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#11
General Discussion / A Note About the ChipGuide
Last post by Charles Kaplan LM-0115-048 - Oct 27, 2024, 07:39 AMSeveral months ago the ChipGuide was performing very poorly and users could not access the website. That initiated a study to determine the cause of the performance problems. Initially, we found that a certain feature being used to display images with the correct aspect ratio was the culprit as it had to load each image to determine its dimensions. That was taken care of quickly, with a temporary solution, at least until the image library is upgraded. Until then, some images may not display correctly.
It was further determined that a lot, perhaps 50%, of the website traffic was from "bots". Bots are programs that visit websites to extract information. Some bots are good, like the GOOGLE bot - a search engine, that catalog website content so that users can easily find it. But there are also bad bots. Some marketing companies run bots to extract website data and then sell it to interested parties. Some bots are out to steal website content. The worst bots are looking for website weaknesses that can be exploited, to be malicious or for extortion.
A website tool is now being used daily to monitor ChipGuide website traffic. Literally 100's of bots visit the ChipGuide daily. Most are benign and do a couple of requests and leave. The bad bots are identified and banned from the website. The list of bad bots grows daily. Some of the worst bots cannot be banned because they don't identify themselves correctly. However, based on analysis of their website requests, for example some are looking for weaknesses in WordPress websites, they can be identified and banned by their IP address.
When you ban a IP address, it bans everyone in that vicinity, and may include some legitimate users. If you get a message "403 - Forbidden", when trying to access the ChipGuide, your IP address was caught up with a bad bot. If that happens, just email me and it can be fixed.
It was further determined that a lot, perhaps 50%, of the website traffic was from "bots". Bots are programs that visit websites to extract information. Some bots are good, like the GOOGLE bot - a search engine, that catalog website content so that users can easily find it. But there are also bad bots. Some marketing companies run bots to extract website data and then sell it to interested parties. Some bots are out to steal website content. The worst bots are looking for website weaknesses that can be exploited, to be malicious or for extortion.
A website tool is now being used daily to monitor ChipGuide website traffic. Literally 100's of bots visit the ChipGuide daily. Most are benign and do a couple of requests and leave. The bad bots are identified and banned from the website. The list of bad bots grows daily. Some of the worst bots cannot be banned because they don't identify themselves correctly. However, based on analysis of their website requests, for example some are looking for weaknesses in WordPress websites, they can be identified and banned by their IP address.
When you ban a IP address, it bans everyone in that vicinity, and may include some legitimate users. If you get a message "403 - Forbidden", when trying to access the ChipGuide, your IP address was caught up with a bad bot. If that happens, just email me and it can be fixed.
Today's Bot Report
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#12
General Discussion / Re: Four Queens Halloween Silv...
Last post by Barry Sherwood R-9037 (admin) - Oct 26, 2024, 12:56 AMApologies in advance for any typos. I'm using voice to text on this:
1. I didn't track my play closely enough, and I was helping others hit their goals by trading clears for colors, selling clears to those who were short, etc. but I've heard it's about $15 for each strike spit out.
2. Four Queens has 12 machines on the floor. 11 are near the check-in desk and one is near the cashier's cage.
2 spit out $10 clads and the $40 (1.5oz).
9 spit out $10 clear clads (no silver), $10 blue (clad colorized), and $10 red (.5oz silver).
1 also spits clears and colors but is situated by the cashier's cage.
The etiquette is that once you get your $40, you cash out and let the next person get theirs. People who are not in the Silver striker club, will often not know about this, but a gentle reminder is usually met with agreement and no arguments. on the other machines, you can keep feeding money in there as long as you want, and someone who wants one of those machines just has to wait until somebody gets up. From what I saw, it wasn't too bad to wait except for the very beginning when they first open the machines with the new Halloween release strikes. When that happened, the Silver striker's pretty much jumped on them and camped on those machines and didn't give anybody else a chance for several hours.
