goatcabin - 15 August 2010 11:17 AM
A friend and I are heading up to
Reno September 13-15, probably to stay at Harrah’s, play at various casinos. I
will report. Cheers, Alan Shank
OK, so my buddy Paul and I drove up to Reno last Monday and checked into
Harrah’s around 3 PM. The rooms were in the East Tower, $60/night, two queen
beds, no smoking, no fridge or microwave, but comfortable and quiet.
We got a bite to eat in the Cafe Napa (coffee shop) and went in search of a
craps table. We found two not open and one very crowded. Minimum was $5, 3, 4,
5X odds, no triple on the Field bet.
We watched for a while, then I squeezed in and bought in for $200. Paul is a big guy and couldn’t find a spot for a while. After I had played a while, somebody left and the other end and Paul bought in. It was up and down for me, but Paul was hitting some hardways and was up a bit. The dice were coming around to me when they replaced the table sign with a $10-minimum sign; it was 5:30. I was the first shooter after the increase, so I went ahead and rolled and made a couple of points before sevening out and leaving the table down about $30, $10 of it in tokes. Paul, OTOH, doubled his bankroll. Most of the dealers were wearing football jerseys in honor of the first Monday Night Football game of the regular season. They were all competent and friendly, and it was a full crew, including boxman.
Harrah’s, of course, is HUGE, with casino areas on both sides of Center St, connected by a skyway. I kept getting lost. Paul likes to bet the races, so we went to the race/sports book section and he made a couple of bets. They had dog races as well as quarter-horse and thoroughbred racing. Almost all of the major-league baseball games were on, as well, of course, as the football game.
We ate dinner at the Cafe Napa, then headed over to Cal Neva, another huge place on both sides of the street. We almost gave up looking for a craps table, but finally found one, almost empty. There were just two dealers, one of them handling the stick. Play was $3 min, 345X. I bought in for $160. As I recall, I started out at 2X odds, an occasional horn-high 12, $1 12 or two-way $1 hardway bet, whereas Paul was betting $5 yo, $5 hard eight and sometimes covering the other hardways for $1 each. When you play aggressively and are having good luck, you win more than someone betting roughly parallel but at a lower level, and we had good luck. I won about $180 and Paul won over $400. Later on, they had a full crew; the dealers were very good and friendly, and as we came back there three times over the next two days, we got on a first-name basis with them.
We headed down the street to the Silver Legacy ($5, 345X) and played for a while down there. Here again, Paul won some yo’s and hardways, while I lost about $50.
Finally, we hit the El Dorado, and it was a quick $100 loss for each of us, telling us to call it a day. We went back to Harrah’s, watched TV and had a drink.
The next morning I took a nice 35-minute walk past the Reno Aces’ ballpark, a very nice Pacific Coast League park, then along both sides of the Truckee river and back downtown. I noticed the Sands Regency a few blocks away.
Paul and I then had breakfast and went back over to Cal Neva, where we had a real good session; I bought in for $100 and left with $280, dropping around $15 in tokes. Paul also won at least as much as that.
We walked down to the Sands and had lunch at Mel’s diner. They have a big sign near the craps table advertising 10X odds. When we got to the table, there was just one dealer working and no players. They had an insert with rubber pyramids that cut off the last third of the table, so the one dealer could handle everything. We ended up placing our own prop bets. IIRC, I started out at 3, 4, 5X odds, but also placed the 6 and 8. When I won one of those place bets, I put the red chip on my odds, so I financed additional odds with place-bet winnings. Paul was making a couple of come bets and putting around 5X odds on them, so while I was winning $7 on a six or eight, he might be making $35 on the same roll. I think he made a few max odds bets before we were done. After a while, some other players showed up and they took out the insert and got another dealer working. When we colored up, I had $330 ($200 buyin) and Paul had a lot more.
One of the things I wanted to do while up there was to win a $1 twelve or two and parlay it, but I never managed to win one of those. I won a $5 horn-high 12 and pressed it to $10, but it lost. One time, Paul and I both hit a $5 yo twice in a row; too bad we didn’t parlay that!
We played two more sessions that day; I won around $55 at the Sands and lost $35 at the Cal Neva. At the Cal Neva, Paul was almost out of cheques when I left, but when I got back he must have had $300 in his rack. I think he hit a $15 hard eight in there somewhere.
We ate at the Joy Luck Noodle Bar - yum, yum!
Wednesday morning I didn’t have breakfast, just some coffee and a croissant, while Paul went to the Cafe Napa. I called him later, and he was at Cal Neva playing, so I went over there and bought in for $100, lost it quickly.
Ran out of room, so I’ll continue in another post.
Cheers,
Alan Shank
Woodland, CA
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