The Weekend of David Longo, Part 2

[Editor's Note: If you haven't yet read Part 1, please see the post directly below, and then come back and read this one. The story will make more sense when read in that order. Otherwise, it'd be like one of those books that we used to read back in elementary school where you get to pick the path of your story: Jump to Page 31 if you want to follow the little man down the rabbit hole; or jump to page 48 if you want to stay where you are and battle the grizzly bear. You get the idea. Back to the AC weekend.]

So Eric and I were watching this guy sitting at the first spot at the blackjack table and he was throwing money down like it was his job. We're talking hundreds of bucks per hand. And he wasn't too discreet about it either. Someone messed up the hand by straying from standard strategy. He slams his hands down on the table and yells, "COME ON, YOU GOTTA HIT ON THAT HAND! I HAD $500 RIDING ON THAT ONE! F***CCCKKK!!!" Yeah, I'd say he was pretty fired up. Probably turned a few people away, but Eric and I had to sit down with this guy. Allow me to introduce you to the guy we'd come to know over the course of the next day or so. David Longo, mid-40's recently divorced ("Just got through a nasty divorce with my wife...ahem...ex-wife. She took the Range Rover"), looks like a shorter version of Simon Cowell, who lives somewhere in Central Jersey -- on his boat. He also owns a property down on the west coast of Florida and travels back and forth to there. "I don't really do anything. When I'm in Jersey, I usually come down to AC for a few days. When I'm in Florida, I play golf and relax. I stopped working a while back." In fact, we never really found out what he used to do that allowed him to gamble with such disregard for the massive sums of money that he was throwing around.

Somehow we got back on the subject of what he used to do for a living and all he offered was, "I was involved in a leasing business with a guy. I used to be a waiter in his restaurant and he had an idea for a little start-up so I jumped in with him. Turns out a few years later that he was going to jail because the Feds found that he was hiding $1.5 million in income so he didn't have to pay taxes on it. That was the end of that." Okay....

He seemed to be pretty impressed that we had college degrees. "So you guys went to Penn State? Must've been a great time up there. I wouldn't know. I only have a 5th grade education." Well, I guess that's all you really need in order to be able to count to 21.

And even though this guy seems like a complete foul ball, he was as nice as could be, and seemed to enjoy our company. Let's face it, if you're an eccentric personality in the casinos, you'll be shunned by most of the older, crotchety crowd thats in attendance. So we all kinda latched on to each other because we were there to have a good time and so was he. So for the rest of the trip, we would only play cards with David. Plus, he was by himself (sign of a gambling addiction?) and wanted to keep him company. Besides all of this, this guy was pretty damn funny.

First let's talk about his Blackjack strategy: For those of you who don't know the ins and outs of the strategy, just follow along with me and take my word for it that David is a pretty liberal player. He didn't always follow "the book" when it came to his decisions. He'd would get more annoyed at not being able to double down than the fact that he could still win a hand. If the cards came as a pair, then he'd split them -- pretty much no matter what. He was doubling down on 8's and 9's... when the dealer had a 10 showing. If he any "soft" cards (ace + numbered card), he'd almost always double down, even when he probably shouldn't have. It was absurd how this guy would want to double his bet almost any time he could. A little while later, I realized why. He was betting the $500 max for the table, and the only way he could increase his bet was doubling down. His philosophy: "You're gonna take a hit anyway, so why not double down?" So you think to yourself, why wouldn't he just got to a higher limit table? "I have more fun sitting with you guys at the $15 table than the boring assholes in the High Limit room."

To say that David was loud doesn't describe the half of it. Constant yelling, jumping up and down. Talking to people across the room. He didn't care. And if he wasn't putting down thousands and thousands of dollars in bets over the course of the night, the pit bosses and security would have thrown him out a while back. But when you're putting that kind of money on the line, you can get away with anything besides blatantly cheating.

One of the funniest things he did was when the dealer would play his/her hand and everyone would, of course, hope for them to bust. David's thing was to yell the word "Monkey". He kept yelling...."MONKEY!!!! MONKEY!!!!!" and keep repeating it when they broke the hand. So finally I asked him why he kept yelling monkey, and he responded with how "monkey" is the slang term for the face cards. Later on in the night, he kept yelling monkey even when the dealer broke with any card less than a 10. Lost sense of inhibitions and lost sense of numbers.

David knew all of the dealers, pit bosses, and cocktail waitresses.

To the pit boss, Brenda: "Make sure you have me set with my 9pm reservation at the Italian restaurant. I'm getting hungry and want the table ready when I get up there." She made some phone calls and sure enough at 9pm, David was drinking his wine and eating his pasta.

Commenting on all of the comps he gets: "If they didn't give me free stuff, I wouldn't come. Two weeks ago, I had 14 guests come into town. They hooked us up with 3 full suites and even gave me a $2,000 credit for dinner on that Saturday night. They treat me well here."

