What can I say? I decided to try a solo trip for a few days of fun in the sun. There is some poker talk in here and I apologize to those who are bored stiff with it but those that play will appreciate it.
To recap, about a month ago I had an offer from Harrahs to play in a poker tournament March 6th & 7th and decided at the last minute to book Thursday to Monday at Flamingo (this is where the tournament was held) and called the airline to make sure I could get on the standby list.
I booked the flight from Toronto leaving 8:50pm Thursday night and arriving about 10:30 Vegas time.

I have an old van that we have kept to use for our trips to the airport or anywhere else we are leaving the vehicle for an extended time. It does not get much use but is handy for hauling stuff to the dump or picking up furniture etc. and as I said to leave at the park and fly and not worry about dents and bumps. The valet guy must wonder what we are doing going on vacation when we can’t afford a decent vehicle to get around in. I keep a portable booster box in the van just in case it won’t start and sure enough it was needed when I left for the airport. I just get out on the highway and can feel the van kinda wobbling so I pull over and “flat tire”. Call the auto club and the guy comes and changes the tire and off I go.
I can’t believe the amount of security checks that you have to go through now. I must have been asked at least 5 different times for my passport and boarding pass. After a 1 ½ hour wait they announce that boarding will commence and that the television sets will not be working. Damn this will be a long 4 ½ hours staring at the back of a seat. I grab a newspaper that someone has left near the trash and find my window seat with no-one else beside me, that is till the last two passengers come aboard. These two had been drinking and were not completely wasted but enough that the breath was not pleasant and to make matters worse the guy in the middle seat beside me was a talker. They both were poker players going to the tournament that I was. Now anyone who has played poker long enough knows that getting stuck beside someone who will tell you every bad beat story they have ever had since childhood is the worst scenario you can have. It is a fine line to sit and listen to this without going completely berserk on the guy or just grinning and nodding your head once in awhile. After about two hours of this I realize I have brought my earphones thinking I would be watching TV so I get them out of my bag that’s on the floor and tell the guy I am going to listen to some music for awhile. I pretend to plug them into my cell that doesn’t have the right size jack and slip it into my pocket and put my head back and close my eyes. Finally some peace and quiet.
Holy smokes this trip is not starting off well and I hope this isn’t an omen of things to come.

We arrive on time and I head to the carousal for my bag and off to the car rental. I also decided at the last minute to get a car and booked a compact for $65 as I was by myself and did not need anything bigger. The Alamo attendant tried and tried to get me to upgrade for another $44 telling me the Aveo was not safe to drive around vegas etc. I just kept refusing and he finally gave me the paperwork and I went up the escalator to the cars. I give the guy the paperwork and he takes a quick look around and says” you want to try the HHR over there for the same price?” I say yea ok and he writes it up. I am patting myself on the back as I leave the parking structure.
I personally do not like the looks of this car but it is better than the alternative.

I have never parked at the Flamingo but I have to figure it must be accessed the same as the IP or Harrahs at the back so I take my usual route to Albertsons for some stuff and then head up Flamingo and turn down Audrie. Right beside Battistas there is a driveway and it goes to the parking garage. You have to go up 3 levels before you can park as they are reserved for Valet.
The check in was quick and I got room 8027. King bed, no smoking that looked out to the pools and gardens.

Registration for the tournament is at 4:00pm Friday and it is midnight when I get unpacked and have a shower so I go downstairs and decide to try some slots. This gets boring real fast so I go to the roulette table. I usually buy in for $100 and bet three spins at $33 per spin and the last spin I put the extra dollar on the dealers favorite number. So I put $3 on 0,7,9,11,19,20,26,27,28,30,32. Except for the 27 and 19 the other numbers cover a quarter of the wheel from the 0 to 7 so if the ball lands anywhere in this ¼ you win. First spin 9 and I collect $105, second spin 32 and I collect $105, third spin 1 and I lose $36 (I keep the last winning number chips on it and add 3 more). The dealer wanted his chip on 17 so he lost but I walked away up $110.
I decide to go to the IP and listen to karaoke for an hour or so and then came back and went to bed.

While I was at IP I saw there was a hash house where the tea room used to be so I headed over and had breakfast. Two eggs over easy, fried potatoes and a side of sausage. It came with a large biscuit with a twig sticking out the top but no toast and coffee was $3.75 extra. I was not impressed with this meal at all. I will try the flapjack next time and then decide if I want to go back or not.

