Travel Channel Show

Has anyone else seen this show on the Travel Channel? It's a
challenge between 'professionals' in each of 4 games - baccarat,
blackjack, craps, and roulette. And there's one 'amateur' who
goes from game to game.

The 'pro' blackjack player gets a run of terrible cards, and
finally goes through his whole $10k with the amateur at the
table. He blames the amateur for his demise - didn't hit a
15 when the dealer was showing a face card.

The baccarat player wins.

Peter Ruchman of the GBC. Schlesinger recently claimed Ruchman was a blackjack "expert" while I claimed his knowledge was negligible. I guess I win that round. :^)

I wasn't impressed with the guy. It appeared that he had about the same qualifications as the so-called pros at the other games, like the baccarat player who sometimes bet on the player. Betting on the player is never the best bet, not even in a tournament situation. For these clowns, "professional gambler" really means "guy who makes money by claiming to be a professional gambler." It's pretty obvious that, since they're not advantage players, their source of income can't possibly be the baccarat, craps or roulette tables themselves. Not that the ploppies are able to figure this out.

When the blackjack guy essentially blamed the ploppy for making him lose, he didn't say the ploppy diluted the high count. He seemed to be saying the same old "you took the dealer's bust card" bullshit. Counter or no counter, I'm not impressed with a guy who buys into that fallacious crap.

I'd like to know what counting system he was using. Hi-Opt 2? Okay, I'm a little more impressed. Hi-Lo with no side count? Then this guy is no expert. Most GC members are probably as good or better.

By the way, the show sucked. It was sixty minutes of a guy doing play by play of a roulette table. "Soo's winning steak is over. She drops the next seven hands in a row, for a total loss of two thousand dollars. Meanwhile, at the roulette table, Lori needs a long shot to come through...." It was more boring than the "Magic: The Gathering" match on ESPN2 which I once sat through. This time, I had a remote control handy.

That was quite enjoyable to watch. I still have the 1999 US Championships on tape. On occasion, I still pop it in just to watch resident big-mount Mike Long go down in flames due to some harsh negative EV draws.

Of course, when you play the game, it's a lot more enjoyable to watch, and it makes a lot more sense..

M.

I only stopped playing Magic BECAUSE it stopped making sense.

For the record, that happened when they came out with Legends, and I couldn't compete with people who had paid upwards of seventy dollars for some cards. Screw This, I said. I still have about two feet of cards lying around somewhere. I haven't gotten back into it because getting up to speed isn't worth the money, and I don't want to do anything unless I do it right.

Which is why I count cards.

Betting on the player is never the best bet, not even in a tournament situation.

In a normal game of baccarat, the effects of card removal will quite often make the player a better bet than the banker.
In a tournament situation, player and for that matter, even the tie with its huge double-digit vig, can be the best bets towards the end of the tourney or round, if making these wagers is your only means of winning.

For these clowns, "professional gambler" really means "guy who makes money by claiming to be a professional gambler." It's pretty obvious that, since they're not advantage players, their source of income can't possibly be the baccarat, craps or roulette tables themselves. Not that the ploppies are able to figure this out.

When the blackjack guy essentially blamed the ploppy for making him lose, he didn't say the ploppy diluted the high count. He seemed to be saying the same old "you took the dealer's bust card" bullshit. Counter or no counter, I'm not impressed with a guy who buys into that fallacious crap.

Agree.

I don't know about your baccarat card-removal theories, but I did forget that the player bet offers slightly different odds than the banker bet. (1-1 vs .95-1) So I was wrong to say that it is never optimal in a tournament.

Im such a dork

Nowdays, Magic has been highly regimented into formats. Pro Tour events can be in any of these formats, and there are some professionals that specialize in one or more formats and play them exclusively.

For instance, Classic is where all those 'upwards of $70' cards (at their peak, upwards of $200) are in play. Any card from any set is legal, except certain banned cards. Some you can only have 1 of (restricted), some you can have 4 of.

Related to Classic is Extended, the same idea but there are a lot more banned and restricted cards. The banned and restricted cards for these formats are constantly watched, and updated every time new sets come out.

Standard is the latest basic set (we're up to 7th Edition now - at Legends, I believe it was 'Revised', or 4th Edition) and the last two expansion "blocks" - expansions are released 3 per year, one "main" set and two "minor" sets, and they generally have common story-line elements and game mechanics. The first "block" was Ice Age, Homelands and Alliance. Legends - The Dark - Fallen Empires was sort of a block, but they didn't really have a common theme.

Block Constructed is fairly popular, you're limited to the cards only in the latest block.

Limited is by far the most popular format. The entry fees are about double a normal tournament, but you get some amount of unopened product - usually a starter and two boosters - and you build your deck only of those cards. Finals for these tournaments generally hold a "draft", where packs are opened and cards are drafted, as rookies are in sports leagues.

