Las Vegas Backgammon<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\nSilk suits. For me that is the first image that comes to mind when I think of Las Vegas backgammon in the good old days. Backgammon, for you kiddies, was a disco game, played in Pips, Faces, Maxims, Studio 54. Slick hustlers, the Gabby Horowitzes and Joe Dweks and Billy Eisenbergs, preyed upon Lucy and Hef and, yes, O.J. Tina Turner turned a cube or two. The man himself, Jim Brown, rushed a few thousand yards to get in the chouette. Vegas was the capital, epitomizing the glittery slippery \u201cwhat\u2019s that white cake around your nostril?\u201d time. Frank and the Rat Pack? Your parent\u2019s thrills. This era was neon and hip and in-the-know and what we knew your daddy (and Frank and Sammy and Dean \u201cring-a-ding-ding\u201d) were too old to learn.<\/div>\n\n<\/a>Vegas was wads of hundred dollar bills \u2013 \u201cchoke a horse\u201d they used to say. If you didn\u2019t have five or ten grand in your pocket, why leave the house? Vegas was Jubilation, which was Paul Anka\u2019s joint. (Wasn\u2019t that where Tupac was heading, the night he got offed? But that was already a different Vegas.) Vegas was also Dirty Sally\u2019s, which became Rumors, right on the corner of the Strip and Sands Boulevard, with rotating globes over the dance floor, and table lamps in the shape of doubling cubes in the private backgammon room. Then it bought a mechanical bull and went country, and the seventies were over.This was the fantasy that played like a movie in everyone\u2019s mind when they sat down at the board: they looked at the pigeon across from them, and imagined that the $2-$5-$10 a point they were hustling was $200-$500-$1000, and they were wearing the silk suit, and sitting down for the finals in Monte Carlo, staring down a Kumar or an Ezra, while X-22 himself wrote down their moves for the next edition of the New York Times. Then they would take those fat, fat winnings to Vegas, and party like it would never end.<\/p>\nI missed it!<\/p>\n
Well, I caught the tail end, enough to tune into the fantasy, and also see what the reality looked like. It looked a lot like Max.<\/p>\n
I was living in Chicago, playing in my first big tournament. Magriel, Senk \u2013 big names then, big names still; they were all there. But the most interesting game in town was Max.
\nMax playing Vlad Dobrich, dropping thirty-one points at hundreds: \u201cI\u2019d like to collect,\u201d says Vlad. Max pulls out a roll big enough to choke the whole Kentucky Derby, peels off thirty-one hundred dollars bills, and it\u2019s like shaving toothpicks off a redwood \u2013 the wad doesn\u2019t get any smaller. \u201cIf you have to collect, maybe the game\u2019s too big for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Max playing Dave Cramer, backgammon\u2019s answer to Chinese Water Torture. Max unfurls his secret weapon: the Sunday Trib. He starts reading, and Dave freaks out. The great wall of newsprint makes him nervous: What\u2019s going on back there? What if he doesn\u2019t know I\u2019ve finished my move!? But Max knows. The paper comes down, he rolls, he plays, and it\u2019s right back to Dick Tracy. Dave\u2019s so rattled he can\u2019t concentrate on playing slowly, and the match finishes early!
\nEspecially Max playing Freddie Chamanara, silk on silk, with Joel the stake horse in his silk suit \u2013 a lot of worms worked to dress that trio! Max is up 101 points, but he\u2019s holding an 8-cube, and things aren\u2019t looking good. \u201cMaybe I BG you!\u201d says Freddie. \u201cEight to one you don\u2019t\u201d says Joel. On a thousand. Freddie does. Max is stuck three points. \u201cI had him on the hook!,\u201d he tells Joel. \u201cWhy\u2019d you let him off the hook?\u201d<\/p>\n
I move to Vegas, and it isn\u2019t just tournaments, Max is like that every day. He\u2019s driving around in a Citroen. Remember them? Looks like a trick played by one of those balloon tires.
\nHe\u2019s got the first personalized license plate I\u2019ve seen: \u201cGammon.\u201d Swaggers around in his silk jackets, with a metal cigar case tucked in his boots. Where\u2019d he come from?
\nMilwaukee. Yep, beer and brats and \u2026 Max? Ran a hotel for his dad. It went under. Not yet thirty, and a failure. His best buddy is a guy named Ned Day who moved to Vegas and became very famous very young. Hell of a writer, covering the crime beat. Died too young, only forty-one, swimming in Hawaii when the heart attack hit. The conspiracy buffs claim it was Syndicate frogmen who pulled him under, \u2018cause he knew where too many bodies were buried.<\/p>\n
But that was later, and this was then.<\/p>\n
So Max is out in Vegas, moping around, still depressed, when his girlfriend Linda, used to be Miss Milwaukee, brings home a backgammon board. \u201cPlay with me,\u201d she says. \u201cMaybe it will cheer you up.\u201d
\nPretty soon Max is beating her; he\u2019s better than his teacher. He sets out to conquer the world, or at least the local club. He can\u2019t find a local club. \u201cThis is Vegas! How can there not be a backgammon club!?\u201d So he starts one at Dirty Sally\u2019s. Then he gets the call: \u201cI\u2019m in town, and I\u2019d like a backgammon lesson between shows. Have you got a professional there who gives lessons?\u201d Max looks around, doesn\u2019t see any other volunteers: \u201cYeah, me!\u201d Then heads over to the Hilton and gets paid a hundred bucks an hour to give Bill Cosby lessons.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Max starts a newsletter, a typical one-sheet mimeographed. Then he expands it into the\u00a0Las Vegas Backgammon Magazine<\/em>. Next thing there are ten thousand subscribers and he\u2019s got Tina Turner on the cover, bending way over the board in a low-cut top, about to put a couple of extra pips on the layout. And there\u2019s the famous desert shot. If you saw it you know immediately which desert shot. There\u2019s a showgirl from the Lido squatting in front of a board out in the desert. She\u2019s wearing cowboy boots. That\u2019s it. Well, boots and honey: she has honey smeared all over her. \u201cWhat was with the honey?\u201d I ask Max. He shrugs, who knows?<\/p>\n\u201cLinda took the picture; I don\u2019t know whose idea was the honey.\u201d<\/p>\n
The club is in full swing now, and people drop by every day, champs and chumps.<\/p>\n
There are the Steamers \u2026
\nThere\u2019s Harold, who throws my dice across the room. And there is Simeon, the Bulgarian cab driver, who warns me: \u201cRoll one more double, and I bite your dice!\u201d So I roll one more double, and he bites my dice, and then throws them across the room, across the hall, and into the ladies\u2019 room. \u201cLinda, could you get those for me?\u201d<\/p>\n
There are the Numbers Boys \u2026
\nCraig Chellstorp is the greatest player no one ever heard of. Craig is playing Tony, a shift boss at a small strip casino. More like a strip-mall casino, and he is only bossing there until he takes the fall for his bosses, when the Gaming Commission catches them with too few aces in their blackjack shoes. Craig is ahead 2-0 to 7, and Tony\u2019s is holding a 2-cube.<\/p>\n
Craig\u2019s got a man on the six, man on the three, versus Tony\u2019s man on the four, man on the three. I could supply a diagram, but you\u2019ve got the picture. Craig rolls 41 — which you may think is not his best roll — but it is, for this story. Now Tony recubes. This is fifteen years before I write Fish, and Tony wouldn\u2019t read it anyway, but for Tony this is the right double.
