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Thread: Druff, do you know this chick?

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    Diamond BCR's Avatar
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    Druff, do you know this chick?

    I left her name out of title intentionally. This is probably more a Vegas Casino Talk question, but since that element has moved here, this Gina Fiore girl. She’s Italian girl here on poker after dark sitting next to Tilly.



    It’s been cold as fuck for past week so I’ve caught up on podcasts I haven’t listened to for years. I stumbled into Tuchman’s Landon Tice interview, as I had never heard of him before challenge and that lead to suggesting some ringer series about gamblers that he was involved with for the Galfond episode.

    This girl was featured on another episode as blackjack savant. Wasn’t really a great series. More for people who are unfamiliar with that world. Kind of reminded me of early poker stuff that had me thinking TJ Cloutier was a genius thinker rather than constantly staked guy.

    According to show and subsequent Gambling with Edge podcast, she’s been at BJ/advantage play/poker to a lesser extent for twenty years. Given she seemed to be a fixture in that world in Vegas and SoCal, has to be fortyish at least given the timeframe, she has a kid with a poker player, it would seem shocking if you didn’t know her.

    As I listened to shows, she doesn’t come off particularly sharp, but I’m guessing she must be as she’s had court cases go to Supreme Court level regarding seized cash. There is so much you can’t really delve into when you’re a holecarding casino sharp, so maybe that’s why I struggled to get a read on if she’s legit, or was just a pretty girl who found sharp friends? I’m guessing she’s sharp, but it’s a hard skill to explain.

    I was just curious on your read? If you do know her, but can’t really address it given the nature of advantage play, feel free to delete thread.

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Yes, I know her, though I'm not sure if we've ever met.

    We've communicated on Twitter, and at one point she was scheduled to come on PFA Radio. However, some drama occurred when some PFA listeners who don't like her were pressuring me not to have her on, and when I approached her about it, she said that it's probably better to just skip the whole thing. (None of this had to do with any scamming or anything like that, just AP world drama.)

    Interestingly, my first mention of her on PFA seems to have been a false accusation. In the 2000s, a fairly pretty girl who looked like Gina was at my 100-200 table at Bellagio. The girl check-raised me on the turn with middle pair and a draw, whereas I had top pair. I called her down on the blank river, and she didn't want to show her hand. She said, "A pair of 10s", instead of showing first, as she was supposed to. She looked annoyed and turned over a ten, still hiding the other card. I told her that she had to either show or muck (it's not fair that she only shows if she can beat me), so she finally turned over her hand. I then turned over my top pair, and took the pot.

    The girl then remarked that I was an asshole. She and I went back and forth, and clearly she was feeling entitled because she was an attractive female and was pissed that a guy at the table wouldn't fall for her bullshit. Of course, a bunch of simp dudes at the table took her side and told me I was out of line (lol). I held my ground, and the atmosphere at the table from that point forward was tense.

    Years later I saw articles about Gina and saw a picture of her, and thought she was the girl in question. Gina would have been the right age at the time (this was in the 2000s), and looked a lot like the girl. I assumed it had to be her, and posted the story on PFA.

    Gina then contacted me and insisted it wasn't her. She swore up and down that this never happened, and that she had no recollection of any confrontation with me. She said she had a vague memory of playing with me once or twice, but nothing ever happened that was out of the ordinary or confrontational. She seemed very convincing, so I believed her. My memory of the girl was someone who had a similar look to Gina, but it's not like she was dead ringer for her. It could have easily been someone different. I took the post down, and since then we've gotten along well on social media, though we aren't particularly close.

    I still might have her on radio at some point in the future.

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    Diamond BCR's Avatar
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    Thanks for the response. She just seemed to be someone you would have crossed paths with, and given every semi-attractive girl who has ever had a winning 1/2 session was poker famous for a minute, I was curious how I hadn’t ever heard of her?

    My first thought was she seems like someone you’d know and have on radio.

