Against Any Odds
I played a game of Scrabble the other day.
Now, I'm good with words. I'm good with games. I'm good with puzzles.
What I'm not good with is luck.
I began the game with seven consonants. My only possible move was to trade some of them in,
and go second. That didn't improve things much.
Three turns later, I had seven vowels. Five of them were Os.
I did try to play on an open R, and spell AROOOOO! (Werewolves of London.) But it's not in the
official Scrabble dictionary. I'm going to complain to them. Many many much stooooopider words
are in there. Fake words, that never appeared in a popular song. Or a real dictionary. Some of
my friends say it's because it's spelled AWOOOOO! One of them claimed it's spelled
AHOOOOO! Gesundheit!
I did play one sixty-five point word, which was about a third of my score.
But I got my ass whupped by over a hundred points. Because it's all about luck.
I'm going to re-design the entire game so it isn't about luck.
Look for it soon in a store near you.
Allow me to demonstrate another example of my luck. My ex-wife had found the magnetic mini
travel games that we took on the airline rides to Samoa. The long leg was seventeen hours, and
the movies sucked. She had me over recently and got out the Monopoly game. Much nostalgia.
So, there we are, playing Monopoly on a board the size of a postcard. On the first trip around,
she lands on the most expensive spot, and buys it. I land on it and pay the six or eight dollars.
Pass Go. Collect $200. Next trip around, she lands on its mate, and has the whole set. And I
land on that first one again. Rent has doubled. Now, at this point, the only other thing we've
done is to begin to collect a few properties, hoping for sets. Pass Go. She builds two houses,
running her cash very low. I land on that same square again. Rent has risen. Pass Go. More
houses. I land there again. I'm strapped for cash. Pass Go. Four houses on the mate, and a
hotel on the one I seem to adore, and, honest to God, I land on it for the fifth time out of five
chances. Mortgage everything, and lose the game. Worst game ever.
My youngest brother decided to get married in Las Vegas, so of course all the family was there.
This was during my time as a graduate student, so I didn't have money to fritter away, and I had
assignments coming due. I was trying to study. I'd go outside and lean against the building on
the sidewalk in the shade somewhere, and try to read, until I couldn't take the heat. Then I'd go
inside and find a quiet corner with a chair and try to read, until I couldn't take the cold. Las
Vegas is air-conditioned to near-Arctic temperatures. By my standards, anyway. They want you
acclimated to the casino environment, so that if you go outside, you won't wander around and
gawk at the beauty of the open sky, or the distant mountains, or even at the gaudiness of the
Strip itself. They want you uncomfortable, so you'll rush right back into their establishments,
where the lure of the gambling will soon set you back on the path of lining their pockets with
your dough. Which is why you're there.
That isn't why I was there. I was just there for the wedding.
The older of my sisters noticed that I wasn't at the tables and machines with everyone else,
collared me, and sat me down with a twenty, next to her at a two dollar blackjack table. Ten
hands later, that money was gone. She said, "I can't believe you lost that money that fast! You
played every hand perfectly!"
So much for my luck.
I learned my lesson at an early age, my second year of college. We had a weekly poker game
going. No big stakes, but you could win, or lose, a month's rent on a bad night. The game at that
moment was some proressive horror, barely worthy of the name of poker, where you turned up
two cards, and bet against the pot whether the next card would fall in between them. If an ace
came up first, you had to declare it high or low, taking your chances against the range between
it and the next card. But if a second ace came up, that's two in a row in the shuffle, the odds are
quite high against it, the second ace was automatically declared low. So it was generally best to
call an ace high. I had done that. The second card was an ace. There are only two more aces in
the deck, and about half the deck has been played already. The odds are spectacularly good.
Any card in the deck should fall between the aces. So you bet the pot, win it, and that stops the
game, you have a pocketful of money, and the next dealer can go back to civilized poker. I bet
the pot. The third ace came up. Against all odds. I'm out a lot of money, mostly as an IOU, so I
don't have the cash to play any more.
And I took that as a sign, and I didn't play any more. I enjoy a good poker game as much as
anyone, seeing the fall of the cards, and the luck randomly swirling around, but I approach the
game as an opportunity to give money away, no matter how well you play, and only bet as much
as I can afford to lose.
Becasue I do.
And I'm resigned to it.
I'm actually quite popular at poker games.
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