How The Eagles Post Season Is Like A Last Minute Trip To Atlantic City

So it was the week of Christmas and you really wanted to go down to Atlantic City to play some cards and win big. You had some success there a few years ago but you haven't had the chance to get back in a while. Not because you didn't want to go, but more because you just didn't have the scratch. Now due to the economic conditions, you're broke once again, so it doesn't look like your chances of making a trip down after Christmas are looking very good.

Your family does their Chinese Pollyanna at your Aunt Margie's house on Christmas Eve and you pick a box that ends up being a coffee maker. Bummer. Then, at the last minute, your cousin's husband Steve who is a real dick decides to steal it from you just to bust your balls. Whatever, you've got three coffee makers anyway. So there's one envelope left in the middle so you take it and find there's $50 bucks cash in it and you're thanking baby Jesus that your relatives are lacking in the creative gift giving department.

Whatever, you've got $50 bucks. All you needed was a chance to get in the game.

So things fell the right way and you head down to AC the first week of January and hit up Caesar's to play some Blackjack. Now you don't really have much to work with, just the $50 bucks you got in the Pollyanna, so you start out playing some $5 blackjack and catch some cards and double your stack pretty quick. Not bad.

So then you head over to the poker room to play some no limit. The guy next to you at the table is from the Midwest -- Minneapolis or something, and keeps saying stupid shit like, "You had the nuts, eh?" "For sure, eh?" But he's been playing a while and seems to have command of the table and has some friends with him. Whatever, he tries to grind you out but you keep shutting down his ground game. Then, when he tries to make something happen you pick the exact right time to make a move on him and send him home with nothing and doubled up your stack in the process.

So you're up to $200 bucks and are feeling pretty good about yourself. So you take a break for a while and head to Whitehouse and get a nice cheesesteak with provolone. When you head back to the poker room you get placed at a table full of arrogant, over confident, jorted up New Yorkers, with one goofy looking guy with a bad haircut leading the charge. It's brutal, but you're not phased. Kind of like the last guy from Minnesota, this guy has some good cards, the makings of a guy that could beat you, but he doesn't know how to run the show. He's one of those guys who can't lead a table, crumbles under pressure, especially when things get a little winded. You take down their leader and he's such a pansy he walks out crying looking for his brother or his daddy or something. They even got all pissed off when you stepped away from the table to make a phone call. Whatever. You tripled up this time and are sitting at about $600 bucks.

After that long session during which you simply demolished the New Yorkers, you're feeling pretty damn good with yourself, you go get a nice steak dinner at Morton's and have a nice bottle of wine and that leave's you with $500 bucks. You even get some mashed potatoes stuck in your scraggly beard.

Now you're a little drunk and excited and you've got $500. Do you go into the next game all cocky-like and a bit tipsy thinking you can throw around your winnings, sit on your laurels, and just push around whoever comes in front of you next? Or do you sober up, regroup, get your game face back on, devise a new strategy and go in for the real kill? The big pay day.

Either way, you're playing with house money. Still, nobody wants to go home a loser.

Comments

[Mark K.]

Well written, Enrico.

I think you split the difference and go in alittle tipsy but full of fight. Play strong, lead the table but know that a bigger payoff is just a couple of hands away.

Either way, Kurt Warner ain't no Teddy KGB....

[Mark D]

When you head back to the poker room you get placed at a table full of arrogant, over confident, jorted up New Yorkers, with one goofy looking guy with a bad haircut leading the charge.
I knew there was a reason I'd rather gamble at Binion's on Freemont St on a Thurs. morning at 2:30.

[jd]

i smell pulitzer.

i say stick with what works. clearly the talent and confidence is there in the game you know, and you are playing it well. only when you sit down the next time, throw a few wrinkles in there just to keep the opponent off guard.

you know you are better, just win.

[T.J.]

I like the analogy.

My last minute trips to AC usually end up with me coming home broke at 4 a.m., missing my phone, and getting enough change to get something off the dollar menu at McDonalds.

I think going in with the same attitude is the right strategy. Watching player interviews, it comes off that the players know you've won nothing till you've won it all.

[DLo34]

Love the article, very well written.

I say you take your take your $500 and put 55% of it on the pass line at the craps table then 45% on two different horses running in the 3:00 race on Sunday out west. Then you take your winnings over to the roullette wheel and put half on 5 and the other half on 20. Relying on those two numbers will pay off big in the end. "You're so money you don't even know."

Believe.

[Chamomiles Davis]

Now you're a little drunk and excited and you've got $500. Do you sober up, regroup, get your game face back on, devise a new strategy and go in for the real kill?

Or do you just say, "Fuck it, I'm going to a titty bar?" --Pacman Jones

[jd]

@CD

bare exposures normally leads to (more) bad decision making. at this point in the game, i would look at anything that Pacman would do and go the other way.

[Kale]

haha 10/10 E

This is exactly how i feel. This is all bonus time, but at the same time, now that we're all invested again we don't want the ride to stop!

I wanna point out something too...to everyone who says people are jumping back on the band wagon.

I don't think we ever got off it. The team was just so down and out the pure odds of making it in the final stretch was so minute, and the way things had gone, we were all satisfied enough from the phillies to not be taking it so hard.

Here are some facts:

FACT #1: McNabb looked TERRIBLE when he was pulled in Baltimore. I mean, really really really bad. While i think that he's had an overall better season than most others lately, his middle stretch was some of the worst QB'ing we've ever seen from him. It didn't look like there was any leadership from him.

