Craps at the Old Coast

I only have two craps stories from Vegas (other than the Steakhouse Bet), and I wasn't even at the actual table for most of one of them. That one involved Ben and Al just crushing the Gold Coast, starting with Al putting ten dollars down on "12" and Ben promptly rolling a double six, giving Al 300 bucks and the ammuntion to put a somewhat serious hurt on the casino. After Al's own pretty nasty rolling (featuring him taking a victory lap around the craps table high fiving everyone, and also riding the bull), him and Ben were up a lot and I was angry that I wasn't in on the action. I eventually did make it to the table and made a couple hundred bucks, so it wasn't a total loss. I did miss a lot of the hilarity though, and while there might have been an angry pit-boss or two, I didn't see it firsthand. Maybe Bon can elaborate in the comments.

As for the other story, well it has been eluded to in other comments and posts on this blog. I was somewhat drunk and a few of us were on the craps table (I think it was me, Al, Mark, and Swann). Swann is about to roll, and established something like an eight point. We've been ducking and weaving, starting and stopping all night - never getting any real momentum going. Swann was poised to break that streak. He picked up the dice. He screamed as he chucked the dice down:

"Come on sixty-one!"

I wish I had a mirror at the time to see the look on my face. It must have been a mix of horror, disgust, anger, and resignation to my fate. It was probably quite the face. I saw a similar confused look on Al's face as well (as he counted up the numbers in his head, remember this is a guy who me and Fishman basically convinced that there was a "hard way" to hit a seven).

And the dice? Well of course:


We all left the table after that debacle.

The Fishman / Gibbs chug-off is a yearly tradition. Its not complicated. Fishman and Gibbs each do a tall-boy race, which is essentially two beers. The first to finish wins and then usually boots. The loser sometimes boots. They usually take their shirts off too.



This year was a little different because we were unable to make a run to a tall-boy shop, so we were stuck with normal sized beers. No matter, they just would grab two cans and have to crack one in the middle of the race. We decided that cracking a can in the middle was part of the race, ie you could not pre-crack the second can before the chug-off had begun.



Fishman started strong, beating Gibbs to the second can. However, Gibbs was not far behind, and it’s the first 12 ounces that is easy. It’s the second beer that really tests your mettle. Fishman finished and slammed his can down. Or so we all thought. Fishman then, upon feeling that there was some more beer left in the second can, picked it back up and tried to finish. In the meantime, Gibbs slammed down his second can moments before Fishman re-slammed the can.

Confusion and incredulity reigned. What just happened?

Fishman tried to explain his fake-out move, while Gibbs looked like he was about to have a reversal of fortune. The tall-boy chug-off cannot end in controversy, so we all agreed on the plan of action. A one can overtime where you signify you are done by holding the beer can upside-down over your head. Sometimes the best answers are the simplest.

Fishman finished his overtime can and held it over his head. Not a drop came out. Fishman wins.

Man, this trip really was the trip of Fishman, right?

Also, here are some more pics from the steakhouse bet roll.

Come on Fourteen!



The Steakhouse Bet was in dire shape. We lost last year when Miller couldn't hit his 9 point. We ate our shameful Wendy's dinner. It was a Vegas night we'd all like to forget.

The problem was, if we managed to lose AGAIN this year, it would kill our morale for future Steakhouse Bets. We would be on a losing streak, and who would be bold / strong enough to break that streak? Nobody.

Unlike last year's Fishman-mush of making a reservation at a non Smith and Wollensky's, Al stepped up and made the reservation at Smith and Wolly's for FRIDAY night. A marked departure from our usual Saturday Steakhouse Bet festivities. It came as a surprise to everyone; we all found out at T.G.I.Fridays (on Friday morning) before bowling. It was actually a strong move.

After bowling we came back to the room and readied ourselves for the selection process. We all agreed that a RPS tournament worked out well the year before, except for the ultimate result. With 12 people involved, we decided on four first round games and four byes. We drew cards for the byes and Fishman, Al, Lacker, and Miller ended up with the byes.