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    Diamond BCR's Avatar
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    As an aside, I really don’t grasp that holecarding thing. According to her interview, she gave a zoom meeting on holecarding. I probably would have paid for that if it wasn’t overly expensive out of curiosity. I imagine that was likely really frowned upon by that AP world.

    I can honestly say in many years of sitting at blackjack tables, I very rarely caught any glimpse. Even before the peekers they check cards with when they used to look themselves.

    I wasn’t trying often, but I tend to sit at third base or first. Basic counting is easy, although not worth getting banned where I live with only two casinos at my disposal. I always counted downtown when I was in Vegas back in the day. I don’t think I have the vision to holecard, but would have checked it out for curiosity. You are so obviously a card counter that it makes it never worth it in any casino you care about returning to.

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Yeah she had some kind of boot camp recently for advantage play, and it was fairly expensive. That was what caused the drama among some APs, who are very sensitive to any possible techniques or secrets being exposed to outsiders. So some were angry about this and didn't want to hear her on PFA.

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    Flashlight Master desertrunner's Avatar
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    1. Druff has a good memory.
    2. Druff tells the best stories.

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    All Sorts of Sports gut's Avatar
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    I listened to that ringer podcast series as well. Agree with your take BCR. The Galfond and the bookie eps were watered-down and boring to me. I liked the one about the horse handicapper, but that arena is something I know little about. I did enjoy the Fiore ep also, because I had never heard of her before. My favorite thing with her was that a pro gamblers biggest bad beat was buying real estate at the worst time.

     
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      BCR: I cringed when they said real estate in 2006.

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    Quote Originally Posted by gut View Post
    I listened to that ringer podcast series as well. Agree with your take BCR. The Galfond and the bookie eps were watered-down and boring to me. I liked the one about the horse handicapper, but that arena is something I know little about. I did enjoy the Fiore ep also, because I had never heard of her before. My favorite thing with her was that a pro gamblers biggest bad beat was buying real estate at the worst time.
    Yeah, the bookie one struck me as almost a plug for a tout. If he’s sharp, you couldn’t tell. Seemed like a nice enough guy, but I struggled to even buy the story.

    I enjoyed the same two episodes as you, and even they weren’t great. Just interesting subject matter.

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    Plutonium Sanlmar's Avatar
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    Can you rustle up some links BCR? TIA

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    All Sorts of Sports gut's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sanlmar View Post
    Can you rustle up some links BCR? TIA

    https://www.theringer.com/gamblers-podcast

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    Diamond BCR's Avatar
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    Was just posting that. As both gut and I said, it’s not great.

    Was just linking it as he did. Certainly not normal Ringer quality.

    Here is second interview with her. Our own Mickey Crimm was on recent episode.

    Neither is super informative. Tbh, it piqued my interest because they kept talking about her being a beautiful girl who had won millions at blackjack, and what’s not hot about that? But both left me with questions, hence the thread. I wish Druff would have her on. He’s way better at interviewing someone than either of those guys, assuming she can talk even semi-openly.

    https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...ge/id459476611

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    Welcher jsearles22's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BCR View Post
    Was just posting that. As both gut and I said, it’s not great.

    Was just linking it as he did. Certainly not normal Ringer quality.

    Here is second interview with her. Our own Mickey Crimm was on recent episode.

    Neither is super informative. Tbh, it piqued my interest because they kept talking about her being a beautiful girl who had won millions at blackjack, and what’s not hot about that? But both left me with questions, hence the thread. I wish Druff would have her on. He’s way better at interviewing someone than either of those guys, assuming she can talk even semi-openly.

    https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...ge/id459476611
    Are you aware if she subsequently filed suit in Georgia? I can’t seem to find anything about it
    It's hilarious that we as a society think everyone can be a dr, a lawyer, an engineer. Some people are just fucking stupid. Why can't we just accept that?

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    Diamond BCR's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jsearles22 View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by BCR View Post
    Was just posting that. As both gut and I said, it’s not great.

