Craps is another country,
a kingdom with its own mores, legends, myths, rites,
rituals, superstitions and government. It also has
its own language, much of it easily misunderstood
as sexual or scatological references. For those
of you interested in journeying to this other country
in the near future, a knowledge of the language
is a prerequisite. The citizens of Crapsylvania
are a cantankerous, narrow-minded bunch and you
had better learn their customs and concerns because
they certainly won't tolerate any deviation from
their patterns. Therefore the need for my "craps
to English" dictionary with some cautionary
comments about decorum.
The
first word you should know is a compound word: come-out.
No, this is not the children's game of "come-out,
come-out wherever you are!" or the modern game
of demanding that certain movie stars "come-out
of the closet" but rather it is the start of a
craps game, as in "shooter on the come-out roll!"
Next are the words pass and don't pass. These words
have nothing to do with making moves on the cocktail
waitress or showing restraint when
she wiggles by in
her seductive outfit. They are merely two bets that
can be made on the table [Hey, you with the dirty
mind, watch out!]: the former bet is that the shooter
will make his point, which is not to get across
his ideas, but to hit the number that he must make
before he rolls a seven; the latter bet is that
he won't make his point. The point numbers are 4,
5, 6, 8, 9, and 10 by the way.
The come box is not some salacious sexual reference
but rather a box on the layout -- the layout being
the diagram on the table and not where you make
Marian a "maid" no more -- where come
bets are placed after the shooter has established
his point. The opposite of come is don't come --
which is not what your first girlfriend said to
you during your first magic moment -- but is also
a bet that can be made after the shooter has established
his point. The hard four, hard six, hard eight,
and hard 10 are not measurements of excited porn
stars but bets that those numbers will be made with
doubles (3:3 = hard six; 4:4 = hard eight, 2:2 =
hard four; 5:5 = hard 10).
Here are other bets that can be made at craps: Craps,
which are the numbers 2, 3, and 12 in tandem or
alone; yo, which is not what Rocky said to Adrian,
but the number 11; Big Red, which is not Joseph
Stalin but the number seven -- which is as dreaded
at a craps table as Stalin was during the purges.
As Richard Nixon was fond of saying: "Let me
make this perfectly clear," the seven is dreaded
if you are a right bettor (betting with the shooter
and against the appearance of the seven), but it
is not dreaded by a wrong bettor (betting against
the shooter and for the seven) as the seven is the
wrong bettor's best buddy just as Stalin was the
buddy of all those people that he didn't butcher.
www.goldentouchpoker.com
www.goldentouchcraps.com
www.goldentouchblackjack.com
www.scoblete.com
www.gscobe.blogspot.com More
Columns By Franki Scoblete