I was happy with this development, as I really wanted Miller to roll again. He did not want to at all, but I saw redemption coming. It would be a moment that only happens in movies. A steakhouse bet roller, after crushing the hopes and dreams of an entire group the previous year, miraculously gets selected again by the steakhouse bet gods and this time comes through by hitting something ridiculous like a four point. I wanted this to happen in the worst way.

Or... he loses again and unspeakable things happen.

I don't recall the first round of matches, other than me and Ben won, and other people did too. I faced Lacker in the second round, but after jumping out to a 1-0 lead after two throws, I got rattled and ended up throwing an ill-advised scissors to lose 2-1. In the most dominating performance of the round, Fishman just annihilated Ben 2-0 in two throws. The 2 throw win is surprisingly rare. Oddly, every individual who had a bye won their quarterfinal match.

The semifinals were Fishman v. Lacker and Miller v. Al.

Miller defeated Al to make it into the finals for the second straight year. I was ecstatic. I (and everyone else) became less ecstatic as Fishman continued his amazing RPS domination with yet another 2-0 2-throw victory over Lacker.

Fishman was pumped. He REALLY wanted to roll for some strange reason. He was the only one in the room who felt that way. He wanted the dice.

On the other hand, Miller at all costs did NOT want the dice. If forfeits were allowed he would have gone for it. But that's not the way RPS works. And its not the way the steakhouse bet works. You do what you have to do.

As usual, the championship match is a 3 out of 5 affair. We agreed that participants can "step out of the box" if they wish, which is contrary to the usual "no thinking, go fast" way we usually play. I don't fault it.

Fishman came out as a house of fire, again winning the first point. But Miller rallied to tie it up 1-1.

The Russian is cut! He's just a man! Fishman's first point loss of the day gave me hope. But it was dashed quickly as Fishman shrugged off the point and won 3-1. Fishman was our roller. The steakhouse bet gods have decreed it.

With the roller decided, the next task was to decide where to roll. We couldn't go to the tables downstairs at the Palms, because they were always full. Same problem with the Gold Coast. We needed a casino that had an empty table with some high limit (like $100), where we could just walk up, surround the table, and get it on. I suggested Bellagio, as it was the closest on-strip casino to the Palms. Other people argued against Bellagio, claiming that we should do it at MGM because it was closer to Smith and Wolly's. I stuck to my guns, and people relented. It would be Bellagio, and if we lost it would be partly my fault.

We arrived in three cabs and I led us to the craps tables. The high roller table actually had 3 or 4 people on it, so I started searching for another spot. Magically, all 4 of those people left as we approached. It was as if the steakhouse bet gods were parting the sea for us. "Here is where you will shoot. Only we know the result."

Swann called me back from my search and we surrounded the table. Fishman put the $600 down, and they turned it into GREEN chips to rattle him. No blacks? No, just a gigantic stack of greens. Sure looks like a lot of money there... don't screw up!

Steak chants began. I was ready for the immediate crap out. And the first die coming up "2" did nothing to assuage that fear. But the second die rested on "3" and we were... not in great shape. A five point. That's almost as hard as a "9"! And only someone truly heroic could hit a point as hard as that. But that's where we were.

Come on fourteen! Come on twenty three! (For those of you not well versed in craps lingo, shooters will ask for the dice to come up as the dice would read. So fourteen equals a "1" and a "4." This will be hilarious at some point in a later blog post where Swann was rolling.)

Fishman's first roll was absolutely terrifying. The first die came up "6", meaning we had no chance at all to win on this roll. However, there was a chance of us going to Wendy's. Mercifully, the second die came up "2" and we all heaved a sigh of relief.

The following rolls were equally awful. On each of the next 4-5 rolls, the first die came up with "5" or "6", giving us no hope. We gently reminded Fishman that it is somewhat difficult to hit a 5 point if the first die is always 5 or 6. But then, Al changed the tides by starting a slow "steak" chant.

Steak.... Steak.... Steak... Steak... Steak.. Steak! STEAK!! STEAK!!!

Fishman threw the dice.

The first one came up "2".

The second one did a bit of spinning before resting on:

"3"

INCREDIBLE.

