So I'm headed out Friday for 9 nights. I was going to go for 2 nights then back home then back for 4 nights the next weekend, but that was dumb. so I'm just staying the whole week.

the purpose of the trips is for a 300k poker tourney with 50 players at

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on Jan 9 and then a 500k BJ tourney at MGM on Jan 16 where I'm AQ to the semis.

in the middle I'm going to gets massages, play lots of golf, consume lots of obscenely priced wine and food, and gamble compulsively.

tune in if that's your thing.

Got in this afternoon. Hit the tables and got down early but hit a nice shoe to get it back and lock in a couple of pumpkins.

Headed to Le Cirque for dinner and a 1989 La Tache.

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Sat into what looked like a perfect shoe after dinner. It shifted and I couldn't win a hand.

Took the next 2 hours but I managed to dig out of the hole and win a little pocket change for the session.

I hate when that happens.

So I feel like I got bent over.

Played in the poker tourney. It's an entire room full of donks. I'm doing well in pretty good chip position with 24 players left. Get QJh in middle position and raise 2.5x bb. 2 callers to my left. Flop is 79T, two hearts. I bet 2/3 pot in first position. Next guy all in for about 3x my bet and other guy calls. He's got more chips than me and I'm on the come so I just call. Heart on the turn. I check, he bets. I go all in. He has K4h.

Such a brutal beat to knock me out. And he should have never been in there pre flop with those rags against my raise.

So after the tourney I watched football for 7 hours in the Mansion theater.

Got a nice little nap in the 4th quarter of the Chiefs' blowout.

Pitt game was slightly more entertaining.

Afterwards I went to play some Bacc.

It pisses me off to no end what they're doing lately. They let these big players lock up multiple tables and don't bring in any extra dealers. So this one girl has a 2m+ line so she has 4 of the 6 tables locked up. Of course she can only play one at a time so everyone else is just jammed up on 2 tables while most of the dealers twiddle their thumbs. It's ridiculous.

But it worked out ok. The one table was totally full so I only had one option. But the shoe was pretty good and I managed to pick up another pumpkin.

I'm still hunting for a gray but I'll take pumpkins every day!

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Basically they do it because the player wants it and they don't want to say no and risk upsetting them and having them go down the street.

I mean the truth is if she loses 2M because they gave her 4 tables, that's more than they would have likely won on those tables with other players.

I'm OK with giving big players as many tables as they want. They just need to pull dealers from other locations to open more tables for the other players. Esp on Sat night.

There was one morning this guy had every table in the entire Bacc area locked up and no one else could play. He lost 10M that morning. If I had wanted to play I would have been pissed.

BTW this was the same guy that bumped me out of my front row seats for the McGregor fight. He took up the entire block of front row seats for all his friends.

Correct it's different for BJ and craps.

The best you'll get on dice is usually double table.

The biggest BJ I've seen is 3x 50k. Although I'm pretty sure they go up to 100k for the big whales.

Just chatted with our Chinese lady friend.

She just dumped 5m.

Well nothing worth sharing last night. Awful shoes and then I tilted and started pressing and got crushed.

Woke up today and decided to skip golf this morning and try to change my luck at Cosmo.

Hit a great six figure shoe that helped get some back from last night.

It could have been really huge but I was playing conservative after last night.

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BTW I checked with Cosmo and just like every casino the pit has no control over betting limits.

They're setup in advance based on your at risk money.

Nobody is betting 50k on Bacc with 150k at risk.

Well a monkey throwing darts could have done better than I did last night after the game.

Dropped in for a quick hit and run session but I was the one that got hit. More like kicked in the head.

Got tied on 7 and 8 and got 1, 2, 3 on every other hand and then a monkey except one small bet I didn't even like.

Amazing how bad you can run sometimes.

So on the gambling front I took it easy yesterday. Feeling kind of snake bit after Tuesday night. I went over to Cromwell to pick up 2k in promos and test my luck.

Started small with 500 and 100 on the Dragon bonus. Second hand I get 2 on banker against player with 1. I pull a 3 side and it's a 7. She turns over a 9. Boom 30 to 1 hit on the Dragon.

From there I just grind it out and am hitting pretty good. I start pressing on a good banker run. Next thing you know I turned the 2k promos into 40k.

Then there's an issue because the table is almost out of money. The HL table was closed so I was playing on a mini table on the floor but they still let me touch the cards. So then there's this discussion with 3 bosses about whether to get a fill or what. Then the cocktail waitress comes over asking me a bunch of questions. Then the scorecard screen gets this message on it or something and everyone's trying to figure out how to fix it.


Anyway, the next bet was a perfect banker. All streets said bank. I bet 10k table max. Bank gets natural 8 against player 0. Except somehow in all the confusion I put my bet on player. I couldn't believe it. I would have never bet player in that situation. Cost me 20k.


I should have just left after that because I was so pissed. But I ended up losing another 10k at the end of the shoe and walking with only 20k. Should have been 50 or more. I still don't know WTF happened.

On the wine front I was talking to my som friend the other day and we were talking about undervalued wines. We were talking about Harlan being so expensive and he said his favorite Napa cab blend is Quintessa. Way cheaper but he actually likes it better than Harlan. So last night I had a bottle of 11. Incredibly good and only $325 at casino prices. 1/6 the price of Harlan. Definitely give it a try.

here's another gem.

