What Are Atlantic City's Top Values?

This may not be an original idea, but that doesn't mean that folks aren't interested in value when they visit any casino destination. However, in Atlantic City value isn't always easy to find. Thus, my preliminary list of best values is limited to a few items of varying degrees of usefulness and the ability to save you money while still getting a desired service in return.

Here's what I have thought of thus far:

• Trump Marina Free Slot Days - $50 in slot/video poker losses returned to anyone on their next visit is an excellent incentive to seek out one of the few playable machines in this otherwise mediocre casino (NOTE TO READERS: I don't see the next scheduled day on the calendar at this time
• Bally's New Player Slot Rebate - If you're the last person on earth that Harrah's doesn't have in their database, then sign up for a Total Rewards card at Bally's at Harrah's will refund $100 in losses, but play big because the current deal pays you back for your first 30 minutes of losses. Anything after that is on you.
• Diamond Lounges - While this is of no value to the casual visitor, but for Atlantic City regulars Harrah's proves that there is such a thing as a free lunch and it comes with free booze and doesn't cost you any comp dollars
• The Irish Pub - Unless you're getting comped at your machines it's hard to find reasonably priced beer on the Boardwalk. OK, this is a few steps down from the Wooden Way, but for cheap eats and drinks it's the best deal in town. No celebrity chefs or fancy menus here, but if you want a burger and a beer it's a best bet.
• Free Parking - Harrah's offers this for all members now (except for Showboat, where you "pay" on your way into the garage), though "Gold" card holders have to earn 25 points in a gaming day; Trump Marina has followed suit, while other properties reserve this perk for premium cardholders (I guess Borgata think it adds to the "snob appeal" of being Black Label)
• Atlantic City Historical Museum - This tiny collection of pictures and memorabilia on Garden Pier, just North of the Showboat, reminds visitors that Atlantic City has a long history as a tourist destination and entertainment mecca and the price is whatever you choose to donate. Who could ask for a better value?

There are things missing here. I hope that some folks will share their ideas about the items I posted and those that I may have overlooked.

Spirit Airlines Canceled Atlantic City to Las Vegas Service

Yeah, this is old news to many folks, but I just found out, so I guess a few others didn't realize that local low-cost airline, Spirit Airlines dropped the axe on their service from Atlantic City to Las Vegas shortly after the ball dropped on 2008.

This service was puzzling to me from the outset, as I never understood why either tourist destination would want to make it easier for folks to travel back and forth. However, part of the Atlantic City Press article that describes this referenced casino executives traveling back and forth between the two towns. That alone could probably keep the route alive, but it seems Spirit is focusing their business on shorter routes. I guess that's ok, but let's hope some other carrier steps in to fill this void.

Sources: Barlas, Thomas. "Spirit Airlines to End Atlantic City-Las Vegas Service Monday." The Press of Atlantic City 3 Jan. 2008. 23 Jan. 2008 .

Video Poker Can be a Team Sport

Next time you're in a casino look down a bank of video poker machines and take a close look at the expressions on each woman or man's face. They range from forlorn to no expression at all. One could excuse those who were grinding out small profits playing positive expectation games in Las Vegas, but it's hard to explain the folks I see in Atlantic City. It just doesn't seem like anyone is actually enjoying their time at the machines and even when they score a big hit it seems that most folks say that they just got back some of what they already lost that weekend.

So, what's the solution to the video poker doldrums? Well, you could play slots. For many, there's a rush to hitting those infrequent jackpots or at least watching the amusing bonus rounds while your bankroll is slowly transferred to the casino accounts. However, for those who can't cope with the absurd house edge of the now no-armed bandits I suggest video poker group play. How does that work, you might ask? Well, this can take a two distinctly different forms.

For starters, find a bank of playable machines in your favorite casino and make it your mission to take that over and claim it for your "team". This can be a challenge somewhere like Harrah's Atlantic City, where the only low-denomination 9/6 Jacks or Better in the whole casino is in one bank in the back of the casino, but I've seen our group occupy every one of those Game Makers. The idea isn't just to hog the best machines, but to cheer on your friends when they hit and console them when they're down. If you see a group of goofballs yelling about their pair of 8's, bowing in awe at trip 6's for the Mark of Harrah's, or dancing the robot when they hit a full house then they are probably ECLVA folks. Why bother with such frivolity? Well, aren't we supposed to be having fun? At least, that's why I go to the casino.

Once you have that down you're ready for the ultimate in group play. Pool some money from each member of the group, you can take $10, $20, $40, or whatever is a comfortable amount for everyone in the group, and find some high denomination machine that you wouldn't have the bankroll to play on your own and take a potshot. Winning is fun, but the ride will be great either way, at least if your "team" understands their role in the session. Pick your player, though who is sitting in the chair won't matter since the group will agree how to play any questionable hands, and remember you can always make the call to the bullpen if your starting player isn't getting the job done. Everyone else will cheer the machine on when you hit and jeer, moan, and groan each hand that fails to fill in your draw. Do this right and with enough people and it will sound like a sporting event has broken out amongst an aisle of video poker machines. You will see a lot of puzzled observers walk over to see what the commotion is, but you won't care since even the angriest Atlantic City curmudgeon won't be able to wipe the smile off your face while you are laughing at the absurd scene you have helped create.

So, you see you can have fun playing video poker. Solitary game, eh? Rubish.

Harrah's Raising Diamond Requirements?

There's some buzz around Internet message boards suggesting that Harrah's will or already has raised it's requirements for "Diamond" status from 10,000 "Tier Credits" to 11,000 to attain this status during 2008. For those of you new to the world of Tier Credits, that equates to $110,000 "coin-in" for video poker or $55,000 run through the machines playing slots (and some mysterious amout of table game play). This would be up from $100,000 and $50,000 during the 2007 calendar year (and every other year in recent memory).

A small cost of living increase makes some sense, but this seems oddly non-drastic. Perhaps living in a state where we don't just increase tolls by a small margin, but introduce a plan for their exponential growth taking affect immediately after the next gubernatorial election has jaded me, but why isn't Harrah's using this as an excuse to legitimately thin the Diamond herd? There are already long lines at their lounges and I know that no casino company really likes giving out free food and booze in a location where folks can't gamble at all. Heck, the lounges don't even have obnoxious keno boards like I see in the Las Vegas coffee shops.

So, why the tiny increase? Everyone I know who just barely exceeding that 10,000 point threshhold last year could easily give Harrah's another $10,000 in play, but these folks would probably do so on games averaging around 99% return, so is Harrahs' just charging them an extra $100 for their Diamond privileges in 2008? That might cover increased costs they are incurring in recent years as more people earn this status, but won't that mean they will need to increase the requirements again in a short time? Maybe that's the plan, to introduce annual tier credit requirement increases to qualify for Diamond until they find the choke point where they start driving people away instead of "developing" them into slightly bigger players each year.

It's always hard to figure what Harrah's is up to, but they are very good at what they do, and it's up to the rest of us to guess what their words and actions really mean.

Why should I read this blog?

Well, you got this far, so you must have some interest in Atlantic City or the exploits of a few folks who gather there regularly. We'll share gambling advice, bitch about Harrah's, make observations about Atlantic City, and probably even have a few Las Vegas trips to talk about.

