Gaming Guru

The Integrated Gambler: How to Enjoy the Total Casino Experience - Part 6

I realize that most people go to casinos to gamble. After all, no matter how good the food, no matter how good the entertainment, no one in his or her right mind would go into a Nevada desert only to hear Barbra Streisand sing or to taste Chef Alphonse's gourmet cooking. Gambling is, after all, the lure that brings us to desert, delta, river, and bog. Still, the ocean is the lure when you go to the Caribbean, yet you don't spend eight to 10 hours in the water when you go or you'd come back looking like human limburger.

So how should you gamble? Very, very carefully. Choose your games and your machines wisely. For all the bad or worse gambles in a casino there are good and an even better ones. Learn which are which and how to best make them.

For starters, learn basic strategy if you like blackjack; play the 5-Count if craps is your game and never, never make a Crazy Crapper proposition bet. Stick to the outside even-money bets at roulette if the casino gives half of the bet back when the 0 or 00 shows; if it doesn't, bet every other spin. Avoid the big wheel entirely; snub Sic Bo; take your time when you play Caribbean Stud, Let It Ride or Three Card Poker and always use the Bold Card Play strategy for the proper play of the hands at these new games. Avoid all the bonus bets at traditional table games. So don't bet the extra dollar hoping to get 7-7-7 on your next hand. Most of the bonus bets are for suckers. If machines are your passion, consider playing video poker, especially full-pay or close to full-pay machines using the proper strategies; but if slots knock your socks off, budget your money wisely and think of slowing down the pace and maybe, horrors, playing a single coin (if progressives are your pleasure, you have to play full coin but realize that the casino has frightening edges on the big progressives) and stretching your time, not your risk on the machines. Play coins, not credits, and get your hands dirty!

As the Captain says, you must maintain your rhythm. No human being can match a casino's 24-hour-a-day seven-day-a-week pace, nor should any human want to. It's inhuman. The casino's rhythm is a slam dance, hammering any and all who try to match it. A player's rhythm is different. It should be smooth, controlled; it should be a waltz. Step here, step there, step here, step there but always step lightly! Do a waltz in a casino town and your vacation will be filled with fun and excitement; do a slam dance and you'll be the one muttering to some indifferent statue: "I need a vacation from my vacation."