The Chaperone
Well-Known Member
Some dealers are quite fast...
...and some machines are even faster
In my original post I was referring to a machine which I can play at about 800-900 hands/hr at top speed, but 600/hr is more realistic for any long length of time (i.e. more than 2-3 straight hours). This machine is just one hand at a time. No option of playing multiple hands vs. the dealer.
Actually though if you count hands and not rounds, I may have played 10k hands in one day at a live game at a certain triple down promotion. Me and another AP had the table locked down for 24 straight hours playing 3x500 each. Doing the math, we would have had to average 139 rounds/hr in order to get 10,000 hands in each. Without any ploppies to slow us down I'm fairly certain we were over 100 rounds/hr, but I'm guessing that maybe we weren't quite up to 139/hr. There were also occasional wong-outs with bathroom breaks which would have cost some hands. I averaged about 15 cents/hand in profit for that promo... :laugh:
Towards the end of my first year of playing full-time (actually the only year of full-time play), I came across the fastest dealer I have ever seen. Tbh, if I saw her now I would have serious trouble keeping up, but after playing over 1500 hours in the previous year, I could keep up with anybody. She was equally shocked at the speed of my play and after a while it was clear she was taking it as a challenge to see how fast we could get through the shoes. We laughed and joked about how fast the game as she moved cards in and out of the ASM (which was fortunately set at a fairly fast speed!). Anyways I remember clocking it and figuring out that we were playing approximately 1,000 total hands per hour. When I say total hands, I mean counting the dealers hand. I was alternating between 2 and 3 spots, so I probably got 70% or so of the hands dealt, which means I was playing 700 hands/hr and approximately 300 rounds/hr were dealt. I should also add that this dealer was very sharp and more or less knew what I was up to. She knew basic strategy, but after playing with me for a while, she also started to learn the hands that I sometimes played differently. When I had soft 18 vs. 10, she didn't even wait for a signal, she just hit me. But when I had 12 vs. a small upcard, she waited for the signal. This helped speed up the game even more.
If I had to guess I'd say I've played about a million hands in my life, but I've only been playing for 8 years and really only one full-time year and maybe 4 or 5 part-time years in that time frame. I rarely play standard counting games anymore. I've grown to dislike the risk/reward ratio of straight counting, not to mention some of the ridiculous heat in certain parts of the country.
Lastly, I would point out that some of the Vegas-centric people in this thread are fairly naive about a couple points on this topic. First there are some places where you could literally tell them you are counting and you would not be backed off (at least until you won huge).
Second, Vegas dealers totally suck!!! Many of them are union. Others are juiced into the job. A lot are older than dirt. And basically none of them go for their own (this is a big factor in game speed IMO). You would be shocked at the kind of game speed you can run into in places like WA where you have a plethora of talented, young, reasonably intelligent dealers who are all working for their own tips.
...and some machines are even faster
In my original post I was referring to a machine which I can play at about 800-900 hands/hr at top speed, but 600/hr is more realistic for any long length of time (i.e. more than 2-3 straight hours). This machine is just one hand at a time. No option of playing multiple hands vs. the dealer.
Actually though if you count hands and not rounds, I may have played 10k hands in one day at a live game at a certain triple down promotion. Me and another AP had the table locked down for 24 straight hours playing 3x500 each. Doing the math, we would have had to average 139 rounds/hr in order to get 10,000 hands in each. Without any ploppies to slow us down I'm fairly certain we were over 100 rounds/hr, but I'm guessing that maybe we weren't quite up to 139/hr. There were also occasional wong-outs with bathroom breaks which would have cost some hands. I averaged about 15 cents/hand in profit for that promo... :laugh:
Towards the end of my first year of playing full-time (actually the only year of full-time play), I came across the fastest dealer I have ever seen. Tbh, if I saw her now I would have serious trouble keeping up, but after playing over 1500 hours in the previous year, I could keep up with anybody. She was equally shocked at the speed of my play and after a while it was clear she was taking it as a challenge to see how fast we could get through the shoes. We laughed and joked about how fast the game as she moved cards in and out of the ASM (which was fortunately set at a fairly fast speed!). Anyways I remember clocking it and figuring out that we were playing approximately 1,000 total hands per hour. When I say total hands, I mean counting the dealers hand. I was alternating between 2 and 3 spots, so I probably got 70% or so of the hands dealt, which means I was playing 700 hands/hr and approximately 300 rounds/hr were dealt. I should also add that this dealer was very sharp and more or less knew what I was up to. She knew basic strategy, but after playing with me for a while, she also started to learn the hands that I sometimes played differently. When I had soft 18 vs. 10, she didn't even wait for a signal, she just hit me. But when I had 12 vs. a small upcard, she waited for the signal. This helped speed up the game even more.
If I had to guess I'd say I've played about a million hands in my life, but I've only been playing for 8 years and really only one full-time year and maybe 4 or 5 part-time years in that time frame. I rarely play standard counting games anymore. I've grown to dislike the risk/reward ratio of straight counting, not to mention some of the ridiculous heat in certain parts of the country.
Lastly, I would point out that some of the Vegas-centric people in this thread are fairly naive about a couple points on this topic. First there are some places where you could literally tell them you are counting and you would not be backed off (at least until you won huge).
Second, Vegas dealers totally suck!!! Many of them are union. Others are juiced into the job. A lot are older than dirt. And basically none of them go for their own (this is a big factor in game speed IMO). You would be shocked at the kind of game speed you can run into in places like WA where you have a plethora of talented, young, reasonably intelligent dealers who are all working for their own tips.
