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WEBVTT
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No, applies everywhere but here.
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Everywhere nowhere else in the world do they have this kind of table selection where you can find good nickel games.
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They don't have it on the Golf Coast, they don't have it anywhere but here.
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Sometimes they don't even have it here, you know?
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But I'm yeah, I'm sitting there writing up in New York and sometimes I forget about Vegas down there in the desert.
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There's some days that I wished I had, and there's some days that that I had.
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You know, you're gonna have bad days.
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Sometimes it's gonna be your fault, sometimes it's gonna be the card's fault, sometimes it's gonna be the fault of conditions.
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We just aren't all at at some equal par day after day after day.
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You're gonna have good days and you're gonna have bad days.
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And getting control of these bad days, getting control of yourself on these bad days is crucially important.
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You'll see these people that will sit in games with a zombie-like expression on their face, feeling extremely sorry for themselves, and will sit there literally punishing themselves by saying, See, I'm gonna prove that I can't want to bet.
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I'm gonna prove it again and again and again.
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This is kind of like this is sick gambling, okay?
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Not even sick gambling, this is this is sick behavior, but you can fall into it.
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Each of us can get into that mood and fall into it.
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Therefore, it is good to set daily limits.
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I didn't do it that way.
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I set game limits.
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I set game limits.
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And and usually if I was playing under halfway decent conditions, I could only go to so many games before I would find a good one.
00:02:14.319 --> 00:02:17.759
So particularly when I was playing professionally, I didn't worry about it.
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If I hit my stop loss in five games in a row, I didn't worry about it.
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Because I knew from experience, hit I in the sixth one or the seventh one, I'd nail that stop loss right back inside of a couple of shoes in the right game.
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So I didn't worry about it.
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But never nevertheless, I'm a little more cautious now because the overall conditions are not as good as they were back then.
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It's tougher.
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It's tougher to find good games now than it was back then, I think.
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Yeah.
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You mean a soft 17?
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It's more favorable for you.
00:03:06.479 --> 00:03:16.719
Every casino in the world thinks it's more favorable for the casino, and and those mathematicians would be correct if the cards are random.
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They would be correct if the average dealer hand was 18.
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Okay.
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But what happens with clumped cards is that it changes the dealer's average hands from about 18 to about 19.2.
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And clumped cards also re reduces the opportunity of successfully hitting a soft 17 and improving it.
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In fact, I don't hit a soft 17 myself anywhere as near as much as I used to, because chances are when you do hit it, you're not, if even when you do make it, you're not going to improve it enough to win.
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That's the problem.
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Okay?
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So I'll get a soft 17.
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I'll never hit a soft 17, for instance, against a seven, or every buck in the world tells you to do.
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I go for the push.
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I go for the push.
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You got a bad hand.
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A push is as good as you could expect.
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Go for the push.
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You know, don't go for a win with a soft 17 against a seven.
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But I'll also not hit a soft seventeen if if tens are running, okay?
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Because if tens are you got a soft seventeen, your only chance is if the dealer breaks.
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So why would you do it if tens are running?
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Tens the only thing that's going to break the dealer, you know, so just stand on your soft 17.
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And because 27 doesn't help you, you know.
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I mean 17 with a 10 in it doesn't help you anymore.
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You still got 17, right?
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But now you just took the 10 that'll they they could have saved you.
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They could have broke the dealer.
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Yeah, but also put that for the dealer.
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I mean, what have you got to do?
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Yeah, yeah.
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I think that in the casinos that have to hit soft 17, where the rule is they have to hit soft 17 are hurting themselves.
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I think if they actually forgot about the math and actually counted instances of where it helped them versus where it hurt them, I think they would find it hurts them more than helps them.
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Only because clumping changes all of those numbers.
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Yes.
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Load full transcript
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When you're not, they don't.
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I I don't know.
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I'd have to think about the effect on on clumping one way.
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I'd have to study that.
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Uh it may it may have no significance.
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It may have some significance.
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Uh I mean I'm not sure that that maybe they they do it for that reason, but nevertheless, I'd have to think about how does that change the order of the cards in the discard shoe?
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Because that's what controls clumping.
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So I don't know, maybe it wouldn't make a lot of difference as long as they do it the same way every time.
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It'd sure scare the hell out of me if they changed, however, and did it one way one time and the other way the other time, because then I would suspect they're putting tens with tens.
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Well, this was from table to table, not at the same table.
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Yeah.
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Boy, I wish there was a la I wish there was a law that they all had to do it the same.
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One thing I noticed that they're doing differently is um blackjack.
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Some dealers will pick up the blackjack and pay pay those first.
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No.
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No.
00:08:12.959 --> 00:08:15.040
No, it just depends on what the dealer's hand is.
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If the dealer has an Acer a 10, he'll he won't pay off the blackjack until he's done because he's got to find out if he's got a blackjack.
00:08:22.959 --> 00:08:23.199
Okay.
00:08:23.519 --> 00:08:25.279
Well, and and I I take that back.
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In Vegas, if he is a ten up, okay, and he and it's a no-peeking, he will not he will not pay off the blackjack until the hand's over because he could hit blackjack.
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Okay.
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But if he if he's beat on the board, he'll pay it off immediately.
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There's another aspect to that that it's not consistent with some casino the casino.
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In some casinos a if the dealer can't have a blackjack because it's okay.
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And the fourth player has a blackjack, you're allowed to take care of that fourth player right away and pay off the blackjack.
