variance

A couple of weeks ago I posted about a trip to Biloxi where I won nearly $10,000 in a couple of hours or so. Just to show that there is another side to the coin, my brother came by Saturday and said "let's take our wives and drive over to the [indian reservation casino name omitted] for a day." We did.

Found a SD game with a $25 min and nobody playing. Decided to give it a whirl. Bought in for $500 and set to playing. Head-to-head, with what I would guess was a newish dealer that did a little over-penetration from time to time, not always using the R06 type shuffle count. Good for me. Maybe. First 30 minutes saw me with nothing but negative TCs, but up about $500, flat-betting $25 and waiting on something good. Finally get a positive TC, went to +4, bet $100, got aces, split 'em, and got puny card on each. Lost to a dealer 7-card 21. TC now way up, decide to go to 200, got a pair of 10's. Dealer said "why not split em" so I thought "hmm, can't get heat when the dealer came up with the idea" so split 'em I did. Got another 10 and split again. Dealer had a 6 up, turned over a 5 and I knew what was coming next. 10. Lost. reshuffle. No more + counts for the next 1/2 hour. Ended up about $500 in the hole. Never seen such a miserable deck of cards. Yes, all the aces were present, as I watched for each suit.

Usually in 5-6 shuffles I would see at least one "spreadable TC". Only saw one decent TC in 1.5 hours of play... Obviously you aren't going to play with advantage when lady luck keeps the TC below zero...

BTW, my "brother" noticed that while I was playing heads-up, occasionally a single person joined the game. Rather than making him wait until the next shuffle, the dealer would simply make change for him, and then shuffle-up and we'd start again. This wrecked at least a few possible climbing counts. Another thing was that a "couple" did this same thing a few times, sitting down, causing a shuffle-up, playing 2 hands, wandering off, coming back later. In short, while I played heads-up for 1.5 hours, at least .5 hours of that had these "interruptions". My "conspiracy theorist" brother thought they might be working for the casino. The single person looked (to me) like possibly someone of Mexican nationality, but my brother thought "indian" which could be true.

In any case, he decided that either the dealer was counting, or security was counting, or the people standing around watching were counting, and sending in these "players" to cause a shuffle-up when the count went up. It seems possible, but not probable. But every time he goes with me he finds some such conspiracy to worry about. :)

I keep telling myself that the deck has the same odds of going south as it does north. But it seems inevitably that it goes south at the start more than it goes north. It seems like I'm grinding with the penguins in Antarctica more often than not.

You're not the only one GP.

One tough thing to do is to sit down after a shuffle, see everyone get 20's except the dealer who gets a 17, and think "damn, count is so far south it won't be back..." While everyone else is high-fiving because the entire table won. Of course, if the table is stuffed and the count is now -15 or something, they aren't going to be so happy very long. I have to really watch myself to avoid reacting the wrong way like that. :)

Hate to have the dealer say "Hey, why the sour face, you and everybody just won." And I'd be tempted to reply "Yes, but the count is so far south, the rest of the deck is not worth playing..." That'd be good for cover. :)

I get BJ with min bet and the rest of the table gets BJ or a two-card 20 on the first hand. At least I've got the huray! huray! act down quite well. The problem is coming up with a reason as to why I'm wonging out.