Just completed marathon Rincon VP trip, earning 67,500 tier credits

As I discussed previously in a different thread, I decided to cancel my Tahoe trip and replace it with a visit to the Rincon (aka Harrah's Resort Southern California).

There were three reasons for this:

1) Tahoe is too far
2) I hurt my ankle and can't ski anyway
3) Rincon has a higher return VP game than the best one at Tahoe

Thanks to nerakil for making me aware of that game (Double Super Times Pay BP).

The trip is now complete.

Will post a trip report later.

Results:

Won a nice amount of money -- nothing life-changing, but it was a good trip
67,500 tier credits earned
90 minute massage had
2 free meals & several free buffets had
Decent room in Dive Tower had for 5 nights, though not without a lot of arguing/effort to get it

I am getting close to re-earning Seven Stars.

I met forum members Aaron and FABismonte while here. I did not know that either of them were here when I started this trip.

Hotel customer service has greatly improved. It was absolutely awful in late 2013.

I will post more details later.

Congrats on a winning trip, TW! Sorry you came oh-so-close to a big pile of money. :(

http://s8.postimg.org/3u96v66qd/image.jpg

http://s4.postimg.org/uie6culgd/image.jpg

2005 Dan Druff would've binked the Qc and owned another seat cover!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nerakil

Congrats on a winning trip, TW! Sorry you came oh-so-close to a big pile of money. :(

http://s8.postimg.org/3u96v66qd/image.jpg

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That image is going to haunt my dreams forever. I will explain further in my "trip report" post here, for those who didn't hear the story on my radio show.

Always hated how I looked in that episode. The way the light shined on me made it look like I have skin problems, which I actually don't, and it also made me look pale. Look at the bracelet photo of me from just a month later, to see the difference:

http://en.academic.ru/pictures/enwiki/87/Witteles.jpg

I guess I used up my lucky Qc in 2005.

Hi Dan:

I am glad you did well on your trip despite missing out on the "almost life changing" hand. I enjoyed meeting you in person and having some wonderful chats. I too had a good trip largely due to hitting a Royal Flush on $1 Triple Play 8/5 Bonus Poker. I took a check so I could not shove the money back into the machines. Attached is my own Jackpot porn image at Rincon. I will explain later in a trip report when I have time.

FAB

Okay, so here goes the full trip report...

As I mentioned earlier, I was originally planning to go to Tahoe, ski during the day, and play VP at night. I had less enthusaism to go there once I hurt my ankle (meaning I could no longer ski), and I was dreading the 500-mile-each-way drive.

I decided instead to go to Rincon. However, I also moved the trip up a few days, meaning that I was basically calling the Rincon last minute and asking for 5 days' worth of rooms.

I reached a host on Wednesday night and told him that I wanted to come in the next day. He said that the hotel was already almost full, and that I wouldn't be able to get a non-smoking room! He put me in a smoking and handicapped room, with the note that I wanted a non-smoking, non-handicapped room, and he told me that they would try to accommodate this when doing the upgrades the next day at 2pm.

I called myself at 2pm and spoke to the hotel. They were able to move me to a non-smoking room, but it was the one right next to the elevator on the first floor. They tried to sell me on the fact that it had a patio and faces the pool, but I responded, "Doesn't that make it even noisier? So I'll be getting the pool noise AND the people-waiting-for-the-elevator noise. I don't think I'll get any sleep."

They kept insisting that it was down to a choice between a smoking room and this noisy 1st floor elevator room. They searched for about 15 minutes while I was on the phone, and still couldn't come up with anything. Finally they put on the front desk manager who said he would "work on it", which I thought was promising. Indeed, about 30 minutes later, he called me back and said that he had me blocked into a 4th floor, Dive tower (formerly Garden tower) room, which was a standard king bed, non-smoking, and not close to the elevator. Perfect.

The only issue now was the 5th night. If you guys remember, I complained in the Las Vegas portion of this forum that the host at Tahoe refused to promise me the 5th night comped, even if I ran 250k worth of VP coin-in. This was especially ridiculous because the CCS (800 number) was able to do 5 nights comped anyway! However, with the Rincon, the CCS couldn't even do 4 nights comped (it was coming up sold out), so that wasn't an option for me. Unfortunately, I was getting pushback with the Rincon, as well. They also didn't want to promise me 5 nights contingent upon my heavy play, though they had a better-sounding reason for it. The Tahoe host simply refused and said that I have to just wait to see what he feels I've earned after I've played. The Rincon host said that he can only do what the computer allows him, and that I have to put in the play to see if it will allow the 5th night. I wasn't thrilled with that answer, but decided just to leave it hanging, with the warning that I will be "very disappointed and probably not come back and play like this again" if they couldn't do the 5th night. The host said he would try his best, and to talk to him about it on Sunday after I've played some.


