January 2010: Recap of a trip

#1
Hello all. This is my first attempt at telling the story of a trip, so please do bear with me. This ended up being a bit long, so if you cant to scroll down to the [RECAP] well, then you can just read the recap!

But, enough of that and on to the good stuff!

The weekend begins for me when it is still dark. Rolling into the casino on a modicum of sleep I get lucky and am able to sit down at a low-limit table pretty darn quickly. Perhaps the late/early hour helped but I was certainly not going to complain.

Things start off slowly. I am still learning and feeling my way around, although I feel I am at least pretty decent for the amount of experience I have had thus far.

My ramp is 1-5 units and for several hours nothing much is happening. I end up mostly flat betting and wonging in place as much as I feel I can reasonably get away with. After a while some sexy shoes start heading my way. No major count aberrations but I am doing fairly well at this point.

A good 8 ish hours later I am 50 units up. By this point I am famished so I head off to the buffet with some comrades in arms. My comp covers our food and we chat it up a bit. The morning was kind to us all and we felt pumped for the day head of us.

However, the morning was not all roses. I deeply wanted to strangle the life out of some of the people sitting at the table with me. They -kept- commenting on my play. Mostly the irksome but benign things at first like "oh you should have hit that" etc etc. But things decayed when a (hopefully) intoxicated player sat down next to me and began to chat me up.

They apparently decided that I was "good luck" (despite me palming higher value chips so that my winnings looked meager at best). Of course they did not stop at just that. I sit out a single hand and they loudly ask me if the shoe has went "cold" and asked if they should sit out as well. Sigh.

I think I handled it well; mainly by giving them the annoying drunk treatment of mostly ignoring with a few polite nods. But, as Murphy would agree, things were not as... interesting as they were going to be.

Another player sits down. I prima facia recognize them as a player I have seen before (and who burned through a lot of money that I bet they could not afford to loose). Much worse: they recognize -me-. And of course they do not just say "hey, good to see you again". No, no no.

Instead, they exclaim how they have seen me before, commented on how well I did and that I was again "good luck". Please God, kill me (or them) now...

This, along with the ability to eat a well-sized horse by now, encouraged my retreat to food. (And the hope that the nerve-wrackers busted out by the time I returned)

So, after food I am wandering around. Just my luck the same band of people are still at the table, and as loud and drunk as ever. This precipitates my call to jump up a single limit level. It stretched my bankroll a bit, but not to the point of being terribly stupid. Plus, I felt my higher risk of ruin was better than the risk of being -actually- pegged at the other table.

I get a seat and start betting. The count gets fairly sexy fairly fast. This pleases me and my bigger bets are out. Well, you know the delightful variance in this game we play? I got absolutely murdered.

I am pretty sure that if I pulled $100 bills out of my pocket and lit them on fire I would have about the same result as sitting there. Now, I was not making play mistake, but hey that is the game. In less than an hour I was down well over 100 units (Defined as the units from my previous limit. I know, not exactly the best way to measure, but I like to obfuscate). It seemed some allies were down about the same; covariance is painful eh?

About now I figured it was time to get some sleep so that is what I did. Licking my wounds I slept off being on tilt. Before long I was back at the casino. The roller coaster ride continued for hours. Bet, double down, loose. Big bet, blackjack! Big bet, blackjack! Then loose three double downs in a row.

I go up and down for hours. I was happy that I managed to get in some shuffle tracking as well, and the results were pretty good. Oh, except for when I tossed a nice, juicy slug to the front and ended up giving the dealer blackjack with my bigger bet out. Cest le vie.

The weekend ended up being a loss, but not a terrible one. After expenses I was down 40 units from where I started. Not great by any means, but these things happen. A post weekend analysis had some fellows down much more than me, and some not as much. I can settle with middle of the road.

[RECAP]

All in all a good lesson from a learning perspective. Way, way more irritating players then I wanted but good to experience.

However, something much worse (potentially) occurred as well.
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Multiple dealers nailed me to the damn wall

The comments they made were fairly clear to me that they knew exactly what I was doing. But they made these comments always when pit critters were no where near earshot. But we are talking stuff as blatant as:

Dealer: So why do you like to see the burn card? (after I have asked to see several and they did not mind)

Me: -gives my reason that sounds pretty good (at least to me)-

Dealer: Well, that is a better reason than most give and should not get you too much attention.

