When a large better plays 200 min. and spreads to 1000 or more his play is watched closely. I just don’t see the player lasting long. Since most cover play is to keep the call to the eye from happening and the big bettor is probably going to have this happen no matter what he does, how does he survive? It doesn’t take the eye long after he is fixed on you so how do you play at that level or is that a thing of the past?
Smaller spreads and typical full-cover methods, I would imagine. A great act as well as a personable demeanor likely area must at that level of action. I doubt that anyone lacking in wit and personality could ever attempt advantage play of any sort on any high limit casino games.
I am obviously guessing, as I have yet to bet so much as a single black on any given play. But, I am patient, persistent, dedicated and so very confident in my future that I simply can't help but imagine and speculate playing for such high stakes.
That being said, I am also quite curious of responses from experienced AP's regarding the camouflage of major action casino blackjack play.
This is one of my favourite articles on the subject http://www.worldgameprotection.com/t...ckjack-Tables/
It perfectly demonstrates the difference between the amateur and the true professional.
There is a negative aspect attached to these types of 'acts' as well and that is that the players are quite memorable. You are only going to be able to pull that 'act' off once at each location and if there is any kind of suspicion about your act or they take a closer look, even if after you have departed, you are going to be quite memorable, so it would work best for an infrequent visitor(s) to a location. You are not going to be able to pull it off if you play a regular rotation of stores.
Last edited by KJ; 05-16-2012 at 05:25 AM.
Higher limit play requires a tighter spread with a faster ramp and a lot more cover. But remember, "betting cover" is far more costly than "hand camouflage cover". Adopt an 8 unit max bet rather than 12 units, reach it sooner, and make a lot of low cost hand playing mistakes.Originally Posted by Baberuth
Last edited by Renzey; 05-17-2012 at 09:38 AM.
Indeed. It would look strange to marry several times a year :-)
Besides, I consider it any but professional to play at a table
where another counter is playing and "to raise the bets in unison",
which is advised against in many books, also in Norman's.
So if the "amateur" performed bad by playing with the couple at the same table,
so did the couple by playing with him at the same table (and they even joined him
at the table, so they must know better, whereas he could not know in advance
that they would show up).
Also, a bet spread of 1:80 (25 to 2000 dollars) or even 1:120 (3000 dollars
together with the "bride") sounds ridiculous. And the fact that she claims to be
completly new to the game but suddenly bets 100 and then even 1000 dollars a hand.
If the casino does not get suspicious about this but feels disturbed by a harmless 10-160
bet spread player they really do not know their job.
By the way, the fact that they won 9,000 dollars in this shoe does not mean anything, because of the large fluctuations. They were just very lucky and could easily have lost 10,000 dollars instead. We all know this from the books, but every once in a while we are told stories of "real pros", who always win large sums in the stories, as if this were a sign of their professionalism and talent and not pure luck. This is a contradiction per se.
Last edited by PinkChip; 05-17-2012 at 02:53 PM.
I think with high limit it depends on the casino and sometimes requires a different thought process surrounding play. If you play on a big event night you can often just fire it up like a low roller. The rest of the time if you're playing bigger than the typical action a casino gets you will have to hit and run or use more cover or do some establishing type plays up front to signal to the casino that you are a sucker. Again it all depends on the casino, the day you are playing, and the choice of game. For shoes much less cover is required and for some casinos no amount of cover is going to fly for anyone who is ranging their bets and manages to win.
Also, the type of cover you use depends on the game, for single deck you can use lots of betting cover and little playing cover. On shoes you can use more playing cover and can't afford too much betting cover.
The spread is not a problem on shoe games, it's the bet jumps to achieve the spread that gives you away. I'm not going to give away my secrets here but if your bet jumps are non-threatening over the course of a shoe when playing heads up very large bet variations are possible between the first hand of the shoe and the last hand of the shoe. In fact it is not uncommon for me to be betting $100 on one hand and just a few minutes later be betting two hands of $1500 in the same shoe with no bet jumps bigger than $200 or $300 on each hand. $100-$300-$500-2x$500-2x$800-2x1000-2x$1200-2x$1500. That's seven rounds to go from one hand of $100 to two hands of $1500. Of course if I'm at 2x$1500 and the count drops to -1 I just excuse myself and begin returning phone calls.
Not only is it not ridiculous, but high stakes players get away with this type of spread all the time. Anything is possible if you are willing to trade session length and percent advantage for overall EV. Most VP players today settle for a 0.3% to 0.5% advantage when playing at high stakes. It doesn't take much spread to achieve an 0.6% to 0.8% advantage if you're willing to settle for that but you can achieve much more if you're also willing to make other tradeoffs.
Do you honestly think that a well bankrolled pro, with top bets in the mid 4 figures, who walks into casino and spots a juicy game is going to think to himself 'actually I can't play that game and generate ~$500/hr EV because there's already someone there making $3.17/hr betting red chips'?
The casinos were built by people betting $1000/hand despite the fact that they didn't know what they were doing!
We're all aware of what fluctuations are. The moral of the story is not that pros win $9k per shoe, it's that the most important thing in blackjack is being able to get the money on the table without setting off alarm bells.
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