New Casinos

I attended the opening of a brand new casino last night here in the midwest. Needless to say, the casino was packed, there was a lot of confusion with players getting cards, etc. On the blackjack tables I witnessed a lot of dealer mistakes. The pit crew seemed to be fully occupied just making sure the dealers knew what they were doing.

My question -- do advantage players ever target casino openings as a great time to play? It seems like their play would definitely come in under the radar for at least a week or two.

VCXZ,

I played Sam's Towne in LV when they opened in 1978 (or early"79). The dealers made many mistakes since they were all "break in". Sam's Towne opened with all DD pitch games. We (myself and two other players) took advantage of adding mistakes, flashing when loading the hole card or when peeking under the 10's and ace's, and also payoff mistakes. In those days I had squat for a BR but still managed to make around $400 in the first week they were open.

Common mistakes were; not noticing 22 and 23 busting hands, and paying 17 17 pushes when the dealer had a ten up and a seven in the hole. Also, we bet "barber poles" when possible in hopes we could confuse the dealer when we had a BJ or when we wanted to DD. If the dealer under paid we would complain, when the dealer over paid we would quickly put the winnings with the rest of our chips. One of the other players used to "quadrupale down" on DD hands (add more chips to the double down making the dealer think you had more chips then when you started the hand). I wouldn't use this method because I felt it was the same as capping, or adding chips to my bet, which is considered against the law in most areas.

I remember when I was involved in opening pit games at the Western Hotel in 1978 (yes, I said the Western!!). I had all break in dealers fresh out of four weeks of dealing school (note: most courses last six weeks). If I corrected one mistake I corrected 50 to 60 each shift. I also caught a player stacking up his added DD bet with his orignal each time he had a double down situation. I realized later he was adding on to the bet each DD opportunity (quadrupaling down).

Personally, I believe taking advantage of break in dealers is part of the game. If the casino presents you with a weakness, the csino should be prepared to expect players to use it against them. The only time I would draw the line is when a player attacke a dealer weakness so aggressively that he getst the dealer fired. I would hate to see someone lose their job over a situation I profited from.

My 2 cents.

Zman

I still use the "barber poles". It works once in a while on BJ's.

I'm not ashamed to say that i agressively targeted the Palms on opening night. The dealers there were confused and many acted like break ins. Doubling for more, busted hands, and DD surrending were great fun. Also about ZMan's story, I personally finished dealing school in 2� weeks, but then again I could also count a deck down in under 30 secs. Also ZMan, if you ever care to hook a dealer up with some juice, just let me know. =)

Shotkaller

The obvious drawback to this tactic is that grand openings usually result in incredibly crowded casinos. If you have to wait for a seat at a table and then play at a full table, you're not going to get all that many hands per hour in. This is the very reason I avoided the Palms until several days after it had opened. Even though I could get a bigger effective edge thanks to confusion and dealer errors and what not, I figured I could go to some dead casino across town somewhere and settle into a nice, cozy heads up game and play a lot faster which is what I did. What's more, a crowded casino means more noise, more smoke, more annoying people, more fills, more buy-ins and color ups, more difficulty walking from point A to point B and a longer line when trying to cash your chips in. Increased dealer errors and confusion, while sometimes profitable, also lead to more delays as the dealers have to ask for approval or help from the pit critters more which, in turn, adds more time to the aforementioned buy-ins and color-ups as the pit critters are often busy clearing up dealer confusion somewhere.