Call Me Lumpy: My Leave It to Beaver Days and Other Wild Hollywood Life (33 page)

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Authors: Frank Bank,Gibu Twyman

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BOOK: Call Me Lumpy: My Leave It to Beaver Days and Other Wild Hollywood Life
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Page 164
Poker was just one thing we shared. But I'm glad we did it as a couple rather than one or the other of us getting into it alone.
And I'm glad we both felt the same way about the game.
We didn't let it consume us.
We didn't let poker take over our lives.
But we also cared deeply and passionately about winning.
Most people are recreational players and they don't really give a hoot, or have the pride, in winning and losing.
It's an avocation.
We take it a lot more seriously.
For me, it's just because of my competitive nature.
And I think it's the same for Becka.
I mean, one of the few nicknames I've ever had, besides "Lumpy," I got from poker.
One guy called me "The Iron Duke."
And it kinda stuck.
Because I was pretty damn hard to beat.
He was just so frustrated playing me.
He says, "It's like goin' up against an Iron Duke."
And I didn't want to say to the guy, "You schmuck, I don't bluff."
But I liked to make everybody think that I did.
I mean, once in a while, you play loose hands.
But it's an acting job.
Being a great poker player is no different than being a lawyer, which is also an acting job.
You're trying to convince somebody to do something.
What you want to do, if you've got a great hand, you don't want them to fold.
You know?
And if you've got an average hand, you want them to fold. So all it is, there's the art of convincing somebody.
I didn't learn these things until I got older.
Going back to that night at the chemin de fer table with the Asian women and the 16 straight passes?
I was a schmuck.
I was just a lucky schmuck.
When I was a kid, I was a lousy card player. But I got smart as I got older.
I didn't say I was always smart.
I had some lessons to learn along the way.
See, that's the thing that separates poker from other games in the casinos.
Poker is not really gambling.
I hate gambling.
 
Page 165
But I love poker.
Because when you do it right, there is no gamble involved in poker.
It is the one game at the casinos that is largely technique.
That is because of one very important difference from all the other casino games.
You're playing other people
You're not playing against the house.
When you play other people, you have a chance to win with your brains and your guts and your strategy and your ability to read people and the willingness to know yourself.
When you play the house, you have no chance.
No chance to win, whatsoever.
Most people don't seem to understand this.
And it never ceases to amaze me.
They just keep on gambling.
And, inevitably, losing.
Do you know that in a game like "Let It Ride" the house has a 30 percent advantage, and a game like "Caribbean Stud" the house has a 24 percent advantage?
Yet people play these games and expect to win.
You can't, on any continuous basis.
And slots.
I can hardly talk about slots without getting angry.
There's never been a machine made that was ever set to lose.
They never were, and they're never gonna be.
And yet people stand there all day and night moronically pulling this imbecilic arm.
Becka does this.
She says to me, "I know it drives you crazy. I don't care. I enjoy it."
But she does know what I'm saying is true.
"It's a sucker play," Becka will say. "But at least I know this when I'm doing it. I treat it like an evening of entertainment. It's gonna cost me X amount, just like a good show or something. I know the game is rigged so I can't win in the end. A lot of people don't accept this, though, and throw all their money away into the slots."
OK. But I still detest the machines.
I consider the machines an insult to my intelligence.
Especially the machines that talk back to me.
"Oh, come play me."
"I'm gonna hit right now."
It's like some whore luring you or something.
An ugly whore at that.
 
