trip report. casino arizona

[Brutus]

theres good news and bad news.

casino arizona has a bunch of new auto shufflers, and they're dealing alot more shoe games $5-250, 25-500.

you knew it, the pen is still lousy. they are cutting off 2 of 6 decks.

trip +25
tips -2

[EagleA10]

Brutus, when you refer to auto shufflers, do you mean CSMs?
Also, is this the casino at the 101 & McKillips?
I plan to be in Phoenix soon and was thinking of playing there.

[natdm]

Hey, guys. New here. Just got back from Europe and I wanted to see how Casino AZ was. The place is pure ****, but they've got blackjack! I was just curious... I was only there for a little bit, blew $100 just so I can pay attention to the dealer, players and get a hang of their rules.

I paid attention to the auto shufflers, it seems like it'd be easy to track the cards. I'm not sure what kind of machine it is, but they're definitely not CSMs. If you take the 6 decks, assign letters/numbers, they usually have the players cut. If the player cuts about a deck from their shuffle card, they usually just leave it be.. Not sure how I feel on that, probably not any big deal. But, mainly.. they take the unplayed cards, make it into 3 partial decks, insert them at middle, just below top, and just below bottom, pretty close to even away from each other. They then take the decks, cut in half, then take the last half (c2, d and e) and cut in half, then stack on top. They put 3 decks stacked on one side of the machine, 3 decks stacked on the other, then the machine riffs them together to form the next shoe.

Is there something I'm not aware of? This seems SUPER beatable.. I've never shuffletracked, but it seems like getting the hang of how the machines do their work here wouldn't be any hard feat.

Before anyone asks, I know how to count, been doing it for a few months. I know BS as well.

And, before I search I'll just ask since I'm posting anyways.. anyone else know any other casinos in AZ or between AZ/CA that can be shuffletracked?

[Brutus]

ok, good news and bad news. again.

there are less asm/shoe games, and more csm's.
I suspect they were having problems getting them to shuffle.

now the good news.
played a 5-250 shoe table cutting off 1.25-1.5 decks.

remember, there is no heat.

I took a friend of mine Sammy, the redneck phamacist. Sammy says the $20. buffet (eagles) is better than the 60 and 70 dollar buffets in vegas.

CA keep up the good work, put out a double deck game during the week.

+10 units

[TheApprentice]

This casino has a varied mix...
Some tables with CSMs, some with ASM/shoe. The lower limits are usually the CSM tables. The ASM tables are even varied -- some have a machine that holds two sets of 6 decks, keeping one shuffled while one's in play, and the others have an ASM where the dealer manually splits the deckstack in half and loads it into the machine for a quick shuffle together.
They use H17, and had tables from $5-$25 min and to be honest, I wasn't prepared to pay much attention to the max that day!
I sat at the manually loaded AMS/shoe table with a $15min. The dealers rotate tables very quickly, about once every 45 min, it seems. On average, they cut about 1.5 - 1.75 pen, in my estimation. With this manually loaded ASM it does seem possible that a skilled tracker could do some good/damage.
I was there at a slow time, but I swear I saw a counter or two during my couple of hours.

[Doofus]

Originally Posted by Brutus

Sammy says the $20. buffet (eagles) is better than the 60 and 70 dollar buffets in vegas.

There's only one of those that I've ever heard of, it is Bally's Sunday Brunch that's $65. Last month at Bellagio the big Sunday brunch buffet was $30. Other places are much less - Sahara was about $10 for lunch, and there's always the Plaza at $7.77 (never risked ptomaine poisoning there, though).

[Brutus]

Originally Posted by Doofus

There's only one of those that I've ever heard of, it is Bally's Sunday Brunch that's $65. Last month at Bellagio the big Sunday brunch buffet was $30. Other places are much less - Sahara was about $10 for lunch, and there's always the Plaza at $7.77 (never risked ptomaine poisoning there, though).

I forgot where Sammy said the buffet was that high. personally, I like the breakfast buffet at caesars.

[hawkeye]

The food isn't bad at all at the CA on McKellips. I play there a good amount.

They seem to have less and less CSM's everytime I go. They have BJ tables on two sides, one side is near the Keno area and high-limit slots, and the other side is near the restaurant. I like the side over by the Keno area, it's a little darker and they usually have more tables open to check out.

[hawkeye]

Went to the one on McKellips today, down $35 after 2.5 hours, not bad at all. Betting $10/hand.

All of the $5 machines are CSM, all of them. Some of the $10 tables are, but most are ASM with 6 deck shoe. Dealer pen was different with each dealer, one dealer was cutting less than a deck, I was up over $100 with that dealer at one point until they left. It wasn't very crowded today and they still rotated the dealers like crazy.

[hawkeye]

2.5 hours of playing again this weekend at the one off McKellips. I ended up leaving less than one unit down for my troubles. Moving from a 1 unit bet to a 4 unit bet in front of the pit boss got no attention whatsoever, none. Some dealers dealt for 20 minutes, others for 45, it was weird. One shoe everyone killed it and they had to call for a refill of chips, but they kept that dealer. After a while a new dealer comes in around a natural rotation time, the dealer does ok, and they rotate him out in 10 minutes???