Winner$ Experiment Week 2

Started off with a good first week, which has been updated with results here.  Also here is a brief summary:

• Maryland +17 @ WVU - LOSS: 6 - 45 (Margin +39) My tribute to SVP did NOT pay off. Terps suck.


• Midd. Tenn St. +4 @ Illinois - WIN: 25 - 27 (Margin +2) Failed 2PT and late 51 yard field goal kept Blue Raiders from an outright win.


• Miss. State +2.5 @ Auburn - WIN: 17 - 9 (Margin -8)  Was a bit afraid of this because I thought the Bulldogs should have been favored. Must have been a home game thing. Auburn is terrible.


• Ohio +10.5 @ Minnesota - WIN: 24 - 27 (Margin +3)  This was just hometown knowledge.  Almost like stealing.


• UMass +29.5 @ Notre Dame - LOSS: 27 - 62 (Margin +35)  One garbage time TD away from backdoor cover.


• PHI +1 @ NYJ - WIN:  24 - 17 (Margin -7) Thought the 2-0 Jets (who looked good) playing the 0-2 Eagles (who looked like garbage) should have been favored by more than 1 at home. Stinky line. Jump on the dog.

NCAA Week 4/NFL Week 3 Record:  4-2-0

Overall 2015 Football Season Record:  4-2-0

NCAA Week 5/NFL Week 4 Picks!  Sep. 29 - Oct 5

WVU +7 @ OU  LOSS

Alabama +1.0 @ Georgia  WIN

Texas Tech +17 @ Baylor  LOSS

Nebraska @ Illinois +7  WIN

Kansas St. +7.5 @ Oklahoma St.  WIN

Ole Miss @ Florida +7.5  WIN

Vanderbilt +3 @ Midd. Tenn St.  WIN

Notre Dame +2 @ Clemson  PUSH

Arizona +13.5 @ Stanford  WIN

MIN +7 @ DEN  WIN

I Want Winners!

After a prolonged absence, I've decided that my web presence needed to be pumped back up to a healthier level.  All I needed to do was to figure out how to accomplish that feat.  After months passed and countless man-hours were spent in the think tank brainstorming, scheming, plotting, and pondering thousands of ideas for the blog reformat project, my people still came up with zero good solutions to the problem at hand.

Who needs a new idea anyway?  Take something that is proven, and copy it.  Original ideas don't exist anymore, not really.  Those ideas that seem new are just copied from something else that is good and probably tweaked just a bit to seem new, but it's really just another form of the same thing.

Example 1:  There is an event that will have one of two outcomes.  Let people choose between the two outcomes with the promise of a prize.  To be eligible for the prize, let people give you something of value that is equal to the promised prize, plus ten percent.  After the event reaches one of the two outcomes, return everything plus the prize to people with a correct outcome choice.  Keep everything you collected from the people with an incorrect outcome choice.  As long as the value collected from either side does not exceed 52.38% of the total value collected, you will have made a gain in your collection.  There is one more thing.  You can manipulate which outcome is more likely to be chosen simply by adjusting the odds of the outcomes.  That way, you can make sure the value of one side stays under 52.38%, thus ensuring you make gains on every outcome you offer to people.  It sounds complicated and it is, to the people choosing between outcomes of events.  It isn't really that complicated for you, since you are creating a win-win scenario for yourself on every event.

The last paragraph is describing how sports gambling works in the most basic terms.

