Day 2

I slept especially poorly that first night, even worse than usual. I was getting over a cold, and between the constant coughing and Vegas fever probably tossed and turned from 4-6am. Finally said screw it at 6 and headed downstairs.

The agenda for the day-
- buffet for breakfast
- swim
- lunch TBD
- afternoon nap for kids, spa session for wife, gambool for me
- Mandalay aquarium
- birthday dinner for my oldest son (turning 9) at Sinatra
- post dinner gamble

I forgot to mention my son's B-day- it was also part of the reason my wife and kids came this trip. We have the party all arranged for this coming weekend, but it didn't feel right for just me and my wife to go to Vegas on his actual Bday and leave him behind with the nanny. I called Sinatra ahead of time and arranged a personal cake for him/dessert which hopefully will be a nice surprise.

Anyways, not much to say about the morning session, stuffed in 3k, got 2k out-



So at this point I'm even for the trip. I head up to the room to shower, get my wife a coffee and get my PT out of the way- one goal accomplished. We meet up with my parents at the buffet.



The buffet is the usual in terms of pics- I only snapped one of my initial plate.



Prime rib, chili-rubbed New York Strip, omelet, pork cutlet.

That said, the food was better than average on this day. The prime rib wasn't overcooked and the NY strip was tasty- far better than my dad's ribeye at Andrea's the previous night. Pork cutlet was juicy, and the most of the other offerings were better than normal- eggs benedict eggs were properly made, etc. I also did a good job keeping intake of garbage/sugar to a minimum- it helped that they didn't have hash browns this AM.



Random shot of some of the complimentary gifts in my room.

Post-breakfast, we modify the plan- I'm going to get my dad settled and we'll partner up a bit while my wife gets some work (~1hr) done and the kids chill. This will allow poolside to warm up a bit anyways and my wife needs to get this work done at some point today. I'm ok with this plan

My dad and I partner up at UX- I'm in for 1/3, as it's been so cold and I'm trying to keep my exposure down. The months-long icy spell at UX continues- we fire in three 2100$ bullets (so I'm in for 2.1k myself). I remark that it is unbelievable how under-royaled we are on this machine- mind you, I have no data to support this assertion, but it sure feels that way given we've partnered on it the better part of 2 yrs, fired in countless bullets, have been DEALT 4AWAK once and 4 2's w/ kicker twice, etc etc YET have never made a royal on it. I can't even remember all the royals I've hit since we started playing on this machine, but I certainly know we've yet to hit one HERE.

In any case, the above ceases to be true about 5 min later- I pull a rabbit out of a hat.



So my share of that is basically 2.6k. I'm essentially even. So what- the point is we finally got a MF'ing royal out of the machine.

We finish off that third bullet and my dad wants to play something else. I move over to the machine next to him and for some reason have a hankering to play double super times pay. The most interesting game they have is DDB, and it's full pay. I've never run well at DSTP, but what the hell.

I feed in 500$, knowing my wife and kids are expecting me in about 20 min. Plenty of time to win or lose 5x that. I can immediately feel this is going to be a good session- lots of dealt straights, flushes, etc and lots of multipliers. No monsters, but I'm really getting a lot of play for my money. At some point, I spin that 500 up to 1k, but it slowly drifts down to almost busto. Then, I hit a 5x multiplier, get dealt a pair of 6s, and randomly luckbox that another 2x multiplier on the draw and quads for 1750 and a small handpay (my phone was charging in the room and I didn't bother using my dad's to get a pic). Whatever, at least I'm up for this bullet.

Keep playing- I miraculously don't go bust and bink something that IS worth using my dad's phone for the pic...



Awesome! "Only" a 2x multiplier, but otherwise all the elements of fun are there. Premium hand, luckbox draw.

Keep going- I think I hit a dealt full which then got a "draw" multiplier and my 500$ bullet is healthy again. I'm supposed to be in the room getting ready to swim now, but then again my wife is supposed to text my dad when she's done and she hasn't yet. Plus, how can I leave when I make hands like this?



ANOTHER luckbox hand! Unfortunately no multiplier.

I keep playing, and my wife finally texts my dad that she's headed to the pool. I tell myself I'll play off the original 500, and unfortunately don't hit anything else. OK, that was awesome- I effectively turned 500 into 10k on DSTP and am well up!

