Roger Craig is pretty good at the game show Jeopardy!, nailing two "true Daily Doubles" in a row yesterday, but at the end of the day, he knows there's a IBM computer out there ready to humiliate and destroy him. And that's what he has to live with. Sad, really.

Nothing says convenience and special accommodation like designated parking spots.

It's available in spades for handicapped drivers and passengers, while many shopping centers offer specific spaces for expectant mothers.

Now, too, there's love being given to overpriced coffee addicts.

Casino del Sol's new hotel complex, way out on Valencia Road southwest of town, has designated eight parking spots specifically for patrons heading there to pick up a peppermint frappacino or some scones from either of the facility's two Starbucks locations.

No word on whether you'll be required to show a receipt if confronted by security when you go back to your car, of if you can pay fines for illegally Starbuck-parking by using your Club Sol points.

When our forefathers created Veterans Day many decades ago, I don’t think they envisioned it as a day to honor one’s hope of hitting a penny slot jackpot.

Nevertheless, because of the numerical significance of this year’s holiday (11/11/11), it also coincides with the grand opening of Casino del Sol’s long-in-the-works hotel complex on West Valencia Road.

It “officially” opens at 11:11 a.m. — I never realized there’d be a set time to this during all those occasions I saw the clock counting down at the top of Sol Casino’s Web site — with a cheesy ribbon cutting in the hotel’s lobby.

Things start to ramp up, entertainment-wise, at 6 p.m. with a fireworks display, followed by a 7:30 p.m. concert at AVA Amphitheater featuring Pepe Aguilar, Alejandra Guzman and Intocable. There’s also a free concert at the same time in the hotel’s events center, featuring the Tejano All-Stars and the Chicano All-Stars.

Saturday’s festivities include an already sold-out performance by Tim McGraw, but at 10:30 p.m. there’s a free show in the hotel headlined by Cheap Trick, those bastions of tribal casino entertainment.

There’s also countless amounts of slots, table games, poker and other wagering action available 24-7, just in case you thought this place was all about the music and not still heavily centered around risking your latest paycheck.

From time to time a story comes along about someone actually taking it to the casinos, winning loads of money against all odds, smiling in the face of a stacked deck.

This week, there could be two. Depending on the results of a couple of baseball games.

* If you’re a fan of longshots, you’ve got to root for the St. Louis Cardinals to come back and win the World Series. It’ll net one devoted schlub a quarter-million dollars.

The fan, who wasn’t identified in the story I read, decided back in mid-September — when it seemed like the Cardinals had no shot of even making the playoffs, let alone going all the way — to put down $250 apiece on bets that St. Louis would win the National League Championship and then the World Series.

At the time Las Vegas’ MGM Grand listed the odds of those occurrences at 500- and 999-to-1.

Well since St. Louis is in the World Series, that means the fan already cleared $125,000 from that bet, and can pocket another $250K if the Cardinals can win games six and seven against the Texas Rangers.

* As if those odds weren’t unfathomable, even more amazing was the news that someone actually hit the $1 million 6-Card Bonus that Caesar’s Entertainment has attached to the carnival table game Three-Card Poker.

Yes, I know: a six-card bonus in a three-card game? Trust me, it can happen.

But to get this, you have to get a royal flush from ace down to nine, and have it be in diamonds. Which, apparently, someone got on Sunday at Harrah’s in Atlantic City, NJ.

Sean Getzwiller is not a household name when it comes to professional poker.

But if the Tucsonan continues to run as good as he has in 2011, that’s not going to be the case for long.

Getzwiller placed 43rd at the World Series of Poker Europe’s Main Event, a 10,000-euro no-limit Texas Hold’Em tournament currently running in Cannes, France.

He was eliminated just after 2 p.m. Tucson time (11 p.m. in France) when he went all in with flush and straight draws but ultimately was beaten by an opponent who called with bottom pair.

Getzwiller earned 24,000 euros, or more than $30,000, for this tourney.

• Tucson professional poker player Sean Getzwiller

Getzwiller, 30, has had a breakout year on the poker tournament circuit, starting in June when he beat a field of more than 3,000 players to earn a World Series of Poker bracelet, not to mention about $611,000. It was one of three deep runs he made at the WSOP at the Rio in Las Vegas, and he followed that up by earning another $69,000 in the second event of the newly-formed Epic Poker League.

He also cashed in one of the six preliminary WSOPE events.

Now living in Las Vegas, Getzwiller is a former real estate broker who used to run some underground card rooms in Tucson before moving to Sin City last year. He also spends time in Toronto so as to be able to play online poker, a move that many professionals have taken since the U.S. government shut down the top poker sites on April 15.

Cheaters are the scourge of word-based competitions, and although Ed Martin might be innocent this time, it's time to crack down hard on those skirting the rules of fair play. I'm looking at you, Words With Friends cheaters!

England's Ed Martin was accused of hiding a letter 'G' during a match. A Thai player wanted him to be taken to a toilet so he could be search, although authorities refused.

