The Jugador's Blackjack Journal

2008-07-31T07:13:00.000-07:00

Trip 5
(Last here Trip 2 2008)

[In fact, despite the above I was here only about 6 weeks previously between trips 3 & 4 but I was only there for very short time and aside from a nice tip win nothing much of note occurred)

Day One
Here again. It's not a great return in that all the dealers with the worst cuts seem to be working tonight and none of the good ones. Even some dealers who previously had so-so cuts are worse than before. I have a short spell of paranoia- is it because of me? Despite their pleasant manner towards me are they suspicious of my recent run of form against them which has now put me well ahead at this place? Or is it just that blackjack has been less profitable for them recently and they've had the knee-jerk but ultimately counter-productive reaction of making the cut worse? Looking around I see other dealers with worse cuts than they used to give.I'm reassured that it's not a measure specific to me, sinc I doubt they's cost themselves potential profit on so many tables by shuffling more often simply because I'm nearby. Later on I see one dealer on another table who used to have the best penetration in the house- less than a deck off. She now has one of the worst cuts- well over two decks. What a pity- it appears that word has come down from the management to cut more cards out. I thought they were cooler and more savvy than that.

Day 2
Better cutters today although not as good as it used to be. It's still a really good game due to the rules and with so many tables you can usually find a good cut somewhere. Yesterday looks like just a coincidence with so many dealers with bad penetration on the same shift. Small win.

Day3
There's a big sporting event taking place today and unsurprisingly the casino is empty early in the evening while it's on and then it gets busy afterwards as the bars empty of people who went there to watch the game. I hit 777, for which you get a free bottle of champagneI don't ususally partake when I'm playing but this time I offer the others at the table a glass and since this is acepted I ask for it to be brought out, to the surprise of the staff. I's good to keep them guessing sometimes. However it does seem the certain individuals among the personnel have a better idea about me. At one point I take a hit contrary to basic strategy, which ends up costing me the hand, as the dealer would have bust had I stayed. The pit boss, with whom I'm on friendly terms, sees this and says with a smile,“That's not very professional”. I'm certainly now glad that he and I get on. I break even today.

Day5
A nice win yesterday. Today I'm up very quick and then drop back. It's Friday night and predictably, the casino is full of drunks after midnight so space to play is limited but I change tables when one table gets quiet. I find myself playing with my new preferred dealer. At one point I split tens, a few times, end up needing the dealer to bust and she does, for a $1500 win. I was behind before that sheo and am now little ahead. “You always come up smelling of roses” says the dealer. "Sometimes I do", I reply.

Day 6
Saturday night and I know it will get busy later, possibly to the extent of being unplayable. This is fact happens. I get a small loss, despite a good solo game early on and then decide to try another casino in town that I assessed briefly earlier in the year. I go in and some of the staff recognise me from the sister casino where I played until it closed down some time ago. I have a nightmare first shoe and then it gets worse. The cut is poor but even after changing tables, my luck doesn't improve until I'm $6000 behind. I pull some back towards the end and leave $3500 behind. At least that should relax the management if they are liable to get spooked by the big action. They seemed cool enough on the night but we'll see how the react if I have a win against them next time.

Day 7
Back to my main casino in this city but another nightmare start. $7000 downinside two hours. I'm annoyed as I was about to take a break and return when th cut improved but decided not too as it was still early and not too busy. THat being the case I got the full force of a terrible run of cards, the count increasing and not coming in much. Then there is a new dealer, with a better cut and I regain $3000 the very next shoe back straight away. My form improves further and get level, then lose $4000 in shoe and then 3. The dealer changes again, for the worse this time but I win some more. I change tables as I lose my heads-up game and am glad of the excuse to look for a better cut as it would looks strange to change whne I had a solo game having been at the table all night. On the new table I have a mega shoe to get level and the next one gives me nice win on the night, but alas, I drop back at end to leave very slightly ahead on the session.

2008-06-26T04:38:00.000-07:00

2008 Trip 4

I’ve had a whole month off BJ. I didn’t intend to leave it so long but that’s what happens sometimes. The ability to be flexible is one if the reasons I do this. I’m in a new country, and the only reason I’m here is due to a comment in passing made by a dealer elsewhere, when talking of where she was from and where she worked. I’ve no other information about rules and conditions in this country. An associate went to a country next to this one and found very poor conditions, they reacted to any bet variation with an atrocious cut, without examining whether it was justified. I believe one of the casino groups there is present here also. Therefore the same philosophy may prevail. If the rule the dealer told me about is still here it will still be a playable game, so it’s worth a trip.

It’s a late flight and I’ve been on the road all day so I don’t expect to put in much serious play tonight, if any. I’ll probably just check out as many casinos as I can and then finish. The first one I find is a mixed bag. It has great rules which make up for a poor cut, but the maximum is very low. I see a table with a higher limit but even with that one with the good rules I don’t think it would be as good as a normal type game.
The next one I find has higher limits but lower than what might normally be expected. Regular rules, so this maximum is crucial. It’s a possibility if I can get a slightly higher maximum, but whether the casino is prepared to do that remains to be seen. And what’s behind door number 3? Shuffle machines in this place on all but one table. It has the same maximum as the previous place but very good penetration. However, since it is the only shoe game it may get crowded often. I wonder why the maximums are so low? For a city of this size, especially given the number of casinos there are (I’ve just visited one from each group tonight) such consistently low maximums appear strange. Perhaps they got hit by some professionals in the past. So I enter my fourth casino of the night and it turns out I’ve saved the best until last. Good cut, same rules and maximum as in the previous two places, but then I find a separate pit with limits double that of the other tables. Plus it’s by far the plushest and most pleasant establishment of all I’ve seen tonight. So I’ve found a game and can start making arrangements to stay here for a while, reasonable night’s work in the end then, although trekking around the city plus the playing a shoe or two at each to ascertain the rules has taken far longer than I had intended and it’s nearly dawn by the time I return to my hotel. Given my early start today in order to get to the airport I’m so very tired.

Day Two
The tiredness may have taken its toll. I wasn’t feeling 100% yesterday and air travel certainly doesn’t help but now I feel well below par. I finally manage to drag myself out of bed in the evening with the intention of playing a few hours but when I get to the casino the one table with the higher limits is already being played and since I haven’t seen the cards spread I decide to go back to bed.

Day Three
I’ve had to change hotel as I’d only booked for two nights not knowing if there would be a game in the city, and now it’s fully booked. Still the other one is nearly as nice and not much further away from the best game here. I get in early, see the cards spread and play. I made the mistake of assuming that if I bought local currency there I sell the same amount back to them at the same rate if I won, thus effectively having got it for free. This turns out not to be the case and is an inferior rate to the exchange places elsewhere. Having no choice as it is past closing time for these establishments I buy a small amount of local currency. As luck would have it, I don’t need to change any more than that and end up winning about $1000, with no major swing in either direction.

Day Four
I arrive early again in order to be there as soon as the higher limit pit is opened. I have a good start and this is enough for the manager to order a half-shoe cut. I play for a while longer and then leave to see if I can find a better situation elsewhere. I go to the first place I investigated when I first arrived here-the one with great rules but a very low maximum. If I can get another table opened with the maximum I saw posted on the second table the other night I’ll have a win rate slightly better than the half-shoe game I’ve been given at the other place, due solely to the great rules. I ask but they refuse to open another blackjack. If I had some exposure there, perhaps they would, but as this would entail playing for some time at the low maximum, still withy no guarantee of getting a higher limit another time, I’m in a catch-22 situation. I don’t want to play such low limits but in order to get a higher maximum I need to play low at first, which then doesn’t really encourage them to give me a higher limit table.
I go to the second place I tried to see if I can find a higher maximum. This casino is of the group I expected to have the great rules. This place is the sister casino to the one where my source told me she worked, so I expected this one to have the same rule. As it didn’t this either means that there are different rules in place among different casinos of the same group (quite a rare situation but one I’ve already encountered once this year-see trip one) or that they got rid of the rule some time ago. No real joy here either, higher maximums than the last place but not great given the rules, with the rule I thought it might have it wouldn’t be a problem but as it is, especially with the cut and crowded tables it’s time to move on. In the end I decide to go back to the first place as casino 3 is some way out of the city and to go there and back on what will probably be another fruitless excursion will eat into the time left before I will need my bed so I may as well grind it out for the rest of the night. There is a different management on now and despite expecting the cut to change on the next shoe after I sit down, it doesn’t. I play for two hours (and lose back some of the night’s win) and leave, believing that I may get away with decent penetration for at least some of the time.

Day 6
My last day in this city. Tomorrow I leave the capital in search of the fabled mega-rule about which I was told. Another small win brought half a shoe again very early on last night and this time it never changed. I went to the Casino 3 and tried to get a high limit non-CSM table but they said they couldn’t as all the other tables had CSMs on them. One bonus though is that most of the casino 4 dealers are trackable, so I will do that if the cut is really bad when I go back there. It is and I do. It really is a grind though. I finish about level. On the road again tomorow then, what will I find when I get there?

Day 7
Three hours on the bus passed by reasonably enough. I've already booked a hotel room and I have a good map of the town (you gotta love the internet) so there won't be hours of searching for a decent place to stay as has happened to me in the past. In the event the hotel is excellent for the money - it goes to show that away from the capital prices are generally low in many countries.
After some much needed sleep, a shower and change of clothes plus a meal, I'm out on the town looking for the casinos. I find th first one easily enough, the one which I'm told, has the great rule. This turns out to be true. It's strange that it 's sister casino in the capital (The second place I tried there) has regular rules while this one doesn't. What this one doesn't seem to have however, is a decent maximum. $50 is the highest limit. with all tables full. Even with the good rules this doesn't give the potential for much profit. Also, the place is fairly crowded at night. I'll check it out tomorrow afternoon and see if the situation is better then.

I go to the other casino in town which is of the same group as casino 3 in the capital. Expecting to find more CSMs I'm happily surprised to find that this is not the case. As in the rest of this country, relatively low limits but this one has a great cut so even with a maximum of $100 it's playable. Only one table open though. I ecide to play long wnough just to ascertain the rules. Fairly standard they are too but if I can get a fairly fast game and a consistently good cut it may be worth playing for a while.

Day 8

Into casino A of the good rules ad very low limits. It is quieter but there is someone else playing. I walk around the casino through a lounge area and find a hig limit area I failed to spot last night. This is more more like it- the limits are $10-300, this is what I have come for! However, when I ask for that to be opened I'm told that you need to have accumulated a large amount of player reward points for the priviledge of playing such limits. What a strage attitude to have towards big players- you have to have done your time at low limits to qualify for the bigger games! My best bet is thus to play the other game here, but I'll check back here in a day or two to confirm that I have to be considered a regular before I can play big. Different managers may have different ideas. Onto casino B- I get a table opened no problem and they don't seem worried about me hiting the maximum with great frequency. I start early afternoon and finish late evening with a small loss. The dealers aren't the friendliest I've ever met but the cut never changes so at least they aren't suspicious at this time.

Day 9
Same conditions as yesterday, but this time I win and they still take no action. I may play another day then ask for higher limits, or I may take my chance tomorrow and see how they react. Naturally a good cut with $100 limit is better than half a shoe with $200 but it may be worth the risk. I'm very slightly behind against this casino after two days. Maybe i should see whether or not I win tomorrow before making myself more obvious in that casino. i still need to see if I can get a decent game at casino A.

Day 10
I get some news from home which means I must leave as soon as possible. I book a flight back home for later that day, collect my things and catch another bus to the airport, some hours away and in a different country. A short trip then, and there are a few unknowns relating to the games here but I'll have to find the answers some other time.

2008-05-31T03:05:00.000-07:00

2008 Trip 3

Day1
This trip is in a new location for me. I’ve known about this place for some time thanks to more than one card counter of my acquaintance but it hasn’t been a priority until now. It so happens a friend of mine is on a business trip there so I thought I’d take the opportunity to come long for just a week. The area where the casinos are is not easy to get to and involves more expense than normal, so it’s good to be with someone for company during the trip and to defray some of the expenses as regards hiring a car. From my information, hit and run is the nature of the game as there are many casinos in a concentrated area, some big, some small. I get a good start at casino 1: $3000 up after 30 minutes. I go to next and have a small win after an hour. In the third place I find something interesting: a rule that I’ve heard about but never played. This rule may be new as I was given to understand that the rules were standard across all the casinos, the only variation being whether resplits of aces were allowed. I go down $5000 early on then I get a massive swing to my benefit and finish $5000 up. One manager takes an interest but seems not too worried. I played bigger off the top as my instinct is that this game has an edge just with basic strategy due to the one rare rule. I go casino 4 open a table and ask for fresh decks. The pit boss moans that they check the days every day but appears to accept my request. After around 15 minutes of waiting at the table it is evident that I was mistaken in this assumption and leave.

Day 2
I go back to casino 4 as soon as they open to see the cards spread and am told that I am barred. Reference is made to the fact that they check the cards every day, so it appears that someone has been offended by my legitimate request to see the decks spread and has barred me for no other reason. Well, this is a trip full of firsts: the rare rule at casino 3, now a barring without any prior information on me before I’ve even played a hand. Somebody is obviously a bit touchy. At casino 2 I post a small loss, before I assess that it is time to go. Back to casino 3 with the great rule. I’ve run some simulations on this and it seems my gut feeling was correct: it’s an edge off the top. This being the case I have decided to play this place longer than the others and risk any attention I get. I am lucky to get in as the guy on the door tells me it is “for hotel guests only”, but his colleague gives me the Ok- perhaps he knows I’m a big player and has waived the requirement. In for 8k, win $1,300. Is it time to play this casino longer than the others or even exclusively? This game is so much better than the others that it may justify staying there and trying to extract the maximum win I can and runnuinh the risk of being barred sooner than normal.
In the event, the decision is made for me. Back to casino 1 I find an empty table and sit down, only to be told that they are closing that table. I move around the pit to another table but am intercepted by a manager who asks my name. I tell him and he replies “We don’t want you to play” . I drive out to one that I haven’t yet played, get 5 minutes before being barred, mid shoe, on a profitable situation, whilst losing. I point out this latter fact to the management and they say “We think you’ll win in the end”. Flattering but annoying all the same. They seem to have received some information on me from somewhere, perhaps casino 1, but they claim one of their surveillance staff spotted me from a country I played some years ago. I did play in the country mentioned, but whether it was this casino that recognised me from there is another matter, since it’s my second barring of the night and they were very quick to do it.

Day 3
Rebuffed at casino2. I barely get through the door before being confronted by a security guard who asks my name. Once I give it, he calls the manager, who comes out tells me I can’t come in and goes on 3 or 4 times to stress the fact that I’m not to come back. Will casino 3 still take me in? Yes- I get through but am given half a shoe inside an hour. No problem, it’s still a great game but it shows they are now wary of me, whether from information received from another casino or from their own observations of my wins here I don’t know. I switch tables to one that has been opened in another pit as I’ve lost the heads-up situation on my first table. I play this happily for a while and the manager comes over. Friendly as ever, he tells me that from now on I can play only this table and will always get half a shoe. I accept this. I finish the session only a just over $1000 behind.

Day 4
Well at least everything is out in the open and I can now relax at the one casino, without fear of being barred and can just play blackjack. Or so I think. Walking up to casino 3, one of the doormen stops me even before I pass the threshold, with a piece of paper on which it is written that the casino is for hotel guests only on the weekend. Since I nearly got prevented from entering the other day for the same reason I can almost take it at face value, but for the fact that the doorman seemed to recognise me before he presented me with the message, so was obviously told to keep a look out for me. From his broken English I manage to ascertain that I will be allowed in on Monday (Today is Saturday). Of course there are no guarantees of this, maybe the manager I was dealing with has been overruled by someone more senior within the casino. We’ll have to see. A weekend off for me then to enjoy the sunshine. My flight is for Tuesday so if I am allowed in I’ll have a decision to make as to whether to stay or not after just one more session. Given the difficulty in arranging transportation I will risk staying on, being barred and than having to kick my heels for several days before I can leave. I'll give it some thought over the weekend, now I find myself at enforced leisure asI can't get another decent game anyhwere near here.

Day 6
I get in a few hours after the casino opens in the hope that the mananger who has been dealing with me most of the time will be in by then, so if I get stopped at the door with the same excuse as before I’ll be able to ask to speak to the manager and ask him straight out if they still want me to play or whether it’s another pretext. No such problem. The doorman in fact smiles, says hello and shakes my hand. The cards are already spread on my “naughty table” with a dealer waiting. Perhaps I should have got in for opeing after all. The staff are all friendly and the manager comes over and asks how I am soon after play has begun. He doesn’t speak to me much after that but does come over occasionally to check the state of play. Once again I go behind early on but a good recovery during the middle of the day puts me within sight of even and a shoe where the dealer could only bust puts me over $4000 ahead on the day. Leaving the casino I have a dilemma, which I consider over dinner: to stay or go. I could stay and play until I get barred since this is my only viable casino in the area, so I wouldn’t plan another trip here with the possibility that I could get barred early on at the expense of the time and money involved in taking a new trip here. However, other commitments mean that I can only stay for a few more days without incurring major inconvenience and if I leave now, especially having won a large sum on my first trip here, I may prevent a barring that would perhaps come even after one more big win. By contrast by leaving now and giving the casino a bit of time to forget about me, I may get several more days of play next time even if I have another winning start. Plus the effort and expense in changing my travel arrangements will be saved and I can start early on my next trip so that there shouldn’t be too much lost EV, if any. The risk though is that the good rules will be changed by my return (and they have a particular rule that makes it a great game even with the bad cut) or I may get barred within a few days anyhow on my next trip here. I decide I would like to come back here on a fresh trip and hope leaving at this point will extend my longevity at this casino. [I later check available flights home for a few days later and there weren’t the flights I thought so I feel even happier with my decision].

2008-04-13T05:51:00.000-07:00

2008 Trip 2

Day One
I'm back in the country I last visited on Trip last year, but I start this trip in a new city. It's quite a new casino and I had hopes of this being an additional game in this country. I fly in during the afternoon, check in to my hotel and check out the casino early in the evening. Alas, the rules are mediocre with low limits. A change of city beckons, then.

Day Two
As occasionally happens, I wake up in the morning unsure of where I'll be spending the night. To go north, south, east or west? I decide to go to the place where I spent most of the last half of trip, since I always intended on going back there sooner rather than later and going there first rather than the capital will mean time spent on the road in comparison to going to the two cities in the other order. As I check out I get a rather nasty surprise: the hotel claims that $300 worth of phone calls have been made from my room. Since the only time I touched the 'phone was to disconnect it as its tone was audible even when hung-up, I dispute this and suggest that it's a case of faulty equipment. At first the managmeent claim that this cannot be the case because their meter has registered that calls have been made, despite the fact they are unable to tell me what calls have been made or when. Grudgingly the manager follows me to my room to ascertain this and even when he agrees that the handset is working improperly, manages to be ungracious about it, although the receptioniat does apologise to me. So it's not with a particular feeling of regret that I leave the hotel and the city
The journey over is good, I arrive fresh and ready to play. I get in the casino early and it's still empty later on, a change from the last time here where I finshed up with a crowded game most days. I get a good cut from the first dealer and a bad one from the next one and lose with all, before a slight recovery and a loss of over $5000.

Day3
Today the casino is crowded from the time I arrive there. I start well, get over $3000 early on only to lose it in a short period during which the dealer seemed to get nothing but pictures when I had my big bets out However I end up getting almost exactly the same amount back again. The casino managment obviously remember from my visit before Christmas and are friendly, although they have every reason to be since I lost then and am still losing over the two days I’ve played here this time.

Day 4
Once again it is busy in the casino. Howevver, my hands seem consitstenly to be the lucky ones on the table and I finish $5000 up. Hand of the day:
9-9 & 14 v 5. I split for a 2 and double it for 10, making 21. I receive a 9 on the next one, split again for a 7 and an ace. I thus have a doubled 21, 14, 16 and 20. The dealer pulls.. 5, (scary) 6 (sigh of relief)… 5 to make a dealer 21 and a three bet loss of $600when a 7 or more would have resulted in a five bet win. Even on a good day such things are liable to happen.

Day 5
Woo-hoo, a good run at long last, $7000 up today to make it three wins in a row. Time to leave this casino for next time and move on to the capital.

Day 7
A good start in the capital yesterday, $3000 up. This is where I prefer playing above all other places at the moment. Not only are the rules and conditions good here, but it’s a really enjoyable casino in which to play and the staff are very friendly. One goos thing about having lost here the previous two visits here is that I should have a large degree of longevity as a result. I’m now around level against this casino overall but I hope my good start against them has been forgotten and they now regard me is a big losing player. I like the city too, so a relaxed casino attitude towards me that is likely to last is particularly welcome here.
Today however, it’s not as pleasant. This has nothing to do wwith how the cards are treating me but everything to do with the company at the table. The guy at the end of the table with an MP3 player, despite his listening to music, feels the need to dispense advice to all the other players at the table. I saw him during my last visit here and he did the same then. He claims to “study the cards” despite the fact that his basic strategy leaves much to be desirted and he clearly isn’t counting the cards. In a way though, this type of player is good for me as it shows the casinos that some players do genuinely have a belief that that they can beat the game, even though they are much mistaken and their knowledge does not justify that confidence. If they view me in a similar light, all the better. His frequent attempts to tell me how to play my hands does irrtiate after a while nonetheless. I leave a few hundred to the good.

Day 8
Well, there’s an unexpected visitor to the casino tonight. An exrtremely drunk player arrives at around midnight, starts playing very heavy and drinking some more. This of course is not unusual, except for the fact that he is a manager at one of the other casinos in town. He’s playing very big and before long he’s on $1000 a hand. He wins around $5,000 early on but then it turns against him. He keeps going to the casino cage for more funds. He can’t play very well, the whisky he’s drinking obviously doesn’t help and becomes more and more bad tempered. He moans at me for something even though it’s solid basic strategy. I’m glad he doesn’t recognise from his casino as he was seemed quite wary of me at the time and now it seems he is unable to identify basic strategy when he see it so I shouldn’t be too worried the next time I go into that casino, not that I intend to do so any time soon. At on epoint he’s betting hos $1000 on anextreme negative count so I’m reassured further. I f he has no idea, he won’t be able to identify m,e too easily as a winning player. By the time I leave this guy is around $12,000 behind. Not the kind of guy I’d want in charge of a casino. You’d think he’d know better, seeing players lose at his own place. For my part, I finish around $700 down. 20th Feb- colossus- dealer tutting.8000 reversal, recovery, busy after Chinese ny. 5000 up, leave 4k up to coll 7k down leave 4k down.

Day 12
I’ve had much the best of it over the past few days. Nothing spectacular, just a few thousand here and there compared to just one loss of similar size in that time. I win 4k up tonight, which means I’ve nearly doubled my win since changing towns and casinos. And since it’s been over a week since that happened I feel another change of casino is in order but not of town. Not, if you’re wondering, to the place manged by the drunk guy from Day 7, but to the sister club of one that closed last year that I used to play regulary. Many of the staff, including management, are from that casino, so they will be relaxed about me from the start. Unfortunately, this place isn’t nearly as nice as the one I’ve just left or the one that closed and is best described as “rough”. However the rules are good and high limits are available. They give me a high limit table when I request it, and I’m soon $7,000 behind. I recover half of it and finish $4000 down there and thus level on the day. I’ve effectively carried $4,000 across town from one casino to another. I have a few more days her before I must leave so I may still post a win at this new place as well.

Day 13
I get in early at the new place for my first full session there. I soon find out that at any time I need to a high limit table to give myself a chance of a solo game, or even a relatively uncrowded one. Even at the high limits I’m often with more than one other player and in the early hours all tables are busy. The post bar crown has arrived and the sober players are very much in the minority, much to the bemusement of the staff, as well as me. Given its location near many watering-holes this is unsurprising. What takes me aback is that not only is it busier than its much classier former sister club, it has bigger action as well. Even taking into account the inebriation of the players, there are a number of players betting $200 a hand and more and I have the impression that these players have always been t this club rathe than moving from the sister place out of necessity when it closed. I leave shortly before 5am and the place is still going strong. I take a small profit for the night with me.

