Casino Reopening and a RF Run
Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2020 9:04 pm
It been a while since i posted so here is a quick reopening segment.
With casinos shut down Sweet C and I enjoyed lots of VP practice (usually we practice every night) and accomplished a lot on my “Honey Do List”. Being older and having several potential medical concerns we were hesitant to return when Lake Charles, La reopened casinos. We eventually contacted our host (Carol –the sweetest host we ever known and had as a host since 2011 at previous casinos). Carol is older like Sweet C and me and we talked at length about the conditions and preventive practices at the Golden Nugget. After several conversations we decided to make a run over taking several precautions. First, we booked a mid-week trip to reduce the crowd size. VP always has smaller crowds but we certainly didn’t want to go over a weekend.
Second, we discussed our own preventive measures.
Multiple masks-check; Hand Sanitizer – check; Spray bottles of alcohol – check; Extra sets of clothes to change into- check; Open the room balcony door frequently for fresh air– check; Sanitizer for the room
Cease play if we felt unsafe (smoker, cougher, etc close to us.)
Eat in only the outside seating area of the restaurants.
Upon arrival Carol met us and checked our temperature, conducted a survey of health/exposure, and gave us a wrist-band for access to the casino floor.
Having been exposed to SARS-COVID 19 early on (March) from one of our Son-in-Laws and having lost a friend and fellow retired principal to COVID we were extremely cautious. My brother and daughter are also nurses in the Houston area so we are constantly aware of the severity of COVID.
Golden Nugget Lake Charles
Casino Operations: The casino was limited to 50% capacity with every other machine turned off. Every patron was temperature checked and banded for entry (the first trip). Since then each patron receives a hand stamp. Hand sanitizer and germicidal wipes were located strategically throughout the casino for patrons to use. We cleaned every machine and chair we used. All casino personnel wore masks and the tables appeared to do a decent job of requiring social distancing. Plexiglas partitions have been added at the high use machines (especially in the high limit areas). Gotta have those high rollers to help recover losses and keep them happy. But, the most popular penny machines also had dividers. Pay table were not changed or lowered. Waitress service somewhat slower and some housekeeping cleaning was occurring. Table operations were limited to 4 but during the last couple of trips while 4 were playing 6-10 people might be standing around talking to them. Thank gosh masks are now mandatory for everyone in La.
Hotel Precautions: The hotel policy is to no longer clean rooms daily but only after check out. No room service was provided. Hotel check in was stretched down the main hallway with 6 foot social distancing markers. We luckily use VIP and met our host the first time over.
Restaurants: Reservations were not allowed prior to arrival for sign-up. (We’ve since learned we can reserve time through our confirmation email.) All restaurants were limited capacity leading to 1-2-21/2 hour wait times. Staffing was also limited. Limited menus in some places and paper menus.
Amenities: The Spa was closed but the pools were open and with lots of people-50/50 on social distancing. It has gotten worse. The blessing is the 100-110 heat index is limiting the pools mid-day. It just too hot for many people.
Comps: The compensations were the same with one exception. Weekly free play was changed to Mon-Thursday instead of Mon-Wed. Prior to closure additional daily free play was provided daily Thursday-Sunday after 2:00 pm. This eliminated one extra night of additional monies. Weekly meal comps remained the same - based on play. So between us we could us our $125-150 in meal money to eat each night at one of the Landry’s branded restaurants: Salt Grass Steak House, Landry’s, Grotto, Charthouse, etc. Our other comp $ could buy lunches.
Casino Play
We generally play a bank of 6 All Star machines (never at the bars) but only 3 were functioning and only 1 of the 2 hundred play machine. GNLC has generally only regulars playing during mid-week and we never had an issue getting a machine. We have now made 5 trips: late May, June (2) and July (2). Only this past weekend did we go over a weekend. (Huge free play bonus $$). We also anticipated this being our last trip due to Texas now being one of the hotspots and anticipating La. making major restrictions again. Each of our trips we would take our normal bank roll of a couple of hundred each and play 5¢, 10¢ or 25¢ VP. The All Stars offer 3-5-10 play 25¢ and same pay table 5¢ -10play. We don’t play the bonus wager games. They are offered at generally another 1% lower pay tables. The 100 hand has the same pay tables at 10¢ as 25¢ VP so I can often play 20-25 hands for 25¢ wagers since I almost exclusively play multi-hand. Sweet C has greater patience and less risk factor than me. She also plays DW Bonus and caught Ds/A on 50¢ this trip as well.
