I have finally received 2 detailed message (PM's/Emails) from members here that have paid and taken Gizmo's course/teachings/school, etc.

While I am not here to bash or demean or humiliate anyone, I am here to educate, inform, advise to the best of my knowledge anything and everything on this message board.

I am and have always been here to discuss and expand my knowledge as well as those desiring to engage in the same type of discussion on a positive or at least a neutral basis rather than the negative, engaging for drama or otherwise type of behavior such as the 3 or 4 that banded together in their attempt to rule, run, control and dominate the board here.

Getting back to Mark/Gizmo.  I gave a bit of lee-way to Mark, apologized, attempted to genuinely make up with the guy and move forward with our vehicle here.  Mark has outright lied to me and others, deceived plenty, and at his will--beck and call, turn the tables to favor himself and his position(s) presented.  I have the proof, not only of a deceitful, ugly and fraudulent business dealing that was consummated and engaged upon because of this board, but 2 members of this board concerning his teaching/mentoring, etc. 

At best his mentoring is almost a system that could be attained just about anyway on the internet for less than $100.00 at best.  Mark, blows it all up, praises himself, his losses, his trails and errors and everything else to make himself great, fantastic, the best, etc.  It is all salesmanship on the best day.  Both members spent their money on the promise they would get the knowledge and the insight to what Mark promises,  But Mark is savvy, Mark is slick, Mark is seasoned, etc.  Mark knows what he is preaching and doing and always has a way out by claiming the members just cannot learn or absorb or spends his winnings on greed and fallacy mixed in by the student, etc., etc. 

My questions are, why does Mark and others like him, refuse to release their contact info, their real names, their locations, their references, their phone numbers, and many other things any type of reputable, real business normally does?  As well, people like Mark band together with the types like Xander, Jimske and SoxFan and uses them for his own boasting and comradeship to influence the newb's and the innocent naive members that might just fall prey with $2,000.00 or $3,000.00 in the hopes to become that professional, great, rich gambler Mark says he can create of most anyone. 

But, Mark and the other handful of people will band together and show outright disrespect, chastising, humiliation and attempted control of the website they really have nothing managerial to do with, not pay to belong, refuse to donate, refuse to advertise, refuse to release anything personnel about themselves and stand ready to squash, demean and step on anyone actually making perfect, real, verifiable statements that people can learn from, research, expand their knowledge base and become generally informed for free.

Just a few thoughts I wanted to get out there after talking with several of the BetSelection long time members yesterday by phone. 

Thanks, Glen.

Quote from: AsymBacGuy on October 16, 2017, 12:56:13 AM
An entire shoe producing all B-P chops (even discounting ties) is impossible to believe.
Even admitting 30 ties, the probability to get 50 BP chopped hands represents a more than 7 sr deviation, that is the same probability to get a 50 hands streak.

In the history of roulette and baccarat there are no records of such values. 
(roulette records known= 42 blacks and 41 chopping hands)

If this should be true, it's an additional proof that baccarat tends to get the opposite outcome of the last happened. As bac streaks of 50 never happened.

as.

Asym:

There is nothing I can really offer except my words and a statement, not a lie or exaggerated in any way.   

I don't recall ever hearing of streaks (with or without ties) of excess of 30 Bankers or Players in a row, ever.  High 20's. 26-27 -28 or so and those are rare. 

I personally witnessed that complete shoe of chops, alternating B-P-B-P-B-P the entire shoe, with ties, don't remember how many ties, 15??  But nonetheless, 1 complete shoe of B-P the entire shoe at the old Bally's Grand in Atlantic City.  I believe I saw another one with either 2 or 3 little runs of only 3's.  I have asked countless dealers in small talk, I recall a couple of them saying yes they have also, once.  The remainder, always no, they have never seen it. 

And over at another message board you literally have the handful of people that were also here, attempting to run and control our board when I was taking over.  With their repetitiveness, one-liners, redundant nothings, continual senseless challenges that were strictly 100% drama orientated to square off with others, not really much at all to even do with gambling and theory anyways. 

There is not even new people, all they did was go from here to over there with 4 out of the 6 of them banned here, another threatening not to come back here and now Mark making it probably 5 banned here out of the 6 over there controlling and attempting to drive their board, etc, etc. 

I really sat down the other night and went on as a guest and read.  LOL,same thing, just different board names with less censorship.  But they do back down when the censorship comes over there because they are running out of places to really go.  And IMO and estimation, 90% or greater is not even about gambling or anything related to casinos.   
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Here, 3 weeks ago I wrote something that fits right in here!  IMO:

"Merging and discussing reality gets attacked because it clearly, plainly and simply attacks the Fantasy World of those that created their opinions, schedules and beliefs by whatever cult methods they happen to believe in.

It is a form of belief, but the way they formed it is different then the reality and what actually happens at the casino tables.  "I can't comment on it",  "I don't know", or  "It is possible".  Whatever happened to those?

Not just in discussion on the message boards, but in general because I say the internet and the social media thing and everything along with that, and of course those are not viable answers any longer.

The exact same as when I walked through the door and my kid says,  "Daddy I love you", hugs me and continues saying, "The babysitter is a liar".  Cut it off before it is brought out, pretty smart if you ask me. But the truth is, people attempt to cut or mitigate reality to fit the person's agenda.  It's the same on the message board, that's all I got to say."

Quote from: TheMagician on August 30, 2018, 11:56:58 AM
You give a person with a self-confessed schizophrenia (and in my view serious and clearly visible signs of mano-depressive, bipolar mental issues), enough leeway and opportunities to take apart what you have built, that is what you get.

It is like putting your hand into a hungry tigers mouth, wondering why he doesn't stop, having bitten it off, going for the rest of you...

You are correct, wished I could have said, "See I told you Mark was okay"!  But I cannot.  And, I am naming him.  We had our couple of in's and out's, sure.  I wholeheartedly apologized to him and he played me, played me 100% because of the type of person I really am.

He will not be back, period.  I 100% banned him.  He is on another board and he is self-confessing everything I just said and numerous other things, how he so perfectly played me, us, everyone, etc.  He says how he manipulated and used me and this board.  But then he turns around and says how honest he is and how loyal and how great of a gambler he is.  Including excuses for the numerous thousands of dollars he took and failed to return to another member here. 

My point in saying all that is not revenge or feelings!  It is that we are all people, with brains, guts, motives and plans we each carry out or not. 

You know it is the same as my business I am currently in.  I hire people, fire them.  Some great employees have personal problems and it also effects their work.  Many times I have compromised and listened, understood what they were going through, adjusted and bent rules and regulations within my small company to keep them.  Most times, it worked out and benefited my company, myself and the person.  Other times it has not.  But the good ones have to suffer at times if we are to salvage or rectify the situations involving others that are sometimes within our own ball court.  At least IMO. 

I go back with Vic here, and I blew up at him in the past.  As well as, at Esoito and AD.  But you know what, my apologies were truthful, brutally given and I think, pretty much upheld.  I can only say, most of us treat others as we want to be treated or at least we put ourselves into the picture as the other person, and maybe that explains why we do what we each do??

Please be careful with gambling you'all.

Here is an example of what it can very well bring onto you!

I have it under real good authority that this individual is attempting to solicit members and this board and myself, in no way endorses his teaching or knowledge in any way whatsoever!

I have recently allowed him to post with neutrality and using his tenure here in a level headed and reasonable offer.

Unfortunately I have information that has been double verified and checked as to his unscrupulous and senseless offers.  I will not allow it on our board.  Any question, please message me, thanks, Glen.

https://betselection.cc/gizmotron/a-very-special-apology-to-alrelax/msg64589/#new

Relevance versus Perception versus Reality.......The Brutal Honest Truth Most Cannot or Will Not Face--Admit--Even Explore!

Relevance

A very important thing to base much around when you are actually at the casino table.  For good solid reason!

I took H-Money to the casino the other night.  F***Me!
What a waste of time, action and f***ing emotions!

He won $23,000.00 and agreed, complied and then went back to the casino after we dropped him home, and gave it all back, the buy-in and borrowed additional monies to continue his attempt to recoup, recover and win, once again.  It was right at a $1,000.00 buy in.  Two shoes, done deal.  Talked until both myself and my buddy was blue in the face, pretty much a last ditch try with the man.  I can't take it any longer.  Somehow he allowed the defensives of the casino to come right through, be ingrained within himself and allow them to overwhelm himself.  Sad, but reality and relevant! 

No matter what he wins or loses, he cannot paint a picture with a decent relevant game plan that can bring him back around.  If we went tomorrow and he won $100K + he would give it all back and then some.  If he won $5k or $10k or another $23k, he would only add huge doses of failure waiting to happen, because he does not and cannot realize, relevance in the overall picture is one of the key items that he disavows even pertinent to gambling.  And, IMO it most certainly is foremost and #1.   

Emotional and childish, ego driven.  What the real problem is the false sense of perception? IMO, it is the sheer misunderstanding, fail to have explained to yourself as well as the ugly greed and reality that you have no idea how to handle, taper or deal with, when you are playing.   Leave it at the door!  Check it.  Be done with it.  All it can generally do for you, is hurt you.  Almost all of you figure you have the casino outsmarted and outwitted by reading the likes of the 3 or 4 regular members that used to write on this board until I could not put up with their game playing and their warped sense of combativeness.  Over and over and over, the same things with the same people or the scarring away of new members. 

