Eight days of pandemic Vegas

As soon as work lifted the travel ban in June, I immediately booked a conference at Mandalay Bay. I've found ILTAcon to be easily pay for itself in the advice I find and tricks I learn to make my job easier, but you're not here to read about that, so I'll skip over the information you don't care about, and I'll jump right into the Vegas content.

Sunday, August 22:

Pro tip: If you can find a cheap rate on Southwest for a time that you're willing to fly, even if it's painfully inconvenient, book it months in advance if you can. When they change their schedule, which they seem to frequently do about 45 days out, you're allowed to rebook on any of their flights between the same two points, +/- 14 days. Book a 5:30 AM departure, they change the flight time by 5 minutes, and "oh, that just won't work for me," and I'm on the much nicer 9:45 AM plane to Vegas.

The rental car center had a LOT more cars this time than they did in my early June trip. No issues there. My wife and I stopped at Target for water and a few other necessities, then headed south. In a small strip mall roughly halfway between South Point and M Resort is celebrity chef Jet Tila's Dragon Tiger Noodle. Pick some veggies, pick a protein, pick a broth from the tap, and you get a cheap, delicious, spicy, fast soup. I'd recommend it if you're in the area, but I don't think it's worth a special trip.

Knowing how far away the parking garage is from Mandalay Bay's front desk, I made the rare choice to valet the car. Car's gone, bags are whisked away, and I wander to the lobby.

Although MGM pushes their mobile app for check in, it doesn't work when you've book with your work e-mail address through the convention's contracted hotel agency. Sure, my personal NYNY reservation for later in the week is in the app, but it has no idea my Mandalay reservation is tied to the same human. 

At left, the failure towers.
At center on the dark asphalt, Janet Airlines.
At right, near a billboard, Speed: The Scrap Metal.

I figured that because it was 3:00 PM exactly, the line for check-in would be brutal. But no, no big deal. It's Sunday, and the check-in line had maybe five people in front of me. The front desk got my accounts tied together, and asked if I wanted a low floor strip view or a high floor mountain view. Higher the better, I said, so we ended up three floors below the Foundation Room, looking at "mountains." Of more interest than the hills, it's a view of the SkyVue failure towers (which one bartender told a conference vendor were actually built as a monument to the Route 91 shooting victims. sigh.), Janet Airlines, and the remnants of Speed: The Ride.

Conference stuff happened, and really all I have to say is that the attendance was maybe 25% of their previous conferences. A lot of the conference was virtual, including several sessions with 100% virtual presenters, which was frustrating, but in these continuing times of extreme fuckery, you roll with what you get.

A vendor I'd never heard of, and likely never will again, invited conventioneers up to Skyfall lounge, so I put in a few minutes there, drank a free drink, took the obligatory evening photos, and politely excused myself. It's my first tightly packed maskless crowd of the trip, which is slightly weird, slightly a risky adrenaline rush, and quickly easy to forget that things should be different. Many more of these tight packed eating and drinking experiences will happen the next seven days. Despite my reckless behaviour, I somehow managed to not catch the 'rona, but post-trip, I've put myself in a 10-day modified quarantine, just to keep the rest of my friends and neighbors safe. Enough forced socializing. Vegas awaits.

One row, +$200

The epic Video Poker Primer thread on Vegas Message Board listed a moderately crappy 6/5 Bonus Poker machine just outside the high limit room. That was to become my home base of gambling for the next four days. It certainly helped that less than 30 minutes into my first session of the trip, I was dealt quad aces for $200. Too bad the rest of the trip went downhill from there.

Around 10 PM, I caught the tram to Excalibur (when was the last time both trams were functioning? 2005?) wandered around there looking for a $5 table, gave up, donated some money to the slot machine gods, gave some more up to a random crappy video poker machine, then caught the last tram back to Mandalay to call it a night. I've actually got work and conference stuff to do this week, so no late nights, I promise.

Monday, August 23:

Let's flashback to an e-mail thread from the Wednesday before:

Vendor, 12:54 PM: Have you ever been to Best Friend or Hell’s Kitchen?

Me, 2:28 PM: I’ve not yet been able to snag a reservation at Hell’s Kitchen – my wife and I have tried unsuccessfully our last two trips. It seems you’ve gotta reserve months in advance. 

