Musical Dice -- My Craps Blog

     To be honest with you, the past five days leading up to this trip, I had been in a real funk, for reasons I can't get into here, but if you want to know more, email me at musicaldice323@gmail.com, and I'll tell you what got me into this funk.

     My wife hadn't been much better, for two of her relatives are in the hospital, and are not expected to make it. And a third, who was the father of a former aunt of hers, passed away while we were on this trip, after a long illness.

     To say that we both needed this trip to get away from everything, would be a gross understatement. So why did I give this trip the title what I gave it? To be honest with you, I had a hard time deciding what to call this thing, but early this morning (June 18th) when I woke up, I was thinking of this Rod Stewart song, "Reason To Believe," and it made me wonder, why that song? Then I realized that it may answer the question to something I've been asking myself lately, regarding more than one aspect of my life--Why am I still doing this? So there it is...

     The trip started out good. Once my wife and I got some rest after an unusually long bus ride to get to Lake Charles, we went down to the casino floor at L'Auberge, where we stayed this time, like usual. I made a quick $100 total at two blackjack tables, after not being able to get onto a craps game, because the table was full.

     We walked over to Golden Nugget, where I'd gotten on the list to play poker. In the meantime, I played blackjack, once again, not being able to get onto a craps table. I got a text from what I thought was the poker room, while playing blackjack. I left the table $97.50 down to head back to the poker room...only to find that it wasn't they who sent the text, which would have been that a seat had become available. Of course, a seat was still NOT available. I tried again to get into a craps game. No dice. And the blackjack table I was at was now full as well. So nothing left for me and my wife to do, but walk back to L'Auberge to go swimming--that was the initial plan.

     It was like things really started going wrong after that false alarm. For one thing, it was oppressively hot in Lake Charles (94° and very humid). My wife, who had gotten heatstroke while in Vegas last month, wasn't up for risking another episode of that, by being out at the pool at L'Auberge, with very little shade. So scratch that idea.

     So instead, I played blackjack back at L'Auberge, after ONCE AGAIN not being able to get into a craps game. And this time, the cards were horrible! I lost $650 at that table before saying enough is enough. From there, my wife and I went to dinner at the Ember steakhouse at L'Auberge. The meal was delicious, as usual. I thought maybe my luck would turn around for the better, once I had a good meal inside me.

     No such luck, only that I FINALLY DID get to play craps, but for this entire session, my timing was all off. I had some mediocre rolls (6-10), but I didn't put the big money out there on my shoots, since I was still trying to get a feel for the table. Plus, when I did try to make a move (like playing my Sweet Sixteen Don't strategy, or when I tried an Iron Cross strategy on other shooters), I always got the wrong result. I left the table $487 down. And when I tried to get it bacl at the blackjack table, I only succeeded in losing another $525, due to badly timed splits and double-downs. I lost $1012 total for the session, and the day ended with $1659.50 of red ink. OUCH!!

     On top of it all, my wife and I walked back to Golden Nugget with the intent of purchasing wristbands so we could do the late-night giant hpt tun thing over there. However, by the time we got over there, it was close to 9:00, and we found out that the whole pool area closes down at 10pm on weekdays. We both decided it wasn't worth it to go there for just one hour. Scratch that too. To say the least, things were really not going my way the first day!

     I woke up on this day, thinking, somehow, someway, it's got to get better than this. Did it? Let's find out...

     Let's just say that things didn't start off better at the craps table--it was in the wee hours of the morning when I got to play at one. My shooting was even worse this time, crapping out very early both times I had the dice. Another shooter got reasonably hot, and I thought I'd gotten my money, forgetting that I'd invested $700 total, instead of my usual $500. So instead of leaving the table $22 ahead, I left the table $178 down. But I did have fun at this table, regardless. And fortunately, I made up the other $200 by winning it at the blackjack table, so I really did end up with a $22 win for the session.

     After a quick $100 win at the blackjack table, my wife and I had breakfast at L'Auberge. Then, we went swimming at the adult pool, still at L'Auberge. This we did early before it got too hot. We got into an interesting conversation with some women, one of whom loves playing craps. She started gravitating toward me when I started mentioning some of the craps terms I use at the table (she calls a hard 10, a Texas sunflower, but she loved the term I use, which is snowflakes). My wife didn't get jealous (she saw that I wasn't interested in this other woman, for I am happily married to my wife). We didn't stay out in the sun too long, for it was starting to get really hot again.

     Then I went over to Golden Nugget, while my wife went shopping. While waiting to play poker, I played blackjack (not being able to get into a craps game). I lost $202.50 playing blackjack, and by the time my wife returned, and my time at the poker table ran out, due to plans my wife and I made, I was down $169 at the poker table, for a session loss of $371.50. At least this day wasn't as disastrous as the first day.

