I almost blew it overnight at Rincon... and I almost blew it not once, not twice but three times in following the discipline of sticking to win goals. Here's what happened:
I showed up at Rincon to use $300 of free play. I went to a $1 9/6 Double Double Bonus game (maybe the last 9/6 DDB in the place) and hit two quads for payoffs of $250 each. At one point I had a max of $450 on the meter... but I never quit. Eventually I lost it all including the $300 of free play.
So I went to the ATM and took out $500 which is not a bad thing to do as it is well within my budget.
I went to an 8/5 Bonus game, put in the $500 and hit a couple of quads and quickly doubled and had a max on the meter of $1020. Did I quit after the 100% profit? No. I kept playing trying to win more (greed factor) and lost it all.
Back to the ATM for another $500. And this time to the high limit room for my favorite $5 8/5 Aces and Faces machine -- where I got very lucky.
The quads were with me! With my $500 in the machine the first quads I got were 8s for $625, then Kings for $1,000 and then Jacks for $1,000 and then Kings again. After about an hour I had a little more than $1,000 in credits on the machine and two $1,000 tickets that the machine spit out. In all, a profit of about $2,500. Did I quit then? No. I was a greedy son-of-a-bitch.
I kept playing till I only had $375 left, and I felt like an idiot putting back so much. And then I got lucky. Quad aces for $2,000. Did I quit? No.
I kept playing, and put back $1,200 and again I felt like a jerk. But again my lucky stars came through after I said a few prayers... and I got quad aces again.
After the second quad aces I was determined to go home with a nice profit, and I did. But I did play a bit more and luckily had quad queens to make up for some of the second quad aces I put back in the machine. And I am glad I had this "close call" with "lack of discipline" because I hope it will prevent bigger mistakes in the future.