I head up to the room to change and we chill at the pool for a bit. Afterwards, we meet up with my parents at Red8 for lunch- my wife has to break off early to make her spa appointment. I take the kids up for a nap and head downstairs. After my wife returns from her spa appt we'll head off to Mandalay- presumably I have a couple of hours to play so this'll work out perfectly.

This afternoon session was SWINGY. I start off creating a 3k ticket for my usual machine. Proceed to dust that off in 15 min. Feed in 500 more and hit-



EXCELLENT.

The 500$ lasts far longer than the 3k, so I figure maybe 500 bullets are the way to go! After all, the 500 on DSTP was also magical. I then go on to dust off another 500 on that machine, 500 x 2 on its neighbor, and 500 x 2 on DSTP, all rather quickly. Le sigh. Create another 2k ticket (mostly to slow this bleed down), and immediately hit-



There really is no rhyme or reason to this game. No patterns. No "right way". I know this, but it's ridiculous how you can find a pattern in anything if you look for one.

My wife texts that her spa session is done shortly after, and I finish up that session basically even (for the session). Still well up for the day, but it's shocking how I hit 6k in jackpot in 2 hrs yet have nothing to show for it...

We get the kids ready and drive our car to the Mandalay. Like the Mirage, I have great memories and a fondness for this casino. While the location is basically the nut low for strip casinos, I've always liked the decor but also have some great poker-specific memories that some of you old-school 2+2er's may be able to relate to, such as-

1. You may remember a once-prolific poster named "pokerbabe". She and I became friendly acquaintances during the height of limit hold em, and played many a session at the Mirage. She taught me the value of being liked at the table, and hopefully I taught her she played too tight to really extract value from the donks that populated the 20/40 and 40/80 at the Mirage at that time. We've met up in several places for food over the years, and once was at the Mandalay buffet, where basically we talked poker for hours while my friend who came along was bored to tears. Good times.

2. Clarkmeister and Tommy Angelo introduced me to the 4/8, 1/2 kill, 1/2 blind(WTF?) hold 'em game which used to regularly run at the Mandalay years ago. Tons of fun, tons of donks mixed with old man coffees. In other words, the perfect spot to relax, play like a maniac, dust off a few hundred BUT potentially stack every person at the table and put some tightwads on tilt. The above two old school 2+2ers probably don't remember the interaction but highlights include-
- walking by the game and wondering why Clark and Tommy were wasting their time in it
- immediately being coerced to play, with Clark explaining that in spite of maniac mode it was essentially impossible to go broke here
- learning the "double barrel raise" technique from Tommy- essentially, one is riffling two near-full stacks of chips. If a raise is indicated (which it always was in this game regardless of cards or position), you slam both stacks down in one hand on the felt, cut out the call, cut out the raise, riffle both (now smaller) stacks in one, retract hand and remaining chips. At speed, it looks awesome
- using said "double barrel" technique, and between that and the normal chip-riffling/spinning/other tricks and sitting on the rail, impressing some random 10 year old walking by with his family enough that he loudly commented how cool it was. Future degen creation = check.

Anyways, so after that I've probably been to the Mandalay poker room about 10 times, always with friends to dust off chips, always having a good time. Randomly ran into Fossilman who was sweating his wife in a low limit hold 'em game once as well. I played with Fossilman several times back East at Foxwoods before he won the 2004 ME and got all famous. I remembered him- he didn't remember me...

Back to the report. We pass Areole on the way to the aquarium, which gives me an opportunity to tell the kids about the wine "cellar" there. I personally have never been- as I'm not a wine person I don't really care, but it is a fairly unique concept-





Asking kids to walk on an escalator is an exercise in futility.





Touching pool, where we got to touch a bunch of different rays and horseshoe crabs. My youngest probably spent a true 15 min here.







For what it is, it's a decent experience. We've all been here several times but I don't regret coming back.

After, we head back to the Wynn and get ready for Sinatra. Unfortunately I forgot to take pics of the food bc it was probably the highlight of the trip from both a taste and appearance perspective. I got the veal parm which I usually get and remembered to ask the chef to go easy on the cheese- solid 7/10. Between all of us, we got lasagna (7/10), spaghetti (7/10), meatballs and fried polenta appetizer (7/10), carpaccio and arugula appetizer (9/10, light, refreshing and just what I needed), Veal Milanese (8/10, going to get this next time, I prefer it to the sauce-fest that is the veal parm), and my dad got lamb chops (3/10, really the only disappointment. Too dry).