     We walked back to L'Auberge with the intention of putting on nice clothes for our dinner reservations at Vic & Anthony's, which is in the Golden Nugget casino, head back over there, and while there, get the wristbands for the hot tub that night, go back to L'Auberge, change into swimwear, and get back to Golden Nugget early enough to spend a few hours in the pool/hot tub area. However, the moment we got back to our room at L'Auberge, we decided not to even change clothes, for it had unexpectedly started thunderstorming. That really rained out our plans, for we decided to stay put at L'Auberge, due to the weather.

     We decided to have dinner at a sports bar at L'Auberge, which recently added sports betting kiosks as well as a few blackjack tables, and a craps table. The dinner was good, though not as good as what Vic & Anthony's usually is. But afterwards, I did manage to squeeze in at this craps table, playing from the end. And surprise, surprise, this was only a $5 table, the first I'd seen at L'Auberge! After losing some money on another shooter, I got to shoot, and it was here that I had my best shoot of the trip, shooting 13 times, using my Yo-Yo dice set, and getting my money back plus $13. Well, okay. A win's a win. Fortunately I was able to greatly add to that at the blackjack table (this one was not inside the bar), winning $512.50 there, for a total session win of $525.50. My streak for this year continues--having at least one 500 Club each month of this year. I guess it was a good thing that plans at Golden Nugget got rained out. And coincidentally, my sister (my only other sibling)'s birthday was this day. And what is her name? Lorraine.

     Afterwards, my wife and I went upstairs back to our room, and I decided to take a nap. I later learned that while I did this, my wife went downstairs back to the casino floor to do some people-watching, one of her favorite things to do in Lake Charles. She observed this young man around 18 years old, outside the casino room, looking for something church-related, and since my wife is deeply into God, the Bible, and the church, she helped him out with what he was trying to find. They then got into a conversation about the Bible. All was fine until his wife, whom my wife said, looked to be 17 or 18 herself, came along and got jealous because she thought my wife wanted her man! My wife told her that that clearly wasn't the case, and that she was just helping him find out information about a church in Dallas, and they happened to start talking about the Bible. Quite a stark contrast to how my wife reacted to a woman gravitating toward me, when I was talking about craps terms! If this jealous woman only knew that my wife is married to someone more than triple her husband's age!!

     My wife and I decided to walk over to Golden Nugget some time after the rain had stopped. By that time, there was no question as to whether or not we would do the hot tub. It was already well past 9pm, plus they'd shut everything down once the thunderstorm hit. I tried to get back onto the poker table, but all the tables were full. So I played blackjack, ONCE AGAIN, unable to get onto a craps table at Golden Nugget. I won $87.50 playing blackjack, but what really turned me off was waiting in that long-ass line just to cash in my small profits. During this excessively long wait, it really reminded me of why my wife and I wanted to travel to other places besides Lake Charles. It's because we want more choices than the few crowded tables we always have to deal with in Lake Charles. While in line, my wife and I talked about going to New Orleans next month to celebrate nine years of being together (we met July 14th, 2013). We also talked about a new casino opening in Lake Charles in November, to take the place of the Isle Of Capri casino (the first Lake Charles casino I visited, coming out there for the first time just 10 days before meeting my wife), the casino that shut down when the pandemic started, and totally went out of business, due to damage done by Hurricane Laura. I hope we'll have more choices when Caesar's opens up in November. But for now, it is what it is.

     We returned to L'Auberge without further incident. And surprise, surprise, I ended up ahead for this day--$363.50 to be exact. That still leaves $1296 of red ink. Hopefully, I can knock some more of this deficit down the next day.

     After my wife and I checked out of our room, she decided to go shopping, while I decided to play poker again, getting there when the poker room opened. My intention was to play there first, then try to get into a craps game. Unfortunately, I was card-dead for the first two hours I was at the table, only winning two small pots. At one point, I was down as much as $700 before I started winning pots. But at the 3½-hour mark, that was all I could play for my wife and I needed to get lunch before our bus ride back to Houston. And I didn't get all my money back. I was still down $253 at that point. Total deficit for the trip: $1549. So why was I focused on poker this last day? That was the game where I'd lost the least amount of money. Even with this loss, I only lost $422 playing poker on this trip, compared to $475 playing blackjack, and $652 playing craps.

     Despite the losses, my wife and I still had a nice time in Lake Charles. But for sure, our next trip won't be to Lake Charles. I think New Orleans or Biloxi or Reno will be next. Stay tuned.