Day 14
I get in a open a high limit table straight away. I'd prefer to play with a lower minimum but this way I will price out most people off the table. This is what happens although I lose my heads up game mid session. I don't play as late as in previous days as I must wake early for my journey home. For the last two hours of play it's busy and then, just as I leave, three other tables empty. Sometimes the conditions improve at the right time, sometimes, as now, they improve too late for me to benefit. Still, it's a win of over $2000 today, taking me to only slightly behind against this casino on this trip and a good trip win overall, not a moment too soon! I am now (slightly)ahead over the last five months. After expenses it’s substantially less but I’m at least I’m at a new high point after four trips. I just hope that this is not a false dawn and that I can find a sustained run of good luck after what has been one of the very worst runs of my blackjack career. The feeling of going nowhere fast during a barren period is one of the drawbacks of doing this for a living. There re no guarantees that I won’t suffer suffer the same gain soon. All I can do is keep on playing the best I can and trust that my advantage will prevail in the end.

2008-03-25T04:18:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the lack of recent posts. This is due to technical difficulties on my part rather than not playing blackjack. I'm still going on trips, fighting the good fight and I hope to update this blog soon. In the meantime, I'd like to use this opportunity to address some points I've had raised with me:

- Some of you have expressed surpise that I play blackjack games with poor cuts, sometimes as bad as half a shoe. As some suggested you do need either good rules or a large bet spread to make this worthwhile, preferably both. Where I have played poor cuts, this has been the case.

-"Sounds like he plays in Borat's Village!" -I have several games that I play, across many and varied locations. As a result I do occasionally find myself in what feels like the back of beyond but I also play in established and famous gambling arenas and in places in between those extremes. The main criteria I use when considering a trip are: Is the game good? Is it on the level? Is it safe? These conditions can be met even if it is in the middle of nowhere. Other players have been known to take risks with where they play but for me it just isn't worth it. I'd rather have the peace of mind.

-Again, I regret that I can't be more specific in some of the details. I am reluctant to give away locations, even when I've been stopped from playing there because other players that did the hard miles to find these games may suffer. If I know the conditions have deteriorated at a given place I may retrospectively mention where it was, but no promises. Sometimes there's no substitute for doing your own research!

I hope this has cleared up a few things. If you have any questions, leave a comment and I'll answer it there or use the email address in the "About Me" details on the right and I'll respond either directly through email or on this site. Good luck!

2008-01-31T18:13:00.000-08:00

2008

Trip 1

Here in this country on a social visit, I decided to check out some casinos on the off chance. I’m surprised to find good rules as I’d been told otherwise and there’s a very interesting bonus that I’ve neither seen or even heard of before. It’s only a small place so I don’t know how much action they’ll take so I won’t play quite so big as usual at first. It’ good to find a good game, as in recent months I seem to have lost more games than I’ve found, with casino closures and rule changes more than barrings being the cause. All the nicer too, to find a promising game where none was expected.

Day 1
After a more complicated than foreseen rail journey due to a rather circuitous route to cover a relatively short distance, I get off the train at my destination and find a hotel without any difficulty, which is particularly welcome as trooping around town looking for reasonably priced accommodation is no fun after a long journey. I check in, take a nap and go out to play.

The cut varies and my heads up game doesn’t last long. One guy comes to the table and surrenders more than I’ve ever seen anyone do so in the past, even against a 6. I don’t get a great deal of action but after a few hours the count goes up very quickly. I lose several hands in a row as the count increases and towards the end the other player leaves and I’m heads up. The counts starts to come in, I win a few and am nearly even when the cut card appears. I have 3-3 and 10-10 against a 5. I split the threes and catch a 5 on the first. The count justifies doubling so I do…. for a three. It’s always annoying to double when you normally wouldn’t and find yourself on 11, but the decision wasn’t even marginal as it was well in excess of the count needed. I get an ace on the next one and then an eight. I split the pictures: 4, picture. Again, picture, picture. 5, ace. Ace, 3. so I have 11, 12, 14, 15, 21,21,13. Dealer takes two pictures and I’m about $1000 up. I break for dinner and when I return the table is nearly full. I get a spot and hope that they open another table soon. No such luck. The players seem to take longer over their decisions. On a few occasions that I leave the table I return before the shoe has even finished, and I’m usually good at gauging how long it will be before the shuffle. I lose a few hundred back and leave.

Day 2

The casino seems fairly cool with the big bets. There’s another guy at the table tonight playing between 50 and 200 dollars so it’s not just the red chip bettors here, indicating that they are fairly relaxed with big action. It gets crowded again quite early on. Two young guys are playing, one is obviously fairly new to casinos, his friend less so, but quite adventurous in his play. Three times he doubled hard 12 and twice he drew a nine on it, amazing. Again the game is very slow, but the cut is reasonable. Then the dealer changes and I’m faced with a worse cut. With a full table this really is a grind. At this point I’m a few hundred behind on the day having suffered two bad shoes just before the conditions deteriorated. I play 3 shoes with the new dealer and after an upswing, finish 2000 up. I’m less timid now about putting out my regular maximum bet, especially with a bad cut or full table.

Day 3

A good day. I have a great shoe a couple of hours in. It’s then followed by another, prompting the dealer to day “I’ve never broken so much in my life before”. There are no other major swings for the rest of the session and I finish over $10000 ahead. Time to move on.

Day 4

My next destination doesn’t see me there long. I get in to the casino and immediately spot the CSMs. This was the kind of situation I’d been told I would find in this country. I suppose I was lucky I found the other game first as I may have presumed all casinos here had the shuffle machines. I go to the nearest big city, not far away, more in hope than expectation because I know the casino there is part of an international casino group which is notorious for restrictive rules and conditions. My pessimism is justified as every single blackjack table in this huge place has a CSM. I do have at least one more game in this country because I checked another casino the same time I found the game I played at the start. However they have a machine on the first table so I’ll have to get the other one open as soon as I can.

Day 5

This turns out to be something of a struggle. This place is open from the afternoon but the second table doesn’t open until late evening. The management here appear reluctant to open the shoe game until all spots on the machine game are occupied. I am surprised thn to see th second table fill up almost immediately after it is opened. It’s obviously not for lack of demand that they don’t open it earlier. On the first table most players had to play only one hand due to lack of space, since somebody playing more than one hand would be obliged to give one of thm up to a new player if there are no empty spots at the table. I later fall victim to this and for long periods am restricted to one hand on a full table. I finish slightly ahead.

Day 6 .

It’s Saturday night so I don’t hold out much hope that the conditions will be any less crowded than last night. Surprisingly I takes even longer to get the second table open. And Just like the previous night, it fills up straight away. I also get a blast from the past. One old guy moans at me for hitting my 15s and 16s. He looks a lot like a player from a casino in a different country I played several years ago. He stuck in my mind then because he started off telling me I was the worst player he’d ever seen but became one of my biggest fans by the end because word had got around the casino that I was one of the foreign professionals who had found the great game that was there. H doesn’t recognise me though, or appear to have learned much about blackjack in the interim. At one point I ask him where he’s from since his accent sounds different from everyone else there abd sure enough he tells me he’s from the country I suspected. Aside from the continuous griping I have to fight for any free spots that become available. After a few hours and $1000 up I tire of the struggle and the overcrowded conditions. I’ve called one of the casinos elsewhere in the country and found out there is a shoe game and with a reasonable expectation of good rules I decide to check out the games in that region rather than persevere with the grind here.

Day 7

A long journey north, I check in to a hotel and check out the game. No machines and quiet in the afternoon. I rest up in my hotel room for a few hours and return in the evening. It’s busier then but still better than the last place. This casino seems to have wuit a lot of action so I may be able to stay and play for a while. I win $2000. This trip has started well just the run I needed after a bad end to last year.

Day 8

I get in early to open up the table. Surprisingly for midweek there are already a few players at the table. They don’t all stay too long though and after a while there is just one other player, who berates me every time I hit 15 or 16. After a bad start I rally to a few hundred ahead. The table starts to fill up and I think about braking for dinner. By the time more people have arrived at the table 2 shoes later I have lost $2500 on the day so far.

After dinner it gets worse and turns into a nightmare. High count after high count, and even though the cut is only fair the count goes back to level almost every time, but it’s the dealer getting the 20s and blackjacks all the time. I also have to tolerate moaning from one of the other players. Unusually, she doesn’t just tell me when staying on my 15 or 16 would have made the dealer bust but even when my decision to take a card has no effect on the dealer hand, she tells me when this has resulted in the dealer receiving a high card on the following hand as opposed to a 5 or or a 6 if I had refused a card. By the time I finish I have lost $10,000.

Day 9

As seems to have been the way in the last few months, really bad nights seldom come alone. The difference today is that the counts don’t seem to come in as much and the shoe often ends with the count still high. It’s crowded on the table too, and like the other casinos I’ve seen in this country, they are particularly reluctant to open another table, even when all boxes are being played on the first table. More than once I lose my second spot since you have to give other spots up to others who aren’t playing any. However I manage to befriend another player and if I play behind her she defers to my decision. Not that it helps much. Playing against a ten almost all the time, on those few occasions where it’s a different up card, the dealer always seem to find the right combination to make a high hand. Typical example: I have 10 and 9 against a dealer 7. I double the 10 for a picture and the count justifies doubling the 9 as well and receive another picture. Of course on nights like these, the dealer finds the small card to go in front of the picture and such is the case here, 3, picture to make 20, to beat one of my doubled hands and tie the other. Difference between dealer 17 and dealer 20: $1200. I lose over $8000 on the day. Another stunning reversal of fortune for me and from what was a great start to a trip, I’m behind again.

Day 10
After a second disastrous session and a loss so far on this trip, these past few trips must now represent the worst run I’ve ever had. Five months of play show and there’s still a minus figure in my results. Granted, the loss is not great, but I’m so far off where I should be for the last few trips and every time I seem to get some momentum, I run into a brick wall and I’m back where I was.

Today however I have a welcome run of luck in my direction. I get a solo game for most of the early part of the day (although I do get some interesting players occasionally-I’ve never seen a surrender on 12 v10 followed almost immediately by a refusal on 16 to do so against the same card). I get $6000 back early on and don’t drop back. I do however and up feeling sick by the end of the session, since I end up with half a shoe by the end. I would have thought that my previous losses and enduring deficit would project me from such treatment, so I’m surprises to say the least. I do however get a glimpse into the mentality of some casinos. The manager comes over to the pit boss, obviously looking in my direction and says something to the effect that he hadn’t had chance to assess my play over the previous two days because he was off work on day 8 and I was in the restaurant when he was in the pit yesterday. So to recap: Even after a swing of over $18000 against me over two days, the casino was still worried enough by play to want to check me out! And still with a win of $12000 they don’t want to risk anything against me. The other thing the pit boss says is “At the least he’s an advantage player”. So they’ve taken this action against me without knowing exactly what I’m up to, or knowing whether I’ve sufficient bankroll to enable to me to play these stakes and after a massive win against me! And people think casinos are in the gambling business. When I tell people I am often excluded or treated differently for no reason other than perceived skill or knowledge, they can’t believe it and most disagree that it’s at all justified. There are some in the gaming industry that have been in it so long they have become inured to the objective point of view. Anyhow my decision now will have to be to change casinos or stick it out here.

Day 11
I decide to check out a nearby casino. It’s galling to think about leaving a place after only a few days and a big loss but it’s a question of finding the best game. This new one is of the same group as the one I’ve just left but I’m not sure how much they communicate. Therefore I’ve chosen to try it here now rather than playing the other one a bit more and perhaps getting barred, at which point they may feel obliged to pass that information to the sister establishment. Straight in, I realise that such considerations are now academic since this casino has all shuffle machines. It’s strange that casinos of the same group can have such different conditions. Not even all the rules are the same.
I go back to the other casino. I still get a bad cut but the rules are still good so still worth playing. I don’t get a heads-up game despite the cut but usually have to contend with only one or two other players. It’s a while since I’ve been moaned at this much on a trip or seen such bad players. (the two often coming together). Of course stupid moves by others won’t in the long term affect whether I win or not but you do get a bit bemused when the guy at the end decides to hit his soft 19 against a picture and takes the card that would have made the dealer bust. $2500 behind today.

Day 12
So often my hands are the only ones on the table that lose, so often the dealer beats my 20s with blackjack and only busts when I’ve already bust or surrendered. Such at least it seems when things aren’t going your way. Finding a heads up game I have the best conditions I’ve had all week only to have 4 hands where the dealer makes 20 or better to put me 2000 behind on this new table. Even the cut has drifted back to almost as good as it was at the start of the week. Annoyingly, I don’t get many high counts and end up playing longer than I’d intended to take advantage of the rare solo game but after getting even on that table I’m too tired to carry on and finish 4000 down on the day.

I learn that this place previously had shuffle machines, but that both machines they had are currently being repaired. If this I true and they will soon be reintroduced, it is unlikely that I’ll regain the money I’ve lost here if I don’t do it before I finish this trip, which is itself a long shot now. How irritating given the way that they have treated me here. This does though explain the casino’s paranoid actions in cutting me down while I was losing a lot of money. Casinos that rely on the CSMs are nervous about the shoe games, regard them as a weak link, in the same way that casinos that use 8 decks are wary of 6 deck games, when they really have little reason to be that way.

Day 14
After the weekend off, I’m back to put in some heavy hours before I have to leave in order to recover some of my losses at this casino and leave on some kind of a win. It’s unlikely I’ll get back to the position I was in a week ago, so badly did the cards run last week but a decent win is still possible for the trip. When I open the table it fills up quickly but after an hour empties again and for most of the time I’m either alone or with one other player. As has been the trend for the last week, the dealer finds a picture an astonishing proportion of the time when I have big money out. I go down but then recover a little to break for lunch only a few hundred down. After lunch the tables is busy. I get there just as the dealer is shuffling so I decide to back count for a shoe, leave and return later when there should be more space.

The table is fuller than I expected when I return, but I manage to get two spots so I sit down. Unfortunately, the change of dealer brings one of the two guys who always give me a poor cut. However, people power improves the situation. The guy on first base sees how few cards we are given to play with and gets up, complaining of the cut, saying he’s going to the casino in a nearby town. He was playing pretty big too, so that’s one in the eye of the casino! Too often casinos give a bad cut without pausing to realise that they may actually be costing themselves money, in terms that even losing players (which this guy certainly was) often resent a poor cut and may refuse to play, and also that a larger cut means fewer hands per shoe and thus more shuffling and a reduction in the casinos win rate towards most players. Certainly, given the way many of them play, the disadvantage of some players must be much larger than my edge against the casino, so if others are playing big enough, the reduction in my advantage achieved by the casino management would be largely negated by their loss of turnover. In this present situation, the dealer does actually react by improving the cut on subsequent shoes, even though the big player who complained has now left. The drawback to the guy’s statement however, is that despite complaining about the cut, his objection was based more on the speed of the game and the casino to which he has now gone has shuffle machines so this will do little to encourage this place to keep the shoes, if indeed it is a question of a change of policy rather that both machines apparently being in need of repair. Of course, the machines are the answer for the casinos in terms of protecting the game and maximising hands per hour. However, in my experience, blackjack tables with machines are much less busy than those without, all other things being equal. The casino I checked out last week was a case in point. Midnight and nobody playing, whereas the casino I left always had others playing on it from mid-afternoon at the latest, whilst the two casinos seemed to have around the same numbers of customers for the other games.

Anyhow, I play on until the end, a few other people drift off but there are still two others at the table, one playing multiple hands. Again, no headway is made and I lose again, to hit a new low for this trip.

Day 15
A full table again early on, then just as I look to have a solo game, the old woman arrives. It’s amazing how such players always seem to come to the table in the middle of a high count. I ask her to wait for the next shoe and she does stay out for a few hands but then I lose one and she jumps in, evidently believing that it’s ok to open a spot as my run is apparently over. She is one of the worst types of player as she moans at anyone she thinks is playing wrongly and firmly believes she has the ability to influence what the dealer gets, always placing herself on 3rd base if possible. Of course as is the way with this type of player, your decisions with which she disagrees and which, for example take away a card which would have bust the dealer are always remembered and commented on but those which save the table are not. I grind out a win of $1500 before lunch.

Afterwards, following a quick nap, I’m back for the last few hours. Amazingly, Moaning Old Woman is still there, so unless she left and came back, she must have been at the table for about eight hours straight. She stays there until the end too. The table is full again, with a group of four people in their mid-20s playing. I get one spot and sit down. If I can’t get another spot soon, it may have to be an early night for me. The group seem to be fairly new to blackjack as they are all quite unsure of their decisions. This is ripe for MOW, who is even more intent on telling other players what to do than she normally is, calling out what she thinks they should do even before they have chance to decide. Admittedly, they don’t know how to play but this unsolicited hectoring is just bad manners.

The guy next to me asks my advice on one hand and I give it to him. When the count next goes up, I play behind him in the hope that he will defer to me. He does. I continue to play behind him and he follows my prompting every time, so I effectively have two spots on the table. It helps that the hands are winning, but he does seem to think I’ve helped him so we’re both happy. After a couple of hours I’m slightly up on where I was at lunch and the guy that gives me less than half a shoe comes to the table. With a full table it’s going to be a real grind and since it’s less than an hour from the time when they usually close the table I’m happy to leave when the count goes negative at the end on the same shoe. Another step in the right direction though, in the exercise in damage limitation that this trip has now become. Strictly speaking this isn’t true, since I am now only slightly down on this trip, but it feels like it due to the large swing I have suffered and the fact that I’m highly unlikely to recover my losses from this particular casino, even if I do manage to make some profit on this trip. This feeling of going backwards, which arises from the swings inherent in playing blackjack and the fact that you’ll only be at your highest ever point a small proportion of the time, is a major reason why few play blackjack full-time for very long.

Day 16
It’s my final session on this trip and in all likelihood, at this casino, since they’ll probably have the CSMs back by the time I return. I don’t get a heads up game but most of the time there are not more than two other players with me, so the game is fairly fast. Talking to one of the dealers I get an indication that the management are keen to get the machines back, as she says that blackjack has made significantly less money since the shoes have been brought back. I mention that my losses might fill some of the gap. So this casino has taken money from me and I’ll probably never get it back. That’s irritating but part of the game sometimes. As it turns out, I manage to reduce that deficit further. I finish over $5000 up which puts me slightly ahead on the trip. If I had left after the second day would have achieved almost exactly the same result, without another 2 weeks of effort and expenses, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. On the other hand, it looked pretty dire few days ago so and if I’d been offered such a result then I’d have accepted gladly. I have a late evening departure so I just have time to get dinner before I have to go. A rare beer with dinner tastes that bit sweeter on a good finish.

2007-12-04T04:34:00.000-08:00

Trip 8 2007 (Part 1)

(Last time here: Trip 3 2007)

It’s been a few weeks since my last blackjack trip and after two losing trips in a row I am eager to get back to winning ways. I have come back to this country mainly to play the shuffle tracking game I found here the last time I was here. I should have come back here a lot sooner, but I had other business to attend to in other places that determined alternative destinations for my blackjack play. At least it is in a fairly obscure location, so it may not have been discovered by anyone else in the short time since I was last here.

I’m not even out of the airport before I discover this is not the case, since I run into another professional blackjack player who is well known to me. We have a coffee and discuss our various plans. I tell him I am staying in the capital for a while before heading out, he tells me that he is going west straight away. Apparently he has been here consistently in previous months and has not played anywhere else, but has lasted without being backed off in many places. In fact there’s just one exception, the place with the great shuffle I found on my last trip. According to this guy there was only one table without a CSM and they stopped him playing after two days but with a big win. Did they introduce the machines because of my big win? Looks like I won’t get much play there, I’ll just have to hit it as hard as I can until they stop me. I’ll play fewer days in the capital than originally intended so I can see how things are.

Day 2

I try a casino I have previously avoided because the word was that they dealt an incomplete shoe. The place now has a new name and interior so perhaps it has a new management. I see the cards spread so that’s one worry out of the way, there is still the risk of dealing seconds out of the shoe. This has happened to me in the past,and in this area, so I have an idea what to look for.There is an aspect of the game in this place that makes it easier to deal seconds undetected, so I'm particularly on edge.

Unusually for this area, the cut is good, but this could be suspicious- if they are dealing seconds they will naturally be less worried about card counters. I play an hour, but I find that having to keep a look out is making me paranoid and my playing experience very unpleasant. Nothing seems untoward but I decide to leave anyway. I go to another place I’ve never played before. When I found this casino, the rules were inferior to those of other casinos in the area. My contact however has informed me that this has now changed. I go in and start playing. The place is quiet so the pit bosses hang around my table almost constantly and they seem to sweat the action a little, but are fine in their dealings with me. I break even. Then the place gets busy so I move on.

I visit another casino across from this last one. This new one will give me a decent cut until I put big money on. I should however get a table to myself. This is exactly what happens. I have another small win and leave.

Day 4

Yesterday brought another small win, so I’m a couple of thousand up so far. I go to see if my shuffle game is still there. It usually takes 4 hours but the roads are chaotic so it takes even longer, so I’ll only play a couple of hours tonight. I thus decide to leave the shuffle game for tomorrow and play the other one on the basis that they have an idea what to look for now they know they’ve been hit by the other pro and I’ve been told they won’t stop you playing at the table but wait until you go in the next time and stop you as you enter the casino. So I’ll save that one until I can put in a full session. I have a nice run at casino 1 in the time I play and leave $2000 up. This trip is ticking along nicely so far, no major swings, but cumulatively all those smallish wins mean a healthy profit on the trip so far, a nice change from recent form I’ve had.

Day 5

Friday night and it’s busy. I see a local counter. I last saw him about two years ago in a casino of the same group as this one on the other side of the country. On that occasion he was unabashed about a large bet spread, as you often are when you first start playing. After being stopped from playing by the management a few times you become more circumspect and accept a slightly lower win rate in return for increased longevity.

Anyhow, on that occasion I changed tables after spotting him, and I don’t believe he noticed my big bets going out at the same time. Annoyingly, even after it appears he has realised what I am doing he still plays on my table, jumping in when the count has increased or playing one hand then spreading to two for his big bets, thus eating up the profitable situation that I have waited for . If he played two hands all the time, it wouldn’t be so bad, because at least I wouldn’t be playing proportionally more hands when it was bad. In these situations, courtesy usually dictates that a counter will not sit down at a table of a player recognised also to be a counter, but will find another table. The fact that he is effectively using the fact that I’m playing already to restrict the amount he loses playing minimum bets is just insult to injury. I lose a few hundred on the night.

Day 6

I go in to the same casino early on to find that I don’t have to worry about the local guy any more, since they have given me a private table, so I’m guaranteed a heads-up game from now on. On the down side, the cut is a little worse than before, but this is not unusual with a lot of casinos when they deal high stakes games. At one point I have an audience of locals watching me play but they aren’t intrusive so I don’t mind.

I break for dinner then go to casino2. The evening is now when they have the shoe games, according to my source. That turns out to be no longer true. There are shuffle machines on every table. I go back to casino 1 and when I am finished for the night go back to casino 2 to double check, perhaps they don’t have the shoes until later in the night. There a lots of tables open and at every one a CSM. No shoe to be seen on any blackjack table. It just goes to show- you can’t rely on a good situation remaining so. The conditions may get changed on the whim of management or because someone else has found it. One small consolation is that the casino is now even less busy than before- even regular players tend to dislike the machines.

Day 7

Up and down today. A bad start sees me buying in for $5000 early on. In one memorable shoe the dealer makes twenty-one about seven times- pretty bad for nearly three decks
cut out. This includes the hand of A-2 and A-2 against a 5 with $250 on each hand. I double the first soft thirteen for a seven. I double the second for another seven. Dealer draws….8….and 8 again. The particularly irritating thing about this was not so much that two doubled twenties went down than that the only combination of those four draw cards that would beat me was the way it came out (any of the other five possibilities and I win at least $500).

However, I then rally and soon after I get a shoe where the count goes up, plateaus and then comes back in and I win almost every hand. What has been happening up to now is that the I (as you would expect) lose as the count goes up and then win only some of it back, if any, as the count comes in, if indeed it does at all, not guaranteed when you’re playing barely half a shoe. Just what the doctor ordered. I’m now $6000 ahead on the day. Sadly, it doesn’t last, I lose two thirds of it back soon after. Still, it was a good recovery.

