Musical Dice -- My Craps Blog

     Whether we stay at L'Auberge, or at Golden Nugget, in Lake Charles, we never had stayed in a room with a view of the actual lake--we'd usually get a view of the pool area, or the parking lot. This time, we got a view of the giant lake that is Lake Charles, and it was very pretty. I can only hope my gambling results here are just as pretty.

     This time, we stayed at Golden Nugget. After a much-needed rest, we went downstairs to the casino.

     I first went to the craps table, where I played a new strategy I'm soon going to unveil on the site, called the Route 66 strategy. Here, I placed 66 each on the 6 and 8, and when one hits, I reduce the bets down to 66 inside. I'm out of the hand with an $11 profit right away. In this case, I got a few more hits on the inside numbers before the 7-out. I walked away from the table winning $65. At least I can say I didn't start off with a loss, and I may be on to something, as far as strategoes go. I did add another $12.50 at the blackjack table, for a total session win of $77.50.

     From there, it was to L'Auberge. The craps table was full, so I played blackjack. Bad timing there, as almost anything that could go wrong, did. I left there $875 down for the session. ARGH!!

     Back to Golden Nugget, I returned to the craps table. But the dice were ice cold. Early crap-outs marred this session, and it didn't matter whether I was using my Route 66 strategy, or Bryan (from Hawaii Craps Shooters)'s Split The Sisters strategy, where I'd invest the same $132 but on all the inside numbers. The dice were not nice, as Bryan likes to say. I was determined not to play scared craps on this trip, and unfortunately, that comes with greater risk. I shot twice in this session, shooting a 4 and an 11 from Stick Left 1, using the Hardway dice set--the second roll came too late to salvage a win. I will say that I had a great conversation with the dealers and a very knowledgeable pit boss about music. It helped take the sting out of a $585 loss. I did have fun at this table. At least I can say that.

     After a wonderful steak and wedge salad dinner at the Ember Steakhouse (on the L'Auberge property), the next gambling stop was at the Horseshoe. It was my intention to play poker there first. But for some odd reason, the poker room was closed! WTF?? Anyway, I then played at the craps table, which was a $10 table, compared to $15 for the other sessions. This time, I played from the left end, using my Yo-To dice set. When I shot the dice, I returned to the Split The Sisters strategy, only that I only invested $88 instead of $132. I just barely got out of the hand, shooting a 7 (some non-productive rolls came as well). There was another shooter there, who had a slightly better roll. On his roll, I used a variation of my Route 66 strategy, investing $48 each on the 6 and 8, reducing down to 44 inside on the first hit (this variation, I'm calling the 4X Reductio method). This worked well enough to yield a $51 profit by the time I left the table.

     After the Horseshoe, we returned to L'Auberge. I was determined to get into a craps game this time. I managed to get on at the end, but there were several shooters ahead of me. No matter. On this one shooter, I decided to try to tip-toe into the game, placing a $25 bet on the Field. Fortunately, a yo was the next roll, and I moved those chips from the field to the 6 and 8 for 24 each. Things just grew from there, as this shooter had a real good shoot. I soon managed to say February 6, Ronald Reagan, for a 6 roll that made me $28. What a coincidence! This day WAS February 6th, which was Ronald Reagan's birthday, but technically, I shouldn't have said that, since this year, being a leap year, February has 29 days. No matter. I was able to branch out to the other box numbers, and press some of them up, before the 7-out. I made $377 at that table. Score one for the Field Constructor strategy. I think there's a lot to be said for having multiple craps strategies in your arsenal.

     I added another $125 to that at the blackjack table, for a total session win of $502. If nothing else comes out of this trip, at least I can say that I got a 500 Club for a second month in a row. One of my goals is to get 500 Clubs in every month this year--I'd come close in 2002 and 2016, but never quite achieved that goal. Hopefully...

     Back to Golden Nugget one more time, I returned to the craps table, hoping to chop down some more of my deficit. But some early crap-outs quickly convinced me to stop, rather than risk totally negating my 500 Club. I left the table $336 down, and $1165.50 down for the day. At least I can say, it wasn't quite as bad as it was last time!

     The only way I can describe what happened this day was by those two words. And I mean that in more than one way, as you'll soon see...

