Another day, another hour of single deck at Pharaoh’s Casino.

If you didn’t see the explanation of what this is about, click here.

Today started off nicely enough. I won the first 4 hands in a row, including 2 double downs. My starting bankroll for the day was $450, and after 7 hands I was up to $520. That was the peak for today though, as what followed was the harshest streak I’ve had so far.

In the next 77 hands, I burned through $350 (35 bets). That took my balance down to a mere $170, $30 under my buy-in two days before. That’s part of my point in this exercise though. This is just par for the course when you’re playing any gambling game. Understanding what losing and winning streaks look like is helpful to anyone who wants to play the game.

I recovered some after that. In fact, I had doubled the $170 back up to $340 and stayed in the low 300s for much of the hour. Another losing streak near the end of the hour had me back to $170, but I never got any lower. I rallied in the last two minutes. On the final hand, I picked up $30 on a hand where I split 22v5 and doubled one of the hands. As the clock struck one hour, the bankroll was back in the black overall, despite a big daily loss.

Today’s summary (day 3):
Starting Bankroll: $450
Low point today: $170 (-$280)
High point today: $520 (+$70)
Ending bankroll: $250 (-$200)

One hour of play, 272 hands @ $10 each. (Playing faster now apparently.)

My blackjacks today: 9
Dealer blackjacks today: 11
(One blackjack was a push.)
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Overall results, I’m still ahead of the game by $50. And, that still represents a better than average result. The expected win on this game so far is $8.56.

I just finished today’s one hour of play at Pharaoh’s Casino single deck blackjack.

Today started like yesterday finished, with a nice run of cards. I started the day with a bankroll of $450, and by hand 48 of my play I was up to a nice round figure of $600. That $150 profit would prove to be the high point of my session though. A steady downward trend started in, and by hand 114 I was back to just even.

I headed into the red for quite a while, reaching today’s low point of $355 on hand 157. I waffled around from there, but ended up getting back to exactly even as my self-imposed hour time limit expired.

Today’s summary (day 2):
Starting bankroll: $450
Low point today : $355 (-$95)
High point today: $600 (+$150)
Ending bankroll: $450 (Even)

One hour of play, 260 hands of $10 each.

My blackjacks today: 17
Dealer blackjacks today: 9
(One blackjack was a push.)

I caught almost twice as many blackjacks as the dealer today, and still couldn’t manage a profit.
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Overall results: I have a profit of $150 so far. After 506 hands played, the expected win for this game is $5060 * 0.11% = $5.57. So, my actual results are the $5.57 expected win plus $144.43 worth of good luck!

I’ve written before about the best single deck blackjack game available on the Internet.
It’s available at Pharaoh’s Casino, powered by Boss Media software.
It’s dealt from a single deck, the dealer stands on all 17s, and you are allowed to double any two cards including after splits. It’s also a full ‘peek’ game, meaning that you know whether the dealer has blackjack before deciding to double or split.

All that adds up to a PLAYER advantage of 0.11%, for just using the correct basic strategy.
I’ve always wanted to spend some time documenting an actual series of sessions at this game, so that players who are new to the game might gain an understanding of what kinds of ups and downs to expect when playing a game like this.

Tonight I began that project. I plan to play this game for one hour each day for the next ten days. Each day, I’ll make a post here describing the day’s action.

The setup: I bought in $200 to start with, and I’ll buy an additional $200 any time my balance drops below $40. I’ll be flat-betting $10 each and every hand. I’ll play exactly one hour each day and stop, win or lose. I’ll use a total-dependent basic strategy, like the one you can produce for this game at the Blackjack Basic Strategy Engine.

I could squeak out an extra few hundredths of a percent at this game if I were to use a strategy that used information about the cards in my hand, such as standing with 16vT if my 16 has 3 or more cards, etc. But, I want to stick to the simplest strategy possible, so I’ll forgo those extra tweaks in the strategy.

So, on to the first day’s play:

I had a brief $10 profit in the first few hands, but that was short-lived. The first half-hour of play was a slow but steady loss. Nothing too drastic, just a string of more losses than wins. At the low point of the session, my starting bankroll of $200 had dwindled to $110. After that, I started to make up some ground.

On hand 132, I doubled A5v4 and won it to get back to my starting bank of $200. After that, I went on a great run that lasted for the rest of today’s hour. My bankroll peaked at a healthy $490, and settled in for a finish of today at $450. Nice start, eh? I’ll definitely take a profit of $250 for day one. I expect I’ll be needing that extra buffer if I hope to make it through without having to deposit more money later.

Today’s summary:
Starting bankroll $200
Low point today: $110
High point today: $490
Ending bankroll: $450

One hour of play, 246 hands @ $10 each.

My blackjacks today: 15
Dealer blackjacks today: 12
(One blackjack was a push.)

Tune in tomorrow for more results from Pharaoh’s.

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I’ll be the guest tonight on Kenny Einiger’s radio show in Las Vegas. You can tune in at 6 PM Pacific to hear me and Kenny talk about all things blackjack and tournaments. If you’re close enough to Las Vegas to get the signal, tune in to KLAV radio at 1230 on the AM dial.If you’re further away, you can still listen over the internet. Head to http://www.klav1230am.com and you can find links to listen to the show live.

