ExhibitCAA said:
Actually, it irks me when posers give bad advice. For you and Barfarkel to give bad advice to inexperienced players is as bad as the conmen progression sellers. Regardless of whether the bad advice applies to games in which there's an edge anyway, it's still bad advice that will cost people. Splitting Tens (which you continue to defend) is a rookie move.
I don't think that the HC splitting tens in Barfy's TR was offered as advice. And given that I couldn't get him to bet more than $25/hand, forcing him to split and resplit the hand was primarily done more for FUN and his readership. In the many Barfy TRs I often do push his envelope.
Given how strange or stupid HC plays can appear anyway, and given my proclivity for doing so when counting, splitting tens against 5 didn't seem too odd to an 'amateur HC' like me. When I do HC now my act is drunk in order to mask the apparent idiocy of the plays, like splitting 7s against 10, etc.
Also, given my relatively low frequency of HC play, I made no attempt in ZGI to pass myself off as an HC practioner, instead singing the praises of Stalker and his ilk.
I am reminded of the first time I encountered an HC opp - in 1975 at the old Royal Inn on Convention Center (now Greek Isles). The dealer was flashing every hand - I never encountered anything like that before - at first I thought it might be a set-up, like 3-card Monty or something.
To make matters worse, I had heat already from the SB 'Courtney' - watching the game like a hawk. Finally 'the hand' came: I was dealt A8 and the dealer held 20 - I stupidly hit and got a 2. The dealer flipped his hand and scooped my cards and money and then in mid-scoop did a double take - and then Courtney leaned over and proclaimed "Thats it, you're outta here!"
Lesson partially learned on that first time.
Turns out the flash was never suspected, I sent my buddy in to play later. They apparently presumed that my play was some superior counting. The dealer (big hulking sort of fellow) later became SB at Barbary and Courtney became SB at Gold Coast. zg