This Bet Is Yuuuge (Part 2)

As I struggle to find a reason to ever get out of bed again, I ruminate upon the largest bet I’ve ever lost. Yeah, Trump’s upset cost me $750; I’ve lost bigger poker pots, but never a single bet. The real loss makes the even mention of money profane.

I’ve never been more wrong in my life; and, the world literally burned around me. Controlled wildfires in the woods around Chattanooga filled the air with smoke, irritating the lungs, with local officials recommending people stay indoors. Then, Gatlinburg, Tennessee’s vacation Mecca, burned to ashes.

The 2016 presidential election represents a previously unfathomable betrayal. But worse, this loss is a death, more accurately a national suicide, with Trump as the bullet exploding the country’s brain. America is dead, it’s proud democracy a failure.

Voters and political pundits discounted Trump’s rhetorical skill, refusing to acknowledge the 4^th grade vocabulary and gorilla speak of a schoolyard bully. But now, even the educators, professional thinkers and talkers, must relearn a painful lesson: fear and rage are often more powerful than logic and empathy.

People mocked Trump’s business acumen, listing a litany of failed enterprises, scams, defaults, and bankruptcies: nearly a billion dollar loss in a single year. They laughed at his vague assertion that he “makes the best deals,” while he weaved his most sinister one before their eyes: a 60 million vote con-job.

But, how would a gambler handle the national tragedy? Double down…

Now, the glimmer of impeachment has begun, I may get some money back. I put money on Trump not making it through his four years. I get double if he doesn’t live through it. It’s the first time, to my recollection, I have bet on someone’s death; and I’m certainly NOT cheering for anyone to die, buuuuuttt I do stand to make a couple extra bucks. Fast food is not a good diet, golf carts are not exercise, and Trump is past average life expectancy. Tick, tock mother fucker.

This Bet Is Yuuuge

In a lifetime of gambling, I’ve bet on some pretty unusual and fairly important outcomes before: careers, relationships, pregnancy…long term wagers that affect lives. But I don’t suppose any speculation I’ve done to date can measure with this race for President of The United States, in the year of our Lord 2016.

Early in the festivities, way before the Trump clown army ramped into full gear, I was desperate to go big (BIG) against the Cheeto-colored buffoon, and his hands so tiny, they’d struggle to lift one decent moral fiber.

I could never find any players who wanted to swim in the deep end, but I did give up some big odds on a couple smaller bets that should just about cover my titanic bar tab that will float me through the dark night.

Trump never had a chance. Logic tells us a country that twice elected Obama will not suddenly turn racist and trust the most important political office in the world to a bigoted con-artist. Plain and simple, if you voted Trump, you are on the wrong side of history, aligned with the weakest, slug-like creatures that slime their way blindly through the excrement of our national soul.

And no, I’m not particularly overjoyed with Secretary Clinton either, but I live in a solid red state, so my vote doesn’t really matter much, thanks to the Electoral College process. Bare bones minimum, she’s qualified for the job of running my country, but I didn’t vote for her either.

But, I’m gonna be louder than hell when she wins; and I'm gonna hoist round after round to the cheers of “You’re Fired!” ©

Wanna Bet?: Gambling and the Masculine Ego

In an unexpected moment, this Montreal theoretician,

adorned with a stiff poker face, offered me a $50,000 wager

on the Caps missing the playoffs in three years.

This week the NHL playoffs begin and beards across the country begin to grow. For the fourth time in five seasons, my beloved Capitals are once again slated to face the New York Rangers. It should be a knockdown, drag out melee that will likely last seven brutal games. After a disastrous start to the season, that saw them last place in the league, the Caps stormed back, clinching another division title with games to spare. They continued their run of consecutive seasons in the post season; they have six in a row, the fourth longest active streak.

As I recollect each of the past seasons, one experience from three years ago stands out. The Caps had captured their first Presidents’ Trophy, for the best record in the league, and were favorites for a Stanley Cup appearance. Their first round match up was against the eighth seeded Montreal Canadiens.

