So, I'm at a local joint tonight. It was really crowded. Partly becuase it was a weekend, and partly because of Chinese New Year. Around 1AM, some breaks open up in tables, I find one, backcount, and then wong in when the count gets pretty good.
Four other people at the table. Two min-betting ploppy asian ladies, and two relative whales: one 60 yr old middle-easternish guy playing up to $100 a hand, and a 50-60 yr old asian guy, smoking some sort of godawful cigarette, and playing two hands of $200-$350 each. He's barber-poling blacks greens and reds. He's making some of the common mistakes, like standing on 12 vs 2 and surrendering a 14 vs 10. I don't pay much attention to him, as I had seen a bigger whale get butchered earlier in the day. Besides, I had my own play to pay attention to. I did notice that he was fishing in his wallet, pulling out blacks, and even a purple ($500) chip.
Next shoe, the count gets ridiculously high again. I notice that as I'm increasing my bets, he's shifting from greens to blacks, and I begin to pay him more attention. After the shuffle, he drops to playing two hands at $20 each. The count started to get very negative, and he dropped to only one hand at $10. Then he made a negative index play of hitting with a 12 vs a 4. And near the end of the shoe (count still negative), he took a bathroom break, which coincidentally ended when the shuffle was beginning.
Holy crap, this guy was good. And he had minimal or no cover. The only strategy he might have been employing was some limits on the amount he would increase or decrease bets per hand. But still, after the shuffle, he went from having $700 on the table, to $40. And later $10 or $20. A 70-1 spread seems pretty ballsy to me. Based off the chips he was pulling out of his ass, he wasn't betting too ridiculously relative to his payroll.
There was no heat.
I gotta say that the stereotype works. If I'm the casino, an older asian man is the second-to-last person I'll suspect of being a counter (the first is an older asian woman). And we made it through two very postive counts, and one very negative count, until I had confirmed it to own satisfaction.
I wanted to take the guy aside and give him a high-five or something, but that didn't seem like it would fly very well.
I learned a very valuable After School Special lesson from the affair: don't assume too much about people. Just becuase the previous 400 lived up to your preconceived notions, give the next person a chance to prove themself.
Four other people at the table. Two min-betting ploppy asian ladies, and two relative whales: one 60 yr old middle-easternish guy playing up to $100 a hand, and a 50-60 yr old asian guy, smoking some sort of godawful cigarette, and playing two hands of $200-$350 each. He's barber-poling blacks greens and reds. He's making some of the common mistakes, like standing on 12 vs 2 and surrendering a 14 vs 10. I don't pay much attention to him, as I had seen a bigger whale get butchered earlier in the day. Besides, I had my own play to pay attention to. I did notice that he was fishing in his wallet, pulling out blacks, and even a purple ($500) chip.
Next shoe, the count gets ridiculously high again. I notice that as I'm increasing my bets, he's shifting from greens to blacks, and I begin to pay him more attention. After the shuffle, he drops to playing two hands at $20 each. The count started to get very negative, and he dropped to only one hand at $10. Then he made a negative index play of hitting with a 12 vs a 4. And near the end of the shoe (count still negative), he took a bathroom break, which coincidentally ended when the shuffle was beginning.
Holy crap, this guy was good. And he had minimal or no cover. The only strategy he might have been employing was some limits on the amount he would increase or decrease bets per hand. But still, after the shuffle, he went from having $700 on the table, to $40. And later $10 or $20. A 70-1 spread seems pretty ballsy to me. Based off the chips he was pulling out of his ass, he wasn't betting too ridiculously relative to his payroll.
There was no heat.
I gotta say that the stereotype works. If I'm the casino, an older asian man is the second-to-last person I'll suspect of being a counter (the first is an older asian woman). And we made it through two very postive counts, and one very negative count, until I had confirmed it to own satisfaction.
I wanted to take the guy aside and give him a high-five or something, but that didn't seem like it would fly very well.
I learned a very valuable After School Special lesson from the affair: don't assume too much about people. Just becuase the previous 400 lived up to your preconceived notions, give the next person a chance to prove themself.