FACT #2: Andy Reid's play calling was ATROCIOUS! The unbalanced attack that he had the iggles running the SAME TIME AS MCNABB JUST HAPPENED TO HAVE HIS WORST GAMES didn't leave much promise for any success this year.

FACT #3: Hurry Up Offense. Has there been a worst 2 minute offense than what the eagles have shown during the Andy Reid era? I have said this for years, and still feel, that the eagles need a play caller JUST FOR 2 MINUTE OFFENSES.

FACT #4: Something happened. Call it Mcnabb's benching. Maybe it was a team meeting. Maybe it was destiny. But ALL OF THE EAGLE'S MALFUNCTIONS.....WENT AWAY.

Mcnabb is suddenly looking like a leader.
Reid is letting his boys play and actually calling good games. (Chollie had a talk with him maybe?)
This team finally started using the clock wisely.

And then there's the X factor....maybe this all hinged on Dawk's relentless refusal to accept defeat. His challenge to the rest of the team to finally start playing as good as every true Eagle knows they are capable of.

Maybe it was the realization that this era...which let's all agree, even without a ring has been a hellova team to be able to root for for the last 10 years.....that this era is about to be over. Maybe this is their one last hurrah to make sure that this team doesn't just become another footnote in the history books next to Jim Kelly's Bills.

Whatever the reason for the Eagle's Renaissance, I for one have had some of the most fun watching them than i've ever had in my 28 years. For me, the Phillies took away that pressure to HAVE TO WIN, and it just seems that it's in the cards for once. Stars have aligned, History books have been opened, and Immortality is preparing to be written.

[booksb]

Obviously you haven't been to AC in a while $10 blackjack tables are hard to find at ceasars, and I can't recall the last time I saw a $5 table.

[Adam B]

@Kale:

FACT #4: Something happened. ...

Add to your list the birth of McNabb's twins. Didn't he and a teammate or two (B-Dawk, maybe?) bring up this event in the press and couch it as something of a pressure release for his play?

[DJ Sly Bri]

Me and my boy who live in Albuquerque now (but are born and raised Philly guys, him G-Town and me South Philly) will be headed down to the game in Glendale. On Saturday night, we'll be over at Casino Arizona to take some money from the locals in the poker room.

Can't f'n wait.

[joe l]

Does anyone know where you can purchase the recent monday Philly Daily News papers (for the Eagles covers) out of the region? (I'm up in Boston if that matters.) The paper's website is has no info about ordering previous issues and ebay is pretty vacant.

[Jen A. Miller]

Fantastic. Linking to it on my blog now.

[Dave W]

Wow I didn't know Bill Simmons wrote for this site!

[Reverend Paul Revere]

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You go to AC, turn $50 into $600 and you don't go see some strippers? I've never been on a trip to AC like that.

[evx]

@DLo34

5 and 20 are obviously Dmac and BDawk.

55% - is this stuart bradley?

45% - no one is 45, the two horses (buck and westbrook) are 28 and 36?

Edge and Warner are 32 and 13 - but that doesn't seam to make much sense?

so.. what am i missing?

[evx]

Or.. is 55% of 500 (275) 27 and 25 - Mikell and Parker

45% of 500 is 225 - Samuel and Booker?

[Walklett]

At what point do you score some blow?

[Adam]

I think 55/45 is the pass to run ratio, not the numbers of any players.

[TJB]

Best allegory I've ever read.

[Mike]

Does that make waiting for the Eagles/Cowboys game a few weeks ago the equivalent of stopping to piss at the Frank S. Farley Plaza?

[Pete]

Is it me or does this read like one of those "Choose Your Own Adventures" books.

Anyways, good stuff as always Enrico.

[ian]

ever since the last day of the regular season when the eagles destroyed dallas and squeaked into the playoffs they have been a joy to watch with each game being more exciting than the last and generating more buzz. as an eagles fan i wonder though if they would be more effective with a true fullback blocking for westbrook and mcnabb. is klecko the primary fullback or is it eckel? i like eckel and think he is more suited to playing that position than klecko who had never played the position before turning pro. eckel on the other hand is a true fullback with experience at the position. what do people think in regard to this and the eagles' position of fullback in general? can they go all the way with what they have? should eckel be playing more at the fullback position?

[Eric]

<-- going to AC in March for 25th Bday bash and plans on using this strategy haha.

[DJ Sly Bri]

Does anyone know where you can purchase the recent monday Philly Daily News papers (for the Eagles covers) out of the region? (I'm up in Boston if that matters.) The paper's website is has no info about ordering previous issues and ebay is pretty vacant.

Joe, e-mail me at slybri102@yahoo.com. I got something to e-mail you back that might make you happy.

[DJ Sly Bri]

Does anyone know where you can purchase the recent monday Philly Daily News papers (for the Eagles covers) out of the region? (I'm up in Boston if that matters.) The paper's website is has no info about ordering previous issues and ebay is pretty vacant.

Joe e-mail me at slybri102@yahoo.com so I can e-mail you back with something that might make you happy.

[loctastic]

What magical world is this, that has $5 blackjack tables? They don't exist in AC, only Vegas. Not even in the worst casino, not even at 5am.

[Francis]

Never, ever compare Enrico to Bill Simmons. EVER. Bill Simmons is garbage, and not fit to lick Enrico's balls.

Good article, but Atlantic City still sucks. Go Birds.