Nothing But Iron: Royal Rush September 17, 2007 by Bruce Lagman, Amateur Guest Columnist, P.B., C.A.G.W. Here's a little narrative that makes for a good story. None of the events have been altered or embellished for literary gain; what is written is exactly how it happened. Enjoy. I awoke shortly before 9:30 AM, after a wonderfully tiring weekend with friends and family in Laughlin, Nevada. It was a Monday morning much like any other except I was still in Laughlin opting to spend the night instead of leaving on Sunday when most everyone else departed. My good friend Jon, staying at a hotel close by, called me to coordinate our drive home. I told him I would drive to his hotel (Harrah's) since I wanted to redeem a $50.00 voucher the hotel had sent me months ago and then we would make the long trek back home. Jon surprised me by asking if he could borrow some money for about a week since he "spent some money he probably shouldn't have". Ordinarily I would have offered my best gambling responsibility lecture and declined to loan him the money, but Jon is a great person with not-so-great luck in life, so I agreed sans lecture. I arrived at Harrah's Resort and Casino and promptly redeemed my $50.00 voucher and headed over to meet Jon. After I gave him his loan, he left to drive across the river to make a bank deposit and I stayed at Harrah’s to await his return. Sitting in a chair across from the casino I marveled at my free fifty bucks and how I may be the only person in history to get the money and not give the casino any chance of getting it back (at least on this trip). Then I thought about my rating at Harrah’s and perhaps how negatively not putting some of their gift back into action might prevent me from receiving additional free room offers and other degenerate perks. Not wanting to jeopardize my elite Pyrite rating, I headed into the casino to kill some time and express my gratitude to Harrah’s for their generosity. Incidentally, Pyrite is a not really a rating, but if it were it would look something like this on the high roller scale: Toilet Paper, Plastic, Pyrite, Gold, Platinum, Diamond. I nestled into a comfy chair at a 25-cent video poker machine and promptly quadrupled my free fifty bucks. I cashed out and called Jon to see where he was. He reported he was still on his way to the bank as it was much farther away than he thought. I sat down again at a 25 cent video poker machine and played contently, hovering around my buy-in for what seemed like 20 minutes. It was at that moment I had an epiphany. Each gambling excursion, I usually take at least one significant risk with high reward, one medium to long shot at a really good win. Perhaps it is a semi-irresponsible play that serves little more than to satisfy the risk taker, but fun and surprisingly successful over the years. This is not a reckless play like the horse with three legs going off at 80-1 odds, a Megabucks slot machine networked to 50 other casinos or a wager on the Arizona Cardinals to win the Super Bowl. It is a play you make when you have some of the casino’s money in your pocket and you want to strap on a snorkel and a pair of goggles and swim with the proverbial whales. Amidst the hustle and bustle of the weekend’s events I had denied myself this opportunity. Drifting off into my memory I recalled an occasion last year where Liz and I played a video poker machine in the High Limit Salon–a snooty, ivory-columned refuge where the infinitely wealthy gather to discuss how much money they lost and how little it meant to them. We sat at a $5.00 video poker machine just to see what it was like. FYI - A video poker machine requires a maximum pay line wager on every hand played for the maximum return on your money. In short, you must wager five times the machine denomination for the highest possible return or $25.00 per hand played on a $5.00 machine. At a $100.00 buy in, we could play only four hands if we failed to register a win. On our second hand we hit a Full House. Now in "normal" 25 cent machines it would pay $11.25, hardly something to write home about, but on a big momma $5.00 machine it’s worth $225.00. We cashed out and have reminisced about that moment many times since. Eager to recreate the magic of that High Limit victory, I decided to make that my "significant play" and entered the High Limit Salon and the familiar bank of $5.00 video poker machines. I selected a machine and promptly fed it $300.00, enough for a whopping 12 hands without any payback. The first and second hands were losers and I noted I had lost $50.00 in just under 20 seconds. I quickly calculated that I was losing at an amazing clip of $9000.00 per hour so I slowed to enjoy my play, take in the overwhelming fragrance of wealth and savor the possibility of something crazy happening. The fourth and fifth hands returned even money as I was dealt a pair of Jacks or better. The sixth and seventh hands were also losers. My credit count was now reduced by a third and I was dabbling with the idea of pressing the "stop hemorrhaging" button and leaving town. Instead, I sat up in my chair assuming a more dominant posture, bit down on my lip and forged ahead throwing caution to the wind. On the eighth pull I was dealt an Ace, Queen and Ten of Diamonds; such a common occurrence it barely registered as "interesting" on the thrills meter. But then something unimaginable happened… I pressed the "deal" button and the new cards popped up causing my machine to instantly freeze and the words "CALL ATTENDANT" to appear across my screen. Very cheerful, repetitious music began to play and my mind was trapped somewhere between deciphering my hand, calculating my win and wondering how to tell if the machine had malfunctioned. Adrenaline was coursing through my veins preventing my brain from processing the moment. Thankfully, Liz had taught me in times of JFS (Jackpot Confusion Disorder) to breathe through my nose and then focus on four things: 1. Check the hand. 2. Check the payline to make sure you bet maximum coins. 3. Check the payout on the bottom right corner. 4. Scream. 1. The hand was the mother of all hands… THE ROYAL FLUSH. 2. I had bet the maximum coins. 3. The payout read, $20,000. I didn’t scream. After all, people don’t scream in the High Limit Salon. There might even be a sign posted at the entrance. I smiled a lot. I laughed a lot. I may have even muttered, "The price is wrong, bitch." But I didn’t scream until I got outside. I figured I owed them at least that. I called Jon, who had just made it inside the bank, and in a solemn tone told him I couldn’t loan him the money after all. Being the great guy he is, he said he understood and before he could say another word I told him, "just keep it and get your ass back to the casino to watch my back". We laughed and celebrated the memory all the way home. They say you can make 2,598,960 different hands out of a standard deck of cards, and a video poker player would have to play around 40,000 hands to achieve one Royal Flush. It took eight hands that magical Monday in September on what is commonly known as the mother of all video poker machines. I feel sorry for the person who played hand number one and I am grateful for the person who left after playing hand number 39992. I am thankful for having a keen sense of awareness for machines that process jackpots randomly and the ability to predict the beneficial outcomes in advance for the purpose of personal financial gain in a setting conducive to minimization or elimination of one’s wealth… OK, enough already, I am thankful for being lucky. _________ Nothing But Iron is an amateur sports and wagering entertainment e-zine. Guest author, Bruce Lagman, is a polygamist who teaches gambling classes to underprivileged grade school children and unenlightened medical professionals. He resides in Dumas (pronounced dumb ass), Arkansas. His social security number is 111-11-1111. False personal information about the author is included to confuse would-be identity thieves and aggressive fund raisers wishing to ride the coattails of my brothers good fortune. Jon’s real name might actually be Chuck or Will or Benny, but it is not Marvin. ©2007 DrTM Enterprises. All rights reserved.