Event = Any sporting event

Choosing an outcome = placing a bet on a sporting event

Prize = dollar value of payout to correct bets

Something of value equal to the prize plus ten percent = dollar value of bet

Organizations who take bets (from now on known as the house) rarely lose money on bets because they set it up that way.  The best scenario for the house leaves them with zero risk (i.e., the value of bets place on each side is split 52.38% to 47.62% or less when using the above bet/payout ratio, which is: Bet $110, win $100. $210 total payout).  The house wins nothing on a 52.38% to 47.62% split and loses money on anything higher.  As the split gets closer to 50/50, the house makes more money.  If bets are split 50/50, the house pays the winners 100% of their money back (50% of the pot), plus their payout, which is 45.45% of the pot (part of the losing side's money).  That is a total payout of 95.45%, which leaves the house its cut of 4.55% of all money bet.  That may not seem like much, but considering the risk is zero as long as the house keeps the money bet on either side relatively equal, it's free cash.  Take $1 million in bets, keep it 50/50 for both sides, net $45.5K.  It's lucrative.

Example 2:  I don't want to come up with a vague way to describe Fantasy Sports (so I'm not going to), but Fantasy Sports is example 2 of something that is good.  By "good," I mean it attracts people to participate.  I'm still not convinced it is actually good and have contemplated quitting fantasy sports altogether, many, many times.

Put examples 1 and 2 together, give them a little tweak, and you get the phenomenon that has completely taken over television advertising and happens to be a billion dollar industry: Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) (AKA Draft Kings, Fan Duel, etc.)  Two good things put together, tweaked to seem new, but actually is still a form of the same thing.  My point is made.  New ideas are for the birds!

Please don't try and tell me that DFS is not gambling because it is "skill-based."  I'm already not listening.  Sports gambling is skill-based too, but it's still freakin' gambling.  The people with the skill in either scenario are few and far between.  These people also have unlimited information available to them, and even more likely, unlimited funds relative to the typical degenerates who end up losing their house or fingers because they are actually just GAMBLING.

If you are putting money down on an outcome which you have no control over to try and win money, that's gambling.  Plain and simple.  Playing normal fantasy sports is and always has been gambling anyways.  Typically it involves a lot less money, but it's still gambling.  Nobody is out there playing fantasy sports for the thrill of victory or pride.  If you are, then you are an idiot, or a better man than I.  I'm not convinced which one.

There are people with a very particular set of skills that allow them to win money "gambling."  Basically they are stealing money from your average joe gambler who thinks they might just WIN A MILLION DOLLARS on a $25 investment.  (Sidebar: Hmmmm, that sounds familiar.....oh yeah, it's called the lottery.)  Let's call the guys with the skills, Sharps.  There are Sharps in both worlds (sports gambling and DFS).  The Sharps decrease your chances of winning down to lottery-type odds.

This is what I imagine a sharp to look like.

I used to be one of those guys who thought I could win a significant amount of money on sports betting.  Don't get me wrong, it's not like I never won any bets!  John Q. Gambler will probably win quite a few bets too!  The point is, if you continue long enough and you aren't a sharp, you are going to lose.  I carried on betting regularly for just under a year.  I wagered as little as $4 on parlays and as much as $67 on straight bets.  All in all, I put just under $5K on the line.  How much did I have to show for it?  A whopping $171.57 (Yes it is exactly that much, I tracked it in a spreadsheet).  That's mostly (only) because I put $10 on the Dallas Mavericks to win the NBA title at 20/1.  So for all the agony and stress that my gambling gave me, I decided it wasn't quite worth it any more.

Also, I will never do DFS.  I think it's the one of the dumbest things you can do gambling.  I can't wait for it to actually be considered GAMBLING (it will be soon), because maybe then I won't have to hear all the advertisements.  At least with sports gambling, I knew who my opponent was, the house, odds makers that have lots of data to set the line or spread in order to favor themselves.  In DFS you are going up against thousands of people in the contests and probably hundreds of them have greater informational and financial resources than me.  I think there are head to head DFS match ups, but that seems even more like straight up gambling to me.  All of this is leading up to my original point of this post, where I'm going to start gambling on sports again, sort of.  I don't know how I got this far off track.  I guess I needed to explain it to myself (literally, since zero people are going to read this).