Your guess is as good as mine about the actual hours played, but I slept 1.5hrs before I left (nearly an all nighter), zero hours Wednesday night, and 5hrs Thursday night. I should be able to sleep in tonight/tomorrow but the Grand Sierra Resort asked me to cover a banquet shift starting at 1 PM. That probably won't finish till 11 PM, depending on the size of the banquet party I'll be working at. So, less than seven hours in three nights, four days.
On to the silver striker's timeline:
They released the new strikes on Wednesday morning but I was not there at the start. I departed Reno on Wednesday at 9:20am, landed at 10:45 AM and immediately Ubered to meet Steve Cutler for a nice visit and lunch. I checked into my room at the Hotel Apache downtown at 3 p.m. and got over to the Silver strike machines at the four Queens by 4 PM Wednesday. Played until about 10pm then went to the Golden Nugget and played 12 no limit for a few hours, doubling my $300 stake to $650. Went back to the Four Queens at ??am, and stayed up all night and the next day playing the machines, and managed to turn a profit in addition to getting most of the strikes I needed to redeem for two $300 strikes. I went to bed Thursday at 7:30 PM, needing only one $40 strike and one blue cap $10 clad with the teddy bear on it. Set my alarm for 3 AM, but woke up at 12:30 AM. Watched "all the money in the world ", hopped in the shower at 2am, started whacking the Max button by 2:45 AM, and got in line to collect my $300 silver strikes at 4 AM. And I wasn't the first one in line, but I was number two. At that point, I sat with my fellow degenerates for 6 freakin' hours until 10 AM this morning when they handed out the $300 strikes. I had found a minion/mule about 30 people back in line who was with his wife but only getting one $300 strike. After I got my first one, I walked back to him and handed him my second set and we proceeded to the cashier's cage. I mailed around the rest of the afternoon and was approached by a strike collector who is not a member of the club. He offered me several hundred dollars more than I believe the average is for a full set of strikes, including my second $300 one. The net result is, I have one full set with the $300 strike, another full set without the $300 strike, and two extra red caps. And, I have more money in my wallet than I left home with. So, what I still have was technically free.
I used my two-for-one coupon at the four Queens to have an early dinner (ate both sammiches myself!), then grabbed a $3.00 two hour bus pass (cheap!) and got to the airport in ~45 minutes, hopped onto my on-time 8:45 PM flight back to Reno. Landed at 10 PM, and I'm still sorting out my stuff.
Thoughts:
The $40 strike machines are TIGHT, but you WILL get your $40. You might put in $200, $300, or even $500, but in the meantime you're getting some $10 clads and having a great time, right? RIGHT!!?!?
There are still a lot of Halloween strikes in the machines, but of course no more $300s unless you buy one of the 200 that were claimed.. Scot Pariott landed about the time I left, so he can give an update in the next day or so.
if you're going to play like we were playing, which was fast and nonstop, make sure your players card is in the machine so you can rack up points and comps.
The overall mood of the Silver striker as a group is nothing short of fantastically friendly. Everyone is there to help the others hit their goals. The written and unwritten rules of etiquette surrounding trades and time spent at the $40 machine make their club very welcoming. I may self may have caused a handful of people to join the Silver striker club while I was there, and maybe even at least one person will join the casino collectibles association. I talked about it a lot because the topic of primary collectible types came up pretty often.
That's about it, I guess. See you in the funny papers!
1. I didn't track my play closely enough, and I was helping others hit their goals by trading clears for colors, selling clears to those who were short, etc. but I've heard it's about $15 for each strike spit out.
2. Four Queens has 12 machines on the floor. 11 are near the check-in desk and one is near the cashier's cage.
2 spit out $10 clads and the $40 (1.5oz).
9 spit out $10 clear clads (no silver), $10 blue (clad colorized), and $10 red (.5oz silver).
1 also spits clears and colors but is situated by the cashier's cage.
The etiquette is that once you get your $40, you cash out and let the next person get theirs. People who are not in the Silver striker club, will often not know about this, but a gentle reminder is usually met with agreement and no arguments. on the other machines, you can keep feeding money in there as long as you want, and someone who wants one of those machines just has to wait until somebody gets up. From what I saw, it wasn't too bad to wait except for the very beginning when they first open the machines with the new Halloween release strikes. When that happened, the Silver striker's pretty much jumped on them and camped on those machines and didn't give anybody else a chance for several hours.