First stop is walking through the casino doors.  Get into neutral.  No perception, None! 

Leave perception, I stress.  Engage in 'Relevance'.

Relevance means, 'Important to the matter at hand', 'being connected'.  And, that my friend will bring you laps around perception. 

Probability and Edge Variance cannot be applied to the game in every move detail, unless you have a huge, almost infinite bankroll to fund buy-in after buy-in after buy-in, to continue your pursuit of endless wagering that fails more than it wins.  When you get up a few units then you say you stop and take the profit, oh please---that story is getting real old, does not happen except repeatedly on paper. 

You either go down -OR-you succeed

Those two things happen, will happen and there is no way to stop them or pick a table without the chance that either of them will happen.  Period.  No way.

Each hand has just as much chance to happen or not happen in most situations.  Not all, but most.  There are select times (opportunities by the clear majority of the chance) that something will happen in the upcoming section, that it is a clear opportunity, but that is not the focus here. 

You can put a math spin on it to support any position you take or are against. 

Regarding Test Results

The computer test results highlighting probability and variance, cannot be applied uniformly across the board to the casino table you are playing at, unless you play the same amount of total hands in long term multimillion shoe tests.  This cannot be accomplished in the casino.  Period.

Therefore, you cannot use the results of those computer tests, divided down to small play times and hope they will match the results of the shoe in the casino you choose to play at.  Period.

The house edge might or might not happen in a shoe.  There is no way to tell what it will probably produce until very late in the shoe, say hand 65-70, you still do not have a definitive advantage, because you still have no idea the order of the cards remaining, and how they will proceed to come out.

False Positives

Identify what happens, when it happens as well as when it did not happen.  That will give you sections that could allow you to be ready for opportunities that the shoe could produce.  But once again, the shoe might not.  What so many players are under is a false positive that something has to happen.  It does not.  Will it eventually, probably.  And that right there is the biggest and most dangerous misnomer of the game itself.

Even with the extensive review and analyzation of all baccarat computer test results by the world's most advanced, best qualified, highest rated mathematicians and statisticians, they will not be able to come up with a formula to outright predict randomness.  They will however, claim, they can pick the correct random outcome the majority of the time and the like--just to make themselves feel heads and tails over the rest of us.  But in reality, it does not work that way.  The sooner you digest that the sooner you will be on your way to realistic and better play. 

As far as any reoccurring events, (runs, streaks, chop chop, doubles, triples, etc.) they happen all the time, almost every single shoe.  It is just that we trained ourselves the wrong way to recognize them.  We convinced ourselves that we have to see the reoccurring events to play with them repeatedly first and then wager on them to continue or cut.  At best we win a couple or a few and then give it right back, pushing us almost unconsciously into submission or gross negligence of everything we learned, stood for and practiced.  In other words, you are approaching the selection for your wagers, the wrong way with the wrong trend of thought. Means an awful lot!  You only wind up putting yourself into a rut, a mean nasty rut that is only your fault.  Being neutral, being clear minded, possessing no scheduled types of wager selection protocol, is so vital and so crucial to winning money, the simplicity of it is tough for so many to actually grasp and understand.

There are always opportunities along the upcoming path, which are not yet presented.  All you have to do, is be on that path.  REMEMBER that above all else!   But my key to winning is the application of my chart below, not to be confused with actual BetSelection procedures.  This will enable you to win much greater amounts, than you would normally.  And that is one of the keys for stacking up the win money, something sizable anyways.

If you are going to play with the thought of one unit profit, just focusing on the 1s, which have to happen, after an unknown amount of previous repeats, or choose an entering point, way when a 3 or a 4 repeating P or B occurs and then wager for the opposite side, all you have to do is have enough to buy in and be able to stay under table max, no matter how many times you lose before the cut to the opposite side comes out. But if you win, you will not and if you lose, likewise, you become more enraged and frustrated and thus your cycle and vision is knocked so far off balance, you are only destined to lose, plain and simple.

One unit profit, two units profit.  I do not play for it.  However, if you were to do this for example, at a $2,000.00 max table, you would have the following chances to make 1 unit profit.  This has to be about the most believed in and most talked about schedule of wagering ever.  There are so many other more secure ways to wager with far less risk and far greater opportunity! 

$100 Wagers          $50.00 Wagers        $25.00 Wagers           $200.00 Wagers                 $500.00 Wagers
100.00                      50.00                          25.00                       200.00                          500.00
200.00                      100.00                        50.00                        400.00                         1,000.00
400.00                      200.00                        100.00                      800.00                          2,000.00
800.00                      400.00                        200.00                      1,600.00                    ___________
1,600.00                   800.00                        400.00                    ____________
________                 1,600.00                      800.00                    Risk  3,000.00             Risk 3,500.00
Risk 3,100.00           __________                 1,600.00
                               Risk 3,150.00            _____________
                                                                 Risk 3,175.00

3 to 7 wagers at a $2,000.00 max table, even at a $100.00 to a $10,000.00 max table, there are not a lot of greater chances left.  Huge risk, versus reward and consistent wins?  If you never witnessed 7 to 10 losing hands, you really have never got into playing baccarat yet.  You can easily finish those charts for any max limit table and figure out your risk, it is huge!  I see people do it all the time and I see more lose than even walk away with the one or two units. 

Problem being, once you lose a series of 5 to 7 wagers, as shown above with the Marty, you will be in deep by subscribing to that way of scheduled play.  Lose once or twice and attempt to make it all back at one or two units with further risk.  Nearly impossible.  I promise you that. 

I would say one of the safest, although no guarantees, is to enter after the 4th occurring same side result.  There are lots and lots of 2's and 3's and even 4's.  However, if the streak goes past the 4th repeating one, then you will lose your risk wager for that round.   And the highest majority of everyone will not stop with the first loss.  And, if you say, all I need is a $3,500.00 bankroll and I can repetitively win one or two units all day long.  Just split up my sessions, win and break, win and win and keep repeating.  Try it! It will not work, it will backfire on you and your $3,500.00 will be gone, fast.  Then attempt to recoup that by one and two unit wins of $25.00! It will take 124 times, winning 1 unit at a time to recoup.  You better have tens of thousands of dollars in bank roll to risk and lose frequently if that is your trend of thought.

There usually are short sections within most shoes, not all, but most, that do offer super opportunities for great returns in wagering if done correctly.  I have talked and exposed plenty in relationship to that.  You have to program your mind and be neutral. 
Since there are only a limited amount of repeating events, whether same side repeats, alternating, or anyone of the other possibilities, they are captivating providing a false positive believe, either by winning or losing with the hopes to win.  Stop falling prey to what the casino wants you to fall prey to.  The casino inflicts each of us with false beliefs in the upcoming betselections.  It happens.  It always did and it always will.  So face it.  However, the rest is up to each person, their style, how good or bad their gut feeling really are, and probably more so than anything else, the types of experiences the player has inflicted upon himself in an overall aspect. 

The two folded problem has to be overcome.  You don't do that by counting on winning to replace or obtain funds that you have lost.  You also do not count on future hands to produce the same results.  The list goes on, but those two will give you the basis for most of what you cannot count on and cannot do at the table.  To resolve the problems inflicted by your wrong decisions and beliefs in betselection, you must shift into a neutral frame of mind, not relying on anything to make you shift into the negative emotional and those frustration reactions of your lost wagers.  Real hard, very very difficult but a necessity of such basic knowledge that you have to master and do it flawlessly or your chances are reduced by huge amounts to win as well as walk away a winning more than you do a loser.

So, that is exactly why I attempt to follow my, "If I win I win", and "If I lose I will lose", type of play.  Not fighting it nearly as much as others do at the tables.  Relevance and Reality are what counts, not perception.  Short term success at the table is the path you want to find.  Once your mind wanders and once you start believing all the fallacy and the desires of others, you will somehow find yourself throwing gutter balls down the ally, time after time after time. 

Great on paper horrible in a brick-and-mortar casino the cause of almost everyone's downfall that's tries it.

Quote from: Albalaha on August 25, 2018, 03:07:00 AM
Isn't it only a  matter of luck that you are in a net profit still? Your progression is slow but is it enough to ward off big losses? Will it not end with a huge loss taking away whatever you have won so far as any other progression does?

And what you just said, "Will it not end with a huge loss taking away whatever you have won so far as any other progression does?", is basically what happens almost every single time, everywhere I ever play.  Even with the better skilled players. 

There are very easy defense tactics for the player, but most if not all, will believe way too much in themselves and be governed only by their own misconception of the game.

Be extra careful, airports and other large public transportation venues, shopping malls--anything of the likes.

There has been a recent onslaught of 'Free Public WiFi' at public places such as those I listed.  They are either not from the intended source or a source that was authorized by the 'Landlord' or other property controller, and you will be hacked. 

The known mission of the ones already discovered has been 2 things.  One is installing controlling systems within your electronic device for ads and software solicitations, etc., and the other is to learn your personal ID, saved passwords and financial info, etc.

Be extra careful.

(I found the first article on the internet and I like the references to the early notable persons.  Especially, Casanova.  I pulled the Wiki on Casanova and highlighted the gambling section towards the bottom.  Good Read, IMO.)


