The amazing Stickman and the Five Horsemen Destroy Las Vegas by Frank Scoblete
We are The Five Horsemen…
The Stickman is tall; he’s slim – on our DVD he looks like Abraham Lincoln. When he shoots his magnificent shot, you can see the relaxed concentration in his eyes (the week before this trip Stickman shot a 67-hand in Vegas!) but for much of this particular week in Las Vegas time after time when he took the dice he kind of, well, stunk. He had a terrible cold; he was sniffling and coughing and sneezing. He just couldn’t get it together. Occasionally he’d have a decent roll but overall he knew this was not going like his normal four days.
“Damn! Crap! Nuts! What’s happening!” he’d mumble as the dice double-pitched into a 7.
Five of us – Dominator, Skinny, Nick T-Lefty, Stickman and I – spent four days together in Las Vegas; playing four sessions per day in various casinos, and Stickman, Nick T-Lefty, Skinny and Dominator took the dice about 16 times per day. I took the dice a total of ten times during these four days.
SUNDAY, January 13: We mistakeningly and stupidly played that first day when we should have just gone to a movie or a show. Except for a few money-making 15 and 16-roll hands…we were awful; we lost a lot of money that day. It was the worse way to start a trip, putting us in a deep economic pit. If any of our students had seen this day they would have thought to themselves, “These guys aren’t what I thought they would be.”
MONDAY, January 14: Rested from good night sleeps (except for me who seemed to get a sudden case of insomnia) things started to change, big time. Skinny was on fire – and I mean on fire! – he had many hands in the teens and also hands of 20, 23, 29 and a whopping 43 – these coming after a monster 53 he had two weeks before this trip.
While Skinny led the way, he wasn’t the only one. Nick-T-Lefty came in with an 18 and 22; Dom banged them for 31 and also several winning hands in the teens. I had a good roll of 10 – good because it had six 4’s in there – and since we were all consistently using the Come Bet we were on five of those 4’s. I also had an 18, 19 and 27. But poor Stickman coughed, wheezed, sneezed, sniffled constantly, and invariably sevened out early on each of his rolls.
This day was, to be modest, spectacular. We won all the money back we had lost the previous day and we all came away with giant wins for the trip so far. This was a dream day, topped off with a delicious meal at Fiamma at MGM-Grand. Ah, the good life!
TUESDAY, January 15: This was a truncated playing day as Dominator and I had a big talk before the CLSA group at the Four Seasons Hotel that evening. We only got to play in the morning because the afternoon and early evening were dedicated to setting up for this big event. Nick-T-Lefty, Stickman, and Skinny were the setup crew.
That morning, Skinny’s 62nd birthday morning, saw the man give him and us a wonderful birthday gift by continuing his amazingly torrid streak of yesterday – his very first turn with the dice resulted in a 50-roll hand! That’s a nice way to start a session.
With that big win in our racks, we held our own for about an hour when Dom rolled a 23 and 31; Nick-T-Lefty rolled a 22 and Stickman broke out with a 28 and 34 to end the session.
“I’m feeling better about my shot,” he said to me as we were cashing in our pile of chips. When asked during the event that night at Four Seasons how we were doing at the casinos this trip, Stickman said, “It’s almost embarrassing how much money we’re winning.”
This was another spectacular day with an exciting event in the evening, topped off with a great late-night meal at Fleur de Lys at Mandalay Bay.
WEDNESDAY, January 16: All good things usually come to an end, don’t they? That morning’s session was horrendous, just horrendous. No one shot well. After each shooter took four turns with the dice and bombed, we took a break and had a late breakfast. Even though we all had such massive wins that this session only made a small dent in our bankrolls, a loss is always bad and a bad loss is always worse.
That afternoon’s session continued our descent into the hell of bad hands.
“One more round,” I said to the guys. “If we don’t do anything, we leave.” Everyone nodded. We were starting to get discouraged. But Stickman came in with a 44 and we all decided to do another round as we had recouped most of our day’s losses on his roll.
“But we don’t win this round, we leave,” I said. I am always the voice of moderation – which annoys a lot of players. Everyone nodded again.
Stickman now took the dice for the last roll of the session.