In otherwords, there are lots of different ways to play Magic today :) You no longer need the $200 cards, but if you want to play Standard or Block Constructed, you need to be constantly at work, trading your old cards away right before they become obsolete and getting new ones all the time. Less dramatic, one-shot investments, but more continual investment.

My big problem with Magic: The high level players are virtually all immature snots, and it's no fun to play at anything more than a casual level anymore. The gender iniquity (thus causing Wizards of the Coast to bend over backwards with female-only promotions and tournaments) is also a little irritating.

Oh yeah, the rules have changed. A LOT - no more interrupts, for instance :) They need to be re-read. But they're a lot clearer now.

M.

I'm suprised that this guy even qualified to be on the show. It is even more amazing to think that this guy works in the gamblers book store and still thinks that the play of the other folks at the table is going to help/hinder him.

Did he even stop to consider that if the newbie was at the table with him in the beginning that he might not have had that horrible run of cards?

I think this is the first time a ploppie has been touted as an expert on national TV.

Ruchman even had up to ten times the advantage over the others.
Maybe now the inexperienced card counters and casino pit bosses will understand there is no gravy to be handed out just because you are counting cards.

Why did they show so much of the interview with the BJ guy? They had two or three clips of the craps guy and the roulette woman, but they let the blackjack guy talk for a large portion of the time. It's not as if his interview was exciting television. Were the others even worse?

Maybe the whole thing was bankrolled by the casinos to try and convince ploppies that card counting doesn't work. Look, the guy ended up the biggest loser of them all, so that shows how effective card counting is. And just listen to him prattle on about it. It sounds about as fun as double-entry bookkeeping. And even if you can count cards, notice that the presence of another player ruins everything. Clearly, card counting is a bad idea.

Furthermore, they made a big deal about how the roulette player did very well, and only came in second because she forgot about the first-place baccarat player's 5% commission. Moral: When you play baccarat, you have to give up 5% of everything at the end. What a ripoff! Play roulette instead.

Of course, the casinos are all bankrolled by the Illuminati, which also controls the satellites that deliver the TV signal, so.... But I've said too much.

I don't know about your baccarat card-removal theories

You can blame Thorp and Griffin for that one, I've not done that much research on counting the main wagers because it is a total dead-end from an advantage players perspective. However, while the effects of card removal are small they are significant enough to overturn the banker's very small edge over the player, though not usually the house itself.

I think one lesson for all blackjack players from this show is standard deviation and risk of ruin. Even though he was the only player with a long term advantage (all of the other games have negative EV) he still lost in the short term due to standard deviation.

I wonder what the ROR for his game was. Maybe someone with SBA or BJRM could figure this out. He played mostly heads up for 1 hour (~150 hands). His unit size was $100 and his bankroll was $10000. Assume usual strip rules. I didn't see if he was playing double deck or shoe.

I think this is the first time a ploppie has been touted as an expert on national TV.

What about John Patrick? Maybe Patrick does not qualify because he would have to work his way up to the level of complete ignorance of gambling theory a ploppy enjoys.

As for Ruchman, I'm mystified by all this. Surely he knows the fallacy involved here?

Theef, you are on to something I think.[There was a 2nd dealer in the grassy noll.]Seriously, you're right or DD's cover theory could be.That was a strange show. I did enjoy the WSOP show though.

To think of this program as being some kind of conspiracy to fool the ploppies or a cover act for Ruchman is totally ridiculous. Showing you're face openly on TV in front of millions and claiming to be a pro counter is useless for cover, regardless if you win or lose. What made this program seem strange is it was the REAL thing, it is quite obvious to tell an actor from a non-actor. This was a real tournament of serious gamblers trying to take home some real money. There was no conspiracy to fool the ploppies or perform a cover act, if anything casinos LOVE it when ploppies think the game is easily beatable.

YES ploppy! The game can be beat!! Come and GET some!!

I was pretty serious about it for a few years, becoming the #2 ranked player in Oregon. I even qualified for the 1999 Chicago Pro Tour event. I went, but flamed out on the first day. I retired from the game a few months later, mostly because I had to sell most of my good cards in order to pay for some unexpected expenses. It's a cool game; I haven't ruled out the possibility of returning to it someday, although I'm kind of an "old man" compared to the masses that typically associate themselves with the game.

Magic isn't my best event, though. I'm also one of the top 25-ranked Scrabble players in North America, believe it or not.

I just finished watching The Vegas Challenge and am still flabbergasted at how much Ruchman went on and on about how you shouldn't play at tables where inexperienced players are playing, or actually spouting off the belief that how the other players play affects your cards. I just can't believe someone whose spent the better part of 30 years (his words) card counting, works at the Gambler's Book Club, and then plays on a nightly basis can possibly believe the most cliche of blackjack myths. It just blows me away!