After dinner I seem to give and take the same $1000. I appear to be getting half a shoe all the time now and with some dealers it’s not even that good. In one case the dealer seems have changed noticeably from the cut I got from her previously. Is it a management decision that has arisen from my good run? This place is another with no chips bigger than hundreds so on my good run earlier I had a noticeably large stack of chips in front of me before I went over and cashed some in. When there are 500 chips you can change up to those and put them in your pocket or hide them under other chips. From a security point of view this also is advantageous. Of course the casino knows how much I’m winning or losing without having to look at the chips in front of me, but a big stack draws their attention.

Anyhow, during one of these very poor cuts I decide it’s time for a break. There is a buffet on and I take a dessert. The manager is there (I recognise him from the last time I was here) and says to me as I’m spooning it out “Oh, I [detail withheld] too”, commenting on something about me. “Oh yes?” I reply, “Yes, we’re trained to notice things in this job.” Is that his way of telling me that he knows what I’m doing? Certainly if this less-than-half-a-shoe cut continues I’ll probably move on tomorrow. I’ve won a little here over the past few days and I can probably find a game at least as good nearby. Even the ones in the capital are no worse than this. Then the cut improves, so perhaps there is no new cutting policy, perhaps I was just unlucky with the dealers I’ve had during the past few hours. This is confirmed by the fact that the manager comes over a little later to the table and offers me a room comp. I accept and stick around to see whether this will be at the cost of less-than-half shoes from now on. A dealer with one of the best cuts in here comes next to my table so perhaps I’ll stay another day or two and leave if I win a bit more. I have dropped to even on the day now so I’m not winning much against this casino now this trip (and I lost on the previous trip). The dealer leaves and is replaced by another I’ve not seen. Standard slightly-better-than-half-shoe cut. It’s getting late and I resolve to leave after this shoe. Last shoeitis strikes again. The one final shoe I decide to play is a bad one. The count goes up near the end and doesn’t come back in. $2000 down on the day. Not a disaster, but quite a reversal from my high point and annoying to leave on my lowest point for about four hours, but I’m tired and not in the mood to play any more.

Day Eight

Proof, if proof were needed, that chance has no memory. I’ve had a run of about 30 top bets against me in the past four hours play and after the first hour today I’m another $2,500 down. I never get much more than a few hundred better off than this but at various times get a very bad shoe and at one point I’m $5000 down on the session. I recover nearly half of this before dinner, but it’s a real struggle. All night I seem to win a few hundred over a few shoes here and there only to run into a shoe where the count never comes back in, so that I don’t get the big cards on my splits and doubles and/or the dealer makes a hand resulting in a four figure loss on the shoe.

A case in point: 3-3 and 8,2 v 7, $250 on each. Split the first three, to get 6,9 for 18. Onto the other 3, I get a another 3. Split again. 4,6,6 .On the last 3 I receive a six. By now (in contrast to the first 3 of this split) the count has risen enough to justify doubling the nine against a seven. I catch an eight. On the ten double I get a picture. So I have 18, 19, a doubled 17 and a doubled 20. A picture for the dealer on her seven will be fine. She gets one but unfortunately, it is preceded by a four.

After dinner it’s the same story, one step forward, two back. I then get my first fairly decent shoe since that big one yesterday, so I’m back to $2500 behind.(Key hand- 19 and 8-8 v 9. split, picture on the first one,3 on the second. Double the 11 for a seven. Dealer pulls an eight, all hands win). This however doesn’t last long. I get three shoes in a row where the count goes up but I can’t win a hand. I’m now behind on the trip. I just can’t get any momentum.

Day 9

Just the kind of session I needed. A great couple of hours to start and I’m around $6000 up and it stays around that level for the rest of the session.

Day 10

I decide to travel to a the next closest town with a casino. I don’t expect to find much but there may be a reasonable game to play for a few days. It’s another of these places on the border, the fact of which has determined the location of the casino rather than the size or prestige of the town itself. I have some trouble finding the place. I know that the building is of a painted a particularly bright shade and thought that this would make it easy to spot, but it turns out that this seems to be a common practice here and many buildings are of a similar hue. I pass by a local and ask in my rather patchy [name of language deleted] where it is. He points me in the right direction. As it is aimed at custom coming over the border it is perhaps not a surprise that it is away from the town itself and on the principal road out. As it is it appears more like a roadside café than a casino and within seconds I see that I’m likely to get about as much blackjack action there as in one. Machines everywhere again. I’m particularly irritated as my research had indicated that there would be some shoe games. Conditions change and the information sometimes takes time to catch up. Another fruitless journey. Back to base then. After dinner I find I’m too tired to face starting a session so I buy a couple of beers and put on a DVD before getting an early night.

Day 11

My comeback continues. A win of similar size to two days ago and the management are still cool with it. A nice routine has developed: I get in, they set up my private table I play for a few hours, I break for dinner, play some more and leave. I was also gratifies when the local counter tries to jump in on my game at a high count and is prevented from doing so by the pit boss on the grounds that it is private game. It’s a bad manners-proof table!

Day 14

The last day of my trip here. I’m back in the capital ready for my flight the next day. I finshed in the last place with another good win so I’m well ahead now on this trip and have recovered the losses from the previous two. Break even over a matter of months is not ideal but at feels good to have had a nice run after such a time. I play in the place with the newly improved rules once again. Despite my wins against them at the start of the trip they seem relaxed enough, despite the lack of many other customers and the constant attention of the pit bosses. And I win again, so I’m now at my highest point since just before the end of trip 5. It’s nice to end a trip with such momentum.

Day 15

However, strictly speaking, it isn’t the end of this trip since I will not be going home before I go somewhere else to play. In between, I have to go to a third country to sort out other matters. This entails an epic day on the road. There are no direct flights from the country where I am to my country of destination, so I have to change planes elsewhere, hanging around for a number of hours before catching my connecting flight. I played in this country some years previously but they then introduced shuffle machines. I will be interested to see what the situation is like in the casinos now.

Trip 8 2007 (Part Two)

Day 17
There was a new casino in the capital albeit of the same group as the biggest one in the area. Only a small part of it was a gaming area, with one blackjack table, which had a machine. I was gratified to see it was empty. Today I’m at the other one in the area, just to check if anything has changed. It has. The gaming area now occupies half the area it once did, there are half the number of blackjack tables there were, only teo of them are open and only one of those is being played. Contrast this to the last time I was here, sic BJ tables, all open all full. Even allowing for the fact that is now winter, it is undeniable that changing the conditions has been disastrous for this casino’s blackjack popularity. Even with all the professional players there were at the end the casino would have made a lod of money due to the popularity of the game, due in no small part of the professional promoting the game in the minds of other players. Now slot machines are in much of the space previously occupied by tables.

Day 19
Having taken care of business, I’m on another flight to the country I last visited in Trip 6. I end up cutting my arrival at the airport quite fine, even for me. As a rule I try to avoid spending any more time in airports than I need to, given the number of flights I take, but the trains have been reorganised since I was last here, I consequently take longer than I thought in finding the right one and use up all the margin of error I built in to my travel time estimate and check-in just as the flight is closing. Then of course there is a delay anyway, not that this would have allowed me to get on the flight had I missed the regular check-in period. Happily, the flight isn’t help up too long and I arrive at my hotel without incident and reasonably early.

I get in to the casino fairly early and play a while, and win another $6000. Seems to be my lucky number at the moment. It was quite busy in the casino as well, but I managed to get in a lot of action despite this.

Day 20
The reason I came back to this place so soon was due to my appalling form here last time. Even so I’m still only about level with casino over all so I expected the management to be fairly relaxed with my play, and they are on the whole. There is however, one exception. It’s a young pit boss who has always struck me as being slightly wary of me, so naturally I’ve always been quite guarded with him. Tonight, from nowhere he asks me whether I would ever consider playing against shuffle machines if they had them. I reply that I’m a bit suspicious of them since you don’t know what they could be made to do. He says “it would affect your strategy a bit too”. Tricky this. “Yes I see a few small come out and bet” I say. He nods and walks away satisfied, saying “I wouldn’t play against them either”, and I think I’ve judged this reasonably well. To deny any kind of strategy would leave my various changes in bet level unexplained and risk being seen by the PB as in insult to his intelligence, so I’ve admitted trying to play as well as I can without confirming any kind of systematic approach. I finish over $5000 up.

Day 21
A decent start again, I’m $1000 up and then find myself at a table with an American [nationality deleted] amateur counter. He doesn’t seem to be deviating from basic strategy according to the count, but his betting pattern correlates strongly with mine. The count keeps rising, and on one hand we both have12 against the dealer’s 3. I am first to play, leave my twelve and the other guy, seeing this, decides to leave his as well, apparently because I did. Dealer pulls..picture, picture. A nod of acknowledgement is exchanged between the two of us. Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? After this shoe I’m nearly $3000 ahead. The conditions are still great, just me and the other counter at the table with a good cut. However, given the amount won on the previous shoe, the fact that the only other player at the table is counting and that I’ve already been playing for 4 hours, I reluctantly decide to take my dinner.

I’m not away long, but by the time I’m back in the casino, the place has become a lot busier and I have to keep changing tables in search of a quiet game. I even check out another place in town. It’s the sister casino of one that closed. The rules are poor but I thought I’d take a look anyway. They now have fewer decks than before so the game is a lot more attractive. It’s not the most luxurious casino I’ve ever played in and I don’t know if they will take the action at the stakes I want to play, but it’s worth keeping in mind. I return to my no 1 place, it’s still busy but I try to get some action where I can. I keep dropping back a little then recovering it and I finish at the level I was at when I took dinner.

Day 24
The previous two days saw my good luck continue, five days since I got here, and five wins. And given my bad loss at this casino last time out here, I don’t feel any heat, despite the fact that I’ve nullified the deficit from that trip. They are a big casino with plenty of heavy action so they won’t worry too much about me at this stage. I’ll think about moving on if I get even further ahead in the next few days. What a run I have had- adding the wins so far here to the run at the end of the first part of this trip elswhere, I have had nine straight winning sessions totalling a win of over $40,000. This is probably the best uninterrupted positive swing in all my time playing blackjack and I am at my all time highest point, passing where I was over three months ago.

Unfortunately no more records are set today. It’s busy today, but I still get a lot of big bets on and lose most of them. When you’re behind on a session you want a fast game in order to play more hands in the hope the situation will turn around. The last thing you want are drunken players slowing the game down. The fact they are doing stupid things like splitting pictures against a nine, is annoying when it works against you but it can, and often does, save you. Of course when your luck is bad it always appears to cost you. I the long run it won’t affect you except that some moves (like splitting 10s) will eat up more cards so will reduce any profitable situation for you. Sometimes I gently encourage them not do such things for this reason. If they want to stand on soft 15 for example, I don’t feel the need to tell them better, I don’t believe it is my duty to educate them. However, if someone asks my advice, I will tell them the right thing to do. The splitting 10s rule has been a good one for me here because it justifies breaking up a hard 20 a lot more often than usual and it looks more like I don’t know what I’m doing rather than making a strategy deviation from the count. However, you need to hit an ace now and gain to justify it. As in the last trip here, I seem to split 10s and get pictures, which often entails more splits, only to see the aces come out just after all my splits have finished. A classic example of this is when I split against a six, hit a picture or a stiff each time, thus ending up with all hands under 17, only to see the dealer find and ace to make a hand a take all my bets. Despite this poor form however, I still have a fan amongst the dealers. In the past she has indicated that she thinks I’m a good player, today she asks me how long I’ve been playing blackjack. She follows up this question with one regarding what I do for a living and then asks if I play blackjack for a living! This is the first time a croupier has posed such a question to me. I can understand that a casino customer would be naïve enough to expect an honest answer to that question but a dealer? My bad luck continues despite the dealer’s image of me as a winner and I finish $8000 down.

Day 25
Friday night and it’s amateur night again, even more so than yesterday. I get a very similar result though, my good start at this casino this trip has been almost completely wiped out in the last two sessions. It could have been worse however- on the last hand of the night, the count was way up and I had the table to myself. I played every spot at $250 and the dealer went over 21 for a win of $1750. Prior to that hand I for once found a few aces when I split 10s. four hands, three blackjacks, nice to get it when needed! A good finish then, but the poor start and middle mean I still lose over $8000 again.

Day 27
I took a night off as it was a Saturday night and tonight I’m ready to recoup some of the losses from the previous two sessions. That’s not the way it goes however. Once again the casino is crowded but the slow game doesn’t prevent me catching some big negative swings. Sunday night here seems to be the night for people jumping in. I ask one guy to stay out for a few hands but the ignorant jerk refuses. My loss is almost as much as the previous two nights here, which means my great start of five consecutive wins has been completely nullified and I’m now in a deficit for this part of the trip.

Day 28
I’ve decided to make this my last session at this casino for this trip unless I have another disaster. I’ve been here for over a week and I don’t want to overplay this casino, even though I lost badly the last time I was here. If I lose again tonight my deficit here will be large enough to project me from any suspicions the casino management may have so I may push it for another few days. I end up break-even on the night. Annoyingly, I am over $2000 up for most of the night but then, just as I’m thinking of leaving I hit a shoe where the count just keeps rising. Then the last hand comes a huge count, I up my bet and play every available spot as I’ve decided I’ll leave if this comes in. And what happens? Dealer shows an ace. I have no choice but to take insurance, which loses. The dealer finds a nine and I lose most of my bets to finish level. The place gets busy and I decide to leave it there and be fairly fresh for the journey tomorrow.

Day 29
A new place, there are two casinos here so I’m hopeful one of them will have decent rules and conditions. It’s quite a big place, with lots of tourism so it bodes well. However, I find two rather low limit places, with low maximums. Time to move on again.

Day 30
Another day, another town. I’ve not been here in over a year and a half. I had a good win here over a weekend and then left. Both casinos here are small, one is roundly better than the other, with more tables and a better cut. I go to the smaller of the two, just to check whether things are the same. The answer to that is yes and no- the change is that the casino is under new management but the blackjack conditions are very much the same.
The dealer has a trackable shuffle but after a few large bets from me he varies his shuffle. I play on for a while until the place gets busy. The bars in town are closing and a lot of the new arrivals are very drunk. They have had some major refurbishment since then and the place seems busier. One young guy, clearly the worse for wear, doubles soft 18 against a nine. This takes a card which would have bust the dealer and costs me a big bet. Of course it could have worked in me favour, but if he keeps doing such things h will eat up a lot of cards during high counts and being so drunk will really slow down the game, so I take it as my cue to leave. This casino is not really worth playing when the other on is available to me. One interesting comment I hear is a question made by a player to a dealer: “Have you ever had anyone counting cards at your table?” “No,” the dealer replies (in earnest in my view) “Those people are very rare”. I suspress the urge to put her straight or to ask her, given the rarity of counters, why she therefore has the worst cut in a casino of bad cuts. If it’s not counter-related paranoia perhaps she just likes shuffling? I get to the other one but it’s busy at this time of night so I finish for today.

Day 31-
I get a few looks of recognition from one or two dealers as a result of my brief time here last year but nothing I should be worried about. No one seems alarmed by my big bets, the cut varies according to dealer habit, nothing more. I finish €2500 ahead, a nice first session after the torrid weekend in my usual town.

Day 32
I have a good start but then I go up and down. The penetration is variable to say the least, the pattern appearing to be that the older more established dealers give a good cut and the newer personnel, especially the foreign hires, give a worse one. At on point I’m $4000 up but much to my annoyance it’s against the good cuts that I lose it. That wonderful final deck played in a well cut shoe is where a good win rate becomes great but in today it is consistently the scene of my downfall. This last deck of betting on a high count before the cut card arrives on several occasions brings groups of hands where the dealer gets all the good stuff and diminishes my chip stack. It is of course normal that the dealer rather than you frequently catches the pictures and aces as the count comes in but I am slightly bemused that, all other things being the same, I would have been better off if the dealer had given me much worse penetration.

Of course, having lost a good start I want to get more action to recover. So it’s irritating that having lost my session profit, I lose the good cut again as the dealers change. I do get a better dealer before I finish but can’t improve on break-even on the day. There’s a poker tournament on this weekend and later in the evening the place becomes crowded.

Day 34
The poker still on, so I am timing my sessions to avoid the worst of the crowds but still end up with a full table at times, such as breaks in the competition. The cut on the blackjack is still variable. For the second time in a week and only my second time ever, I hear the question “Have you ever had anyone counting cards at your table?” Made by a different person, in a different casino, to a different dealer, the answer is the same. At least this dealer has a good cut so the actions match the words on this occasion. A small win on the day cancels out the small loss of the previous day.

Day 35
Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. At last, the poker is almost over and the casino is largely empty. I get a table to myself and a good cut. In about an hour I’m E3800 up, I’m getting pictures on my doubles and the dealer is busting when I need her to. Then it changes, starting with the last shoe of the dealer who cuts a deck off. In the next four shoes I lose 1800, 2300, 2400 and 1500. No shoe is particularly disastrous but together I’ve lost 8000 in less than an hour. The dealer just cannot bust and I can’t find a decent hand. The dealer seems to get nothing but 20 except when I’m on a stiff hand and the dealer keeps pulling an ace on a 6 or hard 16. And it doesn’t stop there, 2 shoes later I lose another 1500 and after rallying slightly to 3000 down I get another terrible run and just as I lose my solo game I find myself over 7500 behind.

Day 36
I am in early again to take advantage of the quiet time. Of the three dealers dealing at my table, 2 cut just a deck off. These are the conditions you hope for when you go to a casino: good rules, good penetration, heads up against a fast dealer. However, this optimum situation means that when the cards run against bad, you lose more money, more quickly. And just like yesterday this is the case here. With such a cut, the count comes in almost all the time but I seem to playing against an ace or picture constantly. I don’t think I’ve placed so many insurance bets without winning any of them (only to see frequent combinations like A,9 or 2, 8 so that all bets go down). Four hours in, I rally slightly and then someone else joins the table and soon after a new dealer comes on. He is to be avoided for two reasons: his cut is not great, and two days ago he made certain suggestions that I was counting cards. I went straight from my smallest bet to my biggest (I don’t usually do that but it was a crowded table, so it was less likely to be noticed and the amount of hands I would get from the ten-rich situation would be limited. In fact the count went all the way in on the one hand) the dealer snorted at my reply and asked me how many big cards had gone when I lowered my bet again. In fact the count goes very negative on the shoe he takes over from the previous dealer so I leave then, at which he asks me “too many big cards gone?”, with a smirk. “Too many losing hands” I say, pointing at his blackjack.

After an hour’s break I return. The poker players fill up the table on their break while I’m waiting for a shuffle so I don’t get to play until they all go back to the tournament. Then I lose 2,000 on the very next shoe (I do manage to win an insurance bet though, woo-hoo!) and I’m at my lowest point of the day. More chips bought. I start to lose on the next as well before recovering. I finish the day at my lowest point since day 8 of this trip, (over 3 weeks and two countries ago). The phenomenal run of the nine or so days that followed has now been almost completely negated. Two weeks ago I was where I should have been, win-rate wise, for the past four trips. Now I’m many thousands behind and I’m back in the hole I was in at the start of this trip (although admittedly slightly better off). This trip has turned into a tale of two countries, where the conditions were borderline I won far more than I should have, where they have been good, I’ve lost. As far as the result in this second country is concerned, it’s damage limitation again. I have three sessions left to try and turn it around. The position I was in a few days after my arrival in this country is an increasingly distant memory and it may be some time before I’m anywhere near that point again.

Hand of the day: 99 and 12 v4. Split, picture 9, split again, 9. Again, 2, double for an ace. Picture on the next one. Seven on the final 9. 8,9 for the dealer and a loss of six maximum bets.

Day 37
I get a heads up game early on and have a great run, about $7000 in the first couple of hours. I then lose about half of that back before winning another $1000 before the table gets crowded. After a meal I decide to ask for a high limit table. They give it to me but it soon becomes apparent that the dealers, either through management instruction or their own nervousness, cut far more out than normal and a 2.5 deck cut out of six seems to be the average. A play for a while on this table and break even on it, leaving with a win of around $4500, only a fraction of my losses over the previous two days but still welcome.

Day 39
I had another win yesterday, but less than the day before. This is my last day in this town, I am moving on to another town today and I have plans elsewhere the night after, before flying home the following morning. At the start of the session I am worried that my modest recovery has alrmed the casino management as I get a 2.5cut for the first two dealers, one of whom used to give a better cut. Then the next dealer comes and I get a one deck cut again. Not long after this other players at the table leave and I have a solo game. Unfortunately these best conditions don’t help me much and I lose just under $1000 before I have to go.
On to the next place. This is a new town for me, I have some idea of the rules here but not of the conditions. I find a very basic casino. I wouldn’t call it a dive, sparse would be a more accurate description. It’s Friday night but the casino is almost empty when I arrive, possibly partly due to the fact that this place is located way out of town. I ask for another table to be opened and they stamp on floor to open table. I also recognise an artefact of a previous casino. A casino in the capital closed over a year ago, and I heard that they failed to pay some players at the end. Now one of the roulette tables bears the name of that casino, obviously a cheap purchase for this place. Mayfair roulette table. The cut is poor. I get company later on, and they are hitting cards at every opportunity. I finish $3000 down, not what I need from a casino I may never go to again (because it’s the only game in town and not worth a special trip) and at the end of what was already a rough week.

Day 40
My social plans for tonight have fallen through. My number one place will be busy and in any case, I don’t want to the management there to see me after almost two weeks since I was last there as I would prefer them to assume that I left the country right after they last saw me. I therefore decide to try the casino I checked out the last time here when I’d been informed the rules there had improved. I get in and see that the cards on all tables have been shuffled, despite the fact that they have only just opened. I casually ask for the cards to be spread. By the reaction of the management you’d think I’d asked them to make me a gift of half the chip try. Why, why why do I want to see the cards? Because almost every other casino I’ve ever played in spreads the cards before play, including every other casino in this city. Because I was cheated once with an incomplete shoe and have been wary ever since. Where was this? I tell him the country but not the town. The manager asks me where else I play. I give him the name of my number one casino, explaining that I’m not there tonight because it will be very busy. I hope he picks up on the implication that this is in contrast to his place which is empty at the moment, even on a Saturday night and which I’ve only once seen busy. I don’t fear telling him I play at the other place because I’m losing there after my last couple of trips so if he does make inquiries there he’ll get told I’m a losing player. Very reluctantly they sort out the cards on one of the tables but the manager tells me this will be the only time. Since I’m only here because my best game is unavailable I don’t care about this. For the first few hands the manager sits at my table. After a while another player comes on the table. It’s the counter I saw in the other casino on day 21. We get a huge count but lose. The situation of two foreign counters at the same table lasts a little longer and then I have a heads up game again.

My poor form continues, at one point I’m over $6000 behind and the management suspicion of earlier on has disappeared. The cut is poor but with some dealers I can track the shuffle and this betting works out for me and I leave having cut the deficit by two-thirds. Not the end to the trip (and year) I wanted, but at least I had an upswing at the end. Even with that, I’m nearly at the lowest part of this second part of the trip, I’ve lost money over the last three months of trips and I just hope the new year will bring a change of luck.

2007-10-18T05:28:00.000-07:00

2007 Trip 7
(Last here trip4)

Day Two

Last night was bad, I finshed over $5000 behind. I get in early but the one table they have open is already quite busy so I ask for a $25 to be opened. This isn’t as good for me as the lower limit as I usually go to lower stakes than that minimum on negatives but I’ll probably get a game alone for an hour or two at least.

That is how it turns out. At the other (now closed) casino I played on my last trip here a table at this limit would get me a solo game for most of the night. Not here. Some early evening high-roller or other is always likely to make an appearance. After around 2 hours I get company. I’m about $2000 behind. This guy isn’t just playing the minimum, he’s a black chip bettor and I decide to leave him to it and go for dinner.

After dinner I go to this place I saw yesterday which was advertised as having blackjack. It looked mainly like a slot machine place rather than what I would term a “proper” casino, so even if the game is half decent the limits are likely to be low and with crowded tables. This is what I find. What I didn’t expect however, was to find at the table one of the dealers from the place that has just closed. As a result I get an interesting piece of information.

