visited 2 in Indiana

Last weekend, my woman had a family event plus a reunion to attend. She's from the farthest NW corner of Indiana, just over the line from Illinois. So we stayed at Majestic Star for 2 nights, and played a little Friday evening, Saturday evening, and Sunday morning.

First things first: That's a nasty neighborhood. No two ways about it. That they've tried to gentrify the place by naming it "Buffington Harbor" does not help one iota. The hotel parking lot was maybe one-quarter filled, so it gives off a vibe of being just plain deserted. It's not, but it looks that way until you get in the lobby door. We made sure to leave no valuables in the car.

In the casino, I would have been fine Friday evening if I hadn't let my discipline slip on personal stop-loss rules. As it was, I ended the evening a couple hundred down. Nothing serious, but it annoyed me that I let myself slip. Saturday evening, we went back, and I merely recovered that loss handily plus just a little bit more, mostly to re-assure myself. I find it's too easy to feel a sense of losing my nerve (I've been at this a year now but I still consider myself a newbie), and it was simply important that I get back what I'd lost, without really intending to go any farther.

We got up early Sunday morning and were just watching a couple of tables for a while. I'm very fond of watching others' play, I find it instructive and (occasionally) hugely entertaining, mostly in the motif of things like "{quiet chuckle} {stage whisper} That guy just doubled against *that* up-card?!? What is he thinking?" Also, it is peculiar to me to watch people who are clearly very experienced at playing the game yet whose play is so utterly atrocious.

We finally decided to sit down and play. It was a very nice time, with a couple of pleasantly-chatty-but-not-annoying dealers. The main on-duty guy was very experienced; his relief for a bit midway through our play was an inexperienced but still OK gal. Biggest problem: During one shuffle, my woman had the cut card, but he forgot to let her cut -- he just finished smoothing the decks and lifted it all straight into the shoe. Oops. He had to call the PB, who laughed out loud and then (I believe) muttered something obscene under her breath, and then told him he had to re-do the shuffle, so we had to wait while the ASM finished the shuffle on the shoe-ful we'd just finished. The PB said that if he hadn't already pulled a burn card, he could have just taken it back out and done the cut, but once the burn was taken, it was too late. The good news is that we colored up for a total near $600 after less than an hour's play -- we couldn't stay long, we had to get on the road.

There was this one fellow who played at our table while we were there... He bought in for a couple hundred, and then he essentially did cheerleading for better cards on every hand, as though his auctioneer's pace of chatter about the cards he wanted was going to have the slightest effect on the outcome. His buy-in died on the vine in maybe 20 minutes, another atrocious player. It was pretty annoying but we let it slide like water off a duck's back. After his chips were gone, he stayed at the table and watched us. I would call his expression openly resentful.

The oddest thing about this place was the overall mood. I don't have decades of experience at this, but it is a certainty that I have never stood in a casino that looked just plain depressed, from many of the dealers to most of the players to much of the rest of the staff. It was weird, especially Friday night. I took my small loss in stride, but *geez* what's with a casino where no one's having fun?

Sunday noonish, we headed for home, and on the way we saw signs for Blue Chip in Michigan City. We figured what the heck, we needed lunch anyway. So in we went, got player's club cards, got a 2-for-1 buffet lunch bonus for it, played an hour, and walked away with another $100+ as well as (oddly enough) a couple 12-packs of Coke because they were giving them away if you put 200 "bonus points" on the player's card. It's still eerie to me when someone looking at a computer screen can say things like, "Oh, I see you played both the tables and some slot time." I get player's club cards regularly in new places, but after the first time or two, I tend not to use them.

Though it was a very brief stop, Blue Chip was a very pleasant place, exquisitely clean, most everyone enjoying themselves to one degree or another. I would do Blue Chip again in a heartbeat; I'd have to think awhile before going back to Majestic Star, notwithstanding that we netted a bit of a win while there.

Do you count? If so, you need to get rid of the notion of using a stop loss now. Especially one at less than a couple hundred dollars. If you must use a stop loss to control your emotions, it is imperative that you continue to play out any shoe with a good count prior to stopping. In other words, if you hit your stop loss mid-shoe and the count remains good, you don't get to stop playing until the shoe is over. It's good that you don't consider a couple hundred dollar loss to be anything serious, but it really should be a non-event. You can lose that on a single hand easily even if you are only spreading 5-50. If you quit playing every time you are down a couple hundred, you won't have much chance of long term success.

Plain

Very nice trip report with honest observations and thoughts.

Do what makes you feel comfortable as you are very new to this, although I do agree with Nyne who is a very fine AP and great guy.

Main thing for now have fun and be happy.
CP

Blue Chip is nice. Also not too far from Blue Chip is Four Winds which is also nice. When I say nice, I mean in terms of environment/ambiance

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Majestic is a nasty place. Resorts is right there and nicer. And just another 10 minutes away by car is Horseshoe which is redone and quiet nice.

Just for future reference if you go back.

We were at Blue Chip about a year ago. Had a beautiful suite comped based on my Borgata play, arranged by a host, with a great view of the water and the nuclear power plant smokestack.

My wife asked the front desk girl about walking to the beach and she got a horrified look and, "you DON'T want to walk ANYWHERE." It's really a depressing area

I appreciate the advice and sentiment -- I mean that sincerely -- but this has to do with my extremely conservative but successful efforts at building a bankroll from nearly nothing via a bunch of very small-value sessions. I come out on the profitable side of a session approximately 80% of the time, so I've got nothing to complain about if I feel a need to cut short when the 20% failure side goes to crap. My buy-ins are tiny by the evident standards of most here, and I am concentrating on making small gains until I decide I can move up in stakes.

I get what you are saying, but you must understand that if you play with a rule that says leave the game at a loss of X, period, then that means you will be walking away from +EV shoes. If you walk away from Y% of +EV shoes because of your stop loss, that means your real edge is not as high as you think. Keep this in mind as you decide whether you should really walk NOW because you are down a certain amount or if you should play out the remainder of the shoe (or until the count drops). We make the small waiting bets to get the infrequent opportunities to make bigger bets in advantageous situations. Don't make the waiting bets if you aren't going to be able to make the +EV bets when the opportunity arises. If you must play with a stop loss, my advice is to set the stop at a more conservative level than you normally would, but then play out the shoe before quitting.

I too was comped a room last April (2009) when their Blu Tower was fairly new. I remember looking out the window of my room and seeing the Nuclear power plant smoke stack. What a view! Not to mention it was April and like 45 degrees out so the trees had no leaves, and everything just seemed so sad. I only played a little while I was there but managed to walk away with a few hundred extra dollars in my pocket.