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Call It Like It Is…

 

Recently I was called upon for my opinion at Dice Setter Precision Shooter’s Forum, http://bonesboard.proboards4.com/index.cgi to answer what I might suggest for a slump in one’s play. It appeared to me, that the topic of losing is a bit like talking about cancer. No one that has it seems to want to call it like it is… a down turn, a losing streak. Yes, I lose and have been through plenty of losing streaks. You don’t play the game as much as I have and not experience the swings of the game.

 

The person who made the post about a slump asked about, and referenced, a few external causes for being in a losing streak, like how the stars and planets may be involved.

 

You can definitely plan your life that way – maybe I can get a gambler astrologer to help with expert advice. I am in fact in contact with a group that does exactly that. Yeah, maybe the planets do have something to do with it, but if you think that I am going to plan my trips to Las Vegas around the planets, think again. I am not about to hand off all I know and all of my skill to the power of Mercury in the night sky. Mercury is always retrograde, so what’s the point… well half the time anyway. It is not simply the sun and the moon... though there are better days than others for playing, I admit to that. Do you play golf or fish? Ever have better scores or catch more fish? That’s the planets too? It could be but life is too short, thank you. I am going fishing or to the casino no matter how the planets are aligned.

 

Joking aside, I am a stickler for keeping a record of all my casino sessions. Do you keep a journal? If you do, your journal enables you to read the evolution of your game, leading up to and through a losing streak. The answer to your losing is to be found within the pages of your journal. Perhaps the hard part is taking the objective position to see it. The observant self is something I wrote about a while back. That is, observing by pulling away from ego and intellect, almost like peering down from above and taking a good look at what you are doing, independent of your body. Our tendency is to operate in such a way that we get others to observe us instead. “Mommy, look at me, no hands!”

 

By the way, losing is part of the game… oh really? Yes, if we did not lose, why would we play the game? How profound, bet you never heard that before… It’s just that I have to remind myself of the facts every once in awhile. If it were not for me losing, them and those writing about how they always win could not possibly have anything to write about. They can thank me later.

 

Some say that you should play through the slump. This is great if the bankroll and ego can sustain it. I am sure that there is merit in this idea. I don’t know why Iraq just popped into my thoughts…

 

I say, stop the presses and look for the logjam that has stuffed up the machine. In every losing streak, I have been able to identify an element relating to the losing. Here are just a few, playing too aggressive, by playing too much, chasing a loss and denial. The key to these elements is looking behind the symbols for the real energy of it all. Somewhere there is a wobble in the force, look and you will find it.

 

“So, what is the cure Professor?” I am not sure that there is one. But here’s what I do when I am in a losing streak. I back off the game. I may go to the casino, but I will not play. I watch. I watch and see if my perception of the game is accurate. That is to say, I push out with my feelings and pick up or sense the energy of a game. Pulling that feeling in, I then translate the feeling into information. Does the energy feel like winning energy or like losing energy. When my perception is in agreement with the money flow, I know that my perception is dialed in. If it is, I take heart knowing that an important aspect of my game is intact. If not, then I know I am “off” and accept that I am off. No point in forcing a square peg…

 

Watching a game is to play the game detached. You have nothing at risk except your feelings about the game you are watching. You cannot lose. You can only win from the experience of the education. Your intention is focused in an unselfish and unbiased way. The focus is on the game and how it plays out as you watch. You are detached from your own needs and desires because you are not at risk to lose. You act as a clear vessel, channeling perception without distractions. Right or wrong, you will see before your very eyes if you perceive the energy correctly. Incidentally, there is no right or wrong, it is just a confirmation about your perception being aligned or switched on for the particular experience. Some times I am “right on” and other times it is in “right field” for me.

 

Both sides of the game are valid and necessary. It is what is! The hard part is to learn to take the same joy of playing with us when we win or lose. It is not a one sided game. If you find that you are losing in all of your games, (Blackjack, Dice, Poker, Sports Book, the Track…) that is your message. Look for the message being given to you in losing. It now becomes your “new game” to play. “Get yourself out of this mess Houdini!”

 

What about my experience when losing? My tendency is to become gun shy. After numerous losing sessions, I almost play with an expectancy of losing again.  I play too tight, too cautious, too scared and I cramp my game down to the point where it is no longer “my game”. I am playing chicken. Once I come to recognize this condition, I also admit that playing, (that way) is not fun. So, I back off for a while. It took me a while to accept that I was not having fun playing chicken.