    Was just linking it as he did. Certainly not normal Ringer quality.

    Here is second interview with her. Our own Mickey Crimm was on recent episode.

    Neither is super informative. Tbh, it piqued my interest because they kept talking about her being a beautiful girl who had won millions at blackjack, and what’s not hot about that? But both left me with questions, hence the thread. I wish Druff would have her on. He’s way better at interviewing someone than either of those guys, assuming she can talk even semi-openly.

    https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...ge/id459476611
    Are you aware if she subsequently filed suit in Georgia? I can’t seem to find anything about it
    They get into it in one of those podcasts. I think she won a change of venue to Nevada and it’s been appealed back and forth. She got the money back and the suit is about them being held liable in a civil suit.

    It’s like a third party law enforcement seizure deal. Some agency who could keep a large portion of the $ seized if it ended up being drug money, but it wasn’t. Don’t know if it’s done. Never heard the girls name until yesterday.

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    Quote Originally Posted by jsearles22 View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by BCR View Post
    Was just posting that. As both gut and I said, it’s not great.

    Was just linking it as he did. Certainly not normal Ringer quality.

    Here is second interview with her. Our own Mickey Crimm was on recent episode.

    Neither is super informative. Tbh, it piqued my interest because they kept talking about her being a beautiful girl who had won millions at blackjack, and what’s not hot about that? But both left me with questions, hence the thread. I wish Druff would have her on. He’s way better at interviewing someone than either of those guys, assuming she can talk even semi-openly.

    https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...ge/id459476611
    Are you aware if she subsequently filed suit in Georgia? I can’t seem to find anything about it
    Did the money get seized at the Atlanta airport?

    I know people that travel with 6 figs+ and never seem to have problems - I swear they are either wizards at packing it or just get super lucky over and over.

    She might of gotten extra attention bc she is female wheras these white dudes i know traveling with 50k in 20s just get ignored.

  15. #15
    Diamond BCR's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    Yeah she had some kind of boot camp recently for advantage play, and it was fairly expensive. That was what caused the drama among some APs, who are very sensitive to any possible techniques or secrets being exposed to outsiders. So some were angry about this and didn't want to hear her on PFA.
    I had seen that Gambling with an Edge pod before, but it tended to be like slots grinders and shit that didn’t interest me. I remember Micon and Kessler back in the day, and I didn’t doubt it was profitable, just not interesting unless you’re there.

    I scrolled through after listening to this to see if anything else was interesting and found that she had done a two part episode a few years back.

    That was just much better, idk why? I have noticed after the last year, everyone is worse communicators. I know I am.

    A year of talking to the same five people every day. That previous one just had more clarity. Interesting girl. Tells a lot of stories, some are same from later shows, but that older one was just a better listen. That narrator from ringer series wasn’t good.

    Talk of a book in 2019.

    My takeaway is she had bad timing. She found that whole blackjack world young, but had she found poker immediately when it was so easy in like 2001 or 2002, she would have been a famous girl. She wouldn’t have had to be even great to be famous.


    Sounds like she was grinding limit until later that decade when she played. I don’t blame her when it sounds like she was printing money with her team doing her thing, but in hindsight, that was a missed opportunity. NL in 2008 was already late to the dance for the sponsorships.

    She’s still an attractive woman, but an attractive exotic looking girl with some poker scores and her backstory when she was early twenties, forget about it. She makes one run in any tourney into the top 30 in 2004 and with her BJ tales, that’s a Ben Mezrich book. Her boyfriend of that era went poker, and she didn’t use his name, but I know who she is talking about. She had access to great players.

    We were fascinated with a beat up Annie Duke walking around with dirty feet. She would have beat the Vanessa Ruosso types to the fame a few years earlier and would have been a better looking and more interesting story.

    She had bad luck with the real estate thing, but she also had bad luck getting to poker just a step late.

