(71-78)Schwartz Final2 10/23/08 3:04 PM Page 71 LETTER FROM CHICAGO THE GOLDEN TOUCH Rolling with the lords of the craps table By Mattathias Schwartz For the gambler, dice have long been and their own steak-fed bodies, grad- The Golden Touch Craps team had the best machine with which to turn a ually transforming the beige void of scheduled one of their “Crap$ 101” small amount of energy into a large the Allegheny Room into a miniature courses to begin the following day. In amount of uncertainty. For the philoso- casino, a school for the study of dice Crap$ 101, novice players receive two pher, there is no days of hands-on handier piece of instruction in Gold- rhetoric with which en Touch betting to evoke the foggy systems, Golden relations between Touch visualization God and universe, techniques, and, universe and man, most important, or man and his own the Golden Touch affairs. And so as I “controlled throw,” watched two mem- a method of retain- bers of the Golden ing influence over Touch Craps team the dice after they construct a dice pit leave the hand. in a windowless Tuition is $1,495, conference room of which does not in- the Hyatt Regency clude room, board, O’Hare, I could not or a ticket to Chica- help but feel as go O’Hare; but with though I were wit- eight coaches and nessing the creation sixteen students, of a universe, a the student-to- green, felt-covered, faculty ratio bests racetrack-shaped the Ivy League. For cosmos where the dice are subject to control. I myself felt moved to pitch an additional $300, students can take the will of man and the men, there- in, holding one end of the scuffed rail home an instructional Golden Touch fore, are gods. as Colonel Fox unrolled the layout with DVD and the Gripper, a block of green The cosmos, in this case, was a bun- its PASS and COME solicitations lettered foam designed to enhance the muscle dle of hinges and planks that had in red and gold. He wore a gold cruci- memory of the fingertips. As gradu- emerged the same morning, ex ovo, from fix and four gold rings and a gambling ates, students are eligible to enroll in the back of Colonel Joe Fox’s Ford. The face like something out of the Old West, the $1,995 Advanced Course, though gods were milling around like Team- lines of stony indifference etched some of the school’s wealthier alumni sters, lugging boxes and power tools around his mouth and eyes. “I musta opt for private instruction at up to re-covered three hundred pool tables $10,000 per day. Those who prove Mattathias Schwartz was the founder and in my life,” he muttered as a GTC col- themselves capable dice controllers editor of The Philadelphia Independent. league plugged in a tiny vacuum clean- and clubbable personalities are some- He lives in New York City. er and ran it over the felt. times invited to teach Crap$ 101 as White Dice, by Kate Brinkworth. Courtesy the artist and Mark Jason Gallery, London/markjasongallery.com LETTER FROM CHICAGO 71 (71-78)Schwartz Final2 10/22/08 9:42 AM Page 72 assistants to the assistant instructors. craps with a pair of imaginary dice. His Three. The ruinous Martingale says The post includes a $400 honorarium, arm churned the air with the slow flu- that if I lose at blackjack, I should dou- drawn from tuition receipts. idity of a Tai Chi master. ble and redouble my bet until I win. I spotted Frank Scoblete, the gray- The Dominator distributed room Today, systems occupy a dingy corner bearded, potbellied Zeus of the Gold- keys to the teachers. We broke huddle, of the gambling subliterature, a way en Touch, unpacking a box of Grippers. rode the elevators, unpacked, and re- for casino veterans to sell their ruined Frank spent more than thirty years convened that evening at the hotel fantasies to a new generation of teaching high school English on Long sports bar. It was called Knuckles, an chumps. I have collected a small li- Island before reinventing himself as auspicious name, for the first dice were brary of these systems. Most are over- America’s Number One Best-Selling astralagi, the six-sided knucklebones of priced and underwritten, and they con- Gaming Author. In person he seemed cloven-hoofed beasts. At a table near tain a wild diversity of guesses as to easygoing, with rounded features and the bar, hemmed in by billiard tables the mechanism that secretly influences feathery white hair, but when we shook and plasma TVs, the world’s top dice the outcome of a game. In the dice hands his eyes had the watchful opac- controllers angled at a plate of potato genre alone, there are