Hey gang. So this week was all about a return to discipline and establishing a more steady, slower growth curve (the key word there being "growth"). After taking a beating on foolish gambling last week, I decided to play small ball and not drink while playing, lol. I stuck a couple of my favorite online casinos--the ones that are paying out for now anyway--and I played mostly black jack and three card poker, with some Caribbean Stud mixed in. The casinos were Casino Tropez, Titan Poker and Bodoglife.com. It shouldn't come as any suprise that these gaming sites are all ranked in our top five, as I am one of the primary online gaming reviewers for Gamblera. And yes, we do test sites thoroughly...hundreds of them.

All that said, I went through a couple great shoes and wished I had a little more money down to be honest, but I stuck to the plan for this week. I caught two triples in three-card poker too, which paid out nicely. When things started getting consistently cold, I logged out and came back the next day. What discipline! Anyway, credit me back $2,000 as a result.


End of week:  $1,910 to $13,372

OK, so I got a little excited over my quick $4,000 dollar gain in my first week and I tossed all discipline out the window. This led to a week of net loss with the primary damage being done on the craps tables. I had a few hundred dollar hardway bets down hoping to win a quick grand per hit (on the 6 and 8 hard), but those didn't hit. And of course, I made the mistake of not treating craps for what it is: about 7 different games all in one. There are the hard ways, the pass line bet, the field bet, playing the numbers, come bets, don't come bets and all the single roll bets. The seasoned craps player should be aware of this and typically only plays one or two games at once. But as I say, I was excited and playing three or more games at once and so when that bad number that you are not supposed to talk about came up (hint: 4 + 3), I got wiped. The problem was that this bad number came often, and many times within the first two or three rolls. I did find one casino where the craps tables were working for me (www.casinotropez.com), and I recovered some of my losses just under the wire for week end.


End of week:  $2,450 to $11,462

Well my friends, I took a beating last night, and again this afternoon to close out the first week of the new year, but when you take it as a whole I still ended up great. I would have had about $15,800 if I just stopped after day three (which I can't do or else I'll lose this gig)! But then I got down and committed the cardinal gambling sin of "chasing." I had just short of $14,700 by mid week and entered a poker room for some 2/4 no limit hold'em. I was getting terrible flops and retreated to a 1/2 room and then couldn't draw anything to the point that I had to bluff now and then just to see a turn card. Upshot: I dropped $300 in a few hours and called it a night.
So what happened the next day? Well, I chased as I said, but I chased in the most assinine way. I wanted to win back big money quick so I actually tried to throw down $10 hard way bets on craps, which isn't the best idea whether playing online or offline, even if I have had some good nights at it before. In 20 minutes tops I lost another $300, bringing me down to about $14,100 in total chips. I swear, it was like watching the Dow last week.

So, seeing as how I had the whole afternoon off, I poured a beer and settled into some Carribean Stud, which is always my favorite. And finally I got up a bit. About $200 to be precise, thanks to hitting trips with $20 down on the front. But then I pressed, for no reason other than the fact that I had to get ready to go outside and, of course, I wanted to get back to my previous high point. So I bumped the front to $50 and won the first hand with no qualify by the dealer before proceeding to lose the next two hands in row (with dealer qualify...a total of $300 lost in two hands!). Yikes. From there, I played a few more hands in the range of $5-$10 before landing at my new current total of $13,912. Still, I finished up pretty big for the first period of the new year. Happy Holidays!


End of week: $3,912 to $13,912