Hello, I'm happy to participate here.
I'm in my mid 40's and have been to Vegas somewhere around 50 times. First time was in 1995. My father took me to the daily tournament at Binions. I vividly recall shaking Jack Binions hand, sitting down and getting dealt quads my first hand. I doubled up and was promptly bounced shortly after. Good times.
The VAST bulk of my last 15 years visiting Vegas has revolved around poker. I already had a good grasp of the game when the boom hit so I was in a good position to make some decent poker money over the years. I have a career, and poker is/was a hobby...but at times a significantly profitable one. But time has marched on, I have kids, wife, play poker once a year and my skills have atrophied as the player pool has gotten better. What used to be a week at Bellagio in June where I KNEW I would pay for my room, expenses and something for my time have ended, and now I generally eeek out a small profit or loss and usually not enough yo cover my expenses, and i don;t have the time or inclination to keep my poker skills current. That ship has sailed. I'll go donate my buy in dishing up some tournament but thats about it. Cash game grind has no appeal any more.
However, I still love gambling and Vegas and I take it seriously. I will likely never be an AP but when I learn a new game or skill I do it seriously, if only to maximize my value through comps and minimizing losses via skill. It's just my nature.
A year ago a lovely escort taught me DDB at the bar at Caesars. My first +EV experience with an escort! I went on to win a 2000 hit with quad aces an hour later. So I started to learn how comps worked, how to play as close to perfect strategy..etc. Then last November I went with just the goal of getting diamond at Caesars and getting the comps train going. Over four days I put in about 70k of coin in, earned diamond (up about 2k over VP and some sports) and asked the host on duty to review my play the night before I left. Everything was comped! Awesome!
I knew enough that now I wanted to seed comps at another resort so giving I was leaving in the AM I hopped a cab over to Wynn. Play 2/DDB I hit again, this time for 4k on aces. Now I'm up 6k for the trip, I'm leaving in the AM and I'm feeling frisky. So I bump it up to $5 for @25 clams a spin, way above my normal limit. Suffice it to say i walked out two hours later up about 22k. It felt like a bank heist. All I heard as I sat in the quiet casino was the cash machine in the background. Lovely.
I'm two weeks away from my next visit. Spending a week with four nights at CP and four at Wynn. All comped, with about 800 in freeplay spread across the hotels over that week. It was beginners luck. I joined the forum because I have a ton to learn. Finding the best machines, learning to ID a positive EV situation on a progressive, what casinos to frequent, how to use comps best. I'm a low/mid roller at best, usually budget 2k a day and get cheap if I start losing...but I still want to visit town for two weeks a year, and I want to learn from this forum how best to stretch my dollar and max value on comps. Thought a brief intro before Is tart posting is appropriate.
Thanks!
Jack Alope
