Slots Adventures

Things have been unusually hectic as of late, but i couldn’t pass up this week’s big freeroll at English Harbour.  the Big Frees IV is running until the first of Feb, and has $10,000 in bonus money put up as prizes.

the tournament is being held on the Reel Deal slot, which i’ve played several times, so i’m familiar with it. 

players get $500 to start with, and at the end of the tournament the top - get this - 587 players - take home some bonus cash.  how can you not win?

hehe, i’m about to find out!

the leader in the tourney took their $500 and have turned it into a little more than $250,000.  in-sane.  just plain in-sane.

well, after taking my 20 qualifying spins, the casino will now tell me that i’m in 412th place, even though i lost money during the warm-ups.

now, in looking at the cash part of the tournament, i see that there’s just shy of $8,000 in the rebuy pool.  not that i have a hope in making it high enough on the leaderboard to tap into the cash prizes.  i should just stop right now, and take a couple of bonus bucks into my account should my score hold up, but, i’m in the mood to play.

well, after a relatively short while, i’m broke.  but happy that i went ahead spinning.  this time, because it was a freeroll and i had a good excuse to just keep going for the fun of it, i had more fun losing than i would have quitting while i was ahead.

the new microgamings will be out shortly, so i’m planning on sepnding some time with them thursday.  and, english harbour will certainly be having some more freerolls next month, so there’s plenty of slots playing to look forward to for me.

Whoo-hoo, i restarted my computer last night, and bingo, today she’s running all the programs without issue.  i might even try to get my new Zune up and running by end of the day. 

what it means on the slots front is that i could get into EHarbour without any problems today.  and, sure enough, they are running the Big Free III which is a slots tournament with $5,000 in free prizes.  there is no entry fee for the tournament so it’s yet another in the long line of free slots tournaments being offered at English Harbour.

the formula for payouts and starting credits and such seems to have been settled upon and repeated in all these big tournaments.  this one lasts a week, and with $5,000 up for grabs, that makes it a big one. 

every player starts out with $500 in credits on the machine, which in the case of this tournament is the Cleopatra’s Pyramid machine. i’ve played the game a couple of times before, so i’m familiar with it.

the payouts extend down pretty far on the leaderboard.  anyone finishing in the top 100 places gets paid.  that’s a lot of payout spots.  the prizes are a mix of cash that is, well, cash.  and bonus money that has to be put into play at the casino before you can withdraw it.

i pretty much always have a mix of bonus money and cash in my account at English Harbour.

this machine has 20 paylines, and i need to break into the $50,000 territory to make it into the top 10, i’m not sure where 100th place stands, but i’m setting the coin size at $.50, so it’ll be $10 a spin and i’ll see where that takes me.

at the end of 20 spins i’m in 506th place with a modest win.

i did hit the bonus game, but couldn’t make it past the first stone (they show a pyramid on the bonus game, cleopatra’s pyramid - and you choose one stone from the bottome level, then the next higher level, earning credits all the way to the top.  unless you uncover a serpent.  then the game ends and you take whatever winnings you’ve acquired back to the slot)

in the end, i got in 107 spins, at $10 each before running out of credits. didn’t seem like i caught a hot machine at all. 

oh well.  it’s already wednesday!  i’m sure there will be another big free slots tournament next week, and there are some daily events on the EH schedule, plus, i’ve been meaning to get to a new casino to try out some different games lately.  we’ll see. 

in the end, i hope you have better luck on Cleopatra’s Pyramid than i did! 

it’s late afternoon on friday, and i haven’t been to the casinos for what seems like a couple of days now.  things have been pretty busy, but it’s been fun, and i’m not missing the slots or anything.  i just remembered that the $5,000 freeroll is going on at english harbour, on the what’s your sign machine, and i know i won’t be getting any spins in over the weekend so i thought i’d try to take my spins this afternoon.

 because i’m in a bit of a rush, i have the chance to honestly go big or go home, without any worries.  so, my plan in this slot tournament is to crank up the coin sizes, and hope for the absolute best!  i will be trying to get through the warm-up (or “qualifying”) spins first though, just to see where i stand on the leaderboard.

right now, there are, get this . . . 16,961 players in the tournament.  that, is a ton.