I'm not about to jump back in head first.  I'm going to drop a toe in, see how it feels, tease the water a bit.  Maybe I won't even get all the way in.  Maybe I'll decide the waters aren't inviting enough.  As I'm writing this, I remember why I went on a long-winded rant about new ideas and combining good ideas with tweaks!  It's because I'm going to copy someone else's good idea as an experiment.  ESPN talent Scott Van Pelt has given out 5 bets (he calls the segment WINNERS) each week (for entertainment purposes only) for as long as I have listened to his radio program which has shifted over to his television program.  As he has oft said, "I don't want to win 'em all, just 53%."  Not sure on the actual percentage he uses in the quote, but he is alluding to what I mentioned before, if you win 52.38% of your bets with the typical bet/payout ratio of $110/100, you won't lose money (of course at that percent you won't win either, but in gambling - a push is a win and if you aren't losing, you're winning).

For the last two years, SVP has done just a little bit better (than 53%) against the spread (against the number), which inclined me to listen up just a little bit, because of his strategy.  He does more research than I do (probably), but he basically looks for the worst spreads available and bets all underdogs.  The reasoning behind it is very interesting and it has to do with the Sharps.  Lines that are stinky (as he calls them) usually show a team that is perceived by public opinion to be much better than their opponent, but favored by a smaller margin.  The explanation for that is simple, the Sharps have enough money on one side to keep the line from moving up, even with all the money John Q. Gambler and the public are putting on it.  That's it.  So if you are good at identifying those lines that stink, you are essentially getting the Sharps knowledge with little effort and all the reward!  That's how SVP has picked slightly better than 60% against the number for two years straight.  Now don't get crazy, at that rate, you are only winning $14.45 for every $100 you wager, but that's why it's not profitable unless you have tons of money to invest.  It's quite remarkable.

I'm going to give out my own winners and see how I do (for entertainment purposes only).  SVP gives out 5 each week, so I might limit it to that after a few weeks, but I'm not starting out that way.  Have to tweak it a little, right?

Week of Sep 22-28.  I WANT WINNERS!

  +17 @   LOSS

                     +4 @   WIN

 +2.5 @  Auburn WIN

  +10.5 @  WIN

 +29.5 @  LOSS

        +1 @  WIN

#VoteDozier

Ode to Taco Bell

So last night I'm pulling through the Taco Bell drive-thru and I am feeling super psyched to destroy two of the best menu items that have ever been available at the fine franchise.  Of course, I'm referring to the newly re-instated Beefy Crunch Burrito and the Cheesy Gordita Crunch (it's crun-chew-eesy).  Just pretend that the guy in this video is me.  It pretty much sums up how I feel.

It's about 10:30 on a Thursday night and this particular drive through seems a tad bit backed up.  I pull up behind a big dually pick-up that is at the ordering intercom.  After the order is completed, the truck begins to pull forward and the back left tires get up on the curb, then they start scraping a plastic protective bumper post in the grass. I think to myself "This guy has never driven a big truck before.....or he's half in the bag."  I was erroneous on both counts. This drive-thru is a tad tight around the corner to the pick-up window.  It has a retaining wall that butts up against the side of a hill, so there is definitely potential to scrape the wall if you turn too wide, or have a nice curb check if you turn to tight.  This truck was already hugging the wrong side of the curb and had no chance at its current position to make the turn with out jumping the curb and running over the NEXT plastic protective bumper (which I do believe has an actual concrete or metal pole inside the thin candy shell, I'm surprised you didn't know that).

The next thing I know, both tires have hopped the curb and now the truck is trying to back up, but the mirror is hitting the bumper on the way back.  I've already ordered and there is another car pulled up behind me.  I am thinking that my chances of getting my order from the window have gone to zero and the chances of my car getting backed in to have gone to 99%.  Then some kid (presumably her son from a car back?) walks up to the truck and starts talking to the driver.  Then the driver almost gets out of the car and by golly it's a nice middle-aged lady..... Now I understand what's happening here.  After some discussion, the kid begins directing her as she backs and then as she goes around the turn.  It was fairly successful, I began taking a video of it just in case something exciting happened.

