Ventured off to Vegas on the 27th of march in advance of my 50th birthday (flights were too expensive on my actual birthday weekend - Easter weekend)for some R and R at the Flamingo, Palace Station/Red Rock and the Rio.
My first full day at the Flamingo was Weds the 28th. To my amazement when I ventured down to the room I discovered that they had 1 - installed a electronic screen with the games and players names who were awaiting a seat and 2 - a list of high hand payouts. Now in the past the Flamingo offered daily high hands payouts which were popsted in the morning, if you made the top 5 or 10 you got paid IF you were still in town. thats was part of the reason that when I stayed their previuosly I would venture to the paris and oer other casinos that offered something for your rake i.e. High hands, hourly comps, bad beats...someting! The 1 thing that the Flamingo had then as now was FAST DRINK SERVICE since the bar is still located at the end of the room!

But now they, the Flamingo, are paying you right on the spot for your s8 flushes, royals and quads.And comping you at a $1.00 an hour!! They also had some special Tues night deal where the payouts doubled between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m... Nice!

Well as luck would have it I sat down to a $2-4 game that seemed to be moving right along. Over the first couple of hours I heard high hands announced at 2 other tables and after the floor supr paid the person with the high hand he would then go to the high hand wall and erase the old amount and write in $60.00 which is where all the high hand started at. ( I believe that they, the high hands, maxxed out at $599.00).

Anyway I developed a conversation with a young guy who was sitting to my left nnamed "Darren" who was in town from canada ( where exactly I cant remember but I do know that it was Western Canada) with his buddy ( who was on his immediate left). Our conversation swithced back and forth from poker to NCAA basketball ( NOTE : I WAS/AM A BIG GEORGETOWN FAN AND IT WAS OBVIOUS BY MY APPAREL).

As the dealer prepared to deal the next hand "Darren" wished Georgetown and me goodluck. In fact he suggested that this next hand would be a predictor of Georgetowns' fate vesrus Ohio State. I looked at my cards and held pocket eights hmmm o.k. lets bet. The flop comes 8-8-3!!! WOW I flopped quads. I Immediatly thought that I would check... only to have people bet into me! I called and began glancing at the high hand board to see that quad 8's paid $193.00. Damn what a feeling I CAN"T lose no matter what. ( too bad there aint no bad beat!!) After the turn and river which saw me rasing some fools who continued to bet into me I revealed my quads and got paid. I think that Darren got damn near as much pleasure as I did out of the hand!

Flamingo I love you.

The next night we moved to the Palace Station for 3 comped nights(although we also were double booked, comped, at the Red Rock for 2 of those nights for a Blackjack tourney). The Palace Station is my old standby. I will probably never be there for the bad beat ( I have missed it once by an hour at Green valley in 05 though) but I have always liked the atmosphere and now they have a dozen or so flat screens scateered around the room and self serve coffee too... woo hoo). There only high hand offering was quad 3's with an ace kicker left on their "big board". Along with their standard royal pay outs and badbeat in house (for $10k) and station wide bad beat, the friendly staff and a bunch of old locals some of whom I actually remeber by name from my previuos 5-6 visits there in the past 3 years, it all makes for a decent room! The drink service is fast!

My stay at Red Rock found me always trying to get on the list at RED Rock but never playing. And the Poker room at the Rio was quite frankly somewhat disappointing considering that is where the WSOP is played! Small room that's poorly lit and some players that looked like WSOP wannabe's.

But The Flamingo, Darren and quad eights is
something that I will never forget