The following 2 accounts of the same event exposes the car salesmanship of Frank Scoblete and Golden Touch Craps:
From: F. Scoblete <F._Scoblete@astro.webcrossing.com>
Date: Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 7:49 AM
Subject: My EXPLOSIVE Week in Vegas!
To: Craps@astro.webcrossing.com
A new discussion was started by F. Scoblete in
Craps --
My EXPLOSIVE Week in Vegas!
My trip to Vegas from October 22 to October 29 was a roller coaster of fun, misery and interesting circumstances.
Let’s get the advantage-play over with first. I won…a little. I had been up quite a bit in craps through Sunday, October 25. I shot four times, won on three of those rolls (one a big one) and thought I was in for a great week ahead after the GTC dice control class ended. Dom was hot; so was Stickman and Skinny. It was good. I was good. The Five Horsemen were riding high. It was all good.
Then nasty reality struck.
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of October 26, 27 and 28 saw me plummet into craps hell. I took the dice 18 times; won on four rolls, double-pitched as if the dice were satanically calling to me, “Seven out, Scobe, seven out fast and make a fool of yourself!” Oh, I did; I did.
On Monday evening, Dominator had a 39 roll, and then fell flat on two more hands. That was fine as his 39 had been number after number – a typical great Dominator hand. We made money, nice money on that roll. I took the dice three times as well. The first two times, well, “sucked” is too kind a word to describe my shooting.
Craps was a no-win proposition after that. While some of the Horsemen had good rolls; we just couldn’t get enough of them to get ahead and our short rolls tended to be losers as well (winning short rolls are even more important than those occasional monster rolls).
However, we played our advantage-brand of Pai Gow poker, which allowed us to overcome our overall poor performance at craps.
A small win is better than no win. Plus we got everything for free at the casino so our expenses were nil.
The GTC class weekend was fun as usual. Great new students; great refresher and advanced students. Old friends; new acquaintances; good stuff.
I did have some troubles during the weekend. For the week before and during (and even now as I write this), I have been sick. First it was fever and chills; then aches and fever and chills; then logginess; then diarrhea; then laryngitis. Different symptoms on different days.
Usually I am funny during the “Meet and Greet” but this night was a real struggle trying to emcee the event. It wasn’t that I couldn’t come up with funny lines; it was just I couldn’t say them right. You see, I was about to (ladies, you might not want to read further) have diarrhea – yes, right there on stage. If I used my usual energy, I knew I would explode all over the place since my stomach muscles tighten as I explode with mirth. But I didn’t want to explode with mirth and smelly muck as well! So I had to hold it all back while I tried to finish my introductions and strained funny comments.
I could feel the hideous stuff building up too. It was waiting, bubbling just behind my sphincter longing to come ripping out and embarrassing me forever in the eyes of my students.
When I finished, I leaped off the stage, launched myself into the elevator and made it to my room. I made it…just made it, thank you God…and did what I needed to do in a wild explosion of horror. It was Hiroshima on the toilet.
After the attack, I thought I was okay to go to our GTC instructors’ pizza party, which we always hold after the “Meet and Greet.” I went down to pool side and grabbed some slices. But the inner monster started gurgling again, and again I could feel the buildup of an imminent atomic explosion.
I got up and ran like a lightning bolt to the elevator. But this time I was stalled by the night of the living dead.
Four elderly people were ambling slowly down the hall to the elevator. A fifth one was holding the elevator doors open. The five of them probably had a combined age of a thousand years. All had hearing aids. Two were using walkers. They must have been using the walkers for decades – they were rusty.
I was now in the elevator with the woman who was holding the doors open. I was holding out my pizza plate and holding in my bowels.
“They are very slow,” croaked the woman holding the elevator doors. “You want to eat your pizza, right? Hurry up down there,” she squeaked to her colleagues. “There’s a young man who wants to eat his pizza.”
“Yeah,” I said. I could hardly talk. It was on the edge. Now, the first of the living dead entered the elevator.
“Oh, pizza,” she said. “I love pizza.”
After seven-hundred fifty years the other three made it to the elevator.
“What floor are we on?” asked the only man, a mummy with a hearing aid as big as his head.
“I don’t know,” said one of the women. My God, I thought, there are only three floors in the whole damn hotel! They weren’t on the first obviously, which is where we were in the stinking elevator, so there were only two floors left!
