Musical Dice -- My Craps Blog

     As my wife and I were coming home from our last trip, I had expressed to her a desire to try a whole new place to gamble, one that had more than just two casinos, like they do in Lake Charles. My wife later thought of Tunica, Mississippi. I'd heard of Tunica MS some years back, when I bought a World Poker Tour DVD, and one of the tournaments was played there. But I had no idea how to get out there, so the idea of going out there was shelved, until my wife discovered that Tunica is less than 40 miles from Memphis TN. With this information, plus the knowledge that there are at least five casinos out in Tunica, we booked the trip to come out to Tunica, and that Valentine's Day would be one of the days we'd be out here. This would be a new experience for both of us.

     Unlike previous trips where my wife and I would leave home early in the morning, and get to our destination by noon, this time, we left in the afternoon, and didn't reach our final destination until just before 8:00 at night. That was because the only non-stop flight on Southwest Airlines from Houston to Memphis, didn't leave until the late afternoon.

     Let me first say this about Tunica: It appears to be out in the middle of nowhere! Where we're staying, there are two casinos near each other. One casino is Sam's Town, and the other one, the one we're staying at, is the Hollywood casino. One observation we both made, is that like the L'Auberge casino in Lake Charles, it's on the MyChoice network. For that reason, I took with me, the player's card that I use there. The only reason why I mentioned that, was because when we got to our room, it looked almost exactly like our room at L'Auberge in Lake Charles looked! Maybe it's a MyChoice thing--you tell me, since I'm sure some of the Las Vegas casinos are also on the MyChoice network. The decor and layout was VERY similar to L'Auberge. But these rooms do have a refrigerator, whereas L'Auberge doesn't.

     We didn't gamble right away. We were both pretty tired from our trip out here, plus we wanted to watch the last quarter of the Super Bowl. I was pleased as punch to see my Rams win the Super Bowl for the first time in 22 years. After that, we went downstairs to get something to eat. It took forever to get our order. I was wondering how much time or energy would we have to do any gambling at this rate?

     My first and only gambling session came after we ate. We went to a craps table that had no players on it. Let me first state that one new strategy I was going to try, was to set up the Iron Cross strategy on certain other shooters, and pull my bets down after one or two hits, with the idea of accumulating enough money so that when I do my regression strategy, I'd only have the big bets out there for just one hit, before regressing. Of course, that idea went out the window, since there were no other players. I was the only player (my wife decided not to play just yet). So I shot the dice, and yes, I was playing scared craps, as I call it, only betting on the 6 and 8. Hey, this is a new casino, and I had no idea how the dice were going to react. On my first shoot, I shot from Stick Left 1, and I used my old familiar Hardway dice set (4/2-4/2). I shot 6 or 7 times, with only two rolls being productive. On my second shoot, I used a new dice set I thought of at home recently, which I call the Yo-Yo II dice set. I thought of the set specifically for Stick Left 1. It is a 5/6-6/5 set, where the fours are kissing (unlike my Yo-Yo dice set, where the treys are kissing). Anyway, I still was playing scared craps, playing the inside numbers, not just 6 and 8, plus I was only putting single odds on my Pass Line bet. This was the time I wished I had the balls to do my Two-Hit Blackout strategy, for I, apparently had a mini-monster roll, shooting 24 times! Again, many of those rolls were non-productive horn numbers, or 4's or 10's. I did make two points, and by the time I crapped out on that $10 table (they rarely have this at L'Auberge), I ended up $56 ahead, overall. I know, but at least I got my feet wet, and if I concentrate on a nice easy toss, like I did, I think I'll have more decent rolls, and I'll be able to take more of a chance in future sessions here at Tunica.

     It was getting late, and we were both tired, so I didn't do any more gambling the first day. I was very happy to be able to enter this shoot into my Best Shoots page on this website, something I hadn't been able to do in nearly five months. Anyway, tomorrow, I hope will be even better.

     This morning, I woke up with the songs "Coming Around Again" by Carly Simon (1987), and "Bad Time" by Grand Funk (1975) on my mind. I'm sure the former was referring to my dice shooting last night. I hope the latter will not be indicative of how things will go today. Which song will apply to that? I guess we're about to find out...

