Hi, everyone. Been lurking and posting when I can. This last semester at school was awful and busy and stressful.
Which is why the perfect way to celebrate was to go to the casino as soon as it was over! Hurrah!
My brother (who also just finished a long, annoying semester) and I packed the car with Gatorade and goodies from the St. Lawrence market, and trooped out to the Falls. I brought with a $1000 bankroll, made up of money from bonus hustling, some good ebay "sell some crap I don't want but other people want way too much" lots, and a bit of my latest paycheck. (Sidenote: Getting paid what amounts to a fulltime paycheck for working what amounts to a parttime job rocks harder than 2:1 blackjacks!)
We got there just before noon on a Tuesday. Half the tables were closed. The other half were not what I was expecting. Having been at the Fallsview mid-afternoon on a Thursday before, I saw $5 shoes with 80% pen. That day, the best there was was $15 8D S17 3:2 75% shoes. The majority of them were $25+, or $15 CSM. Alright. Fine. I'll backcount then. Bastards.
Before playing, we both dropped a few bucks on the a slot machine that had a $16M progressive jackpot. Now we both had "sucker" on our player card, and that was good enough for comps later on. (Or will be, whatever)
My brother went off to the poker pits. I spent close to an hour walking around, looking at "all the games" (but mostly Blackjack hehe), looking anxiously at the wait-list on the Poker board, and "talking" on my cell to Alice about The Documents.
Finally, some shoes starting showing up positive. I sat down, got rated, got a comped buffet.
I was willing to take some ROR risks, but wanted to minimize the amount of crappy hands I was playing. So I decided on wonging in at +2 with $15-$25 (to vary it up a bit), moving up to $50 at anything above +2. Though to ease out the variance, near the end of the shoe I'd switch to 2 hands of $32.50 (one green, one red, one pink. My "cherry on the top" special.)
I also reasoned that the $32.50 blackjack that should pay $48.75 would be rounded up to $49. It was. The two times I got blackjack the whole evening. Law of averages my ass.
Over the course of the day, I found it very easy to wong in and out. The casino was near dead, so there was always a spot to play at. The other players were pure ploppy, so it was VERY easy to sit out a hand or leave a table because of the flow, or to change things up, or because the dealer was killing up, or whatever other crap the other players were spewing.
The tables all went up to $25, but I asked nicely and got the boss to lower it to $15 for a very short while, so I could get a $15 chit. The other players at the same table were very happy for the chit, too, which made me some friends. And one of those friends came in handy-- money wise.
Okay, for a good hour, it's me and this other guy at a Lucky Ladies table. He didn't know how to play BS, including doubles or anything, so he'd often ask me for advice. Most of the time, I'd give him the right play-- unless I could tell that he wanted to make a different play. In which case that's the "advice" he'd get. And most of the time he'd make the hand. So, whenever he had a huge bet out, and doubled, and won, he'd toss me a $5. I must have made an extra $20/hour on that alone. Sweet.
But it gets better. I'd sit out when the count went down and let him heads-up the dealer. He'd be throwing out $10 and $25 lucky lady bets. At one point, the count was, if I recall, -27 with 4 decks left. (hi/lo). And he hit the LL bet. TEN TIMES OUT OF TWELVE HANDS. wtf? I didn't think there were any faces left in the deck at that point, but he kept getting 4:1 and 9:1 on his sidebet. Wow. I wasn't playing, but that was fun to watch.
So the afternoon goes on, and I get the "thrill" of experiencing losing $250 in one hand when the TC is +6. (22 split to 3 hands, 2 of them doubled, $50 bet out). It's just the math, just the math.
Just the math justifies itself by dinner time. I'm up $100 after about 5 hours of play. That's about expected EV, so I can't argue.
I joined the poker room for some 1/2, and met up with another member of the board. (I'll let them identify themselves or not, as they wish). Talked for a while about "cold shoes" {wink wink} and other fun stuff. It was the first time I've met, off the boards, another AP. Interesting.