\nCraig takes, of course, but first he pauses to \u201cdoom-doom.\u201d That\u2019s what we called it, like the sound of the shark in Jaws, only you know this one\u2019s coming for you! There\u2019s two ways of doom-dooming. One is to make the sound, let the other guy know he is dead in the water. The other, the one Craig is doing, is playing it to himself, in his mind, while he asks himself: why do terrible things like this only happen to me?<\/p>\n
But what happens isn\u2019t so terrible: Tony rolls a 21, which you may think is not his best roll, but it is, for this story!<\/p>\n
So now Craig redoubles, pausing for one more doom-doom. Because Craig isn\u2019t just a great player, he\u2019s a great doom-doomer, and he knows a 21 is about to tumble from his cup.
\nTony takes, which is right for Tony playing Craig. And if he didn\u2019t, Craig would have no chance to roll his 21, and we wouldn\u2019t have much of a story. But then Tony rolls the only roll he can roll to finish off the story, a final 21.
\nThe Kibitzer\u2019s Credo, as expressed by the late Charlie Peres: \u201cI wish for maximum pain for both players!\u201d
\nMore Numbers Guys \u2026
\nFast Eddie used to be Little Eddie: pedaling his bicycle to the yacht clubs around Miami, parking between a couple of Rolls-Royces, going in to hustle the members for dimes. They thought he was cute. Used to try to put money pressure on him by beavering drops. Eddie loves pressure, maybe too much. Hell of a backgammon player. Unfortunately, Eddie is convinced that he is a hell of a poker player. Every year he shows up to live out the Las Vegas Success Story: \u201cCame here in a five hundred dollar beater, left here two months later in a shiny, hundred thousand dollar \u2026 Trailways bus.\u201d<\/p>\n
And still more \u2026
\nDoctor Cube, and The Amazing Captain Cube. The writers are David Eig and Timmy Wisecarver, but I can never keep straight which sobriquet Max hung on whom. Timmy\u2019s got a five-hundred page computer printout of bearoff equities, courtesy of Dean Muench. He keeps it in our kitchen cabinet, otherwise empty until he imports his bridge books from San Francisco. Here is our larder: in the fridge are six three-quarter empty Heineken bottles, a half a box of Junior Mints, a gallon bottle of distilled water, and one expensive ballpoint pen. The nearly empty beer bottles and the candy are Timmy\u2019s diet. The bottle of water is shared by me and\u00a0Munchkin. The pen? Timmy keeps losing it when he is depositing three-quarter empty Heineken bottles, or nibbling on Junior Mints. Then we get the bridge books, and at last have a well-stocked kitchen.<\/p>\n
So Timmy is sitting up late one night, sipping a Heineken, clipping and unclipping the pen to the vee of his sweater, while reading his five-hundred page printout of numbers strung out to eight decimal places. Suddenly, he spots a pair where the numbers zig instead of zag.<\/p>\n
And he writes a letter to Danny Kleinman who is so impressed he names this the Wisecarver Paradox. Years later Timmy is head of the math department at an exclusive prep school back East, when a student approaches him: \u201cSir, are you connected with the Wisecarver Paradox?\u201d<\/p>\n
There is immortality in backgammon!<\/p>\n
Besides the Numbers Guys there are the Wise Guys.
\n\u201cYou think the bartender here,\u201d here being the Jockey Club, as by now the mechanical bull has bucked us out of Rumors, \u201cis so nice to Vartan because he tips five dollars for a cup of coffee?\u201d Vartan is a student of mine, courtesy of Max. The Poker Players \u2013 Puggy, Chip, Stuey and Nicky \u2013 give each other money-line spots. For instance Chip, who is the best, supposedly gives Puggy $1.40 on every point. They all love to play with Vartan. The proper odds with Vartan would probably be about $2.40. Maybe $12.40! Max thinks that if we can whip Vartan into shape we can make a killing. He has doled out the tasks this way: he will do the thinking and killing, and I will do the whipping.
\nVartan is not a fast learner. The first week I tell him something, the second week I tell him the same thing, the third week: \u201cVartan! We talked about it two weeks ago, we talked about it last week! Why are you still doing it!?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry!\u201d He hangs his head. \u201cI forgot.\u201d<\/p>\n
I am thinking about getting a ruler, like the one the nuns at St. Mary\u2019s used on my friends.
