A couple months, a local casino had a promotion that was something like this: as long as I play for about 3 hours and pump through some minimal amount of action (would have to be considerably more than 25-cent video poker, though) I get a comp worth about $40, and I find the comp useful. Playing $5 BJ for the specified amount of time is enough to get the comp. (I don't find this promo valuable enough to hide the specifics.)
The trouble is, their BJ game sucks. It's pretty typical for the Midwest, I suppose, 6D H17 DAS RSA with crappy pen. I wouldn't even considering it worth wonging, as I have a LS game nearby. From a play-all perspective, it can't be beaten well without at least a 1-16 spread, and I can't afford that. So what do I do? The -EV of simply flat-betting $5 for 3 hours has got to cost less than $40, although I haven't done the calculations.
But I am cheap, you know? And I don't like enduring variance for the benefit of playing a crappy game. So here's what I did. I only bet $5 when the PB was looking, and otherwise removed my bet. I also bet 2x5 or 2x6 when the count was high. I chose a crowded table and made really, really sloooow playing decisions. I probably played about 25% of the hands and the PB left me in the computer the whole time.
Because the PB was pacing from game to game, I went through stretches where I was literally playing every other hand. I looked like a truly insane ploppy! Oh, it made the ploppies frighteningly angry. I don't think I've ever seen such angry ploppies. I almost ruined my own plan, since I was relying on the ploppies to slow down my game and I ended up chasing some away. The dealer hated me too, since I would do things like stare at a hard 12 for 30 seconds when trying to decide if i should it against a 10.
I'm not sure what the -EV of this outing was. It couldn't have been much. But I still managed to lose slightly more than the value of the comp on that particular day. Oh well.
Anyone ever heard of this kind of promo?
The trouble is, their BJ game sucks. It's pretty typical for the Midwest, I suppose, 6D H17 DAS RSA with crappy pen. I wouldn't even considering it worth wonging, as I have a LS game nearby. From a play-all perspective, it can't be beaten well without at least a 1-16 spread, and I can't afford that. So what do I do? The -EV of simply flat-betting $5 for 3 hours has got to cost less than $40, although I haven't done the calculations.
But I am cheap, you know? And I don't like enduring variance for the benefit of playing a crappy game. So here's what I did. I only bet $5 when the PB was looking, and otherwise removed my bet. I also bet 2x5 or 2x6 when the count was high. I chose a crowded table and made really, really sloooow playing decisions. I probably played about 25% of the hands and the PB left me in the computer the whole time.
Because the PB was pacing from game to game, I went through stretches where I was literally playing every other hand. I looked like a truly insane ploppy! Oh, it made the ploppies frighteningly angry. I don't think I've ever seen such angry ploppies. I almost ruined my own plan, since I was relying on the ploppies to slow down my game and I ended up chasing some away. The dealer hated me too, since I would do things like stare at a hard 12 for 30 seconds when trying to decide if i should it against a 10.
I'm not sure what the -EV of this outing was. It couldn't have been much. But I still managed to lose slightly more than the value of the comp on that particular day. Oh well.
Anyone ever heard of this kind of promo?