     Unfortunately, the latter song fit in too many ways. After breakfast, we caught a Lift to Binion's Horseshoe. I got into a craps game there, where there were only $25 tables. There, absolutely NOTHING went right! When I played the Don't, the shooter (a random shooter) would make his point. I'd leave the Place bets out there, and the shooter would immediately crap out. My shoots were okay at first, but again, playing scared craps. Then they got worse. At length, I decided I was going to go for my Two-Hit Blackout strategy (with the intent of regressing to 135 across plus the buys after two hits), but I crapped out before I could get the first hit. I left that table down $1162. OUCH!!!

     From there, we went over to Gold Strike. The craps table there was a $15 table. I had a decent shoot there, shooting 16 times on one of my shoots (shooting from the end, just like at the Horseshoe, using the same Yo-Yo dice set). The problem was my betting too much on other shooters. I was starting to get it back, when something else my wife and I were supposed to do got in the way. I decided to take the hit, and leave Gold Strike $330 down.

     One thing we learned today about Tunica, it USED to be a real happening spot, especially around the time that I bought that WPT DVD where I first learned about Tunica. There used to be a shuttle that took people around to all the casino properties. Not anymore. And after we finished at the Gold Strike, we found out how difficult it was to get a Lift down in Tunica. For most of the Lift drivers around her are based in Memphis. It took so long to get a ride, that we couldn't even get what we wanted to take care of, out of the way. After a long while of waiting, we managed to get a ride back to the Hollywood casino instead. If I had known it would take this long, I would have stayed longer at Gold Strike to get the rest of my money back. I had a much better vibe at that table than I did at the Horseshoe (two cute black women standing near me at the table helped partly LOL).

     We wanted to get a ride to a steakhouse in Memphis to celebrate Valentine's Day, but we couldn't get a Lift ride, no matter what we did, so we had to settle for a mediocre meal back at the Hollywood casino. Worse yet, the craps table that was open last night here, was closed today, and wouldn't re-open until Thursday afternoon; by that time, we'd be back in Houston. Unfortunately, that's the way things are for all the fine restaurants at these casinos in Tunica. We decided that this will most likely be the last time we will ever travel to Tunica.

     I played blackjack some this evening, managing to cut the deficit down to $1208.50, but overall, I am very disappointed with this trip. It's times like this that I really love my wife, for she's been a much better sport about this than I've been. Fortunately, she doesn't have real expensive tastes, and even though I wasn't able to do more for her on Valentine's Day, she was cool with that. Just getting away from home on this trip was enough for her. As she said, maybe tomorrow will be better. I sure as hell hope so!

     Today, I had quite a different tune on my mind when I woke up. This time, it was the instrumental "Feels So Good" by Chuck Mangione. Hopefully, this is a good omen...

     The morning started off not so encouragingly, not because I lost, but because I couldn't play ANY table games! First of all, my wife and I went across the street to the Sam's Town casino after breakfast. While we found what's sure to be a good alternative place to eat breakfast tomorrow, over there, there were NO table games open on Tuesdays or Wednesdays!! And when we got back to the Hollywood casino, we found that the blackjack tables wouldn't open until 11 a.m. And of course, the craps table wouldn't open again until Thursday afternoon. Gee whiz! Part of the reason for coming out to Tunica was so I'd have more playing options than I did at Lake Charles. I never dreamed that I'd end up with LESS options here!!

     Fortunately, my wife had gotten from the hotel front desk, a card from a guy who runs a transportation service. He charges more than the lift drivers, but he is far more reliable. We both decided that paying extra for transportation to get us around would be better than being stuck at this one casino where I wouldn't be able to play any more craps, due to my leaving Thursday morning. So we booked a ride through this guy named George. He turned out to be very reliable and professional, and just what we needed.

     The first place we went, courtesy of George, was the Gold Strike casino. By the time we arrived there, it was after 11:30. I got into a craps game, and this time, it was a $10 table. It was a choppy table at first. I had a decent 11-roll shoot (again from the end, using my Yo-Yo dice set)--only that VERY few of my rolls were productive (mostly horns, 4's, and 10's). This older lady shooter, I noticed, usually had longer rolls, and I'd get close to getting my money back with her. I did, barely after my first shoot, then stayed put basically until my second shoot, where I crapped out on my third roll. Argh! But where I really messed up was on the following shooter, where I did the Iron Cross setup on him, with the intent of taking that down after one or two rolls. The result of his roll, unfortunately, was a Point-Seven-Out. OUCH!! But fortunately there came that older lady, who shot next. I decided to bet on her shoot, and it paid off. I started off with four units on each of the inside numbers, and they were hitting. I was able to press each one up to eight units, and they kept hitting, and in fact, I pressed 6 up to 15 units, hoping to get a black chip for part of a payout (that would be $105, if it hit)...Let's not get carried away here. The lady crapped out before that could happen, but I still ended up $271 ahead at the end of the session, which took about 2 hours. By that time, my wife and I were ready to eat, and George was ready to take us up to Memphis.