THURSDAY

I arrived at the Rincon late at night on Thursday. Check-in was easy, and the room was as previously described. I have to give props to the new hotel manager who took over in late 2013. The Rincon hotel had TERRRRRIBLE customer service, and tons of customer-hostile policies (remember the $80 charge if you didn't show up by 8pm?) I was promised by the manager near the end of 2013 that she was working on greatly improving the situation there, but I was skeptical. I can now say that the Rincon has good, friendly customer service in the hotel portion, which is a huge upgrade from the way it was before.

After settling in, I immediately went to play VP. I sat down at the Double Super Times Pay machine, selected 8-5 bonus poker, 50c per credit, and 5-play mode. This was essentially $17.50 per dealt hand, and would earn 1.75 tier credits each. (Alan's report from a friend that you only earn 1.25 tiers per hand was incorrect -- or at least it's no longer like that.)

There was no way I would have time to earn 5000 tiers by 5:59am (their cutoff time for the Total Rewards Day), so I aimed for 2500 tiers, which was also going to cut it fairly close, given how late it already was.

I started out HORRIBLY. Was pretty much losing every hand, and the multipliers were never in sync with any decent payouts I was getting. I quickly fell $1400 in the hole, and got scared. I had only earned about 200 base tier credits, and realized what a brutal beatdown this would be if I continued at even a fraction of this pace, given my plans to run 22,500 base tiers on the trip.

Finally, I started to hit some nice multiplier payouts. Nothing huge, but I hit a number of them, and quickly I was out of the hole.

I started to feel better about things, and was soon showing a profit, albeit not a huge one.

Some of you probably know that I had never hit a natural VP royal flush before in my life. I haven't been playing VP for too long, but still I was definitely running pretty badly when it came to hitting royals. I had soooooo many 4-to-royals in the past, without success. This was especially frustrating, because at the time I was playing $5/credit VP, meaning a royal would be $20,000, and just a single one of them would have really turned my results around.

But back to the present.

I figured that this time I had a much better chance of finally hitting that royal. I was getting dealt nearly 13,000 hands during the trip, PLUS doing 5-play. So that means I was actually running over 64,000 hands (even though it's not quite the same at 5-play, as 80% of the hands are sharing the deal with the other 20%), and you're supposed to hit a royal on average of about once every 40,000 hands.

Still, it was nowhere near a guarantee.

At 2:30am on March 6, I was just a little bit ahead and was dealt a mundane hand, where I held just the queen of spades. Then this happened:

http://toddwitteles.com/pics/vp/royal1.JPG

FINALLY

Felt so good to get the no royal flush monkey off my back. It also felt good to know that, at least so far, I wasn't going to lose a fortune in my quest to earn 67,500 tiers in one trip.

At about 4:15, I had another nice hand. I got a double multiplier, where it adds the two together. I got a 10x (best) and a 5x (also fairly good), for a total of 15x. But I only had a pair of jacks to hold...

http://toddwitteles.com/pics/vp/quadjack15x.JPG

Excellent!

I finished up the session at about 5:00am, and went to sleep.



FRIDAY

Woke up in the early afternoon, and immediately went back to the VP machine.

A few hours into the session, I was surprised by this:

http://toddwitteles.com/pics/vp/royal2.JPG

BOOM!

For the second time, I had a royal on the top-left in spades. This time, however, I held 3 cards rather than one.

I finished 2500 tier credits for the day, and took a break. Went to Rita's and had a Mexican dinner. I think Rita's has a worse reputation than it deserves. It's not great, but it's not awful. I had $100 food credit as part of the room offer I was staying under, so I used part of it here.

Went back to play more VP late at night. That's when things really started to happen.

