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Head For The Gap!

 

In the final year of producing Stuart Wilde’s Warriors in the Mist eight-day seminar, a small group of Irish attended one of the programs. They were a fun loving group and they loved their grog. After the last campaign, Stuart, my wife Lin, a few others in the production company and myself, flew over to the U.K. for a few weeks vacation. We spent five days in Ireland with our Irish friends. They had this funny little saying when driving drunk, “Head for the gap”. I found out by experience that it meant to keep the car on the road by aiming it between the hedgerows and rock walls…. Otherwise it is to keep a distance between certain other objects that would result in a crash, if the car were not maintained in the gap. I just found out that this Irish phenomenon is common to the game of craps.

 

In the past month, I have had numerous email dialogs with Mike In Hawaii. We have been discussing the math of the game and how the house edge on bets insures the casino’s win. We also got into looking at the random game of dice, and how “monster hands” come about. One thing led to another and the question of how to explain a “monster hand” with math became Mike’s quest. Can math explain the random monster hand?

 

The article that follows in this newsletter, written by Mike In Hawaii, may well be the most important study for dice in our time. I’d even say that it has broader application for all gambling in general. Yeah, that is a pretty big check to cash! Understanding Mike’s computer model, his study of probability, has caused me more excitement, thought provoking inspiration and a much deeper understanding of what I have been teaching about the game of dice. I feel that his math model allows for an explanation of those places that I say a player is able to touch into with their perception. That is, when pushing out with one’s feelings and being able to glean information from another dimension before it manifests in this reality. “Reading the energy!” Now I add a new description calling it “touching into the Gap”. I will let Mike’s article explain how it all comes about as you can read it for yourself following this bit.

 

What I want to interject here is that I now feel confident that the energy concepts, the metaphysical concepts for gaming can be better understood with Mike’s study. It is quantum physics at work and once you read Mike’s article, my guess is that you will understand in simpler terms what I often have referred to as, “the dice acting out of probability”.

 

Mike’s study produced information revealing how the math of the game does adhere to probability over hundreds of thousands of rolls. What surprised us was that even though probability is held up, as one would expect, there are numerous “gaps” in random generated numbers where the dice rolls do not adhere to probability. It is during these gaps that the monster rolls occur and are explained. Mike calls it “Distance Between Sevens”.

 

What his study revealed is that the numbers rolled, do in fact adhere to mathematical probability. What he discovered by running over 600,000 random rolls, was there are numerous gaps between sevens occurring in the trial. That is to say, instead of a seven showing up every three to six rolls, there are times when there may be a distance between sevens up to over 60 rolls between their occurrences. Although a lot of the gaps are less, even those gap hands would still be consider “out of probability” and profitable hands in terms of an opportunity to make money in a craps game.

 

In subsets of 10,000 rolls, many statistics were regularly, and significantly, out of line including the number of naturals rolled, number of craps, and number of times place bets would hit or miss. The less common an event was, the more likely it was to not match its predicted performance. But even the most common events such as winning on the come-out roll, frequently just wandered off, as if unaware of their true probabilities.

 

I am making a connection here to those aspects of what I have been writing about, perception and reading the energy. I believe that when a player is aligned to the energy, and perceives the “positive vibes” of a winning game, that they are in fact experiencing a quantum physical phenomenon. Mike In Hawaii likes to tease me, calling it “juju”. I believe that the energy or intention sent out by a person can touch into the energy of a game and in doing so, is also able to perceive the experience of the gap.

 

That is saying, with perception and awareness of other dimensions, a player is able to recognize the occurrence of the inordinate distance between sevens. So, when the player engages this kind of energy, they can position themselves in a game that is about to act outside of probability. When they are switched on and perceive correctly, they find themselves playing in a profiting game. The other side of the experience is when “pushing out” with perception and not picking up a feeling for a positive game, the player is touching into a game adhering to probability. No Gap! It is what I refer to as “no game” and one would witness random rolls or a choppy game.

