Ongoing VP TR, PART 2!

Short answer, no. If I'm a gambler (I am) and I'm going to keep playing at some point later on (I will), it's a matter of when/how much, not if. "Hang on for dear life" basically means "try not to lose, this trip".

My advice- just drink bourbon straight (neat). Even on the rocks it gets diluted. Once you figure out what you like, you can save the swill/cheap stuff for cocktails.

My wife has known for years not to make herself a cocktail with any of our good bourbon as it would be a waste. I also have a bourbon friend whose wife gets upset he won't use his good stuff for her cocktails. He told me he found some really spicy bitters that add a kick to any cocktail, and also trick her into thinking she's getting higher quality bourbon. So now he uses it in all the drinks he makes for her and she thinks he's using his good stuff LOL

Cocktails are what Kirkland Signature is for 😀

Yep. Not limited to nice bourbon, or even whiskey more generally.

There's some stuff that's just great on its own, leave it that way.

Haha yeah but my friend who I was with at the time is a huge whiskey sour fan, he gulps them down like there´s no tomorrow so I just went with it. I usually don´t do cocktails, only exception being a good margarita.

Lexington has a vibrant gay community. It's a fairly diverse city considering it's in Kentucky. I wish the restaurants were a little better (especially for what they charge), but there are some decent spots.

We live south of Lexington about 30 minutes, and it's another world. The 70-year-old woman behind the counter at the local diner has a large revolver on her hip. Everyone except for me at my poker games is packing (I'm almost always the only woman). My husband won't let me even whisper religion or politics 😉 However, our neighbors are incredibly kind and thoughtful and would do anything for us. Plus, if there is an apocalypse, we will survive -- I guarantee it!

I never thought I'd live in Kentucky for long, but I met my husband here and he has kids, so here I am -- I've been here for 20 years. One of his brothers lives here, too, and we just bought a house a mile from us for his mom, so we aren't leaving any time soon.

I went to Louisville once. Nice place. Weird thing is there was a strip joint every 3 miles. Most looked like dives.

Doubt I could ever live there though, it rains too much.

Louisville rains too much? That would not have crossed my mind. I guess maybe if you live in Las Vegas it might seem that way 😉

Was in Louisville for the 2021 Kentucky Derby. Downtown kind of reminded me of Denver 25-30 years ago. Seemed like they were in the early part of renovating, so run-down spots along with redone areas.

Going over to Churchill Downs, seemed kinda run-down and seedy. didn't seem like a place I'd want to live, but I'm sure there are real nice areas too.

I mentioned this in my bourbon TR but I was shocked how rundown Louisville was. Especially the so-called "gentrified hip areas".

I used to live outside Philly and my grandparents lived in Queens for 50 yrs. My other grandma lived in Oakland. I've seen some run-down areas. Louisville reminded me of that.

Hey Leon,
Just wanted to say thanks for taking us along for the ride. I recently discovered this thread. Started with the report where you said your BR was on fumes, went back to the beginning and read all of them to see how you got there. Was stoked to see it was basically due to taxes and you putting money in the market! I've never been a VP player but I may have to give it a try.

I think you said somewhere but I missed it and don't want to dig through the entire thread, again... If I just wanted to learn one game/pay table that's the best for lower stakes, what should I start with?

GL next trip!

Keep in mind this is just my opinion. Here is what I would do, in order-

1. Identify the stakes you're comfortable playing. You can assume you will bet 5x the credit, PER line. So 25c game = 1.25$ a push. 10 lines at 25c = 12.50$ a push.
2. Ask yourself why you're playing. If to kill time/get free drinks etc, stick to jacks or better or a lower variance version. If you want to make a score and are willing to die trying, play double double, triple double, or a carnival game with multipliers.
3. you have to find the best paytable available at your game/stakes. All the paytables for all the variants are easily obtainable online. Not doing this ensures you'll go bust faster
4. Memorize the proper strategy/holds for your game of choice. Again, easily obtainable online. Understand WHY the holds maximize your EV and you'll be an expert in no time. You can play while you do this.

-

Slot tourney 12/5-8 TR

Just got back obv. Backstory- when I returned from the Oct slot tourney I assumed that was the last trip for 2024. Literally got an invite to this one the next day, pretty incentivized to sign up, pretty easy to move my schedule around... let's do it.