Terry had bought me a watch when we were in Vegas but I made the mistake of taking it with me when I went for my annual motorcycle trip last summer and lost it so I decided to drive around this morning and see if I could find a replacement I liked. This took most of the day as I just cruised around the valley taking in the sights and stopping when something caught my eye. I did not find a watch I liked and headed back to the Flamingo to sign up for the tournament. I drew 12:30 Saturday, table 17, seat 4. They had three first day rounds and you could rebuy one time for $100 if you got knocked out early. Spent the rest of the evening at the Mirage playing poker and got back around 1:00am and went to bed.

Saturday morning I had breakfast at the flamingo restaurant. I was too late for their $5.99 steak and eggs but I had a good breakfast that included toast but again coffee was $3.75 extra. I see this as a pattern and I guess is the norm here but I am used to back home where your breakfast price includes coffee, toast, home fries, eggs and sausage or bacon or ham.
It was about 9:00am so I went to the poker room and played till around noon then headed to the tournament room. They had about 50 tables and the first round you stay at your table until there are only two players left and then those two go on to the next round on Sunday. I was not having much luck but the guy sitting next to me was getting great cards and with some luck he was picking people off to a point that there were four of us left and I finally got some cards and knocked the next two out so him and I were on to the final’s on Sunday.
I played some slots for the rest of the afternoon and poker that night. There was a slot I had not seen before called “Time Machine” and it is a clone of “Wizard of Oz”. It has the same bonus signs that come on reels 1,3,5 and then you pick one that is either the Present, Past or Future and it goes to another screen for your bonus or pays you credits. There is also a bonus the same as when Glinda appears and makes random wheels wild only this is a robot or prehistoric animal that does it. It was ok to play but I didn’t win anything on it.

I went to bed around midnight and for some reason I woke up at 5:00am and could not get back to sleep so I went down to the restaurant and had the steak and eggs special which was good but not exceptional. I realized that I was really hungry and had not eaten supper the day before so maybe that was the reason for the early wake up. I did have a hot dog at Bills the night before and watched Big Elvis but no supper. My plan was to go to Ellis Island but I just got caught up in the poker room and that was that.
Ok so I go to the poker room and there is about 30 tables with 10 to a table. Now the tournament will be played as normal with tables breaking up as needed until they get to the final table. The top prize was $25,000 plus a $10,000 buy in to the World Series of Poker or cash equivalent if you wanted it, all the way down to $50 if you finished in the top 100.

Heres where the poker talk comes in so if you are not interested you can skip this part.
I took my seat at table 6 seat 1 which is my favourite seat because you have a little more room sitting beside the dealer. Play starts and the first two cards I get are a pair of three’s. Not bad as I am in good position and when these tournaments start people tend to play a little tight so you usually can pick up some chips with a raise. So two people before me call the big blind of 50 and I raise to 150. The blinds fold and those two call my raise. The flop comes J-3-5. Bingo. I have my set and am in last position. First guy checks and second guy bets (I should say here that they start you with 1500 in chips) 300 into a 525 pot. Unless this guy has 55 in his hand I am in great shape as there is no way he could have JJ. I decided to just push all in as there was two hearts on the flop. I am happy to take this pot right there and then however he starts to think and mumble and eventually makes the call and says I feel like gambling. He turns over the 4-6 of spades so he is on a straight draw and no flush possibility. I turn up my 3’s and he says “oh man I thought you were bluffing!!! What!! That is the most asinine statement ever. The only hand he has beat is 2-4 or 2-6 so even if he thought I was bluffing I still had to have a better hand than him. Well no need to tell you what happens next. Turn 10, river 2 and it’s sayonara Jimbo. I was a little peeved at being knocked out like that but what can you do. You get your chips in with the best hand and hope they hold up.

I walk around a bit and get in the car and go to the Harley dealership on Eastern and buy a shirt and look at the bikes. Now I am bummed and am thinking of leaving early so I call the standby hotline and ask about changing my reservation to Sunday night from Monday afternoon. The guy says just a minute and comes back and says you can change but it will cost $633. Huh, Yes sir there is a charge and the fare for that flight is higher yada yada yada. I say “you know I am on standby right?” He says “Oh are you on standby?” Well yea this is the standby hotline isn’t it? Yes it is but I didn’t look. Sorry about that, hold the line for a minute. Ok sir everything is set and you are now on this evenings flight.
Holy Canoli, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to leave early and had only called to see what the load was and then decide, but this guy has made my mind up for me I guess. It’s about 1:00pm so I go back to Flamingo and lay down for a few hours, get up and pack and head over to Bellagio to play some poker before I leave. I have no luck here and lose my stack with a pair of aces to a K-9 when the nice lady flops a K-9.
I go to the rental centre, drop off the car and get to the airport only to find there are only two seats left and unless those two don’t show up I will not be getting a seat. Geez the guy told me there were 7 seats available and this is a late flight. I am thinking this is not good but eventually I get the call to report to the front desk and am given a boarding pass.
Row 5 seat E. Damn, but at least I got a seat and the television is working so not bad.