I did, however, remember to take pics of the special cake for my oldest's birthday.





Chocolate, chocolate butter cream, fruits, ice cream. Maybe a 7/10 overall.

Afterwards, we get the kids to bed, and my wife and I hit Walking Dead, of course. She's been in Vegas 24hrs and this is her first gambling session, I don't know how she survives...

Walking Dead is unfortunately cold, as is Sons of Anarchy. We dust off 500$ pretty fast. Even worse, it's not much fun, and really that's what we're paying for. If it's unfun... you don't get my money. We head over to VP and I let my wife push buttons. That's cold as well and we're stuck 3k post-dinner now. My wife laments that she's a cooler and I feel bad for her- I've gambled enough and donked off enough money myself to know:

a) there's no such thing
b) it sure can FEEL like there is such a thing
c) if you feel YOU'RE the cooler, well... that's a s h i t feeling.

She elects to head to bed, and gives me the instructions to win it back. I do my best, courtesy of-



This really makes me wonder what would have happened if I didn't hold the king. Of course, the answer is almost certainly "you don't even make 4 aces".

and



I take the above 2k payout and immediately head upstairs, proud of myself for again being able to get up. There's always tomorrow. Slightly down for the post-dinner session, I'll take it.

Day 2 result- +~8k? (lost exact track)
Overall- +9k

Day 3 to be continued...

Leon - enough of this VP garbage. You know what we're all waiting for - to see you go back to Circus Circus to win all those tickets from the ball tossing game again!

Well, then Day 3 is what you're waiting for then...

Royals are nice

LOL especially since the kids are here!


Leon, you prefer 500$ in which is obv working this trip or stuffing 1k in? Or do you sometimes put 3k in, or do you prefer to just feed it randomly?

No set preference. I used to always feed in 100 at a time then cash out tickets. This doesn't work well for 10 play bc you're basically always feeding bills. More recently I've moved to making a decent-sized ticket at first, then playing that off. It's good to do in the AM when I'm trying to take my time (it's a pain in the butt and slow to feed in 30 bills but that's ok when the point is to drag it out a bit) but super annoying when one is stuck and you just want to play.

The 500$ at a time is really just "this is a bullet I'm mentally ok with losing all at once" thing. Obv not a stop loss. It's all just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, ultimately.

I thought that high stakes machine players usually will come to the machine with vouchers, no? What I mean is you go to the cage and give them $2000 and you get a $2000 voucher so you don't have to sit there and feed 20 bills into a machine. Or is that not the case? For someone like your dad, who from what you've described isn't the most dexterous, I figured that's what he's do, no? I guess the benefit of using $100s on your own is you have more flexibility, although of course putting in a $2000 voucher doesn't mean you have to spend the entire amount.

Honest question - do you ever just feel like not doing the fine dining thing one trip? I get that when your get everything comped it feels like a waste not to take full advantage, but with each passing report I sense that you're almost tired of all the five star food. It's like you're 1980s David Lee Roth - you get these amazing girls at every show but after a while you maybe crave a regular random girl. Is it the desire not to let the comps go to waste, or wanting to cater to your dad or mom, or not wanting to give your kids - who sure seem to have pretty sophisticated palates - junk?

Leon loved the dstp pics. Thats my game and always wished you played it more lol.

Question-i was just playing UX for free money on vp .com and got dealt a king high straight flush no multipliers. Drew for the royal and whiffed everything, and actually felt a bit sick on play money lol. So question is, would you do same thing(for real money)?

It seemed at first that i would have no choice if this happens in a casino and must draw for the royal(it was 10 play btw) , but after thinking about it, id be lucky to fill 2 royals, which, playing for quarters, would be 2k. So i can either hope to get super lucky and win 2k, or take a locked in 625. Same logic seems to apply with multipliers there. What would you do?

Oh sure, you can get a voucher. When I make tickets, I do it myself to purposely slow things down.

My dad will often take tickets from his hits. He only feeds bills when he's out of tickets. I don't think it's occurred to him to have "them" create tickets for him from bills, although the few times I've suggested it to him he's cool with it (at which point I become the runner and do it for him).