\n\u201cHold out your hand!\u201d Whack! Right across the knuckles. \u201cNext time, make the anchor!\u201d
\nBut I want to know about the five-dollar tip for a cup of coffee. Max waves me off. He is mid-rant about the ingratitude of certain young players. Master of the rhetorical flourish he won\u2019t be distracted by supplying details. \u201cNo, it\u2019s not because he tips five dollars for a cup of coffee. You know what they used to call him back in Buffalo, before he stopped drinking? \u2018Tom the Bomb!\u2019\u201d
\nIt occurs to me that I know very little about Vartan\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9. It also occurs to me I should rethink the ruler.<\/p>\n
\u201cOr what about Frankie the Fist?\u201d What about Frankie? The Nevada Gaming Commission has a black book. The Black Book, that\u2019s what it\u2019s called. They keep it to show they are serious about keeping organized crime out. It is only for the worst of the worst: Mafia Chieftains and people that cheat at slots. Tony \u201cThe Ant\u201d Spilotro is in The Black Book. If you saw Casino you remember that the Outfit boys back in Chicago used Tony and his brother for batting practice, then buried them on a farm in Northwest Indiana. Tony was still alive when they buried him, but he was convincingly dead when the cops dug him up a month later. But the Gaming Commission kept him in the book, on emeritus status. Didn\u2019t want anyone thinking there were loopholes, no sirree! When you are out, you are out. Once you go into The Black Book you are out of everywhere else, every single casino in the state, from Boulder City and Laughlin, all the way to Tahoe, Elko, and Winnemucca. No more neck rubs from the wine goddesses in the Bacchanal Room, no checking the line at the Stardust Sportsbook, not even the $4.99 dinner buffet at Circus Circus: \u201cDrop that plate mister; don\u2019t try to reach for the salad fork!\u201d Your permanent keno number is \u201c86!\u201d<\/p>\n
So Frankie gets put in The Black Book. There are not many people in The Black Book; a couple dozen tops. The commission holds a hearing, and they invite Frankie so he can come and hear doom pronounced. He shows up in a tux! \u201cNo one\u2019s ever done something like this for me before.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat do you think Frankie\u2019s going to do?\u201d More rhetoric from Max. \u201cThese kids beat him for twenty points, and then tell him how lucky he is because they should have beaten him for forty. You think if it wasn\u2019t for me Frankie wouldn\u2019t be waiting out in the parking lot, to do a little beating of his own?\u201d
\nBesides the Numbers Guys, the Poker Players, and the Wise Guys, there are the Australian Card Counters \u2026<\/p>\n
John, David, Malcolm, and Woody. David and Malcolm drop acid one night and announce to the amazed staff at Sam\u2019s Town that they are visiting royalty: \u201cLord Bolingbroke, and the Earl of Goodwood.\u201d They get the bosses to push a blackjack table into the middle of the pit, and deal them a private game. David is swilling complimentary Chateau Neuf du Pape faster than you can say \u201csommelier.\u201d Malcolm is sneering down his nose at dealers and bosses alike. They love it! They\u2019ve never been abused by real British aristocracy before. This must be what it\u2019s like working at Caesar\u2019s!
\nJohn buys a boat with his winnings, and gets busted smuggling parrots. David, a former race car driver, is walking down the street and gets run over by a truck. Malcolm .. Well, when you burn the candle at both ends you reach the middle too quickly. Woody turns out okay. He becomes one of the most successful gamblers in the history of the universe, and lives a life of sybaritic splendor in the Far East.<\/p>\n
And there are the unclassifiables \u2026
\nSal, for instance. Sal likes to hang around, but he never plays. The fact is, no one in their right mind would play with him (and for their own protection, the players not in their right mind are kept away from him by Max) because Sal is a professional dice cheat. I don\u2019t think he has a business card saying \u201cProfessional Dice Cheat,\u201d but he might, because Sal is very proud of his skills. The members of his crew call him \u201cSal-vation!!\u201d<\/p>\n
One Christmas Sal is found in his bathrobe. Someone has stabbed him once for each day of the month. The killing is never officially solved, but a couple of years later one of Sal\u2019s crew turns out to be a serial killer. Not a media-hyped \u201ckilled the clerks at two of the 7-11s he robbed\u201d serial killer. This guy is a \u201cthe little girls were still alive, thank God, but we found their mothers\u2019 bodies in the storage area under the Winnebago\u201d serial killer. It is remembered that he came into money about the time that Sal was killed. And David, the Australian Card Counter, who used to bunk with the guy, goes on heavy doses of Valium when he hears the news, which may be why he walks in front of that truck.<\/p>\n
Max takes me out to his house in Green Valley. We drink espresso at four in the morning while he gives me his view of things. Of how The Wanderers is the greatest movie ever made. Of why he collects midget movies; he has not only seen The Terror Of Tiny Town,\u201d1938\u2019s All-Singing, All-Dancing, All Cowboy, Midget Musical,\u201d he owns a copy. Of why he dislikes Hawaiians: \u201cIn a thousand years all they ever invented was … the nose flute!\u201d And: \u201cYou can tell a lot about a culture by their food. Hawaiians are the only ones who have managed to fuck up pork!\u201d Then he starts talking about how certain poker players used to drug other poker players to gain an advantage: \u201cThey use that stuff \u2026 Oh, what\u2019s the name? They use it for truth serum, but it\u2019s not sodium pentothal.\u201d
\n\u201cScopalamine?\u201d
\n\u201cScopalamine! Right, scop \u2026 How did you know that!? I can\u2019t believe you knew that! You\u2019re a genius! You have to edit my magazine!\u201d
\nThere, verbatim, is how my career as a backgammon writer is launched.
\nMax knows that as a genius I\u2019m not smart enough to ask for money. He does, however, get Linda to feed me sandwiches.
\n\u201cWhat kind of sandwich would you like?\u201d
\n\u201cLinda, it\u2019s three in the morning! You had to get out of bed to let me in. I\u2019m fine. Go back to sleep.\u201d
\n\u201cOkay, I\u2019ll make you ham and cheese.\u201d
\nTheir house is the first place I see remote controls for the TV\u2019s.
\n\u201cWhat would you like to watch?\u201d Both of them ask this all the time. It makes them nervous to see a room occupied and no TV on.
\n\u201cNothing, thanks. I\u2019m editing this, so I won\u2019t be watching.\u201d
\n\u201cOkay, Johnny Carson it is!\u201d
\nIt is also the first place I see HBO, the first place I see a projection unit and big-screen TV, and the first place with a Betamax. I\u2019ve never heard of video rental, so I don\u2019t know where people get these tapes. And because Max is the first, other people who haven\u2019t paid a grand or two for a tape machine bring him their movies.<\/p>\n
I am working in the living room, with papers spread all over the couch. The doorbell rings, people enter the house: \u201cLook what we found!\u201d A crowd joins me in the living room, and soon the movie they rented fills the screen. I am proofreading an article that is fifty pages of complex equations, and there are strangers in my workspace watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
\nThere is something ineffably weird about this, but this is Las Vegas.
\nMax is riding high. Always a money player, he cashes in a string of tournaments. They hold a thousand dollar invitational at the Desert Inn. They don\u2019t invite Max.
\n\u201cYou think you can come into my town, not invite me, and still hold your tournament?\u201d
\nThey reconsider, and Max gets his invitation. Then he wins the tournament.
\n\u201cPsychology \u2013 that\u2019s how I won it!\u201d He starts the blow-by-blow with the quarter-finals.
