Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Downtown Vegas MSS 1/12/18 - 1/15/18 ~ Royal, Handpays & Crab Legs

Background:

This Vegas trip report is brought to you by R (me) and L.  We are a loving couple in our early 30's and call Southern California home.  We usually try to get to Vegas at least once every few months but this will be the 4th consecutive month we've stayed at MSS and I'd love to see that trend continue...it's just so easy driving from California.


This trip we are celebrating L's birthday, which comes in handy as it's always close to MLK weekend and we love taking advantage of any long weekend by going to Vegas.  We're low-rollers compared to most but we do our best to maximize our comps and coupons to stretch our dollars.
I was really sick the weekend leading up to this trip and had to take off work Mon & Tues.  By the time Fri rolled around the sickness had been fought off and I was good to go...it would take a lot to keep us from Vegas but thankfully I didn't have to go while suffering.

Our combined budget for this trip is just under $2k for food/tips/gambling.  This trip we have 3 nights comped at Main Street Station with a $25 Food credit and $30 free slot play.

Goals for me this (and every) trip include lots of VP, getting a royal (we each have only had 1 each so far with zero in 2017), baby back ribs, lots of good beer and fun times.  Goals for L include winning an insane progressive on a $1 or $5 machine, a little VP, yummy bloody Marys, crab legs and lots of laughs.


Friday 1/12/18


We grab a bite to eat and are on the road leaving LA around 7:30 PM.  Traffic is a little slow which was to be expected leaving on the Friday of a holiday weekend, but aside from a slow crawl on the 15N through the Cajon Pass we actually made really great time and arrived at MSS at midnight on the dot.  I'll take a 4.5 hour drive on a Friday any day...we've had it as bad as an 8 hour drive in the past when the weather was bad but a 5.5 hour drive is probably closer to the norm when we have traffic.

Typically upon arrival the routine includes checking in, grabbing some food, and me unwinding from the drive with a little gambling for a couple hours. Sometimes L joins me, sometimes she doesn't. This time we opted to not push our bodies too hard and just grab a drink from 777 and get a good nights sleep so we're ready for Saturday.










Saturday 1/13/18



We slowly wake up around 6:45 AM...guess that good nights sleep paid off.  No relapse with the sickness so I'll call that the 2nd win of the trip, the 1st being the 4.5 hour drive on a Friday.  We relax in the room for a few hours before we finally head to the Market Street Cafe for a late breakfast.  I opt for the Portuguese omelette and L goes with a bowl of the saimin soup.  We used the LVA BOGO coupon which knocked $15 off our bill and paid the balance with our points.

After breakfast I made a couple small sports bets...more to make the games interesting than anything.  No luck on either...really surprised that the Falcons only put up 10 points though that was pretty disappointing.  Oh well I was more excited for the Sunday games anyways.



Hit the Boar's Head Bar for a DDB video poker session.  L plays Bonus.  I can't remember exactly how much I was up but I got a handful of 4OAKs including quad Aces for $400.  Anytime the picture is cocked to the side it means L got it.  I'd say she plays 90% slots and 10% VP...but that VP number seems to be growing.  We both also love to play craps but haven't played much of it the last few trips unfortunately.











(L's Quad 4s)

$12 in scratch cards


For dinner tonight I'm taking L to the Redwood Steakhouse at the Cal.



We each order a glass of cabernet and a bowl of the crab bisque and it's very delicious and actually quite filling, especially after the bread.

After that, we're faced with a very misleading pound of crab legs each.  It doesn't seem like much at first until you start eating and each leg is just packed with meat and it seems never-ending.



We finally finish just about everything and try to roll ourselves out of there.  The total bill came to about $140 and was well worth the experience.  Charged it to our room and left a cash tip.

We rest for an hour or so in the room to prevent our stomachs from causing a mutiny and head back down to try our luck in the casino.  I belly up to the bar for some more VP and L hits her slots.








First $1000 Jackpot!








All the scratch cards from today (including earlier).
$26 total for Saturday.

After a fun day we end up calling it a night around 3 AM.


Sunday 1/14/18


Today we decide to sleep in and end up relaxing and watching the Pit/Jax game in the room.  This is our last day of gambling since tomorrow we'll get up early to head home and avoid the holiday traffic.

Main plan for today is to hit Siegel's 1941 at El Cortez for their baby back ribs.  I also wanted to watch and bet on the NO/Min game.  I ended up getting to The Cal sports book just as the game started so I had to wait for the first commercial for them to post the in-game betting lines.  At this point Min was already up 7-0 and I was more than happy to see NO at +10.5.  The over was now 50.5.  I ended up placing two bets:  a $30 parlay of NO +10.5, Over 50.5 as well as a $50 bet on NO +10.5. 

Head over to El Cortez and we each get an order of baby back ribs as planned.  We definitely weren't disappointed.

 Use the LVA BOGO coupon and the meal ends up costing us under $17 plus tip.  Definitely gonna head back there again.
It's been fun watching these buildings slowly turn into rubble and seeing the progress made each trip.

