Having recently developed a love interest in Israel. I have discovered BJ play in Europe. I have made trips there in February and in June. In the recent trip using casinocity.com I chose Amsterdam as the site for the stopover (thought there are direct flights to Tel-Aviv) and using KLM as the carrier because of the choices available to me (using Orbitz) Amsterdam / KLM offered the casino connection. Holland Casino is described as:
"Holland Casino Amsterdam is in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands and is open 1:30pm-3am daily, closed may 4th and dec 31. The 92,664 square foot casino features 576 slots and fifty-five table games. The property has one restaurant. "
Of course there was no description offered anywhere of no. of decks, rules of play or depth of penetration. I had in my previous trip (Budapest) experienced European no hole card play which is not entirely bad if you can manage to remember not to put any extra money on the table when the dealer has an A or T showing. Except that it is reasonable to split A's in a high count againt a dealer's T showing.
I thought it would be interesting to check this place out.
Nothing in the trip turned out as planned but I was able to roll with the punches.
My flight from Newark arrived @ 7:30 am local time and the flight departing to TA was to leave at 8:15 pm giving me better than 12 hours of layover. My plan when I booked the trip was to take the train ride from the airport into the city. Do some touring of the city until the casino opened at 1:30 . Play for about four hours then back to the airport for the continuing flight.
The kink in the plan came between the time that I booked the trip and the actual day of travel. i had thought that I would finish my work neatly and have a carefee 10 days of vacations. In spite of my best efforts and a couple of sleepless nights preceeding the trip I had critical work remaining unfinished as I embarked on the trip.
Shiploh Airport Amsterdam has the best equipped business center that I have found in any of my travels. You can use their computer - but I was travelling with my own laptop. You can connect to the internet in at least 3 different ways, send faxes, make phone calls, download and print files and call anywhere in the world in a very comfortable setting with helpful, friendly and competent assistance available. So , in my modified plan I work for a couple of hours at the airport. Get my work done and still get to see some of the city on my way to the casino at opening.
Again the work took longer than I thought --- not helped by the fact that I was dozing off every few minutes from lack of sleep. When I had finally finished everything that I needed to fulfill my work obligations It was after 2:30 pm and I thought a little too risky to venture from the airport for any worthwhile reason.
Shiploh Airport Amsterdam also has a mini Holland Casino. 2 BJ tables, Roulette, Baccarat and some slots. The 2 BJ tables are both CSM's. One 10 Euro minimum, the other 20 Euro min. The 10 Euro min game favored the house even more with the house taking all pushes. the other table did not have this silly, arbitrary rule. Having developed the taste for some play I sat down to play
While the table always seemed full there was a somewhat steady turnover of people catching flights or disgusted at losing too much money. I have never played CSM game but thought it might be just fun to play and get a sense of what the local game might have been like. It seemed much more civil and polite than American venues I have played at but clearly the same greedy casino. For all I know the real Casino in Amsterdam may have all CSM's and I was not missing much by not having gone into the city. Does anybody know ??
I played consistent Basic Strategy with one twist. I varied my bet on a whim occasionally just hoping for a lucky catch. Admittedly not much to offer my AP friends here but in the end I did get lucky I played two sessions totalling about an hour. In between I got some lunch, shopped and wandered around the airport. Total wining on the outbound flight --- up 400 Euros --a little under $500US. Not bad for spending money.
To be continued
"Holland Casino Amsterdam is in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands and is open 1:30pm-3am daily, closed may 4th and dec 31. The 92,664 square foot casino features 576 slots and fifty-five table games. The property has one restaurant. "
Of course there was no description offered anywhere of no. of decks, rules of play or depth of penetration. I had in my previous trip (Budapest) experienced European no hole card play which is not entirely bad if you can manage to remember not to put any extra money on the table when the dealer has an A or T showing. Except that it is reasonable to split A's in a high count againt a dealer's T showing.
I thought it would be interesting to check this place out.
Nothing in the trip turned out as planned but I was able to roll with the punches.
My flight from Newark arrived @ 7:30 am local time and the flight departing to TA was to leave at 8:15 pm giving me better than 12 hours of layover. My plan when I booked the trip was to take the train ride from the airport into the city. Do some touring of the city until the casino opened at 1:30 . Play for about four hours then back to the airport for the continuing flight.
The kink in the plan came between the time that I booked the trip and the actual day of travel. i had thought that I would finish my work neatly and have a carefee 10 days of vacations. In spite of my best efforts and a couple of sleepless nights preceeding the trip I had critical work remaining unfinished as I embarked on the trip.
Shiploh Airport Amsterdam has the best equipped business center that I have found in any of my travels. You can use their computer - but I was travelling with my own laptop. You can connect to the internet in at least 3 different ways, send faxes, make phone calls, download and print files and call anywhere in the world in a very comfortable setting with helpful, friendly and competent assistance available. So , in my modified plan I work for a couple of hours at the airport. Get my work done and still get to see some of the city on my way to the casino at opening.
Again the work took longer than I thought --- not helped by the fact that I was dozing off every few minutes from lack of sleep. When I had finally finished everything that I needed to fulfill my work obligations It was after 2:30 pm and I thought a little too risky to venture from the airport for any worthwhile reason.
Shiploh Airport Amsterdam also has a mini Holland Casino. 2 BJ tables, Roulette, Baccarat and some slots. The 2 BJ tables are both CSM's. One 10 Euro minimum, the other 20 Euro min. The 10 Euro min game favored the house even more with the house taking all pushes. the other table did not have this silly, arbitrary rule. Having developed the taste for some play I sat down to play
While the table always seemed full there was a somewhat steady turnover of people catching flights or disgusted at losing too much money. I have never played CSM game but thought it might be just fun to play and get a sense of what the local game might have been like. It seemed much more civil and polite than American venues I have played at but clearly the same greedy casino. For all I know the real Casino in Amsterdam may have all CSM's and I was not missing much by not having gone into the city. Does anybody know ??
I played consistent Basic Strategy with one twist. I varied my bet on a whim occasionally just hoping for a lucky catch. Admittedly not much to offer my AP friends here but in the end I did get lucky I played two sessions totalling about an hour. In between I got some lunch, shopped and wandered around the airport. Total wining on the outbound flight --- up 400 Euros --a little under $500US. Not bad for spending money.
To be continued