49. With Mike Stefanidis and Paul Huyser - The Four Queens, November 26-28, 1993

• Down, down, down, down, the whole trip until the very last craps session at Luxor. I made all my money back. Unfortunately, Mike walked away from the table before the hot roller.

• We knew there would probably be heavy traffic due to the Thanksgiving holiday, but we didn't realize how heavy. It took us eight hours to make the drive from Vegas to Mike's house. To make matters worse, Mike was sick the second half of the trip. He got so sick he didn't go to work the next two days.

48. With Mary Thrasher

• It was the weekend after the previous trip, and I really wanted to go to again since I was up. Mike couldn't go so I invited Mary Thrasher. We just went for the day. She turned out to be bad luck.

47. With Mike Stefanidis

• On a whim we drove to Vegas at about midnight. The first place we stopped was Luxor, which had just opened. We went in and started playing craps, and as we looked around we thought, "You know, this place isn't that great." I would find out on my next trip that by staying right in the craps area, we completely missed the huge sprawling hollow pyramid that makes up the hotel.

• Turned out to be a pretty good trip. I won about $1,000.00.

46. With Mike Stefanidis - The Four Queens, August 7-8, 1993

• Although we stayed at the Four Queens, we spent almost all our time down on the Strip.

• We were up quite a bit initially, then down, then finally up. I won about $600.00.

45. With Mike Stefanidis - The Four Queens, July 24-25, 1993

• Mike and I went to Vegas specifically to meet up with our friend Janelle who was there for the weekend, but we never did see her.

• The gambling started out good, then went sour. I lost about $3,000.00.

44. With Mike Stefanidis - The Golden Nugget, July 2-5, 1993

• We decided to take advantage of the three-day 4th of July weekend and go to Vegas for four days and three nights. It turned out to be a good move, because we needed the extra day to recoup.

• I was able to get us a free room at the Golden Nugget due to all our play the previous trip. It was the first real comp I had gotten on my own. So, I decided that I'd play heavy at the Nugget again this trip to keep up my good rating. As soon as we arrived we started playing craps, and suddenly I was up $1,000.00. I thought, "This is my chance," so I proceeded to bet one hundred dollars on the pass line with full odds and two one-hundred-dollar come bets with full odds. $950.00 in all. Seven out.

• From that point on we really got onto a losing streak. We were actually beating the odds it got so bad. I had brought $1,700.00 on the trip (all winnings from last time), and by Saturday afternoon it was all gone. And of course Mike was doing even worse. We made up our minds that we would try to get on a flight out Sunday instead of Monday.

• Along came Sunday. I had about $60.00 left (after I had Comchecked some money), and Mike had a couple hundred. He managed to get about $500 more on a credit card, so we decided to play some more and see how it went. We decided to go to Las Vegas Club to play. I had previously sworn off the place, but we were doing so badly I decided it couldn't hurt. It turned out to be a good move 'cause we won a little. Then we went to Horseshoe and won a little more. Then we went to Four Queens and won a little more.

• After lunch I called home to check on the dog. Justa had gone missing a couple of days earlier and I hadn't heard from my family if they had found her. Well, it turned out that she had apparently fallen in the lake and drowned; a neighbor had found her that morning. Very sad.

• We headed down to the Strip to try and win some more. We went to The Mirage, but as soon as we stepped up to the table and threw down our money, the stickman turned to us and said, "It's gonna be a couple of minutes, guys." A dealer apparently had just collapsed in the pit area and was not breathing. We took this as a bad sign and left.

• Next we went to Harrah's, and--boom--won a good chunk. Then to Imperial Palace, and--boom--won a little more. Then to Caesars Palace, and--boom--won a lot more. Things were starting to look up. Next was the Flamingo where we dropped some, then back to Imperial Palace where we won it back. Finally, we went back to The Mirage, and--BOOM--an incredible run! I won all my $1,700.00 back plus some more! Mike also won back about $6,000.00 of the $12,000.00 he was down. I ended up winning $600.00 for the trip.

• A funny thing happened while we were playing the second time at Imperial Palace. I looked at the guy playing to the left of Mike, and it was Steve Kemp, a guy we used to work with at Farrell's. I motioned to Mike, and it was clear he had already spotted him. Steve eventually recognized me, so he and Mike and I reminisced about old crap games in the back of Farrell's after hours.

• When Mike got home, he went to the bank to make a deposit. It included all the money he had with him from Vegas plus a couple of checks from patients and what have you. His deposit ended up being $7,777.77.

43. With Mike Stefanidis - The Four Queens, June 19-20, 1993

• Mike and I were both scheduled to deal for Casino Knights on Saturday night (June 19), but on Friday afternoon, they called us and said that the party had been scaled down, and we didn't have to deal if we didn't want to. Mike and I told them we'd go ahead and skip the party, and we promptly made reservations for Vegas. It was one of the best decisions we've ever made.

• The trip started out slow. I was down $700.00, and Mike was down $1,700.00 when we decided to play at the Golden Nugget. And then it happened. Mike got the dice and rolled a hell of a hand. By the end of it, I had place bets on all the numbers for $125.00 each. I ended up winning over $2,300.00 for the trip, making it my best Vegas trip to date (over twice what I won on my previous best trip, just over two months prior).

42. With Mike Stefanidis - The Four Queens, May 29-30, 1993

• We played craps fairly conservatively, but the dice just weren't going our way.

41. With Mike Stefanidis and Paul Huyser - The Four Queens, April 2-4, 1993

• This turned out to be my best Vegas trip to date (thanks to don't pass). I won $1,009.00 after expenses. Unfortunately, it turned out to be Paul's worst trip, and Mike didn't fare much better. Their combined loss had to be close to $4,000.00.

40. With Mike Stefanidis - The Four Queens, March 20-21, 1993

• Mike and I never play slots to any extent, but we had always talked about each throwing in $20.00 and playing some dollars. So, that's exactly what we did at the Golden Nugget. We each got twenty dollars and sat at machines right next to each other, agreeing that if either of us got a jackpot, we'd split the money. Well, I ended up lining up three 7s for a payout of $1199.00!^* So, not a bad win: $599.50 apiece. Of course, that made us cocky and we lost the entire wad in about ten minutes at the crap table. No joke.
  

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^*The casino worker explained that the payout was one dollar less than $1200.00 because for payouts of $1200.00 and more the casino has to report it to the IRS.

39. With Mike Stefanidis - The Four Queens, March 6-7, 1993

• We drove in my car and made pretty good time. We left Mike's house at 6:00 p.m. and arrived in Vegas at 10:30 p.m.

• We didn't have a room, so somewhere between Barstow and Baker, Mike used my car phone to call the Four Queens. Since he was listed as a high roller, they gave him a free room and free food.^*

• We started betting a lot of don't pass in craps, and it went very well for us.

• On the way home we ended up stopping at Whiskey Pete's for about two hours.

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^*From this trip on, whenever I took a trip with Mike Stefanidis, he got our room and our meals free.

38. With Mike Stefanidis - Fitzgeralds, January 8-10, 1993

• We went on this weekend to go to the Consumer Electronics Show.

• The gambling didn't go so well, but we did go to the Palomino Club.