00:09:07.919 --> 00:09:10.399
Well, I don't know that you have no control over that.
00:09:14.159 --> 00:09:19.759
I don't really know that there's anything that you can do about predicting.
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No.
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Not necessarily.
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What if there are two bus hands in here and then a blackjack and then the rest of the hands?
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Now the blackjack is with
the surviving hands.
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If the blackjack is with the surviving hands, it's gonna clump the cards up more because the surviving hands tend to be tens.
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If it's with the uh if the pays it right away and then two people bust out, now it's with the tailhand of the three round and the bust hand of the bust.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Right.
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Right, good point.
00:10:01.919 --> 00:10:02.320
Good point.
00:10:03.519 --> 00:10:11.679
Why why don't the casinos simply burn a couple of cards between you know, just to to negate our first base strategy?
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Why don't why don't we just burn a couple of cards between us?
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Well, some of them do like that.
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Yeah, some some do.
00:10:18.559 --> 00:10:20.720
In in Atlantic City, it's against the rules.
00:10:20.799 --> 00:10:23.440
Okay, they they can't, and they've been called on it.
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In fact, we had one of our players call them on it here, and and the the casino agreed with the player, and they stopped the dealer from from doing that.
00:10:34.080 --> 00:10:54.080
Uh, but it's not it's not something that you know uh we we want to uh mention out loud because because they could do that, it would and it would goof us off, and I and I suspect that if they went to the the control commission with a with a good story, they could probably fairly easily get permission to do that.
00:10:54.320 --> 00:10:59.759
But on the other hand, we we represent less than one-tenth of one percent of the player.
00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:03.039
The more cards they burn, the less action there is.
00:11:03.279 --> 00:11:07.279
So is it worth it just to worry about their one player?
00:11:07.440 --> 00:11:08.639
Are they gonna do that?
00:11:08.720 --> 00:11:14.799
And you know, the Casilla Control Commission, if they ask to do that, it's gonna make them do it across the board.
00:11:14.960 --> 00:11:18.879
That's a lot of burned cards, it's a lot of hands that aren't played.
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The more cards they burn, the less hands they play per hour.
00:11:22.320 --> 00:11:23.679
Did they do that to Harvey the Friday?
00:11:24.559 --> 00:11:25.759
Did they do it to Harvey the Friday?
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They that could be.
00:11:27.279 --> 00:11:28.559
I hadn't heard that, but it could be.
00:11:28.799 --> 00:11:31.519
In Las Vegas, they can do that if they have an option.
00:11:44.960 --> 00:11:47.840
Or if you look around, you see what's going on all table.
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Or burn a card now and then go on.
00:11:58.960 --> 00:11:59.679
Uh you know.
00:12:00.080 --> 00:12:15.679
What they've done to me in Atlantic City on occasion, although they haven't done it very very recently, is they'll they'll bring over seven dealers and have 'em each burn a card and walk their way, burn a card, walk their way, burn a card, and walk their way.
00:12:15.759 --> 00:12:21.679
They stuck they have to stop action in the entire pit to do that, you know, but I've had that done to me before.
00:12:22.159 --> 00:12:23.519
Can you have to see the birds?
00:12:24.080 --> 00:12:24.320
Yeah.
00:12:24.639 --> 00:12:24.799
Yeah.
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No, I just sit I just sit there and laugh at them and tell them.
00:12:30.399 --> 00:12:30.720
Oh yeah.
00:12:30.960 --> 00:12:32.000
Do you have to show them to you?
00:12:33.600 --> 00:12:36.879
Uh in Atlantic City the rule is they have to.
00:12:36.960 --> 00:12:38.240
I'm not sure what the rule is here.
00:12:38.399 --> 00:12:39.919
They don't they don't have to if they don't want to.
00:12:40.240 --> 00:12:41.039
They're not supposed to.
00:12:42.159 --> 00:12:48.879
You get a glimpse of the whole c of the burn card, it's your good fortune, but uh they're not going to show it to you if you ask.
00:12:49.600 --> 00:12:50.320
Even if you ask.
00:12:50.639 --> 00:12:50.799
Yeah.
00:12:51.120 --> 00:12:53.759
There are some dealers here that do show you if you ask.
00:12:54.159 --> 00:12:58.799
A dealer might, but now he's taking a responsibility for which is his liable as far as they could think of.
00:13:00.159 --> 00:13:00.639
Yeah.
00:13:01.039 --> 00:13:03.039
See, here's the problem with it.
00:13:03.200 --> 00:13:05.039
Here here's the problem with it.
00:13:05.360 --> 00:13:12.559
If they if they show you the the if the cards are random, it wouldn't make any difference whether you saw the whole card or not.
00:13:12.639 --> 00:13:13.759
Or the burn card or not.
00:13:13.840 --> 00:13:14.879
If the cards are random.
00:13:15.440 --> 00:13:19.759
So as soon as they say and the same thing is true by the way insurance.
00:13:19.919 --> 00:13:23.200
They've started late insurance up in Hellano City in some place.
00:13:23.360 --> 00:13:24.480
I don't know if they've started it here.
00:13:24.639 --> 00:13:30.399
Late insurance simply means that when it's your turn to play, you can then decide to insure all of a sudden.
00:13:30.559 --> 00:13:30.879
Okay?
00:13:33.039 --> 00:13:34.799
Yeah, it won't work here because they peak.
00:13:34.960 --> 00:13:42.080
But the reason for that is what advantage is it for the casino not to do that if the cards are random?