Mr Martin won the match in Warsaw, and no evidence was presented to support the Thai player's allegation.

However, seeing it seems worth noting that the prize for winning the world championship of Scrabble is $20,000, up from $15,000 given to the 2009 winner. If you're thinking of devoting yourself full time to the pursuit of Scrabble excellence, keep in mind you'll probably won't be keeping your trophies on a mantle at your mansion.

[The Telegraph]

You think the University of Arizona football team has had a bad season? It’s nothing compared to the marketing department at the Desert Diamond Casino.

The casino looked to have scored a touchdown by teaming up with the Wildcats for the “Cats Win You Win” promotion. But since there’s an emphasis on the word win, things aren’t going as planned.

The deal is, whenever the UA wins a game, one hour after it’s over anyone with a Desert Diamond player’s club card could head down to either the Nogales Highway or Interstate 19 locations and swipe their card for a chance at free hotel stays, free meals or even $1,000 in cash.

Sadly, only those folks fortunate enough to be at the casino an hour after the season-opening win over Northern Arizona have been able to benefit from the promotion. It’s been five hard-to-watch losses since, and no sure victories appear anywhere soon on the Cats’ upcoming schedule.

Such promotions are all about spending money to make money, with the casinos giving away prizes as an enticement to get people to come down and risk their hard-earned paychecks. But this promotion might end up being a wash for Desert Diamond, since the way the Wildcats have played this season they might not have to worry about doling anything out — or, unfortunately, taking in any extra revenue — until the UA’s Nov. 26 finale against no-name Louisiana-Lafayette.

By the way, the Ragin’ Cajuns are currently 5-1, lead their Sun Belt Conference and could go into that game as the favorite.

If you’re an online poker player, odds are you’ve been a little short on cash since April 15, when a federal indictment against the world’s three largest poker sites shut down access to players’ bankrolls.

Most of PokerStars’ players have gotten their money back, but those who had a ton of dough stored on Full Tilt Poker haven’t been so lucky.

Maybe things are about to change, though. The web site PokerStrategy.com, which of late has seemed to be the leading source of information on Full Tilt’s financial woes, this morning posted a press release from FTP saying it is going to be acquired by a French investment group known for rescuing bankrupt companies.

For those people completely clueless about what I’m talking about, in April the U.S. Department of Justice seized the domain names of Poker Stars, Full Tilt Poker and Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker, alleging the sites had violated federal laws dealing with bank fraud and money laundering.

The complaint was recently amended to allege Full Tilt was in effect a global Ponzi scheme, where the owners of the site — including well-known professional poker players Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson — were pulling out millions of player funds for their own use. It is alleged that the site had far less money available in comparison to what players’ collective account balances were, meaning that most people wouldn’t have been able to cash out if they wanted to.

The agreement to purchase Full Tilt Poker, as well as to refund the balances of all the players — my balance is under $70, for the record; but I know friends who have more than $10,000 stuck on there — is contingent on the feds agreeing to the whole thing.

Group controller Laurent Tapie told a French gaming media outlet that "there's a long way to go" before everything is worked out, but he has the money to pay everyone back and wouldn't have agreed to buy the site if he couldn't do so.

Even if the site gets sold and everyone gets their money back, though, it will still be a long time before online poker of any substance returns to the U.S. A handful of congressmen have talked about wanting to legalize and regulate (read: tax the crap out of) online poker, but all signs point to that not happening for quite a while. At least until after the 2012 elections, when notorious anti-poker senator Jon Kyl leaves office.

Whoever likes free money, raise your (virtual) hand!

Okay, for the four of you that didn’t comply, please click on another link. Everyone else, read on.

Casino del Sol’s renovated poker room finally opened last week after several months of work. The upgraded, expanded room boasts 13 poker tables, nearly as many flat screen TVs and a self-service food/drink area that several nights a week includes free buffet-style grub.

But, back to the free money …

To christen the redone room, Del Sol is giving away $40,000 through a series of drawings every Friday, Saturday and Sunday through the end of October.

Each drawing is worth $250, and is based on who’s name gets picked out of a rolling bin of tickets collected for each time a player hits a full house or better in a live cash game. So, of course, that means you’ve gotta get into a game and hit some high hands in order to be able to scoop up some extra cash.

The drawings begin at 5:30 p.m. on Fridays, 4:30 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, and will be ever half-hour or so. Each weekend will see $8,000 given away.

The $40,000 giveaway is one of many promotions Casino del Sol is running in the weeks and months leading up to the opening of its hotel, which goes live on Nov. 11. That’s 11/11/11 for all the numerologists who stumbled across this post.

Del Sol’s poker room also has a variety of promotions tied toward frequent play, whether it be in terms of hours logged in cash games or performance in tournaments. Players are currently trying to accumulate 40 hours of live play by early November to get a free entry into a $20,000 freeroll tournament Nov. 17-19.