First, at 12:18am, I hit quad aces on a 4x multiplier:

http://toddwitteles.com/pics/vp/quadaces_draw4x.JPG

Then, at 1:30am....

http://toddwitteles.com/pics/vp/royal3.JPG

FINALLY spiked a royal with 4 cards held. This has been eluding me for my entire VP playing life. Notice that these 3 royals were all without multipliers (which come about once in every 8 hands), so it was a little disappointing, but I wasn't complaining.

If that wasn't enough action in a period of 90 minutes, this hit at 1:45am...

http://toddwitteles.com/pics/vp/quadaces5x.JPG

The rest of the session was mediocre, but I more spun my wheels and didn't really lose. So it was already shaping up to be a great trip.

Continued next post...

SATURDAY

Woke up early afternoon. Went down again to play VP. Lost about 700 or so for the first few hours, and then this hit:

http://toddwitteles.com/pics/vp/royal4.JPG

That's right... royal #4. Still no multiplier, but I was thrilled at how many I was hitting.

Quit at 2500 tiers, went to dinner at Fiore, came back again late at night to do my other 2500 tiers.

That session was uneventful, and was about even. Finished with 5000 tiers for that day, and again went to bed late.



SUNDAY

Woke up for my 1pm spa appointment (I had a $100 free spa credit), but was disappointed to find that they screwed it up, and I had to reschedule. They were nice about it, and offered to give me an extra 30 minutes free the next day, for the trouble. I wasn't even asking for any form of compensation for this, so I appreciated it.

No big hands during my first VP session. Quit at around 4pm so I could do my Pokerfraudalert radio show (from my Harrah's room), which I had moved to Sunday because I wasn't able to make its usual broadcast on Tuesday night.

After the show, I went down to the buffet, which all Seven Stars members get for free. Actually, any local with Seven Stars could eat that buffet 365 days a year, twice a day, FOR FREE. Not that anyone would want to, but a lot of Seven Stars members do take advantage of the free buffet, myself included. As far as buffets go, it's okay. Not great, not terrible. If it were terrible, I wouldn't eat there, even if it was free.

While I was carrying my pasta back to my chair, a guy approached me and called out my name. Turned out it was FABismonte, who recognized me and wanted to say hello. Like Aaron, he was also a really nice guy, and I saw him a few times over the next 2 days. I had no idea FABismonte would be there.

Near the beginning of the session, I was greeted with...

http://toddwitteles.com/pics/vp/royal5.JPG

Yes, royal #5. AND STILL NO MULTIPLIER!!!

I was still very happy, but finally variance caught up. I went into an amazing tailspin.

See, up until this point, the game seemed easy. Aside from the bad start (which I quickly forgot), there was never too long of a time where I didn't hit a big hand, and never an extended slump where I was losing.

Then it happened. I dumped off $2700 straight to end the night. The 5000 tier credit mark couldn't come fast enough. I went to bed a bit annoyed, but at least feeling okay that my overall results were still good.

Continued next post...

Actually, I skipped something from Sunday, so I'll go back a bit.

Sunday was my 4th night, and I was supposed to check out on Monday at 2pm.

The problem was that I wanted to run 5000 tier credits on Monday, and combined with the fact that I was already on a very "late" schedule, I would need FAR longer than 2pm to finish everything.

So I needed that 5th night. I figured I had put in so much play ($125,000 coin-in by early Sunday evening) that I had definitely earned it.

Or did I?

I didn't know how to "find" my host, so I just walked into the high limit pit and asked for them to call my host. It turned out my host had Sunday and Monday off, so I don't know why he told me to come see him Sunday.

They called another host, and I waited for a good 25 minutes for one to come. I kept walking back up to the pit staff and asking what the holdup was, and that I would walk to wherever the host was if coming over here was the problem. They kept calling back and I kept being promised "just a few more minutes".

Finally a host showed up. I was told that he would look into it and get back to me.

I went back to play VP, and he found me there. He broke the bad news that I was DENIED the 5th night comped. I was given all kinds of nonsensical reasons, including some BS that California Gaming doesn't allow 5 night comps because they're afraid of problem gambling. Keep in mind that I was asking for a MONDAY night comp when they likely weren't busy.

This host advised me to just pay for the 5th night ($96) with my RCs, and try to get my own host to reimburse them to me later. I said no way, and that I would only do that with a guarantee that he would.

