Observations and Narratives from Vegas

How the individual responds to the Las Vegas-styled nuances of rolling the dice/cutting the deck/going all in, what-have-you, can be studied to the point where we can make generalizations, or groupings, based on the behaviors of a large block of people sharing some the same characteristics.

So in my experiment, when I mean group, I really mean me representing men: logical, thinking, but impulsive, thrill-seeking and hard-headed (maybe I should just represent Germans), and Penelope Pitstop will represent women: illogical (by classical standards of reasoning by the structure of propositions as distinguished from their content and of method and validity in deductive reasoning), feeling, emotional, sensitive, and @&^@ng lucky as hell.

The experiment began as us two good-looking people, dressed to kill, walked onto the casino floor to pick our poison.

Penelope Pitstop says, "Let's play BlackJack. I'm getting you to play with me if it is the last thing I do."

"Ok, so you need a friend. Why do we have to play BlackJack? BlackJack has horrible odds. The million dollar monstrosity of a pool at this casino was built solely on the profits gained from BlackJack."

"But, I always win at BlackJack. I can turn $20 into $200. I've got a system guaranteed to win."

"Really, how many times have you done that?"

"Once."

"Not bad, how many times have you played?"

"Once."

You're kidding, right? "You've built an entire system around one lucky run in Reno a few years ago."

"Are you going to play or what?"

We walked over to the high stakes $5 minimum table and found two seats. I turned my hard earned money into chips that I feared would soon leak from my side of the table onto the gigantic pile of chips on the other side of the table occupied by the dealer. "Drew," our host of the evening, shuffled the cards and asked Penelope to cut the deck with a green card. Thus, our fate was sealed, the cards were flopping on the table.

Me: 10-H

Her: J-C

Me: 5-D

Her: Ace-S (BlackJack)

"So, this is your system?"

I only heard cackling.

We played several more hands, with the dealer going on a run whose duration would impress even the lankiest of Kenyans.

"If we were playing 15, instead of 21, I'd be the champion of the night," I curmudgeonly commented to a few snickers around the table from others who displayed genuine empathy.

Even Penelope was hemoraging, and only because I cashed in a few more dollars than her, I played loan shark and gave her a couple more chips to stay in the game. As that happened, the deck was finished, and we needed a new one.

The dealer began to shuffle the next deck.

Penelope smiled big and said, "The red decks are better. I always win with the red ones."

I scoffed inside, but nodded, "Really? The red ones, huh?"

"Uh, huh," she enthusiastically replied. She was clearly not kidding.

Time for a little dose of reality.

Our replacement dealer put the deck in the card holder, and said, "Ok, whose ready for another round?"

Me! Take my money faster, faster, faster!

The cards were flopping across the table.

Me: 4-S

Her: Ace-C

Me: 9-C

Her: King-D (BlackJack)

"See, red deck."

She's paying for drinks tonight.

"You know, this game sucks."

"It only sucks because you are losing. Now tell me why you stayed with only 13."

"Because the dealer had a 5 showing and the probability of...how, in-the-hell, are you beating me?"

The waitress came by with my Jack on the rocks.

"Thanks, can you get me another one?"

Somehow over the course of the next 25-minutes, I was able to get back up the break even.

"Ok, we have to go to eat dinner."

"Good, I'm up anway."

After Penelope's sixth BlackJack, we walked away from the table. Oh yeah, I had zero.

"That was fun!" She exclaimed after winning all her money back, plus some more.

Grumble.

"What?"

"Yes, that was grrrreat fun! At least I still have my shirt." I double-checked by looking down to see if my shirt was still there. It was.

So, in conclusion, women cheat. That is the only logical explanation.

Posted by 10 fingers 6 strings at December 28, 2005 08:39 AM | TrackBack