The kid then stops to talk to me and explained that she asked him to drive the truck through AND that he did not know that woman at all.  He also said she looked "high as fuck."  It was pretty entertaining, even though the ordeal took an extra 15 minutes.  I thought it was a neat little story to share, considering I've never seen anything like it.  I once tried to back all the way out of a Taco Bell drive-thru because it was taking too long and we had 'borrowed' my friends truck over lunch and were running out of time.  I subsequently smashed the front quarter panel in to a light pole as I backed up rather hastily.... To be fair, I was only 16 and this story isn't about MY driving, so let's just get back to the real story.

I get my bag of food and head home.  As I pull out my first item, thinking it must be the gordita crunch since it doesn't feel like a burrito, I come to find out it isn't a gordita OR a burrito.  It's a freaking Chalupa Supreme!  Now I frantically dig through the rest of the bag to see what else I had.  One more Chalupa Supreme and a hard shell taco.  I carefully reviewed my receipt, it clearly has MY order on it.  I also remember being specifically asked if the items on the order screen were correct, to which I replied a resounding "YES!"  My order was two Beefy Crunch burritos and one Cheesy Gordita Crunch.  As I scratched my head and made this face, I didn't become mad, angry, irate, furious, or pissed off.  Not because I am a forgiving person and I can't bring myself to get angry at Taco Bell employees for their incompetence.  (Sidebar: I used to hate lettuce on any of my taco bell food and would basically throw a shit fit and pout if there was lettuce on it when I specifically always say NO GODDAMN LETTUCE, but then I turned 29 and grew up so it's all good now)  It was because the food I got looked pretty freaking good!  I never order Chalupas because they are more expensive, I think? (can't really be sure because I never order them!)  As for the other item, who am I to scoff at a crispy hard shell taco?

I told one of my favorite Taco Bell eating partners about my experience and how I wasn't really mad.  Yes, I consider one of my friends a Taco Bell eating partner, it's not weird.  We just happen to eat Taco Bell almost every night we've ever hung out and share a passion for food.  He restated my situation with the silver lining that had just come to fruition upon eating my meal, "The good thing is it's tough to be too disappointed, no matter what you pull from a tbell bag."  Which led me to having an even greater appreciation of Taco Bell.  It's not just a fast (usually), inexpensive place to enjoy fritos mashed up with cheesy beefy goodness.  No, Taco Bell is so much more than that.  It's a place where friendships are formed, memories are made (3rd and 4th paragraphs), and taste buds are delighted.  This night at the drive-thru (sounds like a bad Ben Stiller movie title) brought me to realize one more thing that makes TBell a pretty unique place, because it's not just anywhere you can get the COMPLETE wrong order and still have a very delicious and satisfying meal.  Here's to you TBell.  Live más!

SUCH A GOOD DEAL!

Been in love since it hit the menu. Don't ever change!

Really?

Unless this book is making fun of the world and it's technology dependence, the world must be coming to an end.  I have no idea if it is, but I really really, really, really, hope Ann Droyd (get it?) is not the Angel of Death just waiting to end it all.

God save us?

Bringing Back Comments

I was reading Jum Hammonds' blog and realized that he needs some help.  For some time now the ability to comment on The Slice posts have been disabled due to spammers.  I've had the same problem (although probably on a much smaller scale) and I just delete the email alerts I receive throughout the day.  Sure turning the alerts off, or disabling comments would stop the annoying spammers from bothering me, but A) let's be honest....I haven't written a post since March 2011, which makes me a bit on the lazy side, 2) I like that someone still visits this page, and D) getting emails boosts my fragile self esteem.

