People have a tendency to catalog other people, places, and things as greats or not-so greats. This must be a part of our emotional constitution to define everything and everyone.
Fighting? Muhammad Ali versus Joe Louis? Who would win? Ali versus Marciano? Ali versus any name you want to put here. Ali versus Tyson; the young Tyson? Sometimes these debates can turn, well, brutal. I rarely take part in them. But I am certainly aware of them.
What’s the greatest building in the world? The tallest? The widest? The prettiest? Is a pyramid better than the original Taj Mahal? What mud hut has the best design in the Amazon jungle?
The world of gambling has its greats too. I’ve met some of them. In fact, I have been helped by some of them. In fact, one of them is my mentor – or was my mentor.
Ken Uston versus anyone? Paul Kean? The one and only "Arm"? The very Captain himself?
Poker? Who was the greatest poker player? Who won the most money at roulette? I wish I had the answers to all these questions. I don’t. But I do have some answers to some questions.
Here we go.
The Greatest Dice Controllers of All Time?
Yes, some players through training or innate talent can control the landing of the dice at craps. They can have consistent winning rolls.
'The Arm'
I would put "the Arm" right at the top. I have never before or since seen anyone with dice control the way she had it. Interestingly enough she was not a gambler! She was a part of the Captain’s crew composed of about 22 or so players who frequented Atlantic City in the 1970s, '80s, and early '90s.
The Captain would ask her to roll the dice. He’d put up a pass line bet for her and that was that.
The Arm then rolled. She was not perfect; no shooter is but her sense of the game was beyond amazing. There were nights when the Captain’s crew were taking a licking and the Arm would pull them out of it. Often.
When she entered a casino (I swear) the other players would open up an area in front of her and let her through – like Moses parting the Red Sea. They were anticipating a miracle and often they got it.
Her craps throw was unique. I could never duplicate it. Trust me I tried. No one I ever met could duplicate it either. It was geared to her body I guess. It certainly wasn’t geared to mine. Or anyone else that I ever met.
I don’t even know how she set the dice. At the time I met her, I was in awe and I didn’t ask her any questions. I was always in awe. Yes, that was stupid of me but what can you do? It would have been presumptuous of me to ask. You don’t question a goddess.
How old was she at the time I met her? Probably 70-something or so.
I am guessing that the glorious Captain and his crew are playing craps in the afterlife. And right there with them is the Arm; a one-of-a-kind shooter.
The Captain
At one time he held the world record for the longest roll – nearly 150 numbers in a row.
The Captain had the most profound effect on me. He taught me everything I know about casino gambling. Although he was a craps player, he had a strong penchant for understanding the human psyche of the typical gambler. And he taught me about it. He taught me how to avoid the pitfalls of gambling.
He taught me how to manage my money and how to make sure I had enough funds to make it through the rough patches in my play.
The Captain understood that most players often had no idea of what those house edges they faced meant and what those edges meant for their money. His belief was simple; players thought they could win but they were counting on luck and luck was fickle. I saw this all the time. Someone got hot but that never lasted a long time. Then they got cold and cold could last almost forever.
Indeed, when I taught courses in dice control I was disappointed, then aghast, at players who continued to bet stupidly after the class. They were told that these bets would do them in … yet they continued to make them. And then (believe it or not) some of the teachers encouraged them to make these bets as well. I left teaching the subject when I realized that nothing I taught was getting through.
I was wasting my time. These players were gamblers. Could some students actually learn dice control? Indeed, they could, if they gave up the gambler’s idea that bets with ludicrous house edges could be beaten.
Interestingly, the Captain never pushed his ideas on anyone. Some of his crew were wild gamblers – that was their choice the Captain would say. Even some of his crew played the slot machines!
But the Captain stuck with his method of play and his method of shooting. He influenced Jimmy P., who became a good shooter when he reined in his inner gambler. And there was the Arm too. And me. And a few others.
I would say without question that the Captain was the greatest player I ever met. He’s long gone now, as are all the members of his crew. If there is an afterlife, these folks are waiting for the Arm to appear to get them out of their holes.
Those were the days.
Jerry “Stickman”
At the table, Jerry would remove his hearing aides (both of them) and the noise of the casino would disappear into a stillness and a kind of calm quiet. Then he would shoot those cubes.
He was (and still is) a great shooter. He only made the best bets and he never showed off or bragged. He was the consummate professional. You don’t meet many people like him.