Colgin.

he says he likes it better than Screaming Eagle.

wife came into town yesterday, so I took her for the requisite shopping trip today.

good time of the year to shop, it seemed like everybody was having their huge blowout sale.

she had lots of "good luck" as she calls it, but most everything was on sale, so the damage wasn't too bad.

but she also got a little something for me, so it's not all bad.

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Tawny Fladgate 1863 port for dessert tonight.

Amazing is all I can say.

Should be for $400 a glass.

I also had 99 Chateaux Cheval Blanc last night.

Decent but not showing spectacularly right now.

Had the Emperors Fried Rice last night.

Egg white fried rice with white truffles and Caviar.

Very subtle flavors but nice.

Well the BJ tourney was a total bust. I was out after 5 hands. I lost every single hand plus a split on the end. Ugly cards I got every time. The only hand I didn't lose outright I surrendered 14 against a 10 lol.

But as I was walking over to the tourney I glanced at a Bacc table with a great looking shoe so I headed back over there. It had continued as amazing as it looked and I wished I had stayed to play it instead of the stupid tourney.

But I sat down anyway and played the second half. It was pretty good and I managed to win money in spite of losing with Nat 8 twice and tying with Nat 9 3 times. Those hands cost me a six figure win for the shoe.

But the table was good so I stayed and they shuffled and I cut. Turned out to be the move of the trip. I finally got the elusive gray chip shoe. It wasn't perfect and I lost a good number of hands but enough of the patterns stuck enough of the time to get paid.

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BTW here's something we tried the other night.

Vanilla ice cream with white truffles.

Really an amazing pairing the sweet ice cream with the earthy and savory truffles.

But you don't want too much truffle or it overpowers it. Just a small piece in each bite just adds that umami factor.

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So to wrap things up my total win for the trip came to just over $25k. I did just under $90k in theo because I actually didn't have a lot of hours of play since my early wins were hit and run and then my middle losses were so quick and my comeback the last night was only 2 shoes.

But I did manage to burn $49k in comps for the week lol. My host hates me right now.

I was in for about 350 at the worst point.

As far as comps, that includes the villa for 9 nights, massage and golf most every day, lots of truffles and caviar and about 20k in wine.

so one of the main staples of PGP is raising the comp rates on everything so players get less for their comp dollar.


but it doesn't stop there.

they're also working on lowering the theo generated by each game. I haven't seen it yet for Bacc, but I'm told it's happening. so whereas you used to generate $X in theo for Y play, you'll now generate $X-10% or something.

but it doesn't stop there.

they're also pushing the hosts to comp less than the old-school standard of 40% of theo up to 45% sometimes.

30% is becoming the new norm they want to see with 35% being on the high side.

basically it all translates to them saving money by hitting you on every side with the end result of you getting back significantly less in comps than you used to.

if every $10k in profit used to cost them $1k in comps (crude example), they're now looking to make that only cost them $500.

the villa prices have risen ridiculously especially on the larger ones. the 1BR still comps at a fairly reasonable $1500/night (used to be $1200), but the best value in the place used to be the 2BR with no pool which was $1500/night. now that's gone up to $2500/night, which is now equal with the 3BR Skyloft or the 2BR Skyloft with plunge pool.

the prices at the dining room are always going up. the high end wine prices are definitely going up. I used to be able to get some decent vintages of La Tache for 3-4k and now they don't have any on the menu for less than $5k. the more obscure vintages and chateaus like Montrachet and Romanee Conti are getting harder and harder to find and they are jacking up the prices on those even higher.

I find it extremely amusing that they raise prices at a place that nobody actually pays for anything and call that increasing profit. the amount of money that changed hands stayed at $0, but they can show a profit increase to the shareholders.

there are some real costs to the comps I received, for sure.

but here are some prices my account was charged:

- $1500/night for the villa (x9)
- $500 for each round of golf (x4)
- $530 for each 100 min massage (x4)
- $850 for each 150 min massage for my wife (x3)
- $75 for a haircut

some things that actually cost them:
- $2500 in cash for AF
- 20k in wine cost them probably 4k

so it really comes down to 18k in stuff that cost them very little, 10k in food that cost them very little and 20k wine that cost them a bit and 2500 in cash.

2BR Skyloft is only $1250 now I think. 1BR is $750.

but they also have midweek specials on the Skylofts where they comp even lower.

Actually they've cut off my loss rebate also.

Too often I win several hundred and then lose several hundred.

They don't like the volatility esp combined with my many trips a year.

So they said if I want a loss rebate it's going to be quarterly.

They'll take my total loss at the end of each quarter and give me the discount based on that.

They don't like giving me a discount on one trip and then I win it all back the next month and keep the discount.

So instead I negotiated promo chips upfront every trip regardless and no loss rebate.

FYI none of this stuff comes from my host.

These days my requests go directly to the VP that runs the entire national marketing department.

 

can't believe I survived 9 nights without dying....

 

Any TR with gray chips in it is a good one

 

Wow! Very interesting TR & most of all, I am intrigued to try the La Tache