Luckily each trip one of us has a caught a Royal Flush on 25¢ or 50¢ which helps the bank roll. Six RF in total.
I’ve never played much DDB (I’m a DW/DWB/Bonus –high return;low volatility guy) but I practiced many hours on DDB (9/5) over the hiatus. So I’ve tried to spend time acclimating myself the ebbs and flows of DDB. Luckily, Sweet C is a great mentor and motivator as she’s been dealt quad 2s, 3s and.or 4’s and Aces in each of our trips and caught Aces/K multiple time including on 50¢ twice. I’ve caught several nice dealt hands on DDB, including multiple hands of dealt quads on 10¢ and this past trip 5 sets of dealt quads on 10¢, 25¢ and 50¢ the best being dealt quads Aces, quad 3’s (twice) and quad 2’s/K on 5 hands 25¢. Also one of my RF was on DDB. So this last trip we pulled 6 - $1k tickets+ with no “Gs”. Sorry Uncle Sam! I’ve also caught half-a-dozen 10¢ RF to keep me in the games over the trips.
Funny side bar when you’re lucky. I was playing 25 hands @10¢ DW (with less than $100 bankroll) and got distracted by a regular who wanted to show me his TDB Aces/K. As I returned to my seat I accidentally hit Max Play ($50) hand DW. The panic turned a smile as the Deuce,8,8,3,8 came into view on 100 hands-a $300+ hit.
So we’ll now wait to see how the upsurge in cases affects our decisions to go over. La is now requiring face masks in the casinos so that’s a great relief but 80% of the players are still from Houston/Texas so if we go we’ll still limit ourselves to our routine. Sunday-Monday allowing us to use Sunday bonus $$ and Monday’s new weekly $ and both weeks meal $.
Sidenote: So this week we got a new host. Our wonderful host Carol retired for health concerns. We certainly understand in lieu of the host expectations by some high limit players. We're not high limit bus as i stated earlier she immediately took us on when she moved from our old casino to GNLC. Best wishes Carol and thanks for a great 10 year run. We love you. Talk to you soon.
Best wishes to all. Stay safe, wear a mask, and good luck.
With casinos shut down Sweet C and I enjoyed lots of VP practice (usually we practice every night) and accomplished a lot on my “Honey Do List”. Being older and having several potential medical concerns we were hesitant to return when Lake Charles, La reopened casinos. We eventually contacted our host (Carol –the sweetest host we ever known and had as a host since 2011 at previous casinos). Carol is older like Sweet C and me and we talked at length about the conditions and preventive practices at the Golden Nugget. After several conversations we decided to make a run over taking several precautions. First, we booked a mid-week trip to reduce the crowd size. VP always has smaller crowds but we certainly didn’t want to go over a weekend.
Second, we discussed our own preventive measures.
Multiple masks-check; Hand Sanitizer – check; Spray bottles of alcohol – check; Extra sets of clothes to change into- check; Open the room balcony door frequently for fresh air– check; Sanitizer for the room
Cease play if we felt unsafe (smoker, cougher, etc close to us.)
Eat in only the outside seating area of the restaurants.
Upon arrival Carol met us and checked our temperature, conducted a survey of health/exposure, and gave us a wrist-band for access to the casino floor.
Having been exposed to SARS-COVID 19 early on (March) from one of our Son-in-Laws and having lost a friend and fellow retired principal to COVID we were extremely cautious. My brother and daughter are also nurses in the Houston area so we are constantly aware of the severity of COVID.
Golden Nugget Lake Charles
Casino Operations: The casino was limited to 50% capacity with every other machine turned off. Every patron was temperature checked and banded for entry (the first trip). Since then each patron receives a hand stamp. Hand sanitizer and germicidal wipes were located strategically throughout the casino for patrons to use. We cleaned every machine and chair we used. All casino personnel wore masks and the tables appeared to do a decent job of requiring social distancing. Plexiglas partitions have been added at the high use machines (especially in the high limit areas). Gotta have those high rollers to help recover losses and keep them happy. But, the most popular penny machines also had dividers. Pay table were not changed or lowered. Waitress service somewhat slower and some housekeeping cleaning was occurring. Table operations were limited to 4 but during the last couple of trips while 4 were playing 6-10 people might be standing around talking to them. Thank gosh masks are now mandatory for everyone in La.