00:13:42.240 --> 00:13:50.720
So not doing that is an omission that the cards aren't random aren't random, and not showing you the whole card or the burn cards is an admission that the cards aren't random.
00:13:53.120 --> 00:13:59.039
Using the the illustration, uh, the other one that you had up here, the partner looked.
00:13:59.519 --> 00:14:08.399
Can you take us through if you play two uh both partners playing two hands, or maybe one partner playing two hands, how would you feed the other partner?
00:14:08.720 --> 00:14:12.000
Would just partner one at first and one at third with
both playing two.
00:14:13.039 --> 00:14:17.200
All right, let's say I I would just set to together.
00:14:17.279 --> 00:14:20.879
I'd make sure I had the first base seat covered, okay?
00:14:21.039 --> 00:14:25.679
Because that's really your your most important seat with with partners to play.
00:14:25.919 --> 00:14:29.600
So I play these two, and I would play these two.
00:14:30.080 --> 00:14:30.639
All right.
00:14:31.679 --> 00:14:35.120
Here's here's one partner, here's the other partner.
00:14:35.440 --> 00:14:38.879
From there on in, it's just regular, it's just regular blackjack.
00:14:39.120 --> 00:14:44.639
Well, in the first place, player, if he has to put up more line, he's feeding his second hand.
00:14:44.720 --> 00:14:50.720
Does he feed his second hand or does he take his second hand to feed to the how does he feed the hands?
00:14:50.960 --> 00:14:51.600
What what is he put?
00:14:53.440 --> 00:14:54.240
Where did he put the big money?
00:14:54.320 --> 00:14:55.440
I think it's quite a bit.
00:14:55.600 --> 00:14:58.559
Okay, I would put in that case I would put the big money.
00:15:00.480 --> 00:15:04.799
I would put it here and pa yeah, here, and possibly here.
00:15:04.960 --> 00:15:06.399
I might not even put it here at all.
00:15:06.799 --> 00:15:07.279
I can't.
00:15:07.600 --> 00:15:08.799
But I'm gonna watch and see.
00:15:09.120 --> 00:15:13.120
I yeah, I'm gonna watch and see which one of those is is doing the best.
00:15:13.360 --> 00:15:13.759
All right.
00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:25.519
So you don't you know that this is gonna be one big player, but you don't necessarily know until you the game starts, until the game gets going is which one would be the other be the other big player.
00:15:25.840 --> 00:15:28.960
The first base player is feeding his second hand.
00:15:31.279 --> 00:15:33.279
Yeah, if the first yeah, he might be.
00:15:33.360 --> 00:15:34.080
It's it's possible.
00:15:36.639 --> 00:15:38.399
Not trying to do anything big with it.
00:15:38.799 --> 00:15:38.960
No.
00:15:41.440 --> 00:15:46.960
He's not feeding and unless this happened to be the big player, he wouldn't be feeding, which would not be good.
00:15:47.039 --> 00:15:49.840
You'd want to be either this one or this one to be the big player.
00:15:55.200 --> 00:15:55.440
Right.
00:15:56.000 --> 00:15:56.559
Right.
00:15:57.600 --> 00:15:59.679
And then let's say we did it just like this.
00:15:59.840 --> 00:16:01.279
We made this one a big player.
00:16:01.679 --> 00:16:04.320
He's feeding this one, whatever it needs.
00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:05.840
He's got a watch now.
00:16:06.159 --> 00:16:18.399
But you've got to try this, you know, practice this at home because some you know it's kind it's because now you're playing two hands, you know, and you're trying to think about this one one way, and it you're trying to control this hand with this hand.
00:16:18.480 --> 00:16:20.720
So it's it's starting to get complex, you know.
00:16:20.960 --> 00:16:22.240
And the last hand breaks the dealer.
00:16:22.799 --> 00:16:24.320
And this guy breaks the dealer, yeah.
00:16:24.559 --> 00:16:26.240
And hope no one says it's third base.
00:16:26.639 --> 00:16:29.840
Yeah, that's the trouble with with with this arrangement.
00:16:30.799 --> 00:16:35.200
Otherwise, if you're only one hand each, you're feeding the first base part.
00:16:35.600 --> 00:16:35.759
Yeah.
00:16:38.559 --> 00:16:46.480
Yeah, you you could do it to the you know, you could leave these seats open, I suppose, if you wanted to, and let the let the other people come into the middle of the game where they can't hurt things as well.
00:16:48.320 --> 00:16:49.120
In the middle, yeah.
00:16:51.919 --> 00:16:52.080
Yeah.
00:16:53.039 --> 00:16:53.919
Yeah, sure.
00:16:54.480 --> 00:16:54.960
That's right.
00:16:55.039 --> 00:16:57.279
It in fact it might even help us if we did that.
00:16:58.879 --> 00:16:59.120
Yeah.
00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:09.039
Like the biggest club downtown has about three decks.
00:17:10.480 --> 00:17:15.920
What's your comment about where the casinos cut off cards is expected to be.
00:17:16.640 --> 00:17:20.799
Well, of course, it's it it's it's really it's really kind of a stupid thing.
00:17:20.880 --> 00:17:25.359
They should just all cut off in the same place and the what we call that penetration.
00:17:25.839 --> 00:17:36.240
The less penetration they have, or or the or the the more cards they cut off, let's put it that way, the fewer hands they're gonna deal per hour and the more they're gonna lose.
