Normally I don’t post my own trip reports, but as word got out that there were a few of us in Vegas this past weekend, I thought I’d oblige this time.
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: Well, actually Ugly came first.
Friday:
Venetian.
Everything about this session went wrong for me. Bad sign number one. $10 tables. I HATE $10 tables. Makes regressions more difficult. The tables were packed and choppy. I threw twice. Horribly. Terribly….UGLY. Don’t know if it was that I had just gotten off a plane a couple hours earlier or the stress of having several dice influencing colleagues at the tables. It was awful. Colored up $100 down. It would have been much worse had it not been for a couple of good hands from Roadrunner and rubacava.
We took a break for dinner. Well, everyone else did. I showered and tried to get my head back on. Took a walk to:
The Frontier.
I was much more relaxed. Bought in on a full but quiet $5 table. I had a couple of decent but uneventful hands in the 12 to 15 roll length. Each time I made one pass, threw some numbers but couldn’t make the 2nd pass. This was rodeo weekend in Vegas. There was some event in Gilley’s so the table thinned when all the players with cowboy hats made there way to ride the bull or whatever you do in Gilley’s. The pals I traveled with bought in just as I was getting the dice for the third time. At this point I’m probably down about $25.
At the far end of the table is an older gentleman. On my two previous rolls, I had managed to hit his 4 and 10 buy bets several times. I’m wearing a sweatshirt with a clothing manufacturer’s name on it and he starts calling me by that name across the table, calling for a long roll. I obliged with my only monster roll of the entire weekend.
When I was done, I was told that I had thrown the dice somewhere around 35 rolls. About 10 rolls in the heat started. Normally I don’t throw from table’s end, but that’s where I was. I use a different technique from long range. I throw higher with backspin. I was throwing the dice….they were landing literally 3 inches from the wall…and sometimes STILL both would not make it to the wall. I’m getting heat from the box, from the stick… from the floor supervisor. I tell them I can’t throw them any farther without throwing them off the table….but the heat continues…is even wound up a few notches. All the normal ploys. As I’m throwing the stickman slams the stick on the table, chip refill..strange shouts from behind me just as I let the dice go. To no avail. The table is going crazy. The older gentleman with the 4 and 10 buy bets ($500 each) is PILING up the chips. My pals who just bought in are PILING up the chips.
I, on the other hand, am only making a modest profit. I only seemed to throw the numbers where I didn’t have any money wagered. If I changed my bets around, I’d start throwing DIFFERENT numbers. And THAT is how my entire weekend went.
Don’t get me wrong, at the end of my roll I colored up with some profit. But not nearly what it should have been.
As I was waiting for my color. The older gentleman with 4 and 10 buy bets (makes his way down to me. Turns out his name was John. He never asked me mine, just referred to me by the name on my sweatshirt. Asked if I’d be back tomorrow night. “Oh yeah John…I’ll be back”
My pals and I head back to hotel. I was in great need of a libation.
Saturday:
Early morning, late morning.
Frontier: 12:05 am (just passed midnight Friday)
Back at the Frontier, I meet up with Billy. A real character and a real gentleman. The kind of person you like at the table. He chats up the crew and adds energy to the table. We both buy in. The table is full of the WORST kind of players…. Stupid ones with money. One end is full of cowboys who keep throwing bets on the table when the dice are in the air. The crew is getting really irritated as are Billy and I. We switch to an empty table. We are both able to throw decent hands in the 10 to 15 roll range, but again can’t string together any consistency. AGAIN, the craps gods are frowning on me. Whatever numbers I have money on won’t hit. If I switch to different numbers the dice start landing on what I was previously betting. After an hour we color up. I’m slightly down for this session but not badly. I was mostly just frustrated at the fact that just as it appeared I was going to get something going…seven out. On the positive side, I was at least throwing the “right” seven for the set I was using…. At least in my mind, that was the spin I was putting on it.
We agree to meet up later that morning downtown.
4 Queens: 11:15 am
We meet at the Fremont, but the tables are packed. Billy, the South Shore Swammie (SSS), and I wander across the street to the 4 Q’s. SSS is another great guy to have at the tables with you. Funny and gregarious, he’ll make the game fun even when you’re not doing well. The craps gods continue to frown on me. I have a 21 roll hand which yields little profit and several only slightly above average hands. SSS tells us the tables are free at the Fremont so we color up, (again, I’m slightly down), and head over there.