 

What I say next is bound to create controversy within the dice influencing community. Mike suggested that it would be like stuffing three ally cats into a burlap sack and tossing them over a clothesline. Here goes…. There is a guarded secret about dice control captured in slow motion movies. I am aware of three separate recordings, independent of one another, of slow motion filming of dice setter’s dice in action. Mike has witnessed one of the films and agrees with what I am aware of for the way that dice react upon landing. The other two films were explained to me by trusted authority, two experts of the game, each performing independent slow motion filming, that when the dice land after being tossed by skilled dice influencers, that the dice “bounce all over hell” time and again.

 

Even with desired results, the results occurred randomly and did not adhere to the axis theory commonly held. I say again, no way do the dice tumble on axis, as is the accepted theory of today’s dice setters. The sharp edges of a die are too unlikely to land flat consistently, without catching the felt on edge or by a sharp corner and abruptly changing trajectory. Thus, the dice are not able to maintain the desired axis, as is professed by those believing the theory of dice influencing. That theory says that the dice can land perfectly flat, maintain the true forward motion, rebound off the back wall of pyramid rubber and return to the layout and stop on the set axis. Near perfect cubes with razor edges, how is that practical?

 

I’ll answer my own question. Not very practical! At the same time, I continue to use my skill with setting and tossing. Why? I believe in consistency when throwing the dice. Dice setting is one way to do that. Over the career of my dice play, I figure that doing the same thing over and over as best as I can, it will result once in a while with the dice doing what theory predicts. I do not know if it is 1% or more. But let’s say even if it is just 1%, that is an advantage. Could it be more? Sure! Certainly depends on the shooter’s level of skill.

 

At the same time, I am prepared to propose that when any player rolls a hand using dice influencing or rolling random, that they are doing nothing more than hitting the “gaps” that are mathematically prevalent as demonstrated in Mike’s study of over 600,000 random rolls. For me, it explains “why” dice setting works great some times and other times it is not different from random.

 

Okay, I wanted to keep my explanation of the math, metaphysics and quantum physics low keyed and simple. So, for now, I will leave it to you to decide for yourself. Review the findings in Mike’s study. Consider this, if it is possible to touch into another dimension and perceive the energy prior to it manifesting in this reality, can you perceive the energy of the distance between sevens? Can you head for the Gap?

 

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Distance Between Sevens

By Mike In Hawaii

 

There are two primary ways to do Craps math. One is the way God would do the Math (Capital M). To infinity and beyond! as a certain toy super hero likes to yell.

 

The other way is to "Monte Carlo" it. By that we mean make a "machine" on which you can turn the "crank". In this case a Craps shooting machine. It simulates throwing the dice a LOT of times! and allows you to record the results.

 

I wrote one in a language called C and can run it on a very powerful computer. Boy does it shoot Craps!  In about 1 second it can shoot the dice about 2/3rds of a million times and record all sorts of interesting statistics. (It is not really the computer that makes the difference, it is the simplicity of the code. No animations, no graphics, no dice layout, nothing but bare minimum gears and wheels.)

 

As for the data, Seven appears (111288 / 667722) times or 16.6668% of the time. Very reassuring since God Math would say exactly 1/6th of the time or 16.6667% of the time you should find a Seven. Keep in mind that throwing Seven is the most common thing that can happen in Craps.

 

Originally I had it using just 10,000 rolls of the dice. Sounds like a lot, but it is impressive how skewed the data on some of the less common outcomes such as hardway 4's turned out. In fact even the number of Sevens could be off by quite a bit in only 10,000 rolls. So I upped the ante until I found a number that would give me some statistics I could believe in. That started to happen when I got to about 500,000 rolls. (More on this later.)

 

Where did I get my random numbers? Well random.org of course. Assembled in batches at random times over a number of sessions over the period of a week.

 

So how many hands in 667,722 rolls? 197,905. That would be the average length of a Dice hand, if you define "hand" as the series of events that starts with a come out roll, ends with immediate craps 2,3,12, or an immediate win with 7 or 11, or sets a number and continues rolling until you either make that number or Seven Out.

 

In other words the series of events from when you first pick up the dice until there is something that results in a decision. The program says that number is about 3.37 rolls of the dice on average.

 

Some might object to my use of "hand" for this. Saying a "hand" is from when you first get the dice until you have to pass the dice. I have not taught my little engine to capture that exact data yet.