The contributors to the ECLVA are regular visitors to Atlantic City, who aren't quite degenerate gamblers, but might be if we had the time and money to do so. Generally speaking, we are budget conscious folks who are willing to gamble, but look for ways to make the most out of our gambling bankrolls. Most of us play video poker as our primary casino game, though I have to admit playing some silly "Flop Poker" table game last weekend and we all will throw $10-$20 (or more) in slots from time to time.

Fluck Me! I've Started a New 4 to Royal Streak

Originally published in the Trip Reports section of the Las Vegas Advisor message boards, based of a April 13-14, 2007 visit to Atlantic City.

They say you can't please all the people all of the time, but I don't know who they are and whether they bother to read my trip reports, so I'm gonna give it a shot.  For those who want the quick overview of how the trip went, read the Executive Summary and other lists at the top of the report.  For those who want colorful prose, read something that Ken2v wrote.  He's a real writer.  However, if you want some of my rambling nonsense, then look beneath the bullets.

Please be warned, I wrote this under duress in a great hurry.  I don't do brief, but I was told that I needed to write a report of my Diamond Lounge mooching days might be over.  Thus, I present narrative report unedited, and will be way to long and wordy for any sane person to enjoy it.  Having said that, I expect most of my LVA friends will get a kick out of it.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• Winning money is fun!
• Relaxing baths = winning
• Keeping accurate records of losses help you to be realistic about whether you are "lucky" or not.
• There's always an LVA friend in Atlantic City when you need one.
• In general, in appears that LVAers overestimate their ages.
• Harrah's customer service lived up to its billing this weekend.
• The Trump properties were less prepared for the smoking ban than Harrah's, but still did a reasonable job.
• Resorts did not do a good job of indicating smoking and non-smoking sections, nor did they offer brochures explaining where to look for them.
• Resorts offers free plastic cups to those willing to steal them.
• High Definition TVs are cool.
• Man-eating elevators are bad.
• Returning chips to strangers at a Craps Table can cause more problems than it solves.
• Beware of flying dice at the Borgata.
• The Showboat mixer I received was the chintziest casino promotion ever.

GAMBLING

• Casinos Played In = 3 (Showboat, Borgata, and Caesars)
• Casinos Visited = 8 (above + Trump Marina, Bally's, Trump Plaza, Taj Mahal, and Resorts)
• Total Winnings = $1,603.00 (including $33 cashback from Showboat and $50 slot rebate from Trump Marina)
• Estimated Coin In = $13,700+ (over 2 days of play)
• Winnings from Slot Machines = $20
• ]Estimated Coin In from Slot Machines = $140
• Winnings from over 100% Return Video Poker = $980
• Estimated Coin In for 100+% Return Video Poker = $80
• Losses from 9/6 JoB Video Poker = $220
• Estimated Coin In for 9/6 JoB Video Poker = $11,720
• Winnings from other under 100% Return Video Poker = $720
• Estimated Coin In for other under 100 Return Video Poker = $1,750
• 4 to a Royal = 10 Times (3 times on $1 machines, 6 times on 50 cent machines, and once on a quarter machine)
• Royal Flushes = 1 (quarter Royal on All American machine at Caesars)
• 4 of a Kinds = 15 (7 times with Jacks and Deuces, though never on a Deuces Wild Machine; only had four 7's once)
• Low Quads on $1 DDB = 2 (2's with no kicker for $400 and 3's with an Ace for $800)

HOTELS

• Hotels Stayed In = 1 (Showboat)
• Showboat Hotel Bill = $13 ($11 in fees + $2 in phone calls)

DINING

• Free Meals = 2 (Diamond Lounges at Showboat and Caesars)
• Meals Paid For = 1 (Canal Street at Showboat)

THE REPORT

Oh, the things I'll do for a promotion.  It was Friday the 13th and I was planning test my luck in Atlantic City.  Not the brightest thing in the world, at least if you're even mildly superstitious, but I know there's nothing to those silly myths.  However, just to be safe, I was wearing the same pants I wore the first day in Las Vegas when I started my last trip with a couple nice hits to come out ahead for the day.  I don't know if they're official "lucky pants", as I'm still testing their ability to deliver positive results, but early returns are promising.

Unfortunately, my plan to get an early start on my brief vacation wasn't working out quite the way I hoped, and that was the first of many things that didn't work out quite the way I had envisioned them.  As it turns out, that wasn't really a bad thing.

Speaking of work, I was still there as the clock ticked close to 6:00 PM.  After hoping to be on the road around 4 PM, I knew that the drive to the shore would be a little less pleasant than if I hit the road as planned.  This was mostly my fault, as I did not get much done during the day (when I shouldn't have been wasting time reading reports from Flipfest) and I still didn't finish as much as I would've liked, but knew it was time to get moving.  I still held some hope that I might arrive in time to play a poker tournament when I arrived at the Showboat.  Of course, hitting the road during Friday rush hour is never a winning proposition when you have someplace to go, and last Friday was no exception.  No accidents, but heavy volume meant that it took quite a while to even get to the highway and things didn't move much faster until I drove around folks arriving to watch the Phillies and crossed the Walt Whitman Bridge into New Jersey.

The decision to drive to Atlantic City straight from work was proving to be a good one, as I realized that I was going to be very hungry when I arrived in town.  I also realized that I had left my Harrah's slot card in my backpack, which was in the trunk of my car.  Since that card was my ticket to free parking at the Showboat I decided to stop at the visitor's welcome center in the middle of the Atlantic City Expressway to retrieve my backpack where my card was stored.  This also gave me a chance to snag a handful of freebie magazines, though I couldn't get the full compliment of these, since the inside of the visitor's center was closed.

After merging back into Expressway traffic and scooting along the AC Connector across town, I reached the Showboat parking garage, where there was no one waiting at the booths that marks its entrance.  This allowed me to believe for a moment that the casino might be unusually quiet on this Friday evening, but that illusion was quickly shattered when I joined the line of eight cars looking for parking spaces after I flashed my slot card (all Total Rewards members currently park free a Showboat, though that policy changes more often than most Showboat guests change their socks).  No worries, however, as all the cars in front of me continued up the ramp and I was able to make the contrarian move of turning right away from the ramp and looking for spots on the first public parking level (3), where I found a "compact" spot that my mid-sized Pontiac Grand Prix can usually squeeze into.  However, the SUV in the other "compact" space next to this one meant that I would have to look elsewhere.  That quickly proved to be a good thing when I saw the reverse-lights on a car further along the same row of vehicles that I just tried to fit into.  After that car left, I quickly slid into their spot and was perfectly positioned close to the stairs and elevator of the Showboat garage and ready to get my night in the casino started.

Unlike Caesars Atlantic City, Showboat actually dedicates a separate line at the check-in counter for Platinum guests.  However, unlike Bally's and Harrah's Atlantic City properties this line tends to be woefully inefficient.  As I stood in line I kept checking the Gold Card line to see if it would be quicker to dart over there, since there was only one clerk working the Platinum check-in.  Sometimes, if the Diamond line is empty the clerks will call one of the Platinum riffraff over to their line, but enough Diamond guests needed to be serviced that this was not an option.  The two men in front of me were complaining about the slow service, as one kept walking around looking for someone to complain to.  He seemed to find someone willing to listen at the Customer Service desk, as the employee behind that counter summoned him and his friend over there, presumably to check them in.  That worked well for me, as it moved me closer to the front of the line, and cut my wait time to around 15 minutes.

