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 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 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 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.

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

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.

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.