Casinos in Cyprus

Elhombre

Well-Known Member
#1
Has anyone any experience in them? rules, membership etc.

In the Turkish part are many hotel casinos, What games? surrender ?

rebate should be high, any 1-2-6 suckers ? how is the shuffle, double riffle?
stripping?

El Hombre:cool2:
 

curt1s

New Member
#2
hey,

im currently playing here in cyprus..
Euro tables, 6deck games, s17 das, early surrender, AA split only once, splitting any tens
3-6half deck cut - depends on which casino ur playing at.
discount - they give u 20% back if u lose (more than 1-200) :devil:

good for counting and shuffle t. ... double riffle (most of them), with stipping, not really the best place for aces.

i hope i gave u some infos

curt1s
 

curt1s

New Member
#4
i meant the penetration is about..50-75% .
i found only one place where they cut randomly between 50% and 75% ( but mostly its about 65-75% )

curt1s
 

wwcd

Well-Known Member
#5
curt1s said:
hey,

im currently playing here in cyprus..
Euro tables, 6deck games, s17 das, early surrender, AA split only once, splitting any tens
3-6half deck cut - depends on which casino ur playing at.
discount - they give u 20% back if u lose (more than 1-200) :devil:

good for counting and shuffle t. ... double riffle (most of them), with stipping, not really the best place for aces.

i hope i gave u some infos

curt1s
Is this Northern or Southern Cyprus? Also, what are the minimums like?

The rules you mentioned yield a player advantage of about 0.19%, based on basic strategy engine here, significantly impacted by ES. Is this too good to be true, am I missing something? Is there a catch to having ES as an option? Or are these rules offered for high rollers with $500 minimums etc?

Thanks.
 

wwcd

Well-Known Member
#7
I might travel to Northern Cyprus soon, and I am trying to figure out the optimum play, which seems to be quite different than in North America. I have some pieces of information, but don't know the whole picture yet.

So far the rules that I understand are as follows, please correct me if any of these are wrong. Also, this is for Northern (Turkish) Cyprus. I'm planning to play at places like Jasmine Court, Rocks, Dome, Merit Crystal Cove, Mercure Hotel, Kaya Artemis etc. Please let me know if you have any experience at these places as well.

- 6D
- S17
- DAS
- Double on 9-10-11
- ES10 (does this mean early surrender for 10 or lower?, is there also a LS possibility when dealer shows an Ace?)
- Split to two/four hands, Aces split only once, Aces get only one card
- No peek (if I double/split and dealer has BJ, do I lose original bet, or all of the bets on the table?)

Also, are the minimums similar to Vegas? Can I find $5 tables off-peak times? Any promotions to be aware of? Is there a BS chart for ES10? The one on this site seems to have only ES/LS/NS options.

Thanks all!
 

bj21abc

Well-Known Member
#8
Northern Cyprus

This is from a few years ago...

Rules were similar to what you describe. ES10 means surrender on any card except an A. There is no LS. No peek (ENHC), lose all.

Pen was 65-75%. Jasmine court is huge but had the worst pen.

Can't remember the mins, but they were fairly low. PM me if you want ES tables.


D.
 

wwcd

Well-Known Member
#9
Northern Cyprus Trip Report

OK, I just came back from Northern Cyprus. Overall, I found that blackjack is not very popular on the island. Most tables were completely shut down (as in, they don’t open it even if there’s an interested player), or were deserted. People are crazy about stud poker, and roulette, but not blackjack at all. So, if you like heads up games, this might be a nice location for you. However, keep in mind that they will ask you to play 2 boxes minimum if you’re playing heads up. So, if the table minimum is $10, in reality it’ll be $10x2.

All the tables I’ve seen were USD (except at Dome Hotel, which used Turkish Lira). You can buy in with Turkish Lira, Euro, or USD. They convert it to USD at reasonable rates, and use the exact rate when you convert it back. So, you don’t pay any exchange rate commission or anything.