I break even on poker, and pay for half of my brother's buffet. Poker players don't get comps. They get SCORN. I think casinos and the staff just barely tolerate them. In fact, I've noticed a huge difference in waitress-frequency between table and poker.
After dinner, the plan is to stay a bit longer. It's only 8pm, afterall. My brother heads back to poker, and I head back to the pits.
I end up playing about three shoes amid a group of drunk irishmen ("RUB THE CUT CARD ON MY NOTRE DAME TATTOO FOR LUCK!"), and a slew of ladies there for a bachelorette party (and dressed for it). The latter was kind of funny. One would sit down, buy in for $30, play two hands and lose. Then the next one would take her place, and do the same thing. Repeat down the line. Though I did make a but of money off them buying their doubles that they couldn't afford ($30 buy in on a $15 table...)
And then I got to experience the THRILL of winning a $250 hand (9's split 3 ways and doubled).
At the end of the last shoe, I was up $600, which was above my EV. So I decided that's a good time to call it a night. I packed up, my brother ended up $700 from poker, and it was a good night.
One piece of advice I got from the forum member I was talking to was to start tracking my play. I've only been counting "for real" three times now, and have always had a minuscule trip bankroll. But I think that starting from this session, I'll keep an eye on things. I played about 700 hands that day, so I'm approaching 1/12th of the way to "long term". It can't hurt to start keeping track of these things. I can't see myself being a full-time professional counter in the near future (with another semester of school, and a one year post-grad degree to go through), but every stat counts, when in comes to The Math.
On a closing note, though, I will admit that I'm about to dip into my unofficial "bankroll". The last couple months of blackjack, between online bonus hustling and this offline session, I've lucked into a well-over-EV $1000 or so. Tomorrow, I'll be taking some of that out of the bankroll, and making a purchase I've been thinking about for a long time: A very particular type of ring for my girlfriend of 7 years. Wish me good variance on that one!
Which is why the perfect way to celebrate was to go to the casino as soon as it was over! Hurrah!
My brother (who also just finished a long, annoying semester) and I packed the car with Gatorade and goodies from the St. Lawrence market, and trooped out to the Falls. I brought with a $1000 bankroll, made up of money from bonus hustling, some good ebay "sell some crap I don't want but other people want way too much" lots, and a bit of my latest paycheck. (Sidenote: Getting paid what amounts to a fulltime paycheck for working what amounts to a parttime job rocks harder than 2:1 blackjacks!)
We got there just before noon on a Tuesday. Half the tables were closed. The other half were not what I was expecting. Having been at the Fallsview mid-afternoon on a Thursday before, I saw $5 shoes with 80% pen. That day, the best there was was $15 8D S17 3:2 75% shoes. The majority of them were $25+, or $15 CSM. Alright. Fine. I'll backcount then. Bastards.
Before playing, we both dropped a few bucks on the a slot machine that had a $16M progressive jackpot. Now we both had "sucker" on our player card, and that was good enough for comps later on. (Or will be, whatever)
My brother went off to the poker pits. I spent close to an hour walking around, looking at "all the games" (but mostly Blackjack hehe), looking anxiously at the wait-list on the Poker board, and "talking" on my cell to Alice about The Documents.
Finally, some shoes starting showing up positive. I sat down, got rated, got a comped buffet.
I was willing to take some ROR risks, but wanted to minimize the amount of crappy hands I was playing. So I decided on wonging in at +2 with $15-$25 (to vary it up a bit), moving up to $50 at anything above +2. Though to ease out the variance, near the end of the shoe I'd switch to 2 hands of $32.50 (one green, one red, one pink. My "cherry on the top" special.)
I also reasoned that the $32.50 blackjack that should pay $48.75 would be rounded up to $49. It was. The two times I got blackjack the whole evening. Law of averages my ass.