00:17:36.400 --> 00:17:49.839
Now they the reason they do it, of course, is so that anyone counting cards uh will not be able to count down to to the end of the shoe and make some heavy plays right at the end of the shoe.
00:17:49.920 --> 00:17:58.960
As well, if you cut off a quarter of the cards, you have effectively done that by cutting off another quarter isn't isn't going to make that much difference.
00:17:59.119 --> 00:18:03.440
You know, you've already you've already forwarded the card counter as soon as you cut off a quarter of the cards.
00:18:03.519 --> 00:18:06.160
All right, not a lot of counters know that, but he's done.
00:18:06.240 --> 00:18:08.160
He's done for as soon as they do that.
00:18:08.319 --> 00:18:21.440
So as soon as the card counter, as soon as the dealer moves the cut card up to the middle because she suspects a card counter, she's actually losing money for the casino because now she's going to deal fewer hands per hour.
00:18:21.599 --> 00:18:36.559
But we will often, particularly up in Atlantic City in the eight-deck game, uh, when the carriage become overclumped, when they become overclumped, we will frequently start counting out loud to get the dealer to move the cut card up.
00:18:36.880 --> 00:18:42.400
Because all the carriage behind the cut card get shuffled twice and unclump the carriage.
00:18:42.880 --> 00:18:45.599
So we sort of catch them at their own game.
00:18:48.400 --> 00:18:49.839
Let me move this up.
00:18:55.519 --> 00:19:08.559
In in world-class play or blackjack in general, we could say we're real really looking at three different game types.
00:19:08.880 --> 00:19:11.200
Probably do that a little bigger than I needed to.
00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:39.519
We're seeing, like, if we were to look at the tens ratio of each round, we're seeing fairly neutral tens ratio.
00:19:39.759 --> 00:19:52.640
We might see a high tens ratio every now and then, we might see a low tens ratio every now and then, but the important thing is we're not seeing two low ratio rounds in a row.
00:19:53.039 --> 00:20:06.640
These games used to be very common in the late 70s and the well no these I would say in the 80s, in the 80s, right up through the mid to late 80s.
00:20:06.960 --> 00:20:18.000
When I played professionally in Atlantic City, this represented about probably 80% of the game types.
00:20:18.240 --> 00:20:32.079
You could play a three-bet negative progression in that game type and win somewhere around 80% of the games that you played back in those days.
00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:35.200
That's how I got on to the 146.
00:20:35.680 --> 00:20:38.319
When I are we turned on, I forgot.
00:20:38.880 --> 00:20:39.200
Okay.
00:20:39.599 --> 00:20:49.599
When I uh when I played the 146 back in the 80s, uh I virtually never had a losing day.
00:20:49.759 --> 00:20:52.319
And I never had a losing trip.
00:20:52.480 --> 00:20:57.440
In fact, I would be very surprised when I had a losing game.
00:20:57.519 --> 00:21:01.039
The 146 just it worked in 80% of the games.
00:21:01.279 --> 00:21:08.720
So if I didn't bother with testing the water, I'd start right in and bet the 146 with with quarters.
00:21:09.680 --> 00:21:13.039
If I lost a and I always went to the end of the buy-in, too.
00:21:13.119 --> 00:21:16.000
I went through the entire pile of 12 chips.
00:21:16.160 --> 00:21:28.000
And if I lost the 12 chips, I didn't worry about it in the least because I knew that I couldn't go more than two or three games at the malls without finding a winning game.
00:21:28.160 --> 00:21:34.079
And I had no table selection other than the third base seat be empty.
00:21:34.160 --> 00:21:35.680
I always played third base.
00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:39.599
Once in a while I played the middle if it was crowded.
00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:47.920
And it just, you know, I thought, well, this is it, you know, I'm just gonna sit here and do this for the rest of my life because this was this is beautiful.
00:21:48.079 --> 00:21:51.200
I made a lot of money doing this.
00:21:51.359 --> 00:21:52.880
A lot of money doing it.
00:21:53.200 --> 00:22:03.039
But then slowly it started to to change, and when I and I kept Notes too back then and I still had those notes.
00:22:03.440 --> 00:22:04.960
And it got a little harder.
00:22:05.119 --> 00:22:11.200
What I was looking for was I was looking to win three thousand dollars per trip.
00:22:11.680 --> 00:22:17.119
And many times I'd have that done the same afternoon that I got in town.
00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:21.759
Because real easy in a 146 doesn't take long at all to win$3,000.
00:22:22.480 --> 00:22:27.920
Particularly if you can get up to double bets or if you get up to two blacks, it happens very, very quickly.
00:22:28.160 --> 00:22:38.400
But I got to noticing that it was taking longer instead of I'd usually go up one day and come back the next, but then it got to the point where it was going up one day and coming back two days later.
00:22:38.480 --> 00:22:42.799
And then it got up to the point where it was going one day and coming back three days later.
00:22:43.119 --> 00:22:54.640
And then I got a little greedy uh when when the Claridge opened their their four-deck game and I started using zero proximity counting.
00:22:54.799 --> 00:23:00.000
And I revised my$3,000 bogey to$9,000.
00:23:00.720 --> 00:23:08.720
And uh I think anybody that knows anything at all about taxes would know why I I set the limit at$9,000.
00:23:09.839 --> 00:23:13.359
And that worked out, they worked out quite well for a while too.
00:23:13.519 --> 00:23:32.160
In fact, it worked out so well that uh and I was writing articles by then for for Blackjack Confidential, and I didn't know any better, and I gave out this this uh zero proximity counting method in Blackjack Confidential.
