A Good Pit Boss

You may see that as an oxymoron, but this is what happened over the weekend.

Player (my niece) went to two hands and dealer missed it. Didn't deal any cards to the second hand. Called over the PB. He said anyone wishing to withdraw their bet, could do so. As player had 20 and dealer had 7 showing, she stayed in. He hit for a 21. She said she didn't think much about it. After all she had the chance to pull out and it wasn't the first time she had a 20 beaten by a 21. She thought it was handled fairly. BUT the PB said to the dealer "I am calling your hand dead, pick up the cards,but not the chips."
Now that is above and beyond. Pit boss's are just like players, there are good one's and there are bad one's.
Midnite

I had a dealer burn a card at the beginning of a shoe. The replacement comes and taps him off and burns a card. Calls over the pit boss. Pit boss says since they are not supposed to burn two cards we can play the next hand and have the option of pulling back our bets after seeing our first two cards and the dealers up card. Naturally we all bet max. The other players were stiff and withdrew. I stayed in, 5,5 vs dealer's 10, drew a 10. He had a 5 under and busted.

How many ploppies would look at that dealer 10, think the best they could do is push, and pull back their bet? .027 positive expectation on that hand in a 6 deck shoe.

Pit bosses often give you a "can't lose" break, when it comes to a dealer error. Pay the whole table, win or lose, etc.

I've found Las Vegas pits less likely to be so generous? Pretty much standard practice in the Midwest, I guess they figure they are going to get it back on the next hand.

The others were surprised at my staying in. I did not know the exact positive expectation but thought what the hell. Was a little nervous though.

I had a $275 double down (11 vs 9) on one of my hands with a $5 bet for the dealer. I put up another $275 for the double. She accidentally pulled 2 cards out of the shoe but we both knew which was mine. The dealer called the pit boss over. The female pit boss asked which card was mine. The dealer pointed to the correct card. The pit boss peeked under the card and said, "You don't want that one. Burn it." She peeked under the second card and said, "You don't want that one either. Burn it and draw another card." The dealer drew another card and the pit boss reached out and grabbed her hand, tilting the card for her to see. "You definitely want that one," she said. Of course it was a ten, the dealer had a ten under her nine and the original cards that came out of the shoe were a 2 and a 3. $1100 difference for one or 2 $5 tokes an hour. I didn't play it up, just told the dealer to let the pit boss know I appreciated it. Really appreciated it. All the other pit bosses I ever met though are ignorant, overinflated pieces of garbage. Just not this one.

at a casino i play at, you're allowed to double with the money of the people who are backbetting on your hand, so long as the back-bettor doesn't want to double himself. the dealers should either ask you if you want to double the back-bettors' wager or at least wait a second for you to motion that you want to double the back-bettors' money as well. i had 11 against 9 with 3 units on the table. the backbettor had about 8 of my units that he didn't want to double against the 9. i had the money in my hand to double, but before i could lay it on the table, the dealer already pulled out the picture. i immediately told him that i should have the opportunity to double the back-bet. amazingly, the pit-boss behind him saw the whole thing and agreed that i could double. so, looking at my 21 on the table, i simply added 9 units. i didn't turn around to look at the back-bettor who was dumb enough to not double his money, but i 'reminded' the dealer and the pit-boss that i always double 11 (--of course, i don't always double 11 in the ENHC game).

the cheeze

Years ago, I was playing at the Fremont. I think it was a shoe game.
The dealer got an ace and manually checks it. About that time the PB is walking by and leans over and tells everybody at the table that she (the dealer) has a 5 as her hole card!
Evidently the puzzled look of disbelief we all gave him was prettyobvious, because again he tells us "Really! She's got a 5!"
I had a 10 and the count was positive, so I doubled. I figured he was telling us the truth, for whatever reason. I got another 10. The PB saw me do that and we both laughed! Sure enough, when the dealer turned over her hole card it was a 5. She hit and busted.
I still couldn't figure out why a PB would go out of his way to "spook" for a table of players.
An old timer later told me that the PB was nicely telling the dealer she wasn't covering her hole card well enough when checking under her
He could have chewed her out (either at the table or later on) but instead, took care of the problem that. I thought it was a pretty polite way to tell her to "tighten up".
I guess its not that uncommon of a way for PB to tell a dealer to cover better, but I hadn't seen it before, or since.

Take Care,
@^)
Cyclops

... but congrats to Hard14 on winning the hand anyway!!!

I see the 0.027 positive expectation listed in SW's Professional Blackjack. This is your expectation, only if you are given that the dealer does not have a blackjack. In normal play, this is the appropriate value to consider. However, in this situation, the dealer still might have a BJ, and if he does, the player loses.

EV is about (1/13)x(-1) + (12/13)x0.027 = -5.2%

(The exact EV is actually slightly worse.)