What are some of the ways to verbally hint to the dealer to go deeper with the cut card without exposing what you are doing? Toking deep in the deck and saying something like "you have enough for one more round" is an obvious one. Are there anymore ?
Cliff
It isn't done verbally. How and When you do it is the real trick, and its easier to do than to describe.
I don't play with chips as many others do. But as the dealer starts to shuffle, I start to play with a chip of a denomination size that could easily be a thought of as a tip. (It doesn't hurt to converse with the dealer to make sure he/she sees you playing with the coin.)
I continue playing with the coin while the cut card is presented to a player, and the player cuts. (If you're a tracker, this can also somtimes work to get you the cut card!)
Just before the dealer does the final insert of the cut card, I stop playing with the coin and just hold it still in my hand. I just sort of freeze momentarily. My hand also "happens" to be near where I would place it for a dealer bet, and since I've probably already placed my bet in the square, there's little doubt where the chip in my hand would be most likely to go. (Most people play with chips and then immediately place them back on a stack.)
The second the dealer inserts the cut card, if I consider it a good cut I instantlt place the coin on the felt for either a dealer bet or an outright toke..
If its just an average to poor cut, I instantly place the coin back on one of my stack. No big movements or theatrics, just put it back and begin playing.
IMHO, if the dealer is smart enough to understand this subtle hint, and is willing to deal deeper for the tip, they will. It often works to get better pen and sometimes the cut card as well.
If the dealer either isn't bright enough to figure it out, or isn't willing to play ball, it hasn't cost me any money.
I certainly don't do this method only, and of course not every shoe.
That would break you pretty quickly
Take care,
@^)
Cyclops
play a lot.
I did this one place I played at for about a year and it worked for several dealers... one of whom became a pit boss at another venue and
blew the pen sky-high as soon as I walked in the door.
It will mark you as a counter in the eyes of anyone who recognizes what you're doing. Only counters care about pen.
Spok
... is the basic rube ploy, part of my cover is to chat with dealers anyway; in some instances I might give a "Lordy, why do you cut off so many cards!?!" to which the dealer will always say, "It's so people can't count cards," or something to that effect, and I scrunch my nose and say, "Aw, do you really have a problem with people doing that?" to which the dealer will say, "Oh, I guess they do sometimes." The point is to get to the line where I say, "Well, jeez, let us play some cards. All that does is screw up the deck."
I've tried this maybe a grand total of ten times, never in earshot of PB's, and only with young, obviously new dealers. Half the time the dealer has given better pen the next shoe and shoes thereafter. They haven't turned into robots yet, they want to be liked, they want to please the customers, they can't recognize a counter, and probably haven't been hammered by a PB yet.
You have to be careful. It breaks a cardinal rule of ever being in a discussion about counting while seated at a table, and if you try it with a dealer who has any experience he'll roll his eyes and figure you are counting.
I also like Cyclops's suggestion, the Potential Tip method. And agree you couldn't do it at any of your regular joints. But I could see trying it in a place you won't be at again for a few years, if ever.
SJ
But I'm not a Vegas local, though.
My style of play locally is to just track, and act like a stereotypical southerner, who had trouble adding up his hand. (No slur intended there, that's just how many non-southerners view us.) Its worked pretty well. I've never been pulled up with this play style, and have even other had counters at my table ejected while I was playing.
Pen at my local casinos is highly variable, from 1D cut off (6D game) to as bad as 2+ cut off. I think 1.5 is pretty typical though.
So basically, if I track at the better pen local houses and wong-track at the poor pen places (when I need to take a break from the good pen places) I feel that I don't need to try to get better pen or do anything else to draw attention to myself. I want to keep the welcome mat out as long as possible.
Take care,
@^)
Cyclops
.. was with this young lady who had just finished complimenting me on how nicely I was treating her despite a T/titanic losing streak, and so with monster count at hand, before betting, I simply asked her: "Do we have another hand?"
She paused, made some comment about how some people HATE it when they don't shuffle that often, and once I convinced her that this certainly wasn't the case with me :), a Ro5 game turned into a Ro7 (Ro8 in really negative counts, but I wasn't about to complain ;) and I made some decent red chips.
Caveat: Since I visit Vegas infrequently and play low stakes, I have no qualms about dropping my guard to the dealer. For me, the rewards of finding a sympathetic dealer far outweigh the risks. What dealer is going to try and rat out a red chip counter?
M.
Re: "What dealer is going to try and rat out a red chip counter"...
watch out for this analogy when playing DD on the strip. I'm finding
that nickel and dime games with good rules there are generating more heat than the quarter games of late when spreading from 1 to 2x4.
I think the reason is because there are fewer and fewer such nickel/dime games relative to quarter games and it's creating a pit backlash by funneling the red-chip players dis-proportionately. This is magnified by my belief that there are many more red-chip counters than green.
Off strip or on games rated .40 or worse, this doesn't seem to be the case but I've found the heat at Riv and Dust to border on fanatical
relative to the green venues.
Spok