Page 166
Because the enjoyment is going to be minimal and infrequent.
It's absolutely ludicrous.
Poker machines are no better.
This, too, is not real poker.
Machine poker is rigged so the numerical odds are in its favor.
You can't overcome this with psychology or cunning, two of the biggest tools you have in a real poker game.
Poker machines are hypnotic.
They can actually hook you like dope can.
That's why the machines are there.
That's why the stock in International Game Technology has done so well.
I do happen to own two poker machines.
I keep them in my den.
I will play those because I own them and I am now the house.
I have the key to the coin chute at the bottom.
As long as I can get my coins back, I can be hypnotized for nothing.
That's how you beat those games.
You own them.
I mean, of course, you can have fun with them. I admit that. That's why so many people play them.
You can have fun with a broad, too.
But it's the most expensive thing you'll ever have in your life.
You're gonna pay for it.
One way or another.
All right, so I just offended you.
But I'm still stating a fact, even if it's a slimeball, sexist-pig statement.
I'll own up to it.
In the meantime, I am telling you that you cannot let these gambling devices whip you with their Svengali approaches on your psyche.
Because they're gonna kick your butt every time.
"I've got a hunch."
"I feel lucky."
Remember the two sentences that built Las Vegas?
Say those two sentences to anyone in Vegas, and they will send a limousine for you.
All you have to do is say to them, "I feel lucky."
And they're like: "We'll be right there, Mr. Bank. Your room will be ready. How big is the credit line?"
I want you to think about this.
These people actually come out and tell you that you are a sucker and you're still gonna go there and play their stupid games?
How do they tell you that you're a sucker?
 
Page 167
Everywhere.
It's all over the TV, in the magazines, in the newspapers.
It was in
USA Today
that there's a bounty out right now for any computer hacker who can invent a game that is more hypnotic than the ones currently being played.
So they can draw more suckers to the machines.
The guy who invented Let It Ride now franchises it to all the casinos.
I understand he's making over $1 million a month.
I think he was a truck driver and he figured it out at a truck stop one night.
All you have to do is come up with another interesting game form. You've got a 30 percent advantage.
There's no way you can lose.
It's the same no matter what game you play.
You hear about people who have a "system" to beat the roulette wheel.
Please.
There is no successful mathematical roulette system in existence to man.
Or woman, for that matter.
It cannot happen.
Period.
The end.
If you're approached by someone who has a "roulette system," run, do not walk, the other way.
Now, I say no game is really fair against the house at the casino?
Well, OK.
There is one game, we all know, where you can even the playing field just a bit.
And that's all you can do.
Virtually even it.
The game is blackjack.
Can you beat a one-deck blackjack game?
Yes.
But do you have any idea what an infinitesimely small advantage it is?
If you count cards, if you use money management and the basic strategy. . .if you use those three things expertly in a short-deck blackjack game, you have about a 1.5 percent advantage.
Now, in a blackjack game, for you to have that much of an advantage, you have to put in an 8-hour day and maybe you win $150.
You can work that hard in a lot of other jobs and do better.
But that is the only shot you got.
Except poker.
There you can clean up, if you know how to play.
 
Page 168
And that is becauserepeat after me, because it's trueyou're not playing against house odds. . .you're playing against other frail human beings.
That's why a lot of casinos in Las Vegas (A) do not offer poker anymore, because it takes up space which could be occupied by machines, and (B) the ones who do offer poker, do so only as an accomodation to their customers.
And they're holding their breath like hell that your wife is playing those machines morning, noon and night while you're playing poker.
Or that when you walk away from the poker table, you're gonna take leave of your senses momentarily and drop off some money on Let It Ride or Caribbean Stud or some moronic game like that.
That's the only reason poker tables are even in Vegas anymore, and why they are disappearing.
I mean, I admit Vegas is still a cool place.
But I both love it and hate it.
I hate watching people throw their money and lives away.
I see future Gamblers Anonymous members by the busloads there.
There will be bankruptcies. There will be divorces. There will be suicides.
All three will come out of the games people play against the house any night you are there.
Greed.
It is absolutely the root of all evil.
But I understand the pull of Vegas.
I truly do.
I have gone to the craps tables and picked up the dice and had a lot of fun.
But I make my money hopefully by investing my clients' money in a proper way.
I do not make my money by walking up to a craps table and trying to hit 10 sevens in a row.
Or by going over to a slot machine and trying to get three sevens to come up.
Or by going over to a blackjack table and trying to pick up twenty-one, 25 times in a row.
I like the ambience of Las Vegas.
Sorry to say I love the food of Las Vegas.
(As you could tell by looking at me at this point in my life.)
But I do.
That's a big highlight.
The whole scene is a beautiful place.
The showgirls.
The shows.
Rebecca and I both enjoy it.

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