Vegas All Nighter! (1 Viewer)

The collective trivial knowledge of this place never ceases to amaze me.

Run (good), Inca.

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inca911 said:
Replaced rack of Harrahs that never made it to France. Walk in, ask, walk out = ideal. Do you but nice!

View attachment 387314
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What's the story on that? Is that the same rack that I was shipping to France that gearx ended up buying from me?

Edit I can see now it's not the same rack but wonder if it was going to the same person.
 
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Sick run. The taco pic with the chips is just perfect. How was it getting chips from CC? Hard/easy? Did you just ask the cage?
 
Sharing my harvest info/thoughts from this trip.
  • At all of the casinos, the cashiers/cages would not give me more than 1-2 chips as souvenirs. None of them were allowed to get a rack, and all of the cashiers were confused by my attempts to tip them. Unilaterally, they got a superior to handle my inquiry. Thinking about this a bit more, it makes some sense. The cages get the chips coming back from the cashing-out players, and have runners that replenish the floor with chips separately from their stockpile. It's a streamlined workflow if they don't give out any chips. I will skip cashiers on my next trip. A localized cage might be better than a full cashier, like some poker rooms have.
  • Where the casino did have a poker room, the in-room cashiers were very accommodating to help with chips. I waited for them to not have any line before I approached them at a quiet time. At Bally's, they gave me 4 racks of $1s to sort out the good chips by hand. I tipped the desk guy as thanks and also to check for any "cleaner" racks while I did so. I used one of the empty tables in the room to sort, and nobody seemed to care. I did find a somewhat sheltered spot to not raise the interest of the room manager (i.e., a table somewhat blocked from view by the in-room desk). My guy at Bally's got my attention a bit later during my sort with a mint rack delivered from the cage. Sorting 400 chips down to 120 + a mint rack = a win.
  • For this trip, I would first strike out completely at the cage. I had brought a pocketful of $5 and $20 bills with me, and approached dealers at quiet/empty tables to ask to get "10-20 chips". Some stingier dealers would only give 5 chips, but most all of them helped a little just to get me to move on. I rotated back and forth to different sections to try to blend in. In general, if the dealer had a tray that was topped-off, they were very accommodating. Clearly they are told to keep X number of $1s in their rack. Occasionally a dealer would say they needed to get the pit boss. If the pit boss was clearly busy, I would bail on the effort to come back later. If the pit boss was open, I would start up a conversation the boss about my stated goal to get about 60 total chips for me and my two friend's shuffle stacks as souvenirs. I think asking for a full 100 chips is too many at one time. Some pit bosses would direct the dealer to give me 10 or 20 chips, and I got lucky with a few pit bosses who would move the conversation to their craps table and direct them to help. The craps table has lots of $1s, but the dealers are generally extremely busy managing the game. If a craps table is slow, that's the prime target. Roulette also has chips, but they would give out player-specific roulette chips. I wasn't able to try an empty roulette table, who I suspect might help. My best score was n=60 from one craps table directed by the pit boss. For the key casinos like Paris and Circus Circus, I did a first harvest pass and left, returning after an hour or two to finish the rack (e.g., hit Circus Circus, headed to Sahara, then back to CC). When I did talk with a pit boss, I would politely ask whether they were just starting or ending their shift (i.e., so I can time my return trip to come back to a new boss and a clean slate). Paris was a tough get, taking me three trips to fill up (i.e., hit Paris, went to Bally's, back to Paris, played at Bellagio, and returned to Paris before heading to the airport). At Paris, I showed the pit boss gal my flight passes and she sympathetically gave me the last 15 chips I needed to fill my rack. I made my flight by 15 minutes, as the CLEAR line wasn't open for some reason.
Random notes: @SkywayParkFR bought a Harrah's rack from me that was lost during shipment to France. Only chips I've ever lost, so this harvest helps fill that void (if he didn't find a rack already). On the fight from DIA to Vegas, I sat next to a girl my age on the plane. We chatted for the flight and turns out her close college girlfriend has a brother named Paul who won a lot playing poker when he was very young. Last name, Wasicka (aka the 2006 WSOP ME runner-up who cashed for $6MM). Small world....

Hopefully this info helps someone who is new to harvesting get that rack they are hunting! I was very happy to add a CC rack to my OFCP set from this trip. I would use a max of 1 rack per dealer shift as a good rule of thumb to use to plan a harvest. If I wanted to walk a couple miles north, I think I could have added a second CC rack. For this trip, there just wasn't time.

CC.jpg
 
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Sounds like a successful fun trip. Nicely done. Makes me want to do the same thing
 
Just finished the chip cleaning. Cliff's Notes for those who haven't used a good ultrasonic, it's really nice and you should absolutely borrow one if you can avoid cleaning by hand!

I had a few racks of LCOs that still needed a bath, here is before (left) and after (right).
dirtclean.jpg


Instructions are for Paulsons only: Fill tank with water around 42C and 2 tablespoons of "fake TSP" (aka Sodium Metasilicate) until dissolved. Set timer for 2 minutes. and start. Rotate salad spinner during the cleaning process (you can see the clear plastic zip-tie on the green basket used to grab and rotate the basket (about 20 rpm), max of 1 rack per cycle.
ultra.jpg


Rinse with clean water, lay flat on towel, pat off excess water, and let air dry.
harvest dry.jpg


@UnicornFlash : the Bally's cleaned up nicely. Mint rack is on top and sorted chips below.
Ballys.jpg
 
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$20 to Bally's guy. He had just started his shift, so I was hoping it would give him some incentive to sort out good chips for when I returned later (if he got bored). Getting a Mint rack delivered was just dumb luck. Don't think the tipping did anything to help, except he proactively let me know or I'd have probably missed out.

Root Down is a restaurant at Denver International (middle of concourse C, aka Southwest), and one of the best airport stops I've found. The wine bar Vino Volo is another strong option, and is at multiple airports including concourse C at DIA. Pairing a wine flight with a soup/sandwich combo is a real treat on a layover.
 
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