When I did reach the counter I was greeted by a surprisingly friendly and efficient employee, who took the time to find me a room on a high floor, though she told me that it was a handicapped room with two double beds and asked if that was ok or if I would like a king bed on a lower floor.  She explained that the biggest difference in the handicapped room was the design of the bathroom, primarily that there was no vanity next to the sink.  I wanted to best view I could get, so that sounded ok for my one night in town.  We agreed I'd check out the room and come back if there was a problem.  The clerk then went on the hand out the coupon sheet that some Harrah's properties sometimes give out in Atlantic City, though she actually took the time to tell me what the coupons were for.  Of course, I already knew this, but it was a nice courtesy nonetheless.  I was even more impressed that she handed me a map of the casino floor and reminded me that the smoking ban was to take affect on Saturday night after midnight.  Showboat also made announcements over the PA system throughout the day on Saturday, which seemed like a wise move to minimize the number of unhappy customers when the ban took affect.

On the way to the Bourbon Tower elevator, which is just off the casino floor about halfway from the front desk to the Boardwalk, I walked around a man with long dreadlocks and shabby faded camouflaged clothing that didn't look like it had been washed in some time.  Thus, I was a little unsettled when he got into the same elevator as me, and even more so when he asked me to push the button for a floor number that didn't exist.  I was a little relieved when he said he was going to the "show", which he told me was Jah Works.  I didn't know what that meant (though I later discovered it was a reggae show and everything sort of made sense at that point), but I did know that the House of Blues concert hall was on the second floor, so I directed this gentleman there and continued upward to my 21st floor room.

The room was fine.  The beds seemed comfortable, the new high definition TV looked cool (I would have to figure out some excuse to watch TV later tonight), and the bathroom was acceptable.  I'd like to see a "normal" Bourbon Tower room to compare this with, but this would suit me fine for the evening.  My immediate need would now be to satisfy my hunger.

It was close to 8:30 before I decided I would settle for something from the Canal Street Café, the snack bar near the parking garage entrance to the Showboat.  I wanted soup, but didn't see any sandwiches I wanted, so I ordered "New Jersey" (basically New England) clam chowder, a personal pepperoni pizza, and a soda.  At first, the woman behind the counter thought they didn't have clam chowder, but she checked "in the back" and gave me a thumbs up when she walked out with a fresh vessel of the soup I ordered.  She gave me my soup and soda, along with a handful of packets of crackers while I waited for my pizza.  It's nice when they don't skimp on the crackers, as this gave me a snack for later in the room.  The whole meal set me back $14, since I'm hoarding my Total Rewards credits.  For what, I don't know, but I didn't feel like using them for this meal, so I paid the inflated snack bar rates, and had an adequate meal.  The really good news was that I read in one of the freebie magazines that there's a pretty good chance Jimmy Buffet will come to Atlantic City in late June.  NOTICE TO MY LVA FRIENDS: I'll be calling in lots of favors to get tickets to this show.  This is like noahcat and Manilow, except Jimmy won't put anyone to sleep (unless you count the ones that pass out drunk).

Now it's time to let the games begin.  Off to the casino, stopping to check my cashback on the way, where I found I had $33.  Wow, I didn't even remember playing at Showboat last month, but after checking my records I did have a decent day's play and seemed to have taken some advantage of their 3X cashback March promotion.  So, I was already ahead before dropping a dime into a machine.  Of course, I decided not to start with dimes.  Actually, I decided to start with dollars.  A big hit right away would really put me in a good frame of mind, so I decided to take a shot with $1 9/6 Double Double Bonus (DDB).  I put $40 into a machine in the House of Blues casino and quickly lost it, with my best hand being three 2's.  Oh well, so much for the cashback, so it was on to my "serious" play, which would be on 9/6 Jacks or Better (JoB).  I stayed at the same machine and switched down to the 50 cent denomination, where I was able to run a little over 1,000 through the machine, earn 105 base Reward Credits, and win back the $40 I lost playing DDB.  Not many intermediate hands (straights, flushes, or full houses) during this session, but quad 8's, Jacks, and 7's kept me ahead of the game.  Unfortunately, my 4 to the Royal streak reached 40, with three more close misses, each coming in spades.

I could have stayed and played for longer, but I wanted to use the restroom and thought this would be a good time to head back to the room and relax for a few minutes.  I figured that if I actually had a room on a Friday night that I ought to take advantage of it, and a bath seemed like the right thing to put me at ease for the rest of the evening.  However, my relaxation was to be delayed for longer than I expected because none of the elevators to the Bourbon Tower were running.  They were all on the first floor with the doors open, but a little fire hat light on the control panel was turned on and none of the buttons would work.  Someone from security soon appeared and notified the confused masses that an alarm had been triggered because someone was smoking and set off a smoke detector.  The man from security was communicating with someone else using a walkie talkie and told us the elevators would be running soon.  He was correct.

However, this wasn't the end of my adventure with the elevators.  Two other men shared my car when the elevators started working again, and both got off on the 8th floor.  As one was leaving, I pressed the "Door Close" button and thought that I almost crushed the second man off the elevator, because the doors shut immediately and didn't bounce back open when they touched his arm.  That was odd, but it was even stranger when I reached the 21st floor and the doors didn't open at all.  I tried the "Door Open" button and the doors flinched but never actually opened.  I decided to try going up to another floor, pressed "22" and felt the car rise a floor, but the doors didn't open there either.  I pressed 21 again and felt the car drop a floor, but still no doors opening.  Well, this was not good.  I wasn't planning to spend an extended period of time standing in an elevator this weekend.  At least I could move up and down to different floors, even if I couldn't actually leave the confines of my little box.  With this in mind, the ground floor seemed like the best place to be stuck, so I pressed "1" and was now back where I started, but still didn't have the opportunity to leave the elevator.  I tried the "Door Open" button a couple more times and noticed that I could see daylight (well, actually, casino light) through the opening, so I decided to hit the button again and try to wedge myself between the doors.  At least someone would see my dilemma and I wouldn't have to wait too long for help if my plan didn't work out.  Fortunately, I was able to force my way through the narrow slit of opportunity that the elevator presented me with and was back in the elevator lobby, but still faced with the problem of getting back up to the 21st floor.  I hit the "up" button and decided to take a shot with another elevator, though I decided I would pass the opportunity to ride the car I just slipped out of should that door open again.  It didn't, and I was soon back in my room.

It was 10:00 and I found my excuse to watch the fancy TV in the room, as the Phillies were playing, though trailing 8-6 late in the game.  I snapped some pictures of the room, while watching them blow an opportunity to make a comeback with a hit, a walk, and another hit when Shane Victorino was thrown out a home plate with no outs.  Brilliant move there, sending him home with no outs.  That was enough baseball, so it was off to the bath to read the complimentary Casino Player that was left in my room.  It always seems appropriate to read this magazine in the vicinity of the toilet, particularly in a Harrah's property.

I returned to the casino refreshed around 11:45, ready to boost my Harrah's ADT (Average Daily Theoretical, to those who haven't studied the Harrah's lingo).  I'm trying to limit my play at Harrah's properties to fewer longer sessions, which should make me appear to be a bigger player to those who study ADT.  So, my goal for the night was to earn around 400 tier credits (~$4,000 coin in).  I'm willing to bend on this goal if things aren't going well, and of course, I'm willing to keep playing if I'm winning and still feeling good, but that was my plan, and I pretty much stuck to it.