 

When I return to the game, dice or blackjack, the memory of losing is fresh as a daisy. The question, “am I still gun shy”, pops right up. Renewing my game entails the essential win. No goals, just win baby. So, to rekindle the confidence, a win, is a win, is a win. I begin to end the slump by locking in wins. Shorter sessions, for sure, and perhaps walking away from what may have been more money. However, without employing the basics of discipline I know my game is without foundation. You must lock and walk with that first win.

 

Okay, we are back to watching. So, I lock up the $97 or $7 and I color up. I watch for another twenty or thirty minutes. You know what? In watching, I discover that if I had stayed and played, I would have lost more, not won more. This is the confirmation of perception once again. That is the beautiful thing about gambling and using perception. It is confirmed for you in a matter of minutes… one way or the other you are going to see it.

 

Want to confirm that you are in a losing streak, just keep playing and keep doing whatever you have been doing. Want to break out of it, stop and have a serious look at your life.  The person playing the game is the same person you get out of bed with every morning.

 

Being too hard on your self, I think, is natural for us all to do. We work so hard to become skilled players. We know great from mediocre, why settle for less? It is in the beating up on ourselves that we become demoralized. Being demoralized is the worse condition to be in when attempting to play the game. You might as well be putting sand in your pockets before taking a swim too!

 

Thank goodness for the losing streak. It means you have something to look forward to. It means you are in the ebb and flow of life. It means you are alive!

 

Michael Vernon Copyright © 2006  May 22, 2006

 

On the Coat Tales of a Gambler continues …

 

How I lost my Marbles… Part X

 

As a kid, growing up in the South, we were never short of things to do. First of all, free time was precious and when it came around, there was no wasting it. There were always the chores that came first. Depending on what our dads did for a living, boys often would have some job helping out there too. My Uncle Jack had a gas station. When I was about twelve years old, he let me do a bit of work there, cleaning up mostly. As I got older, I got to pump gas and pour oil while my uncle worked on cars in the garage. That was weekend work during school and all day during the summer. He’d give me a few bucks cash at the end of the week and all the RC Cola I could drink… which was a lot in the sweltering humid summer heat.

 

The oil use to come in thirty-three gallon barrels. I asked my Uncle Jack if I could have the empty ones for a raft. He laughed, figuring that I was dreaming and I would never get around to it. With the help of my buddies, through scrounging for scrap lumber, bent nails, rope and a pole for a mast, we made us a hell of a raft. It took us half the summer. We could only work on it during our spare time. Eventually, we had gathered enough material, tied and nailed it together over four oil drums. We built the raft over at Brian Potter’s backyard. His dad was okay with a bunch of us boys using some of his tools and working on the raft. The Potters also lived near the river, which turned out to be a good thing. The raft ended up a lot heavier than we thought. We managed to drag and roll it over six inch cedar posts, down to a low spot on the river. With peanut butter sandwiches and sodas, we set sail. The raft floated high in the water, drifting in the slow current. However, the small hole punched out so that the oil could be pumped from the barrels, took in water that we did not expect. (I guess it was hopeful denial) Eventually, the raft began to sink and we ran aground on a sandbar in the middle of the river. That was the summer I got the nickname “Sailor”. My dream was to float that raft down to the Gulf and sail to Cuba. Funny to think about it now… Cubans trying to float over to the U.S. and me trying to do just the opposite.

 

Playing marbles was another of my pastimes. Marbles was my first experience with gambling. I wore out my pants in the knees from playing marbles. One afternoon, I ended up playing with the school bully, Duane Bailey. He was a few years older and a lot bigger than me. We got into a game of “pots”. “Pots” was a simpler game for kids that could not shoot marbles. You dig a small hole a few inches deep and maybe four to five inches wide. Each player would anti a marble, sometimes more depending on the game. About ten to twelve feet from the hole, a lagging line would be scratched in the dirt. We’d take turns lagging a “jumbo” trying to land in the pot. First one to do so won the marbles in the pot. Duane was not much for marbles and before long I had won most of his marbles. Being a bully, Duane was also a sore loser. He bullied me into putting all the marbles I had won, into one “pots” game. Once my marbles were in the hole, Duane swooped down and stole the marbles. When I objected, he grabbed me around the neck, under his arm and flung me to the ground. He told me I could have the marbles back if I got him down on the ground. Well, I was just mad enough to try. He threw me down a bunch more times before I finally got it and headed for home without my marbles.

 

Duane had a younger sister Marci Bailey. I ended up marring Marci. I never really became friendly with her brother Duane. He became a drinker, had problems with his marriages and did a bit of jail time for assault. He did not get into trouble from beating his wives it was always over an argument drunk in a bar. That playground bully personality followed him throughout his life.

