Moose: Tales from Las Vegas.

[Moose]

* Does anyone want to know why the Horseshoe is losing business? I do. I was watching a guy throw between 2 and 3 HUNDRED dollars, at a time, on the Field bet in craps. He hit a 2, which pays double, and the guy on the stick started hustling for a $25 chip. The guy, who was half drunk, was stammering something about how every time he wins, the guys were harassing him for a quarter.

The pit boss reaction:

"Lucky it wasn't me dealing, I'd have asked for more."

The guy got up and stormed out.

What I saw afterwards made me sick.

Some other semi-inebriate tossed a hundred for change, the stick man colors him up with $10 in ones, then proceeds to drop a $1 chip on the line for the crew!

Here comes the sick part:

After the point was established, the stickman then harassed the guy for odds on the line bet!

By all accounts, the tip hustling at the 'Shoe has reached nearly unlimited proportions. I almost ripped up my card on the spot.

* I played my first Golden Gate coupon today. It was exhilirating, I bought in for $1k in green chips with a stack of silver, notified the dealer that instead of betting them, I'd just give them one per blackjack. Of course, I played at the CSM table, both with the faster speed and the DAS.

Having just downed a super duper sized coffee slurpee thingee from Starbucks, I was ready to roll. Whenever my first card was anything but a ten, I picked up another quarter in case I had a double or split. I doubled my elevens before the dealer turned over her hole card. The crew were amazed at how fast things were going. I was even outracing the CSM, as the pile of cards needing reshuffling got higher and higher in the waiting area, to the point where the thing jammed for a few minutes because it was short cards.

I got heads up almost the whole time, some ploppy came in at the last five minutes. I didn't want to be snarly at him and try and spook him off, partly because the floorman was really nice to me when the CSM jammed (he said he'd give me another five minutes) but when he started staring at my coupon and said how sweet it was, I told him that time was of the essence and could he please play as fast as he could.

The floorman gave me another five minutes too when the other player came, bless his heart. The guy played reasonably fast, pausing only for such "tough" decisions as 16 vs a 7 and whether to double hard 7 against a 6. When he stopped mid hand to tip the waitress, I hurried him up a bit, and when he asked me for advice on whether to split 7s against a 7, I told him I'd do "whatever was quicker".

He split, of course.

When it was over, I looked at the impressive stack of chips I had, and recounted fondly how I got 22 blackjacks in that period of time. 23, actually, since one of them pushed.

Oh yeah, I lost $200.

TWO POINT FIVE G'D PERCENT EDGE and TWENTY TWO NATURALS and I lost money. My only mistakes were hitting multi-card 16s against 10s and splitting 44 vs 4. Everything else was perfect.

How I love variance.

* Don't be scared to try using your 3-1 BJ coupons on Super Fun 21. It's about a 10% edge if you get away with it.

Moose over and out for now.

[CT]

Great write-up, except for the losing part. Hate to read those parts. Anyway, I have some questions for you if you don't mind...

1) What time of day would you suggest playing the 3:1 coupon at GG? I understand the promo runs from 12 noon to 12 at night - any particular time during the day you noticed a lack of ploppies at the CSM's?

2) Speaking of coupons - would you know if it is correct strategy to play 2:1 BJ coupons by flat-betting the max ($25) on the coupon until you get the BJ, then you leave?

3) I understand the error of splitting 4's vs. 4 - but why was it a mistake to hit the multi-card 16 vs. 10?

Thanks.

[John Maki]

What is the cupon/deal that is giving you the advantage against a CSM?

[Moose]

> Great write-up, except for the losing part.
> Hate to read those parts. Anyway, I have
> some questions for you if you don't mind...

Questions are just fine by me. Thanks for reading!

> 1) What time of day would you suggest
> playing the 3:1 coupon at GG? I understand
> the promo runs from 12 noon to 12 at night -
> any particular time during the day you
> noticed a lack of ploppies at the CSM's?

That promo is only 2:1 of course, and yes, I'd play it at the crack of noon on a mid-week day. They let me start early (11:48), bless their hearts. I still can't believe I lost..

> 2) Speaking of coupons - would you know if
> it is correct strategy to play 2:1 BJ
> coupons by flat-betting the max ($25) on the
> coupon until you get the BJ, then you leave?

on the blackjack coupons, I flat bet 2 hands of $25. If the count went up to anything advantageous at all, I went to 2 of $50, and if it plummeted, I went down to 1 hand of $25.

> 3) I understand the error of splitting 4's
> vs. 4 - but why was it a mistake to hit the
> multi-card 16 vs. 10?

The index play for this is pretty much exactly zero - Baldwin and company even noted in their landmark paper on Basic Strategy that this play was the optimal standing number for 16 vs 10 assuming no effects of removal was 16.01 - so if you have a multi-card 16 against a ten, the count is at least even almost all the time, so it becomes correct to stand.

[John Maki]

[bond trader]