The Five Horsemen in Las Vegas — up and down

There's rarely been a player who will not admit to having horrendous times at the craps tables and before this report starts let me say that you will read of one absolutely awful, rotten, discouraging, nasty, unbelievably bad, crummy, angst-producing, stomach-churning, horrendous day suffered by our great team known as "The Five Horsemen," composed of Dominator, Stickman, Nick-at-Night (formerly Nick-T-Lefty), Skinny and me. So prepare yourselves for a little horror in another trip that saw "The Five Horseman" destroy Vegas again.

Here we go:

Four of us arrived in Las Vegas on Monday and headed in the limo towards our hotel-casino by 11:30 a.m. I took that crummy U.S. Airways but I was able to upgrade to First Class at the last minute so the flight merely stunk to high heaven as opposed to being hellish. They had no ear phones for the movie (thankfully, I brought mine) and they had no cheap peanut bags for those poor coach passengers, catering forgot to stock anything.

We checked into the casino, had a delicious lunch, and then made a mistake of playing right away. When alone I would never do that but with the other three Horsemen ready to ride, I did it. So I blame them! ("Mommy, all the other kids were doing it!") Stickman was not in Vegas yet.

The first session saw us take a beating for about an hour. I was mid four figures in the hole; Skinny was twice as high (or, rather low) as was Nick-at-Night and Dominator.

Then I exploded for a 40-hand roll and we all came back in a huge hurry. In that roll I think I hit five garbage numbers.

Then Skinny had a big roll — also 40-numbers — and after a little more than two hours we took a break with money hanging out of our pockets, metaphorically speaking. Literally speaking, our pockets were bulging.

The night session went the same way. We headed down into a pit of oblivion but then Dominator exploded for a 50-roll hand and we came all the way back and into the large world of large green once again.

And that is how it went for the first two days. Monday and Tuesday, we'd head into the garbage can and then explosive rolls would bring us into the stratosphere. I figured (in my dreamscape) a win of well over $100,000 with Skinny popping them for over $200,000 and Dom and Nick-at-Night somewhere in between.

Dom and Nick were going up right off the bat without using the 5-Count and in hot rolls they made more money than I did since I was using the 5-Count on them. Also, let's be frank here, Dom is an aggressive presser when one of the Horsemen starts getting hot. So is Skinny, so is Nick-at-Night. I'm conservative in those situations and it takes me time to start pressing. Stickman is conservative as well.

Stickman arrived Tuesday evening. By then the four Horsemen had amassed quite a win — let me repeat, QUITE a win. Skinny had rolled a 40, 43 and 50 in just two days. Dom had rolled a 25, 33, and 50 in two days. I became the teenage idol, consistently rolling 18s and 19s, with a 33 and a nice hand of 40. Only Nick-at-Night was off his game.

When Stickman arrived I gave over my spot to him. This was the god who had rolled a 77 just last month, how could I ever take his spot? Also I was having some trouble with my left eye, unfortunately a regular occurrence now.

Obviously not all our rolls were perfect; how could they be when we headed into the tanks at the beginning of every session? But we are home-run hitters with high batting averages as well and the end half of our sessions saw us explode time and again.

It was no different on Wednesday when Stickman joined his Horsemen brothers, although the great Stickman's shooting was somewhat off as well.

But we hammered the casinos that Wednesday nevertheless, except for the afternoon session where none of us could have that explosive roll to take us out of the hole.

Then Wednesday evening saw a session that one particular casino will never forget. Once again, The Five Horsemen fell into a hole — an irritating pattern for this week. In addition, the chicken feeders were getting past the 5-Count and killing us with seven-outs on the sixth and seven counts.

Thankfully, those chicken feeders left the table and a bunch of players who were standing behind them, players who knew who we were, who had been following us from casino to casino, streamed onto the tables to take these chicken feeders' places. These Five Horsemen fans just passed the dice; not one of them shot.

The stage was set.

A young millionaire, an injury lawyer, asked Skinny what Nick's name was as Nick took the dice.

"His name is Nick," said Skinny.

"Hey! Hey!" shouted the somewhat buzzed injury lawyer. "You're Nick-at-Night so light it up baby!" The injury lawyer took a swig of his top-shelf bourbon.

