point in complaining.
Ice cream with something else, drenched in mango sauce (thus I can't see or remember what the something else even was). I remember this being pretty good taste-wise, but as you can see it's not particularly visually appealing. Plus we didn't order this... 6/10.
My youngest's ice cream- was supposed to be almond cookie and vanilla. Ended up being almond cookie and chocolate. Ummm, yeah. 6/10, upgrade to 7/10 on sheer size alone (those were some big balls...
The most visually-appealing dessert: some custard, with cherry glaze on the outside, sitting on a hard cookie. 7/10 for taste, bumped to 8/10 with appearance.
Smattering of small treats for the table. 6/10 overall, but perfect sizing for just a small taste.
With dinner finished, I head up with my family to get the kids to bed. My wife doesn't particularly feel like gambling so she decides to stay. I've got 5k on me and feel like a champion.
I belly up to my usual machine and select 10-play, as per last trip. Dealt 4 aces within the first 15 min, again???
The first 1k evaporates in 5 min.
Whatever- shovel another 1k in. Gone. 15 min elapsed. Not one 4 of a kind, not one trip draw. Uh oh.
My nanny comes up- he's up 200$. He plays small, obv, and bc this is the Wynn I know he's getting ****ed on the paytables but what can you do. The alternative is he goes downtown or to a station casino for a better paytable and that obv is not happening with the rest of the family being here. I inquire what he's playing and it was triple play, 25c credits. So now I'm trying to figure out what he hit- he says he hit 4 aces with a kicker. He then tells me that he hit 4 4's w/kicker as well, so I say "so that's another 500$. Nice!". I'm doing the math in my head and think, wait a minute, if he hit 1k for the 4 aces w/kicker and 500$ with the 4 4's w/kicker, how in the HELL is he only up 200$?! I start probing and he says he "knows" the 4 4's was for 100$. Now I'm thoroughly confused- I ask him if he was sure he had a kicker, he thinks and then says, no, only the aces. OK, so that must mean he's playing DOUBLE DOUBLE bonus, not TDB. 100$ for the 4's, and "only" 500$ for the aces. He says yes, DDB and now everything makes sense. Either way, I'm happy for him.
I continue to play and lose. I find my dad and we partner up for 1k each on the ultimate X machine- lose. The machines are just eviscerating me. I think our collective bullet lasted 10 min, which given my dad pushes relatively slowly is ridiculously fast.
I head back out to my usual machines and really think. I'm already stuck 3.5k, haven't hit a single 4oak or even been dealt 3 aces once. I've gotten precisely 1 premium trip draw which obv blanked. I should probably go to bed- I've played through over 1/3 of the total bankroll for the trip and the kids probably aren't even asleep yet.
Screw it- how can I play more if I don't win?
The remaining 1.5k lasts just long enough to take me to midnight, which guarantees I will be tired tomorrow. GREAT. Nothing- NO PICS to show. What a terrible start. I head upstairs and try and crash, but I have visions of all the misses in my head. So bad.
Day 1 result= -5k.
To be continued...
We just got back from a short, family-oriented trip. My parents were still in town so I figured this would be a good chance to visit with the wife, kids and nanny (who is more like a member of the family). We all stayed at the Wynn- got in Thurs night and left Sun afternoon.
You may remember from May's TR that it was refreshing to do different things last time, even if that only meant eating at different restaurants. I looked it up ahead of time and both my kids are now old enough to attend most of the shows in Vegas, which opens up a ton of "new" possibilities. As anyone who has kids knows, Vegas is not a very kid-friendly town, and we've long ago tapped out most of the options close to the strip (eg, Mandalay aquarium, Circus Circus, etc). Of course, I'm still planning on doing a ton of gambling- probably less than I would on my own, of course, with more Walking Dead sprinkled in (since that's what my wife will want to play), but overall that probably HELPS my roll so there is that. Plus my wife will want to play craps and the two of us haven't played together in years and I'm actually kind of looking forward to it.
Bankroll pic- nothing to see. I left 5k in Vegas last time and have another 5k on me.
Day 1
We start off with some run bad- our flight gets delayed by 1/2 hr, then another hr. We're supposed to get in at 6:15pm which will set us up for a nice, normal dinner time, but now everything is thrown off. My mom changes our reservation while we wait at the airport. The kids are pretty well-behaved, all things considering. Hopefully we'll see the "run bad at travel, run good at gambling" phenomenon kick in!
We FINALLY touch down in Vegas around 8pm and take a limo to the Wynn. I apologize now for all the semi-blurry pics- a lot of them were taken on the move.
FINALLY.
It actually makes sense for us to use the limo since it's available- trying to cab it with 5 people, 2 kids is annoying. I'd never pay myself, but since it's comped and the kids/nanny get a kick out of it, why not?
Always love walking in here for the first time each trip.
We get to the Wynn and meet up with my mom who has already checked us in- more run bad: my parents and the nanny have two rooms in the Tower Suites, but my family is on the main side. It looks like there's going to be slightly more walking and shuffling the kids around on this trip, but oh well. My parents have a Salon suite, the nanny has an attached regular room, and we have two regular rooms attached.
