so last weekend was my wife and my big 30th birthday party trip that we've been planning for the past few months. originally it looked like we'd have 20-25 people show up, but as is always the case, as the time got closer people started to cancel. we were down to about 14 and then about a week and a half before the trip, several others also cancelled. so it ended up being a much smaller more intimate group than originally planned, but it all worked out. there were 8 there the entire time with several others just to stop in for just a night. most everybody that showed up we have known for at least 15 years or more, so it was a good group.

originally with all the people we were hoping for the 2BR Terrace Skyloft, which is a perfect party space. but with only 8-10 people, that seemed like overkill, so i talked to my host about putting us in a 2BR Mansion instead. since it was an off-weekend, he managed to make it happen. we ended up in the same villa that we had toured a couple of trips ago and it is amazing. about 5000 sq ft, has a baby grand piano in the living room, dining table for 10, 2 balconies over looking the atrium, a theater room with 70" TV and of course the 2 bedrooms each with full spa bathrooms. it's everything you think a villa should be and more.

we arrived Wednesday afternoon and hopped in the Rolls Royce Phantom to the Mansion. that never gets old. most people were getting in Thursday or Friday, but one of my buddies was coming Wednesday so we could go to Le Cirque for dinner. i never miss a trip to Le Cirque when i'm in Vegas, but i didn't want to foot the bill for the entire group as that would get quite pricey.

another buddy was in town for business and said he had too much work to finish and didn't have time for dinner. but when he came to the Mansion and saw the villa and i told him Le Cirque was the best restaurant in the city (JMO), his schedule quickly opened up and he joined us. lol. dinner was fabulous as always. our favorite waiter Maurice was off unfortunately, but Freddy the sommelier always takes great care of us. we had the 6 course degustation menu and 4 bottles of great wine. bill only came to about $1500 plus tip, which i think is more than fair for 4 people. a similar meal at JR cost me twice that and we didn't enjoy it half as much. we'll never go back to JR when Le Cirque is just a quick limo ride away.

late wednesday night my buddy had 4 friends driving in from LA to work a gig the next night. they got in about 330am and we were sleeping, but we found out the next morning they didn't waste any time starting the party. the best thing about staying in the Mansion is there really aren't any rules. large groups and all night parties are the norm and they accommodate anything you want. with camera phones and Facebook and everything, what happens in Vegas often doesn't stay in Vegas anymore, but what happens in the Mansion is another story.

my wife and i headed to breakfast about 8am and they had just gone to sleep, lol. breakfast at the Mansion restaurant is another thing that just never gets old. sitting in the atrium with the blue sky overhead, 70 degree temperature, citrus-gardenia scent wafting around, drinking freshly squeezed watermelon juice and eating some fresh udon noodles with sliced beef in soup and BBQ sticky pork buns is about as close to perfection as you can get.

after breakfast my wife and i went for a walk, but we ended up with a slight detour at the tables. i saw a shoe that looked really good, so decided to sit down. i was playing with this spanish guy that i had seen before on previous trips. it started out nicely and i was up 5k pretty quickly, but then it turned choppy and next thing i know i was down 5k. but i weathered the storm and was able to turn it around a little and get back to even and actually win about 1k, so i decided to call it quits for a decent first session. i knew i wouldn't have a lot of time to gamble this trip with all the friends and activities, so my goal was hit and run style. short sessions, get up a little and leave. although it would have been nice to leave up 5k, any winner is good, so i was satisfied.

after a quick dip in the pool, our first friends arrived and i told them i'd meet them outside the Mansion. of course, while i was waiting, i decided to hit the tables.

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i was only there about 10 minutes, but hit a good streak and picked up 5k before they showed up. so far it was perfect hit and run gambling.

thursday night we headed to Bellagio to have drinks and dinner with my host there and his wife. we have been trying to get together for dinner the last 3 trips and it hasn't worked out, but this time we finally managed to put it together. we had drinks at Hyde and watched the fountains and then dinner at Prime in the private dining room. in all our trips to the B, we've never eaten at Prime and it was amazing. we started with the seafood platter, which was the biggest platter i'd ever seen in my life. pounds and pounds of fresh king crab, lobster, clams, oysters, shrimp, mussels, etc. for dinner the bone-in filet was just out of this world and definitely the best steak i've ever had. we had bottles of Silver Oak, which is a good classic Napa cab. the more bottles we had, the better the party got. my buddy and my host are both pretty wild and i knew they would hit it off and i wasn't wrong. the only thing that kept the party from migrating to bottles of Patron was my host's wife. but that's probably a good thing, lol. the best part is my host signed the bill to his account so it never even hit my comps and all i had to cover was the tip.

