My Dive into “Fill or Bust”
So, “fill or bust,” eh? Sounds like some high-stakes Wall Street thing, but for me, it always brings back memories of simpler times, messing around with a dice game. It wasn’t about big money or anything, just the pure, frustrating joy of pushing your luck.
I first stumbled upon it, or a version of it, years ago. We didn’t have fancy apps or anything. Just a couple of dice and a piece of paper to keep score. That was it. The whole point was to roll the dice, add up the numbers, and decide if you wanted to roll again to get more points, or “bank” what you had. The catch? Roll a certain combination – usually a single one, or sometimes doubles of anything – and poof, all the points you’d racked up in that turn were gone. Busted. Back to zero for that round.
My first attempts were, well, let’s just say ambitious. I was all in, every time. “Gotta get a big score!” I’d tell myself. I’d roll, get a decent number, say 7. Then roll again, maybe an 8. Now I’m at 15. The temptation was huge. “Just one more roll,” I’d think. And then, bam! A dreaded one. All that effort, gone. Frustrating as heck, I tell ya.
So, I decided to get a bit more methodical. I started my “practice,” my little experiments.
- First, I tried being super conservative. Roll once, bank it. Roll twice, bank it. My scores were tiny. It was safe, sure, but also incredibly slow and kinda boring. It felt like I wasn’t really playing the game, just ticking boxes.
- Then, I swung the other way. Pure gambler mode. I’d keep rolling and rolling, chasing those monster scores. Sometimes, very rarely, it paid off spectacularly. I’d get a massive turn. But most of the time? Bust. Bust. Bust. More frustration.
I spent a good afternoon just sitting there, rolling the dice, making notes. I wasn’t trying to crack some complex mathematical formula. I was just trying to get a feel for it, you know? When did that little voice in my head switch from “Go on!” to “Okay, that’s enough”?
I realized the actual dice were only half the story. The other half was all in my head. It was about managing that greed, that urge for “just one more.” It was about listening to that faint whisper of caution over the loud shouts of “risk it!”
I remember one time playing with my nephew. He was all bravado, going for broke every single turn. He busted out spectacularly, time and time again. Laughed his head off, though. I was a bit more measured, trying to find that sweet spot. I still busted, don’t get me wrong, plenty of times. But I also managed to bank some decent scores. In the end, I think I won that little session, but he probably had more dramatic stories to tell.
So, yeah, that was my journey with “fill or bust.” No grand theories, no perfect system. Just a lot of rolling, a lot of busting, and a slow, practical understanding of when to hold ’em and when to, well, not fold ’em, but bank ’em before you go bust. It’s a funny little game. Teaches you a bit about risk, I suppose, without any real-world consequences. Just the sting of losing imaginary points and the quiet satisfaction of a well-timed “fill.”