Behind The Limits: What Minimum and Maximum Bets Are About

Have you ever thought about the reason behind the existence of minimum and maximum bets? The truth is simple: casinos want your money. As simple as that. So they restrict your possibilities to win.

It was in 1654 that Antoine Chevalier de Mere asked Pascal why he usually lost when he bet even money that are double, 6 would show up at least once in 24 rolls of two dice. Pascal demonstrated that 24 rolls would be against the gambler, but 25 rolls would be slightly in his favor.

Pascal solved the question, and sent the solution to Pierre Fermat and Christian Huygens. The science known as Probability Theory was born. Up to then gambling odds were found by trial and error. Pascal, however, was able to calculate the odds of chance in a scientific way.

But if one knows the odds he can find the way to trick them. Since that time people also began developing the schemes to beat the system. A good deal of the systems is build around increasing each consecutive bet as anticipation of winning grows, known as martingale systems. So gambling establishment elaborated a simple method shut out a game transformation in to jump with bets, where a resource-sufficient player was practically "doomed" on winning. Maximum bet has its limits.

In any world casino each table, be that roulette, blackjack or poker, features signs clearly defining minimum and maximum rate of bets on a given table. A difference between them can be in 10, 30 or even in 100 times. But nowhere to you will be allowed to multiply your bets without restriction.

Please pay attention, that the very existence of maximum bet limits proves that a system, founded on bets augmentation principle, threatens the success of the casino. Take any table in regular or even on-line casino. For example the one, on which minimum bet is $25, and maximum one is $1000. Why do you think you are not allowed to bet more than $1000 at once? Do you believe they won't have money to pay out? Or do they fear, that you will win and take your money home? But in VIP-halls of the same casino you can make a bet of $2000 or even $10000! And if you have specially requests you try negotiating with the administration to satisfy them. Most casinos have more than enough resources to meet any bet of yours.

The deal is about the correlation of maximum and minimum bets. So, in case the maximum is set at a $10000, the minimum bet will rarely be less than $100. The idea is to limit your double bets to certain number of times depending on the game. Usually you want be able to double more than 5 times. Otherwise your odd of winning become impermissible high.

In the Eighteenth century, Casanova hit upon a method to win at gambling. Each time he lost, he would redouble his bet until he won. In letters he wrote to the friends, he discusses how his martingale system would guarantee his win every time. And mere two days later, he wrote a letter from prison. The scheme had failed -- and series of losses overcame his funds, and he was now in debt. In 1755, after suffering ruinous gambling losses and participating in various illegitimate dealings, Casanova was denounced by the Venetian State Inquisitors and imprisoned beneath the lead roofs of the Venetian Ducal Palace, in place known as the "Leads".

______________________________________________________________________________________________________


Giacomo Casanova
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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"Casanova" redirects here. For other uses, see Casanova (disambiguation).
Giacomo Casanova
Casanova ritratto.jpg
Drawing by his brother Francesco
Born   2 April 1725
Venice, Republic of Venice (Italy)
Died   4 June 1798 (aged 73)
Dux, Bohemia, Holy Roman Empire (now Duchcov, Czech Republic)
Parent(s)   Gaetano Giuseppe Casanova
Zanetta Farussi
Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdʒaːkomo dʒiˈrɔːlamo kazaˈnɔːva] or [kasaˈnɔːva]; 2 April 1725 � 4 June 1798) was an Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice.[1][2] His autobiography, Histoire de ma vie (Story of My Life), is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century.[3]

As was not uncommon at the time, Casanova, depending on circumstances, used more or less fictitious names, such as baron or count of Farussi (the name of his mother) or "Chevalier de Seingalt" (pronounced /sɛ̃ gɑl/ as in French).[4] He often signed his works "Jacques Casanova de Seingalt" after he began writing in French following his second exile from Venice.[5]

He has become so famous for his often complicated and elaborate affairs with women that his name is now synonymous with "womanizer". He associated with European royalty, popes, and cardinals, along with luminaries such as Voltaire, Goethe, and Mozart. He spent his last years in Bohemia as a librarian in Count Waldstein's household, where he also wrote the story of his life.

Giacomo Girolamo Casanova was born in Venice in 1725 to actress Zanetta Farussi, wife of actor and dancer Gaetano Casanova. Giacomo was the first of six children, being followed by Francesco Giuseppe (1727�1803), Giovanni Battista (1730�1795), Faustina Maddalena (1731�1736), Maria Maddalena Antonia Stella (1732�1800), and Gaetano Alvise (1734�1783).[6][7]

At the time of Casanova's birth, the city of Venice thrived as the pleasure capital of Europe, ruled by political and religious conservatives who tolerated social vices and encouraged tourism. It was a required stop on the Grand Tour, traveled by young men coming of age, especially Englishmen. The famed Carnival, gambling houses, and beautiful courtesans were powerful drawing cards. This was the milieu that bred Casanova and made him its most famous and representative citizen.[8]


San Samuele - Casanova's childhood neighborhood.
Casanova was cared for by his grandmother Marzia Baldissera while his mother toured about Europe in the theater. His father died when he was eight. As a child, Casanova suffered nosebleeds, and his grandmother sought help from a witch: "Leaving the gondola, we enter a hovel, where we find an old woman sitting on a pallet, with a black cat in her arms and five or six others around her."[9] Though the unguent applied was ineffective, Casanova was fascinated by the incantation.[10] Perhaps to remedy the nosebleeds (a physician blamed the density of Venice's air), Casanova, on his ninth birthday, was sent to a boarding house on the mainland in Padua. For Casanova, the neglect by his parents was a bitter memory. "So they got rid of me," he proclaimed.[11]

Conditions at the boarding house were appalling, so he appealed to be placed under the care of Abb� Gozzi, his primary instructor, who tutored him in academic subjects, as well as the violin. Casanova moved in with the priest and his family and lived there through most of his teenaged years.[12] In the Gozzi household, Casanova first came into contact with the opposite sex, when Gozzi's younger sister Bettina fondled him at the age of 11. Bettina was "pretty, lighthearted, and a great reader of romances. ... The girl pleased me at once, though I had no idea why. It was she who little by little kindled in my heart the first sparks of a feeling which later became my ruling passion."[13] Although she subsequently married, Casanova maintained a lifelong attachment to Bettina and the Gozzi family.[14]

Early on, Casanova demonstrated a quick wit, an intense appetite for knowledge, and a perpetually inquisitive mind. He entered the University of Padua at 12 and graduated at 17, in 1742, with a degree in law ("for which I felt an unconquerable aversion").[15] His guardian's hope was that he would become an ecclesiastical lawyer.[12] Casanova had also studied moral philosophy, chemistry, and mathematics, and was keenly interested in medicine. ("I should have been allowed to do as I wished and become a physician, in which profession quackery is even more effective than it is in legal practice."[15]) He frequently prescribed his own treatments for himself and friends.[16] While attending the university, Casanova began to gamble and quickly got into debt, causing his recall to Venice by his grandmother, but the gambling habit became firmly established.


Palazzo Malipiero c. 1716
Back in Venice, Casanova started his clerical law career and was admitted as an abb� after being conferred minor orders by the Patriarch of Venice. He shuttled back and forth to Padua to continue his university studies. By now, he had become something of a dandy�tall and dark, his long hair powdered, scented, and elaborately curled.[17] He quickly ingratiated himself with a patron (something he was to do all his life), 76-year-old Venetian senator Alvise Gasparo Malipiero, the owner of Palazzo Malipiero, close to Casanova's home in Venice.[18] Malipiero moved in the best circles and taught young Casanova a great deal about good food and wine, and how to behave in society. However, Casanova was caught dallying with Malipiero's intended object of seduction, actress Teresa Imer, and the senator drove both of them from his house.[14] Casanova's growing curiosity about women led to his first complete sexual experience, with two sisters, Nanetta and Marton Savorgnan, then 14 and 16, who were distant relatives of the Grimanis. Casanova proclaimed that his life avocation was firmly established by this encounter.[19]

Early career in Italy and abroad
Scandals tainted Casanova's short church career. After his grandmother's death, Casanova entered a seminary for a short while, but soon his indebtedness landed him in prison for the first time. An attempt by his mother to secure him a position with bishop Bernardo de Bernardis was rejected by Casanova after a very brief trial of conditions in the bishop's Calabrian see.[20] Instead, he found employment as a scribe with the powerful Cardinal Acquaviva in Rome. On meeting the pope, Casanova boldly asked for a dispensation to read the "forbidden books" and from eating fish (which he claimed inflamed his eyes). He also composed love letters for another cardinal. When Casanova became the scapegoat for a scandal involving a local pair of star-crossed lovers, Cardinal Acquaviva dismissed Casanova, thanking him for his sacrifice, but effectively ending his church career.[21]

In search of a new profession, Casanova bought a commission to become a military officer for the Republic of Venice. His first step was to look the part:

Reflecting that there was now little likelihood of my achieving fortune in my ecclesiastical career, I decided to dress as a soldier ... I inquire for a good tailor ... he brings me everything I need to impersonate a follower of Mars. ... My uniform was white, with a blue vest, a shoulder knot of silver and gold... I bought a long sword, and with my handsome cane in hand, a trim hat with a black cockade, with my hair cut in side whiskers and a long false pigtail, I set forth to impress the whole city.[22]

He joined a Venetian regiment at Corfu, his stay being broken by a brief trip to Constantinople, ostensibly to deliver a letter from his former master the Cardinal.[23] He found his advancement too slow and his duty boring, and he managed to lose most of his pay playing faro. Casanova soon abandoned his military career and returned to Venice.