Best Friend is one of my favorites. I never thought I’d love eggplant, but Chef Choi’s was so smooth and melty. Yum

Vendor, 2:31 PM: If I cannot get Hell’s Kitchen would you like to show me Choi’s with your wife?  My treat?

Me, 2:36 PM: That would be wonderful! Company ethics rules are that I’d have to pay for my wife’s dinner, but I can happily accept your offer for myself.

Vendor, 3:28 PM: Just sent you an invite…Monday, 12:30…Hell’s Kitchen lunch!!

Seared scallops, Beef Wellington, and sticky toffee pudding, on a vendor's expense account? Oh, Vegas, you keep giving. Only issue: I've got a session ending at 12:30 and another one starting at 2:30. I can leave the first session a little early, but I don't want to miss the 2:30 one. Can I make it?

OK, so the plan is for the wife to get the car from Mandalay's valet at 12:10 while I leave the session at 12:05. It's a 15 minute walk from the convention center to the valet, meaning the car and I should arrive around the same time, 12:20. We drive to Caesars, throw the keys at the valet there, and rush into the restaurant right on time.

Well, that's the plan. It turns out the Mandalay valet is backed up. The car doesn't arrive until 12:25. I zip over to Caesars, and... 

No valet here. No cars allowed.
(📸JamesInLasVegas)

I knew better, but forgot.

I throw my wife out of the car despite the security guards' mumbled protests, then zip back to the new "official" valet area, which, by the time I get there, I realize it's so far back, I might as well park in the Caesars garage myself. I run through the casino and arrive at lunch around 12:45, disheveled. My wife is patiently waiting in the entryway, the vendor's already got a table, and I'm soon tucking in to tasty, tasty scallops and beef. It's as good as GR Steak at Paris used to be.

We chat and eat and eat and chat, and at 2:00 realize, well crap, I've got to be in a session at the back of Mandalay Bay in less than 30 minutes. Check, please! Sticky toffee pudding to go, please!

So if I plod all the way back to the parking garage, there's no way I'll make the session in time. However, in the front of the parking lot, in the spot where on the eve of New Years 1968 Evel Knievel launched himself into the pavement, Caesars currently has a taxi stand. We left the car in Caesars garage, and cabbed back to Mandalay, where I made it to the session just in time.

At the end of the conference day, after a vendor dinner event, I headed up to the room, ate a room-temperature Sticky Toffee Pudding (still good, just not great), then wander north with loose plans of getting the car. I want a $5 craps table on a Monday night. Is that too much to ask?

It is. It's $15 at Luxor, NYNY, Park MGM. $10 at Excalibur. I don't even remember if Aria, Bellagio, or Cosmo had it below $25; I doubt it. Caesars sure didn't, but I remembered that I wanted to chase their "Quest for Rewards" this trip, so burned $40 in a slot chasing 25 tier credits. For what? I dunno.

Still, I want a $5 craps table. I also need to hit a grocery store for some drink mixer we forgot to get at Target, so I head east on Flamingo to Albertsons, and on my way back, I'm like "Silver Sevens? That dive has to have a $5 table." Nope. Despite the fact that their craps table likely doesn't even have a changeable sign, the pit boss had scrawled the $10 limit on a piece of paper like the ad for a kid's lemonade stand and taped it to the table limit sign. Nobody was playing. I checked the VPFree2 video poker listing, and despite having several good games listed, they all seemed to be gone as well. I donated more than I should've to Silver Seven's slots (those room offers are gonna be rolling in again!), and headed back to the car. Hmm. Ellis Island or Rio should have a $5 table, right? Which one?

As I drove west on Flamingo, I missed the turn on Koval to Ellis Island. So Rio it is.

What a dark, empty den of sadness.

Vegas is back?

I wandered for a bit, seethed at discovering this empty dive also had $10 craps tables, burned through $80 chasing 25 tier credits there, and left. I don't think I'll be back until the new owners gut and revive it. (Spoiler: I'm wrong.)