Cut back through The Cal and over to MSS.  Boar's Head Bar is packed with people watching the NO/Min game and I'm finally able to find an open seat at the bar.  L had some luck on the slots next door at The Cal and out of nowhere she came over and handed me a wad of $100's...$1000 to be exact.  This came in really handy since I was hemorrhaging $100's into this dud of a quarter DDB VP machine and didn't hit a single 4OAK the entire time I was there. 


$800 hit by L!!

Another $800 for L!!!!!



This definitely changed my outlook on the day and not only that but the football game was getting real good.  For those of you who watched the game or heard about it you know it had a crazy ending.  My $50 NO +10.5 bet was pretty much 100% safe near the end there and out of nowhere the game winning Min TD also got me the Over so I was able to win both bets.  I would have preferred NO to win but I do like Min so I'm not all that upset with the outcome...plus winning both bets doesn't hurt either.

The bar cleared out and I decided to take my tickets over to The Cal to cash them in.

Upon my return to MSS I bellied up to a new VP machine at the BHB and broke my 4OAK drought after only 5 minutes.

 L joins me soon after and we end up going on quite a hot streak.







Out of nowhere I'm dealt quad 3s with a kicker...not bad let alone when you're playing 5 hands.  Unfortunately I had to wait for a hand pay but at least I got 5 scratch cards out of the deal as well.
$1000 Quad 3s with Kicker

I end up getting dealt 4 to a royal and I told L to press the button for me.  She didn't let me down as she was able to hit one of them for $1000.  We each only had one royal each prior to today and now we can say we share our 2nd one together which is kinda neat.  I checked the time the previous picture was taken and it was only 14 minutes later that the royal was hit...and that includes having to wait for the hand pay.  Two $1000 hits in 14 minutes?  Let's do this more often!
$1000 Royal Flush

Funny how I couldn't even hit a single 4OAK during the game at the other machine yet all these hands are just flowing in.  I normally would have switched to $0.50 after the first $1000 but I just had this feeling that I needed to stay at the $.25 cent level, especialy when betting 5 hands for a total of 25 credits, and make sure we take at least some winnings home.  Hindsight says I should have gone up to dollars but who knows what would have happened...especially when playing 5 hands.  You definitely feel the losses when you lose 4 or 5 hands in a row.  I even did some 10-hand at $0.25 but only have a single 4OAK to show for it.

(Apologize in advance...I don't know why it's not letting me flip some of these pictures around)

























While waiting for two scratch cards we hear over the PA system that a lucky VP player had just won $5,000 on one of their scratch cards...go figure huh?...could have been mine if they got to me quicker!

















Near miss on another Royal.  I let L press it again for me.  Close but no cigar...either way I'm more than happy getting 1 out of 2 on these (1 out of 10 hands).





After all was said and done we ended up cashing in $70 in scratch cards from this evening's session.  This includes two $3 cards, the only $3 cards from the whole trip.

I spoke with the host before it got too late and got the balance of the Redwood dinner removed from my bill.  We then headed over to 777 for some midnight sushi then up to the room to pack up a few things so we're ready to head out early the next morning.  Set alarm for 5:30 AM and were somehow asleep around 12:30 AM.

Monday 1/15/18

Woke up without too much of a struggle...hit the snooze button a couple times because why not, we're on vacation. Got our showers, packed up our final things and we were on the freeway by 6:45 AM.  We're getting really good at this.  Only stop on the way home was for gas and we made it back to LA at 10:15 AM, only 3.5 hours.

Definitely a profitable trip.  Winnings will be stashed away and we'll probably start with a bankroll of $2k again next time and hope for a similar outcome.

Final Tally

Food:  After the $25 food credit with our reservation, points, coupons, and host comps we spent under $60 for the weekend which mostly was tips (not counting bar).

Gambling:  Walked away with about $2000 profit after $49900 coin in...our highest coin-in to date.  The three $1000 jackpots definitely helped with that, not to mention L's slot wins.

Video Poker Premium Hand Results:

.50 VP (R Only)
Quad Aces -                2
Quad Aces w/ Kicker - 1
Quad 5's -                  2
Quad 7's -                  1
Quad 8's -                  2
Quad 10's -                1
Quad Q's -                  2

.25 VP (R & L)
Quad Aces -               3 R, 1 L
Quad Aces w/ Kicker - 1 R
Quad 2's -                        2 L
Quad 3's -                 2 R, 1 L
Quad 3's w/ Kicker -   6 R
Quad 4's -                 1 R, 1 L
Quad 5's -                  4 R
Quad 8's -                        1 L
Quad 9's -                  4 R, 2 L
Quad 10's -                       2 L
Quad J's -                   1 R
Quad Q's -                        1 L
Quad K's -                         1 L
Straight Flush -                  1 L
Royal Flush -         1 Shared by both R & L :)

Total Quads for R: 33
Total Quads for L: 13

L played only about 25% of the VP I did yet still managed to get 13 quads and a straight flush which is pretty amazing.


Can't wait for our next trip and hopefully this streak continues!  Thanks for reading!

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