Originally <a href='/showthread.php?p=15279128'>posted</a> on 07/04/2012:

Quote Originally Posted by ChrisJ View Post
Hey MDF, mind sharing some stories from your capping life? Sickest run, biggest bet/loss etc.
Man, the sickest or craziest run........I would have to say this one back in 1997 stands out. Back when internet books were still in it's infancy. There were only a handful of reliable solid books and they were mainly telephone only the first few years. Books like BETCRIS, WWTS, the original WSEX(before they got in trouble), and a few others. I remembered this one run that started with football, basketball, and ended with the baseball season. During that run, I had made numerous deposits totaling approximately close to $2k(increments of about $300 each time). I caught fire during that 1997-1998 football season capping it off during the Denver Broncos/Green Bay Packers Superbowl 33. I had ran the account up to about $22K. It was the last game of the season and I had a very good read and feel on taking Broncos which I remembered the line was around +8. For some odd reason I was saying to myself "Denver is gonna win this, straight up.....screw the points, I'm taking these mofos straight up on the money line!". Other cappers thought I was insane to forget the points, I believe the money line was +250. They called me even crazier when a placed a $5k on the money line to win $12.5K!! Needless to say, Denver ended up winning that game with an incredible performance by John Elway & Terrell Davis. That was probably my biggest and most ballsy bet IN SPORTS..........the story doesnt end there

So that same year, a few buddies and I decide to hit Vegas for a weekend. I'm like sure, I got a $30K bankroll now comprised of all sports betting, let's see if we can take Vegas. I remember bringing about $10K with me. Now a bit of background with casino gambling. I was introduced to gambling at a very early age in my life. My grandmother was a big majong player. When I was about 10 yrs old, she taught me a lot about cards, poker hands, and we would play 13 card chinese poker for fun all day long. She also taught me Baccarrat and Pai Gow Poker. My talent in cards is NO LIMIT HOLD EM. I played in a lot of underground cardhouses and used to clean up. One of my talents is being able to get into the pysche and read people well. However in Vegas back in 1997, NONE of the main casinos on the strip offered no limit holdem. This was way before the poker tv craze. All they offered was minimal limit hold em which relied on too much luck in my opinion and not much skill involved. I believe Binions was the only casino with no limit holdem but even then the games were hard to find. So the only game of interest left for me to play was Baccarat and Pai Gow Poker.

I remember we were staying at the MGM which back in 1997 was a decent casino(this was way before The Wynn, Bellagio, or Venetian). The MGM also had and still does today one of the most highly respected sportsbooks. So the first night my buddies and I lived it up. Did the normal vegas thing , good food, nightclubs, drinking, casual gambling here and there.
One night, when all my pals had checked in for the night, I decide to pull a solo mission and go downstairs to the high stakes Baccarat tables. The table I was playing at was a $500 minimum -$10K maximum per hand table. I dont know what got into me and why I decided to venture into this table. I had about $13K in cash on me(I had won a couple K messing around in the PAiGow tables the night before). I was like screw it, I'm here in Vegas, I'll lose this $13k real quick and see what happens. I remembered it was kinda of late in the evening so I was the only one at the table. In the high stakes room, they actually let the player bend and crush the cards as you please. I guess playing over a $1k a hand affords you the right to bend a pack of 60 cent cards as you want

So I started out with the minimum $500 per hand and got on a decent roll and had won about $7K in an hr. At this point the bankroll was at $20K on the table. I started getting into a nice flow, guessing the PLAYER and BANKERS side with consistency, an ebb and flow of about 4 wins to 1 loss for about two hrs. I specifically recalled the bankroll was at about $40K now. I'm feeling nice right?? Things are going sweet, nothing like a cool $40K cash in hand. At this point a couple other players were around me. They were following my bets and we proceeded to get hot again. I was 24 yrs old at that time in 1997 and looked quite young. I call it the ASIAN VAMPIRE GENES .....we hardly age at all through the years

Anyways all the guys that were surrounding me were like older Asian and European gentlemen. Most of them millionaire business owners just killing some time. I was dressed in a Adidas jogging suit looking like some young punk kid. They were like "damn who the hell is this kid playing $1K a hand, what do you do for a living son?" Mind you this was back in 1997 before the internet boom and poker, finding a young kid with $40K in chips wasnt the norm. I told him I was some record producer ( which was a lie) ....it was the same line Vince Vaughn used in one of my favorite movies SWINGERS

Well in next hour they didnt give a damn who I was because we were killing the casino and they were all tailing me whatever I did. What happened the next 14 hands just blew their mind. I recalled looking at my Baccarat card sheet , these long sheets of papers that resemble a time card, for players to record their actions. Well when one of the gentlemen asked if he can look at my sheet, he was stunned. He was like "damn son, you have a very unique way of recording Baccarat". I was like how so. He said normally when everyone fills out this sheet, they cross reference numbers that have appeared already. Sort of like a way of counting cards to give a player a small advantage. In Baccarat this is accepted is it gives minimal to no advantage unlike Blackjack. He looked at my sheet and was laughing. He saw nothing but handwritten "P"s and "B"s which were my way of recording which hands the Banker won and Player won. He was like "who taught you to do it like this". Then all of a sudden another player was like "leave the kid alone we're up a lot".

I don't know what got into me but I said to myself, allright, I'm feel nothing but PLAYER hands coming up, I'm going to play no BANKERS hands. It was an incredible sight. The next 14 hands were all PLAYERS wins. The whole table was ecstatic. I was playing from $3k -$10K PER HAND during that run. The dealers couldnt believe it themselves. They never saw fourteen straight Players hand in a row.....that's similar to flipping a coin and hitting heads 14 times in a row.

All said and done, I had about $120K in chips that night. I was appointed a house "consultant". They gave me a really nice RAIN MAN type suit. The consultant gave me an inhouse MGM CC and said any fine dining restaurant, drinks, clubs, bottle service, whatever you want, you put on this card and the MGM picks up the tab. Needless to say, me and the pals ate at all the best restaurants at the MGM and partied it up.

So that's my crazy run story .....now what I did with that $120K in the stock market is another story for another day

Take care guys,
MDF