Sigh...

But then, another dealer who was making what I saw as obvious comments kept handing -me- the cut card instead of whoever was dealt it. Not that I minded per-se, but talk about mixed signals.

And apparently I was not the only one that had this experience. I talked to another person and they had a similar (and actually more blatant) experience.

So, here is my question: How do I take this?

Was it a "hey, be careful because I can tell" or "hey I know" or something else (or all of the above!)? I like to think I have decent cover and I do not do really stupid things at the table.

I was a bit vindicated by seeing what happened when the crew actually got wind of a player. I was back counting noticed that the table was getting half-shoed. A player at the table ended up asking the dealer why.

When they got no reply, they pushed and asked if someone told them to cut where they were and the dealer replied with a terse "yes". Watching the player's betting I am fairly certain they were indeed AP-ing. And as soon as they left the table the penetration went back to normal.

Because of this I am relatively more comfortable that the important people did not catch on.

Feel free to comment/correct/explain/whatever. After all, I am here to learn.
 
#2
Don't sweat the losing streak- it happens....You're always going to lose more hands than you win....And probably have more losing sessions than winning ones....I tell myself if I lose $50 on Monday, $50 on Tuesday, and $50 on Wednesday, but win $500 on Thursday: I'm in good shape!...I've also plugged up my rabbit ears---I play according to strategy and card count and ignore the advice from ploppies and dealers (had a dealer try to talk me into splitting fours once)...But I do look for input on this forum...I'm still looking for advantages too
 

ycming

Well-Known Member
#3
Hmm what is your unit size?

And i hope u increased your unit size once u move on to a higher minimum.

For example, if your unit size is $5 on a 1-5 , then on a $10 table you need to swtiched your unit size to $10.

And with a 1-5 spread, you better be playing an amazing game. care to sharew the rules?

To be honest with a 1-5 spread, you don't have to worry about heat as there is little value for the casino to worry (assuming your unit size is not $1000 :p)

Ming
 
#4
I am still playing at pretty low limits, but yes, I did indeed increase my unit size when I moved up.

The 1-5 spread I decided on from the numbers that CVCX churned out for me. The RoR was reasonable without overstretching me as I consider myself still quite the novice.

Rules wise I was playing DAS S17 with pretty constant 80% penetration.

My biggest complaint about this trip were the pretty obvious "nod nod wink wink" comments from dealers. Some were so plain that I am shocked (and quite happy) that no one else picked up on them.

But, then again they would follow rather blatant statements with things like tossing me the cut card instead of the person who would have normally gotten it via hitting for multiple shoes in a row. Go figure eh?
 

pogostick

Well-Known Member
#5
Cubbiefann23 said:
Don't sweat the losing streak- it happens....You're always going to lose more hands than you win....And probably have more losing sessions than winning ones....I tell myself if I lose $50 on Monday, $50 on Tuesday, and $50 on Wednesday, but win $500 on Thursday: I'm in good shape!...I've also plugged up my rabbit ears---I play according to strategy and card count and ignore the advice from ploppies and dealers (had a dealer try to talk me into splitting fours once)...But I do look for input on this forum...I'm still looking for advantages too
Cubbiefan , splitting 4s against a 5 or 6 is basic play. I do a lot of my gambling on cruise ships and I have to say ,I have never been around any worse BJ players anywhere than on most cruise ships. I was setting at a table with some ladies & they would cheer every time they got a pair so they could split them, No matter what the dealer up card. They questioned my intelligence when I would not split tens . I think they were all school teachers. Most of the tables were $5 , so that kept most of ploppies happy. I was looking around ,saw a table with a dealer standing with his arms folded. Oh my goodness ,it was a single deck $10 mim. I think the dealer was Mexican & very friendly . He said he played at every port that allowed gambling. I asked if he counted ,he said no but would like to learn. That set off a 9 day realation-ship and my action was never questioned . I was surprised how little he knew about BS . To sum it up, i made a BS chart for him and basis counting so he could practice while dealing. I did not win a lot of money ,but I had a ball .. Pogo
 
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