Vpbob trip report March 5-8, 2001

Day Second

Bright and early I hit the DDB VP bank from yesterday's success. The BW likes to loll around until 9 or later, so I had a couple of hours alone. It started out like yesterday with my putting in a $20 bill and on the first 5 hit quad 8's. Wow! This is going to be a great trip. Little did I know that would be the last quad until late tonight. I kept trying but couldn't get anything going and lost several hundred dollars by the time I had to leave for Arizona Charlies East and the Bob Dancer VP lesson. I arrived at ACE at about a quarter to ten and found the lesson area. It was packed with about 150 people waiting for the beginning. Bob Dancer was in the front so I introduced myself as another bob. He is very personable. The lesson today was on DW Poker. Not the standard DW, but NSU type DW. The difference is in the pay table and that makes the strategy different. Bob explained why NSU instead of standard. It seems the standard game returns over 100% with perfect play and NSU returns 99.73%. Of course we would play standard wouldn't we? The catch is that the casinos have standard DW only in quarters or less. That's because they can stand to loose the few dollars experts can win on a quarter machine, but dollar or five dollar or higher machines would result in an unacceptable loss if an expert was playing them. Bob Dancer plays only $1, $5, $25 and $100 machines. So if he wants to play deuces he has to play NSU deuces wild. Anyway the lesson was very informative and did tax our thinking caps as he said it would as he began the lesson. After the lesson I went up to him and told him I had been assigned to go to the lesson and report back to the TV forum and asked him if he had any objections. He replied that it was OK as long as I wrote that he was a fine fellow and that his lessons were very informative. It was said jokingly. He IS a fine fellow and his VP knowledge is something to behold. I recommend going to at least one session of his and by all means buy the Winpoker software.

Before I left I signed up for the Arizona Charlies East card and played a little while. No luck. On return to MSS the BW wanted to eat, so we went in to the MSS lunch buffet. They have a good buffet at a good price, however I don't think it compares to the Aladdin or the Paris. I haven't tried Bellagio or the Venetian.

After lunch we headed for Arizona Charlies West where I had signed up for a card on the internet and received a confirmation. As we walked into the place I had to stop for a minute and let my eyes become accustomed to the dark or risk bumping into people and things. It is really dark in there. We went to the card center and the lady couldn't find our card, so we walked around a little and played some slots and VP. No luck there, so we left never to return. Not too pleasant a place.

On to the Orleans. Now here's a pleasant place. We had forgotten our cards so we went to the card center and got copies and sat down to quarter DB VP. Very shortly the BW hit a royal for $1000. She doesn't get them very often, so was thrilled. (so was I, my day wasn't going well) That evening we played at MSS, Fitz and Las Vegas Club. We stopped in at the Golden Gate for their famous 99c shrimp cocktails. They're big, filling a sundae glass to the top and we had two each. A dinner in themselves. A wonderful jazz pianist entertained us as we ate. We took in two of the Fremont Street light shows in the meantime. Don't miss this.

The BW continued hot at whatever she played and made up for my losses so that we ended day two even for the trip so far.

Bob