It depends. It's actually more a function of I'm tired of the Wynn in general. The better restaurants have more of a chance of healthy (or less unhealthy) options, so there is that. Ultimately there's just not that many choices: 4-5 normal places, and 4-5 nicer places at the Wynn. But whenever my parents are there it's just too difficult for my dad and tiring for my mom to leave the joint.

I came REALLY close to making a reservation at Kabuto this time (I literally had them on the phone and dumped them); once I realized the combo of the set menu (and the possibility my kids would not eat the majority of the items), having to take two cars out there, and the fact it would be a long dinner I decided against it. I need to be out there with friends, solo or just my wife to make it worth it- I'm not paying 120/person only to have my kids complain.

Oh btw, im sure woo would say to hold straight flush and probably by like 15% lol. But its 4 to a royal *10.

This is a comment about my post above

You definitely hold the straight flush. A royal is worth 16 straight flushes, and the Ace is coming along much less than that.


One time I was chasing an inflated quarter royal, 2100-2200 and was dealt the king high straight flush. It was close but I aganozingly held my $62.50 cent hand. And then proceeded to felt my $200 life roll anyways. EV baby!

Right. I guess i know that holding the straight flush is the correct play, but at first i thought this was a situation where i make the wrong play purely because popping royals is so fun, but after thinking about it, i guess i should just hold the straight flush. I kind of hope that doesnt happen to me for real money lol. Just deal me the royal

OK cool, it sounds like you know hold the SF and it's not close. To answer your question, I hold the SF but I'm super pissed about my "bad luck" to be dealt that. FYI I've been dealt a king hi straight flush 4 times I think.

LOL- that's approaching the point of "too life nitty" for me. I don't know how close it was for you but assuming it's close I think I dump the SF and pick up the fun EV in exchange for -$EV.

Vp, is about making the right decision. Lucks just the door, sometimes you gotta come in through the windah.

Ok awesome. Now ill have a plan if this ever happens lol.
I usually just play single line 50 cent. Ive probably been dealt a high king straight flush at some point and im sure i drew for the royal, and id personally do that again for 125 locked in vs. 2k small chance plus the fun of hitting a royal. But throwing 10 straight flushes up made me think

I feel like youve got that backwards. Bink just one of 10 royals and youre way ahead, whereas single line and flat royal it is an ENORMOUS EV dump.

Freeplay on vp.com obv see if you can spot dad laying im the weeds.

The biggest question is how you can get a 9 year old boy to take a nap during the day.

They've always taken naps because we make them. Clearly doesn't happen on school days but definitely on weekends and holidays. Usually goes without a fuss- I certainly model the behavior as I will nap every chance I get. I couch it as "sleep is when you get smarter/faster/stronger/better whatever".

I know it's not going to last much longer but I'll milk it as long as I can.

The problem with the Wynn is you don't have much choice. There is a coffee shop (cafe to you younguns) but even that doesn't have a lot of "normal" food.

I imagine there's a substance you can write a script for that would facilitate nap time.

LOL there's lots of substances. Question is what would the state think if they found out...

Day 3

I slept marginally better the prior night. I woke up still pleased I had managed to recover the post-dinner loss the prior night; it felt like I had an "extra" bullet now that otherwise would already be in the Wynn's coffers. With this optimism in mind, I head downstairs for my usual pre-breakfast routine. Unfortunately, I ultimately only managed to hold on to that 3k for about 7 more hours- I dumped it right back in pretty fast. The only thing of note that I hit was:



God. Come on- hit twice but no kicker both times.

The plan for the day:
- room service in my parents' room
- Circus Circus
- no lunch/light snacks only
- kids hang out in room, my wife and I play
- early dinner at Wazuzu (~5pm), my family hits the road afterwards
- my dad and I play the rest of the night

No breakfast pics, but it was definitely above avg. The breakfast food at the Wynn is very hit or miss- sometimes great, sometimes meh/WTF? On this day, all the eggs were perfectly cooked, bacon crispy, croissants awesome as usual, etc.

My family then heads to Circus Circus. When the kids and I returned two weeks ago, my wife was really annoyed at the sheer level of junk the kids had. Quite frankly she's right- although I crushed the ball game and the overall rate of return I'm sure was high, at the end of the day we probably pumped in 100$ to ultimately collect more crap. So this time, we've forbidden the kids from taking any toys home, and therefore they shouldn't be wasting money to collect tickets.