Table minimums were $10, $15, $25. I couldn’t find anything better, except the Lira table at Dome Hotel, which was 10TL (about $6.70). The places I’ve found $10 tables were Merit Crystal Cove, Mercure Hotel, Oscar Resort, Cratos Premium (brand spanking new, very nice place indeed) and some other smaller establishments. Malpas, Rocks, and Jasmine Court had $15 tables. Usually $25 tables are in the same places with the $10 tables (i.e. the place has only two tables, one at $10, and one at $25). I haven’t seen any rule variation with the table limit going up. By the way, my trip was not on weekend, so over the weekends, these minimums will likely go up, as lots of Turks flock in from the mainland, to get their gambling fix (casinos are banned in Turkey).

OK, coming to rules, I confirmed pretty much all the rules above, except there were some variations to those. All tables are 6D/8D, S17, DAS, DOA, ES10, ENHC, no RSA. The only difference from what I knew before was that you are able to double soft hands as well. Pen is mostly terrible, as bad as 50% at some places. All hand shuffled, no ASM/CSM. They burn 5 or 6 cards after each shuffle. There was a weird rule at one place (maybe others had it too, but I didn’t observe the situation), where if you don’t like the one card to your double, you can put extra one unit and get another card. So you actually triple down, but you usually do this after you know that you have a stiff, so I’m not sure at all about the value of this rule. In one instance dealer showed a 5, and I got a 7 on my doubled 9, for a 16. So, on this one I didn’t ask for this option of course. But, in one instance dealer showed 8, and I got a 3 on my doubled 10, for a 13. In this case I wasn’t quite sure what to do, so didn’t take the extra double. I kinda thought that this would be throwing good money after bad money, given that my 13 would very likely bust and I’d be losing an extra unit. But, if any of you know the math behind this rule, I’ll appreciate your comments. Also, if you know the proper play for this rule, that’ll be nice too.

An important thing to note was at one location, there was a banner at the entrance that promoted two new rules on their blackjack: 1) You can now split your Aces up to four times 2) You can now surrender on dealer’s Ace as well! First one is RSA, but the second one sounded to me as Full ES, which is extremely valuable. The table limit at this location was $15, so I didn’t actually play since I cannot stomach negative variance on a $15 game. However, if this is true, and if I was a professional AP, I’d be heading to this location in a heartbeat, since the game is probably slightly positive from the get go! And as I mentioned earlier, the blackjack table was empty, so it’ll be all yours. If you’re serious about this location, send me a PM and I’ll give you the name of the casino. But, I also think you should confirm the Ace surrender thing, maybe on the phone, before you travel all the way there.

At two places, I played (didn’t need to check at others), there were loss rebates. One place had 10% rebate, if you lost $1,000 or above. One place had 15% loss rebate if you lose anything at all. In the latter one, I won about 7 units the night before, and the night after I lost 20 units. I asked whether they had any loss rebate, and they said there’s 15% loss rebate, and paid me 3 units back. So, in other words, they didn’t check whether I had a winning session from earlier. If you go there and play 10 sessions, say 6 winning, 4 losing sessions, seems to me you can get loss rebates for all of your losing sessions regardless of your total win/loss situation. When you buy in at the tables, the PC puts your name down on a piece of paper (no ID, you just say your name), and puts your buy in amount. And they didn’t check my ID, when I got the loss rebate either. I just told my name, and they said OK you’re eligible to get back X dollars. However, the places are small, so if you play 10 sessions, they will for sure know you and they might say that you’ve had enough loss rebates. So, play at your own risk, and PM me if you’d like to know the name of the casino.

By the way, Northern Cyprus is a nice vacation destination, on Mediterranean, hence if you ever want to go there, you might take your family/spouse or a friend, who might not be into blackjack. For them, I recommend roulette, because throughout the island roulette is all single-zero, and the minimums are about 1TL ($0.67) on live tables, and as low as 0.20TL on semi-live roulette stations. These community roulette tables are very popular and you can find them at every casino. Slots are usually a pretty bad experience, since you need a handpay at every single amount. No TITO, and not all machines except cash. So, you’ll need to wait for someone to open credit, and to close credit. If your friends/family is interested in slot machine hopping, it’s a very painful thing to do in this location as you wait 5-10 minutes each time you need a manual transaction.