Tuesday, August 24:

It's mostly conference stuff, all day and into the night. Vendor drinks and snacks in a conference room at 5:00. Another vendor party at Rí Rá at 6:00 (free snacks and Guiness). A brief break where I go to Luxor to lose $40 on slots but win $50 on bubble craps ($5 limit, c'mon, press the button!), then back to Mandalay's center bar/club Eyecandy. 

A vendor there has an open bar for us and all the tacos you can eat. The thumping's good, the closeness of the crowd is not, so I excuse myself to my very nearby home base video poker machine, which isn't nearly as kind as it was on day 1, taking my Benjamin in about an hour.

Wednesday, August 25:

The view from the Foundation Room.
It's no Skyfall, but it's close.

After the conference day is over, I finally have time for dinner with my wife. She picks Wolfgang Puck's Lupo and their ravioli. I have the chicken parm. Both are very good. We part ways and I head up to a vendor event in the Foundation Room. It's the same vendor who treated me to Hell's Kitchen, and at the party, he asks my thoughts on Best Friend.

It's outstanding, I said, but it really should be experienced with several people so that you can share dishes. I cautioned that I found it difficult to get reservations for a group of any size. He rounded up his co-workers, asked if they wanted to try for tonight, and they all said yes. He asked me if I wanted to join him, but having just had dinner, I had to decline.

No matter, he couldn't get reservations for tonight anyway. But tomorrow? He asks me again. Sure, I'm in.

Back in the room, she's tired, so I decide it's gonna be the night to go to Fremont. I only know of one place down there that will give me free parking, so at around 8:30 PM I flash my card and get waved into the El Cortez parking garage. VPFree2 had just reported the arrival of eight new 98.98% Double Double Bonus Poker machines, so I played through a hundred bucks on one of those, all the while surrounded by people who, judging by their masks, believe they breathe out of their chins. Maybe they do. I mean, it's the El Cortez, which has the most oxygen tanks per dealer of any casino in Nevada. 

Fremont on a Wednesday night.

I get it in my mind that I should play at every joint on Fremont Street, just to make sure I keep my players card points alive. Never mind that most of my players card point balances down there are zero, it's a goal. I also promise myself that I'll be back in the car by midnight so I can be responsible and work tomorrow.

First mistake: on the way out of El Cortez, I decide to toss $20 in a slot machine. It becomes 60¢ quickly. I look for a machine to burn a 60¢ ticket in, and instead find the Madonna:Express Yourself slot machine. I put $20.60 in. It becomes a few cents. I put another $20 in. It becomes a few cents. I reach for another $20, but all I've got is a $100. It goes in. I promise myself I'll stop when it's down to $50. 

It's down to $5 and I still haven't hit a single bonus on this thing. Then, as if the Material Girl felt sorry for me, it finally hit one of the small bonuses that brought me back up to $50. I run away, down Fremont to The D.

Sticking with the theme, I play the Britney slot machine, which puts out a lot more bonus rounds. I leave up 18¢, then pick some random slots at Four Queens, Golden Nugget, and the Fremont before I run out of time and have to drive back to Mandalay. The street was a little crowded, the circle performers were displaying their wares, the band was rocking covers of something, and masks were clearly optional.

Thursday, August 26:

Is it really a trip to Vegas if you
don't have one of Chef Andrés' 
Salt Air Margaritas? I think not.

It's the final day of the conference, and the final session ends up being one whose advice might just pay for this whole shebang several times over. I take a long lunch with my wife at China Poblano at Cosmo, where I upgrade my players card one level above the base tier for the first time ever (thanks, expensive June room). The food at China Poblano is good, as always, and I feel even better knowing some of my money is going to Chef José Andrés and his World Central Kitchen charity, which, if you're not aware of it, can be summed up in his two latest retweets:

@NateMook: While we’ve been non-stop in Louisiana, I just learned that #ChefsForAfghans expanded to Philly. @WCKitchen got the call late at night for meals for 40 Afghan refugees at Philadelphia Airport. Our local team at @baology delivered these halal meals from Healthy Picks restaurant

@WCKitchen: With power still out across much of Louisiana, we began handing out solar lights Electric light bulb along with dinner tonight. In Houma, a community hit incredibly hard by Hurricane #Ida, the team served plates of pasta yesterday and cajun chicken stew tonight! #ChefsForLouisiana

On the way back to the car, I place my once-a-trip roulette bet: $100 on a single number on a single-zero wheel. It loses, but one of these days I'll be on a Vegas trip and suddenly have an extra $3600 to spend (or, more likely, save for my next trip. Yes, really).