00:23:32.319 --> 00:23:47.119
When I did that, players descended on the place, and we ended up closing down the the four-deck game in in Atlantic City because we were just killing it, and the the clerage went into chapter 11 back in those days.
00:23:47.920 --> 00:23:53.599
So, but then things, you know, they they started really watching me very, very close.
00:23:53.680 --> 00:23:59.359
It got to the point that I was known in uh virtually every casino on the strip in Atlantic City.
00:23:59.440 --> 00:24:11.839
I didn't bother with the marina, there was just no point in in in going out that far because there was plenty of games on the strip that you could win, and you could just, if you didn't like one casino, you could always walk to the next.
00:24:12.079 --> 00:24:16.640
I used to stay in a place called the The Breakers up at one end of the strip.
00:24:16.799 --> 00:24:20.400
They have rooms similar to here where they have kitchens and everything.
00:24:21.039 --> 00:24:31.519
And uh But then one day it it started to get, it started to take more and more days to get this$3,000, started to get harder and harder to do.
00:24:31.599 --> 00:24:41.039
And then one day I was staying at the Madison house, I remember, right there next to the sands, and I had my first losing trip.
00:24:41.680 --> 00:24:45.519
And I was, I'll tell you, I was devastated.
00:24:45.680 --> 00:24:51.119
I was close to suicidal because I thought it was impossible for me to lose.
00:24:51.279 --> 00:24:56.720
But the casinos had been watching me, and I didn't, you know, I took this as fun and games.
00:24:56.799 --> 00:25:00.160
They would sit there and sometimes they'd even pull up a chair and sit there.
00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:03.599
They're trying to figure out what it was that I was doing.
00:25:03.759 --> 00:25:12.160
All I was doing is watching the the tens flow in the game and hitting accordingly.
00:25:12.400 --> 00:25:16.799
That's all I used it for, was to decide whether to hit or not to hit.
00:25:17.519 --> 00:25:23.519
And I I wasn't the least bit concerned about basic strategy in those days.
00:25:23.599 --> 00:25:25.599
I just didn't play it at all.
00:25:26.160 --> 00:25:39.200
And you know, I read these books and I listened to these tapes, and I remember reading reading this one where Jerry Patterson said that he killed the casinos at$50 an hour.
00:25:39.839 --> 00:25:45.119
And I thought, geez, he's he's in a different league than than we're in, you know.
00:25:45.279 --> 00:25:47.599
I mean, that's lunch money.
00:25:47.920 --> 00:26:00.640
So uh when I, I'll tell you when I lost the first time, I was so devastated that when I left the Madison house, I got all the way home before I realized that my suitcases were empty.
00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:02.240
I'd left all my clothes.
00:26:04.640 --> 00:26:09.680
I had to call the Madison house and tell them to ship me my clothes, which they did.
00:26:09.759 --> 00:26:11.359
I was I was totally devastated.
00:26:11.440 --> 00:26:12.319
I just didn't know.
00:26:12.559 --> 00:26:18.480
See, I had this this fantasy, as it turned out, that I could just do this forever, you know.
00:26:18.640 --> 00:26:24.720
And I didn't worry about accumulating a lot of money in the bank back then, because because why bother?
00:26:24.880 --> 00:26:27.759
I could just get more money anytime I wanted to.
00:26:27.920 --> 00:26:31.039
That's that's the way I saw things back then.
00:26:32.160 --> 00:26:39.440
Well when I when I lost it, that's when I got into real trouble, because then I went and I I I figured, well, I must have done something wrong.
00:26:39.599 --> 00:26:44.720
So now I started reading these these books, this basic strategy and this card counting and all of this stuff.
00:26:44.960 --> 00:26:56.480
So I was bound and determined to become the best card counter in the world, and I did that, and I got to the point, I remember calling Nancy Patterson and I said, How fast can the average person count a deck of cards?
00:26:56.720 --> 00:26:59.039
And she said, 35 seconds.
00:26:59.200 --> 00:27:06.319
I was already at 20 seconds at that point, but I decided to go back and practice some more until I could get it down to 13 seconds.
00:27:06.480 --> 00:27:26.240
Well, I could do this very, very well in the casinos, but what was happening was the game type, the general game type was going from this situation to this kind of a game, which we'll call game type 2.
00:27:29.839 --> 00:27:36.400
In game type 2, you were seeing like two low ratio rounds in a row.
00:27:36.640 --> 00:27:48.960
You
know, I don't know about card counting, how well it would have done in this in this game type, maybe, maybe, well, I I guess it wouldn't have done too good because it was about half and half at that point in time.
00:27:49.119 --> 00:27:52.240
Half game type one, half game type two.
00:27:52.720 --> 00:28:00.960
And I found that the count had almost no relationship whatsoever to wins.
00:28:01.119 --> 00:28:08.799
In fact, I learned very quickly that when the count went over plus thirty, that you shouldn't bet at all.
00:28:09.039 --> 00:28:12.799
And I learned that because no book said that, so I didn't know any better.
00:28:12.960 --> 00:28:16.799
So when the count went over plus thirty, I was always betting two hundred dollars.
00:28:17.039 --> 00:28:22.720
And I decided, after never winning one of those bets, that that probably wasn't the right thing to do.
00:28:23.359 --> 00:28:28.079
And that there was some flaw in these books somewhere.