At the age of 21, he set out to become a professional gambler, but losing all the money remaining from the sale of his commission, he turned to his old benefactor Alvise Grimani for a job. Casanova thus began his third career, as a violinist in the San Samuele theater, "a menial journeyman of a sublime art in which, if he who excels is admired, the mediocrity is rightly despised. ... My profession was not a noble one, but I did not care. Calling everything prejudice, I soon acquired all the habits of my degraded fellow musicians."[24] He and some of his fellows, "often spent our nights roaming through different quarters of the city, thinking up the most scandalous practical jokes and putting them into execution ... we amused ourselves by untying the gondolas moored before private homes, which then drifted with the current". They also sent midwives and physicians on false calls.[25]

Good fortune came to the rescue when Casanova, unhappy with his lot as a musician, saved the life of a Venetian nobleman of the Bragadin family, who had a stroke while riding with Casanova in a gondola after a wedding ball. They immediately stopped to have the senator bled. Then, at the senator's palace, a physician bled the senator again and applied an ointment of mercury to the senator's chest (mercury was an all-purpose but toxic remedy of the time). The mercury raised his temperature and induced a massive fever, and Bragadin appeared to be choking on his own swollen windpipe. A priest was called as death seemed to be approaching. However, despite protests from the attending physician, Casanova ordered the removal of the ointment and the washing of the senator's chest with cool water. The senator recovered from his illness with rest and a sensible diet.[26] Because of his youth and his facile recitation of medical knowledge, the senator and his two bachelor friends thought Casanova wise beyond his years, and concluded that he must be in possession of occult knowledge. As they were cabalists themselves, the senator invited Casanova into his household and became a lifelong patron.[27]

Casanova stated in his memoirs:

I took the most creditable, the noblest, and the only natural course. I decided to put myself in a position where I need no longer go without the necessities of life: and what those necessities were for me no one could judge better than me.... No one in Venice could understand how an intimacy could exist between myself and three men of their character, they all heaven and I all earth; they most severe in their morals, and I addicted to every kind of dissolute living.[28]

For the next three years under the senator's patronage, working nominally as a legal assistant, Casanova led the life of a nobleman, dressing magnificently and, as was natural to him, spending most of his time gambling and engaging in amorous pursuits.[29] His patron was exceedingly tolerant, but he warned Casanova that some day he would pay the price; "I made a joke of his dire Prophecies and went my way." However, not much later, Casanova was forced to leave Venice, due to further scandals. Casanova had dug up a freshly buried corpse to play a practical joke on an enemy and exact revenge, but the victim went into a paralysis, never to recover. And in another scandal, a young girl who had duped him accused him of rape and went to the officials.[30] Casanova was later acquitted of this crime for lack of evidence, but by this time, he had already fled from Venice.


Portrait of Casanova by Alessandro Longhi
Escaping to Parma, Casanova entered into a three-month affair with a Frenchwoman he named "Henriette", perhaps the deepest love he ever experienced�a woman who combined beauty, intelligence, and culture. In his words, "They who believe that a woman is incapable of making a man equally happy all the twenty-four hours of the day have never known an Henriette. The joy which flooded my soul was far greater when I conversed with her during the day than when I held her in my arms at night. Having read a great deal and having natural taste, Henriette judged rightly of everything."[31] She also judged Casanova astutely. As noted Casanovist J. Rives Childs wrote:

Perhaps no woman so captivated Casanova as Henriette; few women obtained so deep an understanding of him. She penetrated his outward shell early in their relationship, resisting the temptation to unite her destiny with his. She came to discern his volatile nature, his lack of social background, and the precariousness of his finances. Before leaving, she slipped into his pocket five hundred louis, mark of her evaluation of him.[32]

Grand tour
Crestfallen and despondent, Casanova returned to Venice, and after a good gambling streak, he recovered and set off on a grand tour, reaching Paris in 1750.[33] Along the way, from one town to another, he got into sexual escapades resembling operatic plots.[34] In Lyon, he entered the society of Freemasonry, which appealed to his interest in secret rites and which, for the most part, attracted men of intellect and influence who proved useful in his life, providing valuable contacts and uncensored knowledge. Casanova was also attracted to Rosicrucianism.[35]

Casanova stayed in Paris for two years, learned the language, spent much time at the theater, and introduced himself to notables. Soon, however, his numerous liaisons were noted by the Paris police, as they were in nearly every city he visited.[36]

In 1752, his brother Francesco and he moved from Paris to Dresden, where his mother and sister Maria Maddalena were living. His new play, La Moluccheide, now lost, was performed at the Royal Theatre, where his mother often played in lead roles.[37][38] He then visited Prague and Vienna, where the tighter moral atmosphere of the latter city was not to his liking. He finally returned to Venice in 1753.[39] In Venice, Casanova resumed his escapades, picking up many enemies and gaining the greater attention of the Venetian inquisitors. His police record became a lengthening list of reported blasphemies, seductions, fights, and public controversy.[40] A state spy, Giovanni Manucci, was employed to draw out Casanova's knowledge of cabalism and Freemasonry and to examine his library for forbidden books. Senator Bragadin, in total seriousness this time (being a former inquisitor himself), advised his "son" to leave immediately or face the stiffest consequences.

Imprisonment and escape
On 26 July 1755, at age 30, Casanova was arrested for affront to religion and common decency:[41] "The Tribunal, having taken cognizance of the grave faults committed by G. Casanova primarily in public outrages against the holy religion, their Excellencies have caused him to be arrested and imprisoned under the Leads."[42] "The Leads" was a prison of seven cells on the top floor of the east wing of the Doge's palace, reserved for prisoners of higher status as well as certain types of offenders�such as political prisoners, defrocked or libertine priests or monks, and usurers�and named for the lead plates covering the palace roof. The following 12 September, without a trial and without being informed of the reasons for his arrest and of the sentence, he was sentenced to five years imprisonment.[41][43]


"It's him. Place him in custody!"
He was placed in solitary confinement with clothing, a pallet bed, table, and armchair in "the worst of all the cells",[44] where he suffered greatly from the darkness, summer heat, and "millions of fleas". He was soon housed with a series of cellmates, and after five months and a personal appeal from Count Bragadin, was given warm winter bedding and a monthly stipend for books and better food. During exercise walks he was granted in the prison garret, he found a piece of black marble and an iron bar which he smuggled back to his cell; he hid the bar inside his armchair. When he was temporarily without cellmates, he spent two weeks sharpening the bar into a spike on the stone. Then he began to gouge through the wooden floor underneath his bed, knowing that his cell was directly above the Inquisitor's chamber.[45] Just three days before his intended escape, during a festival when no officials would be in the chamber below, Casanova was moved to a larger, lighter cell with a view, despite his protests that he was perfectly happy where he was. In his new cell, "I sat in my armchair like a man in a stupor; motionless as a statue, I saw that I had wasted all the efforts I had made, and I could not repent of them. I felt that I had nothing to hope for, and the only relief left to me was not to think of the future."[46]

Overcoming his inertia, Casanova set upon another escape plan. He solicited the help of the prisoner in the adjacent cell, Father Balbi, a renegade priest. The spike, carried to the new cell inside the armchair, was passed to the priest in a folio Bible carried under a heaping plate of pasta by the hoodwinked jailer. The priest made a hole in his ceiling, climbed across and made a hole in the ceiling of Casanova's cell. To neutralize his new cellmate, who was a spy, Casanova played on his superstitions and terrorized him into silence.[47] When Balbi broke through to Casanova's cell, Casanova lifted himself through the ceiling, leaving behind a note that quoted the 117th Psalm (Vulgate): "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord".[48]


Illustration from Story of My Flight
The spy remained behind, too frightened of the consequences if he were caught escaping with the others. Casanova and Balbi pried their way through the lead plates and onto the sloping roof of the Doge's Palace, with a heavy fog swirling. The drop to the nearby canal being too great, Casanova prised open the grate over a dormer window, and broke the window to gain entry. They found a long ladder on the roof, and with the additional use of a bedsheet "rope" that Casanova had prepared, lowered themselves into the room whose floor was 25 feet below. They rested until morning, changed clothes, then broke a small lock on an exit door and passed into a palace corridor, through galleries and chambers, and down stairs, where by convincing the guard they had inadvertently been locked into the palace after an official function, they left through a final door.[49][page needed] It was 6:00 in the morning and they escaped by gondola. Eventually, Casanova reached Paris, where he arrived on the same day (January 5, 1757) that Robert-Fran�ois Damiens made an attempt on the life of Louis XV.[50] (Casanova would later witness and describe his execution.)

