How do you handle an uncertain counter measure..

**ZeeBabar** · 03-31-2019, 07:33 AM

Playing in this locals casino for the first time, early morning hours, just one 6 deck table open, just me and 2 other local players. Its a $10 table and I start playing 2 x$10. Since I joined mid shoe, I did not spread. They asked me for a players card, I said I am passing through and unlikely to return again. That shoe was dealt to about 85%. Pit guys shot a couple of glances at me. Shoe ends, new dealer shows up, and immediately places the cut card right in the middle, cutting half the 6 deck off. The other two ploppies dont even notice, in conversation with each other.

I am thinking, what is this? A brown bearded bald guy sits down and they cut off the shoe in half? Is it that I put out 2 x $10 and not just play one spot? Thinking maybe they are testing me, the next shoe will go back to normal if I just played. The shoe turned negative and stayed negative, lost a small amount. However, the pit got distracted and the dealer cut the next shoe just as he did the first, half shoe. I made an excuse and left. Should I hacve asked why they are cutting so much shoe off?

Question is what do you do. Seems to me its a giveaway if I get up and leave as soon as they cut off half the shoe. I can pretend I dont care and hope they will revert back to normal. I was quite sure, once they notice I am not spreading, the dealer would be asked to go back to normal but the pit lost interest or forgot or whatever. I just hated it because I had gone 20 miles off the highway to this small town casino.

**BoSox** · 03-31-2019, 09:50 AM

Originally Posted by ZeeBabar

Its a $10 table and I start playing 2 x$10. Since I joined mid shoe, I did not spread. They asked me for a players card, I said I am passing through and unlikely to return again. That shoe was dealt to about 85%. Pit guys shot a couple of glances at me. Shoe ends, new dealer shows up, and immediately places the cut card right in the middle, cutting half the 6 deck off. The other two ploppies dont even notice, in conversation with each other.

At least the second shoe 50% cut was a big improvement over what you started out with. Which was essentially a 65% cut out. I bet you did not know the count when you entered the game, did you? If not why did you enter in the first place, and with two hands at that? If you did know the count and it was positive why did you make only two $10 bets?

Originally Posted by ZeeBabar

Should I hacve asked why they are cutting so much shoe off?

You actually have the nerve to ask that question on this forum.

**ZeeBabar** · 03-31-2019, 10:04 AM

Originally Posted by BoSox

At least the second shoe 50% cut was a big improvement over what you started out with. Which was essentially a 65% cut out. I bet you did not know the count when you entered the game, did you? If not why did you enter in the first place, and with two hands at that?

You actually have the nerve to ask that question on this forum.

Bosox, I often start with 2 hands at minimum when I sit down because going to two hands after a count is positive might be a tell. Its minimum bets and it helps establish how I appear to be playing when I dont change the bets for the balance of the first shoe I entered midway and it dissipates heat. I was not wonging in.

Asking a dealer, as opposed to a pit person, I have done that before. Somertimes the dealer has shrugged and said "I do what they tell me to" or "its the procedure here" and sometimes "they think someone is counting cards here".

**Freightman** · 03-31-2019, 10:09 AM

Zee
Just maybe, might have had something to do with your posted itinerary. They were waiting for a brown skinned counter who was just “passing thru”

**BoSox** · 03-31-2019, 10:22 AM

Originally Posted by Freightman

Zee
Just maybe, might have had something to do with your posted itinerary. They were waiting for a brown skinned counter who was just “passing thru”

Who was also a 6'7" Asian?

**ZeeBabar** · 03-31-2019, 10:53 AM

Bosox and Freightman, too funny guys! Some countries keep information from getting to their people, the USA gives out so much information that you never know what to make off it. As far as my trips or my appearance, there is so much deception there that it generally works!

Casinos in Las Vegas and Missouri and Mississippi have spent millions of dollars and man hours on me, plastering their pits with my picture, and everyone from the valet to their hotel desks and maids to every employee in the casino has been on the lookout for me. They log on to BJTF every day to keep track of my itenerary and my description. Heck, there is a tinted windowed Truck parked down the street, my phone and my PC has been hacked to keep track of me.

**ummagumma** · 03-31-2019, 11:37 AM

Originally Posted by BoSox

I bet you did not know the count when you entered the game, did you? If not why did you enter in the first place, and with two hands at that?

What a stupid question. And if you don't understand why it's stupid, you're not quite as clever as you think....

**BoSox** · 03-31-2019, 11:51 AM

Originally Posted by ummagumma

What a stupid question. And if you don't understand why it's stupid, you're not quite as clever as you think....

Zee is not exactly betting all black "with needed cover plays and camo" and besides it was obvious that the place was a complete waste of time sweatshop.

**21forme** · 03-31-2019, 03:45 PM

It's your OSN entry.

**Optimus Prime** · 03-31-2019, 04:43 PM

I'm baffled about a couple things:

1) Zee, why in the world wouldn't you wait for the shuffle before beginning to play? It's perfectly natural-sounding to say "I can wait" as a courtesy to the ploppies, superstition, whatever. Or take a lap around the joint while they finish the shoe.

2) Unless Zee is really in OSN, which seems unlikely given his stakes, why would they half-shoe a guy who'd only bet table minimum?

**21forme** · 03-31-2019, 05:38 PM

Originally Posted by Optimus Prime

2) Unless Zee is really in OSN, which seems unlikely given his stakes, why would they half-shoe a guy who'd only bet table minimum?

Zee is in OSN. He has seen his own entry, provided by a forum member, which includes his picture and a picture of his car and license plate.

Sitting down at a table, mid-shoe, without loitering/back-counting, and getting half-shoed can only mean somebody recognized him as an AP, either from an OSN entry or direct personal contact previously.

**Meistro123** · 03-31-2019, 09:50 PM

Seems to me its a giveaway if I get up and leave as soon as they cut off half the shoe

Agreed, I'd probably play for a half an hour and quit. Come back some other time. Probably you have been flyered, and either way it's now a mediocre game. I got half shoed once on a delightful four deck game, (normal cut of half a deck) and came back that night on the night shift and got the normal cut. Not to say you should return that night of course.

There is nothing wrong with joining (and betting after joining) midshoe, the trick is to mentally put all of the cards in the discard tray when you join behind the cut off.

**Stealth** · 04-01-2019, 11:32 AM

Originally Posted by Optimus Prime

2) Unless Zee is really in OSN, which seems unlikely given his stakes, why would they half-shoe a guy who'd only bet table minimum?

Not true. They may put you in OSN for simply raising your bet. Remember, the people making the judgements about putting you in OSN are at several hundred different casinos and they have no guidelines that are administered with any consistency. You may be there becasueyou where with someone who raised their bet!

If you have been backed off at an OSN casino you are almost sure to be in the system. I have over 800 casinos in my database and of them 220 are subscribers to Biometrica, OSN or Griffin and my numbers are most certainly UNDERSTATED. I would guess that the actual number is closer to 500.