i think it might be your act in relation to your aggressive jump in spread.. You probably focus too hard on the game, have a drink, look at the tv, talk to the players/pit and slam chips in betting circle after a loss
i think it might be your act in relation to your aggressive jump in spread.. You probably focus too hard on the game, have a drink, look at the tv, talk to the players/pit and slam chips in betting circle after a loss
We're playing for the long run. The casino can only see the short run. Anything in the short run can happen, you might even see a unicorn there....so it would make sense that some places would see you as a threat within an hour or two, while another place might not even have you on their radar.
"Everyone wants to be rich, but nobody wants to work for it." -Ryan Howard [The Office]
You're probably right. These are early days for me, obviously, so I'm sure I could use some help with my act. I tend to go in very friendly--flirt with and flatter the women (but not in a threatening way), joke with the guys, bump fists with the little old Asian ladies when the dealer busts, smile at the floor people and sometimes ask them a question that makes me seem a little naive. Out-going and friendly comes easy to me. Dealers tend to like me. But I probably get too focused on the table when I'm winning (or losing). Any recommendations for my "act"?Originally Posted by ZenKinG
-jjjggg
If you're going to play shoes, you should be back-counting exclusively. There are plenty shoe games in Vegas that are almost as good as the double deck when you back-count.
As far as limiting play to 45 minutes, this is really dicey. You're eating up a ton of EV doing this. If you're not playing Vegas very often (it sounds like once a year or less) I'd just play unrated for longer sessions, and only leave if there's observable heat. If surveillance picks you off, so be it. Just make sure they don't have great pictures.
The Cash Cow.
A couple thoughts about backoffs in Vegas. This idea that there is some formula or check list that if you do this and this and this and only play this long, you will avoid backoffs is goofy. Tolerance levels vary by location, day of week, time of day, pit personnel. There is no magical numbers or logic to any of it. I play many places where I am pretty sure they know or at least strongly suspect that I am counting and playing with an advantage. But I have tailored a plan of attack, based on short sessions that generally keeps my play within the their comfort level. Generally but not always. I have had pit guys that have been very tolerant of me for long periods and then one day, my same attack that is generally tolerated isn't and they lower the boom. Who knows what happened. Maybe there was some directive from above to tighten up and I walked in at the wrong time. Maybe they were chewed out by their superior for something completely unrelated and I walked in at the wrong time and they took it out on me. Maybe he had a big fight with his spouse early that morning and I walked in on the wrong day and he took it out on me. My point is heat and tolerance levels vary. You are far better off to sharpen your skills at recognizing the signs of trouble than trying to figure out some magical plan of spreading x amount or playing x amount of time or less.
And speaking of time. Time is really being misused in this discussion. It isn't any specific amount of time that does anyone in. It is a specific amount of showing your spread. And more precisely retreating from your high bets. That is the trouble point. So, I don't like these time segments 90 minutes, 60 minutes, 45 minutes being thrown around. A far better ideology is couple times of showing your spread and you should move on. In a shoe game maybe that happens in the first two shoes of 25 minutes. Maybe it takes 60-90 minutes. Double deck games are much more challenging. The count fluctuates much more and you are likely to show your spread several times in a matter of 30 minutes. After the second or third time, at the most, I would exit, whether it's been 15 minutes or 45.
Yes. Using the original posters numbers, he was spreading 2 hands of $10 to 2 hands of $60. So he starts out at 2 hands of $10. The count goes positive and he starts betting bigger. 2 hands of $30. Count goes further positive and he puts out his top wager of 2 hands of $60. He has now shown his spread. Now showing your spread in itself isn't the real trouble point. Retreating back to the minimum wager, in this case 2 hands of $10 is the trouble point, which he has to do at the shuffle. The second time the count goes positive enough to play that max bet of 2 hands of $60, whether the next shoe or 3 shoes later, is showing your spread twice. At this point it is better to leave at the next shuffle, rather than to revert back to the small wager, 2 hands of $10 a second time. Playing this way, you almost never give enough information to anyone that is watching your game to confirm any suspicions that they might have. Not unless they are able to string several sessions of your play together.
From what I've gathered here....basically, once you've hit your max bet (in a shoe...and once it's finished), you might want to leave. Once you've shown your max bet in a second shoe, you most likely want to leave. If you play and show your max bet in a third shoe, then, it's definitely time to go. Spreading upwards isn't the problem, it's once you go back down to your minimum bet which is the problem. [And from other places I've read / techniques, is you can keep that max bet out for the first hand of the next shoe, or perhaps tone the bet down a bit, so that it isn't obvious you're going from 2x60 to 2x10 from end of one shoe to beginning of next. But perhaps, you could end a shoe with 2x60, start the next shoe with 2x40, then play 2x20 on the second hand, then place whatever bet you would normally bet on the third hand according to the count. Of course, you lose some EV doing this, betting big in -EV situations (off the top of the shoe), but it can give you more longevity.]
"Everyone wants to be rich, but nobody wants to work for it." -Ryan Howard [The Office]
To the OP:
Don't repeat what you did. The time spent in a casino is a factor, but more importantly is how much skill you show or how big your bets and win are. By choosing DD you probably showed a lot of skill in a short period of time. Obviously, given the time played and the number of bet jumps plus the amount won all combined in your being caught. If you were losing you may have been fine, but you showed a growing win over time.
So if one only allows oneself to reach max bets 2 or 3 times before leaving--that is indeed going to mean a lot more transit time from place to place. Up until now I've been playing 3 or 4 stores a day (playing maybe 8-10 hours/day). With this kind of strategy, I feel like I would have to hit 10 or 12 stores in a day to get a reasonable amount of table time in. Is that the correct way to go about it?
Also, regarding cashing in when one has been backed off, I'm still not clear: if I come back in on a later shift to cash purples, aren't they still going to call the pit to check on it? If so, what do I tell them so they're not suspicious? I've also noticed that they've called the pit a couple of times for confirmation when I've not been backed off and have tried to cash in smaller amounts (like $600)--are they on to me when they do that? Are they taking pictures?
Thanks again for all the advice.
-jjjggg
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