East Coast Gambler

Last week was a lot of looking back at my trip to Las Vegas.  There will be a few more in the coming weeks.  Unfortunately ECG is having some problems, which I’m working on getting fixed but that won’t stop the goods from going up.  I’m back home for a week before I take off again for another adventure.

Speaking of adventures, football season starts this week with some NCAA games.  I’ll be sharing my picks on my tumblr and twitter once again this year if you’re interested.  I’ll also have JMP back with his NFL picks.  So get ready!  Here are the highlights in the past week on ECG.

• Thoughts on the Venetian
• Camp Vegas
• Trump Marina Making Bank on $1 Blackjack
• Mary Connell v1.0 vs. v2.0
• Grazie Upgrade, Upgrade
• Why I Play Video Poker
• Union Not Helping Atlantic City
• Venetian Suite Review – Meh

Buy “Las Vegas” – Season One

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This was my first time staying at the Venetian and I still like it as a casino, but probably not as a place I’d like to stay.

The vibe in the casino is nice and relaxed but fun and the crowd is in the middle of the age types – somewhere between younger people and older people.

One of my favorite places in the casino was the sportsbook.  It’s pretty big and since it wasn’t NFL season it felt like a respite from the rest of the casino.

One great thing is that the Venetian sportsbook still gives out drink tickets with bets.  I received a few with my losing bet, but at least I was able to cash them in for a few awesome glasses of Blue Moon.

While I was at the sportsbook bar I cashed on 4 aces in Double Double Bonus Poker!  I was only playing $1 since I threw it in waiting for my beer.  Too bad.

I found the Venetian pretty crowded all day and night as there were a lot of tourists and families with children.  I’m a single dude and screaming kids are not what I want in Vegas.

The Grand Canal Shops were crowded with browsers, shoppers, eaters and drinkers.  I tried to avoid the shops during operating hours because of all of the people, but was happy to sneak in to grab some coffee at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.  Also, during regular hours the shops also had this CREEPY live statue.

The Venetian has done a great job branding themselves as a semi upper class family hotel without being stuffy.  It’s taken years to get that kind of equity.

On the other hand the Palazzo, which is relatively new, has not yet reached a similar critical mass.  The Shoppes were dead like they were on my other two visits.  However, for the first time in three visits the casino floor was PACKED on a weeknight.  Maybe there is a turnaround slowly happening at the Palazzo.

Food options are another thing I liked at the Venetian.  There is both quantity and quality.

The food court by the casino is easy to get to and has a nice variety of food as well as free wifi.  The full service restaurants are good as well and Delmonico is one of my favorite steakhouses in Las Vegas.

I tried First Food and Bar, which is hidden between the two hotels, and it was excellent.  It wasn’t too crowded and had interesting food such as cheese steak dumplings and ahi tuna nachos.

One negative for me as a solo traveler this trip was that there was no iphone reception inside of the Venetian Grand Lux Cafe.  I hate eating alone and keeping my head buried in my phone is usually a good trick to pass the time.  Unfortunately I couldn’t do that while eating lunch inside the restaurant.  So I scarfed down this BBQ pork sandwich and headed out ASAP.

On a better note, I was able to sit “outside” the following morning and grab some steak and eggs.  My favorite hangover remedy.

Overall, I enjoyed the Venetian and will likely continue to make it a place to visit when I’m in Vegas, but I don’t see myself staying there again. There are a lot of positives about the casino, but the wear on the rooms and the hordes of families and tourists give me reason to go elsewhere.

However, the Palazzo is both empty enough for me most of the day, but crowded enough at night in the casino to feel alive.  If given the chance to return, I would highly consider the Palazzo.

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Two years ago I realized that a friend of mine was getting better comps than I was by playing video poker in Atlantic City.  I was appalled by this.  I never thought that a game that grannies played would be given better treatment by the casinos than the table games I played.

This was the catalyst for me learning more about advantage play, payouts and percentages over two years ago.  It’s also partially the reason I started ECG.  Hopefully people can learn from my experiences – good, bad, drunk and over-caffeinated.

Since my $15 bets in blackjack weren’t accumulating comps in the way they I wanted them to, I devoted that money to learning how to play video poker.  I thought that maybe this would help my comps a little while making me a more efficient gambler.  I still play $25 hands when I play blackjack, but I tend to stay away from low limits for reasons beyond comps.

Since I began playing video poker, my comps have certainly gotten better and I’ve been able to extend my gambling day as I enjoy playing video poker in the morning before the rest of the casino is awake.  I’ve also come to learn what I like and dislike with all games and I’ve learned a lot about my own tendencies when I gamble.

This blog started as an into into my video poker play during my recent trip to Las Vegas, but was a little too long for an intro.  Look for my video poker play later this week and why I think video poker in Vegas is lame.