 

So what does the little engine have to say about the distance between Sevens? Before you peek answer this question:

 

What is the most common, most likely, distance between Sevens in Craps?

 

ZERO!  Yes indeed. The most common distance between Sevens in Craps is no distance at all! The most common distance is consecutive Sevens.

 

That one had me chasing my tail for a bit. I could not get my "Sevens" to add up. Finally the light came on. I was recording all distances between Sevens from 1 to 127 and a whole bunch were missing!  Duh....  When I fixed the program to carefully record consecutive (gap of zero) Sevens, shazam, like Bo Peep, I found all my missing sheep.

 

In fact, there were 18,539 consecutive Sevens out of a total of 111288.   That is 16.66% of the time. WOW! Bingo! What is the chance of rolling a Seven on any given throw? One in Six. or 16.667%. Choirs of Angels Sing. (As they say when Math works). Hard core proof that given enough throws, dice in fact seem to have no memory.

 

So what about the other Monte Carlo distances:

 

Gap        #               Percent            Cumulative

0          18539            16.66%            16.66%

1          15632            14.05%            30.71%

2          12684            11.40%            42.10%

3          10706            9.62%              51.72%

 

So four rolls of the dice cover just over half of the possible cases. Starting from a Seven and then hitting Seven again on the very next, second, third or fourth roll.

 

What is scary for certain strategies is the rest of this chart. It fades away, but because there is fully a 5/6th chance the next number will NOT be a Seven, it does not fade away that fast.

 

Here is the Rest of the data out to a gap of 25 between Sevens. This really starts to enter the Twilight Zone:

 

Gap      #            Percent             Cumulative

4          9023          8.11%              59.83%

5          7380          6.63%              66.46%

6          6209          5.58%              72.04%

7          5286          4.75%              76.79%

8          4320          3.88%              80.67%

9          3574          3.21%              83.88%

10        2985          2.68%              86.57%

11        2426          2.18%              88.75%

12        1973          1.77%              90.52%

13        1765          1.59%              92.11%

14        1517          1.36%              93.47%

15        1274          1.14%              94.61%

16        1001          0.90%              95.51%

17        788            0.71%              96.22%

18        729            0.66%              96.88%

19        614            0.55%              97.43%

20        471            0.42%              97.85%

21        413            0.37%              98.22%

22        336            0.30%              98.52%

23        293            0.26%              98.79%

24        223            0.20%              98.99%

25        195            0.18%              99.16%

 

There is one case of a gap of 72 rolls! The first zero appears at a gap of 54 rolls. Two cases of 55 rolls, one case of 57 rolls, two cases of 59 rolls, and one case of 65 rolls between Sevens. Every gap of 50 or less has at least several occurrences. From 29 to 40 every gap has 10 to 92 occurrences. From 28 down there are at least 115 occurrences.

 

By Math (Capital M)

 

We have stated that we are going to start with a Seven so the chances of the first number being a Seven are 100%.

 

The chances the next number will be a Seven are the same as the chances you will get a Seven any time you roll the dice (random roller of course). 1/6th or 16.67%

 

So what about the other numbers? Well the chances of NOT getting a Seven are 5/6th. So the chances of skipping one number are:

 

1 * 5/6 * 1/6 or .1389 or 13.89%  =  the chances of  a distance of one gap between two Sevens.

 

For larger gaps you just multiply by more 5/6th's

 

1 * 1/6                                     16.67%         0 gap

1 * 5/6 * 1/6                            13.89%         1 gap

1 * 5/6 * 5/6 * 1/6                   11.57%         2 gaps

1 * 5/6 * 5/6 * 5/6 * 1/6            9.65%         3 gaps

Total so far:                            51.77%

 

Notice several things here. First these numbers do not exactly match those from the Monte Carlo example above even though we used nearly 668,000 rolls. They are close, life is good, they do agree, the Monte Carlo at about 2/3rds of a million rolls is working OK. But it is not perfect! Expressed as percentages we are still getting errors in the first decimal place even with these "very common" occurrences.