00:28:28.400 --> 00:28:43.359
So, you know, I started getting kind of suspicious when I would talk to guys like uh Eddie Olson, and I say, you know, Eddie, you know, these I won eleven thousand dollars playing the four deck down here to Claridge, why don't you come down and join me?
00:28:43.519 --> 00:28:45.119
Oh no, that's impossible.
00:28:45.279 --> 00:28:49.680
And I found out eventually, these guys don't play casinos.
00:28:49.920 --> 00:28:53.359
At least they don't play casinos when anybody's watching them.
00:28:53.759 --> 00:29:00.240
So I began to have a lot of doubts about all of these, all of these people.
00:29:00.640 --> 00:29:18.240
I had by then every book on card counting there was, and I always thought that the best, besides the original Forp book, uh, which was a little complex, I thought that the b uh the best was uh Lawrence Revere.
00:29:18.319 --> 00:29:20.079
I like I like Lawrence's Revere a lot.
00:29:20.160 --> 00:29:24.079
I still use that book a lot because he has a lot of good good tables in it.
00:29:24.240 --> 00:29:32.319
One thing I'll caution you about Lawrence Revere's book is that early on in the book he made an error.
00:29:33.200 --> 00:29:39.839
And it's in the table that has to do with how often each hand can come up.
00:29:40.559 --> 00:29:47.920
In that table, if you look at it closely, you'll find out that he left out blackjacks.
00:29:48.240 --> 00:29:54.559
And that whole table's off, therefore, you figure you get a blackjack about once out of 21 hands, it's about 5%.
00:29:54.880 --> 00:29:58.160
So the whole table is off 5%.
00:29:59.200 --> 00:30:05.279
All the other tables and the rest of the book, that first table is their foundation.
00:30:05.519 --> 00:30:09.680
So this error magnifies all the way through the book.
00:30:09.920 --> 00:30:16.480
Nevertheless, some of the tables in it, they didn't use that for the foundation, and those tables are correct.
00:30:16.720 --> 00:30:22.480
But nevertheless, and it was an unfortunate error, and I don't even know if they know they made it to this day.
00:30:22.640 --> 00:30:24.480
It took me a while to figure out.
00:30:24.640 --> 00:30:32.240
I think I was looking for that for that number, how many, how many times you can expect a blackjack when I figured it out that they'd made a mistake.
00:30:34.880 --> 00:30:37.759
Lawrence Revere's uh Blackjack is a business.
00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:39.599
Blackjack is a business, yeah.
00:30:40.960 --> 00:30:42.799
Uh but that's alright.
00:30:42.960 --> 00:30:49.119
He still had a lot of good things to to teach us all about blackjack.
00:30:49.279 --> 00:31:07.599
I think one of the most important contributions, by the way, was that Lawrence Revere was was the person that discovered really that aces are actually more favorable to the casino than they are to the to the uh player.
00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:18.960
There's there's an interesting case going on now up in uh Minnesota where one of the casinos got caught taking aces out of the shoe.
00:31:19.680 --> 00:31:26.960
And uh the reason it's interesting to me is it's gonna hurt the casino more than it's going to help them.
00:31:27.039 --> 00:31:35.759
And and the reason is is if you take all the aces out of the shoe, the dealer, the dealer uh will break a lot more than she was.
00:31:36.079 --> 00:31:42.000
It more than makes up for the your little two and a half percent that you make on blackjacks.
00:31:42.400 --> 00:32:00.000
But anyway, this dame here, oh well, the end of that story, by the way, is one day my wife came to me and said, you know, you're losing a lot of money on this card counting.
00:32:00.079 --> 00:32:01.759
You're losing a lot of money in this card counting.
00:32:01.920 --> 00:32:05.440
Why don't you just go back and play the way you were playing before?
00:32:05.680 --> 00:32:16.240
And I said they made a whole lot of sense to me, so I did that, threw all the books in a shelf somewhere, and just went back and played the way that I was playing before.
00:32:16.559 --> 00:32:36.720
The only change that I made in my play is that I watched for these low ratio rounds now, and when I saw one, I suspended the progression, usually just for one bet, and I continued the progression on on the other side of the low ratio area.
00:32:37.039 --> 00:32:41.759
As soon as I learned that trick, I was right back on the gravy train again.
00:32:41.920 --> 00:32:43.519
That worked out very well.
00:32:44.799 --> 00:32:51.519
So, and by that time too, they they weren't watching me anywhere as nearly as close as they had been before.
00:32:51.680 --> 00:32:54.880
And so I went on my my merry way.
00:32:55.119 --> 00:33:02.640
That's when I was writing our I was constantly writing articles for Black Jack Confidential and so forth.
00:33:02.960 --> 00:33:17.839
But then the main game in Atlantic City changed again, and I'll show you how they did these things, by the way, and we got to the type 3 game, which looks something like that.
00:33:18.720 -->
00:33:33.519
Back in these days, when you would walk into a casino in Atlantic City, there was a dealer at every table of every pit that was open, and almost always all the pits were open.
00:33:33.759 --> 00:33:44.559
You might see a pit where there was only two games going on and 15 dealers standing there with their hands behind their backs waiting, waiting for a game.
00:33:45.519 --> 00:33:57.200
And the way that they looked at it is they didn't worry about adjusting the number of of dealers that they had working on the shift to the number of players.
00:33:57.359 --> 00:34:02.640
They didn't worry about those things because they weren't paying the dealers anyway, they were just paying the dealers minimum wage.
00:34:02.799 --> 00:34:05.920
The customers were were paying the dealers with their tips.
