I had a mixed experience on the trip to the casino. I used points on Yankee Trail , so the entire trip cost just five dollars. I got $25 in freeplay and $20 in food credit.
I wanted to play VP and found a 9/6 DB; however, it was very confusing. I could not figure out how to play just five coins per hand. It seems all the slots and machines are geared to require players to play many more coins than they used to have to play. I could find no old fashioned, simply presented slot. I quit the VP quickly ahead $22. Next trip I will try the roulette machines and just play off the freeplay.
At Rivers I can find a bit of VP to play.
I never find full pay, but I don't play as long as I once did and not having planes and buses and hotel rooms, I can afford to play a lower play VP.
The poker room at Springfield did not have high hand awards as I expected. They had a splash the pot promotion. If the flop came suited, the next hand would have $75 added. However the first hand had to have $30 in the pot to qualify for the splash. This meant that we were pressured by some players to bet just to build the fist hand plot. I did not like that.
Rivers 3/6 is a better game, but so far only succeeds in players on weekends.
I stayed about even, going up and down. I ran into a real dry spell and could hardly play a hand. A fellow really got mad at me when I beat him with 7-2 offsuit. It was my big blind and it flopped two pair. Then I foolishly called a raise on my small blind of 4-9 spades. It was near the end of my day and I thought I'd play.
He had pocket Aces. In the end he suspected we would split Broadway, but I had a spade flush. He was so mad, he could not stay at the table. The second play was a terrible play. However, I was getting ready to pack it up and just decided to see what might happen.
I hate it when players find it necessary to mutter to their neighbors in a voice easy to hear there distain for bad players. Can't they make eye contact? Cowards and whiners. The game is a random game. Get over it! That also may have caused me to call his bet.
I don't like players mad because I don't do what is expected and win against the odds. It just isn't fun. He should say, "nice hand" and chuckle a bit at randomness, knowing that if I played like that as a rule, he would beat me.
There was a woman at the table who never saw a hand she did not like, at least to the flop. She added to many pots. She hit a couple splash pots, so she had money to burn. She was the main one betting poor hands to qualify a splash pot. She did object my folding, but she did it openly face to face.
I sensed that it was a closed group of regulars who knew one another and were not too interested in me. I was very tired because I had not slept well, so I was very quiet.
The new buses of Yankee Trails are wonderful. They are clean and comfortable. Seats recline a bit. Bathrooms are well stocked and all new and very clean.\They played a movie each way, both with kid characters. One was about a geek who learns baseball. The other was "Stand By Me." I was amazed at how much of this movie I had forgotten.
So, the bus ride was great; however, they were late leaving and very late picking us up. No reasons were given.
I did not like driving in the dark both ways from home to Yankee Trails station. It is an easy enough drive, but I rarely like driving at night.
The food was unimpressive, but I went off diet and had my first lobster roll with my $20 food credit. It was very good and the next morning I was down another two pounds of bloating, so the salt content could not have been very high. At $19 it was expensive for such a small roll. However, free it was fine and the portion was plenty.
Rivers has small bars where we could help ourselves to soda, coffee, or water. I did not want coffee to drive my bathroom visits and I don't drink soda, but the water came with ice. I brought my insulated Contigo cup and that works very well when traveling. For one thing, it can tip over and it won't leak. I have two, but only one style really won't leak when tipped. It has a thing called Autoseal.
The bus was late to take us home, and there were too few benches. I ended standing up for quite a while. I appreciated even more the comfort of this new bus. I'm wondering if Turning Stone trips have such comfort.
The final score was a loss of $33 dollars, less than the gas would cost to drive down. So with free lunch the trip was basically a wash. I might go again, but I'd want to go where there is a high hand award. I had quad fives in this game and might have hit that promotion. They have it weekends at Rivers. $400 every half hour. You need only one card to play and no minimum in the pot to qualify. I like that.
I missed the bad beat with that quad five hand by one card. My opponent had trip Aces. I would have won 10 grand. Kickers can play, so had one jack been an Ace, we would have hit.
However, that got me thinking about having a scheduled time of departure and getting into a situation where I would have to wait to get paid. So, I left a bit early. I was ready anyway.
