At 6:30 a.m. on September 11, 2001 (“9/11”), I was just walking into my room at the Main Street Inn (now the Bridger Inn) in downtown Las Vegas after an all-nighter playing and scouting. I turned on the TV and saw the fire at the World Trade Center, which had been hit by a small […]
Posts in category Advantage Play
Something Good from Backgammon
As many of you have noticed, I’ve been reading some backgammon books recently to interview Gambling with an Edge guests. This is not going to become a backgammon blog. My main gig remains video poker. Also, to prepare for the interviews, I watched some YouTube videos of international championship tournaments to see what had changed […]
Another Lesson from Square Dancing
I’ve been writing these articles for more than 20 years and sometimes need to draw inspiration from all sorts of different places. Today’s inspiration comes from square dancing — but the subject matter will soon shift to gambling successfully. The square dance callers (the people who stand up in front of the dancers and tell […]
A Look at Bill Robertie’s New Series on Backgam...
It was not my intention to spend a lot of time on backgammon, as backgammon is not my game of choice — nor is it really much of a gambling game anymore. But just as we were preparing to air two GWAE shows with Bob Wachtel on his Backgammon Chronicles, Richard and I received a […]
Coronavirus I: Lockdown
RIP, Futurist Twenty years ago, I spent Easter locked down in a concrete holding cell at CCDC—Clark County Detention Center—after being jailed on trumped-up charges by Caesars Palace, who couldn’t handle that my teammate and I had won a few thousand bucks playing Three Card Poker. From the jailhouse phone, I called Arnold Snyder, my […]
Ways Casinos Can Restrict You
I’m writing this as all Nevada casinos are closed for business. It feels weird. It’s the first time this has happened in my lifetime. Nevada was a few days behind several other states that have also closed casinos. More than one dozen Las Vegas casinos voluntarily closed before the governor’s order. Since, because of the […]
Podcast – Bob Wachtel, part 1
Our guest this week is backgammon expert Bob Wachtel, who discusses his two volume book, “The Backgammon Chronicles: A Pro’s Adventures On Tour.” We welcome your questions – send them to us at [email protected], or you can find me at @RWM21 on Twitter. podcast Click to listen – Alt click to download Show Notes [00:00] […]
Making your final preparations
In a 2019 GWAE podcast, Bob Dancer talked about writing his obituary (or at least some suggestions) for Bonnie and himself. This would be a guideline for whomever actually does his obituary. I was on the show on 1/31/20 and talked about some additional preparations for your eventual end of life. Bob suggested that this […]
Will Playable Video Poker Return After COVID-19...
The coronavirus has shut down casinos across the world. Even if they are allowed to open up again in a month or two, they will have sustained significant losses. Some estimates are that it will take up to two years for Nevada casinos to recover. If they stay closed for longer than two months, it […]
Drivers, Pilots, and Artists
Several years ago, I was attending a series of motivational lectures by Dr. William Kerley. Near the end of the last lecture, he spoke of when he was hired by Continental Airlines to give classes to their non-pilots on how to deal with pilots. To properly understand what pilots go through, he spent many hours […]
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