{"id":693,"date":"2002-02-18T16:30:49","date_gmt":"2002-02-18T23:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.puddleby.com\/lundar\/?p=693"},"modified":"2002-02-18T16:30:49","modified_gmt":"2002-02-18T23:30:49","slug":"jack-the-vintian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/2002\/02\/jack-the-vintian\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack the @#$% Vintian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 56, Year 545 of the Ascendancy<\/font><\/b>
<\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nSome people were never meant to gamble. Some people just don’t know how
\nto quit when they’re up, or stop when they’re down. I am one of these
\npeople. It all started innocently enough yesterday, when I decided to
\nblow the 25 coins that I had on Black Jack. I decided to try out a
\ntheory of mine which I have been thinking about for a while. The gist
\nof it is this: I start off by betting 1 coin, and if I lose it I bet 2,
\nand if I lose that I bet 4, and so forth. That way, when I win I will
\nalways make a 1 coin profit. Also, it gives me multiple chances to win,
\nand probability dictates that it is unlikely that I will end up losing
\n5 games in a row.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nSo, I set about testing this theory, and surely
\nenough it worked. It took me a bit, but I worked my way up from 25
\ncoins to more than 50. As I was playing, a fen named Dartalion sat down
\nat the table, and joined me in playing in Black Jack. After a few
\nminutes of playing, however, my luck turned sour. Though it is unlikely
\nto lose 5 games in a row, it is certainly within the realm of
\npossibility. Jack Vintian dealt me hand after hand of bad cards, and I
\nended up losing all my money, save two copper pennies. I shrugged my
\nshoulders at this point, bid Dartalion good day, and stood up to leave
\nthe casino. It should have ended right there. I should have left the
\ncaino and gone on with my life. That should have been the end of my
\ngambling. But it wasn’t.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAs I started to walk towards the door, Dartalion
\ncalled out to me. I halted mid-stride, puzzled, and turned back to
\nDartalion, who tossed me a small sack. The sack contained 10 copper
\ncoins. I grinned at Dartalion, bid him thanks, and seated myself down
\nat the table again for another game of Black Jack. Little did I know
\nthat I was making a grave mistake. I placed my bet on the table,
\nexpecting to lose, but ended up doing something far worse. I won. Hand
\nafter hand I won, and even those hands I lost, I made up in record
\ntime. Soon my money was doubled, trippled, quadroupled, and more. I sat
\nthere entranced, hardly believing what was happening. I had discovered
\na fountain of money. Once I amassed a hundred coins, I started betting
\nby 2’s, then 4’s, then 5’s, ’til I found myself betting by 20’s and
\n40’s. After several hours of gambling, against all likelihood, I had
\namassed over 900 coins.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAt this point, my luck began to sour. The
\ntrickster Jack Vintian pulled three Black Jacks in a row, and I ended
\nup losing nearly all of my money. The only way I could recover from my
\nloss was by betting 640 coins, which I no longer had. Not wanting to
\nlose all of the money I had made in the past 4 hours or so, I paid a
\nvisit to the bank and pulled out the money I needed from my
\nPhantasmonomicon fund. I placed the bulging stack of coins down on the
\nBlack Jack table, and crossed my fingers. To my profound relief, I won.
\nI rushed back to the bank, deposited the money I had withdrawn, and
\nreturned to the table.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nI played for several more games, and started to
\nwin once more. However, once I hit 1100 coins, I began losing again.
\nSoon, I found myself in the same predicament I was in before. I had to
\nwithdraw 640 coins from the bank again, to get back the money I had
\ngambled. This time, however, I lost the hand. I was shocked, my head
\nwas spinning, and I began to lose my wits. I returned to the bank
\nagain, and this time I withdrew all my savings. I then rushed back to
\nthe Black Jack table, and placed down my bet of 1280 coins. To my
\ndismay, the dealer dealt me a lousy hand of 14, which I did not want to
\nrisk by hitting. I stood with 14, and slowly watched as Vintian drew
\nhis cards. 3-5-6-2-9-BUST!!! I had won my money back!<\/font><\/p>\n

\nI jumped up and down in elation, and ran down to
\nDartalion, who had been watching the game, and gave him a big hug.
\nThat’s when I realized that the dealer hadn’t payed me yet. I returned
\nto the table, and demanded that I be payed my winnings. However, the
\ndealer feigned ignorance, and refused to pay me my money. I was
\nfurious, but there was little I could do about it with the bouncer
\nwatching. I had lost all of my winnings and savings, and was left with
\nonly 200 coins. A little crazed by this point, I bet the rest of the
\nmoney I had, and began working my way up once more. I managed to reach
\nas high as 1400 coins, before I lost all of my money again. This time I
\nwas totally broke. I left the casino, and headed for the library in a
\ndaze. I’d lost every single coin I owned. It would take me forever now
\nto save up enough for a Phantasmonomicon.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThat night, I could hardly sleep. My mind was
\nracing, thinking of how I could get my hard earned money back. Robbing
\nthe casino was out of the question. I scrutinized my gambling strategy,
\nand decided I hadn’t been careful enough. I spent the rest of the night
\nthinking of ways in which to improve my strategy, and by the end of the
\nnight I had a strategy that I felt was foolproof. Now, if I could only
\nborrow 1000 coins from someone, I could make back all of the money I
\nhad lost, and make a hefty profit to boot.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe next day…<\/font><\/p>\n

\nTotally convinced that my plan was going to work,
\nI set about trying to borrow a thousand coins from someone. In town I
\nran into my friend Wormtounge, who is a merchant and banker of sorts,
\nand he agreed to lend me 900 coins at 5% interest a month, with the
\ncollateral of two chains. I quickly agreed to the offer, and rushed to
\ncasino to test out my revised theory. I played careful this time, and
\nmade sure not to bet too high, or rush my bidding. After an hour or so,
\nmy 900 coins had blossomed into 1600. However, chance is a screwy
\nthing. Every probability curve has it’s low end. In the games that
\nfollowed, I managed to lose every hand I played, and lost every single
\npenny I had made in the past hour, as well as the money I had been
\nloaned from Wormtounge.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nNow, not only am I broke, but I am also in a lot
\nof debt as well. I thought I could win at the Black Jack game, but I
\nwas wrong. I suppose there is a lesson to be learned from all this.
\nPerhaps it is “Stop playing while you’re ahead,” or “Casinos don’t get
\nrich by losing,” or “Not even mystics can outsmart probability.”
\nWhatever it is, the one thing I know for sure is that if Jack Vintian
\never finds himself alone in the Badlands, he will be wishing that the
\nonly thing I take from him is his money.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 56, Year 545 of the Ascendancy Some people were never meant to gamble. Some people just don’t know how to quit when they’re up, or stop when they’re down. I am one of these people. It all started innocently enough yesterday, when I decided to blow the 25 coins that I had on Black […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}