Hotel Precautions: The hotel policy is to no longer clean rooms daily but only after check out. No room service was provided. Hotel check in was stretched down the main hallway with 6 foot social distancing markers. We luckily use VIP and met our host the first time over.
Restaurants: Reservations were not allowed prior to arrival for sign-up. (We’ve since learned we can reserve time through our confirmation email.) All restaurants were limited capacity leading to 1-2-21/2 hour wait times. Staffing was also limited. Limited menus in some places and paper menus.
Amenities: The Spa was closed but the pools were open and with lots of people-50/50 on social distancing. It has gotten worse. The blessing is the 100-110 heat index is limiting the pools mid-day. It just too hot for many people.
Comps: The compensations were the same with one exception. Weekly free play was changed to Mon-Thursday instead of Mon-Wed. Prior to closure additional daily free play was provided daily Thursday-Sunday after 2:00 pm. This eliminated one extra night of additional monies. Weekly meal comps remained the same - based on play. So between us we could us our $125-150 in meal money to eat each night at one of the Landry’s branded restaurants: Salt Grass Steak House, Landry’s, Grotto, Charthouse, etc. Our other comp $ could buy lunches.
Casino Play
We generally play a bank of 6 All Star machines (never at the bars) but only 3 were functioning and only 1 of the 2 hundred play machine. GNLC has generally only regulars playing during mid-week and we never had an issue getting a machine. We have now made 5 trips: late May, June (2) and July (2). Only this past weekend did we go over a weekend. (Huge free play bonus $$). We also anticipated this being our last trip due to Texas now being one of the hotspots and anticipating La. making major restrictions again. Each of our trips we would take our normal bank roll of a couple of hundred each and play 5¢, 10¢ or 25¢ VP. The All Stars offer 3-5-10 play 25¢ and same pay table 5¢ -10play. We don’t play the bonus wager games. They are offered at generally another 1% lower pay tables. The 100 hand has the same pay tables at 10¢ as 25¢ VP so I can often play 20-25 hands for 25¢ wagers since I almost exclusively play multi-hand. Sweet C has greater patience and less risk factor than me. She also plays DW Bonus and caught Ds/A on 50¢ this trip as well.
Luckily each trip one of us has a caught a Royal Flush on 25¢ or 50¢ which helps the bank roll. Six RF in total.
I’ve never played much DDB (I’m a DW/DWB/Bonus –high return;low volatility guy) but I practiced many hours on DDB (9/5) over the hiatus. So I’ve tried to spend time acclimating myself the ebbs and flows of DDB. Luckily, Sweet C is a great mentor and motivator as she’s been dealt quad 2s, 3s and.or 4’s and Aces in each of our trips and caught Aces/K multiple time including on 50¢ twice. I’ve caught several nice dealt hands on DDB, including multiple hands of dealt quads on 10¢ and this past trip 5 sets of dealt quads on 10¢, 25¢ and 50¢ the best being dealt quads Aces, quad 3’s (twice) and quad 2’s/K on 5 hands 25¢. Also one of my RF was on DDB. So this last trip we pulled 6 - $1k tickets+ with no “Gs”. Sorry Uncle Sam! I’ve also caught half-a-dozen 10¢ RF to keep me in the games over the trips.
Funny side bar when you’re lucky. I was playing 25 hands @10¢ DW (with less than $100 bankroll) and got distracted by a regular who wanted to show me his TDB Aces/K. As I returned to my seat I accidentally hit Max Play ($50) hand DW. The panic turned a smile as the Deuce,8,8,3,8 came into view on 100 hands-a $300+ hit.
So we’ll now wait to see how the upsurge in cases affects our decisions to go over. La is now requiring face masks in the casinos so that’s a great relief but 80% of the players are still from Houston/Texas so if we go we’ll still limit ourselves to our routine. Sunday-Monday allowing us to use Sunday bonus $$ and Monday’s new weekly $ and both weeks meal $.
Sidenote: So this week we got a new host. Our wonderful host Carol retired for health concerns. We certainly understand in lieu of the host expectations by some high limit players. We're not high limit bus as i stated earlier she immediately took us on when she moved from our old casino to GNLC. Best wishes Carol and thanks for a great 10 year run. We love you. Talk to you soon.
Best wishes to all. Stay safe, wear a mask, and good luck.