I decided to take another shot at a big payout, with $40 through a 9/6 Triple Bonus machine.  I hit one full house and had four to the Royal in Diamonds, but ended up losing my buy-in for this pot-shot.  I decided that I don't like the Kings or Better payout for Triple Bonus, so I'll probably avoid this game in the future, but I've said that before and forgotten it.  Maybe putting it in writing will help.  On a positive note, I continued my trend from earlier in the evening, by winning back my $40 playing 50 cent 9/6 JoB, though this time I did so without a quad.  A bunch of straights and flushes, couple with smaller paying hands (2 pair and 3 of a kinds) put me ahead after 102 reward credits.  I was starting to get goofy, humming "Here come the quads" to myself in some odd Beatles meet Barenaked Ladies-like tone every time I held a pair or 3 of a kind.  I don't usually sing to myself while playing, but I was this close to doing the ECLVA dances for decent hands while no one was watching.  It was time to get up an walk around for a little while.

At this point I'm still even (ahead if you count the $33 cashback), so it was time for another potshot.  I looked around and decided I wanted to play Spinpoker, but every Spinpoker machine in the casino was occupied.  Super Times Pay (STP) had the same problem, so I took a shot with quarter 9/6 DDB Multi-Strike.  These are good quick hit machines.  You either hit big or go broke real fast.  I lost $60 and decided that didn't work out right, so it was back to half dollar 9/6 JoB, where I earned another 109 reward credits before cashing out a $20 loser.  This broke the trend of me winning back my losses playing JoB, but I was ready to wander again.

This time, I stopped at a penny Jade Monkey slot.  Since Harv was not present, I soon drew three green monkeys with 5 credits per line and activated a bonus round.  I ended up with 16 free spins and hit three monkeys again during the free spins to earn 16 more free spins.  By the time the bonus round was done I had earned 4,025 credits.  Sure, they're just pennies, but that's a nice hit on a slot.  Trouble was that I kept fouling up when to cash out an ended up playing my credits down farther than I wanted to.  I switched to 3 credits per line and hit another bonus round with 10 free spins, the payouts doubled, and a "bonus prize", all of which netted another 2,200 credits after I drew 3 more monkeys to again retrigger the bonus.  Wow, this is my all-time record for bonus rounds on a slot machine, and I hit one more while playing credits down to an even number, but that was only 375 credits.  After the dust cleared, the monkeys gave me an extra $20 more than I dropped in.

Next shot was a quarter Joker Poker machine with a progressive over $1,100 for a five of a kind.  I lost $20 here before moving back to the House of Blues casino and trying another $40 on the $1 9/6 DDB machine.  That resulted in nothing but losses, in a short session with nothing better than a couple pairs, before I decided to take another shot at JoB.  I put another $100 in and played the 50 cent Jacks machines for a little while, lining up four Jacks once, but only one flush and no (ZERO) full houses or straights meant that this money didn't last real long.  This wrapped up my "serious" play for the evening, but I still wanted to take a couple more shots before bed.

I decided to try $100 in the $1 9/6 DDB, but that didn't last much longer than the $40 I tried earlier, so I moved over to a Spinpoker machine, as it was finally late enough for one of them to open up.  These were all Joker Poker machines, which I don't really know the strategy for, but I figured that Jokers were good and I should try to draw 5 of a kind.  At one point I lined up four 10's with no Joker and hit a few hands, but ended up losing $20 playing nickels.  This was going to be my last play of the night, but I had taken out $40 before I realized these were nickel machines, so I still had an extra $20 that I planned to play and didn't want to but another 400 credits on a game I didn't know too well, so I felt that I should take one last longshot at the $1 DDB.  As you would expect, I was on the verge of losing my money very quickly.  I had four to a Royal in Hearts, but I wasn't destined to earn any $4,000 payouts tonight.  However, I did hit a series to Jacks or Better hands on my last $5 to play a couple extra hands until I drew three 2's and filled in the fourth for a $400 hit to close out the evening.  That was cool, as it put me up $73 for the night and gave me the home run I was looking for (and that my Phillies couldn't hit when they needed) before bed.

On my way back to the room I passed a craps table where I saw a green chip roll onto the floor and come to rest.  No one was looking in that direction, so I picked it up and decided to be honest and ask the table if anyone lost a chip.  I thought there was some chance that no one would know where it came from and I'd get to keep it, but if that happened I could do so with a clear conscience.  One of the boxmen said he thought the chip belonged to a woman standing to my left as I approached the table and inquired about the found token, but she hesitated for a moment.  During her period of uncertainty, a tall thin man with light black skin and a handful of red chips said it was his and snatched the chip from my hand.  Some confusion followed, as I asked the woman and man if they were sure this was right.  The woman said it was probably hers, but wasn't going to fight over $25.  The man said he knew he lost a chip, and asked the boxman, "Miguel, do you wanna call upstairs?" a couple times.  One of the suits at the table said he didn't want to get involved with chips that were "out there" (off the table) and then tall man started walking away, somewhat agitated, but still talking about calling upstairs.  I walked with him, trying to encourage him to do the right thing, and saying that he knew that truth.  I didn't accuse him of stealing the chip, but did lead him back to the table, where I left the situation and headed for the elevator, after taking a circuitous route in the unlikely event that this somewhat unstable and potentially volatile character might have been unhappy with me in some way.

I returned to the room at 2:45 and found another excuse to watch TV, as High Stakes Poker was finishing up on NBC.  This high-definition is really cool.  I didn't know Shana Hiatt had freckles.  Well, she was off the air at 3:00 AM and I was asleep by 3:15.




I was conscious at 11:15 AM, but not quite ready to wake up yet.  By 11:45 I realized that I better get moving if I was going to be out of the room by 1:00.  Breakfast consisted of leftover crackers from the night before and a bottle of water that had frozen when I left it in the refrigerator over night.  I called Harv (harv29) to find out if he was still planning to come to town to claim his Trump Marina cashback, but only reached his voicemail.  I had planned to tell Catherine (bigfus) what Harv's plans were, but not knowing that I called her anyway to see where she was headed.  I caught her on the way out the door of her house and we agreed to meet at the Showboat when she arrived in town.  I snapped some pictures out the window, primarily of what appears to be a new Bally's-like tower rising from the neighboring Taj Mahal, took a short bath and then shower, and was leaving the room a minute before 1:00 PM, when someone from the hotel knocked on the door to ask if I was checking out.  He arrived pretty much exactly as I expected, an hour after the published checkout time.  Being that it was an hour after the published checkout time, there was no line at the front desk and I paid my obscene comp fees and dropped my overnight bag in the car before returning to the casino.

Catherine and I planned to meet in our "office" in the House of Blues section of the Showboat.  This is where all the 9/6 JoB machines are at The 'Boat and where I'll do 95% of my playing, even if it this area wasn't designated as non-smoking gaming space.  I played 50 cent 9/6 JoB for a while and was up $60 after hitting four Queens, 3's, and 6's, along with a boatload of full boats, while also drawing four to the Royal in Hearts.  I cashed out after 128 reward credits, and tried another $40 in $1 DDB, and hit a flush, but nothing else.  Back to half dollars and 9/6 JoB where I quickly worked my way up $140 with a series of flushes and full houses, coupled with quad 9's.  I also drew four to the Royal in clubs, just for good measure.

