Musical Dice -- My Craps Blog

     How my wife and I are able to make so many trips out to Lake Charles, is because we get our room comped for two nights. Lately, it's only been the L'Auberge casino giving out the comps. Golden Nugget has been very stingy with the comps in recent years. But surprisingly, we got a coupon in the mail for two complimentary nights at Golden Nugget, so we decided to stay there this time. One benefit of doing it this way, is the fact that the cloverleaf hot tub that's for adults only is on this property, and unlike when we stay at L'Auberge, we don't have to pay to use it. That's what's kept us away from it all year. But this time, we're gearing up to use it this time. The weather in Lake Charles Louisiana is real nice, and this is probably the last time we'll get to go swimming or use the hot tub for the next several months. So off we went to Golden Nugget...

     You can imagine our disappointment when we got to Golden Nugget, and we found out that the adult pool area, including the giant hot tub, was closed for repairs. Worse yet, I wasn't feeling too hot, for I had developed a slight headache. My wife was tired too (probably from getting caught up in all the hoopla regarding our Houston Astros winning the World Series). So we rested for a while, a little longer than normal.

     When I started playing, it began at the blackjack table, where a string of very bad luck with the cards, caused me to lose $300. I would usually re-buy once at this point, but I didn't want to start off that way. The craps table was full, and I came to Lake Charles with a slightly reduced budget for gambling. For those reasons, I decided to just take the hit, and head over to L'Auberge. My initial strategy was to play craps, and depending on how much I win at blackjack, would determine how much I'd be willing to risk on my shoot. But that will have to wait.

     Forgetting about said strategy when we got to L'Auberge, we went straight to the craps table at L'Auberge. And it was a $5 table, can you believe it?! But unfortunately, my shoots weren't that good. I had a mediocre first roll from Stick Left 1, using the Hardway dice set, and my second roll, this time, using the Even Crossed Sixes set, was even worse, with an early crap-out. One reason why this trip is called "The Other Side" is because I'd said that prior to this trip, that I was going to play the Don'ts on the other shooters. But most of the other shooters were also dice setters, and they had more success making points than I did, but as far as hitting other Place Bet numbers, not so at first. It was a struggle at that table, investing $700 total, before getting it back. Fortunately, two of the other shooters had long enough rallies to get my money back, and leave $28 ahead. Another fringe benefit from this session, was, I felt better after drinking some water. I may have been dehydrated. We would have stayed at L'Auberge, but we had to head back to Golden Nugget for our dinner reservation at Vic & Anthony's.

     We had a very nice steak and wedge salad dinner at Vic & Anthony's. Afterwards, I was determined to play at the poker room at Golden Nugget. For this night, they were running a free-roll sports betting promotion in connection with the Monday night football game. I figured that the game would be good, since a number of people would be better at sports betting than poker. That turned out to be true, but it turned out to be a struggle here too, for I initially got busted when I was forced all-in on a hane with a lot of draws, whicl all missed. Only after I re-bought, did I start to get my money back. It took most of the football game for me to finally succeed in getting it all back, plus $119. By that time, I was too tired, so my gambling ended there for Day 1. Overall, I was down $153 for the day, but I have been a whole lot worse. I think tomorrow will see more craps sessions, which hopefully will go even better.

     Being that I was only down $153 after the first day, I had high hopes of getting out of the hole, and possibly turning a profit for this trip.

     It started out good, winning a quick $25 at a choppy blackjack table at Golden Nugget, then winning $150 playing blackjack at L'Auberge, after breakfast. At that point, I was ahead $22 for the trip.

     From there, we went back to Golden Nugget. I first played craps on a $15 table. Again, my shoots weren't so hot, but I managed to finish $193 ahead on someone else's shoot. I added $125 to that win at the blackjack table. At that point, I was ahead $318 for the session...

     I tried to get a 500 Club at the poker table, still at Golden Nugget. Instead of winning at least $182, which was my goal, I lost $700 on a real bad cooler (straight vs. set), so I ended up $382 down for the session.

     Things really went south from there. I went to a craps table back at L'Auberge, and I quickly fell behind there. Because my shooting wasn't so hot at first, I played cautiously on my first shoot. Wouldn't you know it, that was the shoot where I shot 21 times, using the Yo-Yo dice set! I didn't get my money back, but I figured I'd try my Two-Hit Blackout strategy (220 inside on a $10 table), but I PSO'ed. Worse yet, I tried once more with the dice, only to PSO again! I left the table $438 down. I added $750 to that deficit on three blackjack tables (winning $100 on the first one prior to the craps game). I lost $1198 for that session. OUCH!!!

     After dinner at a Chinese restaurant at L'Auberge, I went back to a different craps table. At this point, I had given up hope of getting out of the hole for the trip, and decided to concentrate on having fun. Although it was a losing session, I did have fun, for the most part, especially when on one person's shoot, there was some hope of getting my money back, but in the end, I lost another $371, due to my being too far behind before the rally began. I only was able to win $25 of that back at the blackjack table. $346 down for that session.

     My last hurrah for this trip came at the poker table at Golden Nugget at night. That was when I finished ahead last night, so I figured I'd try it again tonight...Bad move! I lost another $852, and I decided to call it quits for this trip. I think $2756 down was enough of a loss, don't you think?

     No gambling on this last day, as I'd declared myself all gambled out after last night's disastrous poker session. No 500 Clubs this time around. Unless I get an unexpected windfall that gets me back into the casinos before the end of this month, there won't be any further attempts this year to get 500 Clubs every month this year. At least I could take some consolation that every month for the first ten, that I had at leadt one 500 Club in each month, which is the furthest I'd gotten in any year. Plus the previous 12 months in a row, I had at least one 500 Club in each. That's the longest such string I'd had. But I don't see it happening anymore this year. Maybe next year.