This is my first solo trip and I don’t think I will do it again. I am past the heavy drinking and partying stage of life and frankly I missed not having Terry with me to go sightseeing and a show. She likes to get out of town and explore the sights as I do and we are going back at the end of the month so this was ok but not really my cup of tea. I did not go to city centre at all and let me tell you if there is a slowdown in tourists I didn’t see it. There was a guy at the restaurant sitting beside me at the counter and he said the hotel was sold out the night before and all he could get was a room at IP and even that was a cancellation. I don’t know if there was something big going on but it was very busy wherever I went.

There is probably more stuff I have forgotten or left out bit that’s about it for my mini trip. Hope I didn’t bore you too much and I will give another report after we come back at the end of the month.

Thanks for the trip report. It seems you've had more fun on other trips. I'm not much of a gambler but it seems like roulette might have been your game.

Most people I know like Hash House A Go Go. And I agree with you on drink prices at restaurants. Since I don't drink alcohol much these days, I just order water when I eat out.

May I suggest The Original Pancake House or Egg Works/Egg and I for breakfast. Both have multiple locations around town. The Original Pancake House is the only place I order coffee nowadays. Sometimes I get coffee at Mr Luckys in the Hard Rock.

Last week I saw 8 shows in 5 days. Every show and each casino had a very good crowd except for The Greek Isles.

Did your van make it home okay?

Geez Joe after reading about your housing problem my trip report seems so inconsequential.

I took a trip to see the "Gold and Silver" pawn shop and took Charleston down to Maryland when I was done and thought of you when I was turning the corner and saw The Huntridge. If I knew how to get a hold of you I would have called and bought some lunch. Thanks for the suggestion of the Pancake house. I will try Egg and I. We have a local Egg and I here and it is very good.
The van was fine. It just needed a good run to charge up the battery and clean the pipes. There is a crack halfway along the windshield so I guess I will have to get it replaced soon. I hadn't even started it since November.
Once in awhile the roulette does give me a good return but more often it doesn't.
Good luck on the housing front Joe.

My housing problem is behind me because my house was a problem. There is a wad of cash in my pocket and adventures ahead. I'll be fine.

The Huntridge restaurant closed. I still have the best kept secret in Vegas eats called Luv It frozen custard. It's in the same neighborhood in the shadows of the Stratosphere behind a nasty old strip joint.

I think our Egg and I is different from yours. It's part of the Egg Works 3 restaurant chain. Google it.

The Original Pancake House can be found in Green Valley Ranch, on Ft Apache near Flamingo, and next door to that Fatburger you ate at on Charleston near Decatur.

Tell us more about the pawn shop. I've seen lines around the block of people waiting to get in. I'm glad they are getting their 15 minutes of fame. I've heard they are expanding too.

I was looking to buy a watch and thought I might find a good one at the pawn shop so why not kill two birds with one stone and check the place out.

Not surprisingly it is much smaller than it appears on television. The parking lot was 3/4 full. There were a group standing outside taking pictures (no pictures allowed inside) and just generally hanging out. A security guy said to go right in. It was pretty full of people. Once inside it is not as clean looking as I thought it would be. At the back they have t-shirts, mugs and souvenirs. They have the glass counters and lots of jewelry but honestly if they were not on TV and I just happened to walk in looking for something I wouldn't have been impressed. The old man was at his desk and Chumly was walking around but otherwise I didn't recognize anyone else.

One guy asked if he could help so I asked him if they had any Movado watches. He says yea right over here. He pulls out two watches that are not Movados and asked me what I thought. I said I think they are not Movado and he stares at them then another guy points to a couple of watches and says those are Movado.
He shows them to me but they are not in good condition and the crytal was scratched on both. They still wanted top buck for them so I just said thanks anyway and left.

The pawn shop near Maryland and Sahara was bigger and cleaner but I have to tell you when I was walking from the parking lot to the store there was two middle aged woman sitting on those scooters people use to smash your ankles with and I could hear one say to the other " I dont want to but I have to" and then as I am passing by she says Hey buddy want to buy a couple of scooters. I was so tempted to stop and talk with her and get the story but I believe when walking from a parking lot to a pawn shop you do not stop for any reason unless you are looking for some real excitement in your life.

One other thing. There are a couple of large billboard's I saw promoting a place called Super Pawn. They say something about getting more sparkle for your buck or something like that. Now I dont know how much money was spent on developing this ad and getting it on the billboards etc. but you would think that somewhere in the poster they would have an address of where they are located. I mean isn't the whole idea of this is to get you to come to their store? I even stopped and looked at the sign but nope no info about where they are located. Sure I could have looked in the phone book for pawn shops but they haven't spent all that money to say now that you have our name try to find us.