after dinner we met up with my friend's 4 buddies who had finished their gig that night and we all headed over to Aria for a table at Haze. we were up top overlooking the dance floor, which was pretty nice. even though we were 10 people, i managed to get a 2 bottle min since it was Thursday night. we left about 2, but the 4 buddies stayed until late

friday was pool day and the Mansion pool is a great place to relax after a long night. we spent pretty much the entire day there, drinking, eating, swimming, lounging and the entire day we were the only people there. it's pretty nice to have your own private pool party.


before dinner i decided to hit the tables and go for another hit and run session. it worked out perfectly and i hit them for 15k in under an hour, now up 21k total for the trip. unfortunately i forgot to take a picture of that shoe and don't really remember much about it.

dinner was at Diego's which is a decent mexican place. i only go there for the margaritas and fresh guac. i actually didn't even order a main course because i never eat it anyway after all the guac and other appetizers.

after dinner i was really tired, but decided to hit the tables for hopefully another hit and run session. it was a great shoe, but i was just out of sorts a little. player went on a tear winning 14 out of 16 hands, but i wasn't really pressing and actually bet banker a couple of times. i was up 5k but really should have been a lot more with that shoe. i thought about quitting then, but we still had some time before dinner, so i stuck around. pretty soon the spanish guy came over and saw the shoe and decided to sit down and we started playing together. he plays very similarly to me so it works well. we both like to analyze the charts and look for patterns and develop camraderie, etc. pretty soon the shoe was settling into a nice pattern and we started to hit it hard. every once in a while he would look at the chart and say, this is a 20k hand. so i'd put out 3-5k, which is a good sized bet for me, but he chickened out and didn't put 20k. every time he said that we got a natural 8 or 9 and he kicked himself for not putting out 20k. the only thing that kept it from really being an epic shoe is twice i bet 5k and lost. those big ones are the ones that hurt. but we won quite a few big hands and many others and before the pattern broke, i was up 25k for that shoe and 46k for the trip. i attached a pic of the shoe, player 41, banker 20.

after that shoe it was only 11pm, but the problem is that we'd been staying up late, but my body was still on EST, so i was waking up at 5-6am anyway. so 2 nights of little sleep and i was ready to crash early. but you always sleep well when you're sitting on a big winner.

more to come later.

saturday the girls headed to the spa while i had a Bacc tourney at Aria. i had never played in a Bacc tourney before, but it happened to correlate with my trip, so i decided why not. the first session was at 11am and we got there about 1030 to check in and figure it out. while we were waiting for the tourney to start, i decided to check out the action at the tables there. this new shoe had just started at a mini-Bacc table and it had started into a 2/4 pattern, which creates a perfect chop on the small road. it was only about 6 hands in and it was looking good, but i decided i didn't want to get involved since my tourney was about to start. well as we stand there, the perfect pattern continues and i predict perfectly 8 hands in a row - without betting of course. well after 8 hands i'm really pissed that i didn't at least put some money out there, so i put some money down. of course, that's right when the pattern breaks. i don't win a single hand and i manage to dump 5k in 10 minutes.


really pissed i head over to the Bacc tourney. i started there continuing my luck from earlier and managed to lose 5 hands in a row to start. but i kept grinding and was able to hit a good streak and started pressing. towards the end i was max betting 50k per hand every hand and winning almost all of them. the last hand of the session i thought about putting out a tie bet just because. unfortunately i didn't because it ended up hitting. i ended up finishing the session in 7th place and the tie bet would have won me the session and 15k in promo chips. but it put me in good shape to make the semi-finals since the top 30 advanced.