Pandemonium as usual ensued. Tons of high fiving and hugging around the table as the dealers reluctantly handed out $600 more in chips. No Wendy's for us this year! We headed to the cage to cash in.





Steak at Smith and Wolly's was extra sweet given the lack of it from the previous year. We got two orders of truffled mac and cheese (best side you can order at a restaurant, there I said it), two orders of hash browns, creamed spinach, mashed potatoes, mushrooms, and of course our respective steaks. I went with the bone-in rib eye (not cajun), and it was great. We knocked out 5-6 bottles of wine, and we had our first ever Vegas attendee "tap-out" at dinner and go back to the hotel room.

Fishman, the hero. Who'd have thunk it?

Hey Duke:

Way to be all you can suck.

I hate you.

The Old Coast



We stayed at The Palms this year. For those of you not familiar with Vegas, the Palms is one of the more "hip" casinos, full of nightclubs, celebrities, and random people hoping to get into (or the reverse) both. And while we did witness some incredibly talented girls walking around the pool and casino, clubs are not really our scene. We couldn't get in even if we wanted to.



So we didn't really take advantage of the strengths of The Palms (aside from admiring the moving scenery). The table limits were also too high for us to play comfortably at. So what did we do?

We went across the street to the Gold Coast Casino. A LOT.



Okay, that picture is a bit dingy, although its pretty close to the truth. Here is the promo shot of the casino, which doesn't make it look a ton better.

While the Gold Coast was not much to look at, it was quite possibly the greatest casino ever. It had three super strengths:

1) The table limits were very low. This enabled us to play $5 limit craps at any hour of the day, which was critical. There will be a post dedicated to craps stories later in the week.

2) There was a 70 LANE bowling alley on the second floor of the casino, and it was phenomenal! The games were pretty cheap as well, especially when you're coming from NYC and its $9.50 per game raping. 11 of us went over to the bowling alley on Saturday afternoon and had a little bowling competition. Al wasn't around for the draft of teams, so this is how it went down after I won RPS for the first pick.

Team Evan

1) Ben
3) Gibbs
5) Swann
7) Fishman

Team Goozh

2) Miller
4) Tom
6) Marty
8) Lacker

As you can see, the key to my winning RPS was not being stuck with Lacker, who had 8 Guinesses for breakfast and almost certainly wouldn't make a good bowler even if sober. The wager was that the losing team had to take the walk to the gas station to make the final beer run of the trip. A lot was on the line.

The first game of our two game match started terribly. Ben was the only one who had a good game going, Swann had a 25 in the fifth frame, and I got my first mark of the match in the sixth frame. On the other hand, Goozh is a 185 bowler who doesn't get much worse when using a pink alley ball, Miller has a nice little curve thing going, and they were subbing Lacker out for Al, who had shown up before we started bowling (but after the draft). Team Evan was about to concede.

But then things suddenly turned around. Goozh had two open frames in a row, Swann upped his pace, Gibbs turned it on a bit, and I finished the game with 5 straight marks. Our team somehow rallied and won the first game by 18 pins. All this, despite the fact that Fishman "bowling" the ball down the lane is an insult to both the word and sport.

It is hard to describe just exactly how badly Fishman looks as he bowls. A video would be instructive, but it might be banned as offensive comment on youtube. He walks up to the line about as slowly as you can walk, and then basically places the ball down with the most minimal amount of velocity required for the ball to actually reach the pins. This 5-year-old-girl-using-a-12-pound-ball type of throw causes some hilarious results. For instance, on at least two instances the Fishman ball grazed a pin and the pin did not wobble. It merely slid over an inch or two, as if someone had just pushed it out of place. Whenever this happened (and you could see it coming, because the ball took 15 seconds or so to get to the pins), all 10 of us would just start laughing uncontrollably.

Despite the Fishman "bowling" demoralizing Team Evan, we won that first game and carried the momentum over to the second, winning in easy fashion. To Fishman's credit, he beat the Lacker / Al combination of the other team.