     We ate what turned out to be a late lunch/early dinner at the Blue City Cafe in Memphis. This restaurant I'd recommend to anyone. The food was awesome, and they serve you big portions. I got a 24-ounce T-bone steak (which I couldn't eat all of, but I was able to save until later, courtesy of the fridge we have in our room at the Hollywood). And the meal was reasonably priced too. Because I was able to run an errand I had intended to do yesterday, but couldn't because of the unreliability of Lift, we also paid for a tour around Memphis. My wife enjoyed this more than I did, although the rich history Memphis has in music, architecture, and civil rights, I did find interesting. Memphis, of course, was where Martin Luther King was assassinated, plus that was where, at Sun Recording Studio, where Elvis Presley made a lot of his recordings. It is now a museum. We briefly went inside, and even saw an I.D. made out to one Elvis Aaron Presley. I even impressed the people running the museum with a piece of trivia: What year was it that both the Beatles and Elvis Presley each had a song that landed among the ten biggest hits of the year as a whole? The answer, I'll have up on my music blog. By the time we got back to the Hollywood casino, it was almost 7 p.m., and my wife and I were both tired, so we rested up for the next hour and a half.

     We went swimming in the indoor pool at Hollywood, but spent most of the time in the hot tub because the pool water was too cold. Okay, enough about that; you want to know if I had any more gambling sessions today right? The answer is yes, one more. I played blackjack after we finished up at the pool. I won $112.50 at one table, and $142.50 at the other table. Not bad. $255 for the session. I won $526 total for today. Yes, I'm still behind for the trip, but $682.50 down feels a lot better than over $1400 down, which was where I was after playing at the Horseshoe and at Gold Strike yesterday. Maybe tomorrow, I can chip away the rest of this deficit. We'll see...

     Today, I had hopes of completely erasing this deficit, and getting back into the black.

     Herem I admit that I could have played things differently. After a decent breakfast at Sam's Town, we got George to take us to the Horseshoe for four hours. I had inteended to play poker, then play craps there. It turned into a long poker session, for I spent most of it trying to get my money back, losing #260 in the process, with all the time gone. Not very smart, John. From there, it was back to the Hollywood, where the power was out to the whole hotel except for the casino floor, which had a backup geneerator. The extra food we brought from the Blue City Cafe yesterday, we had to throw out because the rooms had no power for several hours. I made one last effort to try to reduce this deficit at the blackjack tables. I won $25 at one table, but lost $480 at the second table. At that point, I declared myself all gambled out. The power came back on about 15 minutes later, but my wife and I already had dinner (chips out of the bags). Needless to say, we were not happy campers, and we won't be coming out to Tunica again!

     No gambling today. I'm content to finish this trip $1397.50 down, under the circumstances. But there is a silver lining in all this. I did have some good shoots in Tunica, including one at Hollywood that made my all-time Best Shoots page, which is now updated. Plus I think I learned that shooting from the end, I do better with the 3-finger grip, and from Stick Left 1, perhape the 4-finger Yury grip is best (that's what I used when I did my new Yo-Yo II dice set). We plan to go back to Lake Charles 10 days from now. I'll just have to play more in the wee hours of the morning, when they are more likely to have open spots at the craps table. Another part of the silver lining was the fun my wife and I had especially in Memphis, and at the Gold Strike casino on Tuesday. Tunica wasn't a total waste of time, but just the same, I don't think we'll come back to Tunica again. George recommended Biloxi MS, and the Beau Rivage casino, as a possible trip. Hmmm...

     It occurred to me after I made the last entry in this blog about my recent trip to Tunica Mississippi, and I was mentioning the problems my wife and I had getting transportation at first, that someone reading this may ask "Don't you two drive?" The answer to this is no, and for those who don't already know why not, here's the explanation: I am visually impaired. I used to drive up until 2005, when I lost part of my sight due to glaucoma, and I was forced to stop driving. My wife is hearing-impaired, and she doesn't drive either.