I was mildly interested in draining the ball game of tickets as discussed last time, but honestly didn't feel like wasting the time to stand there, wait for all the tickets to come out, do it again, etc. So my wife and I come up with a compromise- I hit the jackpot on the ball game, then we give the tickets away to a random kid and make his day. Sounds good to me...

We hit several of the rides- unfortunately my (now) 9 yr old still doesn't want to ride on any of the good roller coasters, so I don't waste money on a pass for myself. We spent a fair amount of time in the "6$ for all you can play retro games" which was good value. Then, we end up at the ball game as promised...

I stick in a dollar and fail. Huh- that timing definitely seemed different. Try again- fail again. WTF. The micro-timing is clearly different than I remember- still beatable, but there seems to be a delay which wasn't present two weeks ago. It's hard to describe but I'm sure many of you can relate- any activity that you have down cold, if the calibration is changed even slightly it becomes very noticeable. In any case, I knuckle down for the third attempt and pull it off.



Random kids who were waiting for me to finish. I'm assuming they realized it was worth the wait.

With that good deed done, we grab an ice cream and head back to the Wynn. My parents have decided to grab and snack at Red8- my wife and I ditch the kids in the room, briefly join my parents then give Walking Dead another try.



This session is marginally better- we got a lot of bonus games. The problem is, most of the bonus games were downright terrible. With a base bet of 3$, we got several bonus games where the TOTAL win was 4, 5, 6$! Ridiculous.

Anyways, we donk off 500$ on Walking Dead and a bit on Sons of Anarchy. My wife decides to head to the room and I head back to VP.

This mini-session is also cold and now I'm stuck 3k, 6k on the day. Then, I pick up-



And make-



Ugh. OK, that's enough of a beating. I head up to the room and then we meet my parents at Wazuzu. It was a disappointing experience. The food was ok, but the service was just terrible. We ended up waiting almost 45 min and basically had to reorder all of the food and drinks- it was shift change, and I suspect they just straight up didn't put our order in the first time. I grabbed a few pics-



Salmon and Toro sashimi, and my youngest's tuna roll. 6/10 on the sashimi, 5/10 for the tuna roll (an average score for an average item I'd never personally order, but it is a 6 yr old eating sushi...)



Pot stickers (5/10) and crispy brussel sprouts (5/10).



Panko-crusted Sea bass. The best of the dishes, nice and crispy but the fish was still well-cooked. 6-7/10.

After dinner, I see my family off and head back to the machines. I've got less than 24 hrs, but I'm still up overall, I've put in a ton of action and have yet to be dealt a premium hand (last trip as well). It's going to happen, it's just a matter of time.

My dad and I partner up at UX- initially, we wanted to go to hi limit but both machines were occupied so we head to the floor and the machines with no sound. Fire in two joint bullets with no result. My dad wants to play something else so I keep going, completely solo. I'm now stuck 8k on the day- I need some magic to happen.

Once I start playing solo, things really pick up. Quite a few dealt straights and flushes, a few regular quads. This is fun now. Then, I pick up three to a royal again. I've got two 8x multipliers working. I'm not particularly excited as I'm almost certainly going to blank, but it's not the WORST draw in the world and I've already hit a three card royal draw this trip, so... hold and draw-



JEEZ. Come on- it doesn't get any closer than that!

Keep going, and get a good draw-



Result-



Partner with my dad again and switch to 10 play for our joint bullet. It's crap and I dump the 2k from the straight flush back in. Stuck 8k on the day again! My dad splits off again, and I'm on semi-tilt from the sheer amount of action I've put in and lack of a real monster. I keep playing 10 play on my own (100$ a push). Hit a random luckbox hand-



Which keeps me alive for-



Wow. One ace into a top prize! Obv I was super happy to hit this, but also somewhat lamenting this inability for all the stars to align- such long odds against this, but I can't hit a 1/47 shot when I've got big multipliers working...

I'm pretty tired and want to head up. I'm only stuck 4k for the day now. I grab my dad, but he wants to partner one more time, so we shove in first one, then another 2k bullet. Towards the end, we finally make-



which is nice, but too little, too late. That's enough- stuck 5k for the day, but still up overall heading into the last day...

Day 3 result- -5k
Overall- +4k

Final day coming soon...

Woo hoo - ball game conquered again! Brutal on the K-9 SF instead of a Royal. Somehow I thought your ship was coming in that time.