Moose in Vegas Sept 2014 TR
The details:
Sep. 16, 17 Planet Hollywood, 2 night 25% disc, $130.37 total, no resort fee for platinum card holders
Sep. 18 Aria comp, resort fee $28
Sep. 19, 20, 21, 22 Monte Carlo, comp, resort fee $22.40 per night
Flight: spirit.com Detroit - Las Vegas
Sep. 16 11:10 am arr 12:30 pm
Sep. 23 11 am arr 5:59 pm
$217.98 per person
1 checked bag $30 each way
Car Rental - costcotravel.com
Premium Car
$145.05 Budget
Seats 5, room for more
Total cost: $888.98 or $445 per person
Note when we arrived in Vegas there were no premium cars available so they put us in a Camry and knocked $25 off so the car rental ended up only being $117.08 for a total trip cost of $861.01 or $430.50 per person.
Sep. 16, 17 Planet Hollywood, 2 night 25% disc, $130.37 total, no resort fee for platinum card holders
Sep. 18 Aria comp, resort fee $28
Sep. 19, 20, 21, 22 Monte Carlo, comp, resort fee $22.40 per night
Flight: spirit.com Detroit - Las Vegas
Sep. 16 11:10 am arr 12:30 pm
Sep. 23 11 am arr 5:59 pm
$217.98 per person
1 checked bag $30 each way
Car Rental - costcotravel.com
Premium Car
$145.05 Budget
Seats 5, room for more
Total cost: $888.98 or $445 per person
Note when we arrived in Vegas there were no premium cars available so they put us in a Camry and knocked $25 off so the car rental ended up only being $117.08 for a total trip cost of $861.01 or $430.50 per person.
Comments
A good start to the trip with a solid win in the cash games (~$300) and we were primed for our trip.
The next day we drove to the Detroit airport and landed in Vegas. A small delay at the car rental because they didn't have our premium car available. They gave us a Camry and knocked $25 of the price and we were on our way.
We started our trip at Hot 'n Juicy on Spring Mountain road before checking in at Planet Hollywood for 2 nights.
The street view has changed quite a bit since our last trip with the Cromwell and the Linq now finished.
Now we have stayed in every Caesars property in Vegas, though I imagine the rooms at the Cromwell are quite different from the old Bill's Gamblin' Hall days.
We asked nicely and we got an upgrade to a nice view of the strip.
Then we headed over to Bally's and got completely trashed at 3-6 limit.
X22 sighting!
The next day I wanted to ease into things with a cheap tourney so we played the morning bounty tourney at Monte Carlo. $50 to enter with $10 bounties. I scored one bounty but other than that, we both busted pretty quickly and then opened a 2-6 spread limit cash table.
We started the trip at Ballys because we had generally planned to qualify and play the Ballys $20k freeroll bounty tournament on Sun (20 hours to qualify) but at Monte Carlo we learned about their $8k freeroll on Sat (13 hours to qualify) and since we would be staying there later in the week decided to go for that too. (33 hours at the cash tables total from our arrival Tues aft to Sat night). Doable!
After a few hours we headed over to Green Valley Ranch. I was looking to play some O8 to warm up for the $400 DSE HORSE event I planned to play on Sun. Unfortunately the game collapsed just be before we got there so I sat in the 3-6-9 limit game which featured $9 bets on the river. Kind of interesting.
Station Casinos just got added to the MyVegas rewards game on Facebook about two weeks before we left for Vegas. Using this free game you can cash in up to 3 rewards at MGM properties per person in a 30 day period. So we had booked 5 free nights and show tickets to Zarkana through MyVegas. But with Station Casinos you can actually cash in 2 rewards per person per day. The casinos are all off strip but with our car rental available to take us anywhere we added a 2 for 1 dinner buffet comp at Green Valley ranch, and managed to get a free lunch buffet for two at Palace Station and 2 free t-shirts.
So anyways after our dinner at Green Valley we headed back to Bally's to continue our drive towards the 20 hours.
So after two nights at the PHo we checked out and went across the street for one night at Aria, which was free except for the resort fee thanks to the MyVegas.
The rooms were super nice but pretty small. We also again got upgraded to a strip view just by asking nicely.
Thurs we went back to the Monte Carlo to accumulate towards our 13 hours there and for the promotions which gave $25 for the high hand of the half hour in the morning and during TNF $100 for the high hand of the quarter. So far we had not run well in the cash games and had given back almost all our profits from the first night in Caesars Windsor. But on Thursday the luck changed.
