palm springs DD

[chenlizhen]

The Spa in downtown Palm Springs just backed me off, but you may want to play there.

- 2D, S17, DAS - sounds good, right? But...
- 45% penetration (ignore the ~15 burn cards)

That's horrible, but the place is dead, i.e. very few people are playing. I generally played with 0 or 1 other person. I've been there twice: 03:00 on a Friday morning, and early afternoon on a Saturday, which is when I got kicked out. Even at the ungodly hour I was there, they had two or three DD tables open - they might be the only overstaffed casino around.

As for getting tossed, they were pretty cool about it. I should have recognized the hostile look from a young pit boss for what it was. I was betting very aggressively, whatever the min was ($15?) to $500+.

[jimbiggs]

You probably earned the young man a promotion.

I hope you were winning big enough to warrant a backoff on that **** pen game.

[ihate17]

I admit I have spread 30-1 and more at double deck but you have to carefully pick your spot and even then expect a backoff to come shortly unless you leave very quickly. I would not spread that high at The Spa, at a table with a $500 max, at a casino with that kind of poor pen, playing heads up, and at a table without a big bettor.

Some of my thoughts are: Betting at or near table max always brings extra attention. Though casinos with poor pen might tend to not worry too much about card counters, I do not spread big in these games mainly because I do not play them. The big player on your table deflects attention from you.

ihate17

Originally Posted by chenlizhen

The Spa in downtown Palm Springs just backed me off, but you may want to play there.

- 2D, S17, DAS - sounds good, right? But...
- 45% penetration (ignore the ~15 burn cards)

That's horrible, but the place is dead, i.e. very few people are playing. I generally played with 0 or 1 other person. I've been there twice: 03:00 on a Friday morning, and early afternoon on a Saturday, which is when I got kicked out. Even at the ungodly hour I was there, they had two or three DD tables open - they might be the only overstaffed casino around.

As for getting tossed, they were pretty cool about it. I should have recognized the hostile look from a young pit boss for what it was. I was betting very aggressively, whatever the min was ($15?) to $500+.

[chenlizhen]

Originally Posted by jimbiggs

You probably earned the young man a promotion.

I hope you were winning big enough to warrant a backoff on that **** pen game.

Up about 600, then down about 1500, finally up about 80. Eh. Doh!

ihate17,
1) playing beside a bigger player: good thought, but I'd opine that the Spa's penetration is so crummy that you need the place to be pretty dead. I guess I don't find it a great loss to be tossed from there.
2) the table maxes are pretty good, I think well more than 500, though I might be getting confused with other places. It's hard to say what their threshhold of pain is, but I feel that typically in these little cr*p joints, it's about 100, and for my goals, that's way too low, so I might as well play to my max.

[ihate17]

Originally Posted by chenlizhen

Up about 600, then down about 1500, finally up about 80. Eh. Doh!

ihate17,
1) playing beside a bigger player: good thought, but I'd opine that the Spa's penetration is so crummy that you need the place to be pretty dead. I guess I don't find it a great loss to be tossed from there.
2) the table maxes are pretty good, I think well more than 500, though I might be getting confused with other places. It's hard to say what their threshhold of pain is, but I feel that typically in these little cr*p joints, it's about 100, and for my goals, that's way too low, so I might as well play to my max.

I think that kind of pen reflects a state of paranoia on the part of the casino.
They offer a game with good rules but fear that an army of cardcounters will decend on them, they kill the pen. If they hand shuffle, then this will cost them more money than that army can extract from them but if they use ASMs, then their strategy works.

The thing is there are also DD games available that are H-17 but with either consistant good pen or very dealer dependent pen that would be better alternatives to the Spa's game in the case of a counter. I recently played at a California casino where on graveyard and day, there were dealers giving 75-80% pen on DD but swing was consistantly 50%. That 75% pen more than makes up for the dealer hitting soft 17 to me. So I do not think you lost anything of significance when the Spa backed you off.

ihate17