even though the first session lasted about 45 minutes, the second session wasn't until 330pm. more casino marketing strategy, they suck you in there and then make you hang around for 2 hours before your next session, so what do you do? hit the tables of course. i went back to the same table as before and proceeded to lose another 5k almost as fast as the first. i took a third marker for 5k and made it last a little longer, but it was gone quickly as well. at that point i decided to take a break. i went up to the HL Bacc area and spent about 10 minutes scouting for a good table. most of them had just started a shoe or were completely empty, but i found a table that looked pretty good. it was filled with 3-4 asians and i immediately sat down and bet against all of them, lol. they were muttering under their breath right away at me. but i won the first hand and proceeded to win more than i was losing. pretty soon they started following me and we were all high-fiving and cheering together. it was really a roller coaster ride as i would win for a while and then lose a few in a row, then win some more, then lose some more. i was continuing to go up, but it was up and down and really a grind. 3 times i got within one bet of getting even for the day and lost it. then i'd grind it back and do it again, and lose again. it was frustrating, but eventually i hit a good little run and managed to win that last bet and get my 15k back from earlier at the mini-Bacc table. i was just happy to be even for the day and paid off my markers and got out of there in a hurry.

the second session of the tourney wasn't quite as good as the first, but i knew that i just needed to maintain in order to make the semis, so that's what i did. i actually ended up moving up from 7th to 5th after the second round and easily made the semis, which were the next day.

after the tourney, we headed back to the pool for a while and then to get ready for dinner. this was the big birthday dinner at Nobhill. i had booked the Chef's table about 2 months ago, but when we showed up some other group was at the Chef's table and we just had a regular table out on the floor. man i was so pissed i let the maitre d' know that was completely unacceptable. he sort of offered a half-assed apology, but i was really pissed. but it worked out OK as the table we got was pretty nice and there was a really big spanish group at the Chef's table drinking a ton and really having a good loud time, so i was happy for them. dinner was fabulous and the wine was great as well. we started with some bubbly and then moved to a great Bordeaux and then had a spanish red wine that was really spicy. for dessert i decided to order the bottle of wine that i had been eying for several trips, but had been waiting on to have some other people. 1988 Chateau d'Yquem Sauternes. it was everything i had hoped it would be. so rich and complex and beautiful. unlike some of the other really expensive wine i've had, this bottle was worth every penny and at $1100 it really wasn't that expensive as wine goes.

after dinner we were on our way to Hyde at Bellagio. everybody had enjoyed having drinks there the other night, so we decided to get a table. my host hooked us up with a great host there and set us up with a perfect table and another 2 bottle min, which was great on Saturday night. i had been in contact with another host there on a trip before, but he was a real DB and totally flaked on us. this guy was great, so give him a call if you need anything. Dave Roberts, 702-321-6964. i slipped him $200 for setting us up and also slipped the security $100 to keep an eye out for us. at first the music was some old school top 40 stuff from the 90s and early 00s that was cool to hear since that's what i grew up listening to. combined with the fountains, it was really sweet. unfortunately the fountains stop at midnight. i really think they should go later especially with Hyde going all night long. and around then the music changed to your typical club music, which is a little repetitive for me.


the mistake i made was ordering champagne as one of my bottles. it costs as much as a 1L bottle of goose, but the goose makes dozens of drinks and the champagne is gone in a flash. and it seemed like everybody wanted the champagne instead of the goose, so pretty soon we were ordering another bottle ... and then another ... and then our 2 bottle min had turned into 4 bottles. but i had planned that it might happen, so it was OK.

the one thing i hadn't counted on was the hostess. she was a really slick player. definitely the slickest i've ever seen. from the get-go she was practically on top of me getting really fresh even with my wife sitting right next to me. my wife and her girlfriend were giving her the coldest ice dagger look the entire night, but this wasn't her first rodeo and she seemed immune. besides totally pissing off my wife, it was actually really uncomfortable for me because i'm trying to be nice to her and not create a weird vibe the rest of the night, but also not encourage her. to get her off of me, i pointed her over to one buddy that's single and suggested she talk to him. well that didn't quite work out as planned. he chats with her for a good 10 minutes and she was really a master. he was complete putty in her hands and he comes over and says he really thinks she likes him. lol. he even friended her on Facebook. LOL!! so he offers her a drink and next thing you know she's downing glasses of our champagne like it's water. i guess that's one way to get your guests to buy more. so 4 bottles and $2600 later we head out of there.

even with that weirdness, overall it was a good night that everybody enjoyed. i would definitely do Hyde again over any of the other clubs i've been to, but i think i would show up a bit earlier and leave around midnight. i think it's best from about 9-12.

when we got back to the Mansion everybody knew it was the last night so we kept the party going until late. our favorite butler works the late night so he took great care of us. sorry i can't go into more detail, but it's like Fight Club.