He recognises me and tells me that he has recently been employed as a manager at another casino in the city. I have not played there much because a) I have been told that it is mafia run and b) the rules were not as good as almost every other casino in town. Knowing me as a high roller he encourages me to play there, telling me of their good rules. According to him the options that had been stopped have now been re-introduced and one or two others, including resplit aces, unknown anywhere else here.

Back at what is now for the moment my only casino in the city, I go back to the $50 table, which is now empty. It doesn’t stay that way for long though and at one point, not only are all spots being played, but my two hands of $250 make me the smallest bettor on the table! I see big bets and crowded tables all the time but not usually together. While the fact that a high minimum table can still be completely full has implications for the kind of game I can get and thus my win rate, it’s good that the casino gets this kind of action. It’s never good to be the biggest player in the casino and I’m happy that this is not remotely the case for me here.

I also seem to be the only player on that table to be losing. I was behind before I got company and it didn’t improve on that table. I find better luck elsewhere in the casino though and manage to limit my night’s losses considerably.

Day Three

Another day full of high rollers. One of the pit bosses mentioned to me that the high limit table yesterday with all those big players lost a fortune. And that was with me having lost over $5000 on it! One of those guys is back, probably seeking to parlay his win. He should have taken the money and run. It’s not going well for him, he gets drunker and drunker, bets bigger and bigger and loses more and more. He temper deteriorates as well. He moans at me occasionally for what he sees as some bad move by me (and is told not to by his friend), but generally doesn’t bother me. His grizzling is directed at the casino in general. I understand the frustration of a bad run but nobody else made the bet. Anyhow, the casino fills up again so I take a break.

I elect to wait an hour or two before going back in. I use some of this time to check out a couple of other casinos in this place. The first one I was told about on Day 2 and it is indeed the case that a few options that the rules have improved. This must be the only place in town with resplit aces. The drawback is that it seems rather quiet and it remains to be seen if they will take the action.

I get back to the other casino. For about 4 different dealers across more than one table I get a bad cut. Most of these dealers I’ve not seen before so it’s difficult to see whether I am being deliberately cut back or not. Despite the poor penetration I get a few thousand ahead but fall victim to the Curse of the Last Shoe. When you’re thinking of leaving, the one more shoe you intend to play before going home turns out to be a stinker. A massive count accrues, during which time I lose, followed by the count coming in, during which I also lose. Splitting pictures costs me this time, I keep getting a small card then another picture, so I split again, the count not having decreased. I end up with mainly stiffs and then the dealer finds an ace on the six. All the same I leave with a nice win and I’m not far off level on the trip so far.

Day 4

Just when you thought it was safe. I got a good start to the night in that I won the first few bets on the first big shoe- I had to be around $2000 up mid-shoe. One of those situations where you win all the hands as the count goes up because all those small cards coming out mean that you get a lot of splits and doubles and the dealer happens to find a big card at the right time to bust. Then, as the count comes in again, you lose all that money back as the dealer gets all the 20s and blackjacks. I finish that shoe back at break even and that’s the best I get all night. $200 behind soon becomes $1000, then a bad shoe (where I lose both as the count keeps increasing and then when the aces and pictures come out) sees another loss of $4000. I break for dinner as the table gets crowded and after another poor shoe, at $7000 overall. Another damage limitation night.

After my meal I rally to $5000 down largely thanks to hand where I split 10s mulitiple times and the dealer bust . However, I then get nibbled away, 500 down on a shoe, then another and another . The casino is getting busy now and I decide to leave and come back later. Typically the after the shoe during which I decide this sees me at my lowest point of the evening- $8000 behind. The game is good, my fears of being cut back have gone, I’ve not had a cut worse than 1.75 decks in contrast to the same time last night when I was getting 2.5 at times (and winning!). The not-so-happy drunk from last night is back, better behaved tonight, sober for the moment at least and does allude to his intoxication last night and his poor conduct. He’s not playing as big either, although last night his bet action did rise with his blood –alcohol levels so it may be the case again tonight.

I return about an hour and a half later to find a table with only one player and my new favourite dealer. She typically gives a cut of a deck and a quarter and I’m alert again after my break. The first couple of shoes on which I bet big are break even for me, more or less, then it starts to go wrong. The count goes up and up so I receive low cards on my doubles and lose, then goes down, down and the dealer finds better totals than me. No resplit aces costs me two hands in a row, the second one seeing me get an ace on each split. When that rule costs you, it really does cost you. All my chips have gone and I’m pulling notes out of my pocket every hand. I cross the $10,000 buy in barrier and pretty soon I’m struggling to be only that much behind. I don’t think I’ve failed to win on so many doubled 20 and 21s in one night before. We are into the last hour of the night and the dealer changes but the cut stays the same. No benefit to me though, I lose another few thousand. Hand of the night: 9-9 and 7-2 against dealer 9. Split the nines, picture, ace. Hit the nine for another ace. A picture when I want one for two wins and a push? Don’t be silly. 3, 9 to make 21 and a 3 bet loss for me rather than a two bet win a picture would have brought, or a 3 bet win if that 3 hadn’t gotten in the way. That’s blackjack for you, sometimes a 3 gets in the way when you want it to, other times when you don’t. This little three has cost me a six-bet swing just at the wrong time.

They have called the final shoe of the night. One last chance to grab some back before the end. Just me and another player, good cut. Count goes up, my maximum bets go out, I bet a split, I double each of them but don’t find a big card, dealer fails to break. The pit boss is getting his daily exercise by continually coming back and forth to my table to check my high value banknotes and the chips I’m given for them. I can’t claim to finish at my lowest point of the night as I have a $1000 dollar chip when I leave the table so I did win a hand or two from my worst point in the shoe. However, the absence from my pockets of its many friends does mean I end the night at my lowest post shoe point and a record loss of $15000. Plus I’ve never lost anywhere near this much with a cut this good. Ah well, the next time I get irritated by the stresses and subterfuges of carrying large amounts of cash, I can remember that sometimes it’s reassuring to know you’ve brought along with you as much as you have. I’ve made an observation to this effect before but it’s worth repeating: there’s a very good reason why we have bankrolls. Blackjack can be a cruel game at times and those reversals of fortune can hit hard. Taking the end of the last trip with the start of this one, I have lost over $30,000 in less than a week, which included a substantial winning session in the middle! Thankfully I had that good run the week before which has cushioned the impact.

Day Five

The weekend is coming and there’s no place at my current hotel so I have to change. I do get some luck with the new hotel, however as a room has become available for Saturday. This at least means I won’t have to change hotels two days in a row. It being Friday, it is “Amateur Night” at the casino. People on a night out pitch up at the casino late on and having had a few drinks, tend to be very slow in their playing decisions. You also get people jumping in right in the middle of a shoe, almost always it seems when the count is huge. A while later, the dealer convinces another player to open another spot with an extra hand. Now even the dealers are making the table crowded and slowing my game down! I finish $2500 behind.

Day 7

It’s a quiet night but the quality of my game us vastly reduced due to a guy jumping in and out all the time between various tables. Admittedly, a couple of times he does jump in towards the end of the shoe when it is really negative allowing me to drop out. The second time I do it though, he takes it as a slight on him and when he comes in on a high count refuses to wait. Naturally, as seems always to be the case when things are going badly, the interloper is rewarded for his lack of courtesy with great cards, while I get stiff after stiff and lose more money. Towards the end of the night I finally find a heads up game without interruption. Then the dealer changes, someone I’ve never played with. The first time he cuts out 1.5 decks. I make a bit of money back and the dealer raises his eyebrows. Whether it’s because I didn’t tip him or because he was suspicious of the big bets, the next shoe has 2.5 decks cut out. All night waiting for a game alone then I get stuck with this. I play for a little longer and leave on a small loss.

Day 9

Yesterday was a welcome respite from the string of losses I’ve suffered since my third day here, but I’m still worse off than I was just after the huge loss on day 4. I therefore need an unprecedented win in order to finish level on the trip but I don’t get much action on this final night before I leave. I turn a small loss into a small win late on and finish the trip there. Looks like I’ll be back here before long in order to benefit from the fresh memory the casino management will have of my poor run.

2007-09-10T05:42:00.000-07:00

2007 Trip 6

It’s been a several weeks since I’ve played and I’m ready for a nice long trip. I see two cliches for the first time today. The first is that I am seated next to a woman who crosses herself both on take-off and landing. It is easy to become blasé about taking a flight when you travel all the time, and everyone else around seeming casual so such a reaction seems quite unusual. I’m used to hearing applause on touchdown, but this is a first for me.

The second is what I believe to be a real-life internet bride and her Sugar-Daddy who are in front of me in at passport control. From her Eastern accent, appearance, and shiny new Western Passport, plus the vast difference in age and attractiveness to her male companion, I doubt that it’s a love match, but perhaps that’s just cynical old me.

The flight is on time, which I needed it to be, since I have to take a bus from the airport to the nearest town, from where the bus to my destination leaves. From prior experience I know that the connection between buses is tight. If I miss the first bus after my scheduled arrival time, or even if it’s slightly late, I will have no direct bus and I’m not sure of the timetable for the others. My bag is among the last to come off the plane and I just catch the bus. Or so I think, but in the end it leaves 10 minutes late, making me miss the other one by five minutes. I check my alternative bus and I have nearly two hours to wait. At least I have time to get something to eat. I take the bus and arrive to find I have another hour and a half for the bus to my destination. The information office was already closed but the timetable tells me it is the last one of the night. This is still high season but they aren’t very frequent. They turn out to be even less frequent as this bus fails to show up. I have no choice but to take a taxi. The driver explains to me that sometimes the bus I wanted often doesn’t come. At least the taxi fare isn’t too expensive.

I get to the casino town. They have a good comping system and they have booked a hotel for me. The one I requested isn’t available but they booked me another. They tell me the name and it is one I remember being far inferior to the others around. Oh well, serves me right for not booking early enough. However, I discover that the hotel has had major refurbishment and is now one of the nicest around. Things are looking up. Pleased with my state of the art room, I take a nap then have dinner, ready finally to put some hours in at the blackjack table. It is late and I’ll have only an hour of two of play but I’ll show my face, especially since they are paying for my room. This feeling lasts until the second hand of the night, whereupon I get a 15 against a dealer 10. I try to play a certain option only to be told that they no longer have that rule. It appears that it was seen to be slowing the game down so they stopped it at the start of the year. Don’t know whether this is an excuse or not, certainly they didn’t think the rule was profitable enough for them, for surely they would have kept it otherwise, despite the slowing effect it had. Either way, this makes the game a lot less attractive because the cut is variable at best. The second dealer I get has a much better cut so it may be playable if this better cut is more prevalent. Perhaps they have tried to speed up the game by cutting out fewer cards. We’ll have to see tomorrow.

Day Two

With the rule change, it’s playable with a decent cut but it’s obvious from this night’s play that this cannot be guaranteed. In addition, the tables are too crowded too often to justify staying here. However, my hotel has been paid for, so I’ll stay another day and figure out where I go from here. My problem is that I have plans in a neighbouring country next week. I had intended to stay here until then and go to another game in the area afterwards. If I went to this game from here I’d only have a few days before I had to leave and the journey from here would be long and tiring. There are possibilities near here but they are far from ideal. They are small places which may not take the action for long and which have small minimums. Back to the present casino. I play for a few hours before the tables all fill up completely. This is why I usually avoid high season. I thought I’d just miss it, but obviously not. I have won tonight though.

Day Three

I’ve decided to check out one or two games in the area. If I go to the other game now it may still be very busy there, so the long journey probably wouldn’t be worth it as long as there is a chance of a game near here. This game is busy again tonight so I only play a couple of hours and opt for an early night to catch the early bus in the morning, so that I can get settled in the new place early so I’m fresh for the night’s game.

Day Four

The taxi I ordered is late and I make the bus by minutes. I’m glad I didn’t miss it as I would have had to wait 5 hours for the next one. I get to the hotel where the casino is situated and find that they have a room free.

I enter the casino as soon as it opens. Just one blackjack table. I get it opened no problem and am glad to see them show me the cards without me having to ask. The limit is low and the cut is borderline but the rules are good. I play for a few hours and catch some bad shoes and am down from the start. I’m spreading to 3 boxes in order to get more money on during high counts because the maximum is low, but every time I do it, I seem to give the dealer an ace which would otherwise land as second card on my first hand. However, after a few hours I get a nice shoe which closes the gap and then a really nice one which puts me ahead. The dealer busts several times in the shoe and I finish a few thousand up- very good for those limits. Maybe the manageres has seen this on the camera as she comes over to watch me on the next shoe but goes away before the end so perhaps she’s not too suspicious. I don’t imagine they get that many big players here so they may not be used to having big swings on the blackjack, either for or against them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they reviewed the tapes and refused to let me in the next day, but we’ll have to see.

Day Five

The conditions are the same today, they open up the blackjack table again as soon as I ask for it. They tell me the casino will close permanently after the summer as they don’t get enough players. I can see why- even last night, a Saturday, there were only a few people playing table games and even those playing the machines didn’t stay very long. However, I am still surprised when I am told that they will have to close early tonight as the sister casino in the next town over is busy and needs more staff, so the dealers are going there for the rest of the night. I knew this group was rather shambolic and disorganised but not to this extent. I could of course go to that casino but if it’s busy it won’t be a good game, especially at those limits. Moreover, if I don’t see the cards spread in that casino I won’t play and if it’s busy I may not be able to open up a new table to do this. In addition the owner/ manager there knows me from before and could very well get suspicious and this attitude may filter back to the other place. An early night again, at least it’s after a small win.

Day Six

A tale of two cuts. Three staff are on, one deals, one watches the game and the other takes a break. When another table game is opened the manager watches the game. One of the regular staff just watches the game so I have one of two dealers. The man cuts out only 1.5 decks, the woman cuts out nearly 2.5 but her shuffle is more easily trackable so both are playable. As the night goes on her cut gets steadily worse but the guy’s stays the same. Before I leave the woman stays dealing for an hour. I want to see if the man’s cut has stayed good because the manager has been watching me for nearly an hour, even when there is another member of staff to inspect the game. Has she told both dealers to give a bad cut from now on? I’m only slightly ahead, but I was down around $2000 before coming back in a short period, so this may have worried her. It depends how paranoid she is. The smaller the casino, the more likely this is. However I need to take a break and it’s nearly the end of the night so I finish there and then.

Day Seven

I come in refreshed, ready and willing to play, only to find that the limit is reduced The maximum has been halved, although the minimum strangely has stayed the same. When I ask about this I am told that this is normal since it is now the end of the season and the head office at the casino in the next town has ordered this and the manager here has no discretion in this matter. It seems strange as it is mid-week and I would have thought that such a move would have been made right after a weekend. It isn’t the first of the month or anything so I don’t think the date has anything to so with it. I could still play albeit at a lower win rate but the maximum is now only 5 times the minimum (!) and if I spread across to more boxes I’ll probably get cut down to a greater extent than I have here already. So another early night and a slightly earlier departure than anticipated. Some trips you seem to struggle to get your play in, others you’re able to camp out at a place and put in some substantial hours.

Day Eight

Having been away for a few days visiting friends in a neighbouring country I come to a new country, next to the one I played last week. I get the train by minutes and then only because I go to the front of the line at the “international Departures” ticket office and ask to push in. The guy at the front lets me in, albeit begrudgingly.

I was here on my final trip last year and I usually don't leave it so long between visits here, but other matters intervened and I gave other places priority. This casino has quite tolerant management. Granted, they give me half a shoe and have done so since the second session I ever played here but I’ve had some good wins from them and they still welcome me. I’ve even got a VIP card that entitles me to free meals and occasionally free accommodation. Since I have not been here for nearly a year I reckon I can get away with asking for a free hotel room. Unfortunately they don’t have a comping system as refined as the one in the place where I started the trip, you have to ask the manager yourself. It’s always a balancing act this, you want to ask without appearing too concerned over whether you get it or not, since you gamble far more than the price of the room and therefore for the imange high roller image I try to project it shouldn't really matter either way. I ask for the manager, show him my VIP card and ask in a “I thought I might just ask on the off chance since you gave me this card, but it’s beneath me really” type way. They take half an hour to sort it out but come back with a voucher for a few nights in the plush hotel nearby. Time to check in and get some shuteye before a mini-session.

I come back for an hour. First I have dinner, always very nice here. I would usually play for a while first before taking the comp meal but the only thing I’ve had to eat in the past 12 hours was a sandwich that I bought on the train so I’m famished.
Since they know I’m here, I don’t expect to get away with a shoe or two at the regulation one deck cut that normal punters get that I sometimes have before being recognised. As it is, the dealer recognises me from a previous trip so she would probably use her intiative and give me half a shoe in any case. I get a good start . “Yes, you’ve got good control”, she says in a manner that suggests she now understands why I only get half a shoe. “You’ve lost all those hands you played at only $10”. An observant dealer. I go up a bit further before dropping back a bit and then I lose my solo game. We’re in the last hour and I feel the day’s travelling catch up with me, so I leave around $1500 up.

Day Nine

Up and down today. $2000 up, then $4000 down and finally $3000 up.

Day Ten

Well, it had to happen sometime. I’ve led something of a charmed life in this casino over the past couple of years in that despite some big swings during sessions, I’ve never had a really big loss at this place although I have had some big wins in my favour. It is the kind of loss that the casino management envisage when they continue to let me play. They expect it to catch up with me and wipe me out sooner or later. By the same token it is also the type of result which reminds you why you have blackjack bankrolls. Moreover, sessions like this serve to illustrate why everyone does not play blackjack for a living. Two steps forward one step back, a half-decent shoe seems always to be followed by a far worse losing one, a win of a unit or half unit on a hand (for example when one hand wins on a double and the other loses or one loses and the other gets a natural) is balanced by a multi unit loss when all splits and doubles go down.

It did seem to be one of those nights when nothing went right, I even was able to sneak quite a few shoes with only a deck cut off, through coming off a break and finding a freshly cut shoe and also jumping between tables. It looked quite natural as there was a guy jumping in for a hand or two on my table when waiting for the shuffle on his, so when there was a shuffle on mine and the other table had just started, I jumped in myself if the count went up before the shuffle on my table was completed. Typically in view of my luck tonight, I lost every time I had that great cut. The counts came in, my bets didn’t.

At least I had a 2 nice wins prior to this. However, it is irritating that I only have one more day left of this trip, as I have commitments back home in a few days and I could only get a flight sooner rather than later. A $12,000 loss is one of the worst I’ve ever had and wipes out most of the trip win in a single night.

Hand of the day. On night like this, there rarely seems to be a picture when you really want one. 2 x $250: 18 and 8-8 v 7. I split the eights. Picture, 8. Resplit, picture on the first, eight on the second. Split again, picture, 2. I double the ten for a seven. Thus I have four hands of 18 and a doubled hand of 17. I’ll happily settle for a picture to push the double and win the others. Not tonight: 2, picture for a dealer total of 19 total loss for me on that hand of $1,500.

I’ve not had a shoe on my own all night. When you play half a shoe you really want to have all of any profitable situation that comes along, even more than normal. Most of the time there have only been at most two other hands in play but the good hands have missed me. My fan from last time spotted me when I was finishing dinner and came over. He talked about his time playing BJ, he even asked me what count I did within earshot of casino managers having dinner. Luckily they were engrossed on their own conversation at the time. When you first start you do tend to have a cavalier attitude to such matters. Then you get barred a few times and realise that casinos are well aware that the game can be beaten. Even in a tolerant place like this I don’t want them to know for absolutely certain that I’m counting cards. The guy does play with me for a while but leaves quite early.

Day Eleven

Same punishment, just a smaller dose. Again, I don’t get a solo game all night, the cards never run for me. Plus my fan is just sitting behind me, jumping in when I raise my bet. I think he is doing his own count but likes to leave the play of the hand to me. I try to explain to him discreetly that it would be better if he played on the other table where the cut is much better but he doesn’t take the hint. Another local counter is there, and although he does come over and play behind me occasionally when his table is on the shuffle, he plays on the other table. With a couple of hours to go I’m $6000 down. I take a break as the conditions on the higher limit table should be good until the end of the night, as there’s only one other player on there now and with a bit of luck she’ll leave, giving me a solo game. 20 minutes later I come back to find that the other player has gone and they are in the process of closing the table. The other tables are still full. Typical luck for the night. I don’t feel like trying to grind out the final hour on a full table so I decide to leave it there, get a few hours sleep for my early start tomorrow.

Day Twelve

Not a great journey home. The bus I intended to catch to the capital never turned up, I got the next one an hour later but by then I’d missed the one to the airport, so I had to take a taxi. The flight was ok, but getting across the country wasn’t. Arriving at the station, I had to wait an hour for the next train home, which will take a few hours. Next time I’ll stay over after my flight or I’ll fly to an airport close to my home town- I’ve decided it’s worth a little extra expense to cut my journey time. A poor end to the trip all round, two bad nights turned a good trip into a losing one and even getting home turned out to be problematic.

2007-07-31T05:15:00.000-07:00

2007 Trip 5 (Part Two)

Day 5

After a few days away I decide not to go back to where I was before but to try the some casinos a coupleof hours away from where I spent my break.. I’ve been told that at least one of them has a playable shuffle, though I know they use eight decks. I’ve also hear that anothre does have some 6 deck games but I don’t know what the rules are, so I’ll have to see. If there’s a reasonable shuffle in one or the other places then the game will be no worse than my current best prospects in the other place so I won’t have lost anything by coming here and perhaps I’ll find something better. I could always go back to the other city if I need to, though it will cost me a lost day due to having travel.

There are various travel options but I’ve chosen to take a ferry from where I am an a bus onwards to where the casinos are. I get dropped off by car at the port, it’s very early in the morning and the port ticket office isn’t yet open, but the waiting room is. I spot a notice offering reduced rate tickets for a combined crossing and bus journey to one of the casinos I intend to play. Bonus! I take a little walk around the quaint town, (I’m glad I travel light, luggage wise) grab a coffee and go back to the port. There is now a woman selling the combined ferry/bus tickets and I’m one of the few who hasn’t booked, but there’s no problem. The sun starts to shine, the crossing is very pleasant and passes quickly. Onto the bus with a mainly senior crowd on our way to the casino. Off the bus, I check my luggage in at the place by the bus station and. Go to the casino. It’s still morning and not too busy, so it seems quieter than the casinos in the city where I started this trip. The shuffle is as I was told, the same as the standard one in the other place. I’ll try it few a few days, at least I don’t have to turn tail and head back to the other place straight away.

After a lunch in the casino paid for by a voucher I got on arrival at the casino and money I won from the free keno ticket got along with it, I play for a few hours. It’s a bit of a grind and now the blackjack tables are begin to fill up as the afternoon goes on, but its’ a playable game and worth trying for a while. I finsh slightly down and set about finding a hotel room. There isn’t much availability nearby and it’s expensive, so I take a chance and take a bus away from the casino and hope for the best. I spot some hotels along the road about 20 minutes away from the casino and get off and check into one of them. I seem to be in the middle of nowhere here although there are a few tourist amenities besides the hotels so it must on the way to somewhere.

Day Eight

I didn’t get much play in during the previous couple of days as I wasn’t staying very near and I tried relying on the buses but now I’ve decided to hire a car and drive between the two casinos in the area. It has occurred to me that I have now used even more types of different transport than usual. I came on a ‘plane, got to my first destination by bus, and to my second (non casino) destination on a train, left on a boat and am now using a car to get around. Always on the run, as it were.

Both casinos are quite busy most of the time but it looks like graveyard is best for CASINO F and day good for CASINO E. In Casino E I can’t get the run. Big bet after big bet goes down, although the rest of the time the dealer busts quite happily, so the rest of the table are winning. In fact the pit boss remarks to a colleague that everyone on his tables is winning except me. So nice to know, I must be doing something right then. I’m however happy that the pit boss feels relaxed enough around me to be able to joke with me, he’s not worried by the big bets then. I hope this is the prevailing attitude in this place.

Day Nine

I have come to CASINO F on an early Saturday morning shift. I sit down at the six deck pit and count cards ( rather than tracking the shuffle ) for the first time in this country for over 3 years. Of course, the first shoe is just about as bad as you can get and I lose $4,000 in one shoe. I’m worried that they may have tracking software that can be used to analyse whether someone is an advantage player .I did intend to switch tables after a significant amount of action on any given table whilst counting, but with such an atrocious start I elect to remain where I am and hope the loss early on protects me from too much scrutiny. There is one other player at the table, betting 500 a hand but not playing too well. “you should always take ‘em” , he says when he sees me refuse even money when I have BJ against a dealer ace.