There is also another bowling story, but I didn't make it out for the 3:00 AM second trip on Sunday morning. Ben got wasted and rolled a 185 at 5:30 in the morning, while Goozh accidentally second picked Fishman for his team. I don't know what else happened on that excursion.

3) While low table limits or an awesome bowling alley would easily be the biggest high points of most casinos, they were not the most important part of the Gold Coast. No, it was, of all things, a T.G.I.Fridays. Believe it.

The Gold Coast had a Fridays sitting in the middle of the casino. It seemed out of place. But it was, unquestionably, the greatest Fridays in the history of the world.

First, it was convenient. Right where we were doing all of our gambling, and open seemingly 24 hours a day. Second, the food deals were awesome. There was a $3.99 breakfast special (available from 6 AM to 4 PM) consisting of eggs, sausage or bacon, toast, and hash browns, and appetizers were 1/2 price all the time.

Last, and most importantly, all drafts were 1 dollar. All shots were 1 dollar too.

I think that the draft / shot special was only available either while a tournament basketball game was on or after midnight, but that essentially meant the special was always on. Dollar beers and dollar shots are an awesomely dangerous combination. It means that when 10 people are sitting and getting wasted and eating appetizers after a night of gambling, the bill comes out to be $70. It means that you just order a ton of shots for no real reason. It means that carbombs cost $2 and are a good idea for breakfast.

It means that you go to Fridays 2-3 times a day minimum.

The only thing lacking with respect to the Gold Coast was the clientele. It was all old people, and when you walk from your hotel room at the Palms, through the casino and past the clubs, and then into the Gold Coast, its a bit of a contrast. But the Gold Coast was probably the best overall casino (in terms of facilities suited to our needs) that we have visited in our 7 years of Vegas.

Not taking this Monday off as well (got back into NYC from Vegas around midnight last night) = huge mistake.

Vegas recap blog posts begin tomorrow.

Current Thursday Bets

Bets I wanted:

Butler +2.5 v. LSU
Maryland +1 v. Cal
Connecticut -20 v. Tennessee Chatanooga

Bets I had to take because Fishman wanted the other side:

Texas -4 v. Minnesota
Texas A&M +2 v. BYU
UCLA -7 v. Virginia Commonwealth

It begins...

I wasn't planning on getting drunk this past Sunday. I wasn't even planning on being in NYC. It just sort of happened.

Kim dropped me off at the bus station in East Brunswick, NJ so I could make it back to watch the Duke / FSU ACC championship game. I got in around 12:15, dropped my bags off at my apartment, and hustled over to Gibbs's. Ben, Kate, and Laird were already there too, and FSU's total no-show in the first half (combined with Duke hitting 5 3-pointers in a row at one point) basically ended this game before the second half even started. I didn't even have a beer at this point - I had a diet coke and a clementine orange at Gibbs's apartment.

We got a table at Brother Jimmy's (pretty good BBQ place / place to watch a game) and I guess this is where things slightly went downhill. I ordered some corn beef hash and eggs and got a couple big cans of PBR. Gibbs did the same (minus the hash) while Ben unsurprisingly got some fruity beer with an orange slice placed on the glass. Kate ordered a couple Makers, while Laird went for "Natural Light." Not "Natty Light." Natural.

After Duke finished off FSU for quite possibly the weakest ACC tournament title run in history, we didn't know what to do. I really wanted to go bowling, as my bowling ball was finally up in NYC and I had yet to roll with it yet. I convinced Ben and Gibbs about the soundness of this plan, and we agreed to meet at the alley once we picked up our bowling balls and shoes.

We arrived at Leisure Time Bowl at about the same time, and were told the rates. $9.50 per game per person or $60 to rent the lane for an hour. Being the math geniuses that we are, it took us a couple minutes to determine what the best course of action was. The lane was rented, a gigantic tower of beer was purchased, and we were on our way.

Highlights from bowling:

1) While doing our normal dime a pin bet, I rolled a nasty clean 207 (no open frames). Ben put up some 140 crap game and was not happy.

2) Gibbs started a game with X X 9/ 8/ X X. Then Sarah called and hexed him, and he ended up with a score well below 200.

