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Playing 4 Keeps™ Gaming Newsletter for Winners Celebrating Eleven Years!
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™ A Gaming News Letter For Winners January 2006 Volume 8 Issue 1 Copyright ©2006 Michael Vernon
"Luck Has Nothing To Do With It When You Are Playing 4 Keeps!"
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New Year's Greetings Something New On The Coat Tales of a Gambler... Part I 2006 Coming Events ***************************************************************
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I first met Sailor in Taos, New Mexico. It was a hot July day and I was shopping for a patio door for a remodel job on my house. A new business park was holding a grand opening with live radio, food and drinks. I was sitting in the shade having a green chile cheeseburger, when Sailor came up to me and asked, “Are you Michael Vernon that writes Playing 4 Keeps?” I said, “Yes, I am but how do you know that?” Sailor replied that he saw my Playing 4 Keeps license plate holder and put two and two together. He said that he had long been a subscriber to my newsletter. He went on to say that he use to play a lot of blackjack in Las Vegas in the “old days”. Sailor casually mentioned that it was a time when a player, who knew how to count cards, could easily win a few bucks. He also told me that he played some tournaments in those days, but now he no longer plays much. However, when he gets a stake together, he’d like to pay Las Vegas a visit for old times. That was about it and then, wishing me good luck, we parted company. About a year and half later, I bumped into Sailor in a chance meeting, again in Taos. I had moved to Pueblo, Colorado by this time, and I was in Taos on business. I was running early morning errands and stopped at a fast food joint to use the bathroom. Turns out, Sailor was just coming out as I was going in. We had a short catch up conversation in the parking lot. Sailor said he was back on the road again traveling and was headed for Las Vegas. As it turned out, we had a mutual friend in common, Bob Jacobs. I could scarcely believe that out of the blue, I not only meet up with Sailor again, but he knows my best friend and gambling partner t’boot. A couple of months later, December 30th, I received an email from Sailor. He had just read my August newsletter. He was disappointed to learn about the demise of the five-dollar blackjack game that I wrote about. He said that his plans for Las Vegas got hung up but that he was still on his way sometime in the New Year. Sailor recalled that during our last meeting I had mentioned that Bob Jacobs and I were going to play poker at Cities of Gold Casino. He asked if we had any plans to be in Las Vegas January or February and that perhaps we could all meet up. What Sailor wrote next just kind of broke into a story, “the life and times of a gambler”. It was kind of like coming into the middle of a movie and I was supposed to know what was going on before. He sent a few more story-like email letters the next day. After reading Sailor’s email, inspiration overwhelmed me like a wave. Here were true-life adventures of a gambler. I asked Sailor if I could edit his email stories, change the names and publish the stories in the Playing 4 Keeps newsletter. Sailor was in agreement. The following is his reply after I asked for permission to publish his stories. This is the beginning of a new series in Playing 4 Keeps, On the Coat Tales of a Gambler. “…put my stories in the order and format you wish, just change all names, make corrections etc. I will tell you stuff as I remember it. So far I have told you about all I remember… I remember this, there were always plenty of pretty women around and a quickie was only ten bucks. Man it was a life! Lucky for me I escaped. I could have been killed very easy just for being in the wrong company or the wrong place at the wrong time.” Sailor On the Coat Tales of a Gambler As told to me by Sailor HarrisPart I Michael, I finally got round to reading your August newsletter. It was very good. The news of changes in Las Vegas that you wrote about was not good at all, since 95% of the time I play at a $5 blackjack table when I play. I enjoyed your take on poker. The last time I saw you, you said that you and Bob were going to a poker tournament that night. I would guess you both did well?? I know you are busy these days. I am in Albuquerque, all set to go to Vegas, and the V.A. changed my damn appointment for the second time. I had an appointment before Christmas, then, they changed it to today. Now, I find out it is changed again to the 11th of January. Hopefully, I will get the all clear from the doc and head for Vegas that day. I hope to be out there (Vegas) and in Arizona until it warms a bit in Taos, perhaps until late March. I do enjoy your monthly gaming news, thanks much. Long before I was a blackjack player, I was a poker player. Never played much at casinos. In those days they had no low poker tournaments. I quit poker because it seemed the casino games I was in, just moved too slow for me. Players taking forever to make their plays… I was a city fireman for over four years in the late sixties. At the firehouse there was a poker game every night. I really enjoyed that poker. It was low limit poker, but, if a guy did not watch it, he could lose thirty to fifty bucks or win that much. Ten bucks would buy a lot in those days… I never knew him, but when Amarillo Slim won the first world championship of poker, I lived in Amarillo. I think it was the first one, anyway it was in the early seventies. I saw him around town a few times. He was always dressed to the hilt and drove around in a fancy Cadillac. The book of his life story is kind’a interesting. The book is fairly new… smart guy if true…he usually gambled with backing from others. (The book Sailor refers to is “Amarillo Slim, In A World of Fat People” Harper Collins Publisher) Have a big $$ 2006 Sailor Continuing later… If either you or Bob have plans to come to Vegas in January or February, let me know and maybe I can hook up with you guys. I doubt that I will play much regular blackjack while I’m there. Maybe I’ll play a few games between Monday and Friday. But mostly I am going to be looking for blackjack tournaments. I plan to enter a bunch of them using the $1000 Hollywood Casino paid me in October. It was their second free slot tournament. They stopped them for a while. The Star Casino is going to start holding tournaments on Wednesday mornings starting next week I think I may study up on poker and enter some of those tournaments as well. You do know that the Star Casino has poker tournaments almost daily and, at Sandia, they have a few every week but I doubt that I will play any poker until I get to Vegas. Long ago, in Vegas, playing poker could be real rough. Everyone at the table could be a “house man” except for me. It was hard to beat those guys but I soon found out how to spot them. I didn’t really play that much poker in Reno, Tahoe, Vegas or Laughlin. By the time I got out west, I was seriously into blackjack and was about burned out on poker and that crowd of operators. See you, Sailor Coming in the next issue of Playing 4 Keeps: Sailor tells about his younger days hanging out with gun toting gamblers in the South and what it was like… the men, the women and the money. “Did you ever hear of a guy named Jonnie “Scarpone” Roybal? He got himself killed long ago in a poker game. He was a good buddy and a real high roller.” Next month Part II of On the Coat Tales of a Gambler
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*************************************************************** Testimonials from P4K Seminar Participants
Blackjack Players Craps Players
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Playing 4 Keeps™ enriches a player's experience to become a consistent winner. My commitment to you is empowerment. Learning to employ discipline creates confidence and strengthens intention through metaphysical lessons. I empower students by showing them how to avoid losing sessions. Most importantly I use metaphors that link the knowledge for successful play in casino games to the winning ways in "the game of life". Michael Vernon
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