“Why don’t we just press the other two buttons and you can figure it out as we go up,” I strained.
“Good idea, young man, good idea,” said mummy-man. And up we went.
I was on the second floor and I rushed out of the elevator. “My, my,” said one of the women. “You must really want to eat that pizza!”
I made it to the bathroom and in a Nagasaki-like explosion, I finished my horrible “Meet and Greet and Gush” evening.
Tuesday evening, I was in the high-roller-room bathroom, standing over the bowl happily peeing. These bathrooms are single toilet ones. No urinal; just a toilet; all very elegant in amenities but one person at a time.
A woman walked in. There I was with Godzilla in my hands (Godzilla is the name of my you-know-what) spewing his fiery essence into the bowl. (Sometimes I call Godzilla Goliath.)
“What are you doing in here?” she yelled.
Godzilla stopped in mid-flow…and shrunk to the size of a raisin.
“This is the men’s room,” I said, trying to hide my pin-sized mini-monster.
“You should have locked the door!” she screamed at me, and stormed out of the bathroom.
Oh, there’s more…but I have to get back to working on my third book for Triumph Books now.
It was a fun but a sometimes tough week this trip. But I did make it home with a win. And that’s what counts.
Date: Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 7:49 AM
Subject: My EXPLOSIVE Week in Vegas!
To: Craps@astro.webcrossing.com
A new discussion was started by F. Scoblete in
Craps --
My EXPLOSIVE Week in Vegas!
My trip to Vegas from October 22 to October 29 was a roller coaster of fun, misery and interesting circumstances.
Let’s get the advantage-play over with first. I won…a little. I had been up quite a bit in craps through Sunday, October 25. I shot four times, won on three of those rolls (one a big one) and thought I was in for a great week ahead after the GTC dice control class ended. Dom was hot; so was Stickman and Skinny. It was good. I was good. The Five Horsemen were riding high. It was all good.
Then nasty reality struck.
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of October 26, 27 and 28 saw me plummet into craps hell. I took the dice 18 times; won on four rolls, double-pitched as if the dice were satanically calling to me, “Seven out, Scobe, seven out fast and make a fool of yourself!” Oh, I did; I did.
On Monday evening, Dominator had a 39 roll, and then fell flat on two more hands. That was fine as his 39 had been number after number – a typical great Dominator hand. We made money, nice money on that roll. I took the dice three times as well. The first two times, well, “sucked” is too kind a word to describe my shooting.
There was a young man in the proverbial baseball cap standing near the dealer on the end of the left side of the table. He wasn’t betting; he was just watching. I didn’t know him; he wasn’t a student of GTC; just some baseballed capped kid watching the Five Horsemen essentially stink up the craps table. He had not been at the table to see Dom’s 39 roll.
After my second disastrous roll, the capped one said, “Hey, Frank, based on an analysis of your dice, I would recommend using the V2 set.” Obviously while I didn’t know him; he knew me. I couldn’t believe he just shouted this across the table at me. Also, I had shot two Point/Seven Outs. How the hell could anyone analyze anything on such a short sample? And it’s 2V; not V2.
Now the dealers and box person all knew us and they would cheer when we hit numbers because 1.) we tip and 2.) we are nice guys to deal to and with. They were also surprised that this capped kid shouted his recommendations across the table.
I ignored him.
Not Dominator, he moved back from the table, looked at the kid and said, “What the fuck!” I don’t think the capped kid heard him. Then Dom took the dice and quickly sevened out.
Then the dice went around the table – Skinny, Nick-at-Night, Stickman and me sevening out quickly – then Dominator got the dice. Dom sevened out quickly too. And then it happened.
The capped kid said, “Dom, let me give you some advice about your shooting.” Dom looked at him, his face totally surprised. “I can help you shoot better. I see the flaws in your shot.”
Now, Dom will take advice from shooters he respects; we all will. But who was this capped one to give the Dominator advice? The box person rolled his eyes and looked at me and shook his head as if to say, “This kid is an idiot!”
Dom – his face red and the veins on his head pulsating – shot a devastating hate-look at the capped one and screamed: “Shut the fuck up! If I want your advice I’ll ask for it! Who the fuck are you?”
Dom took his cane and I thought for sure the capped one was about to be anally violated. Thankfully, Stickman stepped between Dom and the capped one who, white as a ghost, ran away from the table as fast as his legs could carry him.