I was at a bar, watching game three of the Capitals/Canadiens series. It was a big place, filled with televisions, but the back bar area was fairly empty. I was rocking some red, of course.

The first period was scoreless, but the Caps blistered the Habs for four goals in the second, tying a franchise record. The game put them up 2-1 in the series. My mood was elevated and relaxed as the Caps cruised, and I noticed a guy in a Montreal jersey. He and his friend were the only other people watching the game, so we started to talk hockey.

The Habs fan was in a surly mood because of the game. The conversation proceeded in a relatively friendly manner. He was an amateur player/official himself and pontificated at length on the nature of hockey for the benefit of his friend, who was but a dilettante. In an unexpected moment, this Montreal theoretician, adorned with a stiff poker face, offered a $50,000 wager on the Caps missing the playoffs in three years.

I immediately figured the Caps were a favorite to achieve this. Ovechkin, Backstrom, Laich, and Green were locked in as the long term core of the team. I also knew that the Capitals had a very strong farm system. The Hersey Bears of the AHL repeated as Calder Cup champions that 2009-2010 season. Six players from this season’s Caps team are listed on that championship banner.

The problem was two fold: $50,000 is a huge bet and I just met this guy. In fact, despite this stranger’s sane appearance, it was a completely insane offer. What type of person throws a number like that at someone they have known for an hour? In my mind, only someone who isn’t too serious.

Suppose I had said, “Sure, here is my lawyer’s number. Let’s set up an escrow account.” He would’ve smiled, taken my number, shook my hand, and I would’ve never heard from him again.

A bet like this strange, nose-bleed proposition is an interesting example of male posturing. It offers lessons on the connection of sports and the human psyche. A fan ties a portion of his/her self worth to a specific team. That team’s accomplishments fuel the ego, while each failure stings the soul. I felt this bitter sting one week later, after the Caps blew a 3-1 series lead and saw to Stanley Cup slip away, yet again.

Because the Canadiens had laid a dud of a game, this gentleman felt personally injured. To avenge this wound, one suffered in public, he found another venture in which to compete: gambling.

It has been a roller-coaster season for the 2013 Capitals: lockout, new coach, dismal start, and red hot finish. I have felt every climb and plunge with a theoretical $50,000 bump. And now, with a slow click, click, click, the cars ascend the tower of steel again, granting a wide, beautiful view of the world to all aboard. After this brief respite before Game One, the precious moment comes as we are thrust one more time, one hundred miles an hour, headlong over the horizon, into the future unknown.

The Ass Dart

There are many reasons I love my brother Joe, but the biggest are probably that hanging out with him is always a good time and that he has a bigger heart than anyone I’ve ever met.

Over the years, Joe has developed a proclivity towards perverse prop bets. His outgoing personality relishes the performance, enjoys the pressure, and savors the accomplishment.

For example, I designed a noxious concoction specifically for him, called the “Chocolate Olive Drop.” We had a standing wager on whether he could get it down without gagging. The specific ingredients varied slightly, depending on availability, but the drink usually consisted of a large tumbler full of whiskey, chocolate milk, lemon juice, clam juice, and, of course, a couple of olives. The combination of liquor and milk is off-putting enough, but just as the alcohol starts to kick and mix with the acidic lemon and briny clam, down come those olives, like bowling balls, rolling right over a man’s puke button. The “Chocolate Olive Drop” is a drink designed to make a man lose his lunch, but my brother is a tough customer and he is a lifetime winner on his encounters with them.

The wackiest prop bet I ever witnessed Joe undertake started innocently enough. We were killing time at my parents’ house with a friend of his that was having some girlfriend troubles. My brother was really looking for a way to cheer up his buddy and distract him from his troubles. As luck would have it, we just so happened to be messing around with a blowdart gun. So, when I casually inquired how much someone would have to pay Joe to shoot him in the ass with the gun, a price of $40 was quickly settled upon.

