"That night at one point he won 41 hands in a row. Yes, this can happen. It’s called variance."
Sure, happens all the time. For blackjack, about one chance in 18 trillion. Commonplace.
Why do you spout such nonsense? You do NOT, in a legally dealt blackjack game, win 41 hands in a row any more so (actually LESS so) than you toss a fair coin and get heads 41 times in a row. Why do you waste our time? Answer: for the sheer sport of it.
Don
Don, I got this information from on an article I read about Don’s most famous win (Tropicana for $5.8 million). Btw, I’ve done pretty extensive research on this. I encourage you to do the same. There is a lot on this on the Internet. It doesn’t all line up with the Atlantic magazine article which is the article that made Don famous, and in all likelyhood got him elected to the Blackjack Hall of Fame.Originally Posted by DSchles
I’m not in a place where I can attach this article, but if you want to look it up, its from the New York Post called “The taking of Atlantic City”, June 12, 2011, by Ginger Adams Otis. You should be able to find it by doing an Internet search.
In this article, it said Don Johnson played alone for 12 hours (my mad, from memory I had said 15 hours). This is a quote from this article: “He played alone, surrounded by casino guards. Gawkers were shoed away.”
It goes on to say, “Until that is Johnson was able to string together a streak of astronomical odds - taking more than 40 hands in a row, according to a source.” From memory, I said he won 41 hands in a row. I did most of my research on this a couple months ago so I got some of my facts wrong. I didn’t know people were going to dissect my words to this degree or I would have gone back and read all these articles again.
This article goes on to say Michael Shakleford calculated the odds of this happening as 1 in 47,217,280,736,393,700. I’d be interested in what you come up with. I know it sounds incredible and it’s probably an exaggeration of what really happened. We all know how over time memories get blurred. But I think there is some basic truths in what happened, which is Don got very lucky that night and got on a winning streak. I doubt if it was over 40 hands in a row as you say, but it was probably something most people have never seen before. I’ve read some other articles that said the tape of Don’s 12 hour play was sent to several expert surveillance groups and they replayed every hand Don played during those 12 hours. What did they see? Don got incredibly lucky. He used no AP techniques in his winnings. He basically used basic strategy and luck.
And for this the members of the Blackjack Hall of Frame elected him into the Blackjack Hall of Fame. I’m assuming you were one of the people who elected him into your elite group of blackjack players.
Btw, what Don Johnson did happens from time to time, meaning whales get lucky and every once in a while win millions from a casino. In fact, this happened a couple months later at the Tropicana where another whale won over $5 million in one session playing bj and a couple other games. Because an article wasn’t written about this person, we won’t know who he is.
Don, I want you to know I really respect your work within the blackjack community and your book, bja3, its my go to book. This takes nothing away from you.
I’m sure some of the things I’ve read about Don Johnson are incorrect or an exaggeration but based on all my research (btw, that is my profession so I’m pretty good at it), I think I have a pretty good idea of what happened with Don Johnson and what made him famous. It’s mostly the casinos elevating him to his status, then a reporter from the Atlantic magazine writing an article about him and then the public and AP community believing it.
Last edited by Dbs6582; 08-19-2018 at 02:53 AM.
I can tell you two things with absolute certainty: 1) in an honestly dealt blackjack game, you will never in 100 lifetimes have a person win 41 hands in a row -- or anywhere near that number -- so it's a gross exaggeration and fiction; and 2) I didn't vote for Don Johnson and considered several other candidates that year a great deal more worthy than he was.
Don
I once won around that many hands in a row on BJ. I sat down to play and opened with my max bet for a Skylansky type gambit.. Two and a half shoed later I lost my first hand. I pushed only a few times during that time too and won 80 max bets. It was witnessed by my friends too. One in 18 trillion still happens once in 18 trillion lol.
Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
Yes it does. I was surprised Don made the comment. But his point was valid for indicating Ds should have called BS on the article being even close to accurate. But Ds believes whatever he reads like it can't be false or greatly exaggerated or intentionally misleading. I know I have won 25 in a row a few times if you ignore pushes but I am not sure if I had longer winning streaks. I really don't track winning streaks so I would have no way of knowing.
Don, that’s good to hear you didn’t vote for him. I’ve listened to several of Don Johnson’s interviews and it’s hard for me to see what he’s brought to bj, other than having a couple reporters write articles about him. And these reporters really distorted his story, to say the least. I know I wouldn’t have voted for him. I can think of several people who are more deserving, but I know I don’t get a vote. Lol.
Btw, I thought it was interesting that these casinos quickly showed the receipts for Don’s wins to the Atlantic magazine reporter. They wanted to show evidence he’d won that much. They did not show the reporters what he lost, and he had quite a few big losing sessions. Don was playing rated at all these casinos to get his loss rebate so they knew how much he won and how much he was losing. It’s not reported as much, but there was also another whale who won almost as much as Don in one session. In fact, due to the attractive loss rebate programs during this time, there were quite a few whales playing some big money, and some of them got lucky and won big. There were also some that lost big.
I agree that winning that many hands in a row is a stretch. I should have qualified my statement with an article said this. I’ve read other articles and I have some insider information I’d rather not revel that confirms Don got very lucky that night. He might not have won 41 hands in a row, but he was definitely on a hot streak. Bottom line is Don Johnson won a lot that night and now he’s famous due to the casinos revealing his name. I also know Don played alone that night and his entourage was not around so there wasn’t any advantage play going on. Anyway, it was an interesting story.
Don negotiated a great rebate deal and used that deal to get the same deal with other casinos. Ir was a much better deal than others typically got. The rebate was high but the other terms exclusive to his deal were the key to it being that good.
Of course you are on a good run when you have a total win of almost 30 bets. There have been much better runs.
Sharky, you’re taking my quotes out of context. Please read them within the context they were meant. The first quote is from a thread where we (you started it) were talking about people who win using AP techniques, which means counting. Casinos don’t like this. The second quote comes from a thread where we’re talking about someone winning like Don Johnson (where he wasn’t playing with an advantage). Casinos are okay with that.
Do you understand the difference? I hope you don’t start going down the road of pulling quotes from different threads to prove one of your meaningless points. If you continue to go down this road, I won’t be replying to your posts in the future because they are wasting my time and everybody elses time.
so let me get this right....casinos are in business to make $$$, yet your business sense says they "like winners"...hmmmm.....this may be ever more ground breaking then your "fixed demand" theories...this may be really be noble worthy...please expand...
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