I took a break from Jacks or Better with Double Joker Wild and Joker Poker machines, both a quarters, and quitting both when I worked back to my original $20 buy-in.  With no sign of Catherine yet, I switched back to 50 cent 9/6 JoB, where I lost $100, despite being dealt quad 10's.  A total of five straights, flushes, and full houses were not enough to keep me in the game, but the timing worked out reasonably well, as Catherine arrived, along with Judy and Dennis (judykq), who were in town on a junket that was scheduled to depart from Harrah's to take them home at 8:00 PM.

Catherine was hungry, and the breakfast crackers didn't really hold me over too well, so I was happy to enjoy the free food courtesy of my Diamond friends at Showboat's Pelican Club Diamond Lounge.  Turkey, mashed potatoes, and vegetable beef soup, along with some tasty deserts made for a pleasant meal, while we all enjoyed the free premium drinks.  I had a couple tequila sunrises, since this was my breakfast, while Catherine and Dennis enjoyed Bloody Mary's, and Judy had a glass of wine.  It was great to finally have a chance to sit down and talk with some LVA members who I had seen before, but never really spend any time with.  Judy claimed to have just celebrated a milestone birthday, but I think she may have misread her age, as she appears much younger than she thought.

Well, the Diamond Lounge was great, but with a couple people who's trip was coming to an end it was time to get them back where they wanted to be, to the casino.  I stopped off to pick up my free gift from Showboat, a hand mixer which I thought would come in handy in the kitchen until I discovered it was the cheapest piece of crap that a casino ever tried to hoist on me.  My sister had sturdier toys in her "play" kitchen growing up.  I read on the packing about the "powerful" motor that runs on two AA batteries.  Fortunately, there's no way that motor could actually be "powerful" running on two tiny batteries, because any force applied to the tiny mixing appendages would snap them like twigs.  Maybe because they're about the thickness of twigs.  In any case, at least I'm ahead for the trip.  If they want to pay me to take this crap off their hands then I'll take money from Harrah's any time.

I caught up with Judy, Dennis, and Catherine back in the House of Blues casino after claiming my prize and we soon found machines together in a bank of slant tops with 9/6 JoB.  After playing at Harrah's, where the only 9/6 JoB are uprights, everyone was relieved to play somewhat comfortably at The 'Boat.  The man sitting at the far left of the bank of machines was playing quarter DDB and hit a series of quads, but kept working his way up instead of down toward Aces, 2's, 3's, and 4's.  He kept hitting them, though, and I kept encouraging him to get back to the little quads.  At least he seemed to be having a good time, and when he sat down he looked like he needed to have a good time, so it was also nice to see him cash out over $400, instead of pouring it back into the machine and being REALLY unhappy.

I was doing OK myself, as I hit quad 5's and was able to demonstrate the quad dance for Dennis and Judy.  Judy caught on fast, as she soon hit quad 6's and took a shot at the Batman/Pulp Fiction dance herself.  Dennis had quads of his own, but I don't remember him dancing, and Catherine got beat up while the rest of us were taking our shots at the Showboat's bottom line.  I hit quad 6's of my own and then four 2's.  Couple that with a bunch of full houses and I was up $100 when I decided to call it quits.  However, everyone else was still playing, so I dropped another $40 in for another shot at $1 9/6 DDB.  This one worked out even better than before.

While Judy had earned a "dancing hand" I told everyone I had her beat, as I was dealt two 3's, and filled in the other two along with an Ace for an $800 win.  No one had noticed that I switched to dollars or that I switched to DDB until they saw the credits racking up.  My work at the Showboat was done for the day.

Catherine told Judy and Dennis about the Borgata Black Label upgrade for Harrah's Diamond Card holders, so they decided it was worth a trip over there for $100 in free play.  They each had Diamond cards, so they each had $100 in free play and ended up cashing out around $150 after roughly 45 minutes of 50 cent 9/6 Job, near the B-Bar.  I played the same game and cashed out $20 ahead, despite not hitting a quad and being the worst kind of Jackoff, barely missing a $2000 Royal in Hearts.  I took another potshot with my monthly $20 in free slot play with no luck before we drove Dennis and Judy back to Harrah's to catch their shuttle bus to the airport.

The bus was due to leave at 8:00 PM and it was about 7:55 when we arrived, so I offered to pull in front of the bus to prevent it from leaving, but there were enough people waiting to board that this proved not to be necessary.  We said our goodbyes and headed next door the Trump Marina.

Both Catherine and I had played at The Marina during the $50 slot rebate day during March and this was the last weekend to redeem our loss rebates.  Doing so was easy, as I printed a voucher from a kiosk and Catherine led me to the cashout machine.  Finding a playable machine was more challenging, as the $1 All American machine that Catherine wanted to play was occupied by someone who didn't look like she was leaving any time soon.  We scouted the High Limit Room for another All American machine, and the rest of the casino for anything decent to play, but nothing looked good, so we stiffed them, but not before I asked the question why anyone would play 6/5 JoB if the same machine offered 6/5 Bonus Poker?  Now, you could argue that no one in their right mind would play either game, but if you're doing to play a Jacks or Better game where all the other payouts are the same, then why wouldn't you play the machine that paid extra for quad Aces, deuces, threes, and fours?  Don't people even look before they play?  Ugh.  It's not my problem, but when people don't use their brains it bugs me.

Catherine wanted to play at Caesars, which seemed as good a place as any for our next stop.  I hadn't played there in a while (last October, I think) and they have enough 9/6 JoB that I should be able to find a machine.  We stopped at the Diamond Lounge to live the high life for a while, sipping premium drinks (I went through a long island iced tea, margarita on the rocks, and Bailey's this time) while enjoying the Boardwalk and ocean view.  These places really can be a great place to chat and relax in the middle of casino mayhem.  If I had a room for the night then I might've gone really nuts with free drinks, but both Catherine and I needed to drive home later in the evening, so we cut ourselves off and headed to the casino, a little buzzed, but not drunk.

Fresh off my Las Vegas trip, with ample games offering over 100% return I was interested to see Catherine's All American machines, since they offer the best return in Atlantic City.  I guess I had never really paid attention to the paytable for this game, nor had I studied the oddball strategy.  It's not really a game to play with a buzz.  You either need your full brain power to play the correct strategy or should be so blitzed that you don't give a damn.  In my current state, my brain was so taxed trying to decipher the strategy card that Catherine had been so kind to provide me and I felt so bad that she was helping me with every hand that I was hoping that I could lose all my credits quickly and move on somewhere else in the casino.  Catherine wasn't getting any significant play in and I was playing so slowly that I was going to kill my ADT playing this game without practice.  That is if my head didn't explode in the meantime.

I was holding the cards I thought seemed right and then checking the strategy card for verification.  I was doing ok, when I held the Jack and Ten of Spades, throwing away another high card in the process.  The inflated straight flush payout makes this the right play and Catherine confirmed this by reminded me that, "Jack Ten is valuable."  She wasn't kidding it was valuable, because my machine starting dinging and the valuable credits racked up while Catherine looked around to figure out where all that noise was coming from.