The tourney itself should be ok. It's 2500 buy in with 500 rebuy, semi-standard 100 runners, massively top heavy prize pool and so heavily weighted to the rebuy round. I don't really enjoy these, but I of course want to take my shot. As a bonus, they're giving away 5 entries to the 5k buy in tourney in 2025 which I know I'll be there for anyways. So now at least I can try and set my schedule for that one. The EV here is decent, I get 250 free credit for signing up early, surely they'll be a free credit gift when we get there, min payout is 750 FC, AND if I earn 25000 pts I'll get 2500 in FC. So this is essentially a freeroll as far as I'm concerned. On top of this, D got an invite too, so we've got two shots!

Attendants- I manage to convince wife to join, and buddy T from previous TRs is a last min addition with his new boyfriend. On top of that, turns out my brother will be in town, AND he's a got a business partner who wants to join for some of the dinners! My brother basically doesn't gamble at all. He'll be staying at the Fontainebleau for a week, and my host was nice enough to comp him 3 nights there. So, we'll have 7 people at points during this trip!

Bankroll- 40k.

Stuff from Wynn- per host, I've been running high on my comps. I could actually see that given I've been playing short/scared money recently. I'm getting 1k FC/1k food comp on top of the tourney invite. It'll have to do.

Agenda-
Thurs- D, wife and I get in. Dinner at SW
Fri- T and BF get in, reg for tourney, piano man show at Planet Hollywood, dinner at Giada
Sat- tourney, dinner at Delilah
Sun- head home relatively early ? locking in a win

Day 1

We get into LV on time and smoothly.

Never gets old.

Check in is a breeze, our room is ready, hostess has already teed up the keys and got D on my room as well. You just can't beat the service at the Wynn, and it was even more obvious this time bc another guest was SUPER pissed his room wasn't ready. I've been there buddy, and when the room isn't ready it's really frustrating. He was actually mad that ours was ready AND that they had done all the little things for me while he was getting F'd. So I guess it's not that the Wynn is impeccable, but when they do it right they really are the nuts.

Wife needs to do some work. D and I head down to grind him some points- we've got to get him to 25k pts also, and that's the exposure I'm most worried about. I KNOW I'll get there myself, but to do it on his card as well, knowing he'll be playing a bunch of dice... we're going to have to put in some work when he's around. It should be noted at this point that D is super short, I think he's only brought 5k with him.

Be good to me, old friend...

That session sucks and we're stuck a couple k. D heads to dice and I start to grind my own points. I decide to change it up and open with free credit.

Start and finish. 60% payback, crap.

Of course, I pick up dealt quads pretty quickly!

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PREMIUM! But where are the multipliers??!!

At least give me a good draw!

Result-

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God. Everything about this is just meh. This is less than 1 4AWAK, no multiplier!

At least we're on the board. I hope I just didn't see the high point of the trip.

Where are the multipliers??!!

D comes back from craps. He's stuck 1.5k already. We head to hi limit to grind him some points.

Oh good. "Dealt" premium quads on the redraw.

D heads up to get ready for dinner, I head to UX and get dealt quads number 2!

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Interestingly, from a money standpoint this is less meh that the dealt premiums. Crazy game.

After all that, we head to dinner stuck 5k? Not the worst result but certainly not good.

On the plus side, bc it's winter they've got the doors to the outside show shut, so it's less loud than usual. Service is pretty meh- functional but not friendly. The food for SW was just ok. Nothing was amazing, the potatoes were those bricks with sauce and they were mildly disappointing. They had a bold flavor that was hard to describe- it was almost likely smoky BBQ and it wasn't good. The creamed corn brulee was surprisingly good- a little sweet but otherwise the high point of the meal. Also, NO STONE CRAB. Boo. I'd just give this one a 5/10.

After dinner, we head to Encore for our first joint craps session and first opportunity for wife to join us. AND... it sucks. Stuck a couple k, and D is now on life support and we're not even done with the first day! We all head to the machines to try and turn this around...

Not enough. WHERE ARE THE MULTIPLIERS???!!!!!

Wife heads up to relax. D heads up to preserve bankroll. I'm stuck 10k which was my limit for the day... it's not even 10pm opening night! ARGH I want to play more. I decide to grab another 2k... it'll be more than I budgeted for a first day loss, but still acceptable.

Freebies.

I hit that last jackpot pretty early and then played 1.5 hrs just coasting. Never hit anything else of note, got a ton of play out of the machine but at this stage that's just costing me sleep. What a waste. I end up going to bed after midnight. In retrospect that was really dumb.

Day 1 result- -12k
dealt quads- 2, 1 premium.

Day 2 coming soon...