Over the course of the day, I found it very easy to wong in and out. The casino was near dead, so there was always a spot to play at. The other players were pure ploppy, so it was VERY easy to sit out a hand or leave a table because of the flow, or to change things up, or because the dealer was killing up, or whatever other crap the other players were spewing.
The tables all went up to $25, but I asked nicely and got the boss to lower it to $15 for a very short while, so I could get a $15 chit. The other players at the same table were very happy for the chit, too, which made me some friends. And one of those friends came in handy-- money wise.
Okay, for a good hour, it's me and this other guy at a Lucky Ladies table. He didn't know how to play BS, including doubles or anything, so he'd often ask me for advice. Most of the time, I'd give him the right play-- unless I could tell that he wanted to make a different play. In which case that's the "advice" he'd get. And most of the time he'd make the hand. So, whenever he had a huge bet out, and doubled, and won, he'd toss me a $5. I must have made an extra $20/hour on that alone. Sweet.
But it gets better. I'd sit out when the count went down and let him heads-up the dealer. He'd be throwing out $10 and $25 lucky lady bets. At one point, the count was, if I recall, -27 with 4 decks left. (hi/lo). And he hit the LL bet. TEN TIMES OUT OF TWELVE HANDS. wtf? I didn't think there were any faces left in the deck at that point, but he kept getting 4:1 and 9:1 on his sidebet. Wow. I wasn't playing, but that was fun to watch.
So the afternoon goes on, and I get the "thrill" of experiencing losing $250 in one hand when the TC is +6. (22 split to 3 hands, 2 of them doubled, $50 bet out). It's just the math, just the math.
Just the math justifies itself by dinner time. I'm up $100 after about 5 hours of play. That's about expected EV, so I can't argue.
I joined the poker room for some 1/2, and met up with another member of the board. (I'll let them identify themselves or not, as they wish). Talked for a while about "cold shoes" {wink wink} and other fun stuff. It was the first time I've met, off the boards, another AP. Interesting.
I break even on poker, and pay for half of my brother's buffet. Poker players don't get comps. They get SCORN. I think casinos and the staff just barely tolerate them. In fact, I've noticed a huge difference in waitress-frequency between table and poker.
After dinner, the plan is to stay a bit longer. It's only 8pm, afterall. My brother heads back to poker, and I head back to the pits.
I end up playing about three shoes amid a group of drunk irishmen ("RUB THE CUT CARD ON MY NOTRE DAME TATTOO FOR LUCK!"), and a slew of ladies there for a bachelorette party (and dressed for it). The latter was kind of funny. One would sit down, buy in for $30, play two hands and lose. Then the next one would take her place, and do the same thing. Repeat down the line. Though I did make a but of money off them buying their doubles that they couldn't afford ($30 buy in on a $15 table...)
And then I got to experience the THRILL of winning a $250 hand (9's split 3 ways and doubled).
At the end of the last shoe, I was up $600, which was above my EV. So I decided that's a good time to call it a night. I packed up, my brother ended up $700 from poker, and it was a good night.
One piece of advice I got from the forum member I was talking to was to start tracking my play. I've only been counting "for real" three times now, and have always had a minuscule trip bankroll. But I think that starting from this session, I'll keep an eye on things. I played about 700 hands that day, so I'm approaching 1/12th of the way to "long term". It can't hurt to start keeping track of these things. I can't see myself being a full-time professional counter in the near future (with another semester of school, and a one year post-grad degree to go through), but every stat counts, when in comes to The Math.
On a closing note, though, I will admit that I'm about to dip into my unofficial "bankroll". The last couple months of blackjack, between online bonus hustling and this offline session, I've lucked into a well-over-EV $1000 or so. Tomorrow, I'll be taking some of that out of the bankroll, and making a purchase I've been thinking about for a long time: A very particular type of ring for my girlfriend of 7 years. Wish me good variance on that one!
