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Gaming Guru
Take it easy28 November 2017
I ordered a beer. My friend also ordered a beer. We drank slowly, savoring our first taste of what had been the forbidden fruit, or the forbidden fruit juice. It wasn’t delicious, but it was booze! I was drinking booze just like all the other grizzled men at the bar. I wasn’t grizzled at that time in my life, but I felt a part of a larger society, men who drink. My second glass of beer went down more smoothly and a little faster at that. The third went faster and my taste for the beer grew, in fact I ordered another before I even finished the one I was on. The night started to get hazy and I was now socking them down. My friend socked them down too, and then he went to the bathroom. I am not quite sure when. I had a few more beers by the time he came back to the table. “I got sick,” he said. “Ha! Ha!” I laughed. “You can’t hold your booze like I can.” I then patted what I thought was my cast iron tummy. “Ah ha!” I rejoiced. Somewhere in a dim dizzy world I was walking down 4th Avenue towards the Verrazano Bridge which had recently been completed. I found myself puking all over myself and everything near me. I rolled into the bushes and passed out. I had no idea what happened to my friend. In fact, I never even thought of him. A light was shining in my face. “Uh, uh,” I mumbled. The cop said to someone behind him, “Is this your son?” My father came forward and said, “Yes.” Dawn was at hand. I had been in the bushes all night. I don’t remember how I got home. I do remember that my father and I did not say a word to each other, or if we did, I have no recollection of it. At home I took off my clothes, got into the shower, and all was hazy but my growing headache. I went to sleep and when I woke up late that afternoon I asked myself, “What did I do? What the heck did I do last night? The whole evening was shot to hell.” And that is what many casino gamblers feel the next morning after a night that started off slow and happy while ending fast and horrible. Casino gambling can be like drinking. You start off totally in control, play in a relaxed fashion, but as time passes you play faster and faster. This is especially true of slot players. If that slot player also drinks as well, then . . . well, then I am sure you get the fast-motion picture. Table-game players increase their bets as they hang around the tables, and if those players drink . . . well, then I am sure you get the expensive picture. The next morning, many casino players ask themselves the same question I did so long ago: “What did I do? What the heck did I do last night?” I am not telling people not to play casino games; these games are fun. I am not telling casino gamblers not to have a few drinks (only a few, mind you). But I am saying this: Restrain yourself. Do not increase your speed of play; do not bet more as the night wears on. I no longer have to worry about winding up in the bushes under the lights of the Verrazano Bridge. I know how much I can drink and I know I do not have a cast iron stomach. I know that if my father were still alive he would not have to scour Bay Ridge to find his unconscious son. Casino gamblers should learn such a lesson as well. [Read Frank Scoblete’s books, I Am a Card Counter: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Blackjack, I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps and Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! All available from Amazon.com, on Kindle and electronic media, at Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores. Visit Frank’s website at www.frankscoblete.com.] This article is provided by the Frank Scoblete Network. Melissa A. Kaplan is the network's managing editor. If you would like to use this article on your website, please contact Casino City Press, the exclusive web syndication outlet for the Frank Scoblete Network. To contact Frank, please e-mail him at fscobe@optonline.net. Recent Articles
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