Rolling Rolling Rolling

As I mentioned last week, I spent the bulk of yesterday at Casino Niagara putting little plastic circles in various places on green felt while I or someone else threw clear red cubes with pips all over them across a table.

And it hit me as I bellied up to the rail that I haven't played craps since August, and that was in Atlantic City and was terrible. I hadn't played craps at Niagara since last year. It was a damned shame. My brain had taken the craps reflexes and shoved them in a dark little corner. I was placing minimum odds for the first few rolls, and felt like something was askew. Then I looked at the card - 3-4-5. It was all coming back. I confirmed that I could bet 3x odds on the 4 and 10 and the craps portion of my brain came leaping into the light, crying out in joy at his freedom.

The crew at Niagara was awesome as usual. Of course, it helps that when my group walks in, we turn a quiet, boring table into the most fun place in the house. Even on the cold streaks we're cheering and hollerin', joking with the crew, and showing the rest of the table what tipping is. They love us there.

And for the next 4.5 hours, we cheered ourselves hoarse and clapped our hands sore. And we didn't even win that much.

N drove E and myself there, and we started off warm, but things quickly cooled off. My $500 initial rack started to dwindle, climb back up, and dwindle again. It got to the point where I had around $28 left in front of me and N about to roll. I pulled out another $500, saying that I had faith in my buddy. Darryl, one of the top-notch crew (and who has been there EVERY time we've gone), pointed out that if I had faith, I wouldn't be reloading. I pointed out I needed the chips to bet on him.

I never touched that second rack. N went on a heater. Hitting 4 points for the fire bet and $125 to me ($5 fire bet on my friends). Breaking even was suddenly a possibility. M and his brother showed up around this time and brought new energy to the table, and the hot streak continued. By the time the dice went through the 5 of us, I was looking at a nice profit. The opposite end of the table had slowly warmed up to our revelry, but seemed afraid to roll... and they kinda sucked at it anyway. Except one older Asian guy who had high-fived N during his roll. That move alone had us up the volume when he got the dice. He was shocked, confused, and happy as a pig in shit when we started cheering him. The guy probably lost a few hundred bucks yesterday, but undoubtedly had more fun then he's ever had at a craps table.

The dice got back to N, and my profit was gone again. He went on another sweet roll, hitting 3 points and a lot of numbers in between, and our side once again turned it around. It went back and forth like this a few times, with us winning, and the other side of the table taking it away. We'd sucked in a random player to our side who was fist-bumping us whenever a point was hit. He was loving it too. The ups and downs continued, until the dice got to E for the last time. A conservative player who has no faith in his rolling, E always enjoys hitting the tables. He started his roll. 8......8. 5.....5. 8.....8. 9....9. 10.

The man was on the verge of our second fire bet hit for the day. The table was going nuts. He was having a blast. And he'd been hitting numbers between points like mad too. The 10 roll took a while, but with the bases loaded for me and my friends, we just kept raking it in regardless. Then.... HARD TEN! The table exploded! And he kept rolling! 4! C'MON 4!!!

But... 7 out. I looked down at my nearly $400 profit and we kept going. The next guy lost me around $100 and we called it a day, all of us happy with the results. -$475 to +$285 isn't a bad swing on a $5 table. Plus, we were starving.

We cashed out, and I couldn't resist the Blazing 7's, where I promptly lost $105.

Dinner - steak for the winners! Tanqueray No. 10 martini for yours truly. And it was decided we were going back!

Dinner wrapped up, M & his bro went home, well those of us who intend to have FUN in Vegas returned to the casino. The table was STILL $5 (unheard of for us - it's usually upped to $10 around 5 or 6 pm, and it was now 9), but our crew was gone, and we love our crew.

So I returned to the slots. Burger Girl! Where I went on a huge side game run and turned $20 into $90 on a quarter machine. I took that winning ticket and returned to the Blazing 7's that had taken my money earlier. In went the ticket, and out came $200 a few minutes later. BOOYA!

Off to Let it Ride! Oh how cold that was. Lucky for me, I had a 3-card wheel as I was getting ready to leave the table and $5 on the bonus. My loss had become tiny and I opted to up and leave the table.

To WAR! Easily the game that requires the least skill in the casino. It was mindless fun. Our first dealer was a bit of a downer, but he was soon replaced with Greg, who we engaged in banter immediately. He made what could be a boring game fun. I had been timing my bets horribly, increasing and losing, decreasing and winning. I was halfway through my stack and opted to finish off my reds and call it a night. Then the tied War happened, then another War was won. Suddenly I was even again, and it seemed like a good time to take off.

Up $335 on the day, which may not be a huge hourly rate, but it's tough to find another way to get paid for having fun. Vegas is right around the corner, and now I'm more psyched for it than before.