     Now that doesn't stop us from doing what we want to do. We always feel, where there is a will, there is a way. For my part, my disability has only stopped me from doing two things: driving and bowling--the latter of which was strictly my own choice, and that was because I had done so well in bowling that I wouldn't be able to get to the level that I was at (averaging just over 200 for the last 8 years I bowled), now that I'd lost part of my eyesight. But everything else I want to do, I still do. When I set the dice, for example, I pick up each die so I can see the dots, then after I set it, I place it back on the table. In life, everybody has obstacles we have to overcome to achieve in life. In me and my wife's case, our disabilities happen to be our obstacles, which we overcome on a daily basis. The key is, instead of focusing on what we can't do, we focus on what we can do.

     This entry will undoubtedly seem strange to some of you, since this is a craps blog, not a poker blog, but I'm giving Happy Birthday wishes to a poker vlogger, whose honest and candid style of telling us his thought processes as he goes through selected poker hands, has definitely influenced my telling you my thought processes as I do each craps session. That person's name is Brad Owen, and he turns 34 today. Happy Birthday, Brad! Keep up the great content! ☺

     After what happened in Tunica, my wife and I decided to go back to Lake Charles, and we decided to do it at the end of February. This was because of something I'm trying to do, something I haven't been able to do before--have at least one 500 Club in each calendar month. I came close in 2002, where I missed by two, and again in 2016, where the only month that year when I didn't get a 500 Club was in October, coinciding to when my wife's dog died, and it affected us both. Will I be able to get a 500 Club for February? Will I be able to get one for March as well? Keep reading, and find out!

     The title of the first day may seem strange, since this is a craps blog, not a poker blog. But hey, I can't help that a good craps shoot was overshadowed by a very big poker win. At any rate, here goes...

     The gambling began at home base at L'Auberge, where I was the shooter, at a craps table I was barely able to get on, shooting from the end. I used my Yo-Yo dice set, and I shot 16 times, making two points of 6 and one of 8. I even rolled two hard 6's and a hard 8 in the process. It reminded me that I'd thought of using this dice set from the end specifically to allow for the dice to Y-off, for one pitch of the left die to the left, and the right die to the right would yield a hard 6. It was my first roll of the day, so I was playing somewhat cautiously. I ended up $198 ahead. A nice start.

     From there, I am quickly reminded of why I wanted to go to other places besides Lake Charles. For I wasn't able to get onto a craps game for the rest of the day. I did get on to a blackjack game at Golden Nugget, where I struggled to get my money back, plus $50. Little would I know that this would only be the beginning of my struggles regarding blackjack. For the next time I gambled was back at L'Auberge, where I ran into some horrible cards, losing $1000. God-dammit!

     Fortunately, when I returned to Golden Nugget, I got into a poker game, and it was here that I had the big poker session I'd referred to earlier. Without getting into too much detail (again since this is a craps blog, and not a poker blog -- if you want the details, email me at musicaldice323@gmail.com, and I'll tell you more about it), I'll just say that over the course of about an hour, I won five hands, winninh a whopping $898 in the process! By just $5, that was my biggest win ever at Golden Nugget!!

     Mow as for this thing called the Poker Killer, that came from the fact that about 15 years ago, when I used to frequent a casino boat near where I used to live in Jacksonville Florida, they used to have No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em on the boat, and I had an uncanny ability to bust people. Someone had nicknamed me the Poker Killer, for that reason. In those five hands I won, I had busted three people, and that brought me back to those days on the Sub Cruz.

     Anyway, that win was enough to get me back in the black by $146. Moreover, that win got me the 500 Club for February, with just 4 hours left in it. From there, my wife and I ate dinner at the Olive Garden, near the casinos (our usual Ember Steakhouse reservation wasn't until the following night). When we returned to L'Auberge, we both decided to call it a night.

     After breakfast, I got into a craps game at L'Auberge. This time, I didn't even shoot, but playing it slow and cautious, I managed to get in on someone else's good roll, where I picked up $133. I was ahead $279.

     My wife and I then went to Golden Nugget, where I got into a craps game there, but this time, the table was very choppy, and the dice weren't very nice, no matter what I tried. I have to mention, I thought of a Don't strategy that I call the 35XDP strategy, where I'd put multiples of 35 on the Don't Pass line, then hedge it with multiples of 10 on Big Red, and maybe some on the yo and midnight. That strategy had worked in previous sessions out here on this trip, but in this case, with the table being so choppy, someone would make the point, and whatever money I'd have out there on the Place bets, would soon be wiped out with a subsequent Point-Seven-Out. As for my shooting, I was first standing at Stick Right 2, the only spot at the table that was available, and on my first roll, I only shot 3 times, using the Yo-Yo II dice set that I was so successful at the Hollywood casino in Tunica with. Not this time, however. On my next shoot, I was able to shoot from the end, and I switched to my original Yo-Yo dice set. However, the dice kept veering off to the right, and after four rolls, I crapped out. From there, things kept getting worse, with nothing working with my betting on other shooters. I did get the dice one more time, and I switched to a Crossed Sixes dice set, upon recalling something Beau Parker said on one of his videos about how to adjust when the dice are veering off to the left or to the right. I did manage to shoot a 12 with this dice set, but it wasn't enough to get my money back. Eventually, I booked a $575 loss at the craps table. I lost another $325 playing blackjack, trying to recoup my craps loss. I had gone up from being $279 ahead to $621 down.

