Eric: some counter's advice

[Eric]

With 300+ hours of play this year at my local Indian casino, I've come up with a list of advice from a counters perspective. Hope any of you can relate.

1. Learn to keep cool. When a ploppy or group of ploppies bitch and whine when you hit your hard 12 vs 3 which gives the dealer a hand that should have busted, just keep quiet. Don't let their B.S. incompetence expose you as a skilled player in front of the dealer. I tend to fire back with science to shut them up, when I should just keep quiet and take their sh*t.

2. Try to avoid playing the tables with players you recognize as regulars. Nothing worse than the regulars saying that you're a "genius" and that "he never loses", in front of the dealer and PC mind you.

3. Be kind to the ploppies. After all, they are paying you your secondary income, not the Indians. We can't exist without them. It's symbiotic...actually, it's not. It's one way!

4. I know this is a red button issue, but if you're winning, tip the dealers. I personally believe the PCs know I'm an AP, yet they tolerate me and "look the other way," because I tip the dealers generously.

5. Don't act like a robot. I admit I need to act more human and less like a stoic Russian, especially when I win a big hand that normal ploppies would be screaming at the top of their lungs.

6. Keep a bottle of Visine in your pocket. Clear vision = crisp counting = less fuzzy math.

[Bettie]

Eric,

Pretty good advice, and I think some of the things you wrote show what a delicate balance we have to tread. "Keep cool," but "Don't act like a robot," especially. Ignoring their comments altogether is hard, and I think can look strange, depending on the amount of grief they're giving you. To just take a lot of abuse looks weird, I think, and it's best to brush it off with some whiny "come on you guys..." or a little humor, though I don't always follow that advice myself. I had an experience years ago where I was playing Spanish 21, a totally different game than BJ, but everyone else was playing BJ strategy. After awhile, I couldn't take anymore of the abuse and just told the loudest lady, "Hey, you play your cards and let me play mine." She came back with something like "Not until you start playing them right," but she calmed down a bit.

It's true that one of the hardest things to do is not always escaping pit detection, but player detection, too! They don't even realize what they're saying or that they're drawing attention to you, and it sucks when a regular will mention your winning streak, but you can only say "you didn't play with me last week!" or "I gave it all away at the casino across town later" so many times before it gets weird. Comments about how bad their memories are sometimes work, but you sure don't want to get into an argument about whether or not you win all the time at the table! So, "be kind to the ploppies" but don't get friendly!

Toking is a totally personal thing, so I won't even touch that, but at the very least I want to add that you should just be nice to the dealers. Again, toe the line. Don't chat them up and give them something to remember you by, but make sure you bring up any mistakes in a kind manner, don't blow smoke in their faces, and be otherwise courteous. You don't want them to remember you for anything at all, being generous or being a jackass ? you want to be just another faceless player.

Bettie

[Trapper]

[Coug Fan]

> 4. I know this is a red button issue, but if you're
> winning, tip the dealers. I personally believe the PCs
> know I'm an AP, yet they tolerate me and "look
> the other way," because I tip the dealers
> generously.

I believe that this is very dangerous advice. Any counter should develop a solid game plan before hand where they determine bet spreads and play approaches (wonging, play-all, etc) based on their tolerance for risk and desired balance between EV and longevity. Tipping can be incporated into this plan as long as you fully understand the impact not only on your EV but also on your ROR (a lower EV increases ROR if variance is unchanged).

Blanket advice to "tip generously" can be VERY dangerous, especially to new counters. Also, most new counter may only be earning an EV of $20 an hour or so. Tipping 10% of EV (which will greatly increase ROR), will be $2 an hour. This level of generous tipping may actually result in a negative reaction from the dealer when your top bet is close to $100.

Personally, I usually never tip. In rare cases, I will give the dealer $5-$10 after a very good session. This works out to a little over $1/hr based on my records and results in my playing lower stakes in order to maintain an acceptable ROR.

[Ouchez]

> With 300+ hours of play this year at my local Indian
> casino, I've come up with a list of advice from a
> counters perspective. Hope any of you can relate.

> 4. I know this is a red button issue, but if you're
> winning, tip the dealers. I personally believe the PCs
> know I'm an AP, yet they tolerate me and "look
> the other way," because I tip the dealers
> generously.

