1357111317
Well-Known Member
Well it was a long time in the making. I started reading this forum in October 2008 and I figure I owe it to all of you who make insightful posts and have helped me out in the past to share with you the results of my counting trip.
I will try and go as in depth as possible without revealing too much that could possibly ruin these good game.
In the past month me and my team went on a trip. We played played 7 sessions total for a total team time of roughly 90 hours split between a couple different stores. We were playing a game with a SCORE of over 100 most of the time but unfortunatly we hit some bad luck and finished down about 9 max bets (Our max bet was split between two hands)
A couple notables on the trip
Ran into my first counter. Guy was playing for very small stakes however and I think his count wasnt always perfectly accurate and he made a couple BS mistakes but all in all he was playing a +EV game. So Mr. Salt of the Earth Mr. Nice guy if your on here, good luck in the future.
One session was played at the party pit. I wish I could disclose the details of it but unfortunatly that could quite easily give the location away.
Pro's of the party pit.
Needless to say the scenary was nice.
Quite a few dealer errors in both ways. Once a dealer kept drawing on a soft 11 only to make an 18. Luckily the hand was declared dead and we kept our bets.
The girls.
The penetration... make all the jokes you want but I was worried we were gonna run out of cards a couple times.
The lowcut tops
0 heat. we used a 1-30 to a 1-60 spread.
The ultimate counting challenge. If you can count in that party pit you can count anywhere
Con's
Slow dealing and payouts at times
Played with a mentalist playing anchor. This guy's goal was to save the table at all times. This guy would double on 12-16 vs 2-6 and 90% of the time he would make his 19-21 and take away the card that would make the dealers hand. Doubled a 16 v 3, busted but took away the dealers 21. All in all this guy probably saved me a max bet worth of cash the whole time so I wasn't complaining. He stood on a couple 12s and 13s against a dealer face (NHC) and caused the dealer to bust. Either this guy was the luckiest guy in the world or he is the best card sequencer on the face of the planet.
Played in a couple HL rooms. It was quite the experience. Everythign is extremely professional and they make you feel like the boss in there. Had to give up a bit of a spread to play it but the extra hands/hour made up for it. Experienced the blackjack twilight zone both ways in there. Had a couple streaks where no matter what you made you knew you werent going to win. Its a sick feelign knowing that no matter what you are going to lose the hand. Also had the exact opposite happen. You just know you are going to hit your double or the dealer will bust on a face. Also I think I experienced my first legitimate heat in there. When a PB goes, opens a drawer and starts flipping through a big binder with a ton of pictures of people that can't be a good thing right?
Had a couple pits start changing the dealers every shoe when we were winning. One of my teammates played one shoe and was up roughly 8 max bets and after that had a dealer switch almost every shoe. Nothing like an educated Pit. All good pits know that switching dealers prevents people from winning.
Experienced a bit of what I call "Post-Counting stress disorder". After basically spending every waking hour of the day counting cards for a couple days straight the last couple nights were filled with dreams of numbers and dreams of counting. The next day I couldn't focus on anythign and just had numbers running through my head. Anyone else have this happen to them as well?
All in all it was a great experience and hopefully on the next trip we will be on the positive side of the second standard deviation.
Once again thank you all for your help and good luck.
I will try and go as in depth as possible without revealing too much that could possibly ruin these good game.
In the past month me and my team went on a trip. We played played 7 sessions total for a total team time of roughly 90 hours split between a couple different stores. We were playing a game with a SCORE of over 100 most of the time but unfortunatly we hit some bad luck and finished down about 9 max bets (Our max bet was split between two hands)
A couple notables on the trip
Ran into my first counter. Guy was playing for very small stakes however and I think his count wasnt always perfectly accurate and he made a couple BS mistakes but all in all he was playing a +EV game. So Mr. Salt of the Earth Mr. Nice guy if your on here, good luck in the future.
One session was played at the party pit. I wish I could disclose the details of it but unfortunatly that could quite easily give the location away.
Pro's of the party pit.
Needless to say the scenary was nice.
Quite a few dealer errors in both ways. Once a dealer kept drawing on a soft 11 only to make an 18. Luckily the hand was declared dead and we kept our bets.
The girls.
The penetration... make all the jokes you want but I was worried we were gonna run out of cards a couple times.
The lowcut tops
0 heat. we used a 1-30 to a 1-60 spread.
The ultimate counting challenge. If you can count in that party pit you can count anywhere
Con's
Slow dealing and payouts at times
Played with a mentalist playing anchor. This guy's goal was to save the table at all times. This guy would double on 12-16 vs 2-6 and 90% of the time he would make his 19-21 and take away the card that would make the dealers hand. Doubled a 16 v 3, busted but took away the dealers 21. All in all this guy probably saved me a max bet worth of cash the whole time so I wasn't complaining. He stood on a couple 12s and 13s against a dealer face (NHC) and caused the dealer to bust. Either this guy was the luckiest guy in the world or he is the best card sequencer on the face of the planet.
Played in a couple HL rooms. It was quite the experience. Everythign is extremely professional and they make you feel like the boss in there. Had to give up a bit of a spread to play it but the extra hands/hour made up for it. Experienced the blackjack twilight zone both ways in there. Had a couple streaks where no matter what you made you knew you werent going to win. Its a sick feelign knowing that no matter what you are going to lose the hand. Also had the exact opposite happen. You just know you are going to hit your double or the dealer will bust on a face. Also I think I experienced my first legitimate heat in there. When a PB goes, opens a drawer and starts flipping through a big binder with a ton of pictures of people that can't be a good thing right?
Had a couple pits start changing the dealers every shoe when we were winning. One of my teammates played one shoe and was up roughly 8 max bets and after that had a dealer switch almost every shoe. Nothing like an educated Pit. All good pits know that switching dealers prevents people from winning.
Experienced a bit of what I call "Post-Counting stress disorder". After basically spending every waking hour of the day counting cards for a couple days straight the last couple nights were filled with dreams of numbers and dreams of counting. The next day I couldn't focus on anythign and just had numbers running through my head. Anyone else have this happen to them as well?
All in all it was a great experience and hopefully on the next trip we will be on the positive side of the second standard deviation.
Once again thank you all for your help and good luck.
Sorry to hear about your loss after all that time. Sounds so odd to have such a loss after playing such a strong game for so long. Guesstimating your SCORE and loss, you may have fell around 1.5 standard deviations below the EV. 