we all start out with $500 in credits on the “What’s Your Sign?” video slot.  there are over 100 players that will receive prize money, so that’s a lot.  and surpringly, the top players do not have $100,000+ in credits.  in fact, the top three players all have between $10k and $16,400, which is not a lot at all compared to the other big tournaments i’ve seen.

the What’s Your Sign? game is a 12 payline machine, so i’m starting off at $1 coins, spending $12 per spin for these first 20 spins.

at the end of 20 spins, i have $476, and i’m in 238th place.  not bad considering the size of the field, but this is my day to win, or lose trying, so i’m cranking the coin size up a notch and going for broke!

hehe, at $60 a spin, it doesn’t take too long to find yourself out of credits.  but, i tried to win this one!

well, i might not make it back to the games until next week, but they’ll have a new freeroll waiting for me when i return so i gotta say thumbs up to English Harbour.

checking in at EH today, i noticed i’m on solid ground in the final festive freeroll event.  and, i decided not to try to make any great moves.  i’ll just take a regular old “in the money” showing in the tournament and be happy with that.

instead, i thought i’d sign up for the Five Golden Rings Tournament that they’re holding on the PayDay game.  it’s a $5 entry fee for the tourney, but they pay down to 83rd place.  so i think i have a perfectly fair chance to break-even at least, if not actually win a little something.

looking at the big leaders in the tourney, the top gun is sitting with about $9,000 in chips.  that’s a lot easier to take than the $90k or so that the top dog has in the $10,000 freeroll!!  maybe that’s why i decided to enter.  it reminds me a bit of the first tournaments, before 10,000 people started getting involved

well, after spinning through my qualifer period, i find out that i’m in 28th place!  woo-hoo (i hit one or two modest winners to start).  the payout difference between 28th and 78th is $0.  i’ll get my money back either way, so it looks like i’m on a bit of a freeroll!

had about $530 in credits - so i decided to up the wager per spin to $15, which is one heck of a bump over the $3 a spin i was using.  and, it payed off!  i hit triple 7’s, moving my total credit count up to $665.  lol, now i’m only $8,300 or so off the lead!

i had played this machine several times before during some other slot tournaments - in fact, here is a review of the pay day slot machine you can check out.

well, i gave it a good go, and i’m down to 51st place.  at this point i’m jacking it up for the night. 

even though this tournament had an entry fee, it really turned out to be a freeroll instead.  i have less credits than i started with, so i’m not much of a winner, but i’m still in the money.  can’t complain.  maybe i’ll have better luck next time.

today is the day i’m going to be taking some spins in this slots tournament being held on the Reel Deal machine at English Harbour.  santa was super-nice to me, and i see the week being filled with a mix of chores and distractions, so i thought no better time than the present to get in a little gaming before i miss my chance at this main event slot tournament.

i checked out the leaderboard, and the player in first place took their $500 in starting credits, and spun it into $135,000.  second place is miles away, but still miles ahead of say, me, with just under $80,000 in credits.  so, those guys are the top two out of the 14,567 players involved. 

i’m going to start out playing $.50 per coin, and activating all 20 of the paylines, so if i do hit something, it’ll make a difference.  i’m kindof playing this, well, not to win, but losing won’t hurt my feelings today.  it’s not like i just came off of a poker tournament and the idea of busting out again bothers me. 

i’m thinking of it as i’m going to have to take some chances, and get lucky while i’m doing it, to get anywhere near the top in this event.  still, i’m not going whole hog for twenty seconds.  i’d like to get some spins in, at least the 20 warm-up spins, before busting out.

so, here goes . . .

well, sitting with $467 in credits, i’m also sitting at 278th in the tournament.  that, is in the money!   

but, being in the “go for the gold” mode, i didn’t let that stop me.  and, i kept taking spins at $10 each and kept losing.  and ran from being sure of getting $10 in bonus money just for signing up and spinning a little to being dangerously close to busting out. but i said i wasn’t going to be afraid to bust out this time!

and, before that happened, i caught 3 scatter symbols, which unlocks a free spin session (and is a winner in its own right.  i think they gave me $125 for hitting it).  and, now that the free spins have finished, i’m up to $622.  it’s still the same $10 in bonus money if i hold on to this position in the tournament - but, it’s more than i started with credits-wise. 

so, even if another, say, three thousand players rebuy or sign up fresh, they’ll have to do some winning to pass me out!