First I got the high hand of the half hour. I forgot to get some pictures but I think it was a full house or maybe the A high flush, I forget.
Then the high hand promo ended but I hit quads which is a regular $50 bonus.
Then later during TNF, I hit the high hand of the quarter for $100 with AAA44 (promo board on wall)
Fri more cash games and then good old Ellis Island for BBQ.
Fri night I played the $300 DSE Survivor event at the Venetian where the top 10% of the field chops the prize pool for $2500 each while the wife soldiered on at Ballys accumulating freeroll hours.
Seven hours later I busted the 8th place finisher with a straight, which was the highest hand I had made all night coincidentally. Just good aggressive play and one lucky double up where I cracked QQ with my A5 on the river kept me pretty much above average the entire night.
So now we were firmly in the black on our trip.
The next day we played the Monte Carlo freeroll. I busted fairly early. 53 runners and the payouts started at 26 players. I drove over to Ballys because I was still short hours for the freeroll but the wife made the chop at final table for $500 and just missed the $100 bonus for FT chip leader by one big blind.
After a nice dinner at the Thai restaurant in Ballys we went back to Aria for the Zarkana show, which was free from MyVegas. Great seats.
Before the show opens the performers climb around entertaining the audience and this girl fake fell of the railing and landed on the floor right beside my wife. At the bottom edge is the armrest of her chair.
After the show back to Ballys (having a car in Vegas is soooo handy) to qualify for the freeroll. My wife only needed to play until 1 am and took the car back to Monte Carlo but since I had played all night in at the Venetian in the tourney I was still short and played on until 5 am to qualify. Anyways nothing like stumbling home after an all night poker session with the sun coming up for a true Vegas experience. A couple hours sleep and then back to Ballys for the 9 am freeroll.
Approximately half the prize pool goes to bounties and half is paid out to the top 30 for an even chop. So with 90 runners, the bounties were set at $75 each.
I started banging out bounties pretty quickly. Probably something to do with the fact that with 2 hours sleep I just wanted to get the thing over with and back to bed.
When the money bubble broke we got our own bounties back so I ended up with five total. Toward the end my wife started hitting them too and I found out she actually broke the bubble with 33>KK, for four bounties for her. Another $547 each for cashing and it was a $1.5k day already and we hadn't hit noon yet.
Unfortunately with the exposure it's hard to see the hundos.
Earlier in the week at Ballys I was sitting at the cash tables when I felt water hit me. I said, hey it's raining in Ballys, but no-one believed me. Suddenly a small stream of water came down from the ceiling right on me. Not a lot but it was pretty funny. So anyways the floor gave me a $15 comp to Sbarro's, for some reason my wife got one too even though I was the only one at the table to get wet.
So after the freeroll we celebrated with our free lunch at Sbarro's.
Then we drove back to the Monte Carlo and I slept for a few hours before my 4pm DSE $400 HORSE event.
I did well for most of the tourney but after the dinner break at 9pm I couldn't sustain anything and eventually went out 14/53 runners with top 6 being paid. Too bad I couldn't make FT as we might have been able to negotiate a chop.
Next day was a chill day spent at the Monte Carlo pool. It's hard to take degen shots with the wife along but I got the twins here, even though my wife asked me what I was smiling about.
Then we drove over to Palace Station for our free lunch buffet and tshirts. I was going to play cash games there but there was $3 craps with 10x odds. I hit four points on my roll and cashed out up $225.
My final plan for the day was to park back at Monte Carlo and take the tram down from Excalibur. In all my trips I had never gone farther south on the strip than Excalibur. Unfortunately my wife had something go wrong with her knee so we drove directly to Mandalay Bay for MNF instead so I still have something left on the bucket list.
I managed to double my stack for another $212 win. I dropped the wife off at Monte Carlo and drove to PHo for the 9pm $65 PLO tourney. I played one hand. AAJ9 vs KKxx vs QQxx and QQ flopped a boat and left me drawing to one out and I was done.
So back to Monte Carlo where I played on until 2 am with a small $43 profit thanks to stacking some drunk who paid me off despite 4 hearts on the board and no heart for him.
The next day we flew back to Detroit and spent another comped night at Caesars Windsor booking our most profitable trip to Vegas ever.
We broke the envelope.
We told the kiddo to think about what he was going to get for a present.
Hey awesomeness takes time to type out!
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Moose never fails when it comes to producing great trip reports.
i may have jumped the gun a little
Naw... Too ez.
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When are you going to Vegas next summer?
Oops, my bad.
You finally found the Russian twins!
The latest Blackberry phone?
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