Last November, a few weeks after returning from the October GTC function, I found a comp from the Rio for three days in January. Nice of them since I have never stayed there before and last time I was there I took a nice win home. Following a quick meeting with the boss (my wife) we booked a few roundtrip tickets with South West. Made our reservations with the Rio and immediately put the trip out of our heads getting ready for the holidays.
Following the holidays I went on the boards and found to my suprise and delight that several other GTC players were going to be in town that week. Some were people I had met before and some not. The Grizz put everyone’s contact info together into a spread sheet and emailed it to all of us. I was really getting pumped. I made a few prepratory visits to AC and on the 23rd we launched for Vegas.
We got into Vegas around 11am. I didn’t play that afternoon but did take a long walk around the Rio with my wife and had a nice dinner. That evening we had our "First night in town video poker tournament". We make a pub crawl to all the bars that have video poker. We each start with $20 and a free drink playing a 25c machine. Rules are you have to stop when your drink is finished. If you stop before you finish your drink you must chug and you can’t restart (we put this rule in to prevent one person from protecting a lead by not playing). Drinks finished. Cash out. Next bar. We play until we can’t agree on which was it is to the elevator. I lost this trip. My wife was up $15 and I was down $40. Thouroughly beaten. We did find the elevator. I won that bet and my consolation prize was worth the lack of effort. 
The next day I played tiles for a few hours in the morning and watched a few horse races. Later in the afternoon The Grizz and The Cardinal Fanatic picked us up for a late afternoon/early evening barbacue at Lois and Clark’s. They have a 12ft table in thier dinning room and we spent several hours practicing and eating burgers and dogs. We decided to hold a box tournament which The Grizz won with a 14 roll. He probably would have gone further if I hadn’t messed with him. He was the last person to throw and had already won when I took a chip and threw it into the middle with a "nickle on the hard 8". He sevened out. Too funny. As a footnote my wife, who doesn’t play craps", decided to take a turn and threw a 22. Go figure. We made an early night of it as many wanted to get up early and play. They wanted to play at 4:30am so that The Grizz could play. Grizz was in town on business and needed to be somewhere at 7am. Too early for me. My wife and I saw Penn and Teller that night and got to bed late.
I met up with the group at the tables (not where I was staying) around 8:30. The Cardinal Fanatic was already there on a crowded table at SR1. SL1 and 2 were taken so I bought in in a blocking position on the SL hook and waited. The folks who were at SL 1 and 2 were GTCr’s none of has met and the young lady at SL1 almost hit the "All or nothing" bet. They colored up as Alamo Tex, Darin and Clark showed up. Clark took up a position on the SR hook. Alamo Tex and Darin took SL1 and 2. Clark and I were passing the dice. The Cardinal Fanatic, I call him this because I don’t know his real handle, don’t want to use his real name and he always had a Cardinal jersey on, was visably tired and struggling a bit. That is disapointing since he has one of the nicest shots from SR. Alamo Tex colored up and I took the SL1 position. None of us were getting much going. A few money making short rolls. Darin had a nice 15 roll I think it was. My first hand was a 19 with a few points made. My second was better, a 32 with almost no craps numbers. I hit the "All or Nothing" that Clark was on and made a nice profit for myself and others.
Friday was a day for the wife and I to get packed and ready to return to the east coast. I played a few races at Aqueduct in the morning. Picked two winners in four races hit my daily double and made a tiddy profit for the morning. Never did throw dice where I was staying.
A very nice/ inexpensive trip. Met some new people, Lois and Clark, Alamo Tex and Darin. Got to visit and play with a few people from previous classes. We both had a great time and can’t wait to see everyone again. So all you casino employees keep sending out those free rooms. "Send them and we will come". 😎
Replies:
Posted by: The Griz on January 30, 2012, 3:09 pm
Posted by: AlamoTx on January 30, 2012, 7:52 pm
And…I saw some really good shooting by others, although I didn’t seem to help much with witnesses around until a respectable 21 at the last table before going to the airport. Griz paid me back on that one by having a monster 30+ roll before I got there ( just like I did with him on my fire bet fiasco ). Darin and I each made each other some money anyway, while Griz negotiated for comps and schmoozed with his host.
Best fun I had, however, was at the table where Butcher caught his big roll. We had all pretty much been dropping eggs on the table until then, but Butcher took me from down a little to up big in a hurry. We all cashed out after that and took our filthy luchre out of the casino, safely tucked into our wallets. Hope to play with all those guys again sometime. I had never won at that casino before. Superstitious myth now debunked!
