....just a few comments, observations and musings after a weekend in Las Vegas and Laughlin.

The roulette tournament at the Flamingo Hilton in Laughlin was a blast! The format was as follows:

Each player played one session Saturday, and another session Sunday. Each session consisted of 17 spins on the wheel (they thought it'd take an hour to complete a session, but that turned out to be wishful thinking.)

Each player was staked 200 $5 chips to bet however they wanted, with $25 minimum/maximum limits both inside and outside, and a maximum of 7 outside bets per spin.

The tables that they used for this event were antiques, larger slots and a steeper slope on the sides of the wheel. The ball made a distinctive "clink" when it landed in a slot, and it didn't bounce around anywhere near as much as it does on a modern wheel.

At the end of each session, each player's chips were counted, and the two-day total determined which 5 players would participate in the final round. Just before the start of the final round, they held a wild card drawing for a sixth player from the pool of all of the other people who had played in the tournament. I was in that pool, having gone broke on the 14th spin of the first session, and again on the 4th spin of the second session. Believe it or not, I wasn't in last place going into the wild card drawing, there were six people who went into the tank quicker than I did! <G>

They had 59 entries, paid $2000 to win, down to $250 for sixth place, in the final round. If you weren't comp'd into the event, you could buy in for $40.

The Flamingo was very happy with the overall success of this event, and they plan on doing it again at least once a year in the future. I met a whole bunch of people who love the game just as much as I do, and throughout the weekend, we were all rooting for each other. It was just plain fun! :-)

I stayed at the Aladdin Thursday night before driving down to Laughlin for the roulette tournament. They comp'd me the room one step up from what they call a deluxe room. If I remember right, they call this type of room a "Resort Room". Any other casino in Vegas would call it a mini-suite, or petite-suite. It was VERY nice! It had the biggest bathroom I've ever seen, with a separate glassed in shower and an over-sized bathtub.

I played 8 sessions of roulette at the London Club over the weekend. That room has become my favorite place to play, the entire atmosphere is very relaxing, and the people treat you like royalty even if you're just a common slob like me! <G>

I stayed at the Paris Sunday night. There were very few people still working the tables that I knew from playing there when the French roulette table was on the floor. I'm going to miss that table more than I can put into words. ...and yes, they destroyed ALL of the jetons and plaques. I was able to confirm that they had plaques made in values up to $100,000. They never did place the larger denomination plaques on the table, but they did have them in the vault.

....I overslept just a tad this morning, and to make matters worse, the Paris valet parking crew "lost" my car! It took them an hour and a half to "find" it. By that time, I had missed my flight home, managed to fly stand-by, but I got home 5 hours later than I thought I was going to.

The positive side of getting stuck in Vegas was, I took a little time to explore the Aladdin more than I had before. Do take the time to walk through the Desert Passages area of this resort. It is much more than just shops and restaurants. The place is amazing! There was a group of acrobats performing in the Alakazan court, VERY entertaining!

All in all, I had pretty darn fun weekend! :-)

I can't wait for Superbowl weekend! I might just have to go back before then.....New Years weekend is looking very tempting, and I've already received invitations for it.....

BTW, any folks that had winning bids on my eBay auctions Sunday night, I'll be catching up on contacting you good folks tomorrow, and thanks!

Bob :-)