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Here’s a recent trip report from JMP to the Atlantic City Hilton.  It seems as if the Atlantic City Hilton Full-Pay Video Poker area may be a real deal.  Unfortunately, I don’t see them taking my business, because of location and casino demographics.  I love the moxy off adding good games to their mix in an effort to stay alive.  On to JMP.

Note: this is an actual trip report containing an actual story of actual gambling!
I recently had the good fortune of enjoying the best of both worlds when it comes to going down the Jersey Shore: we spent a week with another family to OC (where even the games of chance on their boardwalk always pay out), but the other husband and I also managed to get away Monday night to AC for some grown-up fun (and games that…. Well…. Don’t always pay out…. More on that later).

Despite the fact that both C and I like the Borgata, I wanted to be on the Boardwalk to see what it’s like on a summer weeknight.  Leading up to the ‘big night’, I was settled on Trump Plaza for their abundant full-pay 25 cent VP, but thanks to this very blog, I knew about their A/C woes.  So I called an audible to the AC Hilton b/c I had heard about their new full-pay VP area.

I strongly recommend taking local roads when going from OC to AC, but if you want to grab a coffee or something before heading out, make a detour because there won’t be a Starbucks or a Dunkin’ Donuts anywhere between the two cities.  On the plus side, you’ll get great views of AC the closer you get, especially of the ‘video’ playing on Harrah’s Waterfront Tower if you happen to travel at night.  Having said that, I’ll talk about the best way to get home later on.

As you can probably guess, we did NOT take a detour so C could get coffee, so upon parking at the AC Hilton, we immediately had to walk up to the Trop for his fix.  (Ed: I would have gone to Cappuccino’s at the Hilton for coffee, I don’t like waiting.) Despite the darkness, we could see that some upgrades have been made to the facades of many of the stores and possibly one or two new establishments as well (for example, I don’t think I’ve noticed a ‘Playcade’ before).  Despite the upgrades, the boards were dead at around 10:30 pm on this Monday night.  I think they need better overhead lighting, too.  When we got to the Trop, we were really dismayed to find the Starbucks was ALREADY CLOSED!  What does it say about the Trop (or AC in general) when the Starbucks Corporation takes a look at the numbers from that location and says “You know what?  You guys can close early from now on.”?

With caffeine in our systems (I had a Pepsi in the car on the way up), we proceeded to the AC Hilton for some VP and some free alcohol to counter said caffeine’s effects.  The full-pay area was VERY easy to find.  We’re not just talking about 2 banks of 6 machines each here; they have what must be a 50×30 area filled with various forms/denominations of full-pay, with signs advertising as such all above it.  It was a lot bigger than vpfree2 made it seem.

Since the casino, overall, was pretty dead, we had no problems finding adjoining machines.  C is sorta new to VP, so naturally he hit a straight flush pretty quickly.  I, on the other hand, proceeded to grind my way through about 1.5 hours, slowly bleeding credits.  Long story short, you need more than your fair share of full-houses and quads to just break even at VP and I was hitting at a level a bit below that.  Somewhere in there, C took his winnings over to the $5 craps table, only to return 20-30 minutes later with a story about a guy hurling the dice overhand thinking he was Johan Santana, but in reality he was more like Ollie Perez (the dice kept leaving the table).

Read the rest of this entry →

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I was away in Las Vegas all week and was only able to get a few post up.  If you were following on twitter you saw what I was doing a good amount of my trip and if you follow my posterous you saw many (not all) of the pictures I was able to grab.  I’ll share more stories in the coming weeks, but here’s what I was able to get to last week.

• Optional Resort Fees at Venetian
• Atlantic City Pictures
• Will Claridge Make It?
• Las Vegas Video Poker Research

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As I always do, I’m prepping a trip to Las Vegas with video poker research.  I don’t think I’ll be gambling at most of these casinos, but I want to make sure I have the information in case I decide to.  Of course, I can always visit the vpFREE mobile site, but I still use ECG for my research.

Nothing too surprising here, the list states that the Venetian has $1 9/6 Jacks or Better machines.  I don’t remember seeing that in April and the comments mention they the machines are gone.  I’m sure they are gone, but I’ll look.

Here are findings of places I’ll possibly gamble.