i’m shutting her down at this point.  we’ll see, maybe i’ll be back to take a stab at hitting the big one, maybe not.  but for now, ITM is a nice place to sit

i’ve been in the holiday spirit as of late, so the blogging has been a bit spotty.  i did notice, however, that the Slotland Jackpot went off somewhere over the $115,000 mark.  i had planned on taking a couple of spins on it tonight if it didn’t already get hit.

but, it did. so i took a couple of spins on the Tunzamunni insteaddidn’t hit anything of note.  didn’t run out of money, just no jackpots to speak of for the session.

then i thought i’d better check up on the big mega-bucks freeroll tourneys at english harbour.  they’ve started the headliner of the month, the $10,000 freeroll on the Reel Deal Slot Machine.

this tournament is free to enter, and runs from now until the end of the month.  this is definitely the biggie in terms of prize monies going out.  english harbour had been running a series of these freerolls all month, and each of those lasted a week and had $5,000 prize pools. 

the tourney takes place on the Reel Deal video slot game, which (as you’ve probably guessed) is a slot built around the idea of the “Deal or No Deal” game.  that’s what the bonus feature is, a “choose a suitcase” or “pick’em” game.

the payouts for this event stretch pretty far down the line.  the top 587 or so finishers get some sort of reward for their efforts.   that’s a lot of winners.  of course all the really big money goes to the very top players, but i can live with that.

players are all given $500 in tournament credits to start with, and then you can spin away until time runs out, you think you have enough credits, or you run out.  if you run out, you can rebuy (like in a poker tournament).  a rebuy costs $5, and gives you another $500 in credits to work with.

the money from the rebuys is throw right into the prize pool, so the actual payouts are constantly growing.

i haven’t registered yet, but i will.  this is one i don’t plan on missing.  i have all week next week to sit down and do some playing, so i’ll get to it then. 

today i made it into english harbour without incident.  i’m not sure what was up yesterday, but the casino wasn’t letting me at the games, even though i could log in without any problems.  so be it, that’s a thing of the past now.

a quick look at the tournaments lobby revealed a new tournament that’s going off today on the Fat Cat slot game.  it’s one of the 20 payline video slots at the casino, and i’m sure i’ve played it before.

this tourney wasn’t a freeroll, they were charging $2 for entry into it.  i do have a way to work around that (well, kinda.  as i develop the idea, i’ll let you know).  but let’s be honest $2 is perfectly cheap fun no matter what.  so, i’m off to have a couple of spins and see where things end up. 

since the thing only lasts for the day, there’s not a lot of sense in holding back.  we’re all starting with $500 in credits, and if you can’t turn that into mega-cash and place either first, second, or third, you’re out of luck.

so, i’m just gonna crank it up and hope for something big right out of the gate.  maybe not crank it all the way up, but firing off some decent wagers per spin so that if something does land on the reels it’ll make a difference in where i stand in the tournament!

well, i had taken the starting stack and turned it into well over a grand in credits, so i moved up from the $10 spins to the $100 spins and hoped for the best.  and, i did hit some sinners, but never managed to land the bonus round i was hoping for.  that might have been enough to put me up there with the leaders. 

still, i had a good time, and that’s what these tournaments are all about!

good morning all.  i woke up and decided to check the neteller right off the bat to see if the cash out from All Jackpots casino landed early.  it didn’t but the operative word is early, so there’s no disappointment from me.  i just didn’t want to log in say, late tonight and see it and then be wondering how long it had been sitting there.  it hasn’t even been 24 hours, and they’re pretty straightforward in letting players know that a cashout will take at least 24 hours.

with that mini-chore taken care of i wandered into English Harbour.  opened up the tournament lobby, and saw, surprisingly, only one tournament available.  it was a nice tournament though.  the $5,000 freeroll on the Cleopatra’s Pyramid machine.

this tourney is the big one running during the first week of december, and i’m getting in on it a little late.  there are already over 12,000 players.  you get a starting balance of $400.  the player in the overall lead took that $400 and turned it into, get this, $187,929.  holy crud. 

let me do that childish thing for a moment where i think “what if that were real money” . . . ok.  it’s over.  back to my senses.

the prizes are being passed out to the payers that finish in the top 90 spots, so that’s at least a little heartening.  if it were only the top 10 spots it would be looking like a really tough nut to crack.

well, since today is the last day of the tourney, if i can manage to catch a money spot, i’ll only have to hold onto it for a couple of hours before the buzzer goes off.  not bad.

