AZDuffman's Blog

House party last night. Guy's 40th Birthday. Maybe 50 people. I'm dealing blackjack.

Usual red and blue chips we have had since forever. Usual question "what are they worth." Should be 5/25 but is really 1/5 since so few people, even our dealers, would grasp 5/25. Then people ask "1 what?" Of course it does not matter. Play to the crowd and say one thousand, one trillion, whatever. I have mentioned before I am doing market testing.

"Red is one Etherium and green is one Bitcoin."

If they give a weird look I say a dollar amount. If they want to talk about it I play to that. In my 10th year of doing thus (good grief) I gotta keep it interesting. Last night one was both interested and drunk, a great combination. He is playing bad strategy and loses all his chips. It is a birthday so we are told to just give out more chips. Doesn't mean we cannot have fun with them.

Remember, the guy is yelling "I bet one Bitcoin, I bet 4 Bitcoin!" for an hour now.

"Hey, I need more Bitcoin!"
"You gotta mine for it. Can you solve a math problem?"
"Shoot."
"What is the square root of 144 times 12?"
"Uh, Uh, Uh.........."
(I am near getting buzzed smelling his drink BTW)
"No idea!"
Woman next to him says, "144."
I give him the chips, he goes to get a drink. We discuss it. She says, "I always found square roots comforting."

First time I ever heard that. Kind of hope it is the last for that matter! I ask her about cube roots, why not?

"Cube roots are weird,"

He runs out of chips again. I give another challenge.

"What is the square root of 81 times 9?"
"uh, uh, ......"
Different woman says, "81."

Now he is saying the questions are too hard. So I say I bet he cannot get an easy one. He says try him.

"How many cups are in two cups?"
"WHAT?"
"You lose!" I ask the woman next to him.
"HUH?"
I ask the woman next to them, looks to be the mother of the first woman.
"TWO!"
"WINNER!" I give her some kind of bonus.

They kept us one more hour and offered yet another, but I was wiped out. Decent tip though for the first extra.

Dealing craps again, this time for a fundraiser for some group that puts out service dogs that prisoners train. Before it started we got a chance to meet and pet the dogs a bit, which was nice. They were 8 month old labs and as they were service dogs I asked permission to pet them. They said "sure, go ahead." Discussion with them showed that the dogs were still being socialized and they wanted them used to people. Curious thing was the dogs were fast to paw at you, told that they had to be trained to do things like push elevator buttons.

Later the games started. One of hottest tables I ever remember, and I was so happy they were not making place bets. It was too crowded and too loud to explain them, and they were having enough winning at PASS I just wanted to finish the night, being tired from working the previous night getting home at 1 AM, looking at rental properties that afternoon, and looking at an hour plus drive home.

Then she walked up. Oh my. Attractive gal, and the kind that just ooozed class. The kind of class you like. I don't mean old money, snooty class. I mean the kind that you meet when you show up to do a service call at the big house in the nice part of town, nice cars in the garage, and she is polite and friendly as anything. Of course she was married. They are always married. No harm in noticing.

I actually did not notice much at first. Until she spoke. I immediately took notice as she was explaining FREE ODDS to another player, and doing it RIGHT!

There are varying levels of how people talk about the game. I get many newbies of course. They know nothing. There are people that think they know, then forced me to emasculate them in front of their girlfriend and everyone else at the table. (Another story, I've told it before, but a lesson to beware the quiet guy trying to mind his own business.) There are those that know much but ask me to fill in the tough parts.

Then there was her! I key in when people start to explain to other players. Part to avoid wrong information spreading around my table. Part because I cannot help it, think the frog and the scorpion. She was describing it perfectly. Dealer level explanations. She made one mistake, confusing free odds on the 6/8 with place odds. I just say, "6:5" and she just says, "you're right!" and went on. I am still amazed. You have to remember, I live and love to have a player like this at the table as it takes pressure off me.

Oh, yeah, she could actually throw dice without looking like she was throwing out the first pitch.

Seriously, she had dealer level knowledge of the game in how it works, though I had no idea if she would know procedure. Lucky, this kind almost always hangs for a minute after everyone else leaves to thank me as a dealer, maybe ask where I learned, just a sort of professional courtesy.