Casinos are mostly elegant and they have OK dress code regulations. T-shirt and jeans are mostly fine, and flip flops, sandals, and shorts are mostly a big no. There were exceptions (whether they know you well, or whether it’s afternoon vs. night etc.). The places are usually tiny, compared to any Vegas casino, so that might be quite a disappointment. But, I guess, Europe is usually like this anyways. Giant casinos seem to be a thing of U.S. and Asia. The only problem with a small casino is that you can not go unnoticed in any one of them. Once you walk into the table game area, all the eyes will be all over you, so all the PC will likely recognize you. Not a great cover potential. But, on a positive note, there are more than 20 casinos, within not so bad proximity to each other, so you can play short sessions at each and manage a nice 5-6 day trip this way. The beaches and pools are very nice too, so I’m sure you’ll like the place in general. PM me if you have any questions.
 

wwcd

Well-Known Member
#11
jnrwilliam said:
expenses---hotel n transporation?
free food n beveage in casinos?
what is the 1st language in Cyprus?
English spoken widely?
1TL = 0.67 USD

Hotels can be at or below 100TL pp, per night for 3-4 star hotels. For 5-star resorts prices are around 130-200TL pp, per night. Since this is a summer vacation destination, low season (October - March) can be cheaper than these.

For transportation, rental car would probably be the best option. They have a 3-day minimum rule, and the cost is around 200-250TL for 3-days, including insurance, excluding gas. This amount is for the compact car class like Ford Focus, Peugeot 206 etc. Cab rides between the hotels are around 10-20TL, and to and from airport around 60TL one way. Public transportation is very weak so you're bound to rental car or cabs, unless you're a high roller, in which case you will be transported around with casinos' luxury cars. For rental cars, keep in mind that traffic goes from the left-side in Cyprus.

Since only Turkey recognizes Northern Cyprus, the only way to fly to Ercan Airport (ECN) would be via Turkey. From Istanbul, there are several flights daily from both airports (IST and SAW). Flights usually run between 150TL-250TL round-trip, of course dependent on seasonal demand, and how much in advance you purchase the ticket.

Casinos offer free drinks and free snacks (toasts, burgers, sandwiches), and some also have free buffets for table games players.

Official language in Northern Cyprus is Turkish, but as in all touristic places, English is pretty common. Dealers and casino personnel will for sure speak English, but out of casino English usage might be a little spotty.
 
#14
casinos

english will be enough for you because almost all dealers speak english and pit bosses speak english also. food and beverage are free, if you play something like 2000 $ they will probably give you free room but of course this number is different for different casinos.
first spoken language turkish, but most cyprus turkish people knows english also but the dealers are not cyprus turkish, they are generally from ukraine, belaroussia, georgia, romania or countries like that. i hate that dealers and pit bosses speak in russian between themselves or sometimes with other players and i dont understand anything.
 
#16
game

6 decks
3-3.5 penet
dealer stays soft 17
surrender 10
double any 2 cards
double after split ok
split up to 4 times
no resplit aces
no hole card you lose doubles and splits if dealer has blackjack
these are main rules.
2 casinos support re double down (or triple down as you call it) again rule the others dont.
one casino has only split aces + all the rules above but they have about 4.75 deck pen.
one casino has split aces and early surrender for ace.
 
#17
planning a trip to northern cyprus

Hi,

I'm planning a trip to northern cyprus and am very interested in getting the location of the casino offering early surrender and the exact +EV it gives the player for advantage play purposes. But I'm a new member of this site and can't seem to PM the relevant members :((

Can you contact me on this topic.
Wolfman
 
#20
rebate

funny, a few weeks ago i saw someone playing baccarat,
this is the only time i saw baccarat in cyprus, i bet most pit bosses and dealers dont know how to play (i dont).
i saw people get loss rebate for all the games (stud poker, roulette, BJ) but i am not sure for every casino, so you should check at the casino before playing, also every casino gives back different percentages for different amounts.
all the casinos i visited offered a loss rebate between 10 and 25 percent.
but when you go to a casino for example 10 times and you have for example 7 winning 3 losing sessions and you are up against that casino they may decide to not give you anymore loss rebates.
 
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