\n\u201cDavid Leibowitz: what\u2019s he famous for?\u201d
\n\u201cWinning the Plimpton!\u201d
\n\u201cNo! He\u2019s into that Silva Mind Control Vernon Ball stuff.\u201d
\n\u201cAlpha Backgammon?\u201d
\n\u201cRight, Alpha Backgammon \u2013 the Vernon Ball stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Max says this like everyone knows this. I do know that David is a very intense roller, who looks like he is trying to make his dice spin so hard they will drill a hole in the board.
\n\u201cHis sister shows up on a layover at McCarren. He hasn\u2019t seen her in years. She has just enough time to watch his match, and then she has to catch her next flight. I bar her as a kibitzer.\u201d David naturally begs and pleads, and Max relents, with a stipulation: that she sits next to him. \u201cJust as we start I say: \u2018You\u2019re on my side, right?\u2019 She has no idea what the fuss is about, so she says: \u2018Right!\u2019 David looks up: his own sister is on my side!?\u201d
\nPsychology triumphs over psycho kinesis; will it also vanquish physiology?
\n\u201cLee Genud has this who lady travels with her. She gives something called the \u2018Mongolian Fear Massage.\u2019 The woman freelances, so I book her for the two hours before the match. Lee is looking for a massage; the woman is nowhere around. Then I show up: \u2018Lee, why didn\u2019t you tell me? That masseuse of yours! I feel so relaxed, like I could lick the world!\u201d<\/p>\n
His opponent in the finals is an unknown \u2026 \u201cBut he looks like he comes from one of those countries where they are used to getting ordered around by the police or the army. So I look in my closet; I have a Sgt. Pepper jacket. I wear that to play the finals. Right away I start ordering him around: \u2018Move the board here! Setup the checkers this way!\u2019 It gets him used to obeying. Then just before the opening roll I tell him,\u201d Max jabs a finger for emphasis, \u201c \u2018don\u2019t play too tough!\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
He has to be making these stories up! Then I see pictures from the tournament. There, accepting the first place trophy, is Max. He is wearing a Sgt. Pepper jacket.<\/p>\n
We launch a second magazine called:\u00a0The Backgammon Scholar<\/em>. In those days the magazines were long on social news and short on analysis. Now the balance has shifted, but\u00a0The Scholar<\/em>, which is all analysis, was ahead of its time. Shortly after the first issue appears, I get a new roommate.
\nPeter goes for a drive exploring his new home. He takes David Eig and they drive up Red Rock. Halfway up his car bursts into flames. All his belongings are in the back, and while he makes a valiant stab at smothering the fire with a dirty gym sock, David pulls him away, and the fire consumes all.
\nFate seems to have dealt him the worst possible hand. But Peter is a mathematician. Quickly he calculates the exact loss:\u00a0One used-car\/60% ownership + six individual socks clean, plus seven individual socks dirty [subtract using variable for estimated local Laundromat price of All-Temperature Cheer] \u2026 three long-sleeve shirts, \u00bd Filet-O-Fish without fries \u2026 computer program to beat Pai Gow*340 hours labor \u2026) and in less than a minute he has the answer: Two thousand nine hundred and twenty-three dollars and fourteen cents!<\/em>\u00a0In actual dollars that is not the worst single session he has had as a gambler. Pleased at having on this occasion outwitted Fate, Peter starts laughing.
\nThe firemen are among the first people in Vegas to realize Peter is weird.
\nThe next day Peter calls me. He is not laughing. \u201cThey want a credit card. Do you have a credit card?\u201d
\nThe lady at the car rental place says she cannot rent a car without a credit card. \u201cOr a pay stub, rent receipt, utility bill: something that shows you have a job here \u2026\u201d<\/p>\nIs she nuts? This is Vegas! No one has that stuff. I have friends without Social Security cards. \u201cHow about this: I am the Editor-In-Chief of a locally published magazine; the address is in the front, and so is my picture; would you like to see that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only, I cannot find a copy anywhere in the house. I call Max\u2019s house. Linda is home, and there are copies there. It is already ten after four, and the rent-a-car closes at five. I am starting from Trop and Pecos. Max has moved from Green Valley to somewhere out past Rainbow Road. I fly to Max\u2019s, grab the magazine (refusing a sandwich), and then fly to the rent-a-car, which is near Nellis. Years of cab driving pay off and I roll in with ten minutes to spare. Just like the cavalry!<\/p>\n
I fan the magazine on the counter. I have recently gotten my hair cut, but in the picture it still flows down my back. In it I have a beard that hasn\u2019t been trimmed since the late seventies. The camera seems to have been aimed up my nose at the time of the snap. There is a lot of hair in there, too. I look like a cross between Lawrence Talbot on Walpurgis Nacht, and a well-watered Chia Pet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWow!\u201d
\n\u201cSo, you\u2019ll rent him the car?\u201d
\n\u201cI need to see a credit card, pay stub, rent receipt \u2026\u201d
\n\u201cYou said you wanted to see this picture.\u201d
\n\u201cYeah, I wanted to see it. But you still need a credit card, pay stub, rent receipt \u2026\u201d
\nWhat about a deposit?