It’s a very busy weekend and the tables are starting to fill up. I get a breakfast comp and take a break aiming to return on this shift after they have opened up some more tables. I do so and play for a while until it gets really crowded. I haven’t made any headway into the deficit accumulated early on. I need to leave anyway as I have not yet booked a hotel room for the weekend and this is going to become more difficult as time goes on.

After about three hours of driving around, I finally get a place, not too far away from the casinos. By this time however I’m far too tired to contemplate playing and with a busy Saturday night to come I decide to take the night off and start early the next day.

Day Ten

Start early I do. It’s still dark when I haul myself out of bed and into the car. It’s too early to even feel hungry so I grab a coffee from the hotel reception to drink in the car. I’ve timed it so that the daily changing of the cards will already have been done on most tables by the time I get there, so that I won’t have an enforced break as they change over the cards and I have to either wait or find another table. I sit down at one, having ascertained that the new cards are already in play. There’s one other player already there. “Do you know how to play?” he asks me. I reply that I have a reasonable idea of how to play the game, to which he complains about having been with a guy who did various crazy things, including hitting 12 against a six. I hope that I don’t have to do that since it only needs to be slightly negative to justify that strategy change. In the event the table becomes croweded so I change. Later on the same guy sits down and says “So you do know how to play” after I pick up a few hundred on the session.

Day 13

I’ve been nibbling back at my deficit and am closing in on break even. I win $1500 on graveyard at CASINO F, mainly tracking, then head over to CASINO E for the afternoon. By mid afternoon more tables are open and midweek it isn’t too busy. There is only a tracking game here and I find a sloppy dealer I noticed a few days ago. The cards come out beautifully and I start to win. It’s a shame when the table fills up and I have to change. However there is an empty table nearby so I give it a try. It turns out to be in the custody of a great dealer to play against. Not only is he sloppy, but also rather opinionated and generally a bit unpleasant. The latter may not sound particularly advantageous, but in my position this is a boon. A bad attitude means that players are likely to switch tables before too long, especially good in this casino where tables are often so crowded. The opposite phenomenon is also well established and I’ve already seen it this week. If a dealer is friendly, people will stay at their table, so people are more likely to arrive at the table than leave and thus most if not all spots at the table are likely to be in play at any given time.

In this present instance players leave at a faster rate than new ones come. I even get a heads up situation for long periods, very rare in this place at this time of day. Another plus with a grumpy dealer is that I feel under absolutely no pressure to tip regardless of how much I win. Indeed, such dealers often are resigned to not getting any as few people want to reward such a demeanour so even a big swing in your favour may not even bring any tip hustling at all. It does seem unfair in these circumstances that tips are shared, since the unpleasant dealers are effectively being subsidised by their more sympathetic colleagues. I play until the shift change with a small win.

Day 15

I start on the graveyard shift, find what I think is a decent shuffle and track it. I don’t hit the cards but get I lucky and win more of the big hands than I lose. It’s the weekend and I need a hotel room. At lunchtime I finish playing and see if I can get a comp. I go to the player rewards desk to arrange this but am told that they are fully booked. I’m surprised at this because I know I have more than enough reward points for a room. I decide to try at CASINO E when I play there in the afternoon.

So I go back to my hotel, load up the car, check out and drive to CASINO E. Once there, they tell me at the rewards desk to find a host. I can’t find one, but then it occurs to me to call CASINO F and ask to speak to a casino host there. I’m surprised I didn’t think of this before, surely they’ll have a few rooCasino Fheld back for big players. I call, speak to the host, am told am not big enough for a room comp but need to use my comp points. After I explain, that I tried to do that but was told all rooms were booked she puts me on hold and comes back a few minutes later and tells me I’m booked in for the weekend. The moral of the story: if in doubt, speak to a host!

I play a session at CASINO E and win $1500 before more players start to arrive. This win now puts me slightly ahead on the trip. I go over to CASINO F to check in. For the weekend the rate is very good and still leaves me with plenty of reward points. The room is really nice too, with a touch I’ve never seen before- a little switch that lights up a “Do not Disturb” illumination outside the door. Those signs you hang on the handle are evidently not modern enough here!

I go downstairs to put in some more play before the Friday night crowd clogs up the tables. Like this morning here the tracking doesn’t really work but I win the hands I bet big on. With this shuffle it’s borderline so its playability is very dependent on the dealer. This one looked profitable but this hasn’t proved to be the case, so I switch back to counting by the end of the session.

Day 16

The weekend is very busy again. I play for three hours in morning and win $2000 before more players come and after that there is very little space on any tables at CASINO F. It isn’t much better at CASINO E either and I don’t play for long. Back at CASINO F, I play briefly in the evening and drop back a little from the earlier trip high point.

Day 17

It’s still crowded. I don’t start play until mid-morning and it’s already difficult to find a free spot at a table. I go to CASINO E but it’s the same so I change up what chips I have left, spend the last of my comp points on dinner and leave. Back at CASINO F, I manage to find a spot at a table and play for a short time. I thought that the crowds would begin to thin out from Sunday afternoon but that’s not the case here. In fact it just gets busier, probably because they’ve got a concert on tonight. I mention this to another player, who seems to live locally and he appears surprised I though this. “Yeah, they don’t go on Sunday, more people come in!” he says. This means that it would be a struggle to get a decent game a lot of the time if I ever came back.

Day 18

I had intended to get in an hour or two of play before I left but in the event getting ready to leave takes longer than I thought and even without playing

I drop off the rental car and I only get to the station about 10 minutes before my train leaves. It will take me about 3 and a half hours in all to get to the airport but with the margin of error you have to build in to this type of journey I’ll have over an hour to look round the city if the train runs to schedule before I need to catch the connection to the airport itself. This is what happens. I leave my bags at the let luggage at the station before taking in the sight and sounds of the city one last time. The way things have turned out I can’t see myself coming back here for the foreseeable future, which is a shame, as I really like the place.

So, it’s been a winning trip but not particularly successful one on any count. In terms of the blackjack, the effective loss of my best game in this country substantially reduced my win rate and with one thing and another I didn’t put in all that many hours. Therefore, with the fact that I’m significantly behind where I should be I’ve just about covered my expenses for the trip. Other developments now mean that I don’t have a reason to come here other than for the game, which doesn’t justify a trip when compared to other games currently open to me. Thus I don’t expect to be here again any time soon, although as they say “Never Say Never”.

2007-06-25T12:40:00.000-07:00

2007 Trip Five

I'm back at the same place as trip one of this year. Given the heat I got last time I wouldn't normally be back so soon but I have other affairs to attend to in this country so I may as well see if the game is as good as it was before and whether I am persona non grata on all the shifts, or whether I can still play day shift at my best game. Without it, this trip will be something of a grind. I'm still kicking myself for overplaying it last time, especially since I knew I'd be back in the country again soon. However there's no point dwelling on it now, I just have to see what lies in store tomorrow. After a tiring flight in, I get the bus to my destination from the airport and crash out in my hotel room.

Day One

I’m up early. I can’t play the best game until lunchtime (if at all- I’ll find that out soon enough) since the graveyard shift is where all the heat started, so I go to another one. An early setback greets me, the main pit has gone to shuffle machines. Only a few tables in a different pit are still hand shuffled. This is worrying as this was to be my fallback casino. A decent shuffle and cool management, I had intended this to be my main place if the other one shuffled up on me on all three shifts. Now I’ll have to find somewhere else to go outside of the day shift and perhaps even then too, depending on whether I'm able to play that shift at my best game.

I try the next casino along. It has a reasonable shuffle but I’ve heard big bets attract heat very quickly. It’s still only 6.30am but all the tables have at least four players on them except for those that have just had their cards changed. I sit down at one of these in the hope that I may get a solo game or at least am only with on or two players. However the phrase “Open it and they will come” seems to hold here as three others join me before the end of the first shoe. I decide anyway to stay a while to see if the cards I track come out often enough, and they do, although with the crowded table (two more players sit down at the table before I leave) I rarely get chance to bet on them. Still, it shows that with certain dealers and at quieter tables it could be a good game. Maybe they’ll open up a few more tables before the end of the shift. I decide to take my breakfast and drop by again later.

In the afternoon I go to the Casino A, my number one game here, with my fingers crossed. The other place was still busy after breakfast so I went back to my hotel for a sleep, ready for what I hope to be as good a game as before. Since they shuffled up on me in each of the other two shifts on the last trip, this is now the only possible time I’ll be able to play in this casino and this shift is in doubt since the trouble on swing shift right at the end of that trip. Anyhow, here’s hoping swing haven’t communicated with day about me. I won’t show my rating card, just in case.

I’m glad to find a table with only one other player on it and I sit down. The cards are coming out but not in a way that I can bet on them. It’s a long time before I finally get a bet and by then I’ve noticed that a pit boss is loitering near my table rather too often for comfort. I’ve not seen him before so if he knows something it’s because the eye in the sky has told him. When the shuffle comes he leaves to watch another table but is soon back at mine once the shoe starts. Sure enough, I put out my big bet only to see the pit boss lean in to the dealer and tell her to shuffle up immediately, in a replica of grave shift on the last trip. What is different however, is that the pit boss then orders the dealer to wash the cards before shuffling. This to my mind is paranoia and shows that they don’t really know what I’m doing. They merely have a suspicion that I may be playing a winning game and a prepared to act on that alone. Such a big, multi-million dollar place, scared of little old me and what are, by their terms, rather small bets. I also find it interesting that each shift has taken different measures against me.

That’s that for me then, as far as casino A goes. It will have to be guerilla tactics from now on, sneaking in, possibly when it’s busy, and playing a few shoes before they recognise me. On this showing I won’t be able to stay and play like I did the last trip. Once again I inwardly berate myself for having overplayed this place last time- by the time I lost the graveyard shift I knew I was coming back here and once I had ascertained that I was ok in the afternoon I should have played elsewhere for the last couple of days. Instead I played on and caught major heat on my last evening, whether they had known about me from grave I don’t know, since that was the first time I’d played swing since my de facto exclusion from graveyard and I’d lost on that shift and on day in the previous ten days. If it was just a case of one pit boss taking a particular dislike to me on the basis of that night’s play it was especially unlucky (particularly since I lost on that final session!). Ah well, hindsight is a marvellous thing and the temptation to play your best game available is strong. Perhaps they’d have had me anyway. I’ll never know, but the majority of my play on this trip will now take place at another establishment, that I do know.

Day Three

So another casino to find. Yesterday I persevered with the other two I played on day one but the conditions weren’t good at all, in terms of the shuffle or uncrowded tables, thus it’s worth checking out a few other places in more detail. I go to the Casino D, near to Casino A. The shuffle is fairly standard for this city but I notice a few rather sloppy dealers. I get a spot on one table and lose solidly, though not heavily, after a good start. The shuffle is good though. Then it gets busy so I leave. Friday night has started and it won’t be worth playing until Sunday afternoon, especially now the best game has all but disappeared for me.

Day Four

All but…It’s the weekend and I’m off to another city not too far away for some quality leisure time. No point paying weekend prices here for my hotel, now I’ve come to realise that the tables get completely full at the weekend so there’s just time for a sneaky Saturday graveyard session before I leave. This session is perhaps the best situation you can get here- it’s graveyard so plenty of space, but being the weekend there are more tables open so you are less exposed since the place is busier. I sit down at an empty table. The first shoe ends and no loitering pit bosses. The second shoe starts and I get a big bet. No pit bosses, no alarm bells, no shuffling up, the coast is clear for now. And I win the bet. The next shoe comes and I think my morning is already over. “Dennis”, the Pit boss who was there when they first shuffled up on me on grave is now in the pit. He’s bound to remember me. He looks straight at me. And then away again, having seen nothing unusual. I’m surprised to say the least.

I get another good situation soon afterwards. No shuffle here either. This one however goes rather less fortuitously, I get 7-7 and 7-7 against a 5. I split the first pair and I receive an ace on the first one, which I double for a two to make 20. A two falls on the other 7, which I double for yet another ace. Onto the second pair of sevens and the dealer gives me a picture on the first and an ace on the second. I double the soft 18 for a picture. Dealer draws….picture, six. All seven bets are lost. What’s particularly annoying is that I had good hands on them all. $2100 down on that hand. Even the difference between a 5 and a 6 for that last card was big as I had two twenty doubles. Even a four would have made me money. However 6 it was and that’s a $4,200 swing on that hand between the 6 that came and anything higher (excepting an ace for a difference of 3,900). A female pit boss sees all this, “Unbelievable” is her comment. If they shuffle upon me now this shift I will be annoyed. This pit boss evidently believes herself to be very sharp to spot professionals however, as I overhear her telling a colleague “I can tell” if one is playing nearby. I have a little smile to myself. Admittedly, losing such a big hand will serve as camouflage.

In the event they don’t shuffle up on me, but I don’t make much headway either. Now people are waking up and beginning to fill the tables and I just have time to take breakfast before I leave for my weekend destination. Time to get out of Dodge, for a few days at least.

2007-05-18T07:05:00.000-07:00

2007 Trip 4

I spent more time at home than I had intended and this trip is only going to be a short one due to other commitments. I’m gratified that when I go to the first casino, the reaction I find is generally one of “long time no see”. Which is good since it hasn’t been all that long and I won a lot of money from them last time so this may indicate that they have forgotten, or at least are not worried about it. I’m fairly tired from the flight so I only play a couple of hours but have a decent win.

Day Two

I go to a different casino, let’s call it casino A. They also seem pleased to see me despite my large win last time. Disconcertingly I see a dealer who I believe used to be at a casino that has since barred me, but if she was, she doesn’t recognise me. That’s the problem with the mobility of staff between casinos. No such luck on the table however, I lose double the amount I won last night.

Day Four

I’ve been flitting between the two casinos I play most here. The bigger (and richer) one (let’s call it casino B) has the best game if the conditions are right but they frequently are not, sometimes due to the cut varying between dealers but more often because of crowded tables so it’s a case of picking and choosing your times. I get in there early evening and open up a table. At that limit I’ll probably get a couple of hours on my own. I end up with one of the most unenthusiastic dealers I’ve ever played against, she really does not care about what she’s doing or the customers. She isn’t hostile, merely uninterested. One particular shoe I lose several hands in a row. Over the sound system comes a song called “You win again”. “Very appropriate song for this shoe” I say. The response is deadpan: “I’m not playing, I’m working”. Later we chat about somewhere else in the city she used to work. I remark that this place is much nicer (quite truthfully, as the place where she used to work is a dump), at which she shrugs her shoulders and says “It’s all the same to me”. Happy in her work then.

Day Five

Well, one figure of note tonight- my biggest ever single hand win. I lose $6000 in the first half hour, then I start to claw some back. On one shoe the count goes up very much, very quickly. I have $250 on and I split my pictures against a six. Picture, picture. I split them again, 7, picture. Again, 8,picture. Again : 9 picture. The count has gone down a bit but I still have more than enough to keep splitting. Now a small crowd mainly of those from the other blackjack table has gathered to watch. Once more, picture, picture. Again, 2, 8. 7,8 on the next one. Onto the second pair of tens I had when I originally split: 9,7. dealer draws: Picture.. 9. A nine unit win on the one hand.

I break for dinner just $1500 down. That big hand with the split tens certainly limited the damage.

I get a lot back in the first hour. The conditions turn worse as the next dealer has a poor cut. Still, that very nice run has halved the deficit accrued over the previous two nights. I break for dinner and consider trying the other casino but one of the best dealers is at a table with no players so I play there. I can do nothing right and after another hour I’ve lost all the money I had won plus another $1000. Then the place gets crowded and I decide to head across to the other when which will probably have more tables open. I may come back later.

I manage to get a solo game at this casino. Players keep jumping in and out, which isn’t ideal, especially since a lot of them are quite inebriated and slow the game down considerably, but most of the time I’m on my own. I have 3 good shoes in a row and leave with a good win. I leave it there as far as this casino is concerned as I was already up against them here. I’ve lost my solo game again and it’s probably worth looking in on the other one especially since they have now won the last three sessions against me. I do find a decent game and in another hour get another $5000 back. Between the two establishments I have recovered three quarters of the last two nights’ losses. I can now see break-even!

Day Seven

Tonight brings a small win from casino A. I try casino B but it’s too crowded. One of the managers comes over and has a chat. “So you got a nice win last night,” he says. I’m slightly surprised they noticed as I played for only a short time and on many different tables, so that no one table took a big hit from me, but it is said in a very casual and friendly way so unless it is a test of how I react (I don’t think so) they don’t seem to worried about me in this place.

Day Eight

Last night brought a small win from Casino A so I now have my nose in front. I leave tomorrow so it has come down to one night to determine if this will be a winning or losing trip. Of course, in the grand scheme of things whether I win or lose tonight will have no more significance than on any other night. There is no mystical cut-off at the end of any trip that will influence how the cards will go in the future. It still feels better to end on a win though. And it does, as it turns out. I go to casino A, have a good start then drop back only slightly. I have abandoned any pretence of playing other games there now. They accept me as (a losing) bj player even though I’m still well up against them despite this week’s reversal. It has been a tale of two casinos: I’ve taken a lot from one and (as things stand) given most of it to the other. Conditions deteriorate so I go to casino B.
I have missed the peak hours there now. So it proves, I get a solo game although not much action, I remain slightly either one side of even or the other for a couple of hours and it is now rather late and I have an early flight, now only a few hours away. I decide to play two more shoes maximum and then go back to my room for a few hours sleep. I have a $3000 winning shoe the next one. That will do for this trip. I’ve won where I’ve played many fewer hours and lost quite badly at the other one where I’ve camped out, but happily I’ve taken a decent cut for transferring the money from one place to the other. Also, so far as one can be happy about losing, I’m glad that it as to casino A as I took a lot from them on the previous two trips to this city and it isn’t as big or wealthy as the other one I’ve played so the public relations benefit of a loss has had a greater impact the way it’s turned out and the exposure a win brings is less noticeable than it may be against a casino which has many more high rollers.

2007-04-18T03:28:00.000-07:00

2007 Trip Three

A new country. Some other professionals went here some years ago before conditions deteriorated, and on the basis that these things are cyclical I thought it was time to check if the situation had improved. I went to the first casino a few hours after my arrival. I show ID and register as a member and am in the process of checking my jacket when I am called back and asked if I am on a blacklist. Oh dear. This is the first I’ve known of this. The receptionist calls the manager who comes down and tells me I cannot be admitted due to the fact my name has been flagged. I ask him why I’m on the list, and who put me on it but he says he does not have that information. This has never happened to me before:barred at a casino I 've never been to, which doesn’t belong to a group at whose casinos Ive previously played, in a country in which I’ve never set foot before. I go back to my hotel to think about this and get some sleep.

After dinner I walk to the next casino, with a similar result. They in fact know I’ve already been turned away from the other one and from this and some of the notices on the wall which bear a similarity to the other establishment, I deduce that they are of the same group. This other manager confirms this. I ask again where the blacklisting originated and he doesn’t know but says they get information from various countries and mentions the two countries specifically. I have played both of these countries in the past but I seriously doubt that it could be either as it’s a long time since I played under my own name in either place. He doesn’t tell me any other countries that may subscribe to the database that supplied my name. It’s not a pleasant realisation that you are on an international blacklist somewhere. I have a suspicion that it could be the place I played in trip or possibly a casino I was barred from exceedingly quickly, being told that I was now “On the blacklist”. At the time I just presumed this meant on their computer records rather than on a list shared internationally, but now that comment has taken on a rather more sinister aspect.

Oh well, 2 down, one left. I get in without incident, hooray! The game is pretty good too, although it’s only a small place so despite the fairly large maximum on the blackjack table they may sweat the action a bit. I only play long enough to ascertain the rules and see a variety of cuts by the dealers. They are open 24 hours so I’ll catch up on my sleep and get in early tomorrow.

Day two

What a beautiful day. The sun is shining and it’s pleasant to be out in it. I enter the casino mid-afternoon. The cut starts at 1.5 decks from 6 but I get attention on my first big bets. I win only a few hundred but the scrutiny is apparent. I have a good shoe a some time later and get a little further ahead. The dealer has changed by now and the cut with her began at 1.75 and now goes out to 2 decks, as she looks to her pit boss for confirmation. 90 minutes in and we are now at 2.5. I have another good shoe to put me nearly $2000 up. Next shoe the cut is 3 decks. If it stays there from now on I’ll probably stick around for another day or two then go to a neighbouring country where I know I can get a better game. This thought doesnt last long however. The first shoe at a 3 deck cut goes positive very early on and I’m betting big almost from the beginning. I think to myself that this may convince the management that I’m not counting cards since it has occurred just as they’ve given me half a shoe to prevent me from gaining an advantage. The count keeps going up and I rue the fact that the count is unlikely to come in and that the biggest count of the afternoon comes just after they have cut 3 decks. I start losing the hands as the count keeps on rising, but then I rally and although the shoe still ends with a large positive count I actually make a few hundred on the shoe. I hope this may show the management that I’m not bothered by the amount of cards cut out, but their paranoia is such that my betting on the last shoe has only served to panic them further. The cut is now 3.5 decks. I decide to play out this shoe and then leave. Perhaps they’ll be more tolerant on a later shift. As it happens, the count goes negative after about 2 decks and I leave then, wondering if they’ll let me back in.

After dinner I go back, half expecting to be told I’ve been barred. Some places prefer not to bar you at the table, perhaps fearing a scene, but will bar you on the way out or simply not let you enter on your next visit. This latter scenario is the one I find. The receptionist has obviously been told to look out for me as she doesn’t even take my membership card from me, simply telling me that I can’t go in. On the move tomorrow then.

Day Three

A last minute decision sees me getting off the train several stops early in order to check out the game in a town I didn’t know the train passed through when I bought my ticket. I may as well see what's here. I’ve been told it’s playable though not brilliant. It does however mean a shorter journey than my original intended destination and I can move on again other previously unvisited towns should I decide to do so or continue on to the place I had first decided upon. Unfortunately, of the two casinos I thought were playable in this town today, one has worse rules than I’d been told and the other one is closed for refitting.

Day Four

I decide to double back on myself to go to another of the towns the train passed through yesterday, making it my third country in three days. By contrast to the previous town, the information I had been given was not encouraging but that was over 18 months ago. Much can change in this time, a new rule or even a new casino. The first one I check out has fairly standard rules but the shuffle is trackable. The other game in town is of no interest. I find a hotel and check in.

Day Five

I start playing big straight away. I’m losing but hitting enough big cards to justify staying here. They don’t seem to phased by the big bets. Naturally, it helps that I’m losing but then I hit a nice run and finish for dinner nearly even. I thought they had started to give me a worse cut but it appears that it can vary with the particular dealer. There’s one guy who looks like he suspects me of something and cuts a lot out. This does not affect my game but unfortunately his shuffle if very meticulous as well so he is completely unplayable. I lose some after dinner but not a lot.

Day Six

Sometimes it can be very frustrating with shuffle tracking. At least with counting you know with any dealer immediately if you have a decent game as it’s governed by the rules and the cut. With certain shuffles it depends on how sloppy the dealer is . This being the case you have to assess every dealer which can be time consuming. I keep getting borderline dealers or worse at the beginning and do not hit the big cards the way I need to. Then I get two consecutive dealers who are very profitable and I come back. After dinner I get some decent dealers butdon't get lucky. Now the casino is getting busy and I’m tired so I leave. I’ve not put in much potential profit today due to the barren period after dinner but I still think the game is worth playing. I feel I’ve been slightly unlucky with the way the cards have come out and perhaps it is a case of being absolutely ruthless with which dealers I play.

Hand of the day: 2 x $200: I get 17 and A-A. The aces are split. Picture, ace. Fortunately they allow aces to be resplit here. Another ace and a nine. Split again: 5, ace. They allow unlimited resplits so I keep on going: ace, 9. Amazing. Again: 4, ace. Wow. Again: 9, picture. I have split the aces six times and my wager has grown from $400 to $1,600. So far so good, as well as the 17 I now have two stiffs , three twenties and two twenty-ones. Dealer has a five and draws: 5………9. I lose 3 hands and win the other five. After all that splitting I end up winning the equivalent of my original bet.