00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:15.679
Now the dealers probably didn't like it because when you s when nobody's playing at your table, you're not making any tips, and it's probably pretty boring to stay in there for hours on end.
00:34:16.880 --> 00:34:23.360
So then the casinos got the idea, well, we're opening too many tables.
00:34:23.519 --> 00:34:43.199
Let's go.
00:35:06.079 --> 00:35:07.199
How's it look over there?
00:35:08.159 --> 00:35:08.480
Okay.
00:35:09.039 --> 00:35:09.679
All right.
00:35:12.880 --> 00:35:14.960
This type of game developed.
00:35:15.360 --> 00:35:27.599
And by the way, this type of game is absolutely impossible to beat with basic strategy or with card counting.
00:35:27.840 --> 00:35:36.639
The problem with card counting was if the tens came out at the beginning of the shoe, the card counter would go straight into a negative count.
00:35:36.719 --> 00:35:38.719
So he'd never raise his bet.
00:35:39.519 --> 00:35:46.639
And then by the time he started going back positive again, there weren't any tens left.
00:35:46.719 --> 00:35:48.880
So he would just get killed.
00:35:49.119 --> 00:35:50.239
It just didn't work at all.
00:35:50.320 --> 00:35:58.880
And the other thing that went bad, if they were anywhere else in the shoe, he'd had this huge positive count going on in this portion of the shoe.
00:35:59.199 --> 00:36:04.559
Then when he got over here, he just sit there and push with 20 with the dealer.
00:36:04.880 --> 00:36:13.679
So the the card counter was totally defeated, and the basic strategy player was totally defeated.
00:36:13.760 --> 00:36:22.880
Because when you think about basic strategy, basic strategy players don't hit and low ratio rounds.
00:36:23.119 --> 00:36:28.239
Through this portion of the shoe, the dealer is simply never going to break.
00:36:28.480 --> 00:36:34.079
By the way, up in these days, the dealer did break about 28% of the time.
00:36:34.559 --> 00:36:38.559
And when you got down into here, the dealer broke a little less.
00:36:38.719 --> 00:36:47.519
And when you get when you got down into here, that's when you started seeing dealers go through and higher eight-deck shoes without breaking at all.
00:36:47.679 --> 00:36:53.840
They just couldn't break in the low ratio, and in the high ratio, they couldn't break because they never hit a hit.
00:36:55.119 --> 00:37:01.760
So this became a very tough game to beat.
00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:13.440
And I got involved in in Target, and what you were trying to do really with Target is avoid these games and find these games.
00:37:13.519 --> 00:37:15.679
That's what Target was really doing.
00:37:15.840 --> 00:37:21.760
And that actually worked pretty darn good in Atlantic City back in those days.
00:37:21.920 --> 00:37:24.800
But the casinos, they were getting smarter too.
00:37:25.039 --> 00:37:32.960
They realized that as they closed tables, the table take rate went up and their expenses went down.
00:37:33.119 --> 00:37:40.239
So they started doing it more and more, and they found that the more they did it, the more the table take rate went up.
00:37:40.320 --> 00:37:43.840
So they got some mathematicians to study all of these situations.
00:37:44.320 --> 00:37:50.159
And they learned that the seven-player game, for all practical purposes, was unbeatable.
00:37:50.320 --> 00:37:54.800
If it had been played for any length of time, it would quickly become unbeatable.
00:37:54.960 --> 00:37:56.960
And so they said that's the answer.
00:37:57.119 --> 00:38:00.719
We've just got to force seven-player games.
00:38:00.880 --> 00:38:05.679
And they started doing, they hadn't done it, by the way, in Las Vegas yet at all during those days.
00:38:05.920 --> 00:38:08.079
But they had done it in Atlantic City.
00:38:08.159 --> 00:38:13.840
And some of the casinos do it virtually perfectly.
00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:22.400
Some of the casinos, like the Clarids, the other ninth, will come over and shut your game down right in the middle of the game if you have a three or four-player game going on.
00:38:22.480 --> 00:38:23.840
They'll just shut it down.
00:38:24.239 --> 00:38:26.800
Uh and they won't let you play that way.
00:38:27.039 --> 00:38:29.519
So they did that to other to us the other night.
00:38:29.760 --> 00:38:30.960
We were playing black chips.
00:38:31.119 --> 00:38:33.199
We just came over and shut the game down.
00:38:33.760 --> 00:38:46.800
Uh this game I found the only way to beat it was to play just like the dealer was playing.
00:38:46.960 --> 00:38:48.159
And that's what I'd do.
00:38:48.239 --> 00:38:52.079
I'd play like the dealer was playing, and I would revert to basic strategy.
00:38:52.159 --> 00:38:55.840
I'd just watch the tens, and when I didn't see any tens, I'd play dealer strategy.
00:38:56.000 --> 00:39:07.679
And if you remember, back when I wrote the NBJ manual, I I didn't I uh I talked about high ratio rounds and low ratio rounds.
00:39:07.840 --> 00:39:10.320
I didn't talk about neutral rounds at all.
00:39:10.480 --> 00:39:14.079
And that's because Atlantic City, you didn't see any neutral rounds.
00:39:14.239 --> 00:39:16.159
There were no neutral rounds.
00:39:16.400 --> 00:39:20.000
They were either high ratio or they were low ratio.
00:39:20.159 --> 00:39:29.599
You were either looking at 50% tens or more, or you were looking at no tens at all, all the way through the shoe.
