LAS VEGAS–Ask anybody that knows me and they\’ll tell you that I march to the beat of a different drum. Sometimes that a nice way of calling somebody retarded, but I\’d like to think that it just means that I live life in a way that few can understand. For example, coming to Vegas on a whim during the WSOP with $60 is NOT something that Tom or most of you can understand. To be honest, I\’m not really sure why I did it. But it certainly made things interesting.
Because I also came to Vegas with no place to stay, I was happy to know that Tom had a double queen room and that Julie had just left, hooking me up quite nicely. Thanks again, Tom. The next morning after arriving, I showered and snuck out while the Donkey slept. I made my way to the casino, dying to find the cheapest early morning action. $60, remember? Most would search for a low min blackjack table. At the Rio, there were none to be had on this bright Vegas morning.
Roulette is really cool in the sense that when you get $60 in singles, it\’s a lot of fun and you can still feel like a high roller as you spread the board. My decision pays off and I am $20 richer. Ok cool. But the guy to my right made only one bet, placing all 20 of his remaining chips on 21. YATZEE! He drags $700! Then he makes a few more smaller bets, leaving his original 20 in its same spot. Deja Vu – $700 again! Now I\’m not sure what the chances are, but when he leaves his original 20 there again, I cap it with 5 of my own. Trifecta! Un-fucking-believable! About thirty minutes later me and my new best friend are still cranking away. By this time he has grown his original $20 to over FOUR THOUSAND. I have rode the wave for $850 of my own! My Vegas money probs are gone… For now.
Now all of this must sound pretty amazing. But nothing was as remarkable as the roulette skill luck displayed by my friend Tom Schneider. About an hour after breaking from the $5,000 HORSE event, Tom, Big Rob, Pat Poels and I head to the casino. Pat, Rob, and Tom try to teach me Chinese poker. Chinese poker sucks and my brain simply is not wired for it. I\’m not retarted, I just can\’t do it. So I head back to visit my faithful wheel. After a while Tom joins me. Tom kills my luck. Seriously. I do nothing and we blow through $200 each in very short order. When we finally decide that nothing that we are doing is working, I start dropping chips onto the board from about 2 foot up, letting them land where they may. We are \”all-in\”. At the last moment Tom decides to take a $25 chip and flip it onto the board, ending up a hard 18.
\”You sure you want to do that!?\”, I ask.
\”That\’s where it landed\”.
Time slowed along with the wheel. The ball did a beautiful dance, coming to rest in none other than 18. Tom\’s dumb luck scores $875. Simply amazing. Now let\’s see if he can just ride that wave in day two.