ok, here goes, i’ll fire up the machine, and use a pretty big coin size so if i land a winner, it’ll have some effect on the standings.  and, if i don’t hit anything, the new tourney ought to be out tomorrow, so i’ll still have gaming ahead of me   not a bad plan if i do say so myself . . . .

after the first 25 $10 spins, i’m up to $417, but i’ve only made it to 241st place, so i’d better keep spinning.

the second set of 25 spins - i’ve got this thing on autoplay, that’s why the 25 spins thing, nets me this beauty . . .

the bummer, i’m still not ITM!!  so, with only the top 90 getting into the cashish (or more appropriately bonus-eeesh), i have some more spinning to do.  this tourney might end up being one of those “close, but no dice” affairs.

the next 25 spins netter me a free spins session AND a bonus round (where i picked up $21 - dang, i wanted to hit big on that and get shot up to the top!)

i’m hitting winners, and having fun, but my time is running out.  so, i’m bumping the coins size up and either i’ll hit soon and see that magical 90th place or better in the standings, or, i’ll have had as much fun as a loser can have in a tourney!!

here goes . . . 

WOO-HOO

ta-Da !!!! my strategy worked !!  and now, i can get off to work in time to  

oh happy day. 

while surfing around the net, i happened upon an announcement of the upcoming events at English Harbour for the month of december.  while they don’t give all of the details, things are looking up if you’re a player there.  and, i am.  so, things are looking up

they have $25,000 earmarked for freeroll events next month.  that’s damned near a grand a day.  nice. 

plans are to run one $10,000 event, along with three $5,000 freerolls.  that’s a lot of action.  oh, they’ll also have a steady supply of what they called “smaller freerolls” as well. 

there wasn’t any posting of what machines these events would be on, but i grabbed the phone and had a chat with the guys at english harbour, and they let me know that the tournament schedule for december is posted at the casino’s website. 

every week there’s a $5k event going on, except the last week, when they’re hosting another $10k freeroll. 

it looks like a lot of fun stuff coming up. i’ve tried to cut and paste the scedule in here a couple of times, but can’t quite get the hang of it, so here’s the highlights . . . .

$5k free slot tournament every single week

$10k free tournament on the Reel Deal slot at the end of the month

a series of 12 tourneys with guaranteed money that mimic the 12 days of christmas

a $1 buy-in tourney with guaranteed money every day of the month of on the Reel Deal slot game

while i was chatting, they suggested i check out superslots, a sister casino to english harbour.  i’m an EH fan, and i think the welcome bonus of up to $275 is super for first timers, but i can see how something titled “Superslots” might be more geared towards slots-enthusiasts. 

i’m pretty sure i’ve already played there.  i recall it was the first online casino that i found where you could play a couple of slots at once.  they split the screen up, and you could have reels constantly in motion.  it was neat.

anyway, that’s the scoop on the upcoming events. 

well, today is the day.  i’ll be taking my spins in the big November tournament at EH on the Reel Deal slot machine.  i’ve been kindof saving this up for a while, so today is a big day, kindof.

the way the tournament stands right now is:

9,888 players in the event to date

pays 288 places: $5888 in cash :: $10,000 in bonus money

we start with $400 in slots credits, and first place has $62k.  10th place has a little over $7k.

i’ve played this machine before, so you can read over my reel deal slot review.

Qualifying Spins:

after getting in my 10 qualifying spins, i’m down $60 - but i’m in 220th place.  not bad, i guess.

WOO-HOO.  i hit the bonus round, at $10 a spin.  that’s the YES! part of the story.  the way it ended was less romantic.  i kept going until the last suitcase was out there, and it has $20 in it.  or, 2 spins worth of credits.  i had dreamed that it was my ticket into the money in this tourney, but i guess i’m a bad “suitcase chooser”, heh.

since that was such a crappy payout, i’m hoping to hit another bonus round before i burn up all my credits, as sort of a “here, try again” prize. lol.

oh duh, i am in the money.  but i couldn’t help myself, i played on and went from a high of 197th place down into the mid 200’s.  so, i’ll have to check back at the end of the month and see if i’ve been knocked out of the running.  i expect that i will be.  goofy me.

still, i’m packing it in for the day before i knock myself out of the event!

if you haven’t signed up for this tourney yet, there’s two weeks left.