Thirty years later in 1787, Casanova wrote Story of My Flight, which was very popular and was reprinted in many languages, and he repeated the tale a little later in his memoirs.[51] Casanova's judgment of the exploit is characteristic:

Thus did God provide me with what I needed for an escape which was to be a wonder if not a miracle. I admit that I am proud of it; but my pride does not come from my having succeeded, for luck had a good deal to do with that; it comes from my having concluded that the thing could be done and having had the courage to undertake it.[52]

Return to Paris
He knew his stay in Paris might be a long one and he proceeded accordingly: "I saw that to accomplish anything I must bring all my physical and moral faculties in play, make the acquaintance of the great and the powerful, exercise strict self-control, and play the chameleon."[53] Casanova had matured, and this time in Paris, though still depending at times on quick thinking and decisive action, he was more calculating and deliberate. His first task was to find a new patron. He reconnected with old friend de Bernis, now the Foreign Minister of France. Casanova was advised by his patron to find a means of raising funds for the state as a way to gain instant favor. Casanova promptly became one of the trustees of the first state lottery, and one of its best ticket salesmen. The enterprise earned him a large fortune quickly.[54] With money in hand, he traveled in high circles and undertook new seductions. He duped many socialites with his occultism, particularly the Marquise Jeanne d'Urf�, using his excellent memory which made him appear to have a sorcerer's power of numerology. In Casanova's view, "deceiving a fool is an exploit worthy of an intelligent man".[55]

Casanova claimed to be a Rosicrucian and an alchemist, aptitudes which made him popular with some of the most prominent figures of the era, among them Madame de Pompadour, Count de Saint-Germain, d'Alembert, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. So popular was alchemy among the nobles, particularly the search for the "philosopher's stone", that Casanova was highly sought after for his supposed knowledge, and he profited handsomely.[56] He met his match, however, in the Count de Saint-Germain: "This very singular man, born to be the most barefaced of all imposters, declared with impunity, with a casual air, that he was three hundred years old, that he possessed the universal medicine, that he made anything he liked from nature, that he created diamonds."[57]

De Bernis decided to send Casanova to Dunkirk on his first spying mission. Casanova was paid well for his quick work and this experience prompted one of his few remarks against the ancien r�gime and the class on which he was dependent. He remarked in hindsight, "All the French ministers are the same. They lavished money which came out of the other people's pockets to enrich their creatures, and they were absolute: The down-trodden people counted for nothing, and, through this, the indebtedness of the State and the confusion of finances were the inevitable results. A Revolution was necessary."[58]

As the Seven Years' War began, Casanova was again called to help increase the state treasury. He was entrusted with a mission of selling state bonds in Amsterdam, Holland being the financial center of Europe at the time.[59] He succeeded in selling the bonds at only an 8% discount, and the following year was rich enough to found a silk manufactory with his earnings. The French government even offered him a title and a pension if he would become a French citizen and work on behalf of the finance ministry, but he declined, perhaps because it would frustrate his Wanderlust.[60] Casanova had reached his peak of fortune, but could not sustain it. He ran the business poorly, borrowed heavily trying to save it, and spent much of his wealth on constant liaisons with his female workers who were his "harem".[61]

For his debts, Casanova was imprisoned again, this time at For-l'�v�que, but was liberated four days afterwards, upon the insistence of the Marquise d'Urf�. Unfortunately, though he was released, his patron de Bernis was dismissed by Louis XV at that time and Casanova's enemies closed in on him. He sold the rest of his belongings and secured another mission to Holland to distance himself from his troubles.[61]

On the run
This time, however, his mission failed and he fled to Cologne, then Stuttgart in the spring of 1760, where he lost the rest of his fortune. He was yet again arrested for his debts, but managed to escape to Switzerland. Weary of his wanton life, Casanova visited the monastery of Einsiedeln and considered the simple, scholarly life of a monk. He returned to his hotel to think on the decision, only to encounter a new object of desire, and reverting to his old instincts, all thoughts of a monk's life were quickly forgotten.[62] Moving on, he visited Albrecht von Haller and Voltaire, and arrived in Marseille, then Genoa, Florence, Rome, Naples, Modena, and Turin, moving from one sexual romp to another.[63]

In 1760, Casanova started styling himself the Chevalier de Seingalt, a name he would increasingly use for the rest of his life. On occasion, he would also call himself Count de Farussi (using his mother's maiden name) and when Pope Clement XIII presented Casanova with the Papal Order of the �peron d'or, he had an impressive cross and ribbon to display on his chest.[64]

Back in Paris, he set about one of his most outrageous schemes�convincing his old dupe the Marquise d'Urf� that he could turn her into a young man through occult means. The plan did not yield Casanova the big payoff he had hoped for, and the Marquise d'Urf� finally lost faith in him.[65]

Casanova traveled to England in 1763, hoping to sell his idea of a state lottery to English officials. He wrote of the English, "the people have a special character, common to the whole nation, which makes them think they are superior to everyone else. It is a belief shared by all nations, each thinking itself the best. And they are all right."[66] Through his connections, he worked his way up to an audience with King George III, using most of the valuables he had stolen from the Marquise d'Urf�. While working the political angles, he also spent much time in the bedroom, as was his habit. As a means to find females for his pleasure, not being able to speak English, he put an advertisement in the newspaper to let an apartment to the "right" person. He interviewed many young women, choosing one "Mistress Pauline" who suited him well. Soon, he established himself in her apartment and seduced her. These and other liaisons, however, left him weak with venereal disease and he left England broke and ill.[67]

He went on to the Austrian Netherlands, recovered, and then for the next three years, traveled all over Europe, covering about 4,500 miles by coach over rough roads, and going as far as Moscow and St Petersburg (the average daily coach trip being about 30 miles). Again, his principal goal was to sell his lottery scheme to other governments and repeat the great success he had with the French government, but a meeting with Frederick the Great bore no fruit and in the surrounding German lands, the same result. Not lacking either connections or confidence, Casanova went to Russia and met with Catherine the Great, but she flatly turned down the lottery idea.[68]

In 1766, he was expelled from Warsaw following a pistol duel with Colonel Franciszek Ksawery Branicki over an Italian actress, a lady friend of theirs. Both duelists were wounded, Casanova on the left hand. The hand recovered on its own, after Casanova refused the recommendation of doctors that it be amputated.[69] From Warsaw, he traveled to Breslau in the Kingdom of Prussia, then to Dresden, where he contracted yet another venereal infection.[70][71][72] He returned to Paris for several months in 1767 and hit the gambling salons, only to be expelled from France by order of Louis XV himself, primarily for Casanova's scam involving the Marquise d'Urf�.[73] Now known across Europe for his reckless behavior, Casanova would have difficulty overcoming his notoriety and gaining any fortune, so he headed for Spain, where he was not as well known. He tried his usual approach, leaning on well-placed contacts (often Freemasons), wining and dining with nobles of influence, and finally arranging an audience with the local monarch, in this case Charles III. When no doors opened for him, however, he could only roam across Spain, with little to show for it. In Barcelona, he escaped assassination and landed in jail for 6 weeks. His Spanish adventure a failure, he returned to France briefly, then to Italy.[74]

Return to Venice
In Rome, Casanova had to prepare a way for his return to Venice. While waiting for supporters to gain him legal entry into Venice, Casanova began his modern Tuscan-Italian translation of the Iliad, his History of the Troubles in Poland, and a comic play. To ingratiate himself with the Venetian authorities, Casanova did some commercial spying for them. After months without a recall, however, he wrote a letter of appeal directly to the Inquisitors. At last, he received his long-sought permission and burst into tears upon reading "We, Inquisitors of State, for reasons known to us, give Giacomo Casanova a free safe-conduct ... empowering him to come, go, stop, and return, hold communication wheresoever he pleases without let or hindrance. So is our will." Casanova was permitted to return to Venice in September 1774 after 18 years of exile.[75]

At first, his return to Venice was a cordial one and he was a celebrity. Even the Inquisitors wanted to hear how he had escaped from their prison. Of his three bachelor patrons, however, only Dandolo was still alive and Casanova was invited back to live with him. He received a small stipend from Dandolo and hoped to live from his writings, but that was not enough. He reluctantly became a spy again for Venice, paid by piece work, reporting on religion, morals, and commerce, most of it based on gossip and rumor he picked up from social contacts.[76] He was disappointed. No financial opportunities of interest came about and few doors opened for him in society as in the past.

