Ongoing VP TR, PART 2!

Oof...hope it turns around (esp the tourney).

The whole fat-washed thing seems like a fad, but I have a couple of bottles from which I was willing to potentially sacrifice a few ounces for science and it wasn't too bad. Mostly a slight added richness because I just used unsalted brown butter (one stick) with 4 oz Willett Pot Still and 4 oz Kirkland Signature BiB.

I think the principle is some of the fat stays in solution making the bourbon more rich-tasting. It wasn't life-changing but was definitely noticeable.

Next time, I'm trying with bacon grease 😀

I haven't seen any spin poker pics lately. Did the Wynn get rid of those machines, or have you decided not to play that game anymore?

I actually read up on fat washing a bit after your post and I'm sure I've had "bacon infused" or "olive oil infused" something at some point. I'd like to try a fat-washed bourbon on its own so I can appreciate the subtle differences. A cocktail is probably not the right medium for that.

The Wynn got rid of all the old school machines I loved. They do still have spin poker just not on the old cabinets. Those cabinets were unique in the following ways-
- different sounds
- different buttons
- jackpot noise was different, the machine would take this funny little pause for a microsecond when you hit a hand pay. Once you got used to it it quite frankly made the game for me; you'd experience the pause and get this wave of anticipation that crested right as the unique jackpot music kicked in. It was tons of fun

Spin poker at this point is just another way to inject more variance in, and I already have UX for that lol.

If you make it at home and use butter, don't discard it. It made for some tasty cookies

wow I felt the tilt of the slot tourney then the Wynn-Encore-Wynn entrance sequence deep in my bones. just maxrage.

I'm giving it a try right now with Bookers and salted butter. The salted butter SHOULD pair nicely with the sweetness of bourbon. Like I said, I'm intrigued. I'm gonna compare the two side by side and I'm keeping objective data eg exactly how much fat was used, what type etc.

That's great, my hope with my writeups is to give enough detail that people can imagine and feel how things unfolded.

crazy that you had a losing morning despite all those 4 aces hits. Guessing your coin in was huge.

one day you'll have a tourney run I hope!

How did you like it? I am intrigued.

Are there any decent restaurants in either of the two hotels you haven't tried?

I get the impression that you feel trapped to return to places you feel are only ok. I mean 500 even at Vegas pricing should get a very nice meal for 3, no? Or are the places you don't go just not good, having in fact tried them?

Also, huge ty for including the pix of menus. I definitely am all about them and pinch in on the phone screen to calculate my order.

Good luck in the past for the tourney spins to come.

Thanks as always for an excellent writeup. You have true and committed fans on this site. I described you to my wife and she basically replied how do you know so much about this guy? I said I've read everything he's ever posted.

Haven't been able to yet. In retrospect, I put too much fat and must have stirred way too much- I created an emulsion and it's been a bitch to get the fat out. So I've had to let it sit for quite some time, at least another day to try and get the fat out.

Definitely not trapped. I tend to eat at the same places purely bc of comp. I feel like I've eaten at all the places I care to try in Vegas with a few exceptions. The ones I haven't I just haven't gotten around to yet (and I'd have to pay at all of them). I'd rather eat at an ok place/place I've been to before vs pay a high price. If I'm going to pay out of pocket it'd better be awesome like Joel Robuchon, or some place I've heard good things about and am interested in.

Thanks for the compliment!

Although I have been to Vegas far less than you, I can say the exact same thing. During every single trip I make a huge list of potential restaurants that I MUST try, places that I have been planning to visit for 10 years now. And literally every single trip I end up eating at the same 4 places, Javiers - Salt & Ivy - Din Tai Fung - Bavettes. 50% because of comps and 50% because I am just so lazy especially if I’m alone. Aria and Park MGM has everything, no need to go anywhere else haha

If you're already at Park MGM, do Best Friend!

I tried it once, their uni rice is amazing. Didn’t have time to go back last time

I'm fortunate that I can say I've been to 99% of all the places in Vegas I want to try. Those that I haven't were either on the list (eg, Carbone's) but then I heard it wasn't worth it, or it's new enough/got replaced before I could get there. The rate limiting step for me is really money- it's pretty hard to justify paying full freight in Vegas with the mark up, etc.

I went there for a March Madness trip a while back. I thought the food was ok. Set up was cool, main restaurant seemed pretty loud. The company made it awesome. And I made the faux pas of stepping out of the restaurant after dinner, lighting a badly-needed post dinner cigarette, only to realize Park MGM is non-smoking DOH. Yeah, I was that a##hole for about 2 sec until I put it out.

Interesting that you mention Carbone. I went there while I was still Platinum, you’d get priority for the bar which is otherwise full. The food was absolutely amazing (everyone is eating the veal parm, nothing else) but it’s not a place I’d go back to. It’s just not worth it, especially with the long waiting times and the impossibility to book a spot in advance.

Who knows, maybe one day I will do a Vegas trip where I stop being lazy and start actually checking off the restaurants from my list. For example I’ve been wanting to try a bunch of Wynn restaurants for years now but it’s just so out of the way from the side of the strip that I am, it’s just a hassle.

According to the MGM app you can book reservations for carbone on there now, it has dates/times available it says. Haven't tried to confirm it works as I'm always in Vegas by myself but just an fyi.

That’s weird. When I was there 2 years or so ago for dinner you couldn’t book for weeks.

