JBISMM
My posts have been a little on the serious side lately, so here's some lighter content to balance things out. As I've mentioned before, B and I got married in Las Vegas this past October. We had 50 guests, and I set up a wedding website with traditional stuff like pictures of the wedding party, links to our registry, etc., and also a mini-Vegas guide with info on all the things to see and do in that great city.

For the casino-clueless, I included a gambling primer with info on basic blackjack and video poker strategy, as well as a few very basic gambling tips such as "set a limit on how much you are willing to lose," "don't gamble it all in one session," etc. I ended with a recommendation to quit while you're ahead. This was pretty dry stuff so I tried to throw in some funny. Here's an excerpt:

Walk away a winner. . . . The casinos don't mind when people win big, because they know that most people will lose that money back to the house, sometimes in a matter of minutes. Yet few gamblers want to stop when they're on a winning streak. As Martinez writes in 24/7: "That's the thing with gambling: You're never fully satisfied. Unless you're painfully aware that you walked away from the table too late, you're bound to wonder whether you walked away too soon."

The JBISSM System

To get around this conundrum we recommend JD and B's Incredibly Sophisticated Money Management system, or JBISMM. The JBISMM system is virtually guaranteed* to help you win millions!!

*Guarantee is an attempt at humor and is not valid anywhere.

The key to JBISMM is pockets. The well-prepared gambler will have at least 5 pockets (4 from shorts/slacks, one from your Hawaiian shirt, and then there's always your socks). For the ladies, a purse is also acceptable, if it has multiple compartments for storing quarters (for machine games) and casino chips (for table games).

When the JBISMM player wins money, he will take some of that money and put in one of his pockets. The chosen pocket will thereafter be designated as "deposit only." Chips are rather cumbersome, so multiple deposit-only pockets (DOPs) may be needed. Chips are never removed from DOPs at the table, but instead only extracted at the cashier window, where said chips are exchanged for cold hard cash. For slots and video poker players, money should only be removed from DOPs in one's hotel room or at the cashier if you have won enough that it's too heavy to walk with.

Some JBISMM players follow the rule of "Up 12, Pocket 4." If, for example, such a player has won $24 at a $2 blackjack table, he will put $8 into a DOP. Any similar chant (e.g., "Up 15, pocket 5," "Up 5, pocket 1," will also work, just pick one that you like and can remember.)

The dream of every JBISMM player is to stuff all available DOPs with money and/or chips. At the end of the evening, successful JBISMM players get to experience the joy of counting up what has accumulated in DOPs. The results are often surprising, particularly for those players who tend to take the cocktail waitress up on her constant offers of free drinks, and therefore may lose track of all the various pocket deposits made in the course of an evening.

I really do like to do the pocket thing when I'm drinking and gambling in Las Vegas. Of course, it's illegal at the poker table. I had actually forgotten about the JBISMM silliness until a friend mentioned it the other day.

Also Las Vegas is has been very much on my mind lately. B just finished buying the tickets for our trip to San Francisco in late August. We're heading out on a Thursday, staying in San Fran til Monday night, then on the way back to Providence we're stopping in Las Vegas for an almost-3-day stay, leaving Thursday afternoon!! Rather than non-stop drinking and blackjack as we've done on many a Vegas trip in the past, this time we plan to do several of things we didn't manage to squeeze in during our wedding trip, and on the top of that list is PLAY MORE POKER! Ital and all caps--that's how excited I am.

We're also going to eat at Nobu (our stomachs were not up to novu sushi after all the wedding craziness) and as parrotheads we must also spend some time at the new Margaritaville Cafe in the Flamingo (it was not open yet when we were there in October). Hmmm, gonna have to get some margaritas and rum drinks there . . . I guess there'll be some drinking :)

Okay, gonna go play some poker now. My hope is that online players around the country spent the 4th of July drinking beer and eating hot dogs, and with tomorrow off are now logging on, ready to gambool it up.
posted by James at 11:38 PM