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sunday morning we had breakfast and i had to head over to Aria for the semi finals of the Bacc tourney. the first session started at noon and it was a grind. i ended with almost exactly the same chips i started with, but amazingly i ended in 12th place after the first session and the top 10 qualify. so i knew i'd have to do a little bit more in the second session, but that it was within reach. this time i went back to the Mansion in between sessions instead of getting sucked into the tables at Aria, lol. after a quick dip in the pool again, i was back at Aria for session 2. this one really didn't go well and i busted out quickly. it was a really anti-climatic ending to an otherwise very promissing tourney. looking back i got too unnecessarily aggressive at the beginning of the second session and it cost me. especially when i really didn't need to do a lot to make the finals, i needed to be more patient at the beginning and let the shoe develop. so it was disappointing to bust out, but i learned a lot and next tourney i will definitely do better.

because the tourney was in the afternoon, i had to reschedule our flights for Monday since i couldn't get a late enough flight on Sunday. everybody else had left, so my wife and i just had a relaxing dinner at the Mansion restaurant and headed to bed really early. one of my favorite parts about staying at the Mansion is being able to go to the restaurant for dinner whenever you want and have a really great meal, but very relaxed. and compared to other high end restaurants around the city, it can be really quite cheap depending on what you order, which helps keep the comps down while still giving you a really nice meal. i almost always order off the chinese menu at the Mansion since it's the best most authentic chinese food that i can get anywhere. i started with hot and sour soup and had filet mignon with king mushroom in teriyaki sauce. the soup was the best hot and sour i've ever had and the teriyaki sauce was incredible, unlike any teriyaki i've ever had. my wife started with wagyu beef carpacio and had chicken with a bean puree. i've never been offered wagyu carpacio before and i tried it and it was incredible and the chicken was great as well. and the final bill ended up being like $190 and it was only that high because my filet was $80.

while we were eating we saw several couples come through being escorted through the atrium to JR for dinner. you can always tell the newbies in the Mansion because they can't stop looking up at the ceiling and all the villas.

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i remember the feeling quite well the first time i saw it, it's very impressive.

monday morning we woke up and i had my last steamshower for the trip

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as my wife was packing us up, i decided to hit the tables before we left. i hadn't played since Friday at Aria and didn't want to risk a lot since i already had a nice winner for the trip, but did want to play a little. nobody was playing, so i sat down and opened a table. at first i really couldn't get anything going and lost 5k pretty quickly. i thought about just quitting then, but i gave it a go with another 5k. i looked at the shoe and it really was quite nice, but i was just overthinking it. it was very choppy and banker was chopping almost every time. i was winning those hands by betting player after every banker, but then was losing the other hands because there was really no predictable pattern other than that. so i started taking lots of free hands and waiting until banker won and then betting player. i was able to start getting something going and pressing and got my first 5k back and was up another 10k. it was about time to leave, so i decided to quit at that point.

i went back to the villa, got our bags and said goodbye to the Mansion and hopped in the Rolls to the airport. the Mansion is the only place in Vegas that i'm never ready to leave. but hopefully we'll be back soon.

as far as gambling, it went exactly as planned. i only played for about 6 hours total. everything was hit and run. i never played more than one shoe and mostly just part of a shoe. i only booked the one losing session at Aria, but didn't book any losing days. ended up winning 56k with an average bet of around $2000 for 6 hours, which is only like 9k theo. but adding to my ECs that i'd been saving i was able to get about 19k comped for the week, which was everything including the villa, the clubs, all the meals, spa, etc. it's too bad that they're changing the EC program so i can't do this again. it would be great to be able to save up ECs and throw a big party every year. well, maybe it will still be possible, we'll just have to see how the new program changes work out ...

I didn't play much this trip but that was fine with my ECs built up. My host knew I was blowing them all this trip so it was no big deal. I earned about 3k primary comps this trip and used 16k ECs.

 

the funny thing about this trip is at the time I thought it was going to be a once in a lifetime experience getting to throw a party like this due to the change in the EC program.

but other than having all the friends in town, this is just like an average trip these days.

 

Your trips are really laid back (when you're not gambling).

It's almost like the gambling happens, after you're bored (and done) with the "free stuff".

 

It's also interesting to see the progression of your increased gambling which obviously let's you throw a party like this all the time now. I know my gambling has increased over time as well. Gotta get that rush!