Before I knew it, I had shot him in the ass. Somehow, we talked him into getting shot four times. We made him go bare ass to earn the money, and had got the video set up just right (above). If you look close, the red marks from the previous shots are visible. Nice grouping!

The Old Gunslinger

Eye to eye, his halitosis encircled me
like the hot steam from an irritated dragon.

When I first entered graduate school, I was assigned an assistantship with one of the most respected professors at the University of South Carolina. With enough publications to his credit to fill a bookshelf, he had earned the reputation of one of the leading authorities in his field. Through decades of toil, he had built his own publishing house from his blood and sweat: the caffeine highs of long editing sessions. He was driven by the pride of achievement; he savored the challenge of late nights becoming early mornings. When we meet, he sat at the absolute pinnacle of the profession and I was far off, miles below, climbing the foothills at the base of the mountain.

My newly appointed academic mentor was also an extremely tough man to work for. For a fresh-faced graduate student, it was like teaching a toddler to swim by throwing him into a vat of boiling oil. Because I misunderstood the starting date of my job, I arrived a day late and our first conversation ended in him screaming, over the phone, “get the hell out of my life!” Frequently reduced to tears, librarians were so terrified of him, they let me take books without a card; I just had to mention his name. The new student that filled my position after I started teaching quit after one day. Even his sneeze was intimidating; it rang out through the office hallways like a man being stabbed to death in cold blood.

More than earning my degree, my proudest moment in those early years of graduate school was the day I took money off that old bear in a wager.

The life of a research assistant is menial and tedious. That particular day, he had tasked me with searching the works of a dozen authors for books dedicated to a certain publisher. I discovered one book with a combination of the publisher’s name and his secretary’s. When we reviewed my handwritten notes, he snapped to attention at the strange entry I had found. Eye to eye, his halitosis encircled me like the hot steam from an irritated dragon. “I don’t believe you,” he cracked. As if sharing some sort of primal instinct, each of us immediately dropped our hands down and to our sides, the way gunfighters reach for their pistols. Up we came simultaneously with our wallets. And the bet was on.

Unfortunately for me, graduate assistants are some of the poorest, employed people on the planet; all I had was $5. His wallet was stuffed with a knot of bills so large it could barely close. Had it been a few years later, when I actually had a poker bankroll, I would have fleeced the old man for every penny he had.

Even in defeat, there was a twinkle of pride in his eye. He had turned a feckless neophyte into a hardened perfectionist like himself. The memory has been more valuable to me than a thousand dollar session of cards.

Body Shots

A number of years back, when I was first learning the game of Hold’em, some friends and I were sitting around with nothing to do. We had finished all the beer on the premises and the only other libation was a bottle of tequila (Cuervo, I believe). Because none of us particularly cared for the beverage (myself especially), we decided to play poker, with the loser of every hand taking a shot of the noxious liquid. After about half an hour, the bottle was empty, to a room full of regret.

Now sufficiently lubricated, a couple of the guys (for this was a particularly masculine endeavor), decided that we could continue to gamble by exchanging punches to the gut, instead of shots of rotgut. The rules were simple. We dealt the cards face up to two players, a practice in poker commonly called a “coin flip.” The loser received a punch from the winner in the stomach. This game, “Body Shots,” as it might be called, was infinitely more entertaining than traditional poker and elicited riotous cheers from the onlookers. We played until the wee hours of the morning.

The utterly barbaric and juvenile game of Body Shots illustrates several unavoidable truths about the nature of gambling:

1) Gambling is intimately connected with personal risk.
2) The risk of gambling inevitably takes the form of physical pain.
3) Gambling has a curiously self-destructive element.

And, finally…

4) Gambling is more fun, yet vastly more self-destructive, with the addition of alcohol.

The Five Foot Chili Dog

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk.
That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”

-Ernest Hemingway

While Spain and the Netherlands battled in the World Cup final, there was a different kind of foe stretched out before me: five feet of chili dog.

