Although this is about BJ outside the US, I�m posting it here because I�m writing from the perspective of a US player. I hope you will enjoy it.
Blackjack in Prague
I wanted to play blackjack in Prague mainly as a cultural experience rather than a money maker; although I expected to win, I didn�t have much time to spend in the casinos. Prague is a beautiful city, and if you ever get a chance to visit, I�d highly recommend that you grab it.
The blackjack in Prague was a bonus. There are a lot of small casinos there. Most are just a few rooms of a commercial building. The ones I saw only had a single room for table games, with the rest devoted to slots.
As with all of the European casinos I�ve seen, I had to register to play the table games. I�ve passed on playing in Germany and the UK because I didn�t want to have my passport registered, but I decided not to let it deter me this time.
The rules played were also pretty standard for European casinos; 6D, DOA, DAS, EN10. There was no hole card, which I found annoying, but there was also virtually no table talk. The latter was especially nice for me because I usually play SD or DD, so I was going to have to concentrate harder than usual to keep track of the count. (I use HO1 with an ace side count.)
I would put the playing ability of the other players (who seemed to mainly be local, based on their ability to speak Czech) as slightly above the average American ploppie. This surprised me because I had expected that requiring registration would deter the casual player, leaving a more knowledgeable group. Even though they were slightly better, I still heard some discontented noises when I signaled for a hit on a soft 18 against a 10 (and not a peep of recognition even though I was sitting at 3B and drew an ace!) No one else surrendered, and I saw many a ripe double go un-�downed�.
If anyone else was tracking the cards, they didn�t show it as almost everyone flat bet, and any variations did not correlate to the count. I didn�t (and still don�t) know what the attitude in Prague towards AP � whether they pay attention to betting patterns, what they would do if they suspected me (a bothersome possibility since they had my passport number and a photo), and I didn�t really want to find out. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, I chose a seat right under the pit boss�s nose (he wasn�t there when I sat down.) The tables were pretty crowded, though, and there were only two of them, so I was pretty much stuck where I was. Because of these conditions, I kept my spread to 1-4.
The table limits where I played were pretty low; 100-3000 Czech crowns (the exchange rate is about 36 crowns/dollar.) One of the reasons casinos use chips is to disassociate our bets from �real money.� A fun aspect of this in the Czech casino is that it gave a player like myself (big red to light green) the opportunity to bet �200� with impunit. While doing it I thought to myself that it would be a long time before I ever have the chance to do something like that again (little did I know, as you'll see below!)
Because we were leaving late the next day, I only bought in for CzK 2000 (about $50.) I had this as pocket money, and I didn�t want to subject myself to the exchange rate haircut to get back into dollars, so I kept to low limits. (A tip: I later remembered a tip a friend had given me � if you have extra local currency at the end of your trip, use it to pay as much of your hotel bill as you can, and then put the rest on your credit card. This is particularly useful if you travel to a country with a soft currency since no one is going to be too keen to turn it back into dollars.) Had I remembered that, I would have got more cash before I went into the casino, but perhaps it best that I didn�t as I was the biggest bettor at my table as it was and I didn�t want to draw any more attention to myself. Although 20 units of the table minimum is a very small stake, I was mainly there for the experience so I didn�t mind the relatively high probability of ruin.
The game itself was a lot of fun; no particularly bad streaks (which was a nice change � lately I�ve only seemed to get 14�s on plus counts) and I was counting and playing well.
The dealers rotate tables pretty quickly as each dealt only about a shoe and a half or so. Thankfully, new dealers don�t reshuffle � they just burn a card and play on. The first two dealers were the kind I like; their movements were slow and unpracticed. Hell, they could barely get the cards out. This made it easy to count a 6 deck shoe and, if they were going to cheat me (as some had warned might happen) well, it would be worth the price of admission to see such masters of disguise!
