Worst hand I ever had

You wait for a positive shoe, losing many small bets, and this is what happens:
I wong in at RC of +3 after the first round, because the pit saw me glancing at the table. (I usually wait a little longer but not too long to wong in).
This turned out to be the shoe from hell (another one). TC climbs to numbers I am not used to count (TC>+10), while I lose most hands. Final hand at two maximum bets (=12 min bets):
I get two Aces, one on each hand, then 6 on the first hand and another ace on the second. The dealer opens a 3.
Double soft seventeen, I get a 10. I split the aces and get a seven on each hand. So I have 4 maximum bets with 17, 18 and 18 against a 3. Doesn't look too bad, but I did not have a very good feeling about this one:
Dealer opens an ace (another one!), and a ....seven. A Classic!!! 96 min bets swing in one hand.
The casinos had no idea how lucky they were on my trip as several such examples happened on my trip which ended with a loss of 160 units (after topping 350 units).
Who said counting was easy?

I bet 7 boxes table max (the spread is only 10 to 1), split and 10s, double A9 etc, and became 15 hands. Dealer hit his 5 to 20 (at true 11) and took my 14 boxes ($2,900). Lukily I won a 10 boxes hand later and finished the session up...: )
Another time I was not this lucky. It was my last shoe at a Korean casino. The pitt boss asked me playing bigger for one more shoe before I left for my plane and she would deal as I had won $60,000 for the trip. The count rised steadily so I bet 6 boxes 1 million wons (about $1,200 each box then) on the last round. I doubled an 11 and got 10 against her 7. The casino's President stood by the table. She opened her hole card, another 7, pulled the third card aside face down. She knocked the card then opened it toward me... Guess what?

I lost my *ss (all my trip bankrolls) due to the "predictable" bad luck. My problem was...it's predictable only after the fact...LOL.

Here is my story. Whatever hands I got, the Asian dealer would almost always beat me by a point or so, OR by her you-bust-first edge. Here are some examples:

mine:12, her:17.
mine:17, her: 18.
mine: 5-card-19, her: 2-card-20.
mine: big-double-down on ace & 7 with a monkey jumped out of the shoe for a hard 18, her: 6-card-20.
mine: busted on 12 with a monkey: her 7 on top & beat me without drawing (1-on-1)!
mine: 21 the hard way, her: BJ(missed by the scanner until flipping over with an ace underneath the monkey!)

The above sh*tty stuff had gone on & on for hours & trips after trips & wiped me out of my triprolls. In order to understand my story as to why I lost all my trip bankrolls to one "lucky" Asian dealer, you have to think like some greedy & superstitious casino pitcritters. They really believe that... against a lucky dealer even a god has little power. It seemed that they were right in my case on those particular battles [after the fact] ... LOL.

You get to be there to believe the sh*t. The catcher & pitboss really did think that they had an unbeatable lucky dealer. They did think that I was in a predictable losing streak. They parked at the table & enjoyed my misfortune so much so that......the pitboss told the lucky dealer to keep dealing the cards to the near-end of the decks eventhough the cut card was out of the shoe. As bad luck had it during the high counts, I kept betting & losing big beyond the shuffling point.

The Devil has a way to get you. After I lost a triproll each time, I recalled a "sound" advice from DD': "If you lost all your money in a good game, go home, get more money, & lose more money. If you have to lose your money, then lose your money in a good game. That's how I lost $50,000 one time!" So I reloaded with another triproll...without boring you guys, you know the bloody outcome of that battle too, & the one after that...& so on. As the Roman once says: "Bad luck comes by pounds and goes away by ounces." Believe or not, it's up to you. I personally don't believe the voodoo eventhough my bankroll had been deflated by the after-the-fact lucky dealers more than I wanted to recall.

Good luck guys, we all need it eventhough we don't believe it...LOL.

> Good luck guys, we all need it eventhough we don't believe it ...

I believe it.

Louis Pasteur said .. 'chance favors the prepared mind.'

One would have to be a fool not to prepare. But old Louie also knew that no matter the EV, there is always that chance ....

--------------

(Look Mom, I can format !! Thanks so much Norm.)

I have noticed that most of the time when I lose, I was playing in fear. The dealer had 8,7. I feared she would get a 6 against my 20, and guess what? she gets it! More times than I can imagine.
When I started to play without fear, I started to make a comeback. Whenever the dealer had a 6 showing, I thought: this is a bust card. If he had a 10 and I had a stiff, I thought, I still had a chance.
Thinking positive helps keep your sanity and stamina to keep those big bets on the table at high counts no matter what.
I truly think our thoughts "create" the circumstances in which we play, and have a determining factor on the outcome. I always tell a complaining player at my table: think positive: some are surprised to see they start winning.
Best quote from a dealer: after I won 3 hands in a row, I lost the 4th and I cashed in at a TC of -2 telling the dealer: something is fishy, I won 3 hands in a row, I better cash in before I lose. He said:" You know what your problem is? you're afraid of winning"!!!!
I said (grinning inside): "I think you're right". In a way he was right, of course, I was afraid of winning, not on this round where I exited at a negative count, but I was afraid (winning or losing, does not matter in this case) when I had my big bets out.
In the baove example, I lost $2,400 on that hand, but I made it back and more on the very next shoe (in another casino of course), with a similar situation, but this time, I pledged not to succomb to the fear factor.

Thinking positive helps keep your sanity and stamina to keep those big bets on the table at high counts no matter what.
I truly think our thoughts "create" the circumstances in which we play, and have a determining factor on the outcome. I always tell a complaining player at my table: think positive: some are surprised to see they start winning.

There is a lot of bullshit about positive thinking in the popular section of many bookstores. Nonetheless, it can be useful at the blackjack table. Positive thinking obviously can't affect the cards you are dealt, nor despite what a truckload of self-heap gurus may tell you can it help you if you are already have a concentrated unemotional mind. However, most of us get irrationally negative when losing, and here the technique does have some value in counteracting despair. If it can get you through a positive shoe, it is a good thing.

It was a good post. A positive mental attitude makes a world of difference. And just as piss poor preperation makes for piss poor performance; so does the opposite.

Can a positive mental attitude combined with solid preperation and execution over a reasonable amount of time (the long run) insure a win at the tables? If you don't believe in luck, then ultimately, I suppose, the answer is yes.

I think so too; for almost everyone.

But Samoht said 'we' don't believe in luck.

'We' don't because, apparently, 'we' are not one of those very very few who practiced hard and executed well that 'luck' cast off to the cold far left side of the curve. (What a great mental image; props to Snyder, I think.)

I believe all the PMA combined with solid preperation/execution will not always trump the luck of the draw for everyone.

That, I think, is why they call it gambling.

Further, I suppose we're all 'lucky' E.O. Thorp found initial success or else he might not have written that book!

Last had of shoe, sky high count. Three hands, max bet.

A,9
8,8
8,2

Dealer 3

Split the 8's to four hands, got an 8 on the last hand, couldn't split again. One double down on the 8's, garbage on each hand.

Caught garbage on the 10.

I felt good that I had the dealers 8's. Turns a ten and cathches a 7. -7 big bets. This was one of those shoes where the count went sky high and the middle cards never came out until the end. Something like 15 cards came out on the last hand and the count didn't move.