The room was crowded with people, so I could barely see the game, but the chili laden beast, staring up at me with cheese-filled eyes, was impossible to miss. Beside the monster was a bevy of condiments, toppings, and a stopwatch. Sitting in a small pile and pinned under my phone there was also $215 in cash.

Sometimes, in moments like these, it’s wise to retrace your steps and to consider if bizarre circumstances like these could’ve possibly been avoided.

I have made many bets in my life, both commonplace and unusual, but this was the first time I literally put my money where my mouth is.

When a popular fast-food chain began to offer a foot long chili on its menu, I was immediately intrigued. After eating one, I began to speculate aloud how many more my hungry belly could consume. Sitting at dinner a few days later, I resumed my musings, declaring I could eat five. The gauntlet thrown, a handshake later, and the bet was on. I did some research on the internet and began training, drinking gallons of water a day and eating everything in sight to stretch my stomach. When I breezed through a three dog trial run in nine minutes, I had little doubt about my chance at success. The night before the challenge, I ate half a head of lettuce and a full bag of grapes.

I was so well-prepared, eating the chili dogs was actually somewhat anti-climactic. I cut each one in half and covered it with religiously chopped up onions and sacred jalapeno slices. My only scare came on the final half dog which had become soggy and fallen apart. The wet, chili-soaked bun triggered my gag reflex for a moment and almost got me disqualified for breaking the no puking rule. But I braced myself, piled on more jalapenos, and powered through to the last bite. It took just under 16 minutes and I felt as though I could probably do another two feet if the price was right. I sat back, collected the cash, and nursed a stomach pregnant with a chili dog baby.

It will be a long time before I undertake another eating bet and even longer before I eat another chili dog.

What’s that you say? 25 tacos? Hmmm…how much?

Punching Yourself in the Face

You know I’m gonna lose and gambling is for fools,
But that’s the way I like it, baby I don’t want to live forever.
-Motörhead “Ace of Spades”

As a gigantic hockey fan, I spent a lot of my childhood getting my fix from video games.

It started with the original Nintendo’s Ice Hockey and games against my younger brother. In the mid 1990s, when Sega’s version evolved to allow the creation of players, I built every Washington Capitals roster and won the Stanley Cup Playoffs with each one. By the time college rolled around, I had a Nintendo 64 and played full seasons with my favorite NHL teams.

Through these years of practice, I naturally got better than most people; with my proclivity towards gambling, small wagers were the next logical step. I often wish I had kept records of these early bets, but am happier that my opponents did not. At the end of each session, while counting a larger number of bills in my pocket, I always wondered why they played a game that was guaranteed to lose them money.

One friend of mine started to use the video game to really explore his inner demons. His competitive nature and desire for the glorious rush of gambling eventually pushed the stakes as high as $300 per game. Yes, he improved and won many times, but as we played, my skills also increased and I naturally maintained a consistent edge. It was MY GAME after all. I was "the house," the eighty-foot-tall leviathan of statistics. Slowly, or all in one gulp, I...will...eat...you.

A couple of times, after he lost, he punched the wall hard enough for pain, and then he made a show of thinking his hand was broken. While these bizarre performances were strangely entertaining, they did not prepare me for the day he punched himself full on in the face.

It happened very suddenly, but I will never forget the savage, flesh-smacking sound of his self-flagellation. His eyes were wild and desperate as he tried to convince me to keep playing. Reluctantly, I agreed, but after another loss and another face punch, I put the controller down.

Some players use gambling to satisfy their unconscious need to punch themselves in the face. For some reason, they willingly play games they can’t win, and they repeatedly make bets that will surely lose money. All the logic, math, and rational thought in the world cannot dissuade them from pursuing this strange urge for financial self-destruction.

My friend’s face punching illustrates how this unconscious urge to lose is intimately connected with a desire for self-destruction (see Freud’s “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”).

If you like to gamble, please give yourself a long look in the mirror, and explore your true motivations. You might save yourself a good deal of money by simply punching yourself in the face.