At age 49, the years of reckless living and the thousands of miles of travel had taken their toll. Casanova's smallpox scars, sunken cheeks, and hook nose became all the more noticeable. His easygoing manner was now more guarded. Prince Charles de Ligne, a friend (and uncle of his future employer), described him around 1784:

He would be a good-looking man if he were not ugly; he is tall and built like Hercules, but of an African tint; eyes full of life and fire, but touchy, wary, rancorous�and this gives him a ferocious air. It is easier to put him in a rage than to make him gay. He laughs little, but makes others laugh. ... He has a manner of saying things which reminds me of Harlequin or Figaro, and which makes them sound witty.[77]

Venice had changed for him. Casanova now had little money for gambling, few willing females worth pursuing, and few acquaintances to enliven his dull days. He heard of the death of his mother and, more paining, visited the deathbed of Bettina Gozzi, who had first introduced him to sex and who died in his arms. His Iliad was published in three volumes, but to limited subscribers and yielding little money. He got into a published dispute with Voltaire over religion. When he asked, "Suppose that you succeed in destroying superstition. With what will you replace it?" Voltaire shot back, "I like that. When I deliver humanity from a ferocious beast which devours it, can I be asked what I shall put in its place." From Casanova's point of view, if Voltaire had "been a proper philosopher, he would have kept silent on that subject ... the people need to live in ignorance for the general peace of the nation".[78]

In 1779, Casanova found Francesca, an uneducated seamstress, who became his live-in lover and housekeeper, and who loved him devotedly.[79] Later that year, the Inquisitors put him on the payroll and sent him to investigate commerce between the papal states and Venice. Other publishing and theater ventures failed, primarily from lack of capital. In a downward spiral, Casanova was expelled again from Venice in 1783, after writing a vicious satire poking fun at Venetian nobility. In it, he made his only public statement that Grimani was his true father.[80]

Forced to resume his travels again, Casanova arrived in Paris, and in November 1783 met Benjamin Franklin while attending a presentation on aeronautics and the future of balloon transport.[81] For a while, Casanova served as secretary and pamphleteer to Sebastian Foscarini, Venetian ambassador in Vienna. He also became acquainted with Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart's librettist, who noted about Casanova, "This singular man never liked to be in the wrong."[82] Notes by Casanova indicate that he may have made suggestions to Da Ponte concerning the libretto for Mozart's Don Giovanni.[83]

Final years in Bohemia
In 1785, after Foscarini died, Casanova began searching for another position. A few months later, he became the librarian to Count Joseph Karl von Waldstein, a chamberlain of the emperor, in the Castle of Dux, Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic). The Count�himself a Freemason, cabalist, and frequent traveler�had taken to Casanova when they had met a year earlier at Foscarini's residence. Although the job offered security and good pay, Casanova describes his last years as boring and frustrating, though it was the most productive time for writing.[84] His health had deteriorated dramatically, and he found life among peasants to be less than stimulating. He was only able to make occasional visits to Vienna and Dresden for relief. Although Casanova got on well with the Count, his employer was a much younger man with his own eccentricities. The Count often ignored him at meals and failed to introduce him to important visiting guests. Moreover, Casanova, the testy outsider, was thoroughly disliked by most of the other inhabitants of the Castle of Dux. Casanova's only friends seemed to be his fox terriers. In despair, Casanova considered suicide, but instead decided that he must live on to record his memoirs, which he did until his death.[85]


Dux Castle, c. 1900
He visited Prague, the capital city and principal cultural center of Bohemia, on many occasions. In October 1787, he met Lorenzo da Ponte, the librettist of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, in Prague at the time of the opera's first production and likely met the composer, as well, at the same time. There is reason to believe that he was also in Prague in 1791 for the coronation of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II as king of Bohemia, an event that included the first production of Mozart's opera La clemenza di Tito. Casanova is known to have drafted dialogue suitable for a Don Juan drama at the time of his visit to Prague in 1787, but none of his verses were ever incorporated into Mozart's opera. His reaction to seeing licentious behavior similar to his own held up to moral scrutiny as it is in Mozart's opera is not recorded.[86]

In 1797, word arrived that the Republic of Venice had ceased to exist and that Napoleon Bonaparte had seized Casanova's home city. It was too late to return home. Casanova died on June 4, 1798, at age 73. His last words are said to have been "I have lived as a philosopher and I die as a Christian".[87] Casanova was buried at Dux (nowadays Duchcov in the Czech Republic), but the exact place of his grave was forgotten over the years, and remains unknown today.

Memoirs
Main article: Histoire de ma vie

Page from the autograph manuscript of Histoire de ma vie
The isolation and boredom of Casanova's last years enabled him to focus without distractions on his Histoire de ma vie, without which his fame would have been considerably diminished, if not blotted out entirely. He began to think about writing his memoirs around 1780 and began in earnest by 1789, as "the only remedy to keep from going mad or dying of grief". The first draft was completed by July 1792, and he spent the next six years revising it. He puts a happy face on his days of loneliness, writing in his work, "I can find no pleasanter pastime than to converse with myself about my own affairs and to provide a most worthy subject for laughter to my well-bred audience."[88] His memoirs were still being compiled at the time of his death, his account having reached only the summer of 1774.[89] A letter by him in 1792 states that he was reconsidering his decision to publish them, believing that his story was despicable and he would make enemies by writing the truth about his affairs. But he decided to proceed, using initials instead of actual names and toning down the strongest passages.[90] He wrote in French instead of Italian because "the French language is more widely known than mine".[91]

The memoirs open with:

I begin by declaring to my reader that, by everything good or bad that I have done throughout my life, I am sure that I have earned merit or incurred guilt, and that hence I must consider myself a free agent. ... Despite an excellent moral foundation, the inevitable fruit of the divine principles which were rooted in my heart, I was all my life the victim of my senses; I have delighted in going astray and I have constantly lived in error, with no other consolation than that of knowing I have erred. ... My follies are the follies of youth. You will see that I laugh at them, and if you are kind you will laugh at them with me.[92]

Casanova wrote about the purpose of his book:

I expect the friendship, the esteem, and the gratitude of my readers. Their gratitude, if reading my memoirs will have given instruction and pleasure. Their esteem if, doing me justice, they will have found that I have more virtues than faults; and their friendship as soon as they come to find me deserving of it by the frankness and good faith with which I submit myself to their judgment without in any way disguising what I am.[93]

He also advises his readers that they "will not find all my adventures. I have left out those which would have offended the people who played a part in them, for they would cut a sorry figure in them. Even so, there are those who will sometimes think me too indiscreet; I am sorry for it."[94] And in the final chapter, the text abruptly breaks off with hints at adventures unrecorded: "Three years later I saw her in Padua, where I resumed my acquaintance with her daughter on far more tender terms."[95]

In their original publication, the memoirs were divided into twelve volumes, and the unabridged English translation by Willard R. Trask runs to more than 3,500 pages. Though his chronology is at times confusing and inaccurate, and many of his tales exaggerated, much of his narrative and many details are corroborated by contemporary writings. He has a good ear for dialogue and writes at length about all classes of society.[96] Casanova, for the most part, is candid about his faults, intentions, and motivations, and shares his successes and failures with good humor.[97] The confession is largely devoid of repentance or remorse. He celebrates the senses with his readers, especially regarding music, food, and women. "I have always liked highly seasoned food. ... As for women, I have always found that the one I was in love with smelled good, and the more copious her sweat the sweeter I found it."[98] He mentions over 120 adventures with women and girls, with several veiled references to male lovers as well.[99][100] He describes his duels and conflicts with scoundrels and officials, his entrapments and his escapes, his schemes and plots, his anguish and his sighs of pleasure. He demonstrates convincingly, "I can say vixi ('I have lived')."[88]

The manuscript of Casanova's memoirs was held by his relatives until it was sold to F. A. Brockhaus publishers, and first published in heavily abridged versions in German around 1822, then in French. During World War II, the manuscript survived the allied bombing of Leipzig. The memoirs were heavily pirated through the ages and have been translated into some twenty languages. But not until 1960 was the entire text published in its original language of French.[101] In 2010 the manuscript was acquired by the National Library of France, which has started digitizing it.[102]

Relationships
For Casanova, as well as his contemporary sybarites of the upper class, love and sex tended to be casual and not endowed with the seriousness characteristic of the Romanticism of the 19th century.[103] Flirtations, bedroom games, and short-term liaisons were common among nobles who married for social connections rather than love.

Although multi-faceted and complex, Casanova's personality, as he described it, was dominated by his sensual urges: "Cultivating whatever gave pleasure to my senses was always the chief business of my life; I never found any occupation more important. Feeling that I was born for the sex opposite of mine, I have always loved it and done all that I could to make myself loved by it."[98] He noted that he sometimes used "assurance caps" to prevent impregnating his mistresses.[104]

Casanova's ideal liaison had elements beyond sex, including complicated plots, heroes and villains, and gallant outcomes. In a pattern he often repeated, he would discover an attractive woman in trouble with a brutish or jealous lover (Act I); he would ameliorate her difficulty (Act II); she would show her gratitude; he would seduce her; a short exciting affair would ensue (Act III); feeling a loss of ardor or boredom setting in, he would plead his unworthiness and arrange for her marriage or pairing with a worthy man, then exit the scene (Act IV).[105] As William Bolitho points out in Twelve Against the Gods, the secret of Casanova's success with women "had nothing more esoteric in it than [offering] what every woman who respects herself must demand: all that he had, all that he was, with (to set off the lack of legality) the dazzling attraction of the lump sum over what is more regularly doled out in a lifetime of installments."[106]

Casanova advises, "There is no honest woman with an uncorrupted heart whom a man is not sure of conquering by dint of gratitude. It is one of the surest and shortest means."[107] Alcohol and violence, for him, were not proper tools of seduction.[108] Instead, attentiveness and small favors should be employed to soften a woman's heart, but "a man who makes known his love by words is a fool". Verbal communication is essential�"without speech, the pleasure of love is diminished by at least two-thirds"�but words of love must be implied, not boldly proclaimed.[107]

Mutual consent is important, according to Casanova, but he avoided easy conquests or overly difficult situations as not suitable for his purposes. [108] These claims however contradicted with some of his acts which included rape of a 12 year old. [1] He strove to be the ideal escort in the first act�witty, charming, confidential, helpful�before moving into the bedroom in the third act. Casanova claims not to be predatory ("my guiding principle has been never to direct my attack against novices or those whose prejudices were likely to prove an obstacle"); however, his conquests did tend to be insecure or emotionally exposed women. [109]