He is also six-foot-four. And skinny. With long arms; a body especially made for dice control. When he bent over the table his arm could go past the real stickman.
I met him when I was teaching the dice control classes and when I quit he soon left too. I became great friends with him and for years we would both meet up in Atlantic City and shoot craps. Now our interests have become far broader.
I’ve lost most of my interest in beating the games, although I still enjoy the casinos and Stickman, my wife the Beautiful AP, and I continue to travel together. (And here this is our loving nod to Stickman’s deceased wife.)
My Blackjack Life
The best blackjack game I ever played was at the Maxim Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas in the early 1990s. Every card except one was dealt from a single deck. When the cards ran out, the dealer grabbed the cards that already had been played, shuffled, and then dealt them.
The game had the best rules. You could surrender your hand; you could double any first two cards; you could split pairs and double after splits.
Even a basic strategy player had an edge on this game and my wife and I had a huge edge. We were $5 players back then. We were just learning how to count cards. We literally stumbled on this game as we were staying in this hotel.
We were going to stay in Vegas for a week but with this game? We stayed eight weeks; playing two hands each and playing for about eight hours a day. Oh, and if you got a blackjack while betting $5 you received a token that could be used anywhere in the casino – including at the gourmet restaurant.
At night, I practiced my dice control technique. And this game brought Paul Kean to our attention.
Paul Kean
I went to the Gambler’s Book Club and asked the manager Howard Schwartz if he knew someone who could teach me some tricks at this amazing game. He introduced me to someone who worked in the store, Paul Kean.
“He’s the best blackjack player in the world,” said Howard.
So why was he working in a book store? Best in the world?
Here is his story, edited, and made as short as possible which was always Paul’s wish. He learned card counting in the 1970s. He even taught Ken Uston, the flamboyant "King of Blackjack" way back when.
He was working the bookstore now because all the casinos in Vegas had banned him or gave him the option of betting no more than $15 on any hand. (He had some friends in the casinos.)
I told Paul about the game and invited him to dinner with my wife the Beautiful AP. He knew the game and a free meal? Why not.
“I can show you a method almost no one knows about,” he said. “It’s called end play.”
There was a time in Las Vegas when some casinos offered this type of blackjack game. End play was the method wise players used when the cards were about to be reshuffled. What would the count be at that time? Would you have an edge? How did you maintain an edge if the cards were taken from the discard rack, shuffled and replayed? How should you bet?
We went to our room and Paul gave us a detailed lesson on end play. Paul accepted the invitation(s) to dinner and we worked together on this “end play” and on other aspects of blackjack. End play was actually pretty easy.
The other things? As they say in Brooklyn (where I grew up) “forgetaboutit.” I couldn’t get a handle on any of these things. Follow clumps of cards in the shoe game? Couldn’t do it. Cut the cards so that the aces would come out right away. What? I was no Ken Uston but I didn’t have to be. Not really.
I was going through a divorce from my first wife and I was broke and $40,000 in debt.
How would I recover? The Beautiful AP told me this as we sat on the beach at Cape May in New Jersey: “You are going to become a famous writer. Money? You’ll have no money worries at all.”
She was right. The Beautiful AP and I were $5 players when we started our blackjack life. We’d range our bets from $5 to maybe $25 in high counts. By the time we left the Maxim? We were betting a hundred dollars and we’d move up to a thousand in high counts. And the casino was pleasant about this too. Remember, we played four hands! And had free gourmet dinners every night thanks to plenty of blackjacks!
When we were getting ready to leave to go back to teaching, one of the bosses said to me, “Frank, how can you afford to leave this game?” I thought he was going to have me arrested. “I, uh, haven’t lost too much …”
“Frank, Frank, how can you afford to leave this game. We’ll be closing it down soon.” Then I understood. He knew what we had done in our weeks at the Maxim.
“I miss my kids,” I told him truthfully. “And I’ve got to get back to teaching.”
“Say hello to Paul, if you see him,” he said.
“Sure,” I said. I never met Paul Kean again.
Sadly, I don’t know what happened to Paul Kean but I do know about End Play in blackjack. The Maxim was the only time I got to use it in a casino. But that game and then meeting the Captain started me on my path to where I am now.
I write.
I enjoy my life.
And my wife, the Beautiful AP was right about my future writing career. It is great to have a smart wife who loves you unconditionally.
… and my kids? They are pushing 50 now. Hard to believe. They will never know some of the greats that I have known and from whom I’ve learned.
All the best in and out of the casinos!