Sorry for the long post.

Thanks for the update. Interesting story about the little old ladies and a very wise decision to keep moving. Maryland and Sahara is not a place to let your guard down and it is a prime location for a scam. There were probably a couple of thugs around the corner waiting for you to strike up that conversation and pull out your wallet.

It has been my experience that pawn shops here are pretty weak. There was a time many years ago when pawn shops on Fremont St had some fancy jewelry at great prices. I checked out several pawn shops around town when I was looking for a high end saxophone a couple of years ago. While I was searching for a sax, I paid close attention to whatever they had for sale.

The downtown pawn shops seem to have things a passing tourist or new local might want to get rid of for a gambling problem. Mainly random jewelry, musical instruments, DVDs, cameras, and tools.

The other pawn shops around town appear to be tied to larger companies that are mainly payday loan companies. That is the case with Super Pawn. They are tied to Cash America, a nationwide payday loan company. When people pawn something, it goes to the national warehouse (or at least their database) and is redistributed as needed. Sometimes the pawn shop will have a much larger warehouse behind the pawn shop. The pawn shops around town still have the downtown stuff, but also have more lawn and garden and home entertainment items.

It is my experience that pawn shops around here don't stock much in the way of quality items. For quality items, there are some consignment shops around town, but you seldom find a bargain there.

Super Pawn is pretty big and there are probably at least 10 locations in the area. Chances are, the signs you saw were within rock throwing distance to the Super Pawn, because they sometimes have a big billboard in the general area of their store rather than a big store sign on the street. They are nationwide, and I think I've even seen them sell stuff on ebay.

Thanks for the info on pawns Joe. It's interesting to walk through and think of the crazy stories some of the items must have but you have convinced me that its not the place for what I am looking for.

A belated thank you for the trip report ... I needed a Vegas fix to get me energized to write one<g>.

One of these days, I'd like to learn more about poker strategy; I've played in freebie tournaments in Reno, but it's really not my game, and I know I'm not aggressive enough to place well - the tournaments are a fun way to stay out of trouble for an hour or two. A poker lesson will definitely rate a drink or two.

Hi Daisy
Thanks for reading the mini report.
Hold-em poker is a strange game that can drive you crazy with its swings but it seems to be the star of the show and its difficult to find a different game in most cardrooms at the moment. There's a big difference between ring games and tournaments. Aggression at the cash games is usually a good strategy but not so much in tournaments until you get into the later rounds or when the antes kick in.
I am by no means a card shark or close to it but there are a few tips that usually can keep you out of trouble and give yourself a chance to take down the big prize. I can share those with you if you like.

I actually like Omaha Hi-Lo better, but I'm really not a live poker player. It is interesting to play in the tournaments just to experience the swings in luck - I must be learning things along the way because I've come close to the finals a couple of times - once with really lucky cards and once when my best hand was a pair of kings<g>. One of these days, when you and Terri are in town, I would enjoy picking up some pointers. In the meantime, I'll be working on my patience.

WoW, I was hoping the poker story was going to come out a little better then it did!
Me personally, I'm not an alone kinda guy, a couple of my friends here do it all the time, but I like company too! I guess I get bored too easily or something! LOL The shows are a nice break for the gambling, and even meal time aint the same without someone to share the time with.
I am so sorry, it took so long to reply to your report. I thought I had replied long before this1 But it was a great fun to read a trip report to Vegas, as they have been few and far between here lately!
Just a curious question, I see you play the slots, but didn't mention video poker? You don't play, or do you like the ramdomness of slots an the higher potential for a Big jackpot?
Thanks for the great report, with the not so great outcome! Thanks for sharing!
Sooooo, when is your next trip??????

Thanks for reading it Lee.
I dont know why I don't play video poker. I tried it a while back at Seneca and actually did quite well but it just has not been able to hook me. I hardly notice the machines whenever I am in a casino.
Sometimes after playing poker and getting beat up and asking yourself "what if I did this or what if I did that etc." I go to the slots because for the most part they do not require any thought or second guessing and you are by yourself, just you and the machine. Push the button and pray kind of thing.
Having said that I see how more and more slots now require you to make a pick when you hit a bonus and again if you pick the wrong one you start saying "Damn, why didn't I pick that one instead. LOL.

Speaking of Pawn Stars, I was at the Palace Station last night and saw "The Old Man". Someone else asked how old he was and I thought he said the same age as Barry Manilow. So I started digging through the interwebs and depending on who's story you believe, they are both about 67ish.