Vegas report:
Spent a few days playing at Caesars, Bellagio, and Aria. Tables all allowed 8 players total, but unlike in prior years and with pretty hefty crowds in town I didn't have a problem ever finding my preferred spot at the end. With maybe an exception for a few hours on Thursday and early Friday, I never saw anything lower than a $25 minimum table at Caesars. Bellagio and Aria had $15 minimums every morning.
The action was mostly down for the first two days, and then yesterday afternoon happened. I was down around $1,000 for the trip at this point and figured if I lost another $1,000 the afternoon/evening before I left, whatever, it was well within my budget for the trip. My wife wanted to go shopping after lunch so I walked up to an empty $25 table at Caesars and cashed in $500, a little more than my typical $200-$300 limit per session. I'd roll a point, crap out, roll a point, crap out, and finally on about my fourth roll had a point of 8 established, $25 on my odds, $30 on the 6, and only about $3 left in my stack. Basically down to my last $80 bucks for this go-around and what happened next is why I love this game so much.
I proceeded to roll 3-4 points, hit various numbers and hard-ways along the way, and built my bankroll back up to about $700 or $800 before crapping out. The table was now full at this point, and I hovered right around $800-$1000 in my stack for the next 3 shooters when the dice finally got back to my end of the table to a quiet gentleman standing in the "slot" just left of the stick man.
The dude then goes on one of the best rolls I've ever seen or been a part of in my life. One of my favorite plays as I've mentioned in the past on this thread is starting out rolls with $5 hard-ways, and either press or parlay them up each time they hit. On the hard 8 alone I hit at $25 once, $100 twice, and then at $150 once. I hit the hard six at $100 once and hit a hard ten at $100 twice. By the end of the roll, I had over $7,000 in my stack which was by far more than I've ever won on a single roll. I was next to shoot so figured what the hell, but crapped out within about 3 rolls and cashed in my chips for a little over $6,800.
I'm sure it's not much for the Surly 1%er's but that's a damn good weekend for me.