| Gambling can provide thrills and excitement, even if you're losing (although it certainly gets more fun if you're winning). Lose more than your pre-arranged limit, though, and the evening becomes a bad entertainment bargain, the equivalent of paying $1,000 for a ticket to a baseball game. If Lady Luck chooses not to favor you on a particular day or night, exercise your adult free will and LEAVE. The casino will always be there, if you want to return. You will always have a chance to try to win your money back later, and those chances will be better if you try when you're not upset or angry. Gambling is a little like playing with fire; sometimes useful, frequently dangerous, and potentially harmful. If you can avoid gambling when you're in a vulnerable emotional state, your first time playing with casino fire might result in a tiny scorch, but you'll dodge those third-degree burns that the self-styled experts so frequently suffer. One final tip: if you DO win on your first trip, DON'T assume that winning is your birthright. Just because you got lucky once doesn't mean it will happen every time. Savor your victory the same way you would savor a good ski trip, a good baseball game, or a good opera, but it won't necessarily be that good next time around. Each gaming experience is different. But if you do decide you want to return, spend a little time on some gaming education. Whether you accept Branch Rickey's axiom that "luck is the residue of design" or the oft-quoted "the harder I work, the luckier I get," you'll almost certainly find that such efforts will earn big casino dividends. Most sports books have wised up and no longer allow bettors to parlay these exotic bets, but stay alert: you never know when sports book will go brain dead and offer a one-time promotion without recognizing the edge it's giving away. Sometimes the parlays on proposition bets can be a little subtle (and that subtlety is what's likely to create your best opportunity). For example, if a sports book allowed you to parlay "Team A's quarterback will throw for more passing yardage" with "Team B will rush for more yardage," those aren't completely independent events! Although not the stone cold lock that my over-under example provided, teams that are behind tend to throw more, and teams that are ahead tend to rush more. So if Team A has more passing yardage, it's slightly more likely that Team B will have more rushing yardage…and this becomes a very tempting parlay. Some other similar "non-independent parlay" opportunities: Team A will rush for more touchdowns and Team A will win the game. Team A's quarterback will throw for more passing yardage and Team A's quarterback will throw for more touchdowns. Team B will score first and Team B will win the game. I'm not about to dissect football in its entirety here, because the kinds of exotic bets change from year to year, and (sadly) most sports books have caught on. But you can now see the kind of opportunity to watch for. Anytime two or more events have a chance to be dependent upon one another, and you have a chance to parlay them as if they are independent…you've become the House, instead of the Sucker. Jump on 'em, while you have the all-too-brief chance. Once the entry fee starts climbing towards $100, $200, or more, though (and especially if the event is part of a major tournament), a novice needs to take a more realistic view, and accept that an in-the-money finish will be unlikely. The larger prizes in such tournaments attract plenty of experienced players, and a background in 5-card stud just isn't going to cut it. Does this mean that recreational gamblers should stay out of large entry-fee tournaments? No; only that they should stay out of large entry-fee POKER tournaments. In craps, slots, and even blackjack (where the tournaments are too short for card-counters to have much of an edge), a solid recreational player can have an excellent chance to win. In poker, though, the skill level in larger tournaments is just too great. Yes, new names and faces often turn up at the final table of major events, but these new names and faces, like Kevin McBride, are not fresh off the boat. They usually have plenty of experience playing in reasonably tough lower-limit games or lower entry-fee tournaments, and that experience, combined with luck, mental toughness, and heart, can take a relatively new player a long way. |
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