We colored up and went to get some gelato.
Craps was a no-win proposition after that. While some of the Horsemen had good rolls; we just couldn’t get enough of them to get ahead and our short rolls tended to be losers as well (winning short rolls are even more important than those occasional monster rolls).
However, we played our advantage-brand of Pai Gow poker, which allowed us to overcome our overall poor performance at craps.
A small win is better than no win. Plus we got everything for free at the casino so our expenses were nil.
The GTC class weekend was fun as usual. Great new students; great refresher and advanced students. Old friends; new acquaintances; good stuff.
I did have some troubles during the weekend. For the week before and during (and even now as I write this), I have been sick. First it was fever and chills; then aches and fever and chills; then logginess; then diarrhea; then laryngitis. Different symptoms on different days.
Usually I am funny during the “Meet and Greet” but this night was a real struggle trying to emcee the event. It wasn’t that I couldn’t come up with funny lines; it was just I couldn’t say them right. You see, I was about to (ladies, you might not want to read further) have diarrhea – yes, right there on stage. If I used my usual energy, I knew I would explode all over the place since my stomach muscles tighten as I explode with mirth. But I didn’t want to explode with mirth and smelly muck as well! So I had to hold it all back while I tried to finish my introductions and strained funny comments.
I could feel the hideous stuff building up too. It was waiting, bubbling just behind my sphincter longing to come ripping out and embarrassing me forever in the eyes of my students.
When I finished, I leaped off the stage, launched myself into the elevator and made it to my room. I made it…just made it, thank you God…and did what I needed to do in a wild explosion of horror. It was Hiroshima on the toilet.
After the attack, I thought I was okay to go to our GTC instructors’ pizza party, which we always hold after the “Meet and Greet.” I went down to pool side and grabbed some slices. But the inner monster started gurgling again, and again I could feel the buildup of an imminent atomic explosion.
I got up and ran like a lightning bolt to the elevator. But this time I was stalled by the night of the living dead.
Four elderly people were ambling slowly down the hall to the elevator. A fifth one was holding the elevator doors open. The five of them probably had a combined age of a thousand years. All had hearing aids. Two were using walkers. They must have been using the walkers for decades – they were rusty.
I was now in the elevator with the woman who was holding the doors open. I was holding out my pizza plate and holding in my bowels.
“They are very slow,” croaked the woman holding the elevator doors. “You want to eat your pizza, right? Hurry up down there,” she squeaked to her colleagues. “There’s a young man who wants to eat his pizza.”
“Yeah,” I said. I could hardly talk. It was on the edge. Now, the first of the living dead entered the elevator.
“Oh, pizza,” she said. “I love pizza.”
After seven-hundred fifty years the other three made it to the elevator.
“What floor are we on?” asked the only man, a mummy with a hearing aid as big as his head.
“I don’t know,” said one of the women. My God, I thought, there are only three floors in the whole damn hotel! They weren’t on the first obviously, which is where we were in the stinking elevator, so there were only two floors left!
“Why don’t we just press the other two buttons and you can figure it out as we go up,” I strained.
“Good idea, young man, good idea,” said mummy-man. And up we went.
I was on the second floor and I rushed out of the elevator. “My, my,” said one of the women. “You must really want to eat that pizza!”
I made it to the bathroom and in a Nagasaki-like explosion, I finished my horrible “Meet and Greet and Gush” evening.
Tuesday evening, I was in the high-roller-room bathroom, standing over the bowl happily peeing. These bathrooms are single toilet ones. No urinal; just a toilet; all very elegant in amenities but one person at a time.
A woman walked in. There I was with Godzilla in my hands (Godzilla is the name of my you-know-what) spewing his fiery essence into the bowl. (Sometimes I call Godzilla Goliath.)
“What are you doing in here?” she yelled.
Godzilla stopped in mid-flow…and shrunk to the size of a raisin.
“This is the men’s room,” I said, trying to hide my pin-sized mini-monster.
“You should have locked the door!” she screamed at me, and stormed out of the bathroom.
Oh, there’s more…but I have to get back to working on my third book for Triumph Books now.
