Ongoing VP TR, PART 2!
Hi all, apparently my previous thread may have gotten so long that it's causing issues for the website. So, here is a new thread to keep this going, and it also gives me an opportunity to provide a quick recap of how I've gotten to that point.
Background-
- former poker player; got in pre-2003 boom, printed money online until about 2007 when games got harder/I started making decent money
- took poker roll and transitioned to straight casino degen. Went thru a blackjack and craps phase
- Dad played progressively bigger and more at various Vegas casinos starting around 2005, settled on Wynn and gave them all of his action. Massive comps and Chairman's club status for Dad resulted
- I started playing VP around 2013, 2014? knowing it was one of the best casino games on offer; slagged off of parent's comp for years
- as I played more and bigger, Dad's host became my host
- Circa 2019-2021, went on the most massive sun run, +500k over that time period; basically played bigger, kept winning, played bigger, kept winning, etc
- 2022-now- basically have run cold and am trying to sustain my VP for the long term
Game of choice-
- Triple double bonus, preferring multiline and ultimate X
- will play craps, more often with buddies
- despise blackjack
Typical TR features stays at the Wynn, good food, gambling, +/- other stuff (shows, family coming with, etc)
That's probably a decent synopsis!
Sweet!
Nice one, leon. Thanks for sharing.
but you didn't get it in sequential order
keep playing the casino says
geez leon wtf is happening
Last time I went to the local was the dealt royal/80k last week. Wasn't going to go this week, but had a couple appts cancel and I need to hit the butcher which is basically on the way home from the local anyways...
I start off playing 100 lines at 25c (125$/push). It's a point multiplier day, and things are warm, so I soon step to 70 lines, 50c credits then 80 lines (200$/push).
Dealt premiums!
Kicker draw/result-
Will definitely take that!
I keep locking up money for taxes, knowing they're coming and it's the responsible thing to do. I wish I could say, "I have an XYZ bankroll" but I know the reality is "I have an XYZ - taxes, which I don't know what they are yet" bankroll which is infinitely less fun.
Whoa, congratulations. The results you share are amazing!
Your trip reports almost restore my faith in a future for humanity - it is actually possible, that luck can prevail 😃
2/1 (1/31?) -2/4 TR
Background- have had this trip on the books for a while. I'm planning on going with D and we're going to do our usual Thurs-Sun. D still has had no success finding a new job, and I offered to him to cancel this trip if he needed to conserve funds. I would have still gone solo bc Vegas. He has essentially separated his life/gambling roll his whole life, so in his mind he's still doing ok with both and thus still planned on coming. OK, I'm not going to say no to company...
When I saw the weather for San Diego on 2/1 I grew really concerned. I got a weather alert text early 1/30 for 2/1, realized it was going to be bad right around when we were supposed to leave, and snap decided to come in 1/31 night. I generally hate getting into Vegas late in the day, and if this trip is terrible I could just lose more, but that's still better than hours of delay/potentially not getting to go at all if we leave the original departure plans. Secure permission from wife, get a go from D, get an extra day of room from host, and we're now in Vegas almost a day longer!
Agenda-
Wed- get in in the evening, nothing booked.
Thurs- head to Fountainbleau at some point to check it out, dinner at Mother Wolf
Fri- dinner at SW, we're seeing Leanne Morgan (comedy) after
Sat- dinner at Wing Lei, seeing Heather McMahan (comedy) after
Sun- head home
A bit more about these comedy shows- I was looking for something D and I could do that would be "free". Both of the shows are blonde women that I've never heard of. Have no idea what we're in for, but assume if they're playing the Wynn they're decent at a minimum. I'm going into it with a completely open mind- the only reason I mention the blonde woman thing is bc I literally thought the Wynn made a mistake on the website at first- two women, one night only, they vaguely look similar, same weekend- is it possible that only one person is playing this weekend? Meh, whatever. The Wynn doesn't make mistakes. Let's do it.
Bankroll/food comp-
Bringing 70k with me. I have to survive an extra day. The good news is, I should have my standard 1.5K in food comp, AND D has made black card status from our play in 12/23, so he's also got 2k free credit and 1.5K food comp! We should have plenty for bourbon to bring home.
I'll leave things with this teaser- from the local the week before the trip. The last time I went D and I got a dealt royal for 80k, and I'm looking to extend this heater I'm on. Doesn't take long before I get 5 suited connected cards DEALT-
OK. Not going to say no... but it's prettier than its value.
Keep playing- get 5 suited connected cards dealt AGAIN!
JEEZ WTF.
Just to drive the point home about how low value this is... I still lost 5k this day! Argh. OK, back on track, Day 1 coming soon...
Hope the storm isn't affecting you guys too badly. The weather people are making it sound nearly apocalyptic.
MOAR!
Day 1
D and I board a surprisingly empty 7:30pm flight to Vegas. The general plan is he's going to partner with me 10% on VP, I'll likely partner with him 33% of most of his craps sessions. From my POV I'd rather have 100% of my action on craps, but his bankroll is in survival mode given he "ain't got no J O B" and I'm totally cool with being a bankroll extender for him.