Well, it was coming from MY MACHINE, as the rest of the high Spades filled in for an All American Royal.  It wasn't the $2,000 Royal I've been looking for, but after the $800 from DDB it's pretty damn close for the day.  Well, that was it for All American, as I wasn't going to keep up that pace ($20 in, $1,000 out) all night, so I left Catherine to play in peace for a while and tried some $1 9/6 JoB, which only succeeded in cutting into my winnings and making it more likely that Caesars will invite me back.  I did start a new four to the Royal streak, with only one Club missing from an even bigger payout.

After I was done playing, I walked next door to Bally's to see if they had maps of their smoking and non-smoking sections.  They did, along with multiple "suits" at every entrance/exit ready to inform anyone who didn't know about the new smoking regulations.  Seemed like a good plan.

While at Bally's I also ran upstairs to grab free poker magazines from their poker room, though I only found one newspaper and didn't see and copies of Card Player.  I guess I can't complain about lost freebies, but that was a little disappointing.  I still had time to walk over to Trump Plaza to see what machines they had designated as non-smoking.  They did not have the extra security around the floor that the Harrah's properties had deployed, but did have a map of their new casino layout, which was helpful.  All the machines I like to play were in the smoking section, which was also a little disappointing for me, but not really any different than what I'm used to.

Back to Caesars, where Catherine wondered where I had been for all that time and then both of us went back to Showboat, where she accompanied me to Resorts and Taj Mahal to see how the smoking ban was working in those casinos.  Resorts stationed a couple extra slot attendants around the casino, presumably to help people find smoking sections, but did not have clearly marked machines.  The Taj put stickers on individual machines to indicate whether they were smoking or non-smoking, however, their video poker inventory still stinks, even if much of it will be free of cigarette smoke.  And, that pretty much wrapped up the trip, except for scooping up a bunch of plastic cups that Resorts was foolish enough to leave on the vacant temporary bar outside their showroom.

We returned to the Showboat, where Catherine showed me where to find the quarter 9/6 Double Bonus Double Jackpot machines.  I was one high Spade about from hitting an 8,000 credit Royal, but then called it a night.  We returned to the parking garage and skipped town before the deluge was set to begin.  It seems that me ending my Royal drought brought some sort of plague on the region, as we shouldn't have to worry about any water restrictions this Spring or Summer.  There will be no drought.  In the casino or otherwise.

A Day in the Magical Empire

Originally published in the Trip Reports section of the Las Vegas Advisor message boards, based of a July 16, 2005 visit to Atlantic City.


To celebrate Harrah's recent acquisition of Caesars Entertainment the LVA East Coast members decided to stage our most recent member meet in some of their newly acquired properties.  Well, perhaps "celebrate" is not the right word, "grudgingly accept" might be more appropriate, but several of us did gather in the new Magical Empire this past Saturday.


"I must say that I like the new parking situation in Atlantic City."

I left home just after 1:50 PM, realizing that I would not be able to meander along the back roads of southern New Jersey if I wanted to arrive on time for the scheduled 3:00 PM meet.  That meant disregarding one of my core values, namely, never paying highway tolls when a reasonable alternative exists.  However, as a "veteran" LVA member I felt that I should make an effort to show up on time to greet some new members attending their first meet, and I was able to do this despite a brief stretch of driving rain just short of the Atlantic City Expressway.

Traveling the main stretch of road between Philadelphia and Atlantic City is a little like reading Casino Player, as the journalism is equally unbiased, though the billboards provide a little more up to date information.  Along these lines I discovered that not only does the Sands now offer free parking to all members, but so do Caesars and Bally's.

My drive was otherwise uneventful except for a short period of confusion as I tried to find the parking garage for the Sands and somehow ended up inside Bally’s Parking Place.  I did snag a great parking spot on the same floor as the walkway to the casino (using my favorite parking garage technique of heading up a couple floors and then following signs to the exit ramp), so I arrived at the entrance to the Virginia City Buffet inside the Wild Wild West Casino only a few minutes after 3:00.  My relief briefly turned to uncertainty as I saw no one I recognized at our agreed upon meeting spot.  Surely, they wouldn't have ditched me for being a couple minutes late?

Fortunately, I was actually among the early arrivals.  I had also made a wise decision to wear my LVA T-shirt, which made it relatively easy for me to meet Harv and Cath (Harv29).  As a fellow keeper of the Borgata Fork I was eager to me someone who shared my affection for stolen cutlery, so I was happy to have a few minutes to get to know Harv before the other members arrived.


"Do I need to steal you a watch?"

After a few minutes Ken and Lyn (ken8631) arrived for their second Atlantic City meet, and the five of us chatted for some time while wondering what became of Flip (TheycallmeFlip).  It's not like him to miss a member meet, so I figured he must have been waiting for another W2-G.  As it turned out, this was not the case, since Flip hit his royal that night before at Bally's.  He was just fashionably late, presumably in preparation for his dramatic appearance at this year's Elvies.  I offered to swipe a watch for Flip to prevent this from happening again, but he politely declined.

Around 3:30 we decided it was time to eat, even though we were still missing Catherine (Bigfus) and there was some doubt about whether Dick (rcwkent) was coming to the meet.  From what I know of Dick I figured he would have been there on time if he were coming.  No one knew Catherine, but we did know that we were all expecting to eat and the lines for the buffet were starting to form, so we prepared to soldier on without her.


"I recognized you from your avatar"

The six of us moved pretty quickly through the line outside the buffet.  One queue was marked for Comps, which Harv and Flip were holding, but that turned out to be a longer wait than the line for the masses, so we all ended up in the same line.  While waiting we had the opportunity to rehash the magical properties of Lucky Glitter, particularly when mixed with peanuts, though I confessed that I had not performed rigorous scientific tests before reaching the conclusions I posted on these message boards.

We also kept our eyes peeled for Catherine, even as we progressed through the line, but wondered how she would find us, since she has never met any of us.  My t-shirt was one clue, but wouldn't be easy to spot across a crowded room.  However, around this time someone called out for Ken and Lynn, and we were soon joined by the seventh member of our crew.  How did the newest LVA member in our group pull this off?  She recognized Ken and Lyn from their avatar for the forums.  So, we all owe Ken a debt of gratitude for secretly posting his wife's picture without her knowledge.


"I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to get something to eat"

After everyone passed through the cashier station I was $20.13 poorer, but held a pink ticket that entitled me to one steak.  I've never been fond of this concept in buffets, but it probably helps Bally's control their costs better and keeps the price down a little, and looking back I didn't really need to eat any more than I did.  However, it would be another fifteen minutes before we even had the chance to cash in our pink tickets, since there were no tables available right away for seven people.  The buffet herders offered us two tables next to each other, but said those could not be pushed together.  If we wanted to wait then the hostess said she could find us a place that we could all share.

Waiting gave us the chance to chat for a while longer and this continued even after we sat down at our tables, which we ended up pushing together, despite the warnings from the Virginia City staff that the people on one side of the table would not be able to get out.  Confident that Ken, Lyn, Cath, and Harv could extricate themselves from the prison we inadvertently created we agreed to accept the risk and we once again soldiered on.

At this point our meal had still not started, as this is, apparently, a very polite group, despite what you may have heard.  We must have sat at the table for ten minutes before anyone made a move for the food.  Now, I'm all for courtesy and was enjoying the witty banter, but I also came here to eat, so I broke the ice and headed for the troughs.