Anyway, you know the word verification things you sometimes have to type in when doing important transactions on the interwebs? Things like, buying tickets on StubHub, Ticketmaster, TwinsBaseball.com and other things like that?  The stupid and annoying and usually difficult to read non-sensical combination of letters/numbers such as Plhsita3 or snOkfe1.  You do know what I'm talking about? Well, I remembered that putting the word verification on the comment page was an option, probably for the very reason of keeping the foreign language spamming out of our blog commenting world.  For testing purposes, I have turned on the word verification for commenting on this post.  So I guess that is it, try and make a comment now you dirty spammers!  Even though the word verification thing is a nuisance, I think it's a fair price to pay to get the comment board rolling again for The Slice.  I haven't heard from Random Ted in a while.

I will probably still miss my email alerts....

Since this is a pretty lame excuse for a post, here are a few things I've been doing to occupy my time.

I saw John Smoltz.  PHX airport on a Sunday night. Watching SNB while his wife played with her phone.

I saw A baseball stadium. #14

I saw another baseball stadium. #15

We made a trip to the Tournament of Roses.  It was a great trip overall that started with New Year's in Vegas, the Rose Parade, and a fantastic student athelete football match between the Ducks and Badgers minus the Rose Parade.  Not sure how I could ever miss another Rose Bowl.  It's a tradition that I will make a big effort to continue for years to come.  (Unless flights don't come down from $800 from now until Jan. 1.)

Addy D is ready for some football.

Even the tickets are beautiful.

View from our actual seats. Not bad.

Our upgraded seats. Even better.

Pai Gow and the Earl of Sandwich = Epic Nights

Life's been good to me so far. I feel like I've been blessed in my time here on Earth. I've been through some good, some bad, and some ugly. This last weekend (and by last weekend, I mean some weekend in December) was a combination of all of those, yet the end result was nothing but another grand adventure. Going to Vegas usually has that effect on a weekend. As fantastic of a time it was, there was a point in the early going where it was on the verge of being a disaster (I guess we probably could have made the most of it and made it still really awesome, but since it didn't turn down that path, I'll just say it would have been close to the end of my blessed life as I knew it. You know, for dramatic effect). Shortly after I woke up after the first night of the weekend, I came so close to the edge of the cliff, I was actually falling off, until a mighty hand reached out and snatched me from what was to be certain death. This is the story.

Some time last year my boy Dave announced that he and Timmy Reynolds would be playing a small tour in December. That tour included two shows in The Vegas. Since Addy and I have never seen this dynamic duo and since we had pretty much seen every other concert that DMB had played on the summer tour, we decided that it would be pretty stupid not to go. Let's just get it out of the way and call me a super fanatic weirdo that would follow Dave anywhere. You can make fun of me all you want. I don't care, not even a little bit.

Some Thursday in December I arrived and quickly pulled up to the Planet Hollywood (PH) sports book to take in the Colts/Titans game while I waited with great anticipation for my friend Addy to arrive. Upon his arrival we polished off our typical weekend starter shots of Jameson and prepared for a wild ride.

This marks my fourth trip to Sin City and since I'm not a huge table game gambler, I've sort of developed my Vegas formula. I dabble in a bit of blackjack and craps, but I hate losing money. If I'm down quickly, I get pissed and walk away. There is a hidden gem of a game that I have grown deeply fond of. The name of this post gives light to that game. Pai Gow.

I don't think many people know how to play, which is a shame because if you want to gamble and drink for free without much risk of losing money, this is the game for you. I feel it is my duty to explain and share it with the world, and by the world I mean the three people that read this. It's a simple game really, based on poker hands. Each player and the dealer is dealt seven cards. From those seven cards you form two poker hands, one with two cards, the other with the remaining five cards. The only catch is that the five card hand must be higher than the two card hand. To win, both of your hands must beat the dealer's respective hands. Naturally this leads to lots of ties or pushes and of course no money exchanges. I'd give you an example of a hand, but I can tell that this is getting boring already. Just trust me, there are a lot of pushes, which in turn leads to you and your buddies sitting at the table for hours upon hours. If you get the cocktail waitress trained early, you won't be seeing straight by night's end. (Training the cocktail waitress: Step 1: Tip big on the first drink or two, after that she'll be back early and often. Step 2: Tip $1 everytime after that.)

