Trip Report.. LV/Laughlin

[MikeA]

[QUOTE=MikeA]  I'm sure not having any success so far on Fremont St.
Mike, you're in LV? Did you try the Plaza or the Main st. Station? Head south down Fremont to Az. Charlies. New card players get $100 back after $100 coin-in(so to speak). Or go to Boulder station or Sams Town. All within a mile of each other on the same stretch of Boulder Hwy.[/QUOTE]
 
Yes.  In LV now on Fremont.  We play quite a bit at AZ Charlies on Decatur.  Honestly, I've been playing a LOT more Blackjack and doing pretty well at it. 
 
There are PE quarter games around if you look for them.  None for nickels...or at least they have elluded me.
 
It was the same down in Laughlin for VP....Quarters good but nickels BAD. 
 
BJ was a different story.  Some casinos down there, like Harrah'$ (where we were comped our stay) had nothing but 6:5 Single Deck blackjack unless you went up to $15 or $25 a hand.  Same thing at Colorado Belle.
 
We stopped at Edgwater on the way out and I played one hand on a Single Deck 6:5 table simply because I had to kill time and there was nothing interesting in VP for me.  Why One Hand?  I got a Blackjack on the hand and they payed me even money because I had only bet $2.  I'd have gotten $3.50 for the BJ had I bet $3.  But had I been on a "real" black jack table, I would have gotten $3 for the $2 blackjack.  Don't Play 6:5 Blackjack!  IT IS A TOTAL RIPOFF BY THE CASINOS!!!!!
 
Instead, I sat down at a $2 table at Edgewater that was a 6-deck game dealt out of a Constant Shuffle Machine. As an AP, CSMs OFFEND me because you cannot gain any advantage playing against them.  But like I said, I was killing time and the BJs paid 3:2 and you could double after splitting.  I was playing THREE $2 hands and actually ended up a little ahead before coloring up.
 
However, there were some good Single Deck 3:2 tables at Riverside.  I got onto a good $5 Double Deck game at Pioneer.  The Pioneer....all machines were hand pay!  That's the kind of casino my wife HATES!   She plays slots and moves from machine to machine very frequently.  The only bad thing for her was she was CLEANING UP THERE!  I was sitting at a $5 Double Deck table and it was a good one.  The dealers were giving us 75% penetration!!!!  I think I cleared a bit over $100 at that casino alone in about an hours time and though the Pit Bosses were beginning to give me funny looks, I enjoyed it.  After getting well ahead, I went back to straight Basic Strategy and had a blast joking with the other players.  Once I got under the radar.  I guess they were uncertain enough about my play NOT to back me off <LOL>
 
I got lucky at Golden Nugget and found a $10 table that they had lowered minimums to $5  that they bumpped to $10 right after I sat down so I was grandfathered.  I did very well at both casinos on the tables.
 
Well, I've been on the forum here since we walked in the room on Fremont so I guess I'd better go get me a deep-fried-twinkie and get down to business.

[Webman]

MikeA, I've moved your post as requested. Now get off of this forum and back into your deep friend twinkie! 

[MikeA]

MikeA, I've moved your post as requested. Now get off of this forum and back into your deep friend twinkie! 
 
Thanks WM.  I'll finish it off when I get back to Wichita.  I seem to be rushing around a lot more than I prefer on this trip and right now, I have to get the computer shut down and packed and meet my wife in 5 minutes downstairs to head for the airport. 
 
See you TONIGHT!

[MikeA]