3) Ben had an awful game going, and I bet him he wouldn't break 100. Going into the 10th frame, he had 72, and wasn't working off of a mark. He somehow got two strikes (including falling down while throwing the second one), and then a miracle 8 to get 100 exactly.

4) Gibbs threw a 8/- in the tenth frame of one of the games. I wasn't really paying attention and was somewhat drunk at this point, so I looked up, saw a full rack of pins, and threw one down. Unfortunately, the pinsetter knew it was the 10th frame and automatically dropped down the guard to reset the pins. CRASH! Some alley worker had to go retrieve my ball which was now lying motionless in the middle of one of the gutters.

5) Ben did somehow use the reverse spin method to hit a single 10 pin for a spare.

6) I asked Ben for action on me bowling left handed in the tenth frame. Since I was already up on him at this point, I asked for each left handed throw to count as 1.5. It was clearly a good deal for him, and he took it. My first lefty roll predictably guttered. My second one somehow was a strike. It was AWESOME. My third throw of course guttered.

I was feeling pretty drunk at this point, and we didn't have a good plan. Kate had volunteered to make tacos, but we were going to wait for Kim to come back into NYC to eat, and she wasn't going to be in til 8. It was probably around 6, so me and Ben went to Pug Uglies for some bar shuffleboard.

The bar was empty, except for a small group of people playing shuffleboard. Apparently there were two guys who were pretty nasty, and they certainly were. They beat me and Ben like 4 straight times, although most were close matches. While this was going on we drank a couple beers and for some reason did a carbomb. I'll say that by the time we left, we were both very drunk.

Things are somewhat fuzzy after arriving at Ben and Kate's apartment. I know Kim was already there and Kate had tacos ready for us. I also recall a lot of wine being drunk and Blokus being brought out. I think we talked about illegal immigrants. Ben randomly left in the middle of a conversation to go buy numerous bottles of powerade from a Duane Reade. I may or may not have tried to use a throw pillow as a paper towel. Kim told the story of how she almost got in a fight in a supermarket this past week.

And after we finally left, I found a small can of pepper spray in the back of the taxi we took home. I of course took that with me.

Just randomly filled out a bracket for the office pool. Did it in five minutes with no research whatsoever.

First Round Upsets:

Arizona (12) over Utah (5)
Dayton (11) over West Virginia (6)
Portland State (13) over Xavier (4)
Western Kentucky (12) over Illinois (5)
Temple (11) over Arizona State (6)

Second Round Upsets:

Dayton (11) over Kansas (3)
Maryland (10) over Memphis (2)
Oklahoma State (8) over Pittsburgh (1)
UCLA (6) over Villanova (3)
Temple (11) over Syracuse (3)

Final Four:

Wake Forest
Connecticut
Duke
Oklahoma

Duke's Path to its Fourth Championship:

Binghamton
Texas
UCLA
Oklahoma State
Oklahoma
Connecticut

Vegas is approaching next week. Past posts:

2003 (Excalibur)

Hello squire! Unfortunately, no blog posts memoralizing that trip.

2004 (MGM)

2 Hours Sleep
Blackjack Hand of Death
Trash Can Game

2005 (Luxor)

Fat Guy Falling on Me at the Airport
Spring Break: Shark Attack
Steakhouse Bet Round 1

2006 (Hard Rock)

Steakhouse Bet Round 2
Wheat Thins
Fudge Lacker
Handle Race

2007 (Bally's)

Strange Optimism
Abominable Sports Betting
Steakhouse Bet Round 3
Fire Bet
Molly McGee
Denver Duck

2008 (Venetian)

Back Duke or Back Off
RPS Domination
Steakhouse Bet Round 4
The Denny's Casino

Kim compared Above the Law to Gossip Girl.

I didn't have much of a response.

