I travelled to Las Vegas a number of times before but always landing there on a Thursday night and departing on the red eye flight on Saturday night, basically having 2 full days. Sometimes, I travelled on a wednesday and returned on Sunday. However, after analyzing the past year, after expoenses, I was barely making $20 an hour for about 10-15 hours of play. So, this year, I changed plans and on my second trip to Las Vegas this year, I left on a Monday night, returned on the red eye flight on Friday, essentiually having 4 full days to play. Given my age and stamina, that amounted to about 6 hours a day of playing or 24 hours for the trip. I actually ended up playing only 16 hours. I played mostly DD games (90%) and some 6 deck games. First the brief bottom line..but unusual results..
Arrived late Monday night, went out to play Tuesday. Played about 6 hours in 7 casinos and ended the day up $1100. Next day, Wednesday, again I played about 6-7 casinos, ended up losing the $1100 plus another $400. Had my single luckiest day on Thursday and won $3300. I decided not to play on Friday. I had won about $2800+ after expenses. Either I wanted to preserve my win and grin my way home or more likely, I was burnt out and simply wanted to take the day off.
Here were some of the issues I faced. I had planned to play anonymously (while giving a bit rated play at the casinos I was comped) but elected to use my players card more often. I just did not know how to plan my day. For instance, I was up each day and ready to go out. As an example, I got into my rental car the first day, headed downtown for a short session at the sweaty spaniard. Won a small amount, was getting too much attention which dissipated when I decided to pull out my players card ("I got so many cards, dont know if I have yours and put 10+ cards on the table, found theirs). They probably looked me up, noticed I had not been there in months, went elsewhere and left me alone to play both, the SD and DD game. I left the place, drove down to Boulder Station but only one $10 table open on a Tuesday morning, no one playing. I played but the pit not being busy, stood over the table. Drove next to Sunset but again, empty at about 10:00 a.m. Drove down to Green Valley and played there a while, few patrons around, pit keeping a close eye.
I just did not know what casino to target on an early week day morning. I prefer a bit busier pit, a few more tables for them to observe, etc. I did not really want to play on the strip (I hate parking fees) but ended up going to the Tropicana one day. I sat at the lone DD table one morning and won on my first shoe. It was in the second Dd shoe that I got my first BJ and its then that I found out I was playing a 6:5 table. I colored up immediately and left. Nothing available as far as $25 DD at MGM, walked across to NYNY and played the $25 DD game with just one other person. Again, early weekday morning, only 1 BJ table an d heat. They called "checks play" on a $100 bet even after I had just moved up after a $75 bet. In any case, I did not play on the strip after that.
I felt most comfortabe playing early evening/late afternoon on week days because tables were available but enough players playing so pit was kept busy and no serious scrutiny. Finding good DD games at low stakes in the evenings were a problem because I only had tables for a while before enough playetrs sat down gto where I had to move on (I dont like playing DD with more than 3 spots taken).
So, I need to find which casinos to play when...weekday mornings, evenings, weekends and such. I sense that the local places dont really start going before noon and should consider the strip or downtwon for early mornings, local casinos for the afternoons and early evenings and maybe 6 deck games for the busier evening and weekend/event days.
I need to learn to be comfortable with heat and back offs. With heat, I found myself playing too conservatively, spreading mostly 1-5 on DD games, leaving when up just $300+ or under 45 minutes, often using the players card to dissipate heat. I learned I could do quite well even playing red chip games where less heat was prevalent. In any case, my next trip is scheduled for Colorado in May.
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Originally Posted by ZeeBabar
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