Nickel Video Poker in LV and Laughlin is just about worthless now.  The best I found in the DDB variety was 9/6 at the Las Vegas Club, Plaza and Main Street Station.  The other casinos we visited this trip only had it at 9/5, 8/5, 7/5 and even 6/5.  Consequently, I played relatively little Video Poker and had no good fortune at any casino.  A shame.  I really enjoy playing it but do not allocate enough of my bankroll to it to play at the Quarter Level.Now, if the trend continues and Blackjack deteriorates even further, I may have to start considering moving to Quarters.  But for now, there is still a fairly good selection of Blackjack for a Nickel Ploppie to choose from.El Cortez is by far the best that I've found.  They have a good Double Deck game with a side bet that can be beaten.  It's pretty simple really.  Called "Royal Match" you are paid 2.5 for 1 on any first two cards in the same suit.  If they happen to be the King and Queen then you are paid 25 for 1.  I don't play those side bets much, but on this table, the minimum bet is $3 so tossing out a $1 chip every once in a while is sort of fun.  Many of the players will bet the minimum on the blackjack hand but as much as $25 on the side bet!  They have all the good rules EXCEPT that the dealer hits soft seventeens and they do not allow either Early or Late Surrender.  I did very well at this table the two times I played there.I didn't fare nearly as well anywhere else.  Plaza has all but eliminated Blackjack in their casino.  It was almost heartbreaking to walk in and see that the rules they instituted three years ago were still in effect...they changed to dealer hitting soft seventeens, and to no double after split.  Well this trip they further raped the game by eliminating Double Deck all together and moving to 4 deck instead!Fortunately, Binion's and Fremont have introduced $5 Double Deck all the time now where before, they only went to $5 when business was slow.  However, you cannot double after splitting at either of these two casinos.Main Street Station and California Club both have the same rules on $5 tables as Fremont and Binion's.  Fitzgerald's has $5 single deck (3:2 on Blackjack but they only allow doubling on 10's and 11's).Four-Queens has eliminated Double Deck for $5 other than at slow times.  They have introduced a new table though.  It is an Eight Deck table for $5 that has all the good rules PLUS EARLY SURRENDER!  I doubt that the Early Surrender will last.  At best, I'm pretty sure they will change it to Late Surrender.  The reason that I say that is that when I first sat down, around three hands into the session, I was dealt a 15 and the dealer was showing an Ace.  When she asked if anyone wanted to take Insurance, I gave her the Surrender signal and asked her to take it.  She didn't know if she could so she called the Pit Boss over and asked.  The Boss looked sort of perplexed but finaly shrugged and said "Go ahead."  Neither the dealers nor most players know how to use the Surrender feature correctly according to Basic Strategy.  But when used properly, the EARLY Surrender option ADDS .6% (over 1/2%) to the players advantage.  In fact, with the rules that the table has at Four-Queens, the Player is playing at a -.06% advantage....99.94%.  Any way you look at it, that is about as close to even as you will ever see without seeing the number of decks reduced to TWO with the same rules!  UNBELIEVABLE!But I didn't discover that table until I was going up to the room the last night I was there and didn't get to play it more than about a half hour.  I lost at the table but really didn't give it a chance to let me recover.  I just ran out of time!Really, that's about it.  We had a lot of fun while we were there.  Hit a lot of casinos.  All of them on Fremont except for the Western and the Gold Spike.  Outside of Vegas, we visited Arizona Charlie's (Decatur), Fiesta Rancho, Slots-O-Fun (part of the Circus Circus complex) and Terrible's.  In Laughlin, we went to Harrah's, Riverside, Golden Belle, Edgewater, Pioneer and Golden Nugget.If you would like to view some pictures of the trip (around 100 of them) you can check them out HERE There are some captions underneath the pics.  Some are blurred for they were attempts at catching fireworks displays from the top of the Binion's building which is the tallest in the Downtown area and they were taken at night without a tripod.The same excuse holds for some of the pics of the Colorado River from our hotel room at Harrah's at around 5:30am.  Some of them turned out okay though.  Unfortunately, there were a couple that were taken under normal conditions but I had forgotten to change the camera setting back to normal!

[marie meijer]

Sounds like a great getaway! Thanks for sharing your pix. 

[bigsteve5273@yahoo.c]

That was a lot of casinos you visited.   How many days were you in the state? 

[MikeA]

That was a lot of casinos you visited.   How many days were you in the state? 
The flight landed successfully (always a good thing!) ar around 2:15 local time and we had picked up our rental car and were in the hotel by 4pm Friday July 4.  Our flight home lifted off at 9am local time and we were on the ground by 1pm CDT and home before 2:00pm Wednesday afternoon.  The flight is an early one and we have to leave to drop the car off and get to the airport by 6:15 or 6:30 to play it safe, so there is not much happening for us on the day we leave.  That would make it 5 nights and 4 days.Yeah, we cover a lot of ground.  I is rare that my wife and I both find a casino totally acceptable.  If the ambiance is not right or the machines don't seem to be hitting or maybe they are only hand pay, my wife won't like it.  If the VP sucks and there are no low limit Blackjack tables with playable rules, then "I" won't like it.  We have found only a couple that are completely unacceptable regardless of how well the games pay or how good the tables rules  are:  The "Longhorn" down close to "Sam's Town";  "Gold Spike" just north of Fremont St; and finally the "Western" which is East on Fremont past the El Cortez.  These places are just DIVES missing only the spittoons and sawdust on the floor.  You still check your pistols at the door and watch where you step lest you poke your foot with a broken needle.With that said, I myself had fun and won at both the Longhorn and the Western but all three places literally scared my wife to death so we don't go to any one of those three any more.  I did read sometime ago, the the Gold Spike was completely renovating and was opening up some table games but I forgot to go check it out.  I think the renovation was supposed to have been completed this month (July 2008).The one place we didn't make it to was Skyline Casino down around Henderson somewhere.  My wife had heard some pretty good things about it but it just didn't fit into our schedule.

[Webman]

Great pictures, MikeA. Thanks for sharing!

[EDC1977]

Mike, you didn't care to gander at the River Palms? Some good games downstairs however most are coin acceptor games. 1 bank of nickels MG/MD had some 9/6 DDB and NSUD. If you don't mind lugging around the buckets of coins, it is worth the visit.

[shadowman]

The one place we didn't make it to was Skyline Casino down around Henderson somewhere.  My wife had heard some pretty good things about it but it just didn't fit into our schedule.

 
Skyline is a small casino but it has FPDW (I didn't check but it could have nickel). It's quite smokey which is not a plus in my book so I never returned.