I am currently attending "Wong's Wonderful School of Math Enlightenment"...or in other words, "Learning What I Wasn't Taught in High School on How to Properly Count to 21" I am only on Lesson 7 folks, so please understand and be patient with me.
OK, I got the BS down and I just got to where I can count a deck down in 40 seconds. (Getting the hang of pairs is neat)(Obviously, I need more practice)
I went to Tunica without the intent on counting but to get a feel how much work is ahead of me. While there I found that if I stood behind the players I could keep a running count as they played. (I am using the KO system) A couple of times I tried it when I played but I could only get to the second hand before losing the count. When that happened, I would just forget counting, altogether, and revert back to BS... I realize that with some serious practice I should be able to get the deck down to about 20 seconds and then I shouldn't lose the count.
Enuf on me, but here is where I could use some feedback. My wife is a better than most BS player. She misses being a "perfect" BS player only because she still has a problem with making the correct play occasionally for her own reasons. Sometimes she does NOT play a hand the way it is supposed to be played because of a "feeling". I keep telling her to forget her feelings but she can't quite bring herself to it yet.
She was playing at third base and I was NOT trying to keep up with the count, just watching her. She was playing two places and when it came time to play the last hand she had a 2 against the dealer's 3. She gets confused on the right play here and asked me how to play it. I told her to hit it. (I kept thinking...2, stand 4 thru 6 otherwise hit") She asked me again to make sure and I said "Yes, hit it". She did, and wouldn't you know she lost the hand by busting and the other two players at the table lost, as well, as she took the dealer's bust card.
One player yelled almost at the top of his lungs "How could you hit that?" and he said it over and over to her...the other player literally fell off his stool and then when he sat back down he lowered his head into his hands with his eyes covered and just sat there for a few minutes holding up the game. Needless to say it made my wife feel terrible as they were blaming HER for their losing. It was the correct play and I told them in not too kindly a fashion. I told her don't worry about it and play, but she was hurting and couldn't even talk because the way these two idiots made her feel. The one guy just sat there for the longest time with his head in his hands. (He lost $100 on each of two places he was playing and it almost wiped him out as he had only one chip left...and the other guy lost $25 on his hand) I told her to leave.
Now, I KNOW what I would have done but my wife is not like me. I feel this was very RUDE and intentionally hurtful to my wife who only did what she was SUPPOSED to do...make the correct play! Whatever happened to table manners? We have all sat at tables with idiotic plays coming from 3rd base. I'm talking about the ones that make bone head plays that IF they made the correct play everyone would have won except they don't, and everyone loses. As an example, the nite before I can honestly say that I have now seen it all. A drunk lady at 3rd refused to hit a total of 5 (That's FIVE, folks) because she did not see any face cards on the table and wanted to do us all a favor by saving them for the next hand. Of course, we all lost on that wonderful strategy. Noone at that table, including me, gave the lady nasty comments...maybe a few strange looks, but nothing more.
In this case, my wife was NOT drunk and played the hand correctly.
What is the proper way to handle such skum? I have been working my anger management for quite some time and have to bite my tongue sometimes, but now I think maybe this would have been a good time to unleash, what do you think? What would you recommend I tell my wife in the event this happens again?
Thanks, Radar
