Wilamena first looked at me like I was a complete goner. I got down on my hands and knees, playacted a search of the floor. I stood back up and went through my pockets, turning them inside out like a frenzied tailor. When I saw that Wilamena had seen the black chips in my mix-up stack, I suddenly "found" my missing black chip. "Oh, my God!" I cried, changing the tune from panic to joy. "There it is! On number 29! I bet it! I bet my black chip by accident, and it won! I just won $3,500 ... by accident!" I began making an assortment of oohing and aahing sounds, offering my hand to Jerry and the other players, who all shook it in a congratulatory manner. Duke would tell me afterward that he'd heard me carrying on from all the way on the opposite side of the casino when he was nearly out the door. And Joe would say, "That, my dear Watson is the mark of a great claimer." Wilamena's facial expression upon seeing those black chips mixed into my front stack like that, as well as the "missing" black, mixed one chip from the bottom into the four-chip winning bet on the layout, nearly defied description. It was an awkward split face, from top to bottom, not down the middle. Her pretty half-smile seemed compressed by the total disbelief which worked her brows into a frown and froze her half-parted lips before they could stretch into a full-blown smile. She looked like one of those computerized images of a person that taught you how different the two sides of your face actually were and how horrible you'd look if they weren't. The bottom of her face was certainly happy for me but the top of it was deeply concerned about the repercussions that would come from the pit. When I read into Wilamena's thoughts, I instantly knew how powerful this new claim would be. All suspicion about the sudden appearance of an unseen black chip on the layout was removed by the claimer saying that it was he who had made the mistake. The floorman was drawn quickly over to the table by my hysterics. He immediately understood what had happened. Wilamena even pointed out my mix-up stack to him, which made him laugh. He said to me, "Must be your lucky day in Puerto Rico. I wish I could make a mistake like that." Wilamena paid me the $3,500, then suggested I remove the black chips mixed into my mix-up stack and put them with the black chips she just paid me, so I wouldn't make the same mistake again. Oh, how I love baccara! With this new claim the bet-back was no longer necessary. There was no need to play the part of a high roller. In contrast to the old claim, where I had to set them up to convince them I was a legitimate black-chip roulette player, here I was only making them believe that I was just a lucky dummy who had stupidly mixed up his black hundred-dollar casino chips with his dark brown one-dollar roulette chips. There was no reason to give them back a black chip on the bet-back, so I just cashed in the remaining roulette chips, threw Wilamena a twenty-five-dollar toke, and left the table, finding Duke and his big grin at the meeting place. The roulette mix-up became our primary roulette move. Its payoff rate was higher than the old moves done with the setup. Of course, as with all moves, there were occasional misses. But the strength of the mix-up claim was evident even when it missed. The moves that didn't get paid took less steam. Sometimes a rank pit boss would come over and tell me that he wasn't paying because I hadn't intended to make that bet. He would rule the hundred-dollar chip null and void and pick it up off the layout and toss it back at me.
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