Casanova valued intelligence in a woman: "After all, a beautiful woman without a mind of her own leaves her lover with no resource after he had physically enjoyed her charms." His attitude towards educated women, however, was an unfavorable one: "In a woman learning is out of place; it compromises the essential qualities of her sex ... no scientific discoveries have been made by women ... (which) requires a vigor which the female sex cannot have. But in simple reasoning and in delicacy of feeling we must yield to women."[31]

Casanova writes that he stopped short of intercourse with a 13 year old named Helene: "little Helene, whom I enjoyed, while leaving her intact." In 1765, when he was forty, he purchased a twelve-year-old girl in St. Petersburg as a sexual slave. In the memoirs he described the Russian girl as emphatically prepubescent: "Her breasts had still not finished budding. She was in her thirteenth year. She had nowhere the definitive mark of puberty." (III, 196�7; X, 116�17). In 1774, when he was almost fifty, Casanova encountered in Trieste a former lover, the actress Irene, now accompanied by her nine-year-old daughter. "A few days later she came, with her daughter, who pleased me (qui me plut) and who did not reject my caresses. One fine day, she met with Baron Pittoni, who loved little girls as much as I did (aimant autant que moi les petites filles), and took a liking to Irene�s girl, and asked the mother to do him the same honor some time that she had done to me. I encouraged her to receive the offer, and the baron fell in love. This was lucky for Irene." (XII, 238).[110]

Gambling
Gambling was a common recreation in the social and political circles in which Casanova moved. In his memoirs, Casanova discusses many forms of 18th century gambling�including lotteries, faro, basset, piquet, biribi, primero, quinze, and whist�and the passion for it among the nobility and the high clergy.[111] Cheats (known as "correctors of fortune") were somewhat more tolerated than today in public casinos and in private games for invited players, and seldom caused affront. Most gamblers were on guard against cheaters and their tricks. Scams of all sorts were common, and Casanova was amused by them.[112]

Casanova gambled throughout his adult life, winning and losing large sums. He was tutored by professionals, and he was "instructed in those wise maxims without which games of chance ruin those who participate in them". He was not above occasionally cheating and at times even teamed with professional gamblers for his own profit. Casanova claims that he was "relaxed and smiling when I lost, and I won without covetousness". However, when outrageously duped himself, he could act violently, sometimes calling for a duel.[113] Casanova admits that he was not disciplined enough to be a professional gambler: "I had neither prudence enough to leave off when fortune was adverse, nor sufficient control over myself when I had won."[114] Nor did he like being considered as a professional gambler: "Nothing could ever be adduced by professional gamblers that I was of their infernal clique."[114] Although Casanova at times used gambling tactically and shrewdly�for making quick money, for flirting, making connections, acting gallantly, or proving himself a gentleman among his social superiors�his practice also could be compulsive and reckless, especially during the euphoria of a new sexual affair. "Why did I gamble when I felt the losses so keenly? What made me gamble was avarice. I loved to spend, and my heart bled when I could not do it with money won at cards."[115]

Fame and influence
Casanova was recognized by his contemporaries as an extraordinary person, a man of far-ranging intellect and curiosity.[citation needed]Casanova has been recognized by posterity as one of the foremost chroniclers of his age. He was a true adventurer, traveling across Europe from end to end in search of fortune, seeking out the most prominent people of his time to help his cause.[citation needed] He was a servant of the establishment and equally decadent as his times, but also a participant in secret societies and a seeker of answers beyond the conventional. He was religious, a devout Catholic, and believed in prayer: "Despair kills; prayer dissipates it; and after praying man trusts and acts." Along with prayer he also believed in free will and reason, but clearly did not subscribe to the notion that pleasure-seeking would keep him from heaven.[116]

He was, by vocation and avocation, a lawyer, clergyman, military officer, violinist, con man, pimp, gourmand, dancer, businessman, diplomat, spy, politician, medic, mathematician, social philosopher, cabalist, playwright, and writer.[citation needed] He wrote over twenty works, including plays and essays, and many letters. His novel Icosameron is an early work of science fiction.[99]

Born of actors, he had a passion for the theater and for an improvised, theatrical life. But with all his talents, he frequently succumbed to the quest for pleasure and sex, often avoiding sustained work and established plans, and got himself into trouble when prudent action would have served him better. His true occupation was living largely on his quick wits, steely nerves, luck, social charm, and the money given to him in gratitude and by trickery.[117]

Prince Charles de Ligne, who understood Casanova well, and who knew most of the prominent individuals of the age, thought Casanova the most interesting man he had ever met: "there is nothing in the world of which he is not capable." Rounding out the portrait, the Prince also stated:

The only things about which he knows nothing are those which he believes himself to be expert: the rules of the dance, the French language, good taste, the way of the world, savoir vivre. It is only his comedies which are not funny, only his philosophical works which lack philosophy�all the rest are filled with it; there is always something weighty, new, piquant, profound. He is a well of knowledge, but he quotes Homer and Horace ad nauseam. His wit and his sallies are like Attic salt. He is sensitive and generous, but displease him in the slightest and he is unpleasant, vindictive, and detestable. He believes in nothing except what is most incredible, being superstitious about everything. He loves and lusts after everything. ... He is proud because he is nothing. ... Never tell him you have heard the story he is going to tell you. ... Never omit to greet him in passing, for the merest trifle will make him your enemy.[118]

"Casanova", like "Don Juan", is a long established term in the English language. According to Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed., the noun Casanova means "Lover; esp: a man who is a promiscuous and unscrupulous lover". The first usage of the term in written English was around 1852. References in culture to Casanova are numerous�in books, films, theater, and music.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
WHO WAS CASANOVA?

Today, Casanova is best known as one of the most famous lovers in history. But the Venetian was more than a womanizer. He was a scam artist and scofflaw, an alchemist, spy and church cleric. He wrote satires, fought duels, and escaped from prison more than once.

And? Casanova was simply fascinating.

In homage to Valentine's Day, we bring you... the real Casanova. Read on—and prepare to be shocked!

Church to military to music... and womanizing

Born in Venice in 1725, Casanova was a sharp child—so sharp, in fact, that he entered the University of Padua at the age of 12. After graduating, he took up some of the vices that would make him a name Europe-wide. Gambling, for one. Women, for another. Whether it was his wit, his charm, or his style (or maybe just his hair, which he powdered, scented, and curled), they loved him. But it's said that he really found his passion for them, too, when he had an affair not just with a 16-year-old girl, but with her 14-year-old sister... at the same time. (If that weren't bad enough, years later, Casanova wound up in bed with one of the two sisters again—and her daughter... who was also his).

At the time, Casanova worked as a church cleric. It didn't last long. His gambling debts landed him in prison, and after a couple of other false starts in the Church, he had to start over. His new career? As a soldier. "I bought a long sword, and with my handsome cane in hand, a trim hat with a black cockade, with my hair cut in side whiskers and a long false pigtail, I set forth to impress the whole city," Casanova writes in his memoirs. But, finding military life boring and owing yet still more money from gambling, Casanova quit the military.

Now 21 years old, Casanova became a violinist. There, he caught the eye of a senator—being in the right place at the right time and saving his life certainly helped—who invited Casanova into his house and became his patron. But Casanova ran into trouble again. He fled Venice, escaped to Parma, fell in love, and had his heart broken. He went on a Grand Tour and seduced dozens of women. He became a Freemason, wrote a play, and finally, on 1753, returned to Venice.

And things were just getting started.

Escapades and imprisonment

The Doge's Palace, where Casanova was imprisoned—imagine trying to break through that roof!

News of Casanova's escapades—his tawdry affairs with everyone from married women to nuns to virgins, his gambling, his association with Freemasonry—had caught up with him. At 30 years old, Casanova was arrested by the Venice Tribunal, "primarily," the Tribunal said, for his "public outrages against the holy religion."

He was imprisoned in "The Leads." And sentenced to remain there for five years.

The cell, so-nicknamed because of the lead plates covering the roof, was thought to be completely inescapable. Almost pitch-dark, and with such a low ceiling Casanova couldn't even stand up straight, it was located on the top floor (of five) of the Doge's Palace. Like the rest of the prisons, it was heavily guarded. Escaping seemed impossible. Escaping and not being seen on the roof of the most famous building in Venice... or not being heard while clattering down the lead tiles? Even more so.

Casanova remained in "The Leads" for 13 months. His patron, Count Bragadin, finally convinced his keepers to move him. And Casanova was heartbroken.

Why? Because he had been thisclose to breaking out. One day, while on a walk that he was allowed to take for exercise in the prison attic, he'd found a piece of black marble and an iron bar; he'd shaped the bar into a sharp chisel against the marble and then started to dig through the wooden floor beneath his bed. He knew his cell was right above the chamber of the Inquisitor—an issue he'd deal with after he escaped. But he never got the chance.

Instead, just three days before he planned to escape, he was moved into his new, larger, and more lit cell. But he didn't languish in despair for long. It was time for Plan B.

Casanova's daring escape

A priest lived in the cell right above Casanova. The priest liked to read, and the jailers were okay if the two educated prisoners exchanged books. Casanova wrote a note, using mulberry juice for ink, and stuck it in the book's spine. The two started writing back and forth. Casanova told the priest he planned to escape—and asked for his help. All he had to do, he said, was break through his floor into Casanova's cell. Then Casanova would spirit them both away.

