We’ve previously explored (http://www.smilepolitely.com/sports/they_lost_but_we_didnt_win/) how caring about sports is essentially indistinguishable from gambling, but instead of wagering money, we wager with our own emotions. Saturday’s disappointing loss to Ohio State refined my thoughts on that substantially. I was reminded specifically of my friend Justin and watching him play craps in Las Vegas.
Some may be only passingly familiar with the game of craps, and play it as a binary question. Will the shooter roll a seven (the most statistically probably result of two six-sided dice fairly thrown) before repeating the number thrown on the opening roll. Many place a single bet, and then sit back and wait to see whether they win or lose.
Justin doesn’t play craps that way. To Justin, each roll of the dice is an opportunity to place more “field bets,” those confusing spots on the felt in the center of the table. Come bets, single roll yos, the horn, hard eights. For our purposes here it doesn’t really matter what these bets mean. These bets carry extremely high risk, and extremely high payouts. As the shooter rolls the dice over and over, looking to determine whether the shooter will win or lose, Justin isn’t standing idly by. He’s increasing his bets, putting more money on the table, increasing his exposure. The longer the turn goes without a bust, the more Justin stands to win or lose.
And thus has been the Illini season.
In years of recent memory, the Illinois season never made for much of a craps turn. Each year would start with a loss to Missouri in the opening Border Wars game. The first dice roll was a loss, the croupier rakes in the bets of the offseason expectations. The bettors never got to lay those exotically named bets, those increased expectations. Sure, the next game starts a new turn, but there’s a special disappointment in a loss coming out. The thrill is in the build.
This season was different. Illinois came out without crapping out, opening up the table for the action of our expectations. Various bettors started to gather. Like any craps table, the different players had their own superstitious ways. Some dove in headlong and early laying on the long shots, discussing Big Ten titles and BCS bowls. Others came in slowly, waiting several rolls until the Arizona State or Northwestern games, at which maybe they bet just a little bit more, opening themselves up to the possibility of slightly bigger wins, but still not laying too much on the felt.
And yesterday, the Illini’s exhilarating opening turn came to an end. The Illini rolled a 7 and crapped out.
The reasons for the loss have, even at this early hour, already been amply explored. The defense actually played quite well overall, and did a good job with what they were given. Ohio State called comically few pass plays (four total), and ran the ball almost exclusively. The game turned into a grinding field position game, and the halftime score was 3-0 in favor of the Buckeyes: hardly out of hand.
But Illinois’ offense just did not find rhythm all afternoon. Drives would get going only to sputter out as receivers saw balls bounce off their hands or sail over their heads. But most devastatingly, those errant balls sometimes ended up in the hands of Ohio State players, and Ohio State converted these turnovers into points. This was the deciding factor of the game.
Gamblers love little more than to recount the story of a bad beat, despite the fact that no one wants to hear it. Many fans are irate at the decision to go for the first down on 4th and 2 while the Illini were down 10 points in the 4th quarter. The traditional wisdom says that if you need a touchdown and a field goal anyway, you take the sure points of the field goal. This whole issue is summed up nicely in an exchange between Samuel L. Jackson and Philip Baker Hall’s characters in Paul Thomas Anderson’s criminally underrated film Hard Eight, as they discuss a previous game at the craps table:
SLJ: I saw you playing craps over at the original Dunes. You bet the hard eight for a thousand and pressed it for two.
PBH: Did I hit it?
SLJ: No, you didn’t. But it was a big balls bet, and I remembered your face.
PBH: Stupid bet.
Some, like Mr. Jackson, admire gamblers who make a risky long shot bet and then double down on it, even if they lose. And some follow the convention wisdom: kick the field goal. Stay away from long-shot, sucker bets like hard eight. Sometimes the gambler himself goes against the traditional wisdom, and in highsight comes to regret it. But this is a distraction. Coaching decisions do not cause fumbles or dropped passes. Only poor play can be blamed for that.
The loss is particularly tough to take as there is no doubt in my mind that Illinois could have won the game. This was not a case of a team that was badly outmatched by a powerhouse program from a football factory. The win was there to be had. The rolls just came out wrong.
So the exhilarating turn that has been Illinois’ seven rolls has come to an end, and a new phase necessarily starts. Illinois travels to Purdue and then to Penn State for a two-game road test, before coming home to play Michigan and Wisconsin.
Paradoxically, losing is the essential part of any game that no one wishes was a part of the game at all. There is no reward without risk, and in sports the reward of winning would be hollow without the threat of stinging defeat. Illinois’ fans have known the reward six times already this year, and now feel that old familiar sting. How the team, and the fans, respond on the next turn remains to be seen. Will all of the Illini Nation, players and fans, step back to the table with gusto, or will they be cowed by the end of the first turn?
In order to win big at craps you have to play like Justin: throwing yourself into the game with your full heart and covering the felt after every roll. There’s no reward in timidity, and it is not possible to win big without opening yourself up to the possibility of sudden and crushing defeat. There are no gentle letdowns if you play it the way it is supposed to be played. So you decide how you want to play the next roll. I know how I’ll be playing.