We're also planning on putting in action on his Wynn card- we figure we tend to do 3 trips together per year, so if we hit 20k ish tier credits per trip he'll stay Black card at the Wynn. We're also going to hit Cosmo one of the days and put in action on his premier card there, the thinking being with the Cosmo/MGM merge happening it'll be nice to have access to the multitude of good restaurants at the MGM properties. All of this means my Black card is going to get less play on it from here on out, but I'm still in no danger of losing my current comps. As an example, one needs 70k tier credits to make Black, and I finished the year with 415,000, and that's with a huge amount of play on D's card during our Dec trip. Meanwhile, my host keeps ghosting me about making Chairman, so I figure I'm in that spot where I'm Black, no questions asked, but I'm never going to make the next status up.
Never gets old.
Catch a ride in from the airport, 2bd Parlor suite as usual, we're unpacked and downstairs within 15 min of arrival.
I head to my usual. Sure would be nice to open with a monster for once!
D and I feed in 10k in bills and he gives me 1k. We play together for a bit, before he decides he wants to shoot dice. I hand him 1k and off he goes. Meanwhile, UX isn't giving me anything. I move over to spin after giving almost 8k to UX. I'm a little worried at this point- this isn't the opening I'm looking for.
Well, that was a good move!
That 8k gets me even again. Can't believe I've hit a royal before I've even been dealt trip aces (I got dealt premium trips once total at UX and obv blanked them). Then, first dealt quads of the trip!
PREMIUM!
Now, before I draw, let's remind ourselves where we're at with spin and dealt premiums. I can tell you for a fact the last three times I've been dealt premium quads at spin poker, I've gone 0/9 on all the kicker draws. Twice at Barona and once at the Wynn. Once was aces, 12 lines. Had I hit even one kicker on that draw it would have been worth 16k. So yeah, I'm not doing well drawing at kickers at spin specifically. I take a deep breath, and hit draw...
Result-
That is just incredibly good. 7 out of 9 available spots, bc the all-important center spot came in!!!!
I text D the good news. We're now well up. I decide to go to 15 lines, 150$ a shot.
I think I gave back a few k before moving to hi limit and trying my luck there.
This is awesome- esp the double hit just now. I can't believe I've made 4 royals and STILL haven't even been dealt trip aces once! If the aces can wake up, man this trip will be incredible!
Great draw here too!
And here. EVERYTHING but aces are hot!
I'm playing UX while D is getting paid. At some point he ditched craps (loser) and came to meet me. He's playing on his card, finally hit a jackpot and we're waiting to get his self-pay turned on. I stick 1k into UX while waiting.
ANOTHER ROYAL, STILL no 4 AWAK!
OK, finally.
As can be seen, we spent a lot of time playing pretty big- definitely bigger than my normal. Hit a lot of jackpots, and gave a lot back super fast. It's sick how fast one can lose at triple double, 30-50 lines when things are cold.
At some point, it's after midnight, I'm exhausted and I call it. Great first day, we've got a long trip ahead of us- let's survive and lock in a nice 1st day win.
The sphere from my room.
D elects to keep playing craps- I throw him another 1k and head up. Pop 1/2 a gummy, hoping for the same beautiful sleep I got last time we were here and I took a gummy.
Day 1 result- +25k
Dealt quads- 1, premium
Day 2 coming soon...
Awesome first day!
Let me be sure I understand. All this happened on the day that you hadn't planned to be in LV at all until the last minute?
Regardless, what a day!
What a start
Wow, this entire multi-year run is just unreal, leon. Thanks for sharing.
You've probably clarified this before, but does your Day 1 +25k result already include shared action or is your actual result lower after your partner's share and craps losses?
Let me be sure I understand. All this happened on the day that you hadn't planned to be in LV at all until the last minute?
Regardless, what a day!
That's right. Supposed to come in 2/1, actually came in 1/31 evening.
Wow, this entire multi-year run is just unreal, leon. Thanks for sharing.
You've probably clarified this before, but does your Day 1 +25k result already include shared action or is your actual result lower after your partner's share and craps losses?
I completely agree. D and I were talking about this during the trip, and I've had this convo with a few other people who "get" the math of gambling etc. We know that taking a huge sample of people into account, the overall results will look like a bell curve and there are going to be a few people that just run super bad or good. You'd never bet ahead of time on a particular person being so far outside of statistical expectation, you just know that given a large enough sample size it's going to happen.
So the convos I've had basically involve the fact that at this point, given how well I've run for how long, it appears I'm one of those extreme outliers. Doesn't mean I'm any more likely to run well in the future- I'm just off to such a riproaring start that AT THIS POINT I'm a favorite to post lifetime better results than a lot of people. TLDR version- I've just gotten insanely lucky and I have no plans to give it all back.
As far as the daily results, it's net jackpots/craps with the small exception of ongoing action. So some of the craps sessions where we buy in and it's a total bust, I record the buy in loss. If I still have action with D it's not factored in yet. Same with the VP partnership- it's pretty but not totally accurate. It will be completely accurate by end of trip. You can assume that the reported results up to the end do NOT factor in D's %- so I probably finished day 1 up 22k ish, not 25.