Home base for the next 72 hrs.
Decent view of the golf course- tried to kill as much glare as possible.
Standard room view.
Standard opposite room view.
Dinner, in an ongoing attempt to change it up, is at Wing Lei, the fancy Chinese restaurant. I've been a few times and honestly don't find it much (if at all) better than Red 8, but my wife/kids/nanny have never been. For anyone who is interested, I'd avoid it if you're pinching pennies- it's about 3x or more expensive than the Red8 but the food isn't that much better.
Pretty beautiful place setting, IMO.
Amongst the food we ordered, we get Peking duck carved table-side.
One serving of the "premium" part of the duck- the breast, with crispy skin and the rest of the pancake. 8/10- we all had 2-3 of these.
The rest of the duck, chopped. Honestly I've never been a fan of duck or chicken served this way- it's too hard to eat, there's bits of bone everywhere, etc. 3/10, which is probably the highest I could ever give this particular preparation of poultry.
The kids got pot stickers which were served on individual little baskets- that was pretty cool. No pics bc, well, kids gonna grab food.
King crab prepared "two ways". This was the simple boil/open/serve method. It was alright- pretty delicate flavor as one might imagine, but nothing special. 6/10.
The "other" prep of the crab- breaded, fried, with chilis. Much better flavor, but the shell was left on which made eating it pretty annoying. Each piece needed to be cracked open and you had to dig the meat out, which ended up making a mess and 90% of the outside was then removed, along with the flavor. Honestly a pain in the ass- I've never had crab this way and won't in the future. 2/10 with irritation factored in.
Roast pork belly with sweet sauce. 7/10.
Mixed vegetables stir-fried with black bean sauce. 5/10, would have been 6 or 7 but the addition of the "harder" vegetables such as the romanesco and cauilflower were a mistake. It changed the texture of the dish from crunchy to soft within bites and it wasn't pleasing.
Dessert... it's late, the kids need to go down to bed so I can gamble, but hey, first night in Vegas. We basically got half of what we ordered- the waiter either messed up the order, the kitchen did, or both. Whatever- by the time we noticed there was no point in complaining.
Ice cream with something else, drenched in mango sauce (thus I can't see or remember what the something else even was). I remember this being pretty good taste-wise, but as you can see it's not particularly visually appealing. Plus we didn't order this... 6/10.
My youngest's ice cream- was supposed to be almond cookie and vanilla. Ended up being almond cookie and chocolate. Ummm, yeah. 6/10, upgrade to 7/10 on sheer size alone (those were some big balls...
The most visually-appealing dessert: some custard, with cherry glaze on the outside, sitting on a hard cookie. 7/10 for taste, bumped to 8/10 with appearance.
Smattering of small treats for the table. 6/10 overall, but perfect sizing for just a small taste.
With dinner finished, I head up with my family to get the kids to bed. My wife doesn't particularly feel like gambling so she decides to stay. I've got 5k on me and feel like a champion.
I belly up to my usual machine and select 10-play, as per last trip. Dealt 4 aces within the first 15 min, again???
The first 1k evaporates in 5 min.
Whatever- shovel another 1k in. Gone. 15 min elapsed. Not one 4 of a kind, not one trip draw. Uh oh.
My nanny comes up- he's up 200$. He plays small, obv, and bc this is the Wynn I know he's getting ****ed on the paytables but what can you do. The alternative is he goes downtown or to a station casino for a better paytable and that obv is not happening with the rest of the family being here. I inquire what he's playing and it was triple play, 25c credits. So now I'm trying to figure out what he hit- he says he hit 4 aces with a kicker. He then tells me that he hit 4 4's w/kicker as well, so I say "so that's another 500$. Nice!". I'm doing the math in my head and think, wait a minute, if he hit 1k for the 4 aces w/kicker and 500$ with the 4 4's w/kicker, how in the HELL is he only up 200$?! I start probing and he says he "knows" the 4 4's was for 100$. Now I'm thoroughly confused- I ask him if he was sure he had a kicker, he thinks and then says, no, only the aces. OK, so that must mean he's playing DOUBLE DOUBLE bonus, not TDB. 100$ for the 4's, and "only" 500$ for the aces. He says yes, DDB and now everything makes sense. Either way, I'm happy for him.
I continue to play and lose. I find my dad and we partner up for 1k each on the ultimate X machine- lose. The machines are just eviscerating me. I think our collective bullet lasted 10 min, which given my dad pushes relatively slowly is ridiculously fast.
I head back out to my usual machines and really think. I'm already stuck 3.5k, haven't hit a single 4oak or even been dealt 3 aces once. I've gotten precisely 1 premium trip draw which obv blanked. I should probably go to bed- I've played through over 1/3 of the total bankroll for the trip and the kids probably aren't even asleep yet.
Screw it- how can I play more if I don't win?
The remaining 1.5k lasts just long enough to take me to midnight, which guarantees I will be tired tomorrow. GREAT. Nothing- NO PICS to show. What a terrible start. I head upstairs and try and crash, but I have visions of all the misses in my head. So bad.
Day 1 result= -5k.
To be continued...