To the cocktail waitress, Phyllis: "Honey, I don't care if they don't have Jagermeister in the back. Go to the bar, tell the bartender to make the damn drink, and charge it to my room. A big tip is in it for you, so go ahead and get it for me. I'll love you forever." Phyllis brought him back the drink that he ordered, and he gave her a $25 tip.

To the dealer, Liz, after seeing a ring on her finger: "Liz, sweety, are you married or engaged?" She replies that she's married. "Oh that's a shame. I have a suite all to myself tonight, and my girlfriend isn't getting down here until tomorrow........ and my other girlfriend, well, she's still in college."

To the Indian dealer, Kaitan, "Yo, bud, what's the name of that cute Indian dealer over there?" Kaitan replies that he's not allowed to turn around to look. "Yeah, it doesn't matter. You know who I'm talking about. The good looking one. I bet you hang out with her all the time. Tell her to come over here later on and say hi. She knows who I am. Everyone does."

As you can tell, David didn't really what he said to anyone. Words just kept flying out of his mouth, and Phyllis just kept feeding him drinks. And we all just kept gambling.

At one point, Eric's friend, Chris, backed out on a deck that was treating us all very well. David didn't like that Chris was backing out because it's bad for the karma when one player drops out, when the table is on a roll. Sure enough, the last few hands of the deck go against us and David has a minor freakout. By minor, I mean slamming his fist against the table, storming out of his chair and sent the expletives flying like fireworks on the 4th of July.

David came back with this story: "Let me tell you why it pisses me off when people leave a table when everyone's doing well. First off, you gotta keep the karma going. Wait til the end of the deck before you get up. Let the winnings ride a little bit and then get out on top. I took the husband of one of my employee's to a poker game one time. The guy comes in, sits down, and after 30 minutes, wins $200 and says, 'Alright, I'm done for the night.' Well this is a slap in the face to everyone there, especially me since I brought this guy. So I tell him, 'Look, I brought your ass here as a favor. Now sit the f*ck down and keep playing!' I can't stand for this bullsh*t...."

Meanwhile, when we had left the table at 4:30am, David was up around $10,000. When we saw him the next afternoon, he said he ended up around $18,000 for the night. Eric asked him what his worst performance was, and he responded with, "Well, I think the worst was a loss of $28,000 in one night, but the divorce papers say that Harrah's shows a record of $31,000 loss in one night." Here's a thought: you think gambling played into his divorce? Besides that, the guy was just throwing around money like I've never seen before. I have to admit that it's pretty crazy to see. I mean, yeah, I'll throw around $100-200 in gambling money for a weekend, but anything more than that, I can't justify using for gambling and would rather put it to better use in my life. Need I remind you that if the people who came to the casino always won, the casinos would be out of business? They aren't closing their doors so soon.

By the time Sunday had rolled around, the massive snowstorm on the east coast was in full effect and we didn't have much of a choice but to stay another day. To be completely honest, I wanted to get back because I would come out of the trip on top, but being there another day would force (and I say "force" loosely) me to play more. At least a little bit.

It probably helped that we didn't wake up until 1pm and then took a little while to get ready and find something to eat. Sure enough, later in the afternoon, we were wandering around the casino and we ran into David again. He appeared to have mellowed out a bit from the night before, but was still in search of more gaming. He had done well, but claimed that he couldn't stop playing since he'd be in AC until Tuesday. This guy is something else. We did end up playing some more in the early evening on Sunday, but since the luck wasn't as prevalent as Saturday night, we threw a little of our earnings back to the house, but still ended up on top. That's what I call a victory. Sticking it to "the man".

Eric and I parted ways with David around 8pm on Sunday, and he had provided us with plenty of entertainment and the wilder side of Blackjack. He had some great stories, some great one-liners, and the balls to say whatever he really wanted to say. Believe me, I don't aspire to be like this guy -- but he was quite a character and made the trip just a little more exciting with his fireball antics. I always say that just because a person bets a lot of mean doesn't mean that they can afford it, and with this guy, you hope that this gambling habit won't leave him homeless... especially since he claims to currently live on a boat. And I definitely have a feeling that I'll run into David again on one of my next few trips down to AC, whenever that is. Something tells me he might be there.

We did make it back up to this area in one piece on Monday, after we got hit with 27 inches of snow. Guess it was a good idea not to travel on Sunday night. The AC trip was a great idea, especially since we had contemplated not going due to the weather. But if we hadn't gone, then I wouldn't have had any stories about the crazy times down in America's Playground.

Hope you all enjoyed this AC trip recap. I apologize if you were underwhelmed by my stories of David, as I tried to express them in such a way that would best describe his off-the-wall personality. You really have to trust me that this guy was as eccentric as I tell you he is. In fact, Eric can vouch for me as well.

Back tomorrow to catch up on the regular Ross ramblings.