Idk Leon, that food looks very nice to me.

Hope the luck improves

It looked better than it tasted. Disappointing for SW.

Beautiful. GG VP

Day 2

I get about 5 hrs of sleep which is less than normal. Gotta take a nap today I suppose. We've got a show and a late dinner at Giada so I'll be out late, away from the Wynn for sure. I take advantage of the new coffee machines in the room, make myself a coffee and head downstairs.

I've got to grind myself 25k points to get 2.5k free credit as well, so I head to hi limit and hope to coast with (lower) variance on the multiline machine.

Pick up dealt quads number 3 soon after!

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PREMIUM!

Kicker draw result-

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Great draw, well above average.

I'm unstuck for the trip now!

I give a little back at the machine and move to UX. I play 5 lines, gotta make sure I don't implode this lifeline I've been given. Of course, I see dealt quads number 4 after that decision!

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Jeez, queens again!

I stepped up to 10 lines at some point, and found my way back to hi limit. Just a great morning, of course I gave a lot back but I believe I finished that session +19k for the AM and +7k for the trip. I meet wife and D at Jardin for breakfast and give them the good news.

Steak and eggs here are better than Tableau due to the sauce and the cut of meat.

After breakfast, wife has to get some work done and she'll be able to meet around noon. D and I give craps a try and it sucks. I think I lost at least 2k. D is officially on life support, he has one more bullet for the ENTIRE TRIP and we haven't even been here 24hrs. Yikes. Of course, we've got free credit coming and we could bink the tournament, but we won't know any of that until Sat night. We head back to hi limit to grind his points.

Only hit this session.

So I've now given back 5k since breakfast and am basically even for the trip. Given the expected result, I'll take it. Wife is done with work and we head to craps.

We walk up to a 15$ table at the Encore. The pit boss who knows us a) immediately changes it to 25$ and b) tells us we can play for 15$. Cool. So it's wife and D on one side, and me on the other. They know given my mood swings, probably better to spread out 😉

The table is generally cold. People come and go and we lose, not quickly but it's never good. Then, a total douche and his arm candy buy in. I'm already in a bad mood and they belly up right next to me :( The woman literally reaches across me every time she makes a bet. This is going to be annoying. Douche is shooting.

Because D and I were already stuck, we've scaled our bets back. AND... the douche finds a way to roll a true 45 min! I started with 320$ across and finished with... a 2k 4, 300$ 5, 1200$ 6, 600$ 8, 700$ 9, and 1.2k 10! I left 6k out on the table when all was said and done. Obv, at some point the douche ceased to be a douche 😉 and at some point I started to high 5 the guy and interact with him. He made so many ridiculous hard way bets (eg, 100$ hard 6 on a 1k buy in) that never came in, so somehow after his god roll he and woman only won 1k between them WTF! Meanwhile, I book a 15k winner and I also had 25% of D's action (we went in together so he could play). D also wins more than 10k, and I collect an additional 3k from him. Wife wins 1k (she's not very aggressive) and has paid off her marker to me. Just a dream roll.

I elect to cash out and grab a nap. I'll need one (even though I'm so amped up from that roll and there's no chance I'll sleep now) and we're probably not going to see heat like that again. D and wife elect to stay. I play one more roll since D is shooting- it's break even, but best part is D hits a hard 6 for non-douche when he's got 200$ on it. Non-douche yells "finally!" and collects. I remark to D that it's ironic the guy won more in one roll from D than he won for himself during his monster. Anyways, I head up on cloud 9.

In for 2k, out for... MORE!

I basically toss and turn for an hr then head back down. Hit the machines for a bit and hit nothing, then meet up with D and wife to head to slot tourney reg. Turns out, the table stayed hot and D won an additional 4k, and wife won an additional 1.2k! Good for them, wife must have stepped outside of her shell if she won more during that session than she did on the 45 min roll. D is unstuck in a big way now!

They've got a nice set up here. This is at Intrigue nightclub.

Free gift-wise, D pulls the min 250 FC, but I get 500. Better than nothing! We quickly grind some more points, then meet up with T, his boyfriend C and head to Planet Hollywood to catch Piano man! Bro's flight unfortunately got completely delayed so we won't see him until tomorrow.

Only hit from the grind. I'm up 18k for the trip right now.

The show was cool. We had great seats for a reasonable price. We got what we expected, basically a ton of Billy Joel and Elton John songs. They covered well and cut back on the long parts of some of the songs to keep things moving. My only complaint- everyone else was just low energy. No singing, no dancing despite being invited to multiple times. So, I felt I couldn't really let loose bc it probably would have ruined the show for someone else 😉 8/10, would watch again.