I really liked it a lot, but yeah my rec is much stronger for someone hanging out at Aria/ParkMGM anyway vs someone who can instead just eat free at Wynncore! 😃

Day 3

I manage to sleep in a bit longer than usual. Head straight for the multiline machine which is the only thing keeping me alive this trip (or, at least killing me more slowly).

This was a good one here.

Obv I can hit 2/5 spots on UX, but no kickers/poor multpliers.

While I gave too much back, it's still a good morning and I'm +10k for the day.

We grab breakfast at Tableau and I forgot to take pics. After, we head back to the slot tournament and try and salvage something with some god bonus rounds!

I grab a late second breakfast/early lunch top off here. Should have just eaten here from the get go, the food quality was spot on; admittedly, it's pretty hard to mess up breakfast food.

D plays his rebuy-

Meanwhile, some little old lady (it's ALWAYS a little old lady!) blithely puts up the first 100k rd we've seen. Guess we see the winner of the rebuy rd. She's also set the bar so laughably high that there's no chance I'm going to take it from her. Maybe I can get 2nd or 3rd and get 15 or 10% of the rebuy pool, respectively.

OK, so we're both min cashing at this point. Now we've got some time to kill until the 10k. We head down to craps and it's awful AGAIN, lose 2k there. Back to the tourney. This is for all the marbles!

So we've now played 11 rds of slot tourney between the 5 and the 10k and are 0/11 in even seeing a decent rd. Head back to craps- AWFUL AGAIN. Stuck another 2k. Back to the tourney for the last gasp, 10k rebuy rd.

This may have been the most frustrating single rd of slot tourney I've ever played. I started out very well and was leading the rd about 2 min in. Then, the machine just died. Couldn't hit anything, and I'm hearing more and more whooping and cheering coming from someone near me. I ended up with 70k for the rd which is lol not good enough. However, the person a few machines from me hit an 80k, which I totally could have smashed if I didn't get JACKSHT for the last 3 min of my rd! Her host is congratulating her, telling her she won the rebuy rd, etc. WHAT???

Turns out he kept track of the previous rebuy rd in the 10k. No one broke 80k. So yeah, she won. How much? just 75k. How close was I? FFFFF. FFFFF. FFFFF.

To start off so well, have the machine die, then find out this particular rebuy rd was winnable, just need a one time... I'm so mad and frustrated even now. Now that all is said and done, the reality is we collectively spent over 25k on this tournament and got totally screwed. I can't say never, but I think I'm finally done with these things. It's just such a long-term waste of money.

We head back to Wynn dejected. I play some video poker hoping the gods will help me out and donk off a little more money.

Only hit of that session. Down another 2k, only up 4k for the day now.

Only thing to do now is take a nap. D heads to the spa. After my nap, more video poker while I wait to meet up with D. We've got an early dinner at Delilah coming up.

The aces are the only thing keeping me alive this trip. Still no dealt quads or monsters. How about we have a trip where I run well???!

D is done with the spa right around the time I'm break-even for that session. We decide to give craps at the Wynn a try since Encore's just been awful this whole trip. We actually walk right into a good roll. We're up a touch after the first roll, and the second was one of those classic "this is why you play craps" rolls. Just lots of fun, lots of numbers, good table energy etc. It wasn't even THAT good from a financial perspective, but if every roll was like this one you'd never leave the table. D and I get yellow chips out for the first time this trip, a 1k$ 4 which actually hit. The dude next to me was young, drunk out of his mind but very friendly- he must have hugged me at least 10 times. If I was stuck for the session I'd be annoyed, but in the interests of not wanting to bring bad juju I play along. That roll takes us right up until dinner time. I win 3k, D wins over 5k since he went for broke and pressed hard right from the get go. I'll take it! Up 7k for the day.

Delilah

First time for my mom, D and I have been here many times now.

Everything was 7-8/10. Lots of repeats here. Gotta remember dessert here is unncessary since they always bring you something small like those cookies at the end anyways. I think I prefer eating here early- it's far less crowded and not as noisy. True, we didn't get to hear the band play, but that's not the main reason I'm here anyways.

To be continued...

Can you allow anyone to play your tourney rounds? If so, I'll hire out my mother-in-law at a cheap rate. She is clueless about gambling and lucky as S***.

Oh, and tiny too 😀

Yeah you can have anyone play as a guest. Technically you're limited to one guest but I've never seen them enforce it.

I'm not sure how many years I've been reading this thread but in all that time, I just assumed that the slot mtts were comped. I now feel a ton of your pain that they've been draining the bankroll for all this time as well as sucking at your soul

hoping for a turnaround

that food looks really tasty - nice pics

what is the dish after the steak - on first glance, I thought it was a pork belly, but I cant see that on the menu?

Yeah if these things were comped that would be amazing. They've given out entries before as prizes for drawings etc- I actually had a 5k entry paid for back in, 2022? by virtue of winning a drawing. But otherwise I/my mom/partners have paid full freight. As far as I can tell that's the case for everyone, I've never heard anyone say they got their entry comped and there are some people who play in these things who I know definitely get more than the entry fee in comp routinely.

I've also come to recognize many hi-rollers who don't play in these things at all. They're there every time there's a slot tournament, I see them donk a ton in slots yet they don't play the tournament. Probably in the exact opposite scenario as me- they probably routinely hit 6 digit scores and don't want to bother with something like a slot tournament. Meanwhile I keep dumping my money in "affordable shots" trying in vain to hit something huge. Rough math, I've dumped 100k into slot tournaments at the Wynn and have very little to show for it.