Fremont: 12:30 PM
Again, for both Billy and I, we both appeared to be getting ready for a break through roll, only to come up short. With no sign that my luck was changing, we head back to our perspective hotels. Billy and SSS were going to try their luck at I/P or Casino Royale. I on the other hand decided a meal (I hadn’t eaten since Thursday night) and a rest were due. For the 3 Saturday sessions thus far, I was down a total of about $100.
Frontier: 7:00 PM -Saturday
Surprisingly for 7 o’clock on Saturday night, the tables are empty. (apparently the rodeo finals were in progress) I take a spot, first position stick left. My pals take up their favorite position, straight away stick right. There are two other players. I get the dice immeditiately and the weekend trend which started over 24 hours previously, continues. I set a point of six…generally one I can bring back quickly. But no, it takes 16 rolls to bring back the six. I’ve also got the 5 and 9 covered and hit each of them once out of those 16 rolls. The woman to my left at the end of the table is strictly a three point molly player. At first I’m like a dream come true for her. After my come out 6, I throw back to back 4’s, and back to back 10’s. She presses her come bets. Craps ace-duece, craps aces. She goes back to $5 on the come line. I roll an eight, then craps ace-duece again. That’s how it went until I finally made the 6. I started singing the Oscar the Grouch song “I Love Trash” to myself. I established another point but sevened out after 4 rolls. I made a little money on my place bets, a little money on my pass line bet, and a little money on a well timed horn bet but for a fairly long hand, the profit was not in line with the length of roll.
I change my position to right of stick, position one. The older gentleman (John) from the previous night takes up a position between my friends and I. Given how much I made for him the night before, he is VERY generous with placing bets for the shooter tonight. The dice pass to my pal, a random roller, who goes on a tear making a tidy profit for himself, the table and again especially John. The table is now packed to the gills. Cowboys everywhere trying to squeeze in. Our end of the table had been particularly magnanimous with bets for the boys and they showed their thanks by not letting anyone elbow their way into our end of the table. The dice pass to my pal’s wife.
ANOTHER long roll. John gets the dice and sevens out in short order. Dice come to me. I have a decent roll of about 14 throws, make 2 points. Decent profit but nothing to write home about. My friends and I color up, needing a bite to eat….promising John we’d be back in an hour. I’m up a reasonable amount, my friends are up over double their buy in.
10 PM – Final Session
When we return from dinner the table is empty except for John and 2 other players. Long faces and empty chip racks. The dealers even made a big deal about our return.
We took the exact positions we held earlier. For the following hour and 15 minutes, our end of the table did it’s best to prop up the table, but none of us could string together any really strong hands. Again at this session, every time it appeared that I was on the verge of a monster roll, it would fall apart after making a couple of passes.
We’re all pretty beat up and decide to call it a night. I color up with a $5 profit which I toss to the boys…hoping that maybe it will bring some good mo-jo for the next time I’m at the tables.
Conclusion:
7 Sessions: Net Losses: $434
Very much a good news bad news trip.
The good news:
My average hand was somewhere in the 12 to 15 roll range. One monster roll in the mid 30’s and several above 20. Only 2 terrible hands. Unfortunately they were the FIRST 2 of the trip.
The bad news:
A net loss..the first time this has happened in awhile. I’ve had individual session losses, but not had an overall trip loss for some time.
Inconsistent signature numbers. It seemed every time I held the dice, not just from session to session, but EVERY time I got the dice I had a different set of signature numbers.
You know, sometimes trips like this happen. I’m not going to let it “get” to me. Sometimes a strong dose of reality can be inspiring. I hope that those of you new to dice influencing will walk away from reading this trip report with a sense of the reality of what we do. It’s not always a walk in the park to be a precision shooter. And SOMETIMES, YOU NEED A LITTLE LUCK TOO…..
Anyway, I got to shoot with some great people (Billy, South Shore Swamie, Roadrunner, rubacava) and I got to meet some others like Dice Doc. Now I can place faces with the names. Sure, the trip was monetarily a bit of a disappointment but otherwise I had a great time…