I called and texed my host on his day off, and told him again how important it was to me to get the 5th night. He called me back, and again told me that this might not be possible. I told him plainly, "I'm not paying for this 5th night in any way. Not with all the play I've given. If I don't have it by checkout time, I'm leaving and will be very disappointed with how all of this went down."

Within about an hour, I got a call back that the 5th night had been approved, proving that the "California Gaming" story given to me by that one host was BS. But at least I had the 5th night now, and that crisis was over.

Continued next post...

MONDAY

I didn't set an alarm on Monday. I had thought I would wake up around 11:30 or so naturally, since I went to bed about 4am. I was surprised to wake up and see it was 1:46pm!

So now the day was going to be REALLY late.

I also had a 90-minute massage scheduled for 4pm.

I played a little before the massage, and again lost. Recall that I already was on a $2700 downer from the end of Sunday night.

After the massage, I came back to the machines. I continued to lose. I was now another $1300 down, and was on a 4k downer overall. I still had about 3500 tier credits to go, and I was afraid that I would lose back most of what I won. It just seemed like I couldn't catch a break. I had SO many huge multipliers completely brick. 8x... 10x... double multipliers of 12x and 13x... all completely bricking off with zero of the 5 hands paying. My most frustrating moment was getting a 13x mulitiplier, holding JTQK, and bricking all 5 hands! That means I had to get 2-8 or T in all 5 hands, which I did. Unbelievable.

Finally, my luck changed when I got this:

http://toddwitteles.com/pics/vp/royal6.JPG

Yes, and with a multiplier. The worst possible multiplier, but boy was that a sight for sore eyes. My 4k downer completely erased, just like that.

Played another hour, went to the buffet, took a break, and returned at about 11:30pm to run my final 2800 tiers.

I noticed that I had not set foot outside for the entire 4 full days I was there, which is actually a personal record. Like, I can't remember the last time in my life I didn't set foot outdoors for 4 straight days.

The last 2800 tiers were mostly uneventful. Mostly spun my wheels around even, won a bit more at the end.

One thing I noticed, about 2 hours before the end of the session, was that I developed video poker carpal tunnel. My right arm HURT a lot, especially in the wrist area. I had to switch to my left arm, which was awkward for two reasons. First, I'm right handed. Second (and I've never noticed this before), VP machines are made for right-handed people. I feel bad for you lefties having to cross over as you play. The arm is mostly better now, but I'm still feeling it a bit. Guess that's what happens when you run 13,000 dealt hands in 4 days.

With about 15 minutes left in my final session on Monday night/Tuesday morning, a skinny, raspy-voiced woman who looked about 40 approached me. I had seen her walking around talking to various guys, and it was clear she was at least a semi-regular.

I'll give her credit for being polite and asking if I was busy playing, and if she was bothering me. Being curious what her deal was, I told her that it was fine, and she wasn't bothering me. Keep in mind that I have a long-term relationship and wasn't looking to get laid or anything like that. This girl had kind of a druggie look to her, and I was curious what she was going to say to me. My only concern was that she was going to bug me for money, but at that point I was just going to tell her no and get back to playing.

For my final 15 minutes of play, it was actually an interesting conversation. She described herself as a "pillhead", and told me about various troubles she's had with her life. Like, she wasn't telling me in a "feel sorry for me and give me money" sort of way, but kind of just matter-of-factly venting about everything. She also told me that a lot of the regulars who hang out a lot at Rincon have drug problems, which isn't hard to believe. When I was done playing, she said that she wished she had found me earlier, because the Double Super Times Pay game was "interesting" and she really wanted to learn it "to maybe make some money". I was about to go into the whole thing that even the best game in the house is still -EV, and that these machines aren't really good for trying to make money you really need in the short term, but I just kept my mouth shut and said something like, "Yeah, I would have shown you more, but I'm done for the night."

I got up and went to go cash out my tickets, and then she moved over to the other side and started talking to another woman there -- a younger, fairly pretty blond girl who also seemed to be a regular there, and seemed to have an endless parade of guys (also regulars?) going up and talking to her while she played. I assume the two of them knew each other, but didn't bother to find out.

As I was walking away from the machines, she saw me and yelled, "Bye, Tom! Oh... hey, Tom.. can I have five bucks?"

She wasn't joking. And she thought my name was Tom, instead of Todd (despite telling one of her friends who walked by that my name was Todd.)

I told her that I didn't have any small bills on me, which was true.

