Last Week

Last Week I hit a multi-card hard 18 - thinking that it was soft 18 - against a dealer FaceCard.

I broke. To add insult to injury, the dealer had 17 !

The (win-loss) swing on the one bet was $800 !

You should have complained immediately that you have problems adding so many cards and you are new to the game. It would be very inappropriate for the dealer NOT to question your move of hitting hard 18 and should have given you a reminder. They remind me nearly everytime I want to hit a soft 18 which kind of pisses me off but none-the-less, a dealer shouldn't have let you hit that 18 without making sure you knew what you had.

You are right about this. All I did was act like I was upset at my stupidity, loudly labeling it (accurately) as a product of my lack of sleep. However, the dealer is in NO way required to mention my hitting hard 18.

The dealer talked me out of it. Next card was a 3, and the pit did nothing. It was coverplay of course.

Given it was brought to you attention, you were made aware of what you were doing. Given that all + yourself knew that you did in fact have a hard 18, it is then up to you to direct the dealer to either hit or not. The Dealer nor the PC twisted your arm to NOT hit.

Of course I made a big ruckus trying to look like an idiot. I got the benefit of looking like a guy who hits hard 18 without actually taking any of the risk. I don't even remember if I won or not. But the pit didn't pay me any more attention the rest of the session, which is what I wanted.