Don't think your tipping the dealer will influence a PC...he/she does not get a share of that money. It may very well influence the DEALER, who IS getting the money, and in a "loose" casino he/she may very well DO things,, or NOT,, do things to keep you winning and playing at their table, shift.

Dealers for sure can be worked, they can be had, the PC is there to make sure that doesn't happen, again, your tips will not influence a PC, unless it is his/her, wife/husband, then maybe, I have seen just such a situation were a "work", was played out. But that is a rarity.

Ouchez.

[Mr. Lee]

> Don't think your tipping the dealer will influence a
> PC...he/she does not get a share of that money. It may
> very well influence the DEALER, who IS getting the
> money, and in a "loose" casino he/she may
> very well DO things,, or NOT,, do things to keep you
> winning and playing at their table, shift.

> Dealers for sure can be worked, they can be had, the
> PC is there to make sure that doesn't happen, again,
> your tips will not influence a PC, unless it is
> his/her, wife/husband, then maybe, I have seen just
> such a situation were a "work", was played
> out. But that is a rarity.

> Ouchez.

At some casiono the pit critters deal once a week.

[Gonosuke]

> Don't think your tipping the dealer will influence a
> PC...he/she does not get a share of that money. It may
> very well influence the DEALER, who IS getting the
> money, and in a "loose" casino he/she may
> very well DO things,, or NOT,, do things to keep you
> winning and playing at their table, shift.

> Dealers for sure can be worked, they can be had, the
> PC is there to make sure that doesn't happen, again,
> your tips will not influence a PC, unless it is
> his/her, wife/husband, then maybe, I have seen just
> such a situation were a "work", was played
> out. But that is a rarity.

> Ouchez.

I realize I'm responding to a 2 year old thread but what the hell. I have to disagree that tipping has no impact on the pit critters.

In my view, a "bad dealer" is a dealer that does nothing to enhance the playing experience. Good dealers make players feel as if they're rooting for them to win; more importantly, they make the experience of losing easier on everyone, even to those of us who aren't losing in the long run. We've all been at a table during an especially brutal dealer hot streak. The mood at the table is so bad, so bleak, that an outsider would swear that we had just gotten word that someone had died. The players that don't get up and leave wouldn't be at all surprised if aa lightning bolt were to reign down at any moment to snuff out their very existence. Good dealers break those moods. They crack a joke, or talk about something they've seen that's so much worse you or on occasion, they'll even let everyone know without actually saying anything that when they've got an Ace up, it's time for everyone to take the insurance bet. In short, they try and break the spell in any way they can. The best dealers do all of that but also add suspense or humor to the game. I had a dealer one that would pause briefly to build suspense before hitting a big double down bet or his own stiff hand; sometimes he'd do what I call a "fake hit" acting like he'd pulled the card because he knew the player was practically holding his breath in anticipation. If the cards were good, they seemed even better, if the cards were bad, they didn't seem quite so bad because he made the experience more enjoyable. Those are the dealers that I gladly tip.

If I know that the pit crew has paid attention to my tips or I've been really friendly with both the dealer and the pit boss, I'll inquire about the possibility of a comp at the end of my session. I've had several instances where a casino host has attempted to give me a lesser comp than the one I had requested but eventually caved in because the pit boss was listening to the conversation and let the host know that I was really friendly and generous with my tips. I've seen players that are assholes but have bankrolls 10x as big as me and lose twice as often be denied for comps that are of lesser value. Helping or hindering players with these kinds of requests are one of the few situations that allow these low level employees to feel like they have the power to payback players -- if you're nice, the payback is nice, if you're an asshole, you get denied. It's that simple.

[Trapper]

What do you consider a generous tip? More to the point - what do the dealers and pit critters at the casinos you play at consider to be a generous tip?

> The players that don't get
> up and leave wouldn't be at all surprised if aa
> lightning bolt were to reign down at any moment to
> snuff out their very existence.

Players getting up and leaving is generally a good thing, isn't it?

I think that tipping at a level that would influence a pit boss's decision to comp or not would probably be a ruinous rate for a card counter playing with a small edge. I'm not opposed to tipping but I think you have to be realistic about the effects.