After the Thursday night football game, Addy and I hit the Pai Gow table. The first night is a great example of how you win at Pai Gow, even when you lose. Addy had never played before, but that didn't stop him, nor should it stop any of you out there. One of the great staples of Pai Gow is that you can ask the dealer how the house would play your hand and they will tell you, EVERY TIME. This is good for Addy since he has the attention span of a 7 year old, especially when he starts drinking Redbull vodkas. It's really not that complicated though.

By the time 4 o'clock came around, we had the waitress bringing us RBVs every seven minutes. Addy, despite not paying attention and still having no idea what the rules were, had piled up a nice stack of chips. He also had made good friends with our good dealer Donna and the other patrons at the table. He had asked Donna to marry him a few times and the guys next to us kept gawking at him while he managed to keep stacking up chips. Like I said before, with all the pushed hands, it's rare that you lose much money, but in turn it's also rare that you win very much either. Chalk Addy's success up to drunken beginner's luck.

I said Donna was our good dealer. The bad dealer on this night was Chom. She was unbeatable and soon cleaned me out and took Addy's stack down considerably. Then Rainy came in (yes that is her name, 99% of the Pai Gow dealers are Asian, go figure) and really bent us over. Normally I have a rule that states if one is winning with a certain dealer, when he/she goes on break, color up and get the hell out of there because 99 times out of 100 the new dealer will absolutely anal rape you (figuratively speaking of course) and leave you feeling used and violated. I wasn't following my own rule on this night. I'll blame it on the waitress. She played hard.

When 5:30 came we decided it was time to call it and stumbled over for some food at the Earl of Sandwich. (sidebar: We had eaten before at some mexican bar. We pulled up and asked the bartender what he recommended on the menu. He highly recommended the menu item Drunken Nachos, $10. Seems really appealing and extremely appropriate right? Wrong. I remember the excitement I had for a huge plate of nachos with all the fixings and tons of chicken canvasing the delicious chips and cheese. When the bartender brought us our mini sized plates with seven chips topped with only a few shreds of cheese, I about threw my plate across the bar. What a let down. This little encounter left us thinking that we might never get a regularly sized meal in Vegas unless we either A) spent $20 or B) went to In-N-Out. Needless to say, we weren't looking forward to our food expenditures for the rest of the trip. This info is needed to understand the elation we experienced in the next part of our adventure. End sidebar) Little did we know, we would be eating the greatest sandwiches of our lifetimes. We decided to take the food back to the room, but when I turned around after nearing the elevators, I saw Addy standing in the middle of the casino floor, absolutely dominating his late dinner/early breakfast. I couldn't really blame him, as I would soon find out those were the greatest sandwiches ever made.

Despite the casino being a maze, we made it back to the room after only walking in a circle for 20 minutes. I'm not joking about the maze either. When Addy left the table to go to the bathroom, it was a forgone conclusion he would get lost on his way back, despite the bathroom being a 30 second walk in any direction. He'd be gone for 15 minutes at a time, which meant I would have to finish his drink so he could get a fresh one (bonus!). End of night one. Gambling tally: Dusty = down, Addy = up.

I wrote the above paragraphs in December, right after this trip. I had some elaborate plan to hold the readers in suspense with how I ended the first paragraph, but now I can hardly remember the details of everything that happened for the rest of the weekend. I'll give it my best shot in a short summary below (considering I always give too much detail about everything that 100% of the people reading don't care about). What can I say? I've been busy.