betting systems, ity of security cameras. He began gam- chips. Frank held forth on what makes throwing systems, charting systems, bling during the Eighties on the week- a good gambler. and trend-oriented systems of “hot” ends, counting cards in Atlantic City. “Actors, athletes, anyone who and “cold” tables. The Art of Psychic “I wasn’t addicted to the gambling,” deals with an audience is going to be Dice, which quotes liberally from Ein- he told me; “I was interested in seeing a better gambler. You have to be will- stein and Napoleon, teaches the art whether we could beat the casinos, ing to put yourself on the line and of influencing dice with telekinetic these monsters, this industry that relies completely fall on your face, all in brain waves. Those who wish to ana- on the stupidity of its clients.” On the front of strangers.” lyze a promising system can test it table beside the Grippers lay a selection A chorus of nods. “It’s a perfor- against the heap of data collected in 72 of Frank’s teachings: Forever Craps, mance!” said Stickman. Hours at the Craps Table, sixty-two The Craps Underground, Golden Touch “A physical discipline!” clarified pages of hieroglyphic. A more sensible Dice Control Revolution! and Beat the Colonel Fox, embarking on his sec- title, a $1 pamphlet called The Facts of Craps Out of the Casinos! On the cov- ond bourbon. Craps, contains warnings like “play for er of this last book is a photograph of “When you see a great shooter, you recreation only,” and “you figure to Dominic “Dominator” LoRiggio just see that there’s no such thing as luck, lose every time you play.” Yet its cov- after releasing the dice. The cubes hov- just math,” said Frank. His eyes were er, like all the others, warrants that it er in perfect alignment below his out- wide, his face animated. Before he will teach you “how to win.” stretched hand, like tiny kites guided by took up gambling, Frank was part own- Even in their folly, these books em- invisible strings. He is dressed conser- er and leading man of a community body many essential features of West- vatively, in a blue Oxford and rimless theater company. He can still engage ern thought: the fetish for prediction glasses, but his eyes shine with a mys- his face like a motor. “When I’m and control; the fear of the unknown tical blaze. shooting, I believe in having a total- and unexplained; the urge, in the ab- A slightly mellower Dominator soon ly empty mind. I believe in nothing. sence of a complete explanation, to arrived, puffing at a cigarette and grous- I think of nothing. Nothing build patchwork models of unobserv- ing about the Bears’ chances of cover- but numbers.” able particles and massless ethers. ing the spread. The faculty gathered Reading them is like watching sci- round, wearing pleated khakis and GTC For as long as men have chalked cer- ence’s messy birth over and over again. logo-ed polo shirts. All had workaday tain occurrences up to chance, and so As the authors take aim at the mys- careers, I would later learn, and treated set them beyond human intervention, teries of random phenomena, we see gambling as a pleasant and profitable other, more ambitious men have that no amount of contrary evidence sideline. Bob “Mr. Finesse” Convertito sought to bring these events under will shake their faith in an underlying sold cars in Connecticut. Jerry “Stick- control. Scoffing at Dante’s warning order. Consider the beginning of the man” Stich was an I.T. director. Rick that wisdom cannot stand against For- Numbers Almanac: “Missouri Rick” Schulten was a para- tune, they have devised or divined sys- medic; he had seen action in Desert tems—methodical ways of winning . every person, place, thing and activ- Storm and had won a world champi- her over. The ancients invented sys- ity is influenced by a number; therefore onship in foosball. Howard “Rock ’n’ tems they believed could manipulate a certain knowledge of numerology re- Roller” Newman owned a chain of the weather, bring triumph in battle, veals numbers indicated for certain days and months of each year because it is nu- physical-therapy practices in Florida. and appease the gods. Most modern merology that influences number activ- Colonel Joe Fox dealt in rare coins. He systems have a narrower object: mak- ity, and their selections are probabilities, was not a colonel in the military sense; ing money at gambling. Usually they which the ancient and indisputable law the title referred to his skill as an auc- comprise a series of if/then statements. of averages will justify.