"I could take a poll about that"

This is probably going to be a strange buffet review, since the food was much less memorable than the conversation, but I will talk briefly about my feast.  I saved my steak ticket for the second course (third, if you count the soup I brought back with course #1), thinking I was saving the best for last, but I was wrong.  The London Broil I picked up from the carving station on my first pass was more pleasing to my palette.  Overall, Virginia City was a pretty average buffet, with your standard Italian, Asian, seafood, and carving stations.  There was also a small deli counter, offering corned beef or pastrami, but that was about as wild as this Wild Wild West eatery got.  Desserts were standard cheesecakes, bread pudding, ice cream, and the lot.  There was a whipped cream dispenser, which is a nice touch, but the toppings for the ice cream were lacking, which for me meant no Oreos or strawberries (they did have Heath bars).  For a couple dollars more I would opt for the Borgata or the Showboat, with the Showboat clearly being the better value when you factor in the ACG 2 for 1.  Nonetheless, the meal was adequate and the company I kept was off the charts.

The seven of us ate at a very leisurely pace, spending close to three hours inside the confines on the buffet, though no one made an extraordinary number of food runs.  There were no awkward periods of silence and everyone seemed to feel comfortable contributing to the conversation.  There was even time to discuss my recent period of prolific poll-posting.  Apparently, my flurry of activity on the forums leading up to this meet did not go unnoticed.  After considering the comments everyone made the best solution I could think of was to take a poll about whether I was posting too many polls.  In retrospect, I think I'll nix that idea.  Too McClurg.

Harrah's is Great!

Dining with a wise-ass can be trying, and I feel for my six companions who endured my rantings during their meal.  I may be shy, but when I'm with people I know they get to hear what is on my mind.  I remember taking a shot at Casino Player, though I don't remember what for.  It's such an easy target.  At another point during the meal I had to warn Lynn about the all-encompassing power of the Total Rewards system by telling her not to be too critical of our masters at Harrah's central, something along the lines of, "Shhhh. They're listening."  That gave all of us the opportunity to glance upwards toward the likely locations of security camera and exclaim for the eyes and ears in the sky that, "Harrah's is great!"


Old habits die hard

As great as Harrah's may have been, our time together for dinner eventually wound down.  I was able to steer the discussion away from what was quickly turning into a contest for who had the most unpleasant surgical experience (and Lyn is a nurse, so I know she could have turned the rest of us green at any moment, except Cath; I think she would have gotten a kick out of that, but I don't know why) toward a video poker contest the Harv had proposed while we were planning the meet.  This seemed like a great idea for us to head into the casino together rather than just go off on our own after dinner.

We worked out the details of the contest, where each person who played would put $10 into the pot, then play eight hands, and the person with the best results would win the pot.  With this plan in mind we were ready to leave, since rumor has it that some of us actually came to Atlantic City to gamble.  Go figure.

One objective I did not achieve during this trip was to pass JustFork to another LVA member.  However, it seems that before we left the Wild Wild West she picked up a traveling companion of her own, as a knife somehow found its way into by backpack.


"I can’t eat like a used to"

By all accounts the buffet should have done us in.  Gorging oneself is not exactly at the top of Bob Dancer's list of recommendations for achieving the mental acuity needed to play effective video poker.  Nonetheless, we discovered a number of flaws in Mr. Dancer's theories on this Saturday evening.  I also made a discovery of my own.  I can't eat like I used to.

We decided to hold our unsanctioned video poker tournament using a bank of 25¢ 9/6 Jacks or Better progressives next door at Caesars.  Ken and Lyn searched in vain for these after the last Atlantic City meet, so I thought it was my LVA duty to make sure they knew where to find the best paying quarter VP in AC.  On our way we stopped to make a pit stop, after which one member of our group called me aside upon exiting the restroom and said something along the lines of, "They have a sign saying no one can go in there, right?"  I would soon know how he felt.

Diamond Jim rides again

After a spectacular start to his LVA video poker career last year Flip has slipped into a bit of a slump earlier this year, so it was reassuring to hear that he came into the meet with one Royal Flush already under his belt.  I always like to make sure new members understand what a showman Flip can be, using the four deuces and the Royal he demonstrated for me in Las Vegas last summer as examples, so he was under a lot of pressure to put on a show for the new members.  I asked him to show us a Royal in clubs and Cath asked to see four Queens.  Sadly, Flip did not deliver like his beloved Red Sox, but during the course of the evening he did show us every hand other than a royal while also taking the $60 prize pool from our VP contest.  So, it appears his Flip has returned to his winning ways.

I got to wait for a slot attendant too, and this time it wasn't for a hopper fill

My own recent gambling results remain mired in the morass of mediocrity, which is actually an upgrade from this time last year.  However, the good luck for those around me continues, to the point where I consider myself the frontrunner for the Elvie for Best Good Luck Charm.  While watching Ken and Flip play, and trying my best to bring my ambient good fortune to them, I did have the opportunity to see a man sitting next to them hit a Royal, taking home about $1025 for his efforts.  Perhaps, "taking home", wasn't entirely accurate, as for a while there was some question whether the man would ever get paid.  He must have waited at least twenty minutes before any Caesars personnel noticed his plight, and to make matters worse, though I would have gladly accepted the inconvenience to change places with this gentleman, when he tried to cash out his remaining credits after he was paid for his Royal the ticket he printed jammed inside the machine.  Another fifteen minutes later and he was finally on his way to the cage to collect his winnings.

Not being able to literally take this stranger's place I did the next best thing and took his machine when he left.  After briefly pondering staging a picture of myself next to the remnants of the stranger's Royal I quickly discarded that idea like and unsuited deuce-seven and started another quest to finally end my Royal Flush drought.  I also now had the opportunity to play with Ken and Flip, and we were later joined by Harv, when Ken and Lyn left us for the evening and Harv returned from his exile on the far left of our bank of machines.  Catherine had long since left us, before the real craziness began.

"Keep it down over there.  I'm trying to gamble"

Despite Harv's status as a Harrah's stockholder (sorry, man, but I had to out you on this one) we did not actually take ownership of the progressives that we were playing, but there was no doubt that this was our bank of machines.  Video poker can often be a grind.  A solitary activity that offers practical benefits ranging from useful comps to the occasional jackpot, but rarely does it offer the social thrills of many table games.  At times, however, the right group of people comes together and the game becomes secondary to the joy of rooting for your "teammates" against the evil empire that is the casino.  Saturday night was one such occasion.  We announced our big hands and cheered with high fives, hoots, hollers, and hands raised in celebration.  We must have been the only bank of video poker machines in Atlantic City that sounded like a craps table.  Actually, there were a couple times when we had to ask the folks playing craps to tone it down.

During the quieter moments of my play I made a couple discoveries.  The first was that when your body tells you it's time to go to the bathroom then you ought to listen.  Just about the time I was starting to get settled into the chair of my slanttop machine I realize that it was time to pass some of the food I gathered at the buffet on to the nearest municipal waste authority, but I was having too much fun to leave my seat.  When I finally took a few moments to take care of business and returned to my machine, a couple pounds lighter, I felt 100 percent better.  This also allowed me to discover that when you press two places on a touch screen machine at the same time then the computer takes the "average" of the two places you touch the screen.  If you want to see this in action then touch the first and fifth (or second and fourth) cards on a VP screen at the same time and you will see the middle card will be marked "held."  I also found out that if you press the 25¢ button that is normally used to change denominations on these particular machines then it acts as a "cash out" button, which was unfortunate because I was sitting at the machine that jams when printing tickets.  Grrrr.  I hit the "change" light and prepared to wait.  At least the last guy knew he was waiting for $1000.  I was waiting for 70 quarters.

