To look like a loser, I have read how important it is to rat hole chips and not let the pit see you doing it.
However, I just read in Norm's book "Modern Blackjack" that he puts chips in his pocket and does not hid the fact he is doing it!
Therefore, he is sure the casino knows that he has pocketed chips.
I play $10 tables. Is ratholing something I should consider?
That's not ratholing, that's keeping your stack small to reduce attention from passing managers. Sometime you buy in for a large amount and then make a big comeback but are still losing but your stack looks like you're a huge winner. Coloring up or putting some of them back in your pocket looks like what a gambler would do and it keeps your on-table profile much lower to both the eye and casino managers.Originally Posted by Sage
If you're playing unrated for low stakes you don't need to rathole. If you're playing rated you should try to rathole 2x to 3x your EV. If you're spreading $10 to 2x$150 or so that's around $100 an hour. If you rathole Green and Red Chips you should have no trouble getting them off the table and into your pocket without anyone noticing if you do it right. You should rathole the same amount everytime you play, win or lose. You want to make your losses a little bigger, your wins a little smaller, and break even sessions into slight losers. Sometimes it won't matter but you will never know when it will make the difference.
I rathole chips by going to the roulette table(cold shoe!) make some minimum roulette bets and i can rathole some black chips by doing it.
a)i can find reason to leave the table to play roulette...
b)I can rathole more smoothly
c)All these combaned activities reduce heat signifcately, but EV is same
Early in the book, I state:
Of course, if you are with other players playing the same stakes, or the stakes are lower, it’s less obvious where the chips have gone.Many players “rat-hole” or surreptitiously pocket chips. But the pit keeps track of the chips in the tray, and if they are nowhere on the table, then they are in somebody’s pocket. I sometimes put chips in my pocket — but I do it obviously, so I do not look like I am trying to hide them. I look more like a gambler who is “protecting his winnings.”
But, there are other reasons that I explain later, in addition to not drawing attention to too many chips. If you have fewer chips of various denominations on the table, this allows you to make larger up or down bet jumps without looking like a counter simply because you are using the chips available to you at that moment. It also allows a betting style akin to “steaming” where you look like you are just randomly grabbing a pile of chips and throwing them on the table. Of course, it isn’t really random. It’s just above or below the optimal bet. But, it’s made up of the limited group of chips on the table and makes you look like an impulsive gambler. Had a long phone conversation with Ralph Stricker a hundred years ago and discovered we both did this.
"I don't think outside the box; I think of what I can do with the box." - Henri Matisse
Think about it this way, The count is -3 at BJ or a -2% disadvantage making 2@$25 min bets on shoes playing 100 hands an hour versus making $25 in bets scattered over the layout at Roulette to a -5.26% disadvantage playing 40 spins an hour. What is your total cost per hour at Roulette vs BJ.
Answer: Blackjack $50x100x0.02 = $100/hr, Roulette $25 x 40 x 0.0526 = $52.60/hr
OK, fair enough, bigplayer, but I don't like EITHER option! How about when the count is -3, or even better -1.5ish, I go to the bathroom, taking my 13 green chips (not many chips because the count never went positive). In the bathroom, I slip 2 green chips in my pocket and then return to put my 11 green chips on the table to resume play on a new shoe. Cost: $0/hr. That's more up my alley.(I don't like cost).
Pai Gow Poker can be great as cover, except that there aren't that many tables and you have to learn the strategy. From my book:
Pai Gow Poker (PGP) is an interesting game as cover. It is extremely slow. The cards are shuffled every hand. The dealer must deal out seven-card hands for every seat, even empty seats. Then, there is a pointless ritual with dice. After this, players must try to figure out their hands, much more time-consuming than BJ Basic Strategy. After all of this, 50% of hands push. A pit boss at the MGM once told me that the entire point of the game was to play slowly, so they make no effort to speed it along. That is another advantage of PGP. The pit watches it more closely because dealer errors are easy to make and costly to the house. This gives you a chance to chat with the pit bosses at a game where advantage players are not a threat. Advantage play is possible, but only against other players. On top of all this, the house advantage is very small.
PGP can be beaten in California. In Las Vegas, I have played PGP in several casinos, but only one casino allowed a player advantage. Oddly, that was the old Barbary Coast. They allowed the player to bank every other hand when no other players wanted to bank — which is the normal case.
"I don't think outside the box; I think of what I can do with the box." - Henri Matisse
[QUOTEThink about it this way, The count is -3 at BJ or a -2% disadvantage making 2@$25 min bets on shoes playing 100 hands an hour versus making $25 in bets scattered over the layout at Roulette to a -5.26% disadvantage playing 40 spins an hour. What is your total cost per hour at Roulette vs BJ.
Answer: Blackjack $50x100x0.02 = $100/hr, Roulette $25 x 40 x 0.0526 = $52.60/hr][/QUOTE]even less
I play mainly european blackjack with one 0 -2.7% And i do probably few spins. Also roulette is very slow. Main problem is that my bets are not big when someone wants to track my actions
I dont like the idea to take some chips and go to the toilet and "forgot" it to put them back on the table
I think or actions should be natural
Norm
[132492]Some chips I rathole obviously -- some I don't[/quote]
How do you decide what chips to rathole? Is it by chip value?
Do you make a comment to the dealer when you put a chip in your pocket?
If the dealer asks to color up the chips you are going to pocket, do you do it?
I don't understand the process when you "want" the casino to know you pocket chips.
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