Day Seven

Most dealers are playable today, including a few very sloppy ones. I don’t win much but I get a lot of bets and a good rate. One development concerned me though: I was the first player today on the blackjack (although I didn’t get in right after opening) and the cards were already shuffled. Casinos often do this to save time but being concerned about having a full complement of cards it always makes me anxious and I’m frustrated with the casino that they don’t realise that people need confidence in the game and it’s not worth it for the sake of a few minutes. I ask if I can see the cards and the manager fetched fresh decks but then says he’ll have to open a new table as the cards at the first one “are for that table”. He didn’t want to go through the process of sorting out the cards on the table but this may just have been for convenience rather than because that first set wasn’t right. I find this strange that he would rather have another dealer on shift instead but am somehow reassured since if they have such rigid procedure they are less likely to play with an incomplete set of cards. I think it’s ok but I resolve to get in right after opening every day to see the cards being spread. If they have not already shuffled I shall ask to see the cards spread.

Day Eight

They seem to have got the message about spreading the cards. They are there ready when I walk in. The manager comes over and says, “Everything Ok for you?” “Yes thank you, I can see all the cards” I reply. When they open the 2^nd table they just bring cards that arealready in a shoe. They are the same colour as the ones I played with yesterday, so they may be using the same set to save time. It still worries me though, things can happen to cards left overnight.

There are some good dealers on today, only one is really unplayable. I get a lot of bets and hit a lot of good cards. The management start to take a real interest for the first time since I came here. At one point I think they are giving me a bad cut but then the dealer changes and it’s good once more, not that it matters for the game I am playing but it’s a handy barometer of the casino attitude as it’s often the first (and often knee-jerk) reaction to bet variation. Those that cut a lot out may well therefore be doing it on their own initiative. I break for dinner $2000 up, now just ahead against this casino. After dinner I’m not so lucky and lose a few hundred back. I feel tired so I leave for a few hours. When I return the dealers have changed and are not so profitable. I hit a bad run and worse, because the casino is busier now, the dealers get fewer breaks so the turnover is less and I find myself stuck with the same dealer for several shoes. The cut is good now so I decide to count for a bit until the dealer is changed. First shoe and the count goes up, and up.I’m slightly behind and the shoe is about to end. I spread to 3 hands. I get 10-10, 10-10 and 4-3 against a 4. The count is still so high it’s worth splitting the pictures. I split and keep getting more pictures, unsurprising, given the count. I end up with 8 hands in all from the two twenties started the hand with. I’ve caught a couple of aces and a 7 but the rest are all stiff hands. I pull two 21 from the the 4-3 as well so unless the dealer gets 21 it won’t be too expensive. Dealer draws: 10, 5. I’ve lost six hands and won 3 for a loss of $600 rather than a win of $1800 which would have put me level since dinner and given me a nice win on the day as it is I’m a few hundred down on the day after a great start.

Day Nine

Déjà vu as again I have a good start, go for dinner and lose a little back. The difference today is that I don’t give them back the rest of it later on. After my next break. In fact I don’t play long. I feel tired and the same guy as last night on the split tens hand comes on the table. I switch to counting as his cut is better than his shuffle and this time I make $1000, around what I lost to him counting last night. I decide to get an early night and go to bed winning against this casino overnight for the first time.

Day 10

Hmmmmm……. Suspicious. I walk in and the receptionist refuses to allow me in having shown the ID I have used up until now without a problem and insists I show her my passport so that she may note down the number. I point out that my other ID has an official number but she says that the manager has decreed that I must show my passport. I leave saying I will fetch it and take an early dinner to thihnk about this. Is this a preliminary to a barring? It certainly indicates that they are now taking an interest now I’ve got myself slightly in front, but will it be that they will take my passport number in order to be certain of my identity and then exclude me straight after. A similar thing happened to me a few years ago when I left a casino and got asked for ID. They hadn’t bothered with it for several days as they knew my face so I only had a credit card on me. The doorman noted down my name and then told me not to come back.

On balance I decide to go back in. Wary as I am that I may get myself on another blacklist, they don't appear to suscribe to the one that did for me last week as I've been here for a number of days and I may still get several more days of play in before they bar me, which probably won’t go any further. I go back, passport in hand only to find that they are evacuating everyone for some reason. The casino has a separate entrance in part of a hotel and they are clearing the entire building. Bomb scare? I don’t know. Ominously, the receptionist still ask for my passport in the middle of this so she can make a note of the number. Her anxiety to get the number makes me even more suspicious.

Well, if my number’s up here, it’s up, I may as well find out one way or the other. I give in my passport and sure enough, the receptionist checks it and says I can’t come in. I ask why and she calls over the manager. The manager tells me more than I thought she would. I’m on an international blacklist but they didn’t find out for five days because they only got around to checking it last night, even though (according to the manager) they check all names against the list as a matter of course. I’m not sure I believe this as it seems rather too coincidental that this all happened after I had my first decent session against them. Like last week she doesn’t know who put my name on the list but that it’s because I’m “suspected of card counting”, which shows they don’t know much as only about an hour of 5 days’ play was counting and hardly any of my (modest) win. She also says they “Can’t take the risk”.

So, another enforced night off. I wonder more about this blacklist- it seems strange I’ve had trouble with it twice on the same trip if it came from who I originally suspected as that was over a year previously. On the other hand, it may be the smaller, independent casinos that use it as they have no casino group to rely on and it just happens that the last 2 places I’ve played are such establishments.

Day 11

On the move again then. I cross the border again and travel west this time. Another counter has been here in the past year and told me it’s worth a few days. It’s only a slight detour from the way to my next choice of town if this no good so I decided to take a look. I know it’s by a border and most of the clientele come over from the other side to gamble, so it’s fairly remote and apparently there’s not much out there besides the casinos. I take a taxi out there. After I’ve told the driver where I want to go he looks in his glove box for his passport. I presume there may be some kind of one-way system which makes it easy to cross the border if you want to turn around. Perhaps he has decided to take this opportunity to go over the border for some reason, but no, before we reach the place, we have to go through a checkpoint and the driver gives his and my passports to the officer. It certainly does have a no man’s land feel, my hotel is actually minor part of a large duty free shop. Apart from that there are the 2 casinos, 2 shopping malls and a petrol station.

I was told that the conditions were patchy and this turns out to be true. This wouldn’t be too bad if the minimums weren’t so low. As the weekend is coming up I may use the crowds to back-count and then leave when they do.

Day 12

I get in early to play heads-up before it becomes busy. Even with the low minimum the speed of the game makes it worthwhile. I start badly but then recover. The management still seem friendly. I finish $2000 ahead, an excellent win given the low maximum. I take dinner and have a look at the other casino. Counting is not really an option as the cut is so very bad but there may be something to do with the shuffle. I play small just to see. It turns out be to a lot less effective than the casino obviously thinks. It looks complicated but due to what must be regarded as a large oversight on their part, the same parts of the shoe are separated and then eventually end up shuffled together again, so that by the end of the shoe the cards are in roughly the same order as before: The parts of the shoe rich in tens and aces will be rich in tens and aces again. It will just be a matter of cutting in the right place and betting big straight away. I think I should be able to tell where the high-value cards are. On the first attempt, the cards I aimed for came out when and in the quantity I expected. I revise my plans to head out after the weekend, this looks like being the best game around this area.

I take a break and go back to casino 1. They have a free buffet so I may play for as long as I get a solo game, eat and then go to the other one. I do indeed find a table to myself. Some other players come but are content to play behind me, so I soon have two other people behind me. This is not ideal as not only does it slow my game down, but I can’t even put on the full maximum as it applies to the total bet on the box rather than bets per person. This actually turns out to be a good thing since one of the other players, realising that the game is being slowed by my having to adjust my bet and use smaller chips to make sure I have as much on as I can, asks for the minimum to be raised. I hadn’t done this since I had been told that the management were reluctant to do it. This was supported by the fact that of the several tables in the place, all had the same minimum attached to them, so I presumed that this was a fairly strict policy on the part of the casino not to expose themselves to too much risk. However, the limit is changed without quibble since all three of us are playing at or above the proposed new minimum. Happily, the maximum is doubled so this game also now looks a lot better than last night.

Unhappily, having had a good run up to this point, the bigger bets start losing and I’m level on the evening but still up on the day. The people backing my box, who were quickly becoming fans of mine, start to have doubts and drift away. I rally later and hit my highest point of the day but then I hit a brick wall and in the last 2 hours of play lose about 75% of my day’s win. Oh well, at least I should be able to play here a few more days. Gratifyingly, I got a heads-up game most of the time, even though the place was busy, the small increase in minimum keeping away most players.

Day 13

Back to casino 1 since the other one is not yet open. I manage to get the higher limit without difficulty. Another nice win over a couple of hours and then I break for dinner. It turns out to be a similar story to yesterday, good win in the afternoon followed by ups and downs in the evening with a bad finish. The curse of the last shoe strikes again. I lose my heads-up game and the table becomes crowded so I make the decision to finish the current shoe and leave. Naturally the count goes up and keeps going up. I lose about 10 hands in a row before the dealer busts on the last hand. This limits the damage a bit but I’ve still gone from being a few hundered down since dinner to a few thousand, leaving me down on the day and level since I got to this town.

Day 14

I have only a few more days before I’m due to fly back home and I believe I can safely book those days at the hotel here as I think I’m unlikely to get barred from both casinos in such a short space of time. My hope is that I have at least another trip here next time as casino 1 seems fairly cool with my action (and I’m not winning now either) and casino 2 may not realise what I’m doing in a short time as I won’t be betting the count.

As in the past 2 days, I get a good solo game at casino 1 in the early part of the day. I win again too. I hope they realise that I’ve been giving back on Swing the money I’ve been winning in the afternoon. After a couple of hours, I lose the solo game and take a break.

Casino 2- I sit down and play the shuffle. It’s very, very good. The clumps of big cards are coming out when I want them to. There’s someone else at the table so I can’t get the minimum raised but even at those stakes it’s a great game. I’m a little unfortunate later on and leave with a small win but I’m satisfied that this is the game to play here.

I break for dinner and a nap and go back in a few hours later. Another table is open now and I ask to have it at a higher minimum. No problem and I even get asked if I want a priavate table. They obviously noticed me earlier on and liked the action. Now playing bigger, I’m still hitting the cards I want when I want them and I go up very quickly. Then I have my first miss. It was only a smaller group of cards but the count actually went right in the other direction an I lose a lot back. To add insult to injury, a new dealer arrives and he can’t be tracked.

Coincidence? -No. From all dealers previously doing the same shuffle, every successive dealer does something different. The management obviously got spooked by the run that I had but I’m quite bemused that even betting big off the top I can't avoid the casino trying counter-measures. It does beg the question of why the have that shuffle if they think the shuffle it is vulnerable. It isn’t for speed as it looks quite complicated. Maybe they like keeping the clumps together. I don’t think so though because some of the following dealers have a similar shuffle to the standard one but is effectively the same. I put it down to paranoia on the part of the casino rather than any solid suspicion of me on their part. It is evident now though that I’m not betting as often as I did with the standard shuffle, so they may conclude that they were right to take this action. On the other hand, the shuffle change coincided with a losing run for me so it may look like I’ve lost confidence. It just proves once again that, contrary to appearances, casinos are not in the gambling business. They want the sure thing and look at the bottom line like any other business. You get a bit lucky and some places immediately wonder what is wrong. It looks like an ace tracking game for me now, I wonder what they’ll make of that? I’m too tired for that now as it takes a lot more effort, so I leave with another small win.

I decide to leave casino 2 until tomorrow and try casino 1 again. I hope that I don’t give back my earlier win on this shift. A forlorn hope. I lose the money I won here earlier (leaving me down against casino 1 now) plus most of the modest sum I got from the other casino, to leave me a couple of hundred dollars up on the day. Ah well, that’s the way it goes. My trip win was halved in about 2.5 hours of play. Remember -bankrolls can go down as well as up.

Day 15

I don’t bother with playing casino 1 early today, I will get in to Casino 2 as soon as it opens, fresh and ready to play. I enter the casino and there are already a couple of people at the table and the dealer is finishing the first shuffle of the day I ask for a another table to be opened, at a higher mimimum. No problem. They give me a private table again as well, so far so friendly. Now what shuffle will I get? To my surprise, the standard shuffle has returned. I manage to cut a slug of tens to the front on the third shoe. I hit it, but lose around $1000. The next shoe is better. The previous shoe has started off negative and then went right up the other direction so that the unshuffled cards will be full of high ones. If I cut it right I think I can get all the small cards at the end of the shoe so that I can bet from the very beginning for at least 3 decks. After 2 decks the count is –10! It always feels unnerving to continue betting when it is so negative but I think there should be a few more big ones to come out. When it gets to –15 I drop my bet a bit although I don’t think the small ones are there yet. The count gets to minus 20, then a few low value cards start to appear and the shoe ends . It just shows how powerful this is when it works. I see why the shuffle trackers can be quite evangelistic about it. Had I simply been counting, I would have been playing minimum all the way and marvelling at the way more and more big cards came out. The hands have worked out well and I recover the deficit plus a few hundred. Now the pit boss tells the dealer to split the cards into more piles when shuffling. However, the dealer riffles them in exactly the same order as she put them there, so there is little difference. I bet big off the top again, -5 after a deck, very nice.

Dealer change. This new one is mixing the cards more efficiently so there is less opportunity but I have a few bets. Generally the big ones come out but I missed completely on one occasion and it went the other way. I think it was because the big handfuls the dealer took mixed a slug of small ones in with section I was betting for. This isn’t an exact science. The following dealer isn’t really trackable either. I try tracking aces instead and although a few came out, I never had the chance to bet on them.

The next dealer comes on. After the shuffle all the big cards appear to have ended up at the front of the six decks. I have to cut at least a deck from either end so I cut from the bottom and get ready to start betting after that first deck. +5 after the first 50 cards, here we go, I’m not stopping until –10 or the end of the shoe, whichever is sooner. It gets to –11 less than a deck from the cut card and stays there until the end. A great feeling when it works out. The dealer has bust almost every hand. I’m well ahead now, I play a bit longer but my head is swimming now although I’ve only played a couple of hours.

I can’t really carry on. I’ll take a break, eat and decide whether to go back in later. They aren’t as busy in there as casino 1 and that loss may hurt them a bit. Their paranoia in changing the shuffle so early indicates they are a bit nervous at the big bets. My fear is that they may conclude that I’m doing something even if they don’t know what it is and bar me on that basis alone. The classic quandary: play it hard and for as long as you can until you get barred or play it less intensely in the hope of greater longevity but with the risk that the game or the good conditions will disappear before long or that you’ll get barred soon anyway. There is another factor at play here: I know that casino 2 has a sister casino elsewhere. I’ve been there before and noticed nothing special but this shuffle may well have been introduced there too. It is a bigger place too so may take the action more willingly. This being the case, I want to check that one out before getting a possible group barring. As it happens, I’ll be in a position to check that other one out before I leave for home so I’ll know what I should do for next time.

Right now though, I’m in no fit state to play any game. After a couple of hours I decide to try casino 1, do normal counting and return to casino 2 later on. My solo game at casino one doesn’t last long. I lose a few hundred then the table gets full so I leave. I feel particularly jaded. I think switching between counting, tracking and locating at casino 2 took quite a toll on me. I need to sleep. My sleeping pattern has been very inconsistent this past week. I get up, have breakfast, watch some tv, try to sleep again before starting play (sometimes successfully, sometimes not), play, eat possibly nap again, play eat, play, finish for the day. The result has been that although I’ve started early and finished quite late most days, I haven’t done all that many hours as there has been a lot of idle time in between. When the casino is only open at night, you start then and try to pack in as much play as the opening hours and your own state of alertness allow. Now that I’ve got much more freedom to pick and choose my hours I haven’t done any more work than normal and actually feel more tired. Perhaps this is because I haven’t been able to follow a consistent routine on this trip and I am only just beginning to get into one here now, just as it’s time to leave.

So I go back to my room intending to sleep for a while, then eat and play some more. In the event I sleep for nine hours, so a short day for me then.

Day 15

Ok then, lets get some hours in. Unfortunately, I still have a headache. Breakfast and sleep it is. I should be able to play a few hours at casino 1, eat and be in casino 2 not long after it opens. This is my last day in this town before I move on so I’d like to give it a full day as I don’t know if I’ll be able to play much tomorrow.

I get up, shower, change and head into casino 1. I have a disastrous start and am struggling from then on. I get to within $1000 of level then end up at my lowest point of the day a couple of shoes later. I rally a bit later on, only to fall back one more. It’s one of those days- the dealer always seems to pull 21 just when they need it. Twice in a row I doubled my 11 for 21 only to see the dealer get blackjack. After 4 hours I break for dinner. After dinner I try casino2. they don’t seem to bother with the counter measures and very happily, I get the standard shuffle. This really is a great game, the feeling of actually knowing the tens and aces are about to come is wonderful. I go down early on then as the dealer is getting all the blackjacks. I come back strongly later on for a decent win although not as much as I lost at casino 1. A few of the dealers vary the shuffle a bit but all are playable just some are better than others. I naturally get a lot of attention but the fact that I’m getting the normal shuffle a lot of the time is encouraging. They still seem friendly enough despite a decent win today and a bigger win yesterday. Time to see if the shuffle is the same at the sister casino on my transit day tomorrow.

I go back into casino 1 just for the free buffet. I see a table is free on my way from the buffet and decide to play a few shoes before I leave. Just as I start to play one of the locals sits down as well. I decide to leave right after the shoe as this game isn’t really good without the solo game because of the bad cut. He starts asking me this and that, why I’m in the area, what I do for a living etc, etc. He also doubles soft 19 v 8, which I’ve never seen before. Naturally, the count goes up, I win a little mainly because I win one of my 2 hands with a BJ or double and lose the other. Then towards the end of the shoe it turns. The dealer still refuses to bust but I’m not getting the hands any more and I finish a few hundred down. Expensive dinner. However I decide to play the bonus game they are having as a promotion here. I’ve been collecting the tickets that they give with every BJ you get and the more money you have on it the greater the number of tickets. I decide to see what I can get for them. It turns out that the promotion is quite generous. The manager seems quite surprised at the number of tickets I have accumulated and I am able to have several goes at the game. I’m quite lucky on the game they have and actually make my trip expenses in the 10 minutes it takes. Even though I was lucky it’s quite a significant bonus. The manager is happy to see me leave with that sum, although I’ve lost a fair sum at his establishment over the past few days, which obviously helps. Nevertheless, this is a big chunk of that given right back to me. What a pity it’s only a promotion.

Day 16

Checked out a couple of the places in the capital. The sister place to the one in the town I’ve just left has a different shuffle, what a shame. Another one has a few new interesting sidebets which may or may not be profitable, I’ll have to do some sums. I go to a third one just to see if anything has changed. I hear that word again: “Blacklist”. I am especially surprised at this one as I took a lot of money from this place a year and a half ago and they still let me in after they had changed the conditions. Even when other counters were barred I was not, possibly because I’d had large losses before recovering and getting a good win from subsequent trips. I was last in there 6 months ago and was not turned away and just played minimum long enough to ascertain how the rules had changed, so they have not had any reason themselves to bar me since I was last there. It shows that they really set store by this blacklist even though it presumably only needs one (possibly mistaken) casino to decide you are a threat. The fact that I was here only a few months previously narrows down the list of suspects of who put me on the blacklist. It’s quite worrying that I can lose through this list a casino that didn’t previously suspect me. Oh well, time to go home, no blackjack for me for a couple of weeks.

2007-01-31T13:54:00.000-08:00

2007 Trip One

I’ve never been to this city before, although I used to play in this country regularly. I've just come on a social visit, but I've recieved some intersesting information from another card counter, who go it second-hand, so it's not the kind of info I'd have acted on if it I weren't coming here anyway, as it's a long way away for me. I check out the conditions in the various casinos. All fairly standard. Playable but not really worth a special trip for. However, the I haven't reached the specific casino I've been told about. Quite frankly, the information I got sounded rather too good to be true, even the friend who gave it to me was rather doubtful but having been here before he was confident I'd find some reasonable games to play.

I enter the place reported to have the good game. The information is on the whole accurate, albeit with a few differences which make it less profitable than the information indicated. nevertheless, the game looks very good. The only problem is that even midweek, the tables are crowded, so I won’t get many bets out. Those that I do make however should be very profitable. I sit down and the dealer is very sloppy, he admits that he is usually on craps rather than blackjack and it shows. Big hands, taking big handfuls when he shuffles. I get a lot of bets out and the cards I want are there but I lose.

Day Two

I need to check into a hotel closer to the casino where I’m playing. It’s the weekend and the hotel rates skyrocket between Thursday and Saturday. I find a fleapit place for two days. I won’t get comped if the game is really good in order to limit my exposure in the casino, so I want to keep those expenses low. The game is still crowded, even on the less busy shifts and I still can’t win.

Day Three

I decide to get comped. My win rate is not high enough to worry about being more exposed as a result. One bonus though, the pit boss misreads my ID and I end up with a false name. The cards are still against me and I’m not getting many bets out.

Day Seven

I’ve decided to play the graveyard shift in the hope that fewer players will mean more space and a better game. I’ve had one wining day out of six so far and on the terms of the game I’m significantly behind, although not much by normal standards. What a great game, with only one or two other players at the table, I am getting a lot more action and the hands are winning. I get back most of my deficit in that half-session.

Day 15

A very nice turnaround. Playing graveyard has been central to this. Even early on it can be busy because there are so few tables open, but there tends to be a period around 8AM between the late nighters going to bed and the day players getting up which brings a heads up game or one with just one other player. This golden hour or two sees me make lots of bets and hit a lot of good cards. This sets up my bet rate and EV for the day so it matters less that it’s less profitable later on. Of course, I’ve not won every time I’ve played early in the morning but with those conditions I’ve had some good wins and am well ahead now, having been significantly behind.

Day 16

I’ve had a few days of R&R out of town and I feel great and ready to play. I am aware that it has been a couple of weeks since I first appeared in the casino I’ve been playing most and wonder if I should do something to limit my exposure. I decide not to get rated so often and maybe only give in my card when I’m already losing on the session. I did this occasionally before I went away and the hope is that they may not have me marked down for all of my win so far.

My first session appears to contradict this however. I’m asked by the pit boss on the day shift if I want to be rated. I’ve been playing for around 30 minutes and tell him that I’ll probably be leaving shortly so it’s not worth it. On my next big bet I hit blackjack when the pit boss happens to be close by. “Ah,” he says, “That’s why you didn’t want to be rated- so when you cash out your 12,000 nobody will know who you are.” This takes me aback. That figure is very close to how much I’m up at that time. How did he know this? I’ve never seen him before, if he knows that I’m winning that much he evidently knows who I am, which makes his comment irrelevant. If that was anything other than a coincidence it also means that my efforts to disguise my win have not been altogether successful. On the plus side, if he does know all about me, it shows that they are cool with my action.

Day 19

It’s finally happened. I get on graveyard to find my favourite dealer alone on the table. This is a change from the last few days as there seemed to be at least 3 other players most of the time with averagely good dealers so the conditions haven’t been as good. Now I have the perfect situation but I can’t exploit it as I hear the command “Shuffle up” as soon as I put out my first big bet. I had a sense it was about to happen as a manager I had never seen before, possibly the shift manager, was loitering near my table, although it’s the pit boss that gave the order. It takes me by surprise because I haven’t won all that much in the past week (or indeed played as I took a break away after day 15) and I thought my exposure was still at a reasonable level. It’s the first time this has happened to me, usually you get a bad cut or get told to leave. Evidently they don’t think I’m counting cards. I decide to ask for a breakfast comp to see how the pit boss reacts and to give me an excuse to leave the table and to think how I will react. I play the next shoe in order to avoid making it too obvious. To my surprise he gives the comp without any hesitation or reluctance. I retire to the coffee shop to decide whether to go back to the blackjack again and how to react if I do and find them shuffling up on me once more.