 

Gap      Percent             Cumulative

0            16.67%              16.67%

1            13.89%              30.56%

2            11.57%              42.13%

3              9.65%              51.77%

4              8.04%              59.81%

5              6.70%              66.51%

6              5.58%              72.09%

7              4.65%              76.74%

8              3.88%              80.62%

9              3.23%              83.85%

10            2.69%              86.54%

11            2.24%              88.78%

12            1.87%              90.65%

13            1.56%              92.21%

14            1.30%              93.51%

15            1.08%              94.59%

16            0.90%              95.49%

17            0.75%              96.24%

18            0.63%              96.87%

19            0.52%              97.39%

20            0.43%              97.83%

21            0.36%              98.19%

22            0.30%              98.49%

23            0.25%              98.74%

24            0.21%              98.95%

25            0.17%              99.13%

 

What is the house advantage when you bet the pass line and take double odds? Expressed as a percentage it is down in the first decimal place. And the Monte Carlo data represents about how many dice rolls a dedicated shooter throwing once a minute, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for over 15 months might make. Now that is a session. And still there is "noise" in the Monte Carlo data even with this most common of events. And we are only looking at absolute errors. A better idea of the "noise" would be to look at the relative error size, which in this case is six times larger.

 

How Noisy is 10,000 Rolls?

 

Noise in this case is error. As pointed out before there are two ways to try to analyze a betting system or the probability of something happening. You can try to calculate it using Math. Or you can build a model of it that carries out the steps of the game over and over again like a little mechanical version of the game, turn the crank and keep track of what happens over time.

 

With Craps there are 36 possible outcomes just on the roll of the dice. That is a LOT.

 

As questions get more complicated and you look at events that are relatively rare, the number of turns of the crank required on such a simulation or Monte Carlo starts to either become extremely large, or the data wobbles around so much it becomes almost nonsense due to the overly small sample.

 

More bad news! In order to double your confidence in your result, you do not have to double the number of rolls, you have to increase them by 4 times. The noise goes down with the square root of the number of observations. So if you want to increase your confidence by a factor of 10, one decimal place, you need to increase the number of rolls by 100.  Yes, you have to go get 100 times more random numbers.

 

One might think that 10,000 rolls is a reasonable number. So let's have a look at what happens when we Monte Carlo Craps with a bit over 10,000 random rolls, 66 times, using a different set of 10,000 random numbers each time.

 

In terms of hands, that is defining a "hand" as pick up the dice, throw them, either win immediately with Seven or 11, or crap immediately, or set a number and then continue until you Seven Out or make your point.  Start throwing dice, reach, one of the above conclusions.  On average the slightly over 10,000 random rolls generate approximately 3,000 such hands. So that again sounds like a LOT.

 

Let's just look at two things that can happen frequently, and make up fully one third of all come out roll results on average. You either (A) win with 7 or 11, or you (B) lose with craps 2, 3, or 12.  The odds on the first result is a nice clean 2/9ths. The odds on the second result is a nice clean 1/9th. As percentages those are: 22.22% and 11.11% for a total of 33.334% of what happens to all come out rolls. (The other 2/3rds of the time you set a point and have to try to make it).

 

Let's begin with a very carefully selected example from the 66 trials. It is enough to make Angels weep. There are 2,971 "hands" in this run which generate 659 wins with either 7 or 11 on the come out roll. And generate 332 loses with 2, 3 or 12.   That is an absolute error of only -0.04% on the immediate win column (22.18% vs. 22.22%) and only 0.06% on the loss column (11.17% vs. 11.11%).  Even viewed as relative error it is just -0.19% on the win column and 0.57% on the loss column.

 

Now what is the big deal? What is wrong with that!! Well very little. But this was a most carefully selected example from the 66. The majority of these runs have rather nasty errors. The absolute errors on the win side go from -1.79% (too low) to 1.57% (too high). Something that is supposed to be happening 22 percent of the time off by over a full percent much of the time.  In relative terms it is a shocking -8.06% to 7.09% off base.

 

The loss side which is supposed to be happening 11% of the time has similar absolute errors, ranging from -1.56% (too low) to 1.29% (too high). In relative terms that is a horrifying -14.05% to 11.59%.  Yes that is over 11% relative error on one side and 14% relative error on the other side. With 10,000 rolls!

