It’s time for me to challenge the conventional wisdom, if I do indeed understand it like it sounds.

I personally have a target gain at my local casinos that I do not wish to violate. If I make it before the shoe is over, I stop. So it’s not a stop-loss, but rather a stop-win. But everywhere that I look I seem to see APs saying that you NEVER leave a positive shoe.

Now, if you are a “hit-and-runner,” then I can certainly agree that you should finish the shoe. If you play for a living and travel a lot, you may not expect to be back to a particular store until you go “full-circle.” This may warrant not leaving an advantageous shoe as well since you probably have access to many stores. But if you’re local, and you want to keep playing locally, I say that it’s perfectly fine to abandon a shoe with a player advantage if it means that you can come back later. There will be other positive shoes. If you take an amount that violates their precious comfort zone, you may never see a shoe there again. I have been playing several local stores for almost four years now and have only been backed off from one of them.

This has happened to me twice lately. I was playing alone at a table one night and reached my target win within 3 decks. RC was +10 so I parachuted out of a TC+3 situation because of the longevity factor. Lately, I have been winning on the very first shoe in different places.

Playing to the end of a shoe and taking home a boatload just sounds foolish to me if you want to remain welcome as long as possible.