I go back on the basis that it would look that I’ve been affected by their actions if I don’t, having played a minimum of two hours on graveyard each time I’ve played that shift previously. I play a shoe and they shuffle up on me on my next big bet. This time no command comes but the dealer simply takes the remaining cards out of the shoe and shuffles. I look around at the pit boss and ask why. He looks away but mumbles “ Management decision”. On the next shoe I have a bet early on and the shuffles comes again. There’s one other guy at the table and when he asks why I say I’ll let him play and that it’s no fun if I can’t raise my bet. I’m mildly irritated that this happened when I had great conditions and that if there had been a fuller table more comment would have come from the players.

I try the day shift. No problem! Maybe I’ll be ok on the swing shift as well. So it proves. It helps that the weekend is coming so there are more players and will be less easily noticed.

Day 20

Being the weekend hotel rates have risen and I decide to test the water by asking for a room comp. Amazingly I get it, so that must mean nothing is on the computer about me. Emboldened I go downstairs to play. Busy, but I’m against a good dealer and I’m hitting the aces regularly, although I’m not winning much. The other players have noticed too, start calling me “Mr Lucky” and one of them tells her husband that she is going to raise her bet the next time I do. Fortunately perhaps, I don’t get a bet for a while and she leaves for dinner before I bet again.

Day 22

I’m a moron. I’ve run into trouble on swing shift on my last night before leaving. Most frustrating. After the trouble on graveyard perhaps I should have played elsewhere for the final few days to be sure the game would be there for me when I came back. In my defence once I got into trouble on grave I had to find out if it was the same on the other shifts, if only to prevent me wasting a journey here the next time I’m in the country. Plus I’ve not won overall during the past week, and I’ve not played swing shift for days, so I thought swing of all shifts would be cool if the day shift was.

However, I made the mistake of coming back on the same shift a couple of hours after seeing the heat come down. Schoolboy error. Now presumably they have some good photos of me and will keep an eye out in future. What an idiot. Earlier on I had put a bet out, hit an decent hand but lost. The pit boss was eyeballing me and got on the ‘phone. I left after that but I thought the fact that I was losing on that session would give me the benefit of the doubt so I went back in later on. This time the same pit boss comes up to the different pat of the pit I was before and mumbles something to the dealer. I hear something about the shuffle but not much else. Next shoe lasts one hand only. The dealer had given me a wan, almost apologetic smile before it happened so I suspected something like this was about to happen. The next shoe is the same and the one after that. Annoyingly there’s only one other player at the table and he’s drunk so doesn’t make a fuss. Typical-usually the tables are crowded when I want to play and have a fast game. I ask the pit boss why and get “Management decision” again. I have no choice but to leave. A regular player would do the same so that won’t look strange. I think I may just have looked suspicious to that one boss as I’ve not seen him before and that it was just on that particular night that I got the heat, especially as I’ve won very little on Swing shift. At least I know to avoid swing shift now and they won’t be aware I’m back in town when I return and be able to tell day shift if they have not done so already.

So the trip ends frustratingly. However, without the graveyard shift the game is not that great anyway as it’s so crowded most of the time during the rest of the day. Still, one game less is never a good thing and it was the best one in town. At least it’s on a win, (even though I’ve won very little in the final week ) and I’ve made about as much as I should have over the trip as a whole.

2006-12-18T07:20:00.000-08:00

2006 Trip 7

Day One

My flight in was ok. I’m tired so I sleep for a few hours after I check in to my hotel. Consequently I start a little late. I’ve been to this casino before and they cut me down and give me half a shoe very quickly but the rules still justify playing. It has been several months since I was last here so the cut may not deteriorate for a few hours. I sit down at the table there is one other player. The cut is a deck. This lasts for about five shoes. I realise they have remembered who I am when one of the managers comes over and says something to the dealer. Up until now the dealer has been speaking to me in the language of most of the other clientele who come across a nearby border to play. After the manager comes across, she speaks to me in my native language and the next shoe gets cut at the 2.5 deck level. From then on all dealers speak to me in my own language and give me a bad cut. My long day soon catches up with me and after less than three hours I am ready for bed but have a nice win.

Day Two

The cut varies between 2.5 and 3 decks. I get a solo game for most of the night. This does me little good as I go behind early on and struggle from thereon in. Halfway through the session I recover to get a few hundred bucks ahead, only to have a run of 3 or 4 bad shoes which puts me at my lowest point for the night. I pull some back only to lose even more. At one point I am $10,000 behind, but am delighted to leave with a deficit of half that. My win yesterday means that I’m not losing too much on the trip. When in the middle of the bad run it looked like I would be faced with a large deficit to recoup at the start of the trip. At least now I’m only a small win from being even again.

Hand of the day: 2 spots of $250. A8 and 2-2 against a six. The count is sufficient to double the soft 19 and I catch a picture. I split the twos and receive an ace on the first one. I double that for a five for eighteen. I get another 2 on the second one. A nine, I double the eleven for an eight. I get a seven on the final two and double that and have an ace. I now have four hands of $500 each with 18, two 19s and a hand of twenty. Dealer pulls: 6 and a picture to make 21 and take everything. I had four good hands and lost them all. On those bad days the dealer always seems to creep to 17 from a small card when you need a bust, but finds the combinations for 21 when you have hands of 19 and 20.

Day 3

I have changed hotels as there was too much noise and kept getting woken up either by drilling below me or the bells of the nearby church. This time there was space in my first choice. I enter the casino half an hour after opening to find the blackjack table full. They are in the process of opening another that but that one is nearly full too. I decide to take an early dinner. I come back to find a third table has been opened but that is full as well. I managed to get a seat at one of them, but the game is very slow. I do have a nice run. One of the other tables empties and I switch t that one. After a couple of hours I hit some great shoes, the dealer busting consistently.

Hand of the day: 2x $250, A7 and 6-6 v 5. Double the soft 18 for an eight. I split the sixes. Another six. I split again. I catch a five and double it for a seven. I catch an eight on the next one. On the third six I get another one. Ten. Final six: five, doubled for a nine. I now have a 8 bets out for $2000. Dealer pulls: picture, picture. All bets win, so different from the big hand the previous night.
The run continues. I end up 10,000 ahead.

Day 4

The management are still cool with me despite last night’s big win. They cut me down but apart from that they let me be. I find myself on the table with a local counter. He’s betting small but playing fairly solidly. I saw him briefly on my first night here and thought he was counting then but I don’t think he realised I was doing it too. When the count goes up on my first shoe I back one of his boxes in order to increase the number of hands played at the high count rather than keeping more boxes open myself. On the box of his I have backed there is A-8 against a six. I manage to convince him to double. We catch a ten and the dealer busts. The local guy now realises I’m counting. I change tables at the end of the shoe. Some time later the local player sees me with my top bet out. The dealer is shuffling at his table so he comes over and backs my hands.

Day 5

I have a fan. One of the foreign players backed my box for a short time a couple of days ago and saw a good spell for me. He is playing behind me more consistently now. I'm not sure how to feek about this. On the one hand the casino may be concerned that a normal player is backing me so systematically. I certainly do not want them to believe that I am colluding with him in some way as this may be enough to get me a worse cut or even barred. On the other hand, it benefits me for him to play one box and then close it when I bet more, since he eats up cards at negative counts. However, when there are just the two of us at the table it may be obvious that he’s following my bet. I could tell him not to follow me but don’t want to admit I’m playing systematically. He’s a nice guy and to his credit does ask me if he can back me but I don’t want to collude in this fashion in this casino. He leaves after a few hours. Then I have over an hour and a half of nothing but negative counts. I then go down some more, rally and lose $2,500 on the final shoe of the night. Although there is nothing magical about leaving on a loss, it is rather irritating to have such a bad finish when I had come back nicely just before that.

Day 6

The foreign player is still following me. He’s not betting big but it does increase my exposure in the casino. I don’t think the fact that he opens an extra box on negative counts is worth much as he slows the game down enough when making decisions and placing his bets to negate any benefit. I know he has to drive an hour over the border to this casino so if he doesn’t see me the next day he may presume I’ve left and not come until the weekend. I lose again, around the same amount as last night. Tomorrow I’ll check out another casino in the next nearest city.

Day 8

The place I checked out last night had fairly standard rules so I’ve come back to the casino I’ve been playing from the start. It’s very quiet tonight. I start later than usual and find the local counter on the table. I take an early dinner in the hope that the second table will be open by the time I return. After dinner, one table is free, the counter is on the other. I have a great run near the end of the night and win back the money I lost over the last two nights. it may be time to move on to a different casino as i've been here for over a week and am nicely ahead.

Day 10

I’ve changed countries, to a place I’ve been before, but it’s been over a year. It’s the weekend and it’s particularly busy as they are holding a prize draw. They do look after the players here, not only with the draws for cars every month or so but with a generous comping system. It obviously works as the casino is full every weekend but especially for the draws. Most of the players are foreigners and have come to this place rather the casinos closer to home. I’m always happy to keep my expenses low and it’s straightforward getting my comp, I don’t have to worry about asking for it and risking seeming too keen on the freebies when I routinely bet so much more then the comp’s value. In addition you may draw attention to yourself more if you accept the comp but I’m not worried about this here as so many players get comped in some fashion. I get in early and play before the place fills up too much. I leave with a small win.

Day 11

They’re giving away the car today and the casino is very busy. It shows that if you give people a good deal they will come long distances as some have come from very far away. My hotel seemed to have just casino players as guests. They have all tables open early on. It’s busy but the game is fast. I win a decent amount again.

Day 12

I get in early and there are already lots of players, including a card counter that I encountered last time I was in this region. He sees me, we acknowledge each other and I try to find another table. He is playing heads up and his table is the only one I with more than one spot free but there’s no question of sitting down with him as he plays big and the pattern would be rather obvious as our bets would go up and down in tandem. I’m surprised so many people are still here as everyone seemed to be checking out of my hotel, they must all want to gamble for a few hours before leaving. I decide to go back to my room and relax for a few hours and hope some space frees up.

By the evening there are many fewer players and I find an empty table. I go up very quickly but still no heat despite the fact that it is much quieter. I drop some later on only to recover by the end of the night.

Day 13

You can definitely see the weekend is over and it’s out of season. I’m the only player on my table for most of the night and there aren’t many players around at all. Quite sad really, I like the atmosphere when people are around, although of course a solo game is what I want. On the downside, fewer players means more attention on me. I think I’ve established myself here but management opinions can easily change, so I won’t overplay this place. I have other places relatively nearby I want to check out. I lose a bit back.

Day 15

I’ve gone a few hours south to a place that I have not been to in a year and a half because I found them dealing an incomplete shoe. I’m back because there is evidence to suggest that it has been taken over by a group that has casinos elsewhere in the country. This turns out to be wrong in the sense that it is the casino that has taken over the group. I know this because the owner/manager that was there last time is still in position. The office door was ajar and I saw him at his desk. I check out the rules anyway and find that they are not as good as they used to be. In addition the maximum is much lower than it was. So it's time to move on again.

Day 16

On the road again. The nearest two casinos are of the same group to this last one and at least one of them is closed right now. They may very well deal a good game but the cheating ethos may pervade the group. In any case the low maximum encourages me to travel further on. I go to a city from which I can go south or East. East is closer, the casino is richer and I lost there last time, but the game is not as good. South has a smaller maximum and is a lot further away but is a better game but would leave me better placed to travel elsewhere afterwards. South it is. I buy my ticket and wait for my connection. I have a few hours to kill so I go around the city and see that a new casino has opened. I have dinner and then check out the new place. It’s of the same group as another one is the country and the rules are the same, fairly standard and a very low minimum. Still, it’s a nice place and warmer than outside so I sit for a while. A dealer comes up to me and says hello. She knows me from when I played at the casino east from here. She explains that she is from the city we are in and came back as this one opened and the other one closed. This is of course news to me, I’m happy that I chose to go south now, although slightly nonplussed that the casino took a lot of money off me and then closed. Nevertheless it has saved me a trip for next time I’m in the area.

Day 17

Having thought that I’d made the right choice going south I am grateful to have met that dealer as know I would be thinking I’d wasted a trip right now. The casino south has changed hands and the conditions aren’t as good as they were. At least now I know that altered conditions are better than no conditions at all, which is what I’d have found had I made a different choice and headed east. This looks like the end of the trip for me. I’ll stay in this area until I can make transport arrangements from here. The trip is shorter than I had intended so I’ll probably get back on the road again sooner than I anticipated at the start of this trip. I win a small amount.

Day 18

It being the weekend, the casino is busy. I win a little again but crowded tables and low limits mean it's something of a grind. I seem to have done a lot of distance but fewer hours than I'd hoped, but the cards have been good to me again, so I have no cause for compaint. It's been a pretty good year and it's nice to end it on a high.

2006-12-17T06:23:00.000-08:00

Glossary of Blackjack Terms

Barring Exclusion of player from the casino

Break When a total of over 21 is reached. The hand therefore loses.

Bust See break

Comp Short for Complimentary this term describes any item or service given to a player by a casino in return for a certain level of play over a given period of time. The higher the and the longer the hours, the better the comps. Typically comps are given in the form of free meals and hotel rooms, but can include tickets to shows in the casino, casino merchandise, limousine rides and if a high roller plays particularly big, even air fare.

Casino Host Employed by some casinos to liaise with players (especially high rollers) to make them feel happy and comfoertable playing at the casino and to arrange the details of their stay. Often the person who decides which comps you get (and who tries to give you as little as possible according to some cynical viewpoints).

Cut After the shuffle in a multi-deck game, the dealer places a plastic card into the decks, typically between one and two decks from the end. Its apparent function is to show the dealer it is time to shuffle. When this appears, the hand in progress will be completed and then the dealer will take the remaining cards out of the shoe and shuffle them with those that have been played and places in the discard rack. The size of the cut often varies between casinos as it is also often used as a defence against card counters, since profitable situations are more likley to occur towards the end of the shoe, when more cards have been seen, giving rise to a greater probability that an excess of high value cards remain to be played. If a player is suspected of card counting, or perhaps just if the casino wants to protect itself against somebody betting big without having any particular suspicion.

Cut (2) After shuffling the dealer hands a plastic card to one of the players to cut the decks. This shows that the dealer has not shuffled in a particular way inimical to the interests of the players since through this procedure it is ultimately a player who determines the order in which the cards come out. After this in a shoe game the dealer will place the plastic card near the back of the cards and place them in the shoe ready for play.

Day Shift See shifts. Typically from around 12PM until around 8PM.

Double ( or Double Down) Option of the player to place a wager equal to that of the hand.Usually allowed only on combinations of two cards and only one card is allowed after the bet is doubled. some casinos place restrictions on which totals my doubled, for example 10 and 11 only.

Expected Value (orEV) Amount the winning player will make on average at any given game. eg a game may have an EV of $30 an hour. five hours play at this game therefore gives an expected value $150. Of course the actual result may vary wildly to this figure, it being merely an average calculated according to the conditions involved. The rules, cut and speed of the game all determine how high the EV is for a particular game.

Graveyard Shift See shifts. Typically from around 4AM until around midday. Usually the quietest shift, hence the name.

Heads Up One player alone against the dealer. Also Solo Game

Heat Unwelcome attention from the casino management. Often results in worsening conditions or exclusion of player from the game.

Negative Count See Positive Count

Positive Count Using a count where low value cards such as 5 and 6 are given a plus value, eg +1, and where high cards such as pictures and aces are give a minus value, eg -1, a positive count indicates that more small cards have been dealt then large ones. A sufficiently high positive count would justify an increased bet by the player. A negative count indicates the opposite.

Resplit When splitting, if another card of equal rank is received, the player is usually permitted to split again, although there may be a limit as to how many times this is allowed. Many places have a limit of three splits, making a maximum of four hands in total from the original hand. See Split

Shifts Casinos are often open for several hours a day so the staff are organised into shifts, typically changing sometime in the evening if the casino opens in the afternoon and at luchtime, early evening and very early morning if the casino is open 24 hours. See graveyard shift, day shift and swing shift

Shoe In a multi-deck game, the box from which the cards are dealt.
Shoe (2) A group of hands between shuffles, eg "I was doing ok, then I had a really bad shoe", "the last shoe of the night was great"

Shuffle Machines Ostensibly to save time, these machines are used to shuffle the cards. Two sets of cards are generally used. When the shoe is over the dealer takes out the set in the machine and replaces it with the set that has just been played. One advantage frothe casinos is that they protect against shuffle tracking. One disadvantage is that they are often noisy. Players do not like them.

Shuffle machines, Continuous. These machines take the place of a shoe and a shuffle machine as described above, with the added function of continually riffling the cards. Only one set of cards need be used. When a hand is over, instead of placing the used cards in the discard rack, the dealer puts the cards back into the machine. As the cards that have just been dealt could conceivably reappear soon after being put back into the machine this generally protects against card counting.

Shuffle Tracking Technique whereby groups of cards are followed through the shuffle and cut in or out of play according to whether they are good or bad for the player. Has the advantage of beingallowing the player to bet from the first hand of the shoe so does not have an obvious pattern.

Solo Game See Heads Up.

Soft Total Any hand including an ace in which all other cards add up to a total of less than eleven. Since an ace can be counted as either 1 or 11, only one card may be required to a make a high total (with the ace counting as 11), but the hand cannot be bust since even with a picture the other cards would total less than 12 with the ace counting as one. For example ace-6 would be Soft 17. Pulling a 4 would give 20 (11+6+4), but a 5 makes 12. (1+6+5). Soft Double is a doubled bet on such a total (in those casinos that allow it), the same rules as for other doubled totals apply.

Split If a player has a hand consisting of two cards of the same rank ( for example example 8-8) an exta wager equal to the exisitng one may be placed in order to make two separate hands. The hands can then played in the normal way, with exception of a pair of aces which usually can only receive one card. If another card of equal rank is received, the player is usually permiited to split again See Resplit

Stiff Any hand less than 17 which risks busting if a card is taken, eg hard 16.

Swing Shift See shifts. Typically from around 8PM until around 4AM and generally the busiest shift.

2006-10-16T04:40:00.000-07:00

2006

Trip 6

Day one

Well, it's been a while since I was last here and I'm not sure what I'll find. The great rules in my favourite place were changed months ago, which is why I didn't come back here sooner. It does look like they've been hit too, the cut is even worse than it was before. I'm not surprised as it was a card counter convention last year,
So many players found the game that it was unlikely to last for long. One of the other counters told me that the casino had lost around $300,000 on blackjack in the previous few months. I don't know if that's true and I didn't see many players playing very heavy but it 's possible with the rule that they had. They had started barring players though, so I hoped that the casino management would keep those rules a little longer. I had escaped being barred despite being well ahead, probably because of a nightmare start on my first trip there. Alas, they evidently decided they'd taken too much punishment and I got word shortly after my last trip there that the rules had been changed.

I've flown in here quite late so I'm not going to play tonight. I'll just check out a few places to see what the conditions are.
I go into casino A, formerly of the great rules. I sit down at the only table open and play the minimum allowed. They don't seem to have recognised me, which
is good since I'm playing a lot smaller than usual in order to find out the extent of the rule changes. Wow, the cut card goes straight in at the half-shoe mark. No manager has come over to the table to tell the dealer to do that and he didn’t seem to recognise me so this must be the standard cut in this place now.
I play for a short time; the rules are the same except for the best one. I'll come back tomorrow to see if other dealers are cutting the same amount of cards out of the shoe.

With the rule change the game is borderline playable for me. There must be better conditions than this elsewhere in town. The cut is generally bad all over town. There are several casinos here but the competition does not appear to improve the cut anywhere. Some places give a reasonable cut until they see any kind of money on the table and change it as a knee-jerk reaction, rather than through suspicion of the player.

Others give a bad cut to everyone regardless. This is now the case with casino A. They obviously don't want too take any risks with blackjack, even though this may cost them profit because they now shuffle more often and therefore spend less time actually dealing the game. With the rule change the game is borderline playable for me.

I walk a few minutes to Casino B. I fully expect them to give me a bad cut once the big bets come out as I’ve seen them do it to someone who was betting big but who was an awful player. In the event I don't get the chance. The professional's nemesis: Shuffle machines! Fortunately they only seem to have one machine so if I opened a high limit table I'd probably get a regular shoe. Since they are likely to worsen the conditions on a normal game I'm not too worried as it's unlikely I'd have a good game there for long in any case but the presence of machines threaten to start a disturbing trend in a city that was previously free of them.

Day Three

I've checked out a few more casinos now and I've found one with a cut a little worse than 2 decks out of 6. Not ideal but better than the others. They were
quite tolerant yesterday as they didn't worsen the cut when they saw the big bets, as I had expected them to. It's rather quiet and for much of the time I am the only player in the casino. This is good in that I'm heads up against the dealer but it does mean that the managers have little to do besides watch me play. If they see my bet jump up too much they could get suspicious. Fro this reason I tend not to bet quite so aggressively and won't go from a small bet to my biggest one if they are there, especially if I've been betting small for some time before or if it's near the end of the shoe
As there is awareness that card counters bet big nearer the end of the shoe, by which time a profitable accumulation of high value cards may have occurred. This manager has seen me a bet big a few times now and any variation in the cut is coming from the different dealers rather than any management decision. I have a nice win tonight and leave at around 2AM.

Day 5

I have decided to explore another town, since the conditions available in the capital could be better than they are. I had a small win last night and I don’t know if the casino will take much more action if I keep winning. I’m still the only player in the place most of the time, although the management still appear friendly enough. In addition, I haven’t booked any accommodation in the capital and it will be more expensive than the rate on the Internet. Outside the capital, you can probably get a decent room cheaply for the walk-up rate.
The town I visit is only a short train journey away. I got a tip from a dealer in another country who is from this town that there are 4 casinos here, so I’ve come in the hope that at least one will have a game at least as attractive as any in the capital. I don’t know what any of them are like as the dealer wouldn’t be drawn by my casual enquiries and I didn’t want to insist for fear of showing myself too interested in BJ rules in other countries and jeopardising my game there. It’s always something of a gamble visiting these places and often you’ve made a wasted trip but you find a good game often enough to make it worthwhile. Some information can be gained from the Internet, but in my experience none of the casino listing sites are completely accurate and some can be seriously out of date. Even if the information is accurate about a casino there is rarely any information about the rules or conditions so there is no substitute for checking out the place yourself unless you receive reliable information from another player.
Well, the information I got from the dealer in another country is sort of true. There are indeed 4 casinos if you include two places that are actually slot machine halls, which happen to have a roulette or two and blackjack table. In the event neither of these places seem to be using those tables in any case but I get the names of two other places from the employee in one of them. The first name he gives me I know about and have already checked and is not really favourable: fairly standard rules, small maximum. The second one I check out and it looks like a slot machine place as well. It has 2 roulette and a blackjack and I’m asked to come back later as not open yet even though we’re already well into the evening. I don’t hold out much hope in any case, small places like these rarely have good conditions.

Then again, there are always exceptions. To my surprise the maximum is quite high, greater than the main casino in town. I notice from the chips that it is part of one of the smaller casino groups in this country, so they may be able to take the action. They obviously aren’t used to many big players however because as soon as I put fairly small amounts on, way short of the maximum, one of the managers almost rushes over to see. I envisage really getting some attention when the big bets go on and sure enough, I’m playing to the gallery before long. Three managers are watching me. I start winning, not massive amounts, only about $2000 but enough for them to go to get a new fill of large chips as the tray isn’t really equipped for bets of this size, the biggest chips they had in the tray to start with were worth around $30. They are sweating the action a little.

An hour in and I’m feeling a bit uncomfortable. I’ve had managers sweat the action before but not as blatantly. I have a bad shoe and they relax a little. This is soon followed by an even worse one, the count went up and up, so the big cards I was betting for didn’t come out until later on in the shoe, then the dealer kept getting the tens and aces. I’m behind, only one manager is watching me now. The luck goes back and forth. At one point I’m losing $3000, then recover to evens before falling back. The atmosphere in the pit is now fine, one manager in particular is quite talkative, he makes a few comments about the game and we have a laugh and a joke now and then. The cut if anything has improved they’re happy enough to see me bet. Because of the late start, tiredness begins to catch up with me and I decide to leave having worked fewer hours than I normally would in a session. I end up $2000 down. I hope that I have established myself as a wild player in the minds of the managers, so that the conditions I had tonight can continue for a few more days.