 

So what does that mean for a real Craps session of (be generous) 250 rolls?  Well chances you will see percentages like the Math (Capital M) predict for even the most common occurrences are not good. Any real Craps session is most likely to be significantly off on its probability distributions. (With just 250 rolls, confidence, or chance for drifting off the Math derived probabilities, would actually be about six times worse).

 

Think for a minute about a session in which people are losing to craps on the come out roll 11% more often than they should be, or winning with 7 or 11 fully 8% less often than they should be, or conversely losing to craps 14 % less often than they should or hitting 7 or 11 fully 7% more often than they should. Nothing to do with dice control, or how they throw the dice, just the variability in the math (lower case real world math) itself with a sample size of just 10,000 rolls.

 

Even at 10,000 rolls of the dice, the numbers are not settling. Even at 2/3rds of a million rolls the less common events are still drifting off the absolute values calculated by Math, such things as the number of 12's, the number of hardways, and even the number of times someone will set a four and then make their point.

 

Whenever you extract a real life subset of dice rolls at a Craps table, you will very likely get something significantly different than the razor edged, 10,000th of an inch, ultra balanced, spun and serial numbered precision of infinite Math probabilities.

 

Next time someone says "I tested my system once on WinCraps with 1000 rolls and it works!" Please raise at least ONE eyebrow...

 

©Aug 2006 Mike in Hawaii

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On The Coat Tales of a Gambler... Part 13

A note from Sailor: Michael, great June newsletter. You sure do make my stories come back to life. You know, on losing streaks, my way is just to quit. When I gamble, I figure a head of time how much money I am going to put at risk that day. I always think I am going to win, but that does not always happen. I learned from my time with Scarpone, and watching backroom gambling that the winner was the gambler who knew how to manage his losses. The desperate player, the guy that would lose it all chasing a loss, was exactly the kind of player the professionals wanted in the game. Scarpone did not always win, but he knew to cut his losses and run. I will tell you a story about that later.

 

I played a bit of dice in my time. A few games were memorable. Mostly I did not have much luck playing craps. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I have a short attention span. I could not manage to stay long in a game before being distracted. I am easily irritated in a craps game, I mean from the people around me…. Drunks, cigar smoking loud mouths and then the jerks that think they know it all and are telling me how to play. Same guy is tossing money around on sucker bets, losing his money and complaining about it like it’s not his fault. It gets me the way some players shoot the dice like they just don’t care. They just grab the dice with one finger and the thumb and just fling them with a flip high in the air…. No control, dice going everywhere, hitting chips, the mirror, hands and so on. The ones that drive me nuts are the show offs. They think that by throwing the dice hard it is going to help make their number. They throw the dice without any respect. The dice go flying off the table and the game waits because the idiot wants the same dice. Meanwhile, the pit boss is on his hands and knees looking under the other table trying to find the precious dice. Who needs that non-sense? Hell, I was playing craps before them, and have forgotten more of the game than today’s punks will ever bother to learn. That’s the problem with this new generation of gamblers. They got more money than sense. They throw their weight around… “Look at me!”…. and you can tell, just by looking at them, they don’t have a clue about the game. Scarpone and his bunch may have come along too early. Of course, in today’s world, wide open gambling is not likely to attract hot shots with money and attitude anyway. These guys have to be “seen” pretending the part of a gambler. They’d just be a snack for the likes of Scarpone.

 

I was spoiled hanging out with Scarpone at an early age. The first time I ever saw a real money dice game was in a motel room with Scarpone, Little Eddie Ramsey, Mike the Knife, Carl “Swan” Ketchum and three or four other guys. Again, I was just watching. I was not in the league of Scarpone and his pals. But because I was trusted to the end, I was always invited. Scarpone like having me around and he looked after me. It became known that I was Scarpone’s lookout. Not that I ever had to do anything. Just the fact that Scarpone had “eyes” behind his head was enough. For this, Scarpone took me under his wing. I think that not being one to get involved in the big games helped my cause too. I played a lot of small stakes poker and dice, you understand. Because I was not one to get into the high stakes game, well, I guess Scarpone saw it like I would not be distracted. I enjoyed just observing the gamblers do their thing and tracking how the money moved around the table. It was like a story unfolding with every game. Lots of drama and excitement and as long as Scarpone felt like I had his back, well, I got to tag along of often take part in the fringe benefits if you know what I mean.