\n\u201cYou\u2019d have to put up the entire price of the car.\u201d
\nThe name of this place is \u201cRentAWreck.\u201d \u201cHow much is that?\u201d
\n\u201cSix hundred dollars.\u201d
\nAs mentioned, in Vegas if you don\u2019t have five or ten grand in your pocket, why leave the house? \u201cPeter, pay the nice lady and stop wasting our time!\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, in the words of Alex Delarge, we \u201ccome to the real sad and weepy part of the story, my droogies.\u201d
\nMax goes to Ireland with the Poker Players. While he is there Linda runs off. With Vartan. Worse, she sells his midget movies. Max stops publishing the magazines. He stops running the club. Things get very bad for him for a few years.<\/p>\n
The town changes. Dirty Sally\u2019s cum Rumors is no more. The place is torn town. Heck, the Sands is torn down. The only good discos are in Asia. They find out cocaine is bad for you. Who knew!? Dealers start getting taxed, the culinary union continues striking, and Wayne Newton stops buying the Aladdin. The economy of Vegas slides. The town tries to reinvent itself. Soon there are casinos pretending to be Disneyland at one end of the Strip, and at the other, instead of Frankie and Dino and thousand-dollar a night escorts, there are guys with prison tattoos and crack whores. From Ermine and pearls to vermin and squirrels.<\/p>\n
But Vegas has bounced back. So has Max. The club is going again, and Max is running it. Any day now the movie stars will begin dropping in again and the showgirls will be stripping to their boots, so start stockpiling the honey! It was like that once, and there are pictures to prove it. In backgammon there is immortality!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n![\"Facebook\"](\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/96x96\/facebook.png\" "\\"Follow")
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Las Vegas Backgammon early 1980s - Gambling With An Edge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/las-vegas-backgammon-early-1980s\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Las Vegas Backgammon early 1980s - Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This article was written by Jake Jacobs in 2006. It is about the Vegas backgammon scene in the early 80s. I wanted to post it here as a prelude to my review of Ace – Deuce: The Life and Times of a Gambling Man. The book was written by J. E. 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<\/a>Vegas was wads of hundred dollar bills \u2013 \u201cchoke a horse\u201d they used to say. If you didn\u2019t have five or ten grand in your pocket, why leave the house? Vegas was Jubilation, which was Paul Anka\u2019s joint. (Wasn\u2019t that where Tupac was heading, the night he got offed? But that was already a different Vegas.) Vegas was also Dirty Sally\u2019s, which became Rumors, right on the corner of the Strip and Sands Boulevard, with rotating globes over the dance floor, and table lamps in the shape of doubling cubes in the private backgammon room. Then it bought a mechanical bull and went country, and the seventies were over.This was the fantasy that played like a movie in everyone\u2019s mind when they sat down at the board: they looked at the pigeon across from them, and imagined that the $2-$5-$10 a point they were hustling was $200-$500-$1000, and they were wearing the silk suit, and sitting down for the finals in Monte Carlo, staring down a Kumar or an Ezra, while X-22 himself wrote down their moves for the next edition of the New York Times. Then they would take those fat, fat winnings to Vegas, and party like it would never end.<\/p>\n I missed it!<\/p>\n Well, I caught the tail end, enough to tune into the fantasy, and also see what the reality looked like. It looked a lot like Max.<\/p>\n I was living in Chicago, playing in my first big tournament. Magriel, Senk \u2013 big names then, big names still; they were all there. But the most interesting game in town was Max. Max playing Dave Cramer, backgammon\u2019s answer to Chinese Water Torture. Max unfurls his secret weapon: the Sunday Trib. He starts reading, and Dave freaks out. The great wall of newsprint makes him nervous: What\u2019s going on back there? What if he doesn\u2019t know I\u2019ve finished my move!? But Max knows. The paper comes down, he rolls, he plays, and it\u2019s right back to Dick Tracy. Dave\u2019s so rattled he can\u2019t concentrate on playing slowly, and the match finishes early! I move to Vegas, and it isn\u2019t just tournaments, Max is like that every day. He\u2019s driving around in a Citroen. Remember them? Looks like a trick played by one of those balloon tires. But that was later, and this was then.<\/p>\n So Max is out in Vegas, moping around, still depressed, when his girlfriend Linda, used to be Miss Milwaukee, brings home a backgammon board. \u201cPlay with me,\u201d she says. \u201cMaybe it will cheer you up.\u201d Meanwhile Max starts a newsletter, a typical one-sheet mimeographed. Then he expands it into the\u00a0Las Vegas Backgammon Magazine<\/em>. Next thing there are ten thousand subscribers and he\u2019s got Tina Turner on the cover, bending way over the board in a low-cut top, about to put a couple of extra pips on the layout. And there\u2019s the famous desert shot. If you saw it you know immediately which desert shot. There\u2019s a showgirl from the Lido squatting in front of a board out in the desert. She\u2019s wearing cowboy boots. That\u2019s it. Well, boots and honey: she has honey smeared all over her. \u201cWhat was with the honey?\u201d I ask Max. He shrugs, who knows?<\/p>\n \u201cLinda took the picture; I don\u2019t know whose idea was the honey.\u201d<\/p>\n The club is in full swing now, and people drop by every day, champs and chumps.<\/p>\n There are the Steamers \u2026 There are the Numbers Boys \u2026 Craig\u2019s got a man on the six, man on the three, versus Tony\u2019s man on the four, man on the three. I could supply a diagram, but you\u2019ve got the picture. Craig rolls 41 — which you may think is not his best roll — but it is, for this story. Now Tony recubes. This is fifteen years before I write Fish, and Tony wouldn\u2019t read it anyway, but for Tony this is the right double. But what happens isn\u2019t so terrible: Tony rolls a 21, which you may think is not his best roll, but it is, for this story!<\/p>\n So now Craig redoubles, pausing for one more doom-doom. Because Craig isn\u2019t just a great player, he\u2019s a great doom-doomer, and he knows a 21 is about to tumble from his cup. And still more \u2026 So Timmy is sitting up late one night, sipping a Heineken, clipping and unclipping the pen to the vee of his sweater, while reading his five-hundred page printout of numbers strung out to eight decimal places. Suddenly, he spots a pair where the numbers zig instead of zag.<\/p>\n And he writes a letter to Danny Kleinman who is so impressed he names this the Wisecarver Paradox. Years later Timmy is head of the math department at an exclusive prep school back East, when a student approaches him: \u201cSir, are you connected with the Wisecarver Paradox?\u201d<\/p>\n There is immortality in backgammon!<\/p>\n Besides the Numbers Guys there are the Wise Guys. \u201cI\u2019m sorry!\u201d He hangs his head. \u201cI forgot.\u201d<\/p>\n I am thinking about getting a ruler, like the one the nuns at St. Mary\u2019s used on my friends. \u201cOr what about Frankie the Fist?\u201d What about Frankie? The Nevada Gaming Commission has a black book. The Black Book, that\u2019s what it\u2019s called. They keep it to show they are serious about keeping organized crime out. It is only for the worst of the worst: Mafia Chieftains and people that cheat at slots. Tony \u201cThe Ant\u201d Spilotro is in The Black Book. If you saw Casino you remember that the Outfit boys back in Chicago used Tony and his brother for batting practice, then buried them on a farm in Northwest Indiana. Tony was still alive when they buried him, but he was convincingly dead when the cops dug him up a month later. But the Gaming Commission kept him in the book, on emeritus status. Didn\u2019t want anyone thinking there were loopholes, no sirree! When you are out, you are out. Once you go into The Black Book you are out of everywhere else, every single casino in the state, from Boulder City and Laughlin, all the way to Tahoe, Elko, and Winnemucca. No more neck rubs from the wine goddesses in the Bacchanal Room, no checking the line at the Stardust Sportsbook, not even the $4.99 dinner buffet at Circus Circus: \u201cDrop that plate mister; don\u2019t try to reach for the salad fork!