Reno Gazette-Journal from Reno, Nevada • Page 62

Casinos (Deatcr's Choice Janne rtanrakan A modern wag came up with this call for a die that lands in the rack: Die high, the old John Belu-shi roll. (Well, nobody said craps games are repositories of good taste.) When a shooter rolls a losing number, the stickman often urges him to apologize by rolling a winner next time. When a shooter establishes a point, then immediately rolls a seven to lose, the stick may announce that you've been treated to a Reno breakfast two rolls and no coffee. Some calls invite player participation. If the point is four, for example, the stick may bellow How do ducks go to water? The answer, bellowed back by players, is Two by two! If the point is five, everyone shouts Four-one for the poor one! If players are looking for a nine, the question becomes What A'i7ed Jesse James? The answer: A forty-five! (4 5 9, get it?) I've gotta leave out a few of the best-known calls, the ones that are in such bad taste that their use is even discouraged on craps games.

(If you can't say it on a craps game, you know it's nasty). In addition to the hundreds of tried-and-true calls, some quick-witted stickmen throw in puns, jokes or political commentary. Next time you play craps, try listening to the stick. Some of the funniest people I've heard that includes Jay Leno and my four brothers are other craps dealers. Oh, yeah, a couple more calls I wanted to mention: seven, gone; six-ace ends the race; four-trey, I'm away; six-one, I'm all done; five-two, I'm all through.

Come again. Janne Hanrahan is a free-lance writer and a casino dealer. Stick patter Crap-talk enlivens game and encourages betting Seven out means we're comin' out. The dice is ice we need a good shooter bad or a bad shooter turned good. Get a and seven, horn, hi-low, yo or the world.

Comin' out. Bets down, they're out, they're in the air. They hop, they pop, they land on No, this isn't a heavy metal song played backward. (But be careful the message contained herein could lead to financial suicide). This is the call of the stickman, the craps croupier who is a sort of combination stock market analyst, sports announcer and carnival barker.

Translated into English, the above means: One game is over, another beginning. The dice are running "cold'' (pass line bettors are losing). Bet these long shots: and seven, etc. Betting is over, the shooter has the dice. The dice are rolling.

Casino people have always had a language of their own. stolen mostly from street slang and cheap detective novels, and "crap-talk" is a big part of it. 'Rounders' slang? Two other Gazette-Journal columnists, Ty Cobb and Robert Gorrell, recently wrote about the rhyming "Rounders" slang that was popular in Reno in the 1930s and '40s. The slang, which substitutes rhyming words for common words, originated in 19th century England. Neither Cobb nor Gorrell knew how the slang made its way to Reno.

I don't know either, but after listening to crap-talk for a few years, I wonder if it didn't ride in on the backs of the "rats and mice" (the Rounder term for dice). I've run across a couple of pit bosses who could still reel off a paragraph or two of unintelligible Rounder, and they've told me that some of the terms still used by stickmen originated in the Rounder "slanguage" number six is Jimmy Hicks, eight is skate and donate, aces are the boys from Illinois, 11 is yo leveleen, the dancin' queen. Most of the stickman's terms are a hodgepodge of old and new. Each stickman acquires or invents a repertoire of calls he (or she) feels comfortable with. There are no copyright laws, so everyone steals freely from everyone else.

Some calls have been around forever. Dice, for example, have been called "bones" for centuries be- cause they started out as animal bones tossed by medicine men to tell the future. And while I have no idea where we got the popular call of Winner, winner, chicken for dinner, I know this one must be old. When was the last time in this country that chicken for dinner was a luxury only winners could afford? (We could update it: Winner, winner! For dinner, our special this evening is South African piranha in beurre blanc with poppy seeds, accompanied by vegetables from Mars. Nah.

Chicken is better.) The purpose of the patter Stick patter has a threefold purpose: 1) to enliven game and encourage betting, 2) to announce the numbers as they roll the peculiar names help inside dealers differentiate between numbers that, on a noisy game, may sound alike, and 3) to inform inside dealers what needs to be done after each roll. Two craps, twice in the rice, come is in, come again tells dealers to pay the field two to one and take losing come bets, and tells players to get another come bet. (Two craps is also known as the Irish roll because it's doublin' in the field). Would you believe the following gobbledygook is a list of instructions? Seven, winner, pay the line, the don 'ts don 't, working bets had action, odds are returned, comes go. Huh? Translation: Seven has rolled, pass line bets win, don't pass bets lose, players with come bets get the odds back but lose their "flat" bets.

When a die goes off the table, the stick may say: No call, it's over the wall or Hippity-hop, over the top or catering to a popular superstition Die on the floor, seven at the door. If a die lands in the wooden money racks lining the rails of the table, the stick says. Die high or No call, it 's tall or maybe It 's in the sequoia, can 't call it for ya. And then there's the ever-popular, It's in the wood row, Wilson. A player's guide to crap-talk Here's what craps dealers call numbers two through 12: Two: Aces, snake eyes.

Three: Ace-deuce, the old one-two. Four: Little Joe. Five: Fever (sometimes "fever in the bunk-house" or "fever in the Six: Jimmy Hicks. A hard six (two threes) is a "Brooklyn forest" (two trees). Seven: Skinny Dugan, Big Red the Sheriff.

Eight: Ater from Decatur, skate and donate. Hard eight (two fours) is the "square pair" or "Ozzie and Harriet." Nine: Nina Ross (old-timers add "that darn 10: The Big End. Hard 10 (two fives) is "puppy paws" or "Texas stars." 11: Yo or yo 'lev. 12: Midnight, boxcars. ADULT THEATER BOOKSTORE S.Virginia fy 329-9100 2XXX VIDEOS TONY axt TILLMAN DANNY MARONA s299i July 30 through August 12 July 31 througn August 12 swsEr COMING NEXT: T.

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