Aria
99.54% JoB (FP): $5(3 lines, 5 lines)
99.17% BP (FP): $1(SP), $5(SP)
98.98% DDB (FP): $1(SP), $2(SP), $5(SP)
98.91% LV Airport/Illinois Deuces: $1(SP), $2(SP), $5(SP)
98.45% JoB: $1
97.30% JoB: $1(Prog)

Bally’s
99.54% JoB (FP): $5, $10, $25, $100
99.17% BP (FP): $5, $10, $25, $100
98.01% BP: 25c, $1(3 lines, 5 lines), $2, $5
97.87% DDB: 25c(Prog)

Bellagio
99.54% JoB (FP): $5, $10(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines), $25(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines), $100
99.17% BP (FP): 25c(SP), $1(SP), $2(SP), $5(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines, SP), $10(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines)
99.11% DB: $2(SP), $5(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines, SP)

Bills
98.01% BP: 25c(Prog)
97.87% DDB: 25c(Prog)
97.30% JoB: 25c(Prog)
96.77% Colorado Deuces: 25c(Prog)

Caesars Palace
99.54% JoB (FP): $5, $10, $25, $100
99.17% BP (FP): $5, $10, $25, $100
97.30% JoB: 25c(3 lines, 5 lines, Prog), 50c(3 lines, 5 lines)

Encore
99.54% JoB (FP): $5(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines, SP), $10(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines, SP), $25, $50, $100
99.17% BP (FP): $5, $10, $25
98.01% BP: 25c(Prog), 50c, $1(Prog), $2

Harrahs
99.54% JoB (FP): $5, $10, $25, $100
99.17% BP (FP): $5, $10, $25, $100
98.98% DDB (FP): $5
98.91% LV Airport/Illinois Deuces: $5
98.01% BP: 25c(Prog), 50c, $1
97.87% DDB: 25c(Prog)

Imperial Palace
99.54% JoB (FP): $1
98.01% BP
97.30% JoB

M Resort
99.54% JoB (FP): 25c
99.40% Ace$ (FP): 25c
99.17% BP (FP): 25c, 50c, $1
99.11% DB: 25c, 50c, $1
98.98% DDB (FP): $1, $2, $5, $10, $25

MGM Grand
99.54% JoB (FP): $1(100 lines, 50 lines), $2(100 lines, 50 lines), $5(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines), $10, $25(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines), $50(3 lines, 5 lines), $100(3 lines)
99.17% BP (FP): $5
98.91% LV Airport/Illinois Deuces: 25c(10 lines, 50 lines)

Mirage
99.54% JoB (FP): $5(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines), $10(3 lines, 5 lines), $25(3 lines), $50, $100
99.45% BDW (FP): $5, $10, $25
99.17% BP (FP): $1, $5, $10(Prog), $25(Prog)
99.11% DB: $1, $10
98.98% DDB (FP): $10
98.45% JoB: $5(Prog)
97.30% JoB: 25c(Prog

NYNY
99.54% JoB (FP): 25c, $1, $2, $5(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines), $10(3 lines, 5 lines), $25
99.17% BP (FP): 25c, $1, $2, $5(3 lines, 5 lines), $10(3 lines, 5 lines), $25
98.98% DDB (FP): 25c, $1, $2
98.91% LV Airport/Illinois Deuces: 25c, $1, $2

Palazzo
98.91% LV Airport/Illinois Deuces: $5, $10, $25
98.45% JoB: $1(SP), $2(SP), $5(SP), $10, $25
98.44% JW: 25c, 50c, $1
98.01% BP: 25c(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines, SP, STP), 50c(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines, SP), $1(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines, SP)

Planet Hollywood
99.54% JoB (FP): $5, $10, $25
99.17% BP (FP): 50c, $1(3 lines, 5 lines), $2(3 lines, 5 lines), $5(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines), $10(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines), $25(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines), $100
99.11% DB: $5(3 lines), $10(3 lines), $25(3 lines)

Red Rock
100.76% FPDW (FP): 25c
100.17% DB (FP): 25c, 50c, $1
100.15% LDW (FP): 25c, 50c, $1
100.13% SBDW: 25c, 50c, $1
100.07% DDB: 5c(NS), 10c(NS), 25c(NS), 50c, $1
99.92% TDW (FP): 5c
99.17% BP (FP): 25c(5 lines, MS, Prog), 50c(5 lines, MS), $1(5 lines, MS, Prog)

Venetian
98.45% JoB: $1(3 lines, SP, STP), $2(SP), $5(SP)
98.44% JW: 25c, 50c, $1
98.01% BP: 25c(3 lines, 5 lines), 50c(3 lines, 5 lines), $1(3 lines, 5 lines), $5(Prog)
97.87% DDB: 5c(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines, QQ), 10c(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines, QQ

Wynn
99.54% JoB (FP): $5(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines, SP), $10(10 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines, SP), $25(3 lines, 5 lines), $100
99.17% BP (FP): $5, $10
99.11% DB: $5, $10
98.01% BP: 25c(Prog), $1(Prog)

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