 

Now, with these guys, it was a science as well as their business. It was orderly and courteous. These guys were working. They played with reverence. Gambling was their sacred profession. Playing cards, shooting dice, this is how they made their living. You see so many “want to be” gamblers in Las Vegas. They don’t care if they win or lose. In fact, most of them expect to lose, never mind their stupid and sloppy play. To them, it is just entertainment. Hey, it is entertainment for me too, but I expect to win and I play to win. I don’t just play to play and get all the free drinks that I can drink. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Just that in my day, gambling was illegal and the pros that were doing it wouldn’t mess with a casino game. If there was an edge to be had, these guys were the ones to be holding that edge.

 

In those days, a game could be set up in any little town, in any cheap motel room. Kind of a hit and run deal. Of course, there seldom was any sleeping going on in the room. Everyone knew to keep it quite so as not to draw attention or to cause a reason for a guest to complain. Sometimes, three rooms would be taken. The middle room would be where the game took place with the two outside rooms serving as noise buffers. It cost a bit more for three rooms, sure, but in those days, motel rooms were cheap. A lot of places were in business for nothing more than run-a-way romances. You know, Mr. and Mrs. Smith… “No tell motel”.

 

The games moved around from motel to motel, town to town, so as not to have a predictable pattern. The way the word got out for a game was sent through a network, a grapevine of sorts. There were plenty of backroom games going on in just about every burg. Like I said before, the cops were on the take and turned blind eye to illegal gambling. Hell, most of the cops were in on their own version of “poker night” along with a judge or two. I could name some names from the old days but I don’t want it getting out, and I certainly don’t want it coming back to me. I am heading back home later this summer and I plan to nose around a bit and see if any of that is still going on. I would not be surprised. Understand, I am not talking about rinky-dink gambling, like that newspaper story I told you about. I am talking about the continuing large stakes games of the likes of Scarpone and his buddies.

 

Scarpone had a green army blanket he’d spread over a bed. He’d tuck up tight to the pillows. He had a way of rolling the dice down the blanket that would keep the same faces up. In this way, he could control the out come, more or less. He was so good rolling on that blanket. It was almost too good. But no one in those days expected anything. Amazing, when I think about that. In those days, guys were so hungry to get in a game; no one was the wiser about Scarpone’s manipulation of the dice.

 

I am sure that way before the days of Scarpone and the likes, there were others already doing the same. The idea of manipulating the dice for a desired outcome was not hatched, as it is proclaimed, in the last twenty years by those characters on the east coast. It has been going on since there were dice. The guys that were so skilled with blanket rolls, switching out loads, or otherwise influencing the game, were professionals. It would hardly serve them to let it out that they had ways to insure the outcome in their favor. These guys were not just good, they were the best and they had the good sense to keep it to themselves. In those days, that last thing a “mechanic” wanted was notoriety.

 

Sometimes, in a rouge game, Scarpone would work with another guy. Slick Vic was one of the best cheats I ever got to see. Vic and Scarpone had a scam working together in a motel game. After setting up the blanket, Scarpone would be at one end, the shooting end, with Vic down by the pillows. After Scarpone rolled a point, Vic would collect and return the dice back to Scarpone. Depending on the point rolled, Vic would switch out the dice one die at a time. By the third roll, Scarpone would have loaded dice that favored his point. He would set the dice up with the proper faces and do his thing… like bowling dice down the army blanket and bang out the number. Once the point rolled, Vic would switch out both dice again back to the fair dice. Keeping the loads out of the game was the tricky part. You would have to be pretty sharp to detect the loaded dice, but these guys were pros and were not about to let their reputation be soiled by being stupid. So, Vic kept the loaded dice well hidden. When just about any time, someone might say, “Hey, let me look at those dice!” they would inspect fair dice. Vic was so slick, I once saw him slip out the loads and hand the guy fair dice when questioned. Of course, I did not actually see Vic make the switch. Only that I knew the loads were in and then out of play when the guy inspected the dice. He said okay, looking at the true dice, and let the game continue.