\u201d Your permanent keno number is \u201c86!\u201d<\/p>\n So Frankie gets put in The Black Book. There are not many people in The Black Book; a couple dozen tops. The commission holds a hearing, and they invite Frankie so he can come and hear doom pronounced. He shows up in a tux! \u201cNo one\u2019s ever done something like this for me before.\u201d John, David, Malcolm, and Woody. David and Malcolm drop acid one night and announce to the amazed staff at Sam\u2019s Town that they are visiting royalty: \u201cLord Bolingbroke, and the Earl of Goodwood.\u201d They get the bosses to push a blackjack table into the middle of the pit, and deal them a private game. David is swilling complimentary Chateau Neuf du Pape faster than you can say \u201csommelier.\u201d Malcolm is sneering down his nose at dealers and bosses alike. They love it! They\u2019ve never been abused by real British aristocracy before. This must be what it\u2019s like working at Caesar\u2019s! And there are the unclassifiables \u2026 One Christmas Sal is found in his bathrobe. Someone has stabbed him once for each day of the month. The killing is never officially solved, but a couple of years later one of Sal\u2019s crew turns out to be a serial killer. Not a media-hyped \u201ckilled the clerks at two of the 7-11s he robbed\u201d serial killer. This guy is a \u201cthe little girls were still alive, thank God, but we found their mothers\u2019 bodies in the storage area under the Winnebago\u201d serial killer. It is remembered that he came into money about the time that Sal was killed. And David, the Australian Card Counter, who used to bunk with the guy, goes on heavy doses of Valium when he hears the news, which may be why he walks in front of that truck.<\/p>\n Max takes me out to his house in Green Valley. We drink espresso at four in the morning while he gives me his view of things. Of how The Wanderers is the greatest movie ever made. Of why he collects midget movies; he has not only seen The Terror Of Tiny Town,\u201d1938\u2019s All-Singing, All-Dancing, All Cowboy, Midget Musical,\u201d he owns a copy. Of why he dislikes Hawaiians: \u201cIn a thousand years all they ever invented was … the nose flute!\u201d And: \u201cYou can tell a lot about a culture by their food. Hawaiians are the only ones who have managed to fuck up pork!\u201d Then he starts talking about how certain poker players used to drug other poker players to gain an advantage: \u201cThey use that stuff \u2026 Oh, what\u2019s the name? They use it for truth serum, but it\u2019s not sodium pentothal.\u201d I am working in the living room, with papers spread all over the couch. The doorbell rings, people enter the house: \u201cLook what we found!\u201d A crowd joins me in the living room, and soon the movie they rented fills the screen. I am proofreading an article that is fifty pages of complex equations, and there are strangers in my workspace watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Max says this like everyone knows this. I do know that David is a very intense roller, who looks like he is trying to make his dice spin so hard they will drill a hole in the board. His opponent in the finals is an unknown \u2026 \u201cBut he looks like he comes from one of those countries where they are used to getting ordered around by the police or the army. So I look in my closet; I have a Sgt. Pepper jacket. I wear that to play the finals. Right away I start ordering him around: \u2018Move the board here! Setup the checkers this way!\u2019 It gets him used to obeying. Then just before the opening roll I tell him,\u201d Max jabs a finger for emphasis, \u201c \u2018don\u2019t play too tough!\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n He has to be making these stories up! Then I see pictures from the tournament. There, accepting the first place trophy, is Max. He is wearing a Sgt. Pepper jacket.<\/p>\n We launch a second magazine called:\u00a0The Backgammon Scholar<\/em>. In those days the magazines were long on social news and short on analysis. Now the balance has shifted, but\u00a0The Scholar<\/em>, which is all analysis, was ahead of its time. Shortly after the first issue appears, I get a new roommate. Is she nuts? This is Vegas! No one has that stuff. I have friends without Social Security cards. \u201cHow about this: I am the Editor-In-Chief of a locally published magazine; the address is in the front, and so is my picture; would you like to see that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSure.\u201d<\/p>\n Only, I cannot find a copy anywhere in the house. I call Max\u2019s house. Linda is home, and there are copies there. It is already ten after four, and the rent-a-car closes at five. I am starting from Trop and Pecos. Max has moved from Green Valley to somewhere out past Rainbow Road. I fly to Max\u2019s, grab the magazine (refusing a sandwich), and then fly to the rent-a-car, which is near Nellis. Years of cab driving pay off and I roll in with ten minutes to spare. Just like the cavalry!<\/p>\n I fan the magazine on the counter. I have recently gotten my hair cut, but in the picture it still flows down my back. In it I have a beard that hasn\u2019t been trimmed since the late seventies. The camera seems to have been aimed up my nose at the time of the snap. There is a lot of hair in there, too. I look like a cross between Lawrence Talbot on Walpurgis Nacht, and a well-watered Chia Pet.<\/p>\n \u201cWow!\u201d Now, in the words of Alex Delarge, we \u201ccome to the real sad and weepy part of the story, my droogies.\u201d The town changes. Dirty Sally\u2019s cum Rumors is no more. The place is torn town. Heck, the Sands is torn down. The only good discos are in Asia. They find out cocaine is bad for you. Who knew!? Dealers start getting taxed, the culinary union continues striking, and Wayne Newton stops buying the Aladdin. The economy of Vegas slides. The town tries to reinvent itself. Soon there are casinos pretending to be Disneyland at one end of the Strip, and at the other, instead of Frankie and Dino and thousand-dollar a night escorts, there are guys with prison tattoos and crack whores. From Ermine and pearls to vermin and squirrels.<\/p>\n But Vegas has bounced back. So has Max. The club is going again, and Max is running it. Any day now the movie stars will begin dropping in again and the showgirls will be stripping to their boots, so start stockpiling the honey! It was like that once, and there are pictures to prove it. In backgammon there is immortality!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n This article was written by Jake Jacobs in 2006. It is about the Vegas backgammon scene in the early 80s. I wanted to post it here as a prelude to my review of Ace – Deuce: The Life and Times of a Gambling Man. The book was written by J. E. Anderson who was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[29,2,3,7,398],"tags":[44,85,116],"yoast_head":"\n
\nMax playing Vlad Dobrich, dropping thirty-one points at hundreds: \u201cI\u2019d like to collect,\u201d says Vlad. Max pulls out a roll big enough to choke the whole Kentucky Derby, peels off thirty-one hundred dollars bills, and it\u2019s like shaving toothpicks off a redwood \u2013 the wad doesn\u2019t get any smaller. \u201cIf you have to collect, maybe the game\u2019s too big for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nEspecially Max playing Freddie Chamanara, silk on silk, with Joel the stake horse in his silk suit \u2013 a lot of worms worked to dress that trio! Max is up 101 points, but he\u2019s holding an 8-cube, and things aren\u2019t looking good. \u201cMaybe I BG you!\u201d says Freddie. \u201cEight to one you don\u2019t\u201d says Joel. On a thousand. Freddie does. Max is stuck three points. \u201cI had him on the hook!,\u201d he tells Joel. \u201cWhy\u2019d you let him off the hook?\u201d<\/p>\n
\nHe\u2019s got the first personalized license plate I\u2019ve seen: \u201cGammon.\u201d Swaggers around in his silk jackets, with a metal cigar case tucked in his boots. Where\u2019d he come from?