     The gsmbling portion of the day began after my wife snd I had breakfast at Claim Jumper. First was the craps table. I was playing cautiously, only occasionally betting on the other shooters. I was slightly ahead when the shooter before me was shooting. I was informed that in order for me to shoot the dice, I had to place a line bet with this shooter, since I was only tip-toeing into the game at times. WTF? Well okay. I did just that on this shooter, since it looked like he was doing good. So not only did I make a Pass Line bet on him, I made some Place bets as well. But then, he crapped out. Argh! Fortunately, I had a good shoot. I was standing at the Left End, and I used the Yo-Yo dice set. The roll was basically Deuces Wild, and I mean that in more than one way. I rolled each of the box numbers exactly twice, with three horn numbers, and a 7, for a 16-roller. One of the 4's I rolled was a Hard 4, on which I had a bet, and I got to yell "Deuces Wild!" As far as betting goes, I used the Split The Sisters strategy, and got out of the roll. There were some non-productive rolls, as I did have some horn rolls, plus I didn't have a bet on the 4 and 10 except when the point was 4 (I made the point on that hardway roll). So maybe that explains why when I was finished, I was surprised to find that I was only $20 ahead after I finished my roll. At least, I started to feel like a winner again. I did add another $25 to that after a choppy session at the blackjack table, for a session win of $45. Well, okay.

     From there, it was to L'Auberge. Apparently, the two tables were both quite choppy. Still, I managed to emerge from both a relatively quick winner.

     First was the craps table. There, I was the first shooter. I was playing from Stick Left 1, using the Hardway dice set. Once again, I used the Split The Sisters strategy, and I just did get out of the hand as far as the Place bets. But I crapped out just afterwards, so I was slightly behind due to my Pass Line bet, Odds bet, and Whirl bet (on the come-out). Fortunately, the second shooter barely got it back for me. This time, I used the Route 66 strategy. The shooter hit either the 6 or the 8, and I reduced down to 66 inside. He hit one more of those numbers before crapping out. I left the craps table only $8 ahead. But I did add $100 to that at the blackjack table, when I won $150 for the first round, and lost $50 on the second round. I didn't feel like risking any more on what seemed to be another choppy table. So I ended that session with a $108 win.

     I was determined to play poker at the Horseshoe today, especially since I found that the poker room was open already. But dammit, when I got there, I found that they didn't have enough players to start a game. So instead, Mrs. MusicalDice and I ate a pizza lunch (the pizza wasn't that good, and greatly over-priced), and when there still wasn't enough players to start a poker game, I decided to play craps.

     The big enemy of both regression strategies I've been using on this Lake Charles trip, is the early seven-out. That's what I ran into with the first two shooters I bet on. I think I used the Route 66 strategy on them, but both shooters PSO'ed. Then it was my turn to shoot. I had just established a point, and was placing my bets for a Split The Sisters strategy, when I heard that the poker game was opening. Oh great! I was deyermined to finish out my roll first. Unfortunately, that would also result in a PSO. I lost $527 at that table. ARGH!!

     The LAST thing I wanted to do was to start a poker session just after a disappointing loss. Fortunately, it soon became clear that this would be a good poker session. Flopping a set of 10's with two of them in my hand, and making a full house, and winning a decent pot, helped me focus on poker, and put the craps session in the rear view mirror, so to speak. Without getting into too much more detail on the poker session, I busted two players--one with a flush draw which hit, and the other, who went all-in pre-flop, against my Pocket Aces, which held. Bottom line: I won $532 at the poker table, completely bailing me out of a bad session at the Horseshoe. Yes, my overall win for the session was a mere $5, but at that point, I was glad to take it!

     Upon returning to the Golden Nugget, I got into a craps game. This time, I used the Split The Sisters strategy on another shooter. This time, I did 176 inside, instead of my usual 132 inside, this time, putting 40 each on the 5 and 9, and 48 each on the 6 and 8. The shooter hit once on each of the pairs of sisters, so I was able to regress to 20 each on the 5 and 9, and 24 each on the 6 and 8. Only one more hit, a February 6 Ronald Reagan roll (yielding me $28) resulted before the shooter crapped out. I made $52 on that table.

     For quite a while, I was in great danger of completely blowing it at the blackjack table. From a $500 buy-in, I was down to my final $200 before I started getting it back. When I did get it back plus $25, I left the table, booking a session win of $77. That was enough to get me out of four digits of red ink (I was still down $930.50 at that point). I definitely needed a rest after that session!

     Mrs. MusicalDice and I went back to our room, and rested for a substantial period of time. It's good to take some time away from the tables, and re-charge the battery. We decided that we wanted Chinese food for dinner, but were disappointed that the Chinese restaurants both at L'Auberge and Golden Nugget were closed on Wednesdays. So we decided to go to one off property, but nearby. That was pretty much a disappointment. My wife tried some sort of corn soup, but in her words, it looked like sh!t. It didn't tasted too good either. I had beef with garlic sauce. In my case, there wasn't nearly enough meat. Fortunately, the dumplings were quite good. Overall, I seriously doubt we'll be going back there again. We went back to Golden Nugget from there.