Part of Day 2
Wake up right around 5am. Looks like the gummy did nothing. I'm definitely going to have to take a nap at some point today, luckily there should be time for it.
Start off at UX and give a little back first, before this lightning strike.
If the rare hits at UX come in, and all the "expected" ones do too, I'm going to do very well. This next run exemplifies this.
Running SO well on royal draws so far.
Then- dealt quads number 2!
Meh.
RUNNING. SO. WELL.
One more 3 dealt and this would have been so ridiculous.
RUNNING. SO. WELL!!!!! I think this is my 4th 5 digit hit so far. This should be a guaranteed trip winner at this point.
That was just the most insane run I've ever had at UX. I've had bigger hits, obv but the frequency, in such a short period of time... As can be seen, at some point I well exceeded the 50k limit the machine can hold. Cashed out the 50k ticket and started a new one, and got that well over 10k as well!
Running so hot this trip and I'm not even supposed to be here yet! At this point, I was up over 80k. I head upstairs to meet D for a room service breakfast. No pics (forgot).
After breakfast, D and I head back down. We partner for VP a bit, then he goes to play craps again. Dice so far has been the one element that's been missing, I think he's had a couple of small losers but no chance of a winner yet.
Dealt quads number 3 at spin!
5 digit hit number FIVE of the trip coming up!
Here we see the power of that center spot again... held a pair of aces, and things fell just perfect that I got 2 4AWAK.
Just an amazing draw... 2 of three spots came in with kickers!
I know D and I got a craps session in there as well- it sucked. Can't remember but I believe in for 5, out for 1k. We take a lunch break at Red 8- I'm up 90k!
Everything 8/10.
I grab a quick post lunch smoke, intending to take a nap after. Manage to hit yet again in 5 min of play.
Free goodies.
After a mostly refreshing nap, it's back to battle!
Can't remember exactly, but I think I broke even this session with this 8k hit. Otherwise they were all losers.
D and I try craps, again. It's better this time and I never see any huge numbers, but most rolls are decent and we've got our first craps winner in the books.
In for 5k.
Then, back to VP. It's almost time for our ride to Fountainbleau and dinner.
I feel like at this point I haven't seen 3 aces dealt in a while. I switched to an old school machine specifically to try and change things up, maybe wake the machine up, etc. Of course, I had to play 2$ credits. LOL making quad aces twice, but no kicker either time.
Part 2- Fountainbleau and beyond. Trip so far- +90k, 3 dealt quads, 5 five digit hits.
I wanna be like you when I grow up!
Can't imagine why you were so excited that pics of breakfast were forgotten. 😉
Nice hits and, as always, great storytelling, leon! Thank you!
Unbelievable!
Being up that much I can’t see any way that I wouldn’t throw that all in a safe and lock in the win. (And probably go hookers and blow)
One long game etc I know but man that’s an incredible win
I don't know how Leon can be comfortable sitting with a stable full of horseshoes up his ass, but all I can say is I'm here for it.
Just amazing stuff.
I'm convinced that all your recent rungood is at the expense of my recent runbad. You're welcome!
Wheeeee!!!
I don't think I could get up from those machines to take time to eat.
Leon, when you're playing do you see other players you begin to recognize by sight?
Also, I wonder if for as big as you play if the next step up is a really big step.
Lastly, I think in your goodies shot I see egg salad. I hope they have a fridge in your suite because that's not something I'd want to eat a few hours later.
Unbelievable!
Being up that much I can’t see any way that I wouldn’t throw that all in a safe and lock in the win. (And probably go hookers and blow)
One long game etc I know but man that’s an incredible win
Well, you hit all the nails on the head. Only way to make the win bigger is keep playing 😉 Luckily for my bankroll I have no interest in either hookers or blow.
Leon, when you're playing do you see other players you begin to recognize by sight?
Also, I wonder if for as big as you play if the next step up is a really big step.
Lastly, I think in your goodies shot I see egg salad. I hope they have a fridge in your suite because that's not something I'd want to eat a few hours later.
I definitely recognize the other regulars at the Wynn. I hate 90% of them on sight 😀 I try not to be judgmental but when I see them my first thought is usually "oh, there's the guy who smokes the obnoxious cigars. There's the lady who always bitches and moans. There's the guy who offered me unsolicited advice to hold a pair over two pair bc 'you can't make quads from two pair (true story)'". Etc etc.
I think my next step up is too big, yes. It'd either be UX for 2$ credits (biggest they have at the Wynn 10 lines), spin poker for 5$ credits, or routinely playing 40-50 lines at 1$. All of those are at least double my usual outlay, too swingy, or both. Don't see myself getting there any time soon...
There may have been egg salad. They used to routinely put mayo on the sandwiches as well and they don't now (dislike- I think a good sandwich needs mayo). I basically never eat the goodies except when I'm starving. I've eaten several day-old sandwiches at the Wynn many times in the past, and have dodged the food poisoning bullet so far 😉
lol @ having only two hands with multipliers in this draw and smacking both of them with quads. run better lol.