Seems she just learned from her husband. Hopefully there are more like her out there.

I haven't ranted on player behavior in some time and need some therapy.

What is it with women and throwing dice? Well over half of them simply cannot grasp tossing dice 6 or so feet down the table.

A guy goes to throw and he can throw. An occasional guy is a jerk trying to knock chips all over the place, this is rare. He may be a dice setter who does a lob, mostly landing between the PASS and the wall. Or he holds them, flicks his wrist and lower arm, and hits the wall. He tries to not hit chips, unless it is jammed he doesn't.

Women, good grief. Dice weigh at best an ounce each, but they handle them like bricks. One last week threw them like a baseball, meaning throwing a baseball like a girl. Some use less overarm but do a sort of punch thing and release them. Even when they get it near right they so often manage to hit several stacks, more than I could if I tried to make a mess.

I know it will be trouble if they have been in the game for 15 minutes then their turn to shoot. I slide the 5 dice and they ask, "do I take all 5?" **FACEPALM**

I realize that phisiologicaly women throw a baseball different unless it is coached out of them. But we are talking dice. Anyone can see everyone else throwing. I once stopped one who was really struggling and said to watch as I gently threw them as a normal guy would. Even then she struggled. I gave up.

Am I the only one notices this?

You never know if someone is picking up on craps for sure. Last night teaching a guy to play. Slow night, small crowd. He does the usual confusion of before and after a point is established but mostly gets it. But I was not sure until his buddy comes up and throws the dice. Guy gets them about halfway down the table.

AZD: "NO ROLL"

Player: "You seem to know the game, did your husband teach you?"

Now that is a guy you want to hit the table with!

I don't know why have IT people if you have to do half the stuff yourself.

Local IT guy does not have the admin access to the client's computers on our desks. OK, fine. But the help center is so next to useless it is hard to believe. Printers, installing them should be simple. Some things that should be simple are not so much.

So I get hired and the printer does not work. I am not at all trained beyond self-trained. But I can do some things. I knew it needed the drivers installed. Call the help line, which is a typical India help line where they are hard to understand and not all that useful. I have read that places like India might produce people who know software and other engineering, but they really fall down because if it is not "in the book" they cannot function. Same as my brother tells me about non-western pilots. In the book, adequate. Have to assess and decide, awful.

So I call and waste some time letting them play around and finally say it is the drivers. Person does not want to try it but somehow they try to find them online. They fail. Eventually I find them myself with them on the phone. All they do, and I do not exaggerate, is OK the download as an admin. I mean I had to find the web page then find the drivers on the web page. I never expect it to be exactly perfect, but I do not expect to have to not only do it myself but at the same time fight the India help desk every step of the way.

Fast forward. New computer and the printer has a hiccup where it cannot find its own drivers. I waste 5+ hours on the phone with India trying to install it and a crash. I tell the "escalated" guy the problem and simply refuse to even let him access as I have wasted so much time I was behind for a week. I keep asking a supervisor to print and scan, not all that often but enough. She tells me to get the thing fixed and I flat refuse, saying to get someone to come by because calling is useless.

Few weeks later to today. IT guy has drives on a disk, and I have developed enough IT street cred he just flips it to me with some instructions. Or he hates me and refuses to help? No kidding, 20 minutes! I call India and say to just approve the install. DONE.

Woman next to me having similar issues. Her PC has no drive. I am trying to do the "become the sheepdog" thing so I step in, ask him about a thumb drive. No dice. Shoot ideas about saving to desktop first. Finally, again street cred or tired of me, he gives me the OK to try it. I go over and she is on phone with India, I just say, "HANG UP, we will fix it ourselves." Download took more time, but got it to the point we just had to call. "Call and give your info, then put me on!" Had to tell the guy three or so times all I wanted was him to check the little box with his password, I did all the lifting. To be fair the box "popped under" but did he suggest to look at that? Whadder you think?!

End of my therapy rant, got it working. She is happy and the "kids" we are surrounded half in awe of the old guy getting the flipping thing working when nobody else could or would.

Hopefully it builds the sheepdog cred just enough but not too much.