Your guess is as good as mine about the actual hours played, but I slept 1.5hrs before I left (nearly an all nighter), zero hours Wednesday night, and 5hrs Thursday night. I should be able to sleep in tonight/tomorrow but the Grand Sierra Resort asked me to cover a banquet shift starting at 1 PM. That probably won't finish till 11 PM, depending on the size of the banquet party I'll be working at. So, less than seven hours in three nights, four days.
On to the silver striker's timeline:
They released the new strikes on Wednesday morning but I was not there at the start. I departed Reno on Wednesday at 9:20am, landed at 10:45 AM and immediately Ubered to meet Steve Cutler for a nice visit and lunch. I checked into my room at the Hotel Apache downtown at 3 p.m. and got over to the Silver strike machines at the four Queens by 4 PM Wednesday. Played until about 10pm then went to the Golden Nugget and played 12 no limit for a few hours, doubling my $300 stake to $650. Went back to the Four Queens at ??am, and stayed up all night and the next day playing the machines, and managed to turn a profit in addition to getting most of the strikes I needed to redeem for two $300 strikes. I went to bed Thursday at 7:30 PM, needing only one $40 strike and one blue cap $10 clad with the teddy bear on it. Set my alarm for 3 AM, but woke up at 12:30 AM. Watched "all the money in the world ", hopped in the shower at 2am, started whacking the Max button by 2:45 AM, and got in line to collect my $300 silver strikes at 4 AM. And I wasn't the first one in line, but I was number two. At that point, I sat with my fellow degenerates for 6 freakin' hours until 10 AM this morning when they handed out the $300 strikes. I had found a minion/mule about 30 people back in line who was with his wife but only getting one $300 strike. After I got my first one, I walked back to him and handed him my second set and we proceeded to the cashier's cage. I mailed around the rest of the afternoon and was approached by a strike collector who is not a member of the club. He offered me several hundred dollars more than I believe the average is for a full set of strikes, including my second $300 one. The net result is, I have one full set with the $300 strike, another full set without the $300 strike, and two extra red caps. And, I have more money in my wallet than I left home with. So, what I still have was technically free.
I used my two-for-one coupon at the four Queens to have an early dinner (ate both sammiches myself!), then grabbed a $3.00 two hour bus pass (cheap!) and got to the airport in ~45 minutes, hopped onto my on-time 8:45 PM flight back to Reno. Landed at 10 PM, and I'm still sorting out my stuff.
Thoughts:
The $40 strike machines are TIGHT, but you WILL get your $40. You might put in $200, $300, or even $500, but in the meantime you're getting some $10 clads and having a great time, right? RIGHT!!?!?
There are still a lot of Halloween strikes in the machines, but of course no more $300s unless you buy one of the 200 that were claimed.. Scot Pariott landed about the time I left, so he can give an update in the next day or so.
if you're going to play like we were playing, which was fast and nonstop, make sure your players card is in the machine so you can rack up points and comps.
The overall mood of the Silver striker as a group is nothing short of fantastically friendly. Everyone is there to help the others hit their goals. The written and unwritten rules of etiquette surrounding trades and time spent at the $40 machine make their club very welcoming. I may self may have caused a handful of people to join the Silver striker club while I was there, and maybe even at least one person will join the casino collectibles association. I talked about it a lot because the topic of primary collectible types came up pretty often.
That's about it, I guess. See you in the funny papers!
#13
General Discussion / Re: Four Queens Halloween Silv...
Last post by Bob Pardue CLM-0003-40 - Oct 25, 2024, 11:23 PMCongrats on getting all those Silver Strikes -- $10's, colored caps, and the big $300. With silver at about $34/troy oz., that's worth over $200 in melt value / $300 in redemption value and (I'm guessing here?) $450 +/- in collector market value.