One observation I have about luck, because we all need it on every roll. As I mentioned, I rolled a 37 but, frankly, I didn’t make as much money on that roll as I did on Butcher’s roll and the length of the rolls was similar. Point made: You still gotta be on the numbers the shooter is hitting, and you’ve got to spread out and press as fast as you can, consistent with locking in a guaranteed win of some sort. And… I wasn’t on that fire bet that I hit on for 5 points. It’s just dumb luck that some crew member didn’t talk me into throwing a fire bet out there. I might have done a two way $1 play for them, just for fun. Heck, I give the cocktail waitress a dollar everytime she brings me coffee…and I never see that money again either!
Finally, last but not least… another luck story. Again, at my home casino, I went to a table and laid an egg x3, cashed out and left. Gotta cut those losses and come back when it’s right. So…I did what I always do when I’m in Vegas. Went over to the Megabucks machine to feed it a little coin…just in case the gambling gods decided to trip that $11Million lever in my favor for some reason! So, I put $10 in it and hit "Bet Max" repeatedly until there was one $ in there. Said to myself that I might as well put two more in there for the last spin so that if I get lucky, I’ll max the payout. And…this time…superstitiously, I decided to hit the ‘bet one unit’ button x3 and then pulled the lever manually. Two big round red things lined up in the two right hand windows and sat there for a second and then the last one on the far left — some kind of upside down diamond thing — clunked down. Nothing happened for a few seconds and then red numbers showing the units won started reeling off…way past the 12 units that were in the machine…all the way up to $260! That’s luck folks. Just killing time at a machine, at the right time and place. That’s what keeps the CFs at our tables too. That weird twist in the probabilities happens in every game. As controlled shooters, we just sometimes pour gasoline on those natural variations in probabilities. I don’t think we create them with our skill, but I do think we miss some sevens we might otherwise have hit and that makes the difference betwee a hot random roll of 15 and an extended roll into the 20s and thirties. We modify luck and that’s something to be proud of…all of us who practice constantly, chasing this dream of beating the casinos.
Had a great time and hope to see all of you again soon.
Alamo
Posted by: Dominator on January 30, 2012, 11:17 pm
Dominator
Posted by: The Griz on January 31, 2012, 2:22 am
I like his home field, there is an incredible music track always rocking and the crews are decent to us. Atmosphere counts in my book. For me, I got some decent teen rolls, in addition to some crappy rolls, but nothing to really get ahead on.
Went out that night with Darin that night and got my blackjack Speed Count on! Good time and great chance to try-out this new advantage play on a decent double deck game. Overall, somewhat down for the day-one of the trip.
Day two – back down to the table at 4:30, this day, not too many at the table. Bought in and caught up with my favorite morning crew. The dice just were not going my way, so after three turns, I cashed-out and went back to my room to pout and think about what was occuring. Out came my practice dice and slowly went over my grip and toss until it started to improve. Back to the table… and this is where my fun began! Came back to a table with only one random roller at the end, bought back in and got busy… it felt like it was just a practice session, no issues with the dice, good music to roll with. this time I dialed-down my toss and everything started to come together. Another change for me was instead of place-betting (which is my norm) I noticed the day before and earlier that I was repeating various box numbers fairly regularly, so I went to come bets. At one time I had three come bets up and one on the Come Bet line and continued to pound those same three numbers!
I don’t count, but figured there were a couple teens, a twenty and then the big one, with a couple stick changes and the fairly full rack, I knew it was +30 before the devil showed. It was a good feeling, esp. when the box came up after my rolls to say goodbye and that that he was glad to see me do so well that morning.
Played one time that evening with the Cardinal Fanatic, which was a tactical mistake… did my normal placing of the 6/8 bets but ended up banging the craps out of the 4 & 10 on a mid-teen roll, never hitting my place bets… if I had Come betted, I would have walked away a champ… quit, had dinner with the Fanatic and went back to blackjack later that evening, on the plus side. Overall, day two was improved and in the positive side.
Morning three was my return home day, so only could muster 90 minutes at the table before I had to head out. Turned out to be another very nice profit, not like day two, but decent rolls. Has 4 drunken couples come to the table to play while I was rolling and the one girl mentioned that "when he throws, he doesn’t smile… he’s not having fun…" in which the boxman said, "oh, he comes to play craps to win, he’s serious, he’ll smile when he’s done and cashes-out!" 😀 😀 😀
Overall, positive trip for the 401-G and great times with GTC friends!
It was also great to implement the Speed count into my advantage arsenal!
A special "thank you" to Lois & Clark for hosting our impromtu BBQ and rolling practice! Thanks for keeping us out of the casinos on our first day in Vegas, that really helped keep my losses to a minimum!!
Can’t wait for the Spring trip!
Aloha & Mahalo!
:ugeek:
