with the exception of certain dealers on single-decks… but even then, they often have the auto-shufflers, which can arrange cards in one of tens of thousands of house-favorable sequences.

Also , any good roulette machine has electromagnets underneath that can pull a ball to a specific slot with a great deal of accuracy.

Slots are cooked through computer algorithms, and the vigorish will eat you away in sports betting.

All craps bets have a negative expectation in the long run.

The only worthy game in a casino is poker… or maybe baccarat if you’re very very good at it.

Maybe not your valuation.

Obviously I had to take the bus back, having lost my life savings at the blackjack table, but that’s what I get for having only $100.00 in life savings.

I apologize.

Beltre’s power took such a dive last season. Post presumedroids, Beltre fell from a 48 HR hitter to a mid 20s one, but only in 2009 did he plummet from mid 20s to 8. Now if he had a wrist injury he was playing through, or his balance was severely impacted by having one, but not two, swollen testicles, that’s one thing. If he was 100% healthy and couldn’t get on base more than .304 times out of 1000, and his power dropped to 1/3 of what it has been for years, then I’m more than a bit concerned.

I’d still grab him on a one-year deal and I’d still grab him for $5M/year, but I’m assuming he’ll command more like 4/32 even in a meh market and I think the A’s should save that kind of commitment for a younger and “more in his prime” player.

Considering how bare the cupboard is at 3B in this system, even if we have to overpay for a regressed version of 06-08 Beltre, it’s probably worth it. Forget even 2010, if we want to compete in 2011 or 2012 we’re going to have to have somebody capable at third. Beltre would only be 33 at the end of a 3-year deal. Just eyeballing things, I’d probably have no problem giving him 3 years and 30-35 mil.

I’m sure someone smarter than me can come up with a better figure than that, but the point is he’s as good a fit as there is out there it seems, so as long as we’re not vastly overpaying, it seems like a pretty good idea to me.

didn’t pay 1.5 on the spot for a split blackjack, though, because they told me that.

And I know splitting face cards was a bad move strategically, but it was my “roll the dice” moment following tons of bad luck, and had the dealer busted I would have come out nicely. I’m not suggesting it was good strategy, just that it had a decent chance of working out well.

…but the shoe certain has a specific compostion.

“Splitting face cards is wrong no matter what has happened previously. The cards have no memory, consider every hand a regression to the mean.”

If the count is positive enough, it is definitely correct to split face cards.

How can people not want to give Beltre 8mil a year for 4 years? That would be a KILLER deal and definitely put us into the “competitive” category.

Forget Chavez people.

It’s great that you can show he’s worth more than $8M based on his defense. That’s super fantastic bubble plastic. But I still wouldn’t want the A’s to make a 4 year, and $32M commitment, to someone entering their 30s on two strangely sudden declines. If I’m the Red Sox, sure, but if I’m a team that can offer that kind of contract once every few years, no.

Now a good counter-argument is to say that once Carter and Taylor burst onto the scene, the A’s will have enough power and thump elsewhere and that Cardenas is actually the A’s 2Bman of the future. (And that the A’s can replace the ones who don’t make it with comparable prospects behind them.) But I’d rather wait to see what Cardenas can do before investing long term on such an uncertain FA.

How many runs per game our offense will score with the following lineup:

1. Rajai
2. Crisp
3. Cust
4. Beltre
5. Suzuki
6. Sweeney
7. Ellis
8. Barton
9. Pennington

I’m sure the “WAR” looks great, though.

Luck is a HUGE factor in a small sample, and when one spends 30 minutes at a blackjack table luck is probably the main factor. Heck, I always play “by the book” 98% of the time (allowing for one “gut moment” along the way), and either win some or lose some based on luck.

Also, IIRC playing by the book doesn’t yield winnings over the long haul. I think you can win something like 98 cents to the dollar by playing well. But you can win a blackjack — you just need some luck.

How much and how many years are the A’s looking at signing him for?

I must also compliment you for your rarely correctly spelled use of “complementary.”

how it would be counterintuitive?

Hoyer has made it clear he will not get rid of Kouz unless it is for a substansial package.
He views Kouzmanoff as the man to build his offense around once Adrian is gone (even though I’m building around Blanks if I’m the SD GM) so I wouldn’t overpay for him…

on the way out my mom stopped at one of the “quarter slot machines,” pulled the lever and watched, “plum…plum…plum…plum…plum!” She won $50.00 for her most excellent strategy of pulling the lever.

Morongo is the way to go. Love that place, best craps table I’ve ever been to, Vegas included…

but do you trust the A’s medical staff.

Plus his bat has only contributed positively in one year of his career.

The difference between parks is more than mitigated by the fact that the AL is the superior league. I’d say SD and Oakland are equally bad for hitters when you take league into account.

Although Kouzmanoff is an OK player, of course. And the Padres do have too many 3B.

Just because we share a last name :\ Bad reason I suppose.

At least that way I won’t seem like a shameless ex-jock who never got his big break.

The odds were looking good for the A’s around ST last year and look what happened.

Yeah, and a lot of the predictions were blatant helium from Opening Day. Although nobody expected the 2009 Mariners to do what they did.

They generally were resting on 4 premises.

-Giambi was his Yankees self. He was still a very very good player, if not a superstar.

-Matt Holliday would be really good. (Which he was, so they were actually right here).

-Two pitchers who had barely seen any action above A ball would immediately do well in the rotation. All the other top pitching prospects would also do really well, immediately.

-Dana Eveland wouldn’t regress from his fluke 2008. (Eveland is a replacement level pitcher, not the 2 WAR pitcher he was in ’08; that was a luck-induced fluke.)

3 of the 4 were misguided from the beginning.

(felix pie?)

Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t.

I didn’t bust once the whole night and yet I still lost money.

Yes. Someone definitely said that.

Maybe we can go gambling together sometime. You bring the good luck and I’ll bring the money. You might also want to bring money.