I skip the closing keynote (it doesn't apply to my work) and the closing reception (pajama party? really?). Overnight, I re-listened to Mark and Dr. Mike's episode 237, Low Rolling at High-Limit Craps, so before dinner at Best Friend, I check out Luxor's craps table. $10. I pull out $100 and a players card, but as I hand it over, I see the sign had changed to $15. 

"Never mind," I say. 

"$10?" asks the pit boss, "I'll grandfather you in." 

I've said it before, but Luxor seems to have the craps crew with the best customer service on the strip. I mean, it also helped that I doubled up quickly merely with a pass line bet and placing the 6 and 8, but they're good folk.

My wife and I arrived early for dinner, so burned some time playing video poker at the sportsbook bar. It's very quiet on an August Thursday evening. Vegas is by no means back. Dinner with the vendor's team at Best Friend was outstanding yet again. Because I'd been there three times before, they basically handed me the menu and said "order for all of us." Perfect. Dishes included the eggplant schnitzel, the kimchi fried rice, the street corn, the korean wings, all so good. Perhaps only the ramen-dusted fries disappointed, not because they were bad, only because they weren't excessively over-the-top good like the rest of it.

I drove back to Mandalay Bay, and while my wife is ready to call it a night, I'm feeling like exploring somewhere I've never been. I think about it for a bit, and it hits me: Palace Station. (Once I returned home, I discover in my notes that I briefly visited there on April 20, 2013 to lose $20 on slots and walk away with a coin-counting piggy bank, which I promptly gave to my daughter, where it rolled around in her room for a few years before going to Goodwill.) Video poker is bad to me. Face Up Pai Gow is bad but in a slow pushy kind of way, like you'd expect. Still no $5 craps table. I'm there much longer than I expected, but tomorrow's a vacation day, so I can sleep in.

Friday, August 27:

It's moving day, so just before 11 AM, we roll out of Mandalay Bay with luggage in the trunk and breakfast on our minds. Eat, down on east Fremont? We're kinda tired of it, going there every trip. Mon Ami Gabi? Same. How about Peppermill? We drive the length of the strip, only to discover it's a 2 hour wait for breakfast. It's almost lunch time, so maybe a lunch spot? How about Bobby's Burger Palace. We drive most of the way back down the strip and park in Aria's garage. I pull up their Google entry... to find that they'd closed. 

Frustrated and hangry, we decide to just park the car at NYNY, where we'll be staying for the next two nights, and find something there. Tom's Urban? Fine. I kick my wife out of the car in the porte cochère so she can grab a table while I park. We meet up, and the food is good. Not great, but good. We briefly considered giving Bruxie a second chance (I mean, it's a waffle place and we're looking for breakfast), but memories of the May 31, 2019 metal shaving in her egg sandwich flooded back with a bit of nausea.

The room is ready, and the MGM app tells us where it is, how to get there, and how to use an electronic key to open the door. It's a novelty the first time, but gets old quick. I mean, what's faster here:

1) Pull out your phone 2) Unlock it 3) Start the app 4) Tap to open the key 5) Tap it on the lock.

OR

1) Pull out the key card 2) Tap it on the lock.

Shoes, shined.

While my wife rested, I made two trips to the car to get the luggage. Both times, the shoeshine guy tried to convince me to use his services. I really did need to, and had eyed the stand at McCarran ($10) and Mandalay ($10) earlier in the week. I came back downstairs, and got the first shoeshine of my life. He's a better conversationalist than most bartenders in town. It seems that early in the pandemic, shoeshiners were brought back as "essential personnel" at the insistence of a particular VP. A few days later, the VP gets a shoeshine... and he's never gotten one since.

I'm very happy with the results and head back upstairs to catch up on the goings of the world. By now, it's dinner time, and somehow, my wife and I agree that Guy Fieri's Trash Can Nachos (as featured on Vegas Chef Prizefight episode 2) are what we want for dinner. Why? Well, nachos. And during the pandemic, Fieri showed he's not the bombastic dude-bro I thought he was. Among his other work, he's raised more than $25 million for restaurant workers during the pandemic. We figured we should give his restaurant some love.

