Intro duction

2007-05-26T03:10:00.000-07:00

HE WAS TALL, think, wore rimless spectacles and looked just like what he was, a young assistant professor of maths on a weekend trip to the bright lights of Reno. What’s more his play was irritatingly slow. He paused for thought and stared at all the cards dealt. ‘Another system player’ was the unspoken comment of the blackjack dealer. she was particularly unfriendly to this slowwitted hick, dragging out her time with one dollar bets at five goddam a.m. in the graveyard shift. When he asked if he could play two hands at a time, she refused. It was house policy, she told him with a derisive little snort, that he had to bet two dollars per hand if he wanted to play two hands. He was tired and irritable, already down a hundred on the night, and there was a sharp exchange of words. Pert in her buckskin shirt and string tie, she retaliated by dealing out as fast as she could.

The prof stolidly continued to play his one hand, won, raised his stake to four dollars, won, raised his stake to eight dollars, and won again. He let the sixteen dollars ride and won that hand too. ‘Guess it’s time to take a small profit,’ he told the infuriated dealer. He stacked up twenty dollars in chips on the table and continued to bet in units of twenty. By the end of the deck he had recouped his hundred loss and a few dollars extra. He picked up his pile of chips and, sandy-eyed and stiff, stumbled off to bed.

Two nights later at a casino in Lake Tahoe he was betting in units of a hundred dollars. His maladroit fumbling had been honed to a streamlined accuracy. Within thirty minutes of sitting down the prof and a companion had emptied the table’s money tray, which is the blackjack equivalent of breaking the bank. The dealer began to panic. One of the girls sent on SOS to her boyfriend higher up in the casino. ‘Oh, help me! The pit boss who had welcomed the high rollers with dinner and expansive smiles looked apprehensive.

In a couple of hours the pair broke the bank again. The huge pile of chips in front of them stood at over $ 17.000. By now the professor was feeling the after-effects of dinner and, tiring rapidly, decided to cash in. As he threaded his way over to the cashier’s cage he was surprised to observe three or four4 very pretty, scantily clad girls wandering back and forth across his path., flashing him inviting looks. ‘If you’ve got the money, honey…I’ve got the time.’ Weaving his way back between the ladies, like Ulysses sailing home, he was horrified to see his friend at the blackjack table (now that his mentor was no longer at his elbow) hell-bent on hurling his profits back whence they had come. Despite all pleas, despite his losses, the man wouldn’t budge. He hung onto the table yelling, ‘I…will…not…leave …this …place! He kept shouting the cards were hot. It took forty-five minutes and several thousand dollars down the chute to prise him out.

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Intro duction