The last two dealers, on the other hand, played at warp speed, requiring greater concentration. The count stayed fairly flat on most shoes, but went very negative on one and very positive on another. The negative shoe was interesting in that it went very negative immediately, but I won hand after hand. Although I wanted to cut my bet on the negative count, I didn�t want to be seen doing so while winning. Thus, most of my winnings came from dumb luck.
Although I was having fun and playing well, I had set a strict time limit for myself, so I stood up earlier than I would otherwise have done. My results: won CzK 1,300, or about $40. Enough to buy a very nice crystal decanter (we had heard that Prague is expensive, but we found good values on a wide range of stuff.)
A couple of notes:
- Shuffle trackers would be in heaven as the dealers only shuffle through once. Perhaps this implies they aren�t concerned with AP. I don�t track, but enjoyed the quick shuffle.
- Because they have no chips below 50, if you have an odd multiple of 50 out and get a blackjack, they employed a trick I had heard of, but never seen before; the payoff on the odd chip is �captured�, and has to be bet on the next hand.
In summary, I had a great time. My wife and I loved Prague, and the great BJ (blackjack) was a plus. We plan to go back, and I�d recommend the trip to anyone.
Blackjack in Budapest
The next stop on our vacation was Budapest. Although I had known that there were casinos in Prague, I hadn�t known they would be in Budapest as well. We had less time in Budapest, so I didn�t have much time to look into the different casinos. I played in the �Las Vegas Casino�, which is attached to the Hyatt where we stayed.
Perhaps because the Hyatt seemed to get a lot of American businesspeople, the casino has two halves; one playing in dollars, and the other in Hungarian Forints. The �American� side was fairly crowded, although not overly so. I almost got lonely on the Hungarian side, but the exchange rate is about 280 HuF/dollar, and I wasn�t going to pass up the chance to bet with �1000� chips.
The rules there are pretty much the same as those in Prague, including the requirement to register. One exception is that the dealers shows the burn card. A curious practice, but I wasn�t complaining. I bought in with 15,000, again not wanting to have a lot of local money. (Although I had remembered the way to get rid of excess local currency by then, our accommodations were being provided for us this time.)
The first dealer I had was pretty pretty fast. The decks were all positive and, emboldened by my experience in Prague, I spread 1-8. Because it was so quiet in the Hungarian side, the pit boss watched me the whole time, or I would have spread more. I had good luck in the first few decks, and because they were positive, I had bigger bets out most of the time. As a result, I was up by quite a lot.
The dealers changed, and the new dealer was very fast. My luck held, though, and I kept winning at first. The tide changed after a while, though. Although the deck remained positive, I started having bad luck; getting more stiffs, and the dealer was getting good hands. Because the deck was positive, I was losing relatively large bets. It occurred to me that I might be being cheated, but I suspect it was just one of those bad runs. I went back to the room with my tail between my legs.
Despite the beating, we also loved Budapest. The food there was fantastic, and although not as much of old Budapest survived the wars as old Prague had, there was still plenty of beautiful sights to see. Blackjack-wise, I was down about $10 for the trip, and I suspected that was the last chance I�d have to play on the trip. Little did I know.
Blackjack in Serbia!
The ostensible purpose of our European trip was a presentation my wife was making in Serbia. Since her plane ticket and some hotel rooms would be paid for, we took some vacation time around it.
Much to our surprise when we got to the hotel in Serbia, there was a sign pointing the direction to a casino nearby. Since the exchange rate is about 70 Yugoslavian Dinars to the dollar, this would be another opportunity to �bet big.�
However, I soon came to understand that although Milosovic is out, there are still a lot of his cronies in power, and that many businesses are run by gangsters. For that reason, I took a pass. Although I don�t know that the casino is run by gangsters, I sure didn�t want to take a chance, especially since Americans aren�t particularly popular at this time; the price of winning might be greater than the price of losing.
Trip summary: lost $10, but I gained some great memories. Hope you enjoyed reading them.