It’s also a call-in show. Here are the numbers:
Call Toll Free @ 1-866-820-5528
or locally @ 1-702-731-1230

Please note the toll free number gets the bulk of the calls so you may encounter a busy signal.The local number has multiple lines available and may be less busy.

If you’re unfamiliar with Kenny Einiger, he was among the competitors I faced in World Series of Blackjack 2004 and 2005. In 2004, he made an early exit when an aggressive approach didn’t pan out. In 2005 though, he went all the way, and earned the title 2005 World Blackjack Champion.

He has a new website at http://www.worldblackjackchampion.com/

Check it out, and check out the show later today!

The James Grosjean and Michael Russo case against Caesars Palace and Griffin Investigations is done, and the jury ruled in favor of Grosjean and Russo, awarding $100,000 in actual damages. Caesars chose to settle with the plaintiffs before the punitive damage portion of the jury deliberations, but Griffin did not. The jury awarded an additional $25,000 to the plaintiffs from defendant Griffin for punitive damages.

For those unfamiliar with the case, Grosjean and Russo were legally hole-carding at the game of three card poker, and were detained by Caesars and accused of card-bending, based on their listings in Griffin Investigations subscription-based service for casinos. Griffin was found by the jury to have been guilty of libel and defamation for having listed the two as cheats with no evidence.

A Las Vegas Review Journal article about the case can be found here:
Caesars settles, Griffin Investigations owes punitive damages

The Las Vegas Hilton’s Million Dollar Blackjack II finals were held in May 2004. And, finally, the Travel Channel shows from almost a year ago will air starting this week.

Tune in Wednesday night on the Travel Channel, at both 8 PM and 11 PM Eastern for “Travel Channel Secrets: Million Dollar Blackjack Tournament: Semifinals”. The one hour show will cover all three of the semifinal tables from the Hilton event. Two players from the six on each of these tables advance to the finals where first place is a million in cash. (Look for me among the participants. I think I’m in the second match shown.)

West Coast viewers should check your local schedule, since the show may be broadcast at different times.

Here’s the complete upcoming TV schedule:

The Semifinal episode will air on:
Wednesday, March 30th at 8 PM and 11 PM Eastern.
Wednesday, April 6th at 7 PM Eastern.
Thursday, April 7th at 2 AM Eastern.

The Final Table episode will air on:
Wednesday, April 6th at 8 PM and 11 PM Eastern.
Sunday April 10th at 2 AM Eastern.

Also, FYI, the final event of Million Dollar III is coming up soon at the Hilton on May 12th-14th.

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Another announcement: BlackjackInfo has a new message board available for discussing all things blackjack. Visit the new Blackjack Message Boards and help get the community started.

The online casino Betcom is holding another blackjack tournament, with an interesting twist. The event features $20,000 in prizes and it is structured like the March Madness NCAA basketball tournament.

Among all those who enter and play in the first round ($50 entry fee), the top 64 scores advance into round 2 of the tournament. After that, each subsequent round eliminates half the field, just like in the NCAA tournament. So, in round 2, your goal is to be among the top 32 scores in a field of 64. In round 3, it’s the top 16 out of 32 who advance, and so on.

If you keep putting up high scores, you can roll all the way to the $5000 first prize on just your first entry fee. But, once you’ve qualified for one of the rounds, you can reenter in that round as often as you’d like to improve your score.

I’ve never seen a format quite like this, and I think it will be both interesting and profitable for savvy players. During each round, the ‘cutoff’ score will be displayed, so it should be interesting to see how this plays out.

If you want to participate, sign up now for the “Early Bird” special. You get two entries instead of one for the first $50 entry fee. That’s available until Wednesday March 16th. Play begins on March 17th.

More information here: Betcom $20,000 March Madness Blackjack Tournament

An item in today’s Las Vegas Mercury discusses various casino advantage players and their tactics. It covers a broad spectrum including card counting, hole card play, sports betting, poker, and even craps.

The article starts with a few paragraphs about Eliot “The Mayor” Jacobson, whose new book The Blackjack Zone is available at the BlackjackInfo store.

Stanford Wong weighs in on his new passion, beating the game of craps, long thought by advantage gamblers to be unbeatable.

Bob Nersesian, the Las Vegas attorney who in recent years has taken on several high profile cases representing advantage players is quoted as well.

From the Edmonton Sun:

WINNIPEG — The Manitoba Lotteries Corporation has partially lifted a ban on French in the province’s casinos by allowing bilingual blackjack tables twice a week. Although Manitoba recognizes French as an official language, provincial rules normally forbid any language other than English at many casino tables to prevent collusion among gamblers.

The fear is that if the dealer can’t understand the players, he or she would be unable to spot cheating.

The bilingual tables will only be open at two Winnipeg casinos – the Club Regent and McPhillips Street Station casinos on Friday and Saturday nights.

My hand-by-hand synopsis of week two in the World Series of Blackjack on GSN is now posted, and it’s available in time for you to use it to understand the rebroadcast of the show on Tuesday night (Feb 1st). GSN, 10 PM Eastern (and 10 PM Pacific I think).

I was one of the players on this show, so a few of my insights this week are straight from the actual table.

Caution: Spoiler!! If you haven’t seen the show yet and don’t want to know the outcome, don’t read the synopsis!

Here’s a link to the complete show recap:

World Series of Blackjack, Week 2