 

Scarpone could switch out dice like Vic but as he was the better roller, the team play had Vic doing the switching and Scarpone doing the rolling. Of course, when the other players were rolling, the dice would be fair dice and the betting by Scarpone would be more conservative. Everything these guys did was orchestrated.

 

Now, not every game involved cheating. I saw plenty of fair games. You have to understand that these gamblers knew one another and played together a lot. That being said, the cheats were not going to try to pull one over on each other. They also loved playing the game that much that they could keep to an honest game between themselves.

 

It was a kind of a brotherhood. They pros kept a sense of honor amongst themselves. It was one reason for the nicknames and it also had to do with the camaraderie they shared. They all had a bit of larceny and some were petty criminals. They would get caught for robbery or burglary. Because of this brotherhood like commitment, no one ever gave up information to the cops, trying to make a deal. They’d would take their lumps, go to jail, do their time and come right back to the old ways. Scarpone was not one to hang out with the petty criminals. He was not about to let himself be exposed to that kind of liability, no matter what. You recall that motel story I told you about the guy that stiffed the motel owner. That was the end of his close involvement with Scarpone. He was lucky that just being kicked out was all that happened to him that trip. Scarpone had a brutal temper.

 

One time at a cockfight, a guy was not going to pay Scarpone on a bet. He was going on about how there had not been a real contract between them before the fight and there was nothing Scarpone could do about it. This was one time when I thought Scarpone was going to kill. He got so mad…. Steaming mad! But he did not do anything there at the barn with all the people and he did not cause a seen. He kept his cool and remained calm. He suckered the guy to go around to the back where the cars were parked. Telling the guy he had a case of whiskey to sell to him since there was not a bet. Scarpone got the guy to follow him out into the dark. After we were out and away from the activities, Scarpone bends over like to open his trunk. Instead of reaching down to unlock the hatch, he takes out his pistol from inside his coat. In an instant, Scarpone grabs this guy by the balls hard, shoves him up against a car and at the same time, he jams the barrel of the pistol up the guy’s nose. He was pushing so hard, I heard the nose breaking and when Scarpone cocked the pistol, I was bracing for the muzzle blast and blood. But then Scarpone asked in a calm voice, almost politely, if the fellow was absolutely sure that they did not have a bet on the cockfight. With blood running down the barrel of the “38” and urine down the legs of the dead beat, came a whimper of, “Yes mister, we had a bet. Take your money. Please don’t kill me!”

 

I was never so scared. I was never so grateful that Scarpone did not shoot that guy. He whacked him on the head with the pistol butt and the guy fell to the ground crying. I guess it was around the time of this incident that I started to wake up to the idea that I might be with the wrong crowd. I certainly got it that night that Scarpone was one ruthless son of a bitch when made angry.

 

On The Coat Tales Of A Gambler continues next month with Part 14… Poker in Amarillo.

 

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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 2007 Schedule TBA: Typical for me this time of the year I like to reflect on the season past, before penciling in dates for the next year. I am making adjustments since my transition to life in Colorado. The winds are blowing more changes and as I sort them out, I will decide on my schedule for appearances in the new year. Stay tuned! The Professor

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Testimonials from P4K Seminar Participants

Blackjack Players                                  Craps Players

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Last Gaming Event of the Year!

 

Dice Busters:  November 4th marks the last program of the year. A limited number of seats will be made available at a $400 savings. Act now to make your plans to join Soft Touch, The Professor and the Dice Coach in fabulous Las Vegas for the last program this year. Call Beth toll free to register. 866-342-3626

 

Recommended Gaming Sites!

"Dice Coach" www.dicecoach.com

"Queen Bee of Dice" www.dicesetter.com

 

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Referrals to my web site and my newsletter are appreciated. Help spread the word. There is more to the games than meets the eye.  "You can win them all Playing 4 Keeps!"

 

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Thank you for your continued loyalty. Your comments, questions and suggestions are always welcome. Email: professor@playing4keeps.com

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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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