\nMilwaukee. Yep, beer and brats and \u2026 Max? Ran a hotel for his dad. It went under. Not yet thirty, and a failure. His best buddy is a guy named Ned Day who moved to Vegas and became very famous very young. Hell of a writer, covering the crime beat. Died too young, only forty-one, swimming in Hawaii when the heart attack hit. The conspiracy buffs claim it was Syndicate frogmen who pulled him under, \u2018cause he knew where too many bodies were buried.<\/p>\n
\nPretty soon Max is beating her; he\u2019s better than his teacher. He sets out to conquer the world, or at least the local club. He can\u2019t find a local club. \u201cThis is Vegas! How can there not be a backgammon club!?\u201d So he starts one at Dirty Sally\u2019s. Then he gets the call: \u201cI\u2019m in town, and I\u2019d like a backgammon lesson between shows. Have you got a professional there who gives lessons?\u201d Max looks around, doesn\u2019t see any other volunteers: \u201cYeah, me!\u201d Then heads over to the Hilton and gets paid a hundred bucks an hour to give Bill Cosby lessons.<\/p>\n
\nThere\u2019s Harold, who throws my dice across the room. And there is Simeon, the Bulgarian cab driver, who warns me: \u201cRoll one more double, and I bite your dice!\u201d So I roll one more double, and he bites my dice, and then throws them across the room, across the hall, and into the ladies\u2019 room. \u201cLinda, could you get those for me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\nCraig Chellstorp is the greatest player no one ever heard of. Craig is playing Tony, a shift boss at a small strip casino. More like a strip-mall casino, and he is only bossing there until he takes the fall for his bosses, when the Gaming Commission catches them with too few aces in their blackjack shoes. Craig is ahead 2-0 to 7, and Tony\u2019s is holding a 2-cube.<\/p>\n
\nCraig takes, of course, but first he pauses to \u201cdoom-doom.\u201d That\u2019s what we called it, like the sound of the shark in Jaws, only you know this one\u2019s coming for you! There\u2019s two ways of doom-dooming. One is to make the sound, let the other guy know he is dead in the water. The other, the one Craig is doing, is playing it to himself, in his mind, while he asks himself: why do terrible things like this only happen to me?<\/p>\n
\nTony takes, which is right for Tony playing Craig. And if he didn\u2019t, Craig would have no chance to roll his 21, and we wouldn\u2019t have much of a story. But then Tony rolls the only roll he can roll to finish off the story, a final 21.
\nThe Kibitzer\u2019s Credo, as expressed by the late Charlie Peres: \u201cI wish for maximum pain for both players!\u201d
\nMore Numbers Guys \u2026
\nFast Eddie used to be Little Eddie: pedaling his bicycle to the yacht clubs around Miami, parking between a couple of Rolls-Royces, going in to hustle the members for dimes. They thought he was cute. Used to try to put money pressure on him by beavering drops. Eddie loves pressure, maybe too much. Hell of a backgammon player. Unfortunately, Eddie is convinced that he is a hell of a poker player. Every year he shows up to live out the Las Vegas Success Story: \u201cCame here in a five hundred dollar beater, left here two months later in a shiny, hundred thousand dollar \u2026 Trailways bus.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nDoctor Cube, and The Amazing Captain Cube. The writers are David Eig and Timmy Wisecarver, but I can never keep straight which sobriquet Max hung on whom. Timmy\u2019s got a five-hundred page computer printout of bearoff equities, courtesy of Dean Muench. He keeps it in our kitchen cabinet, otherwise empty until he imports his bridge books from San Francisco. Here is our larder: in the fridge are six three-quarter empty Heineken bottles, a half a box of Junior Mints, a gallon bottle of distilled water, and one expensive ballpoint pen. The nearly empty beer bottles and the candy are Timmy\u2019s diet. The bottle of water is shared by me and\u00a0Munchkin. The pen? Timmy keeps losing it when he is depositing three-quarter empty Heineken bottles, or nibbling on Junior Mints. Then we get the bridge books, and at last have a well-stocked kitchen.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYou think the bartender here,\u201d here being the Jockey Club, as by now the mechanical bull has bucked us out of Rumors, \u201cis so nice to Vartan because he tips five dollars for a cup of coffee?\u201d Vartan is a student of mine, courtesy of Max. The Poker Players \u2013 Puggy, Chip, Stuey and Nicky \u2013 give each other money-line spots. For instance Chip, who is the best, supposedly gives Puggy $1.40 on every point. They all love to play with Vartan. The proper odds with Vartan would probably be about $2.40. Maybe $12.40! Max thinks that if we can whip Vartan into shape we can make a killing. He has doled out the tasks this way: he will do the thinking and killing, and I will do the whipping.