In the interim I admired the animations that appear when a machine on the cards when it sits idle for a while.  However, I soon tired of the amusing little swords that spun around on the Aces from my last hand and meandered a couple machines down the row to continue my play while I waited.  This turned out to be a wise decision as I hit quad-somethings and decided to cash out and return to the safety of my fellow LVA members and to watch Flip and Harv while still waiting for my 70 credit ticket, which I just wanted to put back into the machine.  A slot attendant finally arrived right in the middle of my disparaging remarks about all the "not my station looks" on the faces of every other employees who passed by in the interim.

Queen of Quads

My playing partners for this evening each had their own memorable moments, with our new "Queen of Quads" probably having the most profitable night.  During dinner Harv had mentioned that his fiancée hit a couple quads earlier in the day and he dubbed her the "Quad Queen."  I didn't say it at the time, but thought that he was a little hasty after only one day's play.  I must admit, however, that I was wrong, as Cath lived up to her moniker by steadily hitting quads throughout the evening whenever her credits started to dip.  She didn't have the endurance that the rest of us did, but who needs endurance when you can turn $20 into well over $100.  The only trouble was that she seemed to also have a knack for finding the wrong ticket-changer, which meant she was paid for her winning in $5 bills.  We, of course wondered if Cath could have exchanged those for $2 bills? Or perhaps, Sacagawea dollars?  That didn't seem to bother Cath, but it's easy to accept a little razzing when you're holding a massive stack of bills.

Harv was not as fortunate.  While he ultimately came out ahead, the video poker gods decided to torture him on at least five different occasions with four to the Royal and never delivering that final magical card that I have only seen Flip (and this our mysterious stranger from earlier in the evening) conjure up.  One near miss saw Harv complete a flush of a non-royal nature, another a straight, and he even managed a straight-flush, another thing that I failed to achieve during our time together.  Harv did discover he could have hit a Royal or two with some unconventional plays, such as discarding a paying hand to keep only a ten.  We consulted the strategy card I brought along, but there is very little information about how to play when you know the cards that are going to be dealt after you choose your discards.

Since I mentioned my failures, the astute reader will no doubt observe that I have not announced that my lifetime o-fer in the Royal Flush column has come to an end.  I came close, drawing a suited nine to make an almost-royal flush, which prompted an exasperated head-butt that somehow evaded the dreaded cash-out button.  Unfortunately, since there were no horseshoes nor any hand-grenades around close wasn't going to cut it.  On a side note, horseshoes and hand-grenades is a great idea for a slot machine.

"At least there's no way we can get drunk around here"

Our boisterous nature betrayed the fact that through our wildly enjoyable evening we remaining disturbingly sober.  I have never felt the need for alcohol for me to have a good time, but there are times in my life when I do take pleasure in enjoy an adult beverage or two, and many of those times are while I am in a casino.  However, this night the cocktail servers must have been auditioning to become bevertainers, since they conspired to make sure that there would be no doubt about my ability to operate a motor vehicle that evening.  I think one waitress visited our little party of her own volition, while we managed to summon one other.  While we were playing Cath found a supervisor type, I guess he was an aspiring pit-critter, or perhaps someone above the ranks of those confined to the pits.  Whoever he was, he had the power to summon a cocktail waitress, but not before disappearing because "someone was assaulted."  I'm still a little dubious about this man's skewed priorities, but there was no point in arguing with the man who held the power to quench my thirst in the hands that were gripped the walkie-talkie he used to call for our beverage service.  Besides, if I went much longer without a cocktail then there was a reasonable chance another assault was going to occur.

Despite our lack of booze our evening was far from sober.  We continued to be a rowdy bunch of merry men (and one woman) for several hours.  By this time our "Harrah's is great" chants had evolved into, "I love Harrah's", which we frequently announced whenever one of us hit three sixes.  Flip realized that this was "the mark of the beast" and one of us discovered that when you look at this hand very closely you can actually see the Harrah's logo.

"What do you think we are, Marines?"

Sadly, our evening soon came to and end.  Harv and Cath had hotel reservations in Vineland, which is about as close to Atlantic City as it is to Philadelphia, and Flip was ready to move around a little after being the first to notice that we had been sitting in one spot for an awfully long time.  This thought was contagious and we all soon realized that we had to break camp and move on.  He cashed out, as did Harv, which left only me to play until I reached an even number of quarters, particularly one that is payable in a multiple of $20.  I didn't quite achieve that, but did hit one last quad that allowed me to cash out $90, after an initial investment of $100.

We had played for somewhere in the neighborhood of four hours, so it was more than a little disappointing to read "$0 Cashback     $0 Future Cashback     $2 Comp Dollars" across the slot club display screen before I left.  Hopefully, that was a mistake, but Harv and Flip seemed to have earned similar comps for their play.  I remember suggesting that I could buy a candy bar, or maybe twelve minutes in a hotel room?  I then realized that the last suggestion sounded a little too much like I was talking about the places along the Black Horse Pike that cater to the twelve-minute crowd, and I don't think the Connection Club comps you for that.

With no cashback to worry about all that was left to do was cash in my $90 ticket.  Flip, Harv, and Cath were kind enough to wait for me, explaining that "we leave no one behind."  I thought that was the slogan of the Marine Corps, but I guess it's OK for LVA members to use it too.  Regardless, it was a nice gesture.

I live in a world of great contrasts

I think we said goodbye about three different times during our walk back to Bally's, but we finally went our separate and our member meet was over.  I went off in search of my elusive Royal on the $1 9/6 JoB progressives at Bally's, but didn't play very long.  I fell down a little and then worked my way back up $20 and thought it was better to leave a small winner than a big loser, with no offense to Bobknob (Warning: Inside Joke; newbies use the author search feature to read about this guy; you'll be amused).  Of course, I wasn't quite ready to leave yet, since I want to try some video slots.  It was then that I realized that Bally's sure does have a lot of reel slots, none of which looked very amusing at the time, so I moved next door to their Wild Wild West casino, where I tried several nickel slots, including Leopard Spots, Little Green Men (I wanted to see what the fuss was about this; whatever it is still escapes me), and a video Double Diamond (in honor of our own Diamond Jim).  The only creatures that gave me any more virtual nickels than I put in were the leopards, but even they eventually got hungry and started gobbling up what they had given me, so I eventually cashed out $10 behind from my brief foray onto the slot floor, and that was the end of my gambling for the evening.

Being semi-local means that I almost never finish or start my day in Atlantic City.  Before one of our meets last year I started the day attending my sister's college graduation in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in the middle of Amish country, and a couple hours later found myself in the glitter of the Borgata.  On this evening I left the hustle and bustle of the Atlantic City Boardwalk and soon found myself on the quiet causeway leading to Stone Harbor, the most tranquil town on the Jersey Shore.  There was a hint of excitement I left behind, as ESPN Classic was re-running the 2004 World Series of Poker, but the time came to shut off the television and listen to the sounds of the seashore as I drifted off to sleep.  Sunday was just as serene, as I was able to spend part of it floating around in the bay outside of our house, which offers a form of relaxation that no casino can re-create.  So, this weekend offered the best of all worlds.  Great times with a fun group of friends and a chance to rest and recharge for our next adventure.