This lawyer was a huge bettor, mostly purple and orange chips, and he was anxious to get some of his losses back. Our Five Horsemen are no slouches in the betting department, being rated by the casino at $200 to $1,000 per decision. But this guy was bigger than any of us.

Nick had been having a tough week. His throw was not off really; it was just a bad streak. As with anyone, he was somewhat concerned. We had a talk and essentially I told him, "Don't worry about it, you're a great shooter, you'll snap out of it."

Wednesday evening Nick-T-Lefty, who soon became known as Nick-at-Night, ROCKED the house. He got the dice and slammed them for a 40-roll hand. We were all the way back and then some. The next shooter was Jerry from SL1. He sevened out before the 5-Count; then Skinny at SL2 and he sevened out before the 5-Count. Then Dominator sevened-out before the 5-Count and Nick-at-Night took the dice once again.

He rolled a 43 with only three garbage numbers — a spectacular roll, coming right after his first spectacular roll. The injury lawyer had four chip racks filled with black, purple and orange chips; I'm figuring a $100,000 win. Needless to say, the Five Horsemen were also overflowing with chips. Two spectacular rolls by the man now known as Nick-at-Night had us sailing into outer space. Wow!

The fans were going nuts! Here they were seeing what a great dice team could do; seeing the chips piling up; seeing a masterpiece painted by the newly dubbed Nick-at-Night. We were good representatives of Golden Touch Craps that night, that's for sure.

We certainly did have our contingent of followers this trip. They waited in the casinos where we played since we played a regular schedule around town. As soon as we came to the tables, boom! From the slot aisles came the Golden Touch legionnaires, as we started to call them. Some had taken courses with the cheap dice control schools and made a point of telling us that they had never seen such great shooting in their lives. Most told us they were now going to take a Golden Touch course to really learn how to control the dice.

Thankfully, our legionnaires got to see all of our spectacular rolls; excellent publicity that.

But none got to see Thursday's morning, noon and night sessions which constituted…

Hell day!

Doomsday!

Hubris day!

Dominator stunk. Stickman stunk. Skinny stunk. I stunk. And Nick-at-Night, who had so gloriously risen to divine stature the evening before, stunk.

Roll after roll after roll. Seven-outs before the 5-Count, which didn't hurt Stickman, Skinny or me but clobbered Dominator and Nick-at-Night, who were going right up. Seven-outs just after the 5-Count, which destroyed Stickman, Skinny and me; but made Dominator and Nick a little money.

We couldn't do anything right. Our rolls looked just fine; the results of those rolls were mindbogglingly awful. Although Dominator had been up twice as much as me for the trip, his fall was like Lucifer's. He wound up right where I was, in the several hundred dollars win range at the end of Thursday evening. The 5-Count protected me on the down cline while Dom's aggression helped him more on the up climb.

Oh, yes, we took breaks, many breaks; we walked; we napped; we'd go get some ice cream, we'd swim and then we'd come back to the tables totally refreshed — and get destroyed!

We left our Thursday night session stunned. We were like zombies in a George Romero movie. How could the glorious Five Horsemen get butchered like this? How could five Golden Touch dice control instructors be brought down to earth in one horrifying day? Our room safes went from overflowing with hundreds to small piles of small profits.

Friday came with us vowing to beat them.

"We don't change anything," said Dominator. "Yesterday was just a bad day."

"An awful day," I agreed.

"It was hellish," said Skinny.

And then we headed to the tables.

The great Stickman exploded with two 40-hand rolls that day, one of which saw him roll four points, all fives, while he threw 36 box numbers and just four garbage numbers during this roll. (Skinny kept a detailed record as follows: three 4s; eleven 5s; seven 6s; twelve 8s; one 9; two 10s. There were two non-axis 7s on the come-out rolls and the seven-out was a 5:2.)

Skinny also had two 40-roll hands that Friday as well.

Oh, yes, The Five Horsemen ultimately destroyed Vegas once again, but that Thursday was a lesson to be learned. Anyone can go down the tubes. But Friday showed that good shooters will right themselves as well.

I'm looking forward to the next trip with the Five Horsemen. I love playing with Dom, Stickman, Skinny and Nick. We all get along; we all know how to play — there are never stupid arguments about bets or payoffs — the betting and payoffs proceed perfectly.

One crew at one of the casinos told us we were the best players they ever saw. That is some compliment.

Yes, the Five Horsemen will ride into battle again. You can be sure of that!