Seven Pounds

I went to the casino this morning, was up $100 and tried to get $25 more but couldn't, and ended up losing it all. Walking out with a hundred dollar loss is a feat in itself. Can't say I wasn't teased by temptation to chase it back.

As I walked back to the car, I kept telling myself logical things like "you're bound for a loss some time", "you can't win all the time", "even businesses have expenses" and "you gotta give the casino back some of their money to make it seem normal".

However, the feeling of a loss was gnawing at me, and it seemed to grow heavier.

I went home, changed and headed out to bball. It was too late for any type of filming, and as I predicted, there were some people there already. Just a father and daughter to begin with, and then a bunch of people came.

I had only finished my shooting warm up when one of the guys from the bunch came over and asked me to join them. I didn't really want to, but said yes out of politeness. When I got closer to them I realised they were a group of Asian guys, I think Indonesian, probably early 20's. They couldn't really play, I mean, they had the basic skills, but I think they played socially rather than competitively.

The team I was on won the first four games pretty easily. Whenever I enter these type of games I always get into the "I'll go easy on them offensively but I'll work on rebounding and assists" mode. And so I did that, although I failed pretty bad at rebounding, even though most of them were about my height and I could out-jump them.

I remember one of the guys on the other team was a fat kid, and I kept thinking to myself "it's always good to see a fat kid get some exercise".

Soon, I got pissed off at my own lackluster performance and decided to go agro. My shot had been off but I started hitting a few, and I drove it more to dish it off. I don't like to go aggro against people who aren't my level because it's kinda like picking on people smaller than you, but sometimes I feel like I have to prove something to myself and get out of this habit of going easy on people.

I left when they took a break, went home, had a shower, did a tiny bit of work and then gave in to the gnawing. I returned to the casino and started with a bankroll of $200 playing inside numbers. This time, I was partly there to get back my money I lost earlier, but also I used it as an opportunity to try something out - watching the wheel.

My first few bets were outside bets, as I wanted to see how this dealer spun. I had already chosen this table because the wheel wasn't spun too fast. There's been a lot of work done on roulette physics, and that's the ideology I follow, as opposed to those 'systems' that say something like a particular sector will come up within x spins - where the hell is the logic in that?

Anyway, whilst watching the wheel, these were the things I was doing: 1) watch for where the ball tends to fall; 2) watch how fast the wheel spins (I do this by counting how many revolutions it makes before the ball drops. Of course, I learnt this off the internet, and it appears logical enough. The other thing is you want tables that are using a big ball, as they tend not to bounce around as much.

As I watched the first few spins, it appeared that the ball was landing within the sectors I was mentally predicting. I remember I once told this to Shuing, and he asked "then how does the ball land in different areas all the time?"

Good question.

I couldn't come up with an answer at that time, but I think I figured it out today. This dealer obviously wasn't that experienced, as she made a calculation error when paying someone out. The thing I noticed about her was that she was spinning the wheel inconsistently - sometimes it'd be faster than others. So I think it's best to choose an experienced dealer who gets so bored of their job that they end up spinning the wheel at the same speed all the time. This would explain why there seems to be a pattern in terms of sectors coming up. It all seemed to make sense.

Does analysing the wheel this way help? Yes. Does it guarantee a win? No. There are still so many variables which can affect where the ball lands that would be too hard to account for, like the little diamond obstacles around the wheel, and the pure random nature of the wheel. Like today, I saw the ball roll around the metal ring of the wheel a few times after it had dropped. It's like card counting I suppose, it gives you an edge but it's no sure-thing.

I thought about changing tables because of her inconsistent spinning, but then decided to just use my own sector betting system. I got really lucky as I hit the numbers 23 and 3 straight up consecutively. I placed some more outside bets as I watched more of the wheel before I decided that the pit boss probably thought I was a bit suss sitting there with all these chips, so I cashed out with a $200 gain for the day.

I don't think casinos mind if you win, but they have a problem if you win consistently. How could someone possibly win so many chips consistently over a period of time? The house odds dictate that you must bleed chips eventually.

Maybe I'm just paranoid. But I have a feeling my casino career won't be permanent. I just have a feeling that something will happen to ensure I never gamble again. Maybe I'll get backroomed, or maybe my parents will find out, I don't know.

Anyway, I headed to the cinemas and watched Seven Pounds. Buying myself a medium popcorn and coke, I plopped myself down on the designated seat only to find that a couple were placed next to me. Sitting next to them just made me think as to how they became a couple, and whether whatever happened between them was so impossible and hard for it to happen to myself.

I couldn't figure out where on earth the movie was going for the most part of it. I was beginning to think that Will Smith had lost it. I had put him on my "if he's in it then it's good" list, but I really started to question it during the movie.

It was only towards the end that everything came to place and I admired Will Smith for another brilliant performance. I swear if I was in that cinema by myself I would've started crying. It was just so sad.

I think it touched me because it involved an isolated male character with suicidal ideations, which seems eerily similar to me.