    On blackjack, when they talk about holecarding being a 13% edge if you could play it 100%, which they said in pod, they’re talking if you didn’t have to worry about drawing suspicion, right?

    Like if you could do shit like hit 18 and 19 when the dealer has 20? You can’t though or you’d get blown up in 30 seconds. I assume the huge edge comes from spots where you’re sitting 18 with a dealer showing 8, but you know there is another 8 underneath? You double, you just look a little wild. Spots like that?

    I can see the huge advantage of being Asian they keep talking about. Asians do so much funky shit at blackjack, it’s a license to steal if you know wtf dealer has. Everyone is used to seeing Asians do strange shit. You hit something weird being middle aged white guy, alarms are going off.

    It’s a shame this girl didn’t run into that agent dude from way back. Brian something-agent for all the early poker players. Girl would have had a movie about her.

    The problem with being an advantage player seems it is really hard to market if you want to parlay it into something beyond the play itself. There is an edge over here, you go exploit it, but you can’t tell anyone outside your small world, and they plug it, and you have to seek out new spots and it just gets continually harder.

    A poker player or a sports gambler can make a score and explain their process the whole way after the fact. I heard ODB David Baker talking about winning the Westgate NFL comp the other day. He can tell you his approach after the fact. You’re impressed by his approach and thinking from the get. If he wanted to be a tout tomorrow, you know he’s sharp.

    Poker players can share their mindset on hands, approach, etc.

    Advantage pods are “I knew what was coming out of shoe”, like the one guy said talking about the lucky lady tables, and I can mentally jump to he must be talking some variation of shuffle tracking or whatever, but I’ve played tens of thousands of hands over my life and even I’m not sure. Trying to market that to anyone not really involved in gambling already is really hard.

    It’s basically you have to find people you really trust, who aren’t morons, and then take them along and show them. That’s the only real way to demonstrate. Poker players still had online the last year. Those advantage players have to feel like this has been going on for 5 years without access.

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    Diamond BCR's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sidewinder View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by jsearles22 View Post

    Are you aware if she subsequently filed suit in Georgia? I can’t seem to find anything about it
    Did the money get seized at the Atlanta airport?

    I know people that travel with 6 figs+ and never seem to have problems - I swear they are either wizards at packing it or just get super lucky over and over.

    She might of gotten extra attention bc she is female wheras these white dudes i know traveling with 50k in 20s just get ignored.
    They had seen it at a previous stop when checking bags. So it was a call ahead.

    They had some expectation that it might be an issue in Vegas and had already called attorney, but they had a quick stop in Atl and that’s where it happened for them back in 2006.

    The call ahead is the worst. It happened to me back then and was part of the story that interested me. I was curious since it came from pits if the casino had called, but sounds like she just packed it sloppy.

    This happened to me after playing a big poker game in Canada in 2007. I played in a game with some guy from Turkey who had a ton of money and a 5/10 game got huge. I ended up with the money I brought and another $40k. You have the whole $10k thing with crossing borders, so I had over $50k on me as I was ready to leave. It’s strange, as I wrote about it at the time on NWP, but what I most remember is it’s the last time I ever had an anxiety attack. Not from the game, but I had just gotten well and I had barely drank caffeine in years and kept drinking this dark coffee all night to keep me awake as the game was so lucrative and I had the worst anxiety attack of my life when I finished and was taking Ativan after Ativan for hours.

    I can’t recall if I had the casino cut me a check or if I got travelers check now when I left and converted money?

    I did the latter often when I’d go up there to play, so I can’t recall. For some reason I think I had the casino cut me a check.

    I just recall I got to border and the customs agent asked me about cash. I said I had like $7500 because I was at the casino or whatever it was under $10k, which is the same question you always got, and then he asked me about if I had any checks and I said maybe in my bag, and he legit knew the amount I had a check for.

    Was completely baffling why the casino called ahead considering it wasn’t like I killed them in the pits? Even when I listened to her story, she said someone just saw it, but I would have thought the casino called ahead if it was me.