\nVartan is not a fast learner. The first week I tell him something, the second week I tell him the same thing, the third week: \u201cVartan! We talked about it two weeks ago, we talked about it last week! Why are you still doing it!?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHold out your hand!\u201d Whack! Right across the knuckles. \u201cNext time, make the anchor!\u201d
\nBut I want to know about the five-dollar tip for a cup of coffee. Max waves me off. He is mid-rant about the ingratitude of certain young players. Master of the rhetorical flourish he won\u2019t be distracted by supplying details. \u201cNo, it\u2019s not because he tips five dollars for a cup of coffee. You know what they used to call him back in Buffalo, before he stopped drinking? \u2018Tom the Bomb!\u2019\u201d
\nIt occurs to me that I know very little about Vartan\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9. It also occurs to me I should rethink the ruler.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhat do you think Frankie\u2019s going to do?\u201d More rhetoric from Max. \u201cThese kids beat him for twenty points, and then tell him how lucky he is because they should have beaten him for forty. You think if it wasn\u2019t for me Frankie wouldn\u2019t be waiting out in the parking lot, to do a little beating of his own?\u201d
\nBesides the Numbers Guys, the Poker Players, and the Wise Guys, there are the Australian Card Counters \u2026<\/p>\n
\nJohn buys a boat with his winnings, and gets busted smuggling parrots. David, a former race car driver, is walking down the street and gets run over by a truck. Malcolm .. Well, when you burn the candle at both ends you reach the middle too quickly. Woody turns out okay. He becomes one of the most successful gamblers in the history of the universe, and lives a life of sybaritic splendor in the Far East.<\/p>\n
\nSal, for instance. Sal likes to hang around, but he never plays. The fact is, no one in their right mind would play with him (and for their own protection, the players not in their right mind are kept away from him by Max) because Sal is a professional dice cheat. I don\u2019t think he has a business card saying \u201cProfessional Dice Cheat,\u201d but he might, because Sal is very proud of his skills. The members of his crew call him \u201cSal-vation!!\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cScopalamine?\u201d
\n\u201cScopalamine! Right, scop \u2026 How did you know that!? I can\u2019t believe you knew that! You\u2019re a genius! You have to edit my magazine!\u201d
\nThere, verbatim, is how my career as a backgammon writer is launched.
\nMax knows that as a genius I\u2019m not smart enough to ask for money. He does, however, get Linda to feed me sandwiches.
\n\u201cWhat kind of sandwich would you like?\u201d
\n\u201cLinda, it\u2019s three in the morning! You had to get out of bed to let me in. I\u2019m fine. Go back to sleep.\u201d
\n\u201cOkay, I\u2019ll make you ham and cheese.\u201d
\nTheir house is the first place I see remote controls for the TV\u2019s.
\n\u201cWhat would you like to watch?\u201d Both of them ask this all the time. It makes them nervous to see a room occupied and no TV on.
\n\u201cNothing, thanks. I\u2019m editing this, so I won\u2019t be watching.\u201d
\n\u201cOkay, Johnny Carson it is!\u201d
\nIt is also the first place I see HBO, the first place I see a projection unit and big-screen TV, and the first place with a Betamax. I\u2019ve never heard of video rental, so I don\u2019t know where people get these tapes. And because Max is the first, other people who haven\u2019t paid a grand or two for a tape machine bring him their movies.<\/p>\n
\nThere is something ineffably weird about this, but this is Las Vegas.
\nMax is riding high. Always a money player, he cashes in a string of tournaments. They hold a thousand dollar invitational at the Desert Inn. They don\u2019t invite Max.
\n\u201cYou think you can come into my town, not invite me, and still hold your tournament?\u201d
\nThey reconsider, and Max gets his invitation. Then he wins the tournament.
\n\u201cPsychology \u2013 that\u2019s how I won it!\u201d He starts the blow-by-blow with the quarter-finals.
\n\u201cDavid Leibowitz: what\u2019s he famous for?\u201d
\n\u201cWinning the Plimpton!\u201d
\n\u201cNo! He\u2019s into that Silva Mind Control Vernon Ball stuff.\u201d
\n\u201cAlpha Backgammon?\u201d
\n\u201cRight, Alpha Backgammon \u2013 the Vernon Ball stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHis sister shows up on a layover at McCarren. He hasn\u2019t seen her in years. She has just enough time to watch his match, and then she has to catch her next flight. I bar her as a kibitzer.\u201d David naturally begs and pleads, and Max relents, with a stipulation: that she sits next to him. \u201cJust as we start I say: \u2018You\u2019re on my side, right?\u2019 She has no idea what the fuss is about, so she says: \u2018Right!\u2019 David looks up: his own sister is on my side!?\u201d
\nPsychology triumphs over psycho kinesis; will it also vanquish physiology?
\n\u201cLee Genud has this who lady travels with her. She gives something called the \u2018Mongolian Fear Massage.\u2019 The woman freelances, so I book her for the two hours before the match. Lee is looking for a massage; the woman is nowhere around. Then I show up: \u2018Lee, why didn\u2019t you tell me? That masseuse of yours! I feel so relaxed, like I could lick the world!\u201d<\/p>\n
\nPeter goes for a drive exploring his new home. He takes David Eig and they drive up Red Rock. Halfway up his car bursts into flames. All his belongings are in the back, and while he makes a valiant stab at smothering the fire with a dirty gym sock, David pulls him away, and the fire consumes all.
\nFate seems to have dealt him the worst possible hand. But Peter is a mathematician. Quickly he calculates the exact loss:\u00a0One used-car\/60% ownership + six individual socks clean, plus seven individual socks dirty [subtract using variable for estimated local Laundromat price of All-Temperature Cheer] \u2026 three long-sleeve shirts, \u00bd Filet-O-Fish without fries \u2026 computer program to beat Pai Gow*340 hours labor \u2026) and in less than a minute he has the answer: Two thousand nine hundred and twenty-three dollars and fourteen cents!<\/em>\u00a0In actual dollars that is not the worst single session he has had as a gambler. Pleased at having on this occasion outwitted Fate, Peter starts laughing.
\nThe firemen are among the first people in Vegas to realize Peter is weird.
\nThe next day Peter calls me. He is not laughing. \u201cThey want a credit card. Do you have a credit card?\u201d
\nThe lady at the car rental place says she cannot rent a car without a credit card. \u201cOr a pay stub, rent receipt, utility bill: something that shows you have a job here \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cSo, you\u2019ll rent him the car?\u201d
\n\u201cI need to see a credit card, pay stub, rent receipt \u2026\u201d
\n\u201cYou said you wanted to see this picture.\u201d
\n\u201cYeah, I wanted to see it. But you still need a credit card, pay stub, rent receipt \u2026\u201d
\nWhat about a deposit?
\n\u201cYou\u2019d have to put up the entire price of the car.\u201d
\nThe name of this place is \u201cRentAWreck.\u201d \u201cHow much is that?\u201d
\n\u201cSix hundred dollars.\u201d
\nAs mentioned, in Vegas if you don\u2019t have five or ten grand in your pocket, why leave the house? \u201cPeter, pay the nice lady and stop wasting our time!\u201d<\/p>\n
\nMax goes to Ireland with the Poker Players. While he is there Linda runs off. With Vartan. Worse, she sells his midget movies. Max stops publishing the magazines. He stops running the club. Things get very bad for him for a few years.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"