Unfortunately, the restaurant didn't love us back. First, there should have been a little bit of a presentation upon delivery. No, these were just nachos on a plate. Next, the carne asada tasted... off? Like, as I joked, they were destined for the trash can until we ordered them. And then, when the waiter asked how it was, and I said "the chips are fine, but the beef is a little off," he replied "OK, enjoy!", much the same way I face-palmingly reply to "have a nice flight" with "you too!" I assume he just couldn't face us after that. I spent the rest of the meal closely examining black morsels of protein in the cheese to determine if they were beans (eat them) or beef (to hang out on the edge of my plate).

As I write this nearly a week later, I learned we could've gotten the same dish, although likely not as Rio-bad, at his joint at The Linq. Now I know. I don't think I'll be back to Rio until the new owners gut and revive it. For real this time.

Back to the hotel, my wife's gonna call it a night. I, on the other hand, need to come up with a plan for my evening. After thinking about it a bit, I decide I'm going to try and get a "Quest for Rewards" badge at every Caesars property in town. I've already hit Caesars and Rio, so that leaves seven more for tonight. The prize? 1600 tier credits, which are worth... nothing, really. I've got Caesars credit card, and a modest amount of spend on it will get me to the same tier level. But who cares? It's Friday night and I've got time.

Harmon Tower at sunset.
Are they actually building something,
or just rearranging dirt?

Spoiler: I lose an average of $35 for each casino I visited tonight. Maybe I'll get better room offers? But then I'll have to stay in a Caesars property, so there's no upside. Anyway. I mosey up the west side of the strip from NYNY to Cosmo, then cross over to Planet Hollywood. I try and never walk the east side here -- it's all shopping and junk, more crowded than fun sightseeing. At Planet Ho, I set myself in front of a video poker machine near the escalator for 45 minutes, do the same at Paris on a 100-play machine in the high limit room, then hang out at the video poker bar in the old Indigo Lounge space at Bally's for an hour.

Over to Cromwell, but their good VP has been a victim of the pandemic, so I illogically play slots for an hour (and lose). Then next door to Flamingo, where I spend a lot of time looking for a good VP machine that I fear has disappeared, and instead end up playing slots (where I illogically win). Next door again to The Linq, where I misread a paytable at the Catalyst bar and end up playing 94% Double Double Bonus for an hour. Finally, it's one more stop at Harrah's where I wander, play slots, and fail to be surprised that the disturbing Winnie statue is still missing a finger, as it has been for years now. They may have remodeled the rooms, but haven't spent a dime on remodeling the creepy couple.

Achievement unlocked.

It's now coming up on 2 AM, so I begin the trek back to NYNY, again spending most of the southern half on the west side of the strip. Tonight's adventure is over, right? At Park MGM, I realize that my wife might like something. "Gatorade, please." I hop across the skybridge, only to discover the ABC Store and Target are closed for the night. Walgreens is there for me, though.

Walgreens at 2:00 on a Saturday morning on the Vegas strip is always an adventure. Tonight, though, it was remarkably dull, except for the couple arguing loudly over what their roommates wanted. 

Back out on the strip with my Gatorade, I head south towards the pedestrian overpass. As I walk past a couple security guards at the alley between Target and Walgreens, one of them says "Whoa. Look at that." A group of three yout's coming the other way had run up on a fourth yout', jumped him, and began to beat on him. I high tailed it out of there, but when I was about halfway to the overpass, I heard a grunt and breaking glass. I kept moving away from the scene, but dared a look over my shoulder. The guy who'd been attacked was crumpled on the ground in the right lane of Las Vegas Boulevard. I figure he got nailed with a bottle. His assailants had already disappeared, as a cop car jetted past me, sirens blaring. I guess tonight's adventure wasn't over.