Day6

They seem comfortable with me now, perhaps because I lost last night. The young guy who seems to be in charge was very friendly all night, even when I started winning. Early on he even asked me (in a very friendly way) how and why I decided to increase my bet. I told him I increased if I felt it was going to be a good shoe depending on whether the early hands were good or not, trying to spot a lucky streak. He seemed satisfied with that and didn’t push for anything more specific.
I can’t work out if all those guys are managers are just pit bosses. There are a lot of them for such a small place if they are managers, but they dress fairly casually, no tie, no suit except for the one who does seem to be in charge, so I don’t know if they are pit bosses. I had four them watching me at one point. I pretended to do look around a double take at them all watching the game but they just thought I needed another drink and called the waitress. I wonder if they realise that even normal players can find this attention disconcerting, I imagine not. I’ve known cases however where big losing players have stopped going to a particular casino due to such scrutiny. People like to feel comfortable after all, and not feel they’re doing anything suspicious simply because they bet big.

Anyhow, the money goes back and forth, I’m playing in local currency and at one point I have to change some more. After about three hours I get another player at the table. He subscribes to the to the suicide box technique beloved of some idiot players whereby a minimum bet is placed in addition to one or more larger ones. The player then uses the hand with this small bet to attempt to change the subsequent cards the dealer receives, often by crazy moves, such as hitting on hard 20, or splitting 10s against a 10. Having said that, this guy was not afraid of hitting soft 20 v 10 on his big bet.

The manager has replaced the dealer a few times. He says he likes to do it because I play an exciting game. Amazingly, he gives the best cut in the place, a deck off the back! This seems to have an effect on one of the other dealers but not all. I finish strongly and end up winning slightly more than I lost the day before.

Day 7

Managers all very friendly as I walk in, smiling and shaking my hand despite the fact I’m now winning a little against their casino. YM deals quite a lot, still with the great cut. Evidently thinks I play on “feeling” rather than any particular system but does tell me I’m a “dangerous player” because my bet goes up and down so much. I’m not worried since he says it with a smile on his face. It’s just a pity that some of the dealers don’t follow his lead and I’m surprised he hasn’t told them to cut like him. Perhaps he would rather them all deal a standard way to everyone and not think about that should have a better cut or not. It would have made a nice change nevertheless, since casino managers and pit bosses are quick enough to spread the word if they think I should get a worse cut than everyone else, so to have one hold the opposite view is extremely welcome. I have a couple of bad shoes near the end and finish $2000 down.
Hand of the day: big count, 2 x $200, YM sees I have big bets out and comes over to have a look. I get 20 and 77 v 5. I split the sevens, YM says “ two doubles!” “Do you think so?” I reply. “Yes” he says, “ two ten doubles”. Picture on the first hand, 7 on the other. Split the sevens again. 3 for 10 double. 10 on the double for 20. On the third seven I catch another 3. “How did you know?” I say laughing to YM. I double the 10 again for another picture. So I have a 17 with 200 on and three twenties, with 1000 on between them, for 1200 in all. Dealer draws: ace, eight, two, five. Her 21 beats everything, YM shakes his head in sympathy. “Did you know that would happen as well?” I ask. YM walks back to the roulette chuckling at my comment and leaves me to my six-bet loss on one hand that shows the difference one little card can make. If the last card had been a six or higher I would now be 12 bets better off. Only a 4 or 5 could have resulted in a loss on the hand, with a 4 much more preferable. Such moments show why this life is not for everyone, think about such things and you’ll go crazy.

Day 8

YM not in, the other managers/ pit bosses are there and also another guy, who appears to travel between different casinos of the group. Unsurprisingly, he is at my side all night, dealing to me occasionally (but unfortunately with a worse cut than YM). A bad start, I have to change more money up, but then a good run gets most of the night’s deficit back. Then the upswing comes, a few shoes where the dealer cannot make a hand, and is busting whatever the upcard. They get a new fill then another. The stack is growing, to deplete it a bit I go and buy back my currency I changed with the chips I have won.
Hand of the day: big count, 2x $200, I get 2,2 and 6,2 against a five. I split the pair of twos. Ace on the first one, double for another ace. Ace on the second one, I double for a picture. The count is high enough to double the eight so I do so, for a six. Not a decent hand amongst them. Dealer Draws: picture, picture for a $1200 win. Good to get a bust when you need one on a big hand like that.

Day Nine

I decided to check out another town.I originally intended to stay where I was for another night but with that big win I thought I’d leave it, a small casino will hurt from that result as it is and I don’t want to get barred from there if it means losing the one in the capital as well. In addition I felt rather exposed playing with big in a small place, especially when cashing out when it took a long time because they didn’t have many high denomination notes. You stand out and I didn’t feel 100% safe. After my big win word could get around a that I play with lots of money and someone could be waiting for me when I leave. So on the train I go, but there’s not much there, two places are quite interesting but the limits are too low.

Day 10

Back to the capital as I fly to another country tomorrow. Unfortunately it takes a lot longer to get there than I was led to believe on the internet. The departure times are different which means I arrive at the station much too early and have to wait, rather than staying in bed a little longer. The journey back is arduous, as I change trains in time to see my connecting train leave costing me another hour. At least I get to have lunch. Finally at my destination, I check in a try to get some sleep but cannot drift off. I'm not in an alert enough state to play so that’s another day gone. An early night then.

Day 11

Sometimes you get small signs that it won’t be your day. Checkout at my hotel is at 11AM, not the usual 12PM and my plane doesn’t leave for a few more hours so I try to negotiate a later departure at reception but they are intransigent. I pack, leave my bags and check my email before having lunch. Now it’s more or less time to leave. When you take as many flights as I do you try to avoid spending too much time at the airport so I tend to check in a little later than the recommended 2 hours before, especially if I’m near the airport and any delay is unlikely to cost too much time and make me too late. However I have nothing else to do so I might as well go now. Naturally, there being absolutely no time pressure, I make it to the airport in super quick time. I check in, wander around the concourse, look at the duty free, read my book, take my place near the gate, see that it’s nearly time to board and then almost immediately that the flight is delayed. Half an hour and we go through to board, but have to wait in the tunnel outside the plane doors for about 10 minutes. Nobody is going in at all. Then we get called back to the gate and have to wait some more. I’ve never seen this before. When we are allowed to go through again it’s quite chaotic because some of us have already given our boarding cards and only have the counterfoil. Some people just wave this at the boarding staff who try to make everyone show their stubs but can’t really inspect them as those who gave their boarding passes before are just strolling through.

At the other end it takes an eternity for the bags to appear on the carousel. Mine finally come and I go through to be approached by a taxi driver. This is where I nearly get fleeced. I should really have known better, since the taxis usually pull up and you get in , but some airports have accredited taxi drivers standing by, and he appears to have airport ID. This only my second time to this airport and the first at this terminal so I’m not certain about the system and agree to go with him. He’s parked nearby. We get in, he turns on the radio and I wait for him to turn on the meter but there doesn’t appear to be one. I ask him to turn it on but he says “it’s just one fixed price to the city” I ask him how much. “One fixed price anywhere in the city”. I ask gain. He casually gives me a price which is the equivalent to $50. The normal rate from the airport is less than $10. I leave the car as if it’s on fire and I’m round the back taking my bags out in an instant, at which the driver complains that I had got out when the door was locked. I suppress the urge to ask him why I was in that caseable to get out or tell him that I wouldn’t have done so were he not a robbing so-and-so. I cross towards the legitimate taxis and see the bus ready to leave for the centre. In a fit of frugality I get on. It’s crowded and I can’t really see out. I recognise a landmark close to my hotel but I can’t gauge how close I am since the view is obstructed. The only way is to get out and see. I do of course I am about two stops away for where I want to be and have to walk the rest of the way with my luggage. With everything I get to my hotel significantly later than intended.

A few hours sleep, a shower and a meal later and I’m ready to play. It’s past midnight but the casinos here are open particularly late so I’ll still get a decent session in. The first place I go to is busy, they have some kind of function on, lots of people all dressed up. One blackjack table becomes empty so I sit down and ask for the limit to be raised. To my surprise they refuse, probably because they don’t want to price a lot of people off the table. At that limit it isn’t really worth it especially since there probably will be other players on it who will slow the game down. I walk 15 minutes to the other one. More time lost. At least they open the table, and I have no luck. On my first big hand I get a pair of aces against a ten. I split them, for an eight on each. The dealer makes 20. That’s the closest I get to being in profit on the night. By the end I’m $9000 down. As I said, sometimes your luck just isn’t in whatever you do. Oh well, better to have a bad one at the start of your time at a place rather than at the end. This way there is plenty of time to recover and the management will be more relaxed if they see you lose first. Plus it feels much better to recover a loss than to get ahead early then lose it back.

Day 13

The last two days have been much better. I’m nearly level since I got here. The cut has started to move, which is especially irritating because I’m still losing against this casino this trip. I’m not sure whether the management have decided this or just the dealers wanting to protect the game. They still open another table when I want it in any case. Some dealers are much worse than others but perhaps they have been told to cut at a certain level and estimates of this vary.

Day 14

I change hotels as it’s rather noisy (and expensive) in the centre. As is often the case, the quality rises and the price decreases the further from the city you get. I play the other casino for the first time this trip. It’s smaller than the other one so I didn’t play here much last time. I play and start winning a little. Very soon a manager starts watching, quite rare for this place. What’s worse, he doesn’t seem friendly at all. At one point he leaves the pit only to sit at one of the empty tables and watch some more. I don’t get to put any more big bets on for a long time and still he watches. Then another player comes and really slows the game down so I leave. I say goodbye to the manager and meet with only another vaguely hostile stare. What is irritating is that I lost there on my last trip, so it can’t be the case that he remembered me winning from then. He just appears to have taken an instant dislike to me on very little evidence.

By contrast, the larger establishment is welcoming, they open another table as soon as I walk in and raise the limits for me. This despite the fact that I’m now ahead against them this trip and won last time as well (although it’s possible they don’t remember this). It could be because they are a bigger place that they are more relaxed about big bets here, but there are frequently some regular players betting big at the other one too, so my action can’t pose too much of a threat to their bottom line. Perhaps my face just doesn’t fit there.

At the larger one (casino C) I have a reasonable win. I have dinner then go to casino D. As it’s later now, the shift will have changed and that hostile manager will probably have left. This is the case, and they are just opening a table as I walk in. I sit down and play. It goes back and forth but after a couple of hours I get a bad run. I’m tired now and leave having lost around half my win from Casino C. I can’t seem to get a decent run at this place and I’m getting heat. Not exactly the best of all worlds.

Day 18

It’s been more of the same here. Casino C is giving me a much better game and as a bonus they give me a private table without me asking for it. I’m getting frustrated though because I can hardly win a big bet if I don’t hit an ace.

Day 20

I’m walking a great distance between the casinos trying to find a decent dealer. When I do it makes it worthwhile but I’m spending more time than I intended looking for a decent situation.

Day 22

I’ve decided to head out of the capital. The problem I found last time I went to another city in this country was the low limits. I’m going to a tourist town so I hope there’ll be enough money around for there to be higher limits. I miss the first train I want to catch despite allowing a reasonable amount of time to buy a ticket because the queues are so slow-moving at the station. They aren’t particularly long as all the kiosks are open (quite unusual in my experience), but everybody in front of me seems to have a particularly complicated enquiry to make. Not for the first time I find myself thinking that they shouldn’t allow this, especially with the internet, or at least have one booth where such enquiries aren’t permitted. I saw such an arrangement in Germany once and it worked well. This is why I bought my ticket at a travel agent the last time I travelled outside the capital, but I decided to leave late last night when everything was closed. Not to worry, I find a café and surf the net for a while. The journey is fine. Direct train to my destination, short taxi ride to the hotel. I catch up on my sleep.

I walk into the first casino. Good news: there is a sign for a higher limit. Bad news: no sidebet on the second table. This sidebet is what makes this game good (NB A sidebet is an optional bet that may be played in addition to your main blackjack bet. Uusally there is a rule limiting the amount to that bert on the main blackjack wager or a specific, smaller set of limits). I sit down and play and after a shoe ask for the higher limit. The manager agrees and tells another dealer to open the other table. I assume this is for any players who come in later wanting to play smaller, but it turns out they want me to change tables. I am surprised and of course disappointed as there is no sidebet on that one. I ask why he can’t just raise the limit on the one I’m already playing on but he says others may want to play small. I tell him he could then open that table but he said that the float is different. I have never heard this before and have no choice but to stay where I am and player the middle limit they have. After a few hours I get another player. With the game slowed down and the lower limts I leave for dinner.

After my meal I get back to see the first table empty but the second being played. I ask for the limit I played earlier but now can’t even have that since they are playing that limit on other table. I go to the next town over, 15 minutes away. I enter the casino fully expecting to be turned away since I’ve had trouble casinos of the same group in the capital and although I was never barred I had been told not to play blackjack when I went to another city in another of the group’s casinos. To my surprise I get in and they open a high limit table for me without any problem. The game is good. After an hour I’m about even and the manager comes over and says, “We’ve had information you’re not to play blackjack in this casino”. I’m surprised that it took an hour. Presumably my name is flagged on their computer system so if it didn’t come up when I went in, how did it come up later? Did an alarm go off somewhere in their headqaurters in the capital? I don’t say anything, just pick up my chips and go to the cage to cash them in. The manageress and a couple of heavies are still looming near and the atmosphere is distinctly uncomfortable. I don’t know what they expect me to do to warrant this type of measure. A pity, I reckon I could have had a good few days there at least. I’m didn’t even win much from them in the capital. They just panicked because there was another professional around at the time. It shows sometimes it doesn’t pay to play a place too long if they appear nervous at your play. Even so, for a group that size, they’ve scared very easily.

Day 23

Two down, one to go. The last and smallest of the three places in the area is left. Same situation as the other one: only one table with the sidebet but a big limit on it. This time I do get the limit I want on the table I want. What a great game. I have a nice win. I leave early as I’m tired. Normally I would have dinner but I didn’t want to risk someone else coming and lowering the limit, so I played longer in one stretch and tired myself our much more quickly. I’m not sure how long they’ll take this action as it is a quiet casino but I’ll stay for a couple more days at least if I can.

Day 24

It’s amazing how many dealers can’t shuffle properly. I hit a lot of good cards and have a nice win.

Day 25

I’m still in the town with the smaller casino and I go in early to try to get the bigger limit on the table I need with a different manager. If not I can always play smaller and then take a break before going to the other one. As it happens I don’t even get the table at $5 because before they even open the table someone else arrives wanting to play small. If he had come once the game was in progress they wouldn’t have lowered the limit but as it hadn’t started they can’t raise it for me now. If I make a fuss they’ll probably give me the other table without the sidebet. So it’s an early dinner for me. When I finish my meal there’s still some time before the other one opens so I got back to the one I tried earlier. The table is empty now but they still won’t give me the big limit so I play the middle limit and spread to 4 spots at high counts. I lose around $1000.

I go to the other one and get asked what limit I want. When I tell the manager, she tries to give me the other table with the bigger float but no sidebet and am forced to tell her why I want the first one. The game goes pretty well, quite steady. After 3 hours someone else comes and am forced to count. This coincides with a terrible run. I get tired so I take a taxi back to where I’m staying. I decide to look in on the larger one to see if I can get a quick hour’s play before going to bed as it’s nearby and if there are players on it ( especially with the lowest limit) I won’t have wasted much time or effort checking it out. Since I’m leaving to stay near the other one this will probably be the last time I play here, so I may as well try to get some of the money back I have lost against this casino. With today’s result so far I’m about level against the other one so I’m down since I arrived in this area.

When I walk in the table is being played on the lowest limit but with just one player at the table. I decide to back count and jump in for one shoe and then leave. As it happens, the one player leaves before the end of the second shoe just as I’m thinking of leaving. I have the limit raised to the middle maximum and play that shoe out and get a high count on the next one and win a few big bets. The cut is so good I’m getting some high counts near the end of the shoe. After an hour I get another high count.The dealer busts on the last hand of the shoe, I have four boxes at the maximum with a few splits and doubles so it’s a big hand. This forces the dealer to pay me in smaller denomination chips as I’ve emptied the float of all the biggest ones (they refilled it after the first full shoe I played). Their biggest denomination chip is worth about $25 so I’m not that far ahead. Other places in the same casino group have lager value chips so I don’t know why this place doesn’t. I have some trouble taking the chips to the cash desk, in various pockets, you’d think I’ve broken the bank at Monte Carlo rather than had a reasonable run for an hour.

Day 26

I move hotels back to near the smaller casino which gives me the bigger limits. Despite the late opening this is the one I should focus on. I find a reasonably priced hotel just around the corner. I turn up at opening time to be told I can’t enter. I ask why and he tells me “It’s special”, apparently from the capital. How annoying. You lose on the day and still get barred. Admittedly not by the place where I lost the money yesterday but it’s still irritating. Why the casino in the capital should bar me almost a week after I played there is strange but not unheard of, sometimes the managers at a casino have a meeting at which they decide such things rather than acting straight away. Even so, I wasn’t winning much and I had felt no heat whatsoever. It crosses my mind that my good run at the bigger place here last night could have had an affect, but the win wasn’t big at all, especially since I had lost in the afternoon. I decide to go there to see how they react. I remember that I have some small value chips that will have to be cashed in, so I may as well try to get in.

Any doubts as to the origin of the decision to bar me disappear as soon as I hand over my ID to get in to the larger place. The receptionist takes one look at my passport (I had used this ID rather than the one I normally use in the faint hope that the computer would only pick up the number rather than the name) and says I can’t go in, unlike at the other place where everything seemed fine until my details were entered on the PC. She had obviously been told to look out for my name. I explain I have chips to exchange and eventually one of the managers comes. He’s very friendly and while I’m cashing out I ask him why I have been barred and straight away he answers “Because you’re counting cards”. I say something about seeing a few low cards come out and betting and he replies that it wasn’t his decision but that of his boss. I ask if I’m barred from any others without mentioning I’d already been to the other one in the next town and he says he thinks it is a group barring As he’s escorting me to the exit I mention that I’m curious why I was barred since I had lost in the afternoon before having that good hour at the last. He says he knows I lost in the afternoon and also that I had lost at the other one. “Yes” I reply, “ a lot”. He repeats that it wasn’t his decision. It just goes to show that one paranoid manager can cost you many more games than the one at their casino. With the two main groups closed to me in this country there’s not much left here for me now. Time to consider my options over a consolation beer or two.

Day 27

I take the train back to the capital slightly hung over. I only had three of those beers but the local brew is evidently strong stuff. Worse, I’m prevented from sleeping because the compartment is full so there’s not much room adjusting to adjust my position. I can see the attraction of first class now, it’s nothing great in comparison to second but you’ll almost certainly have more room. As it is we are eight people and a dog ( who fortunately is sufficiently small and well behaved to lie under the seat, except when the Alsatian from further up the corridor passes by later on). For over four hours we are like this, I do actually manage to drop off briefly but sleeping upright is rarely satisfactory. Even if I were able to play tonight I wouldn’t be in a state to play for long.

On the remote chance that it’s only a local barring I try to get in to the casinos once I’m back in the capital. I try my little trick again with the passport but of course the name is enough. “You can’t come in” is becoming something of a theme. At least this receptionist is fairly sympathetic about it. “I thought so” I reply with a smile.

That’s that then as far as this country is concerned. The only thing to decide now is whether to go back to the country where I began this trip or to go home. Home it is. I only had a few days left here in any case due to commitments elsewhere and I feel I’ve done enough miles this trip already without another journey for the sake of a day or two. It’s a sour end to what has been a good trip in terms of the win. I’m still slightly annoyed at myself for getting barred from a whole group of casinos with a potentially great game for one lousy hour at the blackjack table. Spreading to four hands does look suspicious but in my defence I didn’t win much and I wouldn’t have returned to the larger casino- win or lose- because I was changing hotels and towns the following day and I wouldn’t have risked pointless taxi rides for the game they were giving me there. You don’t usually go from zero heat to barring that quickly especially since I was losing at that place up to then. Ah well, no use thinking about that now, I have a week or two in which to relax and not think about blackjack.

Postscript

In a rather fitting end to my time in the country where I finished the trip, I get a parting shot of a 5 hour delay to my flight to send me on my way. And then it doesn’t even land where it was scheduled to because of bad weather. Certainly a trip that could have ended more pleasantly.

I have a couple of nights in my stopover city and more in hope than expectation decide to check out some of the casinos here. This new country has never been known for its good conditions but things do change, so an hour or two out of my day could be worth it. There’s a different layout than normal due to a sidebet. I’ve not seen this one before so I ask about it and because the minimum is quite high I take this opportunity to inquire about it and the blackjack rules without playing. In this situation I normally play the minimum and ask about the possibility of various options as they arise so as not to arouse too much suspicion if I come in soon after playing much bigger. Due to the high minimum however I would rather not risk losing a significant sum in order to find out it’s a normal game. Straight away I see a bonus not normally offered. It’s worth a huge amount. I ask the staff many questions in order to discover what the drawback is. One is that the sidebet which is unfamiliar to me is compulsory but the amounts wagered on that and the blackjack do not have to be related. This apart all other rules are regular. My instinct is that a minimum wager on the sidebet would still result in a large advantage for the player betting big on the normal blackjack. I decide to play a few hands at the minimum to check out a few more rules since I don’t want them to remember me as the guy who came in asking lots of questions without playing when I come in the following day betting big. First shoe: the count goes up, as you would expect I lose the bets as the low value cards come out. I resist the temptation to increase my bet as it’s not worth showing them a betspread with small stakes when it’s almost certain that the rules are so good I’ll be flat betting off the top if I play it seriously. In any case it is a risk to play big before having seen the cards spread in a new casino. The count continues to rise. It gets to +16 by the end of the shoe and doesn’t decrease much. The second shoe goes much the same way. I’m now a little suspicious as I don’t know this place. The mimimum is relatively high so I’m burning quite a lot of money for just a reconnaissance session. When the count starts to go up on the next shoe I decide to stop and just back count as there is now another player. Same thing happens, small cards all the time and the dealer hardly busts at all, and very few blackjacks, count stays around its highest level. I stick around for one more shoe. No change on that one either. I leave the casino with a heavy heart, fabulous rules but do they deal an honest game? I have been in situations when the count has gone up and up for several consecutive shoes and the game has been fine, but it’s rare. Then again, so are casinos that deal incomplete or incorrect shoes. The only thing for it is to arrive at the casino before it opens so that I am sure of seeing the cards spread before the first shuffle of the day. Once I see that all the cards are there, that there are as many high value cards as low value ones I will be reassured.

The Next Day…

I arrive just before the place opens. I get onto the gaming floor and only the baccarat table has dealers at it. I ask when the blackjack will open and am told to wait about 15 minutes. After half an hour there is still no sign of blackjack being opened. The Baccarat has now started and the stud poker is almost full. I ask the pit boss again, he tells me to ask the manager. I do so and he says he’ll only open it when there are more players. I ask him if he would open it if I agreed to play at higher stakes. We agree a minimum level and he goes to summon a dealer. The dealer comes out and takes the cards out of the shoe and begins to shuffle. “Don’t you spread the cards at the beginning?” I ask. “No, we don’t do that here.” He replies.

-“Why not? Other casinos do it.”

- “That’s just the way we do it here”

- “Well, can’t you show them to me anyway?”

- “No, I can’t do that.”

- “Why not? I am the only player here. No one else will be affected if you spread the cards?”

- “They’ve already been checked.” A blatant lie, the cards were already in the shoe before the table was even opened.

I request the cards be spread yet again. The manager, becoming increasingly agitated asks me to lower my voice, even though it is he who has raised his. He is evidently anxious that this doubtful (at best) practice remain largely unknown. He then claims that the table has already been opened and the cards checked then. This is an obvious untruth since it contradicts his earlier comment about blackjack being opened when there are more players who want it and because the casino has still only been open an hour. I point out that I’ve in the place since before the gaming room opened and he realises he has been caught in a lie and simply stonewalls. He does however follow me out and I think he asked the receptionist who I was just as I was leaving. Thus I may have got myself barred without playing a serious hand of BJ. I’m a bit disappointed that I didn’t keep my composure enough to refrain from making it obvious that I knew he was lying, and by extension cheating, so perhaps incurring an unnecessary barring, but then again if as seems likely, it’s a cheating casino, it doesn’t matter anyway. It still leaves a sour taste though. I’ll research whether I could report them to anyone for cheating.