- This was the trip, my friends.
- We chose this weekend to go because Mike was invited to a free blackjack tournament. Mike found out early that in this type of tournament, the idea is to bet the maximum every hand, and depart from basic strategy in order to get the most money on the table (i.e., split 10s, double down on blackjack, etc.). If you get on a lucky streak, you'll be the winner. (Mike didn't make it past the two initial rounds.)
- We had fairly good luck for a while, but on Saturday night things started going south. We took a break to have a nice dinner and then headed over to The Mirage, but the luck was still bad. We came back to Caesars and I watched Mike play craps for a little while. He was up and down for about a half hour when I decided to just make a $25 hard eight bet. It hit, so I took it down, and now I had $250 to play with. A couple of shooters later, I decided to get aggressive, and I bet $130 across; that included a $25 buy bet on the four. Mike followed suit. A few rolls into the hand, the shooter rolled a four. Mike and I pressed the bet (making it $50) and collected $25 (not counting the vig). A few rolls later, another four. We pressed to $100, collecting $50. Pretty soon, another four: press to $200, collect $100. Now visions of all the tens from trip 65 flashed before me. Shortly thereafter, another four: press to $400, collect $200.
Then came another four: press to $800, collect $400. This was getting exciting.
Another four: press to $1,600, collect $800. A $1,600 bet! We had as much bet on the four as we had collected from it. Should we take the bet down?
Another four: press to $3,200, collect $1,600. Good lord.
Now the shooter wasn't just rolling fours, of course. Scattered in between were plenty of other numbers that were winning money for us. But it was nothing like these fours.
Another four. At this point we couldn't double our bet because we couldn't go beyond the $5,000 table limit. Fine with us. We pressed the four to $5,000 and collected $4,600.
Counting the 5% vig we had to pay on each winning bet, we had collected a total of just under $7,500 on our bets on the four. Now we each had $5,000 bet. Surely we should just take the bet down now.
The shooter was at the other end of the table, so the dice were landing right in front of us where we could get a real good look at them. At this point, one of the rolls came up a three, but Mike misread it as another four. "Four!" he screamed out alone for all the casino to hear.
Mike wouldn't stay embarrassed too long.
Another four.
A $10,000 pay out. On one bet.
That was the last four the shooter would roll, but by the end of it, Mike and I had well over $17,000 each in front of us. We stayed for maybe a couple more shooters, then hightailed it to the cashier. I had them cut me a check for $15,000, and kept the remaining $2,000 to play the next day. We hit the sack, and I called Sherry the next morning with the good news.