We walk to Cromwell to hit Giada!

Oval glass here. It's different, I'll give them that.

Apologies for this pic. It's crab arancini, forgot to grab the pic until we had started digging in.

We grab a ton of food (forgot all other appetizers). The lemon spaghetti is Giada's special and it was the best for sure. The big bowl of pasta was 80$, came in a cheese bowl. Tasty but not worth it from a price point. Overall, everything was 7-8/10 and actually reasonable (I think the total bill came to 500$ for all of us, with lots of alcohol). I'd definitely go back. I was expecting to be underwhelmed as this is a "name" restaurant but the food was good!

After dinner, we walk around Cromwell- all tables are full. We debate heading to Bellagio, but wife is wearing heels and making her walk there just to play at a property that isn't the Wynn seems dumb. So, we head back to the Wynn and get T and C to play craps!

Alas, craps sucks and we can't introduce C to that fun. As a virgin roller, he sucked 😉 They head to bed and D wife and I go to grind some points. It's after midnight, but we've all got some play in us. Wife is driving.

Damn! 5 out of 15 quad hits! We need to run like this with aces!

We lock in a small win and head to bed after 1am. Tomorrow is going to be rough, but it's objectively been a great day.

Day 2 result- +32k
Overall- +20k
Dealt quads- 4, 2 premium

Day 3 coming soon...

great tr, ty

what a day!

GG day 2 Leon, especially with the transformed douche roll. Memorable one.

Some unrelated questions if you find time please:

What kind of tip does one leave on a 15k craps roll? Is tipping a thing in craps in general for regular players (my only experience is watching Sharon Stone in Casino do so, but she knew how to get ahead in Vegas)?

How much was SW meal retail bill, I presume it used up a lot of comp, while being meh.

Do you tip comped restaurant bills in cash oop? Do you guess/think that's common if so?

Does Wynn view your time at craps differently than your time at slots, or is it a whatever you want to play situation and its rated per game and play and time and added all together?

Does Host make the dining and show reservations for you? If so, even if off property?

Thanks. Look forward to day 3 and your not having a bad last morning.

I'm curious about your mindset on the kicker draws with premium quads. Obviously you understand the numbers and the variance for what a big difference it makes in the bankroll, but at least for the last ones your commentary for a good or bad result seems off. It's about 25% so 1/5 and 4/15 are both as close as you can get to expectation, and you're still a little below perfect EV overall. Maybe you switched denomination there, but that's no difference really, just feels.

The feelings are essentially as real as anything with Video Poker, but I wouldn't call these anything more than rounding errors, not even half a card from expectation.

Edit: correct my math if this is my problem: 5/47 ~ 25.53%
so you'd get skunked 5 handed about 22.9% of the time

My mindset is usually hope for the best but prep for the worst. Depending on the scenario that can change a touch- eg, the UX draw with no multipliers, since I had no hope of hitting a multiplier at a minimum I was going to be disappointed with <2 kickers. Actually even 2 would have been disappointing even though I know that's above expectation.

If you're talking from a pure math perspective 1/5 is quite different that 4/15- one is definitely below expectation while the other is definitely above. Obv I am aware we can't hit fractions of times over a draw that doesn't divide evenly by 4. So my viewpoint of the two contrasting draws is definitely different, even from a math perspective. Once you add in "feels", it swings it even further.

I've found that's generally a good life philosophy, too.

Nice craps hit! I haven't played in forever, just feel priced out on The Strip. Last sesh was pre-covid at PH and the table had just started heating up and they closed it WTF

I contend they are not different from a math perspective. 1/5 and 4/15 are the most likely results in both cases. 3/15 is more likely than 5/15 which is less likely than 2/5. If you're embracing variance you want fewer draws.

I can run simulations, but the math could be done by someone.
5 draws:
0 wins 22.9%
1 wins 39.3%
2 wins 26.9%
3 wins 9.2%
4 wins 1.6%
5 wins 0.1%

15 draws:
0 wins 1.2%
1 wins 6.2%
2 wins 14.8%
3 wins 22%
4 wins 22.7%
5 wins 17.1%
6 wins 9.8%
7 wins 4.3%
8 wins 1.5%
9 wins 0.4%
10 wins 0.1%
11 wins 0%
12 wins 0%
13 wins 0%
14 wins 0%
15 wins 0%