The priest, Balbi, agreed. Casanova sent him the spike he'd made: It was hidden in a Bible, which was carried under a big plate of pasta. After weeks of work, the priest broke through. But there was a new problem. Casanova had a new cellmate.... and he was a spy for the Doge's Council of 10, something he immediately told Casanova. Ever the trickster, Casanova played on his new cell mate's extreme faith. It had been revealed to him in a dream, Casanova told the man, that an angel was going to come deliver him from prison. When the two of them heard the priest digging away, that, Casanova said, was the angel.

The man believed him.

Balbi's cell was right under the roof of the palace, so the two of them pried their way through the lead plates and, using the sheets, blankets, and even his mattress cover that Casanova had cut up and tied together to make "rope," hoisted themselves onto the roof. But it was much too far to jump. Casanova searched everywhere. Nothing. Finally, after an hour, he saw a dormer window, two-thirds down the roof's slope. Using his pick, he pried off the grate over the window—and, after a perilous attempt that included Casanova himself almost sliding over the roof to his death, he was able to get both him and the priest inside.

And Casanova escaped on a gondola...

After resting, the pair broke a lock, walked into a palace corridor, and strolled out. They escaped by gondola at sunrise. "Thus," Casanova wrote, "did God provide me with what I needed for an escape which was to be a wonder if not a miracle. I admit that I am proud of it."

Casanova's many scams

As much of a close call as his imprisonment was, Casanova didn't take it as a sign that he should give up the game and retire to something a little more staid.

Instead, he fled to Paris—and pretended to be an alchemist. Every patrician wanted a piece of Casanova. He told them that he was 300 years old, that he could create diamonds from scratch. He caught the eye of a count, who saw through Casanova and decided that—given his ability to say anything with a straight face—he'd make an excellent spy.

One of his missions was to sell state bonds in Amsterdam. He became a wealthy man... and then lost his wealth, particularly by spending it on his many lovers. Between his debts, and his many enemies, he found himself on the lam again.

In 1760, completely penniless, Casanova's schemes became wilder and wilder. He made up a new personality for himself: He was now the "Chevalier de Seingalt." He went back to Paris and convinced a noblewoman he could make her a young man, using occult means... if she paid him enough. He traveled to England and scammed his way into an audience with King George III. He met with Catherine the Great, trying to sell her the idea for a Russian lottery scheme. He dueled a colonel in Warsaw over an Italian actress.

Casanova in 1788

In 1774, after 18 years of exile, Casanova won the right to return to Venice. Just nine years later, he wrote a vicious satire of Venetian nobility that got him expelled once more.

In his later years, Casanova slowed down—slightly. He became the librarian to Count Joseph Karl von Waldstein in Bohemia, a position Casanova found so lonely and boring he considered suicide. He resisted the temptation, but only in order to record his memoirs.

Venice was seized by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797. Casanova died the following year. He was 73 years old.

Closing Argument
By: Bruce Cutler
Published:2003
Publisher:  Crown Publisher

Book mostly about John Gotti and the his defense attorney Bruce Cutler.  It is a deep and emotional factual based story as told mostly by Bruce Cutler. 

Lots of history here and lots of open ended innuendos.  If you are familiar with John Gotti and the Mafia, you should read this book.  It is an easy read, not complicated and not a book you need to research things to figure out, etc. 

If you did not know, Bruce Cutler was partners with Barry Slotnick a very famous criminal attorney in NYC.  Slotnick's clients were, Joseph Colombo, Carmine Persico and Bernard Goetz, among hundreds of other headline defendants charged with crimes.

Bruce Cutler won several acquittals for John Gotti, earning Gotti the nickname, The Teflon Don".  Bruce Cutler was not allowed to defend John Gotti in his last trail, the one that sent Gotti to prison where he past away. 

Here is what Wiki wrote about Cutler:

"His father, Murray Cutler, was a New York City detective who later became a criminal defense attorney. While being interviewed on the radio program Conversations With Allan Wolper on WBGO 88.3 FM, Cutler said that he was inspired by his father's pro-labor, pro-union loyalties to a FDR-style Social Democratic position.

Cutler gained notoriety in the 1980s when he won three acquittals for Gambino Crime Family boss John Gotti (including one where at least one juror accepted a bribe in return for voting to find Gotti not guilty).

When Gotti was indicted in 1990 for the 1985 murder of Paul Castellano and several other crimes, presiding judge I. Leo Glasser disqualified Cutler and two associates from representing Gotti. Citing evidence from wiretaps at Gotti's Ravenite club, prosecutors contended that Cutler and his colleagues may have known about criminal activity. Since the attorney-client privilege doesn't apply in these circumstances, prosecutors argued that Cutler was "part of the evidence" and thus liable to be called as a witness. They also argued that Cutler had represented other potential witnesses and thus had a conflict of interest. Glasser sided with the prosecutors, contending that Cutler was the "in-house counsel" for the Gambino family.

Cutler appeared in the Robert De Niro and Ed Burns film, 15 Minutes, playing himself. He also appeared on Court TV, with attorney Ed Hayes, discussing criminal cases and current events on Cutler and Hayes, and on the CW network has his own TV show, Jury Duty. He also made two guest star appearances in the episodes "Drawing Dead" and "Open Secrets" of the 4th season of the CBS show Blue Bloods. He is godfather to Hayes' daughter, Avery.

Cutler had served as the lead defense attorney for Phil Spector until August 27, 2007, when he announced that he was leaving Spector's defense due to "a difference of opinion between Mr. Spector and me on strategy."

Between October 2014 and February 2017, the law office of Bruce Cutler maintained an Of Counsel relationship with The Law Firm of Dmitriy Shakhnevich."

I highly recommend this book if you are interested in the subject or the people. 

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Deal With The Devil
By:  Peter Lance
Published: 2013
Harper Collins Publishers


Good read, one of the best for factual and background events regarding the Mafia families.  This book focuses on Gregory Scarpa, Sr., whom was an informant for the FBI.  Scarpa was in the top ranks of the Colombo crime family. 

The book brings out official corruption as well as the dealings of the mafia.  Extensive factual acknowledgements, appendix and references as well.  Hundreds if not thousands of factual references and notes regarding each chapter. 

Great book IMO, if you are at all interested in the subject at hand.  BTW, I am from NYC and I had a partner who happened to be a brother to one of the infamous mob bosses of NYC as well. 

Highly recommended.  Thanks, Glen.

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If you into that history, a great read (one of the best) is the "Deal with the Devil" by Peter Lance.  I will post in my Book Reviews some more pics, but there is a ton of factual stuff in that book about the Colombo's and all the other major mafia families. 

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Some of the things we are parallel exactly and some of the things we are not. In baccarat not talking about the roulette game in anyway,  but you can walk up to the table and you could could knock them dead, if it's already a third to two-thirds of the shoe out and you know a little history of that game you can do it in 5 to 10 to 15 hands  with a $300.00 to $1,000 on the buy in, for example.

Quote from: Gizmotron on August 11, 2018, 02:58:20 PM
It's not programming, but I did program my student #1 in just three short weeks. He won 43 sessions and lost 9 for a win ratio of 4.77:1 . A player using my method needs to win 2.333 times to make up for any lost session, for it to reach balance at 2.333:1 . My student is getting better also. My second student is just starting to practice. He does not want to use the practice software so he is doing all this training the hard way. The more the three of us work on this the more we will know about the win to loss ratio as it pertains to money. If I lower the win ratio to 4:1 then I will win four sessions to every 1 lost session. This should completely destroy the fallacy (1:1) known as the accepted mathematical truth. The house's edge will be the end of that "flat world" thinking. 


In case you can't figure this out, my stop win goal is lower than my stop loss point.

Mark,

I am not discounting anything you said/say, same as w/Lugi and some others to a certain point.

I cannot and do not and never took the time to learn the math and conversion to figures/stats with wins and losses, etc.

I have attempted to described and detail out my effective wager selections NOT so much based on guessing and trends/patterns and other influences, etc., but on other things such as;  Money Management, my unique (1 + 4 Side Parlays) my positive progressions mixed along with flat betting, wins and pull downs or an outright press up for once or twice, etc. 

Attempting to only lose or risk some of the win capital or limit myself to a 'at risk' buy in, etc.  But of equal importance is the player's 'Level', 'Plateau', time management merged with his emotional, vision, focus and all of that.  Problems come about no matter whom you are with false perceptions of bank rolls, increasing wagers, that million dollar pot at the end of the rainbow most everyone thinks is there for the easy picking---just wager 4 to 8 shoes a day and make several easy thousand consistently, times 30 days and 12 months and BOOM, they are instant millionaires, etc.  That is what really hurts some of the best players and best thought out strategies, really. 

But, lots of the things you mention and Lugi mentions, I have Incorporated and have been or did, etc., with positive results.  Reference: 'Win to loss ratios',  and other things along those very lines interfaced with the extreme short term of taking advantage of the weak/strong/chop-chop/doubles/ with or against or whatever it might be that somehow fits into the balancing act and numbers of overall shoes.  The latter statement is the one members like Lugi, (the previous Xander-Soxfan and Jimske) will twist and turn and destroy and state that I stupidly attempt to read the trends and patterns and then wager for or against them.  And that is not exactly correct by any means.