Seventy- seven!
That’s 77!
That’s the dealer saying to the other dealers as he took a break, “This is the greatest day I have ever seen!”
If you’ve seen our DVD you know what Stickman’s shot looks like.
He established his point and never made a 7 until the end of his amazing, epic, World Record breaking no-seven roll. No sevens in 77 rolls! No one has ever done that. No sevens on the Come Out; no sevens at all. It was as if Stickman magically made the dice lose their ability to make a 7.
And he hit box number after box number with almost no garbage numbers in the mix, just box numbers, box numbers and box numbers, except for that pesky 4 which was his point. He was already at 37 before that 4 finally showed. By then our bets were through the roof and he just kept rolling. Stickman, who is a red-chip player, was betting black chips on every number; I was betting purple on every number, as was Dominator and Nick; and Skinny was in the thousands! The dealers were making hundreds in tips with each roll!
None of us are calm and professional or robotic at the tables – craps is a game after all. We were clapping and cheering; cheering and clapping.
A big crowd had gathered around the table; peering in to see the mounds of chips on the layout. Some of these people recognized us and you could hear whispers, “That’s those Golden Touch guys!”
A few asked me for my autograph. One was tapping Dominator on his shoulder, trying to find out where he was playing next. We told them all to wait until the roll was over – which might have been after Armageddon.
We did have chicken feeders at the table – whose chips were right where Stickman had to land his dice. Nothing upset him. He isn’t one of those neurotic shooters who lets a little thing like chips bother him. Those dice just sailed gently over the chips to land plunk on the table and touch the back wall, dying a placid death on the table.
About two-thirds through the roll, the chicken feeders realized they should move their bets out of the way (they were slow learners!) and then Stickman started streaks of the same number over and over. I remember in one streak he hit a successive series of 9s. We were all on all the numbers; in fact, we were all essentially betting Come bets.
At one point, the casino had to stop the game to buy back our black chips – there were none left in the casino’s chip piles; just a vacant area of dust.
I was hoping that Stickman could get to 80 but his dice double-pitched on 5:2 and there was silence.
Then the explosion – a gigantic cheer went up, resounding throughout the casino, and thunderous applause similar to the applause that greeted the Captain’s World Record roll in 2005.
Seventy-seven for the Stickman.
That’s 77 numbers to end that session. That’s 77 numbers without a 7 – a new World Record for No-Seven rolls. That 77-roll hand put Stickman among the select group of 12 players who have shot over 70 numbers since 2003.
The Stickman!
That night we played again, after a delicious gourmet dinner, but that night was anti-climactic. We had a normal winning session, which is to say, we hammered them but it didn’t have the drama of an earth shattering roll and a massive win like the afternoon’s session. Nick-T-Lefty had a 29 but that was about it for large numbers.
When we ended we noticed that there were many people hanging around us who knew who we were – which is similar to what happened several years ago when a horde would follow us (Dominator, Stickman and me) from casino to casino.
These people this night wanted to know where we were playing next. We never tell anyone where we are playing next and we didn’t have to give the usual excuses of “I don’t know,” or “We aren’t playing tonight,” because in fact this was the last night of our trip. Frankly, it is a pain in the neck to have people following us around from casino to casino because it gives us way too much attention – even before we shoot the dice.
We used several techniques this trip to keep the chicken feeders at bay when we played. We’d go to an empty table (or almost empty table) and request that the minimum be raised to $25 but allowing Stickman to be “grandfathered” in at a minimum of $10. That kept away most chicken feeders who went to lower limit tables. More often than not the only five at the table were – what shall I call us? – The FIVE Horsemen!
The only problem The Five Horsemen faced now was how to take so much money on the plane without looking suspicious with our pockets bulging. Remember that when you have more than ten thousand dollars in cash on you the police can hold you for questioning. None of us wanted to go through that – and miss our planes.
Some of us used money socks on various parts of our body; some of us attached money to our legs and feet. That is a wonderful problem to have, isn’t it?
We are The Five Horsemen – Stickman, Skinny, Nick-T-Lefty, Dominator and Frank Scoblete.
And, oh, yes, we WILL do this again!
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