Saturday, August 28:

It's a pretty uneventful morning. We sleep in, grab breakfast at Nine Fine Irishmen, wander and tram up to Mandalay Bay to cash in a forgotten slot ticket, and wander and tram back to NYNY. It's nap time for my wife, so I hop in the car and head to Resorts World. It's 108° out, and although I know better, I still figure that parking in the parking garage is a good idea. It's a brutal, unshaded, 800-foot walk from the garage to the casino. What were they thinking?

Click into this one. Wow. Even a blind squirrel takes a good photo once in a while. No filters. No photoshopping. The colors just pop. Taken from the parking garage, the view is mostly of the welcome pit out front. In addition to the Hilton, Conrad, and Crockfords towers (dammit, Mike E., I have to look up the spelling every time now), this will be the site of the new Sarlacc tower.

I wander a bit, get a players card, and spend most of my time playing 25-play VP in the high limit room, most of which was spent chatting with a trio playing $50/hand about who among them is the most lucky. I also play some solo bubble craps ($15 tables on a Saturday are no surprise), have a rare winning slots session, and head out after a couple of hours. My impression? After the newness wears off, I don't know what's going to get people in here. This feels a lot like a larger version of Lucky Dragon, or M Resort north. The ongoing construction is already on my nerves. They should've done better, done something more unique, done something Vegas, not something that would be expected in a greatly successful tribal casino.

Sunset behind T-Mobile Arena, with Allegiant
Stadium at center left

No call from the wife yet, so I stop at Treasure Island for a few minutes. Still no craps table under $15. Thankfully, she called just after I got my players card, and I meet her for dinner at an off-my-radar Italian place in NYNY, Il Fornaio. I make it a rule to never eat at a major chain restaurant in Vegas, but can I be forgiven if I didn't know Il Fornaio was a SoCal chain? We start the meal with a smoked salmon bruschetta, which was pretty good, although my first bite of salmon was a little tougher than I expected. Still kinda full from breakfast, we decide to split a grilled chicken breast "served with spicy peperoncino sauce". It was very good, with the spiciness of the sauce slightly muted by the kick of lemon and gentleness of the herbs. For dessert, we split tiramisu, which might be one of the best I've had. So it's a chain. So what?

We head back upstairs, and I cement my evening plan: it's Saturday night, it's my last night in town, and I'm going to be spending it at Chandelier. Knowing how good the drinks are there, I choose to Uber instead of drive, and unlike my rideshare trips in June, the driver arrives quickly with no surge pricing.

The city. Kinda old feeling, kinda gritty.

While the rest of the week has been pandemic-suppressed, even with a bit more crowd on Friday, Saturday night at Cosmo is, as it has been for several months now, a place where the only indication of the pandemic is the masks. It's busy. I'm lucky enough to get a seat at the end of the main Chandelier bar, and start my video poker for the night. I start with a gin and tonic, and wait for two drink tickets to spit out so I can get something fancy off their menu.

The place is jumping. A marriage proposal happens in the main walkway (she said yes). A container of cocktail olives is knocked to the floor (and thrown away, not salvaged, thank goodness). A drunk twentysomething whose shirt is miraculously defying gravity's demand that it fall off is talking to everyone as if they're all her new best friend. Bros are bro-ing. My second drink ticket arrives, so I ask for a "Becky with the Good Hair."

"Sorry, we don't have the ingredients for that any more."

I'm crestfallen. "Can I take a look at the drink menu?" 

"Sorry, they took away our drink menus. But you like mezcal drinks? I can make you something similar."

"Somewhat fruity and citrusy? Sure!"

Quads and the dregs of my drink.

Salting the rim with taijin salt, and mixing five different bottles of something in a shaker, she presents me with the drink. I taste it. I savor it, knowing that I'm unlikely to get this recipe ever again after tonight. It's very, very good, with a bit of a bite. "That's jalapeno," she says.

I lose and lose and lose, and I'm down to my last $3 in the machine. I'm gonna be leaving sooner than I want to. No more citrusy mezcal jalapeno drinks? But the poker gods smile, and I'm dealt quad 4's for $100. I'm back to even. Two more tickets for another one of those, please.

I'm good for three hours and four drinks until the credits end up at $0. It was a good run. I'll wander for a bit. I'd seen a $10 High Card Flush table on the way in, and when I played it back in October 2015 and October 2019, I remembered that a good strategy would keep the house edge to around 2.5%. Sure enough, I check WizardOfOdds and find that playing T-8-6 or higher keeps the house edge at 2.71%, but the element of risk is only 1.58%, as you can raise more on really good hands.

I figured there was no chance that table will still be at $10 at 11 PM on a Saturday, but shockingly, it was. After an hour of play at $10, I'd been up $80, down $20, and was roughly back at my starting stack. A guy sat down to my left with three bananas and a purple ($3500) and exchanged them for $100 chips. He proceeded to bet the table max of $500 on every hand, with an additional $200 on each of the two side bets (7% and 13% house edge). Over the next hour, he was down and up and down and eventually got felted... at which point he reaches into his bag and pulls out a disorganized handful of 53 $100 bills. He bets it all away in the next 30 minutes. Yeah, the cards were running bad, but those side bets just kill you.

I had to have frustrated him just a little bit on one particular hand, where I was dealt a 6-card flush, including a four card straight flush. If I'd had $10 on each of the side bets, that would've paid $1600 100-to-1 and 60-to-1. I don't play those high edge bets, so I only won $40 back. If I hadn't been playing, my hand would've been his hand, and his $200 would have been $32,000. But, as he reminded me, if I'd been playing the side bets, I wouldn't have had enough money to still be at the table when that hand hit.

Finally, three hours after sitting at the table and six hours after arriving at Cosmo, I cashed out ahead $5. Great night at Cosmo? Yup. Best night at Cosmo? Jury's still out on that one. With the mezcal drinks now mostly out of my system, I wandered back up the west side of the strip back to NYNY. 

Sunday, August 29:

We made the most of every last minute of our 11 AM check out time, with plans to grab a leisurely breakfast, then fill the tank, drop off the rental car, and wander onto our 2 PM flight. I figured we'd try Blueberry Hill, which other Vegas folks have raved about. The location nearest the strip on Flamingo? Full. Every parking spot was taken. Their location two miles further east on Flamingo? There's a 30 minute wait. Gah. Let's just eat at the airport.

Again, there's no wait at the TSA PreCheck line to speak of, so we have plenty of time for breakfast. Sammy's Beach Bar and Grill hadn't disappointed on my two previous visits, but this time, like a lot of places, the menu was limited and the staff was uncaring. There's no way my quesadilla was prepared for me and on my table three minutes after ordering, and sure enough, it was room-temperature cold in the middle. In a rarity for me, I sent it back. A warmer quesadilla arrived about 8 minutes later.

After that, there's not much more to say. An uneventful flight. A quick ride home. That's that. The numbers and my wallet show that I left 60% of my bankroll in Vegas, which isn't too bad. On a pure dollar level, it's the most I've ever lost on a trip, but this was also the 4th-longest trip in my 29 visits. Slots are still the leak in my bankroll; video poker was cruel this trip as well, with only four quads all week, and only two of them paying $100 or more.

Epilogue:

One more side note about parking: parking for me is free at Caesars and MGM properties (because I have the Caesars credit card and hit minimum hotel spend at Mandalay to get Pearl level.) But man, the payment gates are such a hassle. On Monday, I exchanged my old MLife card for a new one with a 2022 expiration date. It failed to open the parking gate, so the operator had to ring me through. I exchanged it. Same thing the next time. I exchanged it. The mag strip wouldn't read on any gaming machines. I exchanged it. It failed to open the parking gate. Finally, one of the operators told me that it takes 72 hours from the issuance of a new card for it to register for parking, and to ask the MLife desk to activate it sooner. I did so. They issued me a new card. It failed to open the parking gate. Sigh.

The meadows

Also, as I implied above, the parking areas at Mandalay Bay and Caesars are literally thousands of steps from almost anywhere you'd want to go. Now that rideshare doesn't seem to be a problem any more, I might opt for that next time I'm staying at Mandalay. Running the numbers, the cost would have been a wash, just with no trunk to stuff our luggage in during the stops to and from the airport. If I'd had to pay for parking anywhere, rideshare would be the winning option.

Thanks for reading this far. It was a long, educational, tasty, frustrating, memorable, fun trip. The next one might be in October or might be next spring. Here's hoping it's soon.