Didn't get out of the Rincon until about 3:30. Hit some traffic going west on the 91 (and other freeways that direction) because I was already running into the Tuesday morning commuters leaving from the inland empire.

Arrived home at 6am.

So I ran 67,500 tier credits, won some nice money doing it, and am getting ever so close to my Seven Stars renewal. Can't complain about that trip.

POSTSCRIPT

I can't believe I forgot perhaps the most memorable part of my trip.

The Double Super Times Pay machines will pay you a whopping 400,000 credits ($200,000 at the 50c/credit level) if the following happens:

- You are playing max coins
- You are DEALT a royal flush
- The multiplier on the deal hits

Doesn't matter which multiplier you were going to get. If the above happens, you automatically win 400,000 credits.

What are the odds of this?

Well, a dealt royal is about 1-in-649,000. The multiplier on the deal is 1-in-15.

So that makes the whole thing a whopping 1-in-9.75 million.

Needless to say, I wasn't expecting it.

BUT WAIT!

On Saturday night, I saw AcTcJc and the multiplier activated.

Now I just needed the KcQc and I would win the $200,000!

Amazingly, the next card to hit was indeed the Kc, leaving me just needing the Qc.

What was the final card?

It was a queen... but a queen of diamonds.

If that diamond was a club, I win $200k.

Unbelievable. I doubt I will ever come that close again.

As an added frustration, I drew at the royal and was awarded a lowly straight and flush, and bricked the other 3 hands.

I just sat there in disbelief. It was hard to get that out of my head for awhile. So close to a 1-in-10-million hit for 200 grand.

BTW if you were reading it as I posted it, the first post in this full trip report got corrupted and repeated certain parts a few times. I have fixed it, so if you were confused, go back and read it and it will make more sense now.

Dan, regarding this:

You are playing max coins
- You are DEALT a royal flush
- The multiplier on the deal hits

Doesn't matter which multiplier you were going to get. If the above happens, you automatically win 400,000 credits.

Even if you get a single multiplier of, for example, 4X it still pays 400,000??

Great trip report. Did you hear anything about the Tiffany giveaway?

Didn't hear about the Tiffany giveaway.

Yes, if you get ANY multiplier, it automatically pays you 400,000 credits.

This is only for the dealt royal, and only if the "deal" multiplier activates.

Congrats on all the royals, Dan. I was there Saturday morning. I saw Aaron and he showed me where you were playing so I could say hi, but apparently you were still sleeping after a hard night's work.

Hi Dan:

When we talked you had hit "only" four royals that trip. Little did I know that you would hit two more. Congratulations. It is even more shocking given that you never hit a royal before.

BTW, if you recall, what was ultimately the multiplier when you almost got the royal on the initial draw?

Regards, FAB

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FABismonte

Hi Dan:

When we talked you had hit "only" four royals that trip. Little did I know that you would hit two more. Congratulations. It is even more shocking given that you never hit a royal before.

BTW, if you recall, what was ultimately the multiplier when you almost got the royal on the initial draw?

Regards, FAB

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It was only 3x.

I wasn't sure if that was indicative that I wasn't going to get the final two royal cards, or if it just auto-converts to 20x as soon as the hand is finished dealing.

What I saw was AcTcJc, then it paused to do the multiplier, showed me 3x, and then did the KcQd.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chimp

Congrats on all the royals, Dan. I was there Saturday morning. I saw Aaron and he showed me where you were playing so I could say hi, but apparently you were still sleeping after a hard night's work.

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Yes, I was in bed every single morning there before noon.

If it makes you feel better, I briefly thought of you while I was there, and wondered if we would meet at some point. After meeting Aaron and FAB, I was thinking about the other Rincon regulars/semi-regulars from this forum, but you were the only one I had seen a picture of whom I hadn't met already. The others (like the Nashes) I have no clue what they look like, and would never recognize them.

We were not there last weekend Dan but if we were we would have stopped by to say hello. Maybe next time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

The others (like the Nashes) I have no clue what they look like, and would never recognize them.

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The Nashes are easy to spot because of their entourage and the big spread of lobster, steak, and booze that is set up for them next to the machines they are playing. When you can't find a host, Dan, it's because they are all catering to the Nashes. :D:D:D

Dan,

Alan is right on that one. We even have a table named after us at Fiore. LOL!