Like the first paragraph alluded, something was avoided that would have been a weekend stopper. I woke up and couldn't find my wallet. Wasn't in my pants pocket or on the desk or really anywhere after we tore the room apart. The big problem with that, aside from not having my plastic and paper money, was that I was flying out on Monday....and what do you need to fly? That's correct, a valid form of ID. I no longer had that and I had to be in Wichita for work starting Tuesday morning. What does one do in that situation? Bend over and try to relax? I didn't want to think about that, so we put our effort into finding the wallet, no matter how unlikely finding it seemed.

After we retraced all our steps and realized I used it at the sandwhich place around 6 AM, we figured I left it there or it had to be in the room. We again tore the room apart and not until I lifted up Addy's bed did he crawl under and come back out with my wallet. It was way up by the head of the bed near the corner (so basically the darkest place in the room). We had both looked under the bed multiple times and couldn't see it. I don't even know why I decided to lift the beds up, we both KNEW there wasn't anything under there. Oopsy daisy. Addy and I then participated in a 5 minute celebration around the room. There was dancing, high fiving, awkward hugging while jumping up and down in circles. Thankfully neither of us broke our leg like Kendrys Morales. Complete and utter jubilation was upon us, and it carried us through the rest of the weekend. One of us would say, "Hey remember when we found the wallet? That was one of the best moments EVER!" and the same 5 minute celebration would occur. True story.

After that little mini-debacle I left my extra DL (yes I have two, don't ask) and a credit card in the room, so even if disaster did strike, I would be ok. I will also be doing this anytime I travel by air for the rest of my life. You should too. That's Life Lesson #1 from me, more to follow. Remember when I wrote that this part would be short? The rest of the trip was great, more of the same as day one, except we went to 2 concerts (SSWY came with the first night), managed to get free tickets the 2nd night (how? some dude literally gave them to Addy and told us to buy him a beer inside) AND then sold our original night two tickets within 30 seconds. Sunday was also good as we gambled on nearly every NFL game and watched all of them (except the Vikings because the Metrodome roof collapsed...awesome!)

Sunday night ended back at the Pai Gow table. Addy and I both proceeded to bank some cash at the table. We give all the credit to our good luck chip. There was one chip in play that was different from the rest because it had a picture of some dude on it. Addy dubbed the chip 'The Wrestler' and claimed that he could never lose a hand with The Wrestler in play. Soon everyone at the table knew of The Wrestler and its powers. It was so powerful that it would draw cheers everytime Addy won a hand. He was guaranteeing the dealer would lose and daring the dealer to try and take it from him. The Wrestler even radiated good luck to the whole table (or at least me). We walked away with around $300 between the two of us, including The Wrestler. It may not sound like it on paper, but just take my word for it, The Wrestler was awesome and helped bring fun and camaraderie to the table.

Oh oh I just remembered another sweet move I pulled. Some Pai Gow tables have this 'Fortune Bonus' side bet, which if you play, you get paid out some decent odds when anyone at the table gets a straight or higher. One hand I had a straight flush on my high hand, and there was a dude playing the Fortune Bonus. I was waiting for him to get paid out, but the dealer took the cards and put them in the shuffle compartment. I asked the dealer why he didn't get paid because I had a straight flush, so the pit boss had to come over and pull the cards out of the shuffler and find my cards, then pay the guy out. The guy then proceeded to give me a $25 chip, considering I had just won him a couple hundy, I thought that was mighty fine of him. Boom, LAWYERED.

Overall in roughly 90 hours in Vegas we were inside the PH for 88 of them. The only exception was when we walked (which I don't recommend, it's tougher than you think to get across the interstate) to In-N-Out for some delicious double-doubles. The only other meals we had were from the Earl of Sandwhich and the bar where we went to watch football (still inside PH). After the first night, EoS became standard lunch, dinner, and breakfast, in that order because we were going to bed at 5 and waking up at noon. Those sandies were that good (and inexpensive!). Good times; and that's all I have to say about that.