It was a fun but a sometimes tough week this trip. But I did make it home with a win. And that’s what counts.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now is my accounting of the SAME evening that
can be verified by 2 other witnesses:
I get a call from a local GTCer mentioning
that the GTC gang leaders Frank Scoblete and the Dominator (Dominic Loriggio -
‘The Dominator’ ) would be shooting over at Bellagio ..... watching them shoot was fun and frightful at the same time as they each lost $$ as they ended with more PSOs than rolls over 10 ... so bad that even the "Captain's 5
Count" wasn't paying off as Frank S. had to throw in $300. to pay off his
marker .......
I had been mentally (no pad and pen) charting the Bellagio tables with a couple of other players when we noticed that the GTC gang of 5 had taken an empty table on the back row so we moved over to their table and bought in before they even started to toss ..... each GTCer was either using the hardways or V3 and each was coming up with the same result => short rolls with a 5-2 or 6-1 Seven-out
the 3 GTC instructors were at SL1
......... Frank S. tossed 1st using the V3, but quickly Sevened-Out with a 5-2 ......... these dice were so biased to the 5 & 6 that it was almost impossible to keep both 3s on axis (on the night I only saw Frank S. make 1 point as each of his rolls were very short)
next at SL2 was the tall lanky GTC instuctor Jim Stickman ("Stickman" according to the GTC website: "Tall and lean, relaxed and contained, the Stickman has a gentle touch and strong concentration. He is a master of visualization and in the use of the "hardway" dice set.") .... he set the Hardways and had another short roll of about 4 ...... no world famous GTC instructor was being able to bet on the other GTC instructors since they were all doing a 5 count on
each other ... their lousy shooting with the terribly Biased dice was validating the Captain's "5 count" strategy
The dice then came to Dominator at SL3ish (according to the GTC website:
"The nickname for one of the greatest and most fiery dice-controllers of all time; Dominator plays several days a week in the casinos around the country. Graduated with degrees in both biology and math, Dominator knows his way around the numbers and around a craps table."as GTC instructors Frank S. and Jim "Stickman" scooted back out of his way to allow him closer to the Stick, Dom set the V2 & took advantage of these "Outside" Biased dice to near perfection as he starting banging out 4s and 10s mixed in with a few 6-2 Eights ...... the
Dominator hobbled his way on his broken foot to 3 Points and a 20+ roll
I continued mentally charting the dice and watching Frank S and the rest of the GTC gang leaders have short rolls until I tongue-in-cheek, but seriously mentioned to Frank Scoblete before his next roll:
I continued mentally charting the dice and watching Frank S and the rest of the GTC gang leaders have short rolls until I tongue-in-cheek, but seriously mentioned to Frank Scoblete before his next roll:
"Frank - based on the way your dice are reacting on this table this evening, you may want to consider using a V2"
Frank did not respond, but the Dominator let out a loud burst in disgust: "OH JESUS CHRIST !!"...... I had to chuckle a little as I knew I had just given a little Biased dice and shooting advice to the world's # 1 best selling craps author and even though they did not say it out loud, I could hear Frank S. and the Dom loudly thinking "Who the Hell is this guy giving us advise -- does he know who we are!!"
I just smiled as the dice came to Frank S ... he set the All-7s set with the 3/4 up instead of a 6/1 up and 5/2 facing on a 4/3 axis to take advantage of the biased dice ....... his 1st toss was a 6, then he bets $60 each on the 6 & 8 and sets the V3 as he glances over towards me
....... Frank S. then proceeds to toss a perfect 5-2 PSO
GTC instructor Jim Stickman passes the dice after several short rolls as he has had
enough trying to toss ........ so Dom hobbles up to the table from his chair ....... at this point, the Dominator is determined to show me that the V2 is not the right set to use as I had suggested to Frank S. so he sets the V3 even though he had been doing well (well, better than
anyone else on the table) with the V2 ..... he was determined to show me I was wrong.
Frank S. cheers out loud:
"Come on Dom !!"
Quick result was a PSO - 6-1 Seven-Out using the V3 ...... at this
point I just shook my head and said:
point I just shook my head and said:
"I am just saying guys .... "
Dom quickly snaps back at me "I don't need any FVCKING advise from you
!!" as he grabbed his walking cane .........
Frank S. and the rest of the GTC instructors then colored up as each reached into their
pockets to grab numerous Ben Franklins to pay off their markers.
..... even the "best" are still in denial ........
!!" as he grabbed his walking cane .........
Frank S. and the rest of the GTC instructors then colored up as each reached into their
pockets to grab numerous Ben Franklins to pay off their markers.
..... even the "best" are still in denial ........