     Things just got worse from there, for later at L'Auberge, I tried playing blackjack, and I lost another $875. I couldn't even do anything at the poker table that night at Golden Nugget. I lost $500 there too. It was like the cards were laughing at me the whole day!

     One highlight of the day was the fact that the time my wife and I spent away from the tables was great, and the dinner at the Ember steakhouse was great as always. But winning for me just wasn't in the cards this day.

     What was particularly upsetting about that last loss was the fact that prior to the poker room, I'd won $41 at the craps table, and $125 at the blackjack table. I had then turned a $166 win into a $334 loss.

     The above title refers to what happened in my first session on the last day of me and my wife's trip. In this case, I went downstairs to get into a craps game, and to try to get on the table at my favorite position, Stick Left 1. That didn't quite happen, however. I shot from the end, and I decided to use the same Crossed Sixes dice set that I'd used the previous day at the Golden Nugget. I call this set the Even Crossed Sixes, for it is the 6/2-6/4 dice set. I shot another 12 with that set,, but since I was only playing the 6 and the 8, I only won $58. But as I was subsequently playing at an adjacent blackjack table, for what would be my only big win at that game on this trip, the pit boss informed me that I'd left a 10-dollar Whirl bet out there, and the shooter had rolled an ace-deuce, which won me $22. The pit boss gave me the entire $32, making my craps table win $90, instead of $58. That made a huge difference, for I ended up winning $425 at the blackjack table, making a total session win of $515. So now I have a 500 Club for the month of March as well. Cool.

     After my wife and I checked out, we went back to the casino floor at L'Auberge. Somehow, I did manage to get into a craps game, shooting from Stick Left 1. Well, all right now! I went back to basics, using my old familiar Hardway dice set. This time, I paid more attention on where the dice were placed before I picked them up to begin my toss. It seems that the outer of the Pass Line area was under the seam of the two dice. That seems to work for me. I shot a 16 with this dice set, again playing cautiously. I ended up $145 ahead once I colored up. I get a sense of re-discovering what works for me as far as dice setting goes. Maybe I'll gp back to riskier regression strategies now that my rolls are getting longer again.

     From there, I played blackjack at the same casino. After a long struggle and a Round 2 buy-in ($1000--each round of buy-in was $500), I got my money back plus a quarter. I made $170 for the session. Then I tried for 2 hours to get into a poker game at Golden Nugget. They kept saying they were going to open a new table, but too much time went by before that happened. I was very short on time before my wife and I were due to head back to Houston. We left Golden Nugget, and went back to L'Auberge to play on a couple of $15 coupons my wife had gotten for me. I won on one of them at a six-deck blackjack table (I usually play two-deck blackjack), but then got into trouble. I decided enough was enough, and stopped after getting $305 down. I declared myself all gambled out, and ended things $1450 down for the trip.

     Despite the loss for the trip, there is definitely a silver lining to all this. One is the fact that my wife and I did have fun. Two, I'm getting a better sense of what works for me as far as dice setting. Three, there was only one game out of the three that I played, where I ended up with a net loss. With craps, I had a net gain of $32, and with poker, I had a net gain of $398. Of course, with blackjack, I had a net loss of $1880. Seven years ago, I had re-discovered the joy of playing blackjack, but lately here in Lake Charles, I'm beginning to see why there was a huge amount of time (over a decade in fact) that I hardly played blackjack at all. Maybe I ought to focus on the other two games, even though blackjack is the one that I have the highest win percentage, and more of my 500 Clubs have been achieved with blackjack than with either craps or poker. But again, I need more choices as far as casinos go (which was why I tried Tunica). I'm hoping my next trip will be where I have more choices. Maybe a trip to Vegas or Reno or even Biloxi should be my next trip. What do you think? Leave me a comment at musicaldice323@gmail.com.