 

I was just a kid of twenty-five, but I was the pop of two girls and later, two boys would come along before mid “69” My six years of military obligation was over and I thought I was done with military service forever. How wrong I was. I recall that it was in July of 1970.  I was out of the Marines for a while, but that’s when I decided to join the Navy. The Navy offered me a much better deal. They offered a better deal in “59” too, but, I was too young and dumb to take it.

 

Anyway May of “66”, I was a machine operator at a Union Carbide plant. I had been working there for thirteen months. I had a good future there, according to my reviews. They said I would be in line for “Scratch Foremen” in a year or two. I worked the swing shift and did not like it much. It was good money, forty-nine hours a week with nine hours at time and a half. That was good “jack” with four kids and a wife to take care of. The shift was getting to me, never home with the family, so with the advice from a few friends, I quit in May 1966 to be a city fireman in Greenville, Alabama.

 

I thought it would be a better job with more security. I enjoyed being a fireman. The job paid more in the long run because I had a lot of time off to work side jobs. It also provided me with the time to hang out with Scarpone, which eventually stressed out my marriage. All the above proved true… Already on the fire dept were some guys I went to school with. Bill Cox, Henry Danielson, James Whitmore, and Clyde Harrisson… and maybe some others that I forget…but I don’t think so. I quit in “70”.  I played a lot of poker in that fire house. I’ll tell this for sure, you get pretty good at cards sitting around a table with the same mugs for four years. Cox quit a few years after me. Whitmore quit in “68” to be an Alabama highway patrolman. He looked just like the cop in that Smokey movie with Burt what’s his name….? No charge for that bit of grand history of mine. Have a great week… hope to see you soon down the road.

 

Later Sailor wrote in a second email…

 

You know, telling that tale of the Florida trip with Scarpone, I thought of an old girlfriend that he use to keep on the side. She was a real looker too. Of all the women Scarpone was with, she was his best match by his account. Donna Giordano was her name. An Italian girl from the north, hot blooded and hot tempered. I think she even had Scarpone in tow. They never married though. Anytime she wanted, she could get her way with Scarpone. Scarpone told me a story of how Donna wanted him to drive her to Las Vegas. Donna had an uncle that worked for the mob at the Dunes. He was a doorman but being connected, I guess being Italian, he was able to get Scarpone and Donna set up in the hotel with a real nice room. They got to see Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher in the show room and Scarpone told me he played craps with Mickey Rooney. This would have been about 1955-56. I knew of Scarpone, but I was still a kid. Donna was not a dumb blond… she was a brunette. She could pass for blond, though, when you hear the story. On the drive out to Nevada, Scarpone asked Donna to pull out the map and see if she could figure out were they were. It was night time and they were some where in Arizona near Kingman on Route 66. Scarpone says to Donna, “how far is it to Las Vegas from Kingman?” Donna replied, “it looks like about two inches”.

 

Scarpone loved Las Vegas, but he did not care for the gambling there. He was more of a wide open kind of player, not exactly a crook, but, like I told you before, he knew how to take advantage of people. Playing in Las Vegas, Scarpone was like a fish out of water. He did not like being the one that was being taken. Okay, he had crooked dice and marked cards and he carried a gun. I guess he was a bit of a crook.

 

I still have friends back in Alabama. I sent an email to an old buddy who knew Donna’s husband. He gave me an email address for Donna. I thought maybe she’d know how Scarpone died. I got a reply back to my email. Donna passed away a week before Thanksgiving. That was all that was said, and that the family didn’t know of anyone by the name of Scarpone. I guess it had been years after he dumped her… I am betting that to some extent, life back there is still the same as it was. Kind of made me sad to hear that news about Donna. She must have been about 70 years old. Scarpone only went with young women. I think his oldest wife was twenty-one when they got hitched.

 

To be continued…

 

In the next episode of On The Coat Tales of a Gambler, Sailor writes about “June 1956…fifty years ago in Greenville, Alabama, life was good.”

 

Well, that’s it for this edition of the Playing 4 Keeps™ Newsletter.

 

See you at the tables Playing 4 Keeps™!

Michael Vernon

Author and Gaming Instructor

 

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Purpose Statement:

Playing 4 Keeps™ enriches a player's experience to become a consistent winner. My commitment to you is empowerment. Learning to employ discipline creates confidence and strengthens intention through metaphysical lessons. I empower students by showing them how to avoid losing sessions. Most importantly I create metaphors that link the knowledge of casino games to winning ways in "the game of life". Michael Vernon

 

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