     Far and away, the big story of this trip was the craps session I had, once me and Mrs. MusicalDice returned to Golden Nugget from dinner. I was able to get on a craps table in the Left Outer Hook position. There were two random shooters in front of me that seemed to be doing good, but I was gun-shy on betting on them. By the time I got to shoot, I was about $100 behind, due to my waiting a bit too long before betting on the second shooter, before he crapped out. At this point, I didn't really give a damn. I was resigned to most likely ending up behind for this trip, but this seemed like a fun table, so I decided to have some fun. I bought in for an additional $200 (total buy-in: $700), and decided to play the ATS for 5-5-5. For my shoot, I used the Yo-Yo dice set. Fortunately, I had a real good roll. I played 6 amd 8 at first for four units each. and starting branching to the other numbers as they hit, and I got those bets paid for. The ones standing nearest to me enjoyed my craps terms--I said "February 6, Ronald Reagan term again, plus, much to my surprise, when I said February 9, the Earthquake Roll, one of the other players said that she too was living in the L.A. Area (Ojai) at the time of the Sylmar earthquake, which took place on February 9th, 1971. Anyway, at one point, I rolled a yo. The point was established by that point. Normally, a yo would be a non-productive roll, but in this case, it was anything but, for I heard this guy screaming from the other side of the table. I asked him if I had just hit the Tall, and he said yes. At that point, I yelled out "Shut the front door!" For I had just made $175 on that roll myself (counting the 5 that was returned to me), since my ATS was still up (I had almost forgotten about that). It was at that point that I knew that I'd gotten my money back. But that was only the warm-up act, for eventually, I did something I never did before, either as a shooter, or as a bettor. When I rolled a 5, I HIT THEM ALL!!!! I was awarded another $175 for the Small, and $880 for the All (including the 5 returned to me in both cases). Prior to this session, the most I ever made off a single roll of the dice was $550 for a Hard 4 I rolled back in 2002. But this roll of 5 yielded me $1073--$875 + $170 + $28 (for my Place bet). Boy was that table cheering!! And when I got the 880 payout with 8 black chips, I couldn't help but yell "BULL-LLACKOUT!!!" I ended up rolling 19 times, and I ended the session $1201 ahead--just $12 shy of this being one of my ten best gambling sessions ever! This was my second best session here at Golden Nugget, with my best session here was the $1800 win I had nearly three months ago. And just to think that when I started this blog almost three years ago, my best win here was a mere $701 from back in 2016.

     Not only was this session an awesome session, my biggest win of this year thus far, and my biggest win in nearly three months, this win also completely bailed me out of the hole I was in for the whole trip!!! I ended up winning a total of $1436 today, bringing me to where I'm now ahead $270.50 for the trip. Maybe I should declare myself all gambled out at this point, like I did when I won the $1800 here back in November. But I'm not ready to say that just yet...

     This was the question I asked myself, given that I had been given a reprieve yesterday, and I was determined to stay ahead. Ultimately, I decided to play a little more, with the idea that if I fell behind too much, I'd stop in time to retain SOME of my profits.

     First was the blackjack table at Golden Nugget, after breakfast. I won a quick $100, then it was time to check out. Once my wife and I did that, we waited for an Uber to take us back to L'Auberge, where our tour bus would eventually come to take us home to Houston. While we were waiting on the Uber, I figured out whether I was ahead or behind playing craps. I figured that I was $326 ahead playing craps on this trip. This figured in my decision not to play craps today. Instead, I played blackjack at L'Auberge. After winning a quick $200 at that table, I stopped, declaring myself all gambled out. I finished out the trip $570.50 ahead.

     Overall, I was pretthy happy with the decisions I made at the craps tables regarding the strategies I used (although I can probably use a good hybrid strategy for cold tables, that I can transition into playing the light side). Also, I have to remember to relax my throw when I'm shooting the dice (I realized that my throws were not relaxed when I observed how the shooter that won me the $377 the first night, was shooting the dice).

     That's all for now, folks! In the very near future, I plsn to put somr new strategies up on this site--some of which I'd used on this trip. Watch for them! ☺

     Those of you who are familiar with me and the way I play craps, know that whenever a 9 is rolled, and I make $28 on the roll, I say "February 9, the Earthquake Roll!" As stated in my Glossary Of Craps Terms, I say February when I make $28 on the roll, since that's how many days February has in it (except for leap years, of course), and why I say the Earthquake Roll, refers to the fact that I was in a major earthquake on February 9th, 1971, which was the Sylmar California earthquake. So how does this relate to a birthday? I only recently learned that the singer whom one of her most famous songs is "I Feel The Earth Move," (a song that came out not long after the Sylmar earthquake), in fact, has a birthday today! That singer, of course, is Carole King! I mentioned her birthday on my Music Blog. Do I see calling this roll the Carole King Roll in the future? What do you think?

     BTW, I do have to mention that I actually like Martika's 1989 remake of "I Feel The Earth Move" better than the original by Carole King. Ironically, Martika's version was in the Top 40 at the time of the big San Francisco earthquake in 1989. Just thought I'd throw that little factoid at you. ☺