    In my case, it was some other guys money. They pulled me over and had me sign some form and asked me a hundred questions. My mind was racing the entire time as to why they possibly cared? They clearly knew exactly where I got it as they knew the exact amount and were hassling me a little and I was playing dumb with the whole I thought it was just cash you had to declare thing. They didn’t seize it, but that was my concern. I think I had heard of players getting money seized already by that point. I seem to recall a party poker cruise story back then and I might have heard this story even?


    To this day I have no idea why the casino called them? I just knew they did because they told me what I had to the almost exact $.

    I recall thinking the guy was a Turkish National and maybe was on some watch list and they just wanted to hassle me a little and see if I knew him beyond the game, and were satisfied I didn’t and let it go? I had made that crossing many times back then and it was completely weird, but I also didn’t feel like I was getting rolled by corrupt border agents or anything. They didn’t think it was drugs as they knew exactly where it came from and I could never figure out the casinos angle?

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    Platinum mickeycrimm's Avatar
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    She's known as rxgamble on twitter and has a blog with that same name. She followed me on twitter so I followed her back. Like a true professional gambler she is not opposed to picking off money on the advantage slots when the opportunities present themselves. I figure she followed me to see what I know. There are a lot of advantage slot players following each other on twitter. I have 1100 followers there. I'm not stupid enough to believe it's because of my great charm or glorious good looks. They follow me because of my knowledge of slots. Just like rxgamble I get heat for giving up information. But there are many many more people that are happy I throw some tidbits here and there.

    I don't sell this lady short. She's been in some pretty tough battles in her life. And she's good enough at the hole carding game that she can teach it. Here's her blog:

    https://rxgamble.com/
    Last edited by mickeycrimm; 02-23-2021 at 07:23 AM.
    POKER FAG ALERT! POKER FAG ALERT! FOR GAY SEX CONTACT SLOPPY JOE.

  18. #18
    Diamond BCR's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mickeycrimm View Post
    She's known as rxgamble on twitter and has a blog with that same name. She followed me on twitter so I followed her back. Like a true professional gambler she is not opposed to picking off money on the advantage slots when the opportunities present themselves. I figure she followed me to see what I know. There are a lot of advantage slot players following each other on twitter. I have 1100 followers there. I'm not stupid enough to believe it's because of my great charm or glorious good looks. They follow me because of my knowledge of slots. Just like rxgamble I get heat for giving up information. But there are many many more people that are happy I throw some tidbits here and there. Here's her blog:

    https://rxgamble.com/
    Yeah I checked your pod out. That was the name she used on the pod as it was before the ringer series.

    You’re horrible on politics lol, but clearly know your shit about machines. I just don’t care about machines personally as I don’t live somewhere that’s ever inspired me to take any interest. If I was living in Vegas I’m sure I would be into it a little if it was profitable. I’ve always hated even walking into that area, but would if there was money to be made. It seems a rough niche outside Vegas and the west in general. Rough even there having to scout shit and drive hours and hope positive variance holds.


    When I used to be out there a lot I didn’t even know that world existed. I think when Druff would talk about Micon and Kessler grinding machines was my first exposure to that world even existing as any real source of income. I thought machine pros were just comp play guys back in the day.

  19. #19
    Bronze Benford's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BCR View Post
    It seems a rough niche outside Vegas and the west in general. Rough even there having to scout shit and drive hours and hope positive variance holds.


    When I used to be out there a lot I didn’t even know that world existed. I think when Druff would talk about Micon and Kessler grinding machines was my first exposure to that world even existing as any real source of income. I thought machine pros were just comp play guys back in the day.
    I know a few people who do this in the Midwest & East Coast. They all complain to me how the competition with multiple other AP's in good areas can be really intense anymore, a race to grab a profitable machine when one opens up.

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    Flashlight Master desertrunner's Avatar
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    Druff- Do you know this chick? She is rolling a Beretta...


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