Stewie: (looking in the barrel of a shotgun) Go ahead, mother! Do it! Shoot me! Shoot your little baby Stewie!
Lois: (dramatic pause; her arm holding the gun shakes then she drops on her knees, dropping the gun) I can't do it! You're a terrible, evil child, but you're still my baby, and I could never hurt you.
Stewie: Well, that works out perfectly because I CAN HURT YOU! (grabs the gun and aims at Lois' face) Say hi to Cleveland for me! Oh, and Mr. Weed.
(dramatic pause; a gunshot is heard, Lois is unhurt, Stewie looks down at his bleeding chest, another shot is heard and hits Stewie in the head; Peter is seen holding a smoking gun)
Peter: It's just been revoked!
Brian: Uh, Peter, he didn't really set you up for that Lethal Weapon line. It... it doesn't really work here.
Peter: Oh... I'll have what she's having!
Brian: That's... better?

Kim has been debating what inscription she wants on the inside of our wedding bands. I proposed the lines from above:

Her ring: It's just been revoked!
My ring: I'll have what she's having!

Kim didn't go for it.

Around 4 years ago, I started looking into laptops.

I had never purchased a laptop before, instead subsisting on the Dell desktop that I got for college. So as of March 2005, I was using a desktop that was new in August of 1998. We're talking 400 MHz of raw computing power. RAM? You want RAM? I've got 64 MB or RAM for ya! And hard drive space? Let me tell you, if you had to count the number of gigabytes of hard drive space it had, you would almost certainly need more than one hand's worth of fingers. Probably not two, but definitely more than one.

It also ran Windows 98.

Still, it got the job done. All I used it for was PokerStars and watching MLB.tv, so its not like I needed some supercomputing powerhouse. And if anything ever went wrong, a quick reformat would take care of that. But law school demanded a laptop - for exams and for notes in class. So I drug kicking and screaming into the 21st century, about 5 years after the fact.

I surveyed my options. UVA offered an obnoxiously expensive law school bundle. For approximately $2,000, you got a computer, software (Microsoft Office I guess), and the ability to get a "loaner laptop" if your own laptop became unusable.

I thought this was a pretty outrageous price, so I looked to Dell. I found what must have been the cheapest laptop imaginable, with the bare minimum of processor speed, RAM, and hard drive space. It ran a little less than $600.

The math wasn't terribly difficult. Even if I bought this laptop every single year of law school, I was coming out ahead. And chances were, this laptop would last at least two years, maybe more. I went ahead with the purchase.

When it arrived, I was amazed at the sheer size of this thing. It was a monster. It would barely fit in normal laptop bags, and would not fit in the Bank of America messenger bag I was currently bringing to teach LSAT classes. It was also insanely heavy, and generated so much heat you could not sit it in your lap without a pillow barrier under it. This thing was the model of inefficiency, appearing to be more desktop than laptop.

Even though it wasn't much to look at, it got the job done with minimal difficulty. Sure, it had its issues - if you had more than one Microsoft Word window open (which you usually do during law school exams), it had a nasty habit of crashing unless you knew just what to do if your cursor started scrolling automatically in one of the open windows. It only took me a couple instances of that before I learned what to do, and presto, problem solved. Well, the problem itself wasn't solved, but I knew how to prevent the computer from exploding. Someone else using my computer would probably not be so lucky.

The biggest problem came during 3L year, when my computer caught some nasty adware. I swear, I wasn't even near my computer when it happened. But it got it, and without a Windows XP installation CD, I didn't know what to do. I did some internet research and discovered that Dell puts a folder caleld "i386" in your hard drive, so you can reinstall windows from that folder if need be. I did so, and everything was back to normal. Good as new.

My laptop survived the three years of law school (unlike many of the bundle computers), and performed reasonably well in its new NYC environment. But the last few weeks had been particularly rough on it. Blue screens would pop up, the computer would take 10-15 minutes to boot up, the green flashing activity light would just stay on constantly while the system froze, etc. I knew its time was near.

This past Saturday, it expired. It wouldn't even start in safe mode. I ran some system diagnostics and got a ton of error codes relating to the hard drive failing or something. So I guess its a hardware problem. I suppose I could send it out to get fixed, but its probably not worth it at this point. I can get a new laptop for $500 or so, and I already backed up almost everything on the laptop a couple weeks ago when I sensed this was coming.

It had a real good run though. 4 years out of this laptop was more than I expected. I'll miss it in a weird kind of way.