00:39:29.760 --> 00:39:37.920
So it was really quite easy to play this game and just simply play with your strategy.
00:39:38.079 --> 00:39:43.280
Go go basic strategy and dealer strategy.
00:39:43.599 --> 00:39:45.039
And so that's what I did.
00:39:45.119 --> 00:39:49.599
Now you couldn't win those games as frequently as you could win these games.
00:39:49.760 --> 00:39:54.480
These games you just virtually always won with a negative possession progression.
00:39:54.880 --> 00:39:58.559
So that's when I got into advantage betting.
00:39:58.719 --> 00:40:03.440
Advantage betting, this is an advantage betting game.
00:40:03.760 --> 00:40:05.760
This is a mixed progression game.
00:40:05.840 --> 00:40:12.159
You can use advantage betting in this game quite successfully, or you can mix progressions in this game.
00:40:12.480 --> 00:40:15.280
This game, you've got to play a progression.
00:40:15.360 --> 00:40:17.039
That's the way to play this game.
00:40:17.199 --> 00:40:42.800
What you're looking at is you're looking at the distribution of the tens ratio evolving from a very good, thorough distribution of tens throughout the shoe to a clumped distribution of tens throughout the shoe through a situation where there's only one or two high card areas in the shoe.
00:40:42.960 --> 00:40:47.440
And by the way, in some shoes there'll just be one high card area.
00:40:47.599 --> 00:40:54.719
In other shoes there'll be two, just depending on where the dealer or the player puts the cut card.
00:40:54.800 --> 00:41:00.639
If you have to put the cut card in the middle of the high ratio area, you're going to end up with two high ratio areas in that shoe.
00:41:00.880 --> 00:41:11.599
For instance, both the$7,200 game a couple months ago and the$8,000 game last month were this type of game.
00:41:11.840 --> 00:41:15.360
Both of those were in the high stakes pit at the tie.
00:41:15.599 --> 00:41:21.760
So you in other words, you can't escape that type of game by going to the high stakes pit.
00:41:21.920 --> 00:41:32.639
You're going to get that type of game in the high stakes pit as well, as long as they have sufficient players in the casino where they can get the player number up.
00:41:32.800 --> 00:41:36.639
So in other words, they're not going to have to get the player number all the way up to seven.
00:41:37.360 --> 00:41:43.679
Four players can do this if they if they sit there long enough, or five players can do it if they sit there long enough.
00:41:43.760 --> 00:41:48.320
So this is working fairly well for the casinos, even in the high-stakes areas.
00:41:49.920 --> 00:41:58.159
So what generally happens is in the high-stakes area, you'll get this kind of a game during the day, and you'll get this kind of game at night.
00:41:58.320 --> 00:42:05.119
So the high-stakes player he goes in and he wins a little money on this type of game in the afternoon.
00:42:05.360 --> 00:42:12.719
So then he goes to supper, he has a couple scotches, gets his courage up, and says, now I'm going to really kill him.
00:42:12.800 --> 00:42:19.119
And he walks right into this type of game, plays it the same way he played this type of game, and he can't win a hand.
00:42:19.760 --> 00:42:20.639
He just can't win a hand.
00:42:20.719 --> 00:42:21.440
He gets killed.
00:42:21.599 --> 00:42:23.360
He gets absolutely killed.
00:42:23.599 --> 00:42:32.639
So this is why the casinos in Atlantic City just just aren't afraid of the any kind of player at all.
00:42:33.360 --> 00:42:36.719
They'll set an airplane for a card counter in Atlantic City.
00:42:37.039 --> 00:42:39.199
They know they got the card counters B.
00:42:40.559 --> 00:42:44.079
You can count out loud in Atlantic City.
00:42:44.320 --> 00:42:47.440
And it they may not do anything at all.
00:42:47.599 --> 00:42:49.599
Half of them won't do anything at all.
00:42:49.840 --> 00:42:53.039
And the other half might move the cut card up.
00:42:53.199 --> 00:42:59.679
And the only reason they move the cut card off because it's on their list of things to do for the dealer.
00:42:59.920 --> 00:43:01.119
That's uh that's all it is.
00:43:01.280 --> 00:43:03.679
They don't really care in Atlantic City.
00:43:03.920 --> 00:43:08.719
They care here, you know, I was fooling around with the with the dealer the other day.
00:43:08.960 --> 00:43:20.960
I was playing a no-smoking uh table, and I was killing them on a no-smoking table, and uh I got back late for the start of this one shoe.
00:43:21.519 --> 00:43:24.880
And I was betting ten dollars, fifty dollars.
00:43:25.199 --> 00:43:29.199
And so I get back late and I didn't know what was going on, so I bet the ten dollars.
00:43:29.280 --> 00:43:34.159
Uh Eddie was playing third, I bet the ten dollars, and I blackjacked.
00:43:34.239 --> 00:43:38.159
Well, every other blackjack I got in the game I've been betting fifty dollars.
00:43:38.239 --> 00:43:41.519
And the dealer looked at me and she says, You finally screwed up.
00:43:41.679 --> 00:43:43.280
I said, I just lost the count.
00:43:53.119 --> 00:43:59.519
So Well we're trying to this is what we're trying to do with our betting.
00:45:42.960 --> 00:45:45.519
It works out pretty pretty darn good.
00:45:45.599 --> 00:45:46.719
I like those kinds of games.
00:45:46.880 --> 00:45:48.400
I like those kinds of games.