The Hall of Fame Series will be the cream of the crop, the most ridiculous of the absolute ridiculous or even the best of the worst. You can count on the Casino Guy Reviews HoF to represent only the top of the food chain in gaming. At the end of the nomination period, we will ask you to vote on who will get in and who will have to get back in line with Barry Bonds and the other rejects. And without further ado, Casino Guy Reviews presents another nominee for the prestigious CGR Hall of Fame:

Never, in the history of the CGR Hall of Fame, has there ever been a nomination so swift, so immediate as this one.  Usually, like any other Hall of Fame, there is a moratorium of 5 years and a lengthy vetting process.  Hell, most of the stories for CGR HoF nominees needed the barley and hops dusted off of them before they were ready to publish, some well over a decade old.  These fucking jokers needed to memorialized and praised IMMEDIATELY.  Let’s see if your boy can set the stage appropriately to convince you on the merits of their elite status in CGR lure.

Everyone has seen that guy walking around the mall or strolling through the bar with a look that screams, “Look at me, I am someone”.

It’s fashion.  You just don’t get it.

That distinction could be from an outlandish sense of style like Lil Nas X.  That could be from a strong jawline like Bryce Paup at the end of his run with the Bills.  Or from the freshest lettuce like Aquaman….there is just something that grabs your attention and won’t let it go.  You oftentimes profile these people.  “He must be very successful”, or ” they must crush so much (REDACTED…my mom may read this)”.  Needless to say, in my last trek to the tables, I saw a crew, a posse, a cadre if you will of such distinguished gentlemen.  Let’s just say, don’t judge a book by it’s cover.

Small backstory.  As I mentioned in my post from a couple weeks ago, this was going to be a big stretch for the Casino Guy.  Lot’s of upcoming trips to the table and it was IMPERATIVE to get off to a good start for the sake of my bankroll.  And of course, in classic Casino Guy fashion, I lost all my roll and then some in the first stop in a magical 90 minutes of gaming.  The second stop, a full 7 days later, was make or break.  It was either bend over and take it like a champ time or it was let’s make it rain again time.  Gambling time would be limited early as I was at the casino for a concert.  At the intermission, I bellied up to the first blackjack table I saw and started going heavy on both the hand and the Match the Dealer side bet.  It was a glorious run, led by three, yes THREE suited matches at 14 to 1 each.  Did I ever mention that I FREAKIN’ LOVE Match the Dealer?  You bet your ass I did.  I cashed out enough to take the sting out of the fisting I received the week before.

After the show, I couldn’t just walk out the door with my replenished stack so I decided to find another open spot. Things were blah for a while.  That’s when Nelly and the St. Lunatics showed up.

Look, I am completely open minded that there are many ways to be successful in life.  If you have a dream to be say a best selling rap artiste, who am I to tell you no.  If you are on the come up, it’s just as important to portray success then to actually be successful in the rap game (I watched the Death Row Chronicles, so I am pretty much an expert).  So when these six cats strolled into the area of my table, I was curious to see if they were ballers or squids.  The one dude who sat down first looked a lot like Lil Jon but without the decked out grille.  The perfectly straight brimmed white and red hat.  A fresh Yankees jersey.  A “diamond” chain that Ludacris has accurately described in chapter and verse that would easily cost six figures (if it wasn’t plastic)….

I make this comparison on looks alone, because Lil Jon is an icon and presumably worth more money than most corporate board rooms combined.  This clown, and his back up dancers were nothing but frauds and the quintessential paratroopers.  What’s a paratrooper you ask?  He parachutes into a table.  Disrupts the action in the middle of the shoe.  Plays (poorly) for a few hands and then leaves broke.  Ultimately, because he sucks at being a human, he comes back and does it again.  (I swear to GOD, I am never playing a no-mid-shoe-entry table again.)

So now the rest of crew is trying to play.  Look fellas, I know you want to think you are the big fish in this pond, but when you try to buy in to a $25 table with $5s and $10s, your big baller brand street cred flies right out the door.  Getting 3 bullets to shoot isn’t rollin’ deep.  So now, the entire St. Lunatic crew, each one out of central casting for the Country Grammar video but with far less swagger, are playing way out over their skis at the $25 table: staying on 15s and 16s against a face, not doubling ever, asking for the count on EVERY hand dealt (WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK 9 and 3 and 3 add up to Hawking?!?!?!).  I am more than entertained by the absurdity of their get-ups in this particular environment (mind you, this was after a Grand Fund Railroad / The Guess Who concert on a packed gaming floor so the juxtaposition was not lost on me) and the chaos that ensued when a hand was won or lost.  I am simultaneously getting very annoyed.

I am pretty convinced the large, Biz Markie look-a-like in 3rd base thought he was playing along with the dealer or against the rest of the table.  That is the only possible reason why this guy was playing the way he did and why he celebrated when he did.  (No joke, he cheered on a dealer blackjack.  I think he thought we all won when the dealer turned AK.)

I really thought this was going to be a war of attrition.  This dealer would knockout the wankster crew and I would be left to sit in peace and hammer this shoe.  NOPE.  The last straw was the original paratrooper, Lil Jon himself, on his third trip back to the table and cashing in what was in total $250 in small bills, hits on a 14 with a dealer 6 showing.  He pulls a Queen to bust.  Dealer flips a 10 and then draws a 2 for 18.  Beats my double downed 17 (for 3 units total) and the rest of the innocent bystanders at the table.  I immediately color in and go looking for a new spot.  The looks on the faces of this brain-trust when I took my ball and went home was part embarrassment and part confusion.  I know LJ knew he should not have hit.  I just don’t know if he knew the he cost me and the others the hand.

I did find a nice, no mid-shoe entry table along with another character who will have her own blog dedicated to her (my sweet, delicate flower Penelope).  And after some rough sledding for both Penelope and me, I absolutely destroyed that table, racking up another 2 suited matches and a HUGE split double, split double, win near the end of my shoe.  If I would have let 2 Fraud Crew get me down, I never would have been set up with a flush bankroll for the upcoming 9 stops in 4 weeks.

So due to the absurdity of these yambags and their blatant disrespect of Jermaine Dupri and Nate Dogg…

we hereby nominate the $3.50 Mafia for induction into CGR Hall of Fame.

HoF Resume (Scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest):

1. Situational Greatness: 9 – You really needed to see this crew standing among the crew that came out of the GRF and The Guess Who show.  No where will you find a more out stark contrast in fashion and bravado, well maybe except here.
2. Absurdity: 8.5 – I don’t want to buy-in shame, but stopping a well oiled Saturday night table where people are betting 3 to 4X the table minimum for $65 in $5s was an all time move.
3. Statistical Excellence: 9 –To see a group of six individuals play 100% of their hands incorrectly, you have to respect the statistical anomaly of that.  Like not one of these brain surgeons could get anything right.
4. Uniqueness: 8 – Not gonna lie, these cats are a dime a dozen in any casino around the country.  However, I have just never seen a crew so inept and so fake.  They truly were in a class by themselves.
5. “It” factor: 8.5 – The thing that put these guys over the edge was they encapsulated all the bullshit that annoys the shit right out of me.  I gasped at their celebrations (when they won and when they thought they won).  I cringed at cliche-ness.  I hated them with the passion of a thousand suns.  But at the end of the day, I wanted more.  I needed to roll with these guy, albeit for a night just for someone to look at me and say, “That right there….that’s someone”.

Hall of Fame Score: 43

Have something you want to nominate, comment below or post it on Twitter at @casinoguyreview