TR snippet- adjusting focus

Each of us who have traveled back to Vegas a number of times have gradually narrowed our planning, using our past experiences to focus our trip so as to meet our personal gambling/show/comfort agendas, and often we know exactly where we are going to book next time, even the exact room number. We look for our traditional happy places.

Mine has always been:
Use the bus
roll luggage between the free spots downtown with bus access to anywhere
try to take a trip to Laughlin
end at the El Cortez for the free airport shuttle
take a large suitcase full of stuff and carry home more than I took by taking a soft bag. Southwest still has free checked bags.

However, this last trip has amended my traditional patterns in these ways:

VIDEO POKER
I play in general less video poker than I used to. I know that I play well (even here in Vegas I can use Dancer's tutor on my laptop to test the hands I wonder about) but I just am hitting losing streaks so that I am paying a lot for my “free” rooms.
If I do play, I'd like to play less money, quitting earlier.
Currently I try to keep my daily gambling average up so I feel playing small amounts in my favorite venues downtown: MSS and 4 Queens might erase my chances for free room mailings.

MSS sends me regular mailings. 4 Queens says I am just short a bit of play for the mailings they used to send. Reading about their comp policy it seems that as a player is established as a regular over time, they require more play.
Well, 4 Queens, I'll wait until the economic crisis loosens your mailings up a bit more, and you are willing to lure me in again.
The irony is that these two places are the best place to play VP, but I skip playing a few twenties there, so as not to spoil my daily average.

This trip I seeded the Cannery with VP play and lost enough for free room mailings for my next trip if they are generous at sending them. I suppose if I stay there for five nights with two comped, but my play does not average what it did for the two nights of this trip, I will be in the same comp bind as I am with the downtown venues, but as long as those wonderfully upscale rooms are just $30 weekdays, I think I will let the daily average rest wherever it does. I loved this Cannery, but could not be a high roller for five days in a row.

I also seeded Laughlin's Edgewater with host Janelle, my first VP host. She was suggested by Linda Boyd, author of a great little VP book called, The Video Poker Edge My buddy Wild Bill and I got adjoining rooms comped by Janelle.
Having a host did seduce me into more slot play. Megabucks beckoned to me. At the Edgewater, the best pay tables of VP did not earn points for comps or cash, but the cash flow did count with the host toward our comped rooms.
However, I do need to think about how much I want to play over many days. Laughlin hotel rooms are worth about twenty dollars a night on weekdays. Perhaps I'll just get the weekend comped next trip and pay to stay the rest of the time.
I did like the Edgewater/Colorado Belle location and the flexibility of being able to play in either casino and be monitored by one host for both.

LIVE POKER

I still like playing at the El Cortez downtown, but the rest of downtown games have little appeal. Replacing them is the low fifty cent/dollar blind, one hundred max Poker Pro machine no limit game at Excalibur. I am ready to give that game more of my time and see if I can learn to win at no limit.