Two "just curious" questions, as it's been years since I played a Silver Strike machine:
1. How much coin-in does it typically take for one $10 SS out? Something like $15 in for a $10 SS out? More? Less?
2. How many SS machines does 4Queens have for this promo? Adequate for the # players interested, or do you have to wait for an open machine? And how many hours did it take to accumulate all those in the pics -- that's quite a haul!
Again, congrats on your winnings. Sounds like you enjoyed it.
Two "just curious" questions, as it's been years since I played a Silver Strike machine:
1. How much coin-in does it typically take for one $10 SS out? Something like $15 in for a $10 SS out? More? Less?
2. How many SS machines does 4Queens have for this promo? Adequate for the # players interested, or do you have to wait for an open machine? And how many hours did it take to accumulate all those in the pics -- that's quite a haul!
Again, congrats on your winnings. Sounds like you enjoyed it.
#14
General Discussion / Four Queens Halloween Silver S...
Last post by Barry Sherwood R-9037 (admin) - Oct 25, 2024, 08:20 PMIf you weren't in Downtown Las Vegas this week, look what you missed out on. REAL SILVER! The big, pretty one is 6oz of silver.
#15
General Discussion / Greetings fellow CCA members &...
Last post by Bob Pardue CLM-0003-40 - Oct 24, 2024, 07:42 PMJust leaving my first message on this updated CCA message board.
I spend most of my message time over on thechipboard.com, but I'll look for opportunities to share some stuff here too. Club-related or just random chip observations at times.
FYI, I'm in So.Cal. and collect mostly chips, but I drift into other casino collectibles too. Over the years, I've made a number of friends through chipping and hope to make many more in the future.
So...greetings to all!
(Also, my CCA membership says "Robert" but most call me "Bob".)
I spend most of my message time over on thechipboard.com, but I'll look for opportunities to share some stuff here too. Club-related or just random chip observations at times.
FYI, I'm in So.Cal. and collect mostly chips, but I drift into other casino collectibles too. Over the years, I've made a number of friends through chipping and hope to make many more in the future.
So...greetings to all!
(Also, my CCA membership says "Robert" but most call me "Bob".)
#16
General Discussion / Re: I inherited 40 years worth...
Last post by Bob Miksztal R-8909 - Oct 23, 2024, 06:42 PMThe CCA has a great page of advice on how to sell a collection here:
https://www.ccgtcc.com/education/selling_casino_collectibles.aspx
https://www.ccgtcc.com/education/selling_casino_collectibles.aspx
#17
General Discussion / Re: I inherited 40 years worth...
Last post by John Chopek LM-6386-255 - Oct 21, 2024, 05:17 AMYes, Nooch was a long time member and friend. The meetings are free and open to the public. Everyone is welcome to attend. You will meet many of Nooch's friends and share memories. Here's the website for the restaurant: https://www.thecovebrig.com/
The meeting starts at 11:00 but people start arriving around 10:00 to start setting up. We look forward to meeting you.
The meeting starts at 11:00 but people start arriving around 10:00 to start setting up. We look forward to meeting you.
#18
General Discussion / Re: I inherited 40 years worth...
Last post by Barry Sherwood R-9037 (admin) - Oct 20, 2024, 10:00 PMPlease check your email for a DM I sent you. Thanks, and welcome to the CCA forums!
#19
General Discussion / Re: I inherited 40 years worth...
Last post by NickyNooch - Oct 20, 2024, 02:52 PMYes, Nooch was my Godfather. Did you know him?
Can just anyone come to that meeting? I can make arrangements to be there, for sure.
Can just anyone come to that meeting? I can make arrangements to be there, for sure.
#20
General Discussion / Re: I inherited 40 years worth...
Last post by John Chopek LM-6386-255 - Oct 20, 2024, 05:03 AMWas Nooch your Godfather? Are they Atlantic City chips? If you're in New Jersey stop into the Atlantic City Casino Collectibles Club meeting on Sunday, November 10 at the Cove Restaurant in Brigantine. Details in this link: https://ckaplan.com/acccc/