In the unlikely event you find yourself in Fargo, North Dakota, with some time to while away, several area bars offer blackjack. I was staying downtown, away from Fargo's quasi-casino blackjack offerings, i.e., bars with multiple blackjack tables opening early in the day. All blackjack games in town are charitable gambling.
The downtown bars have either one or two tables, which don't open until mid or late afternoon. The rules are favorable (S17, DA2, DAS) with a skip-the-trip-to-the-restroom minimum ($1) but a stifling maximum ($25) and a two-box limit per player. All games are four decks, and the penetration ranged from 3.25/4 decks (Rooter's) to 2.5/4.0 (Sport's Bar and Side Street).
Several oddities: (1) there is no pitboss and often only one dealer, whose only break thus consists of selling pull-tabs between shoes to the saps at the table; (2) I've never heard so many explicit references to card counting at the table; (3) I have never seen such generous tipping, which is extraordinary given the town's austere Scandinavan-American stock; and (4) the tables are so tiny you have almost no room to place your idle chips.
The highlight of my sojourn was the refrain of a gregarious and otherwise bright player -- he played perfect BS. He kept belittling some player from an earlier session (where I was not present) who split 10's and countered the table's rebuke by saying, "I only split 10's when it's logical." The gregarious player delighted in mocking the player by repeating that line. How tempted I was to enlighten him with the knowledge that the joke may well be on him.
The downtown bars have either one or two tables, which don't open until mid or late afternoon. The rules are favorable (S17, DA2, DAS) with a skip-the-trip-to-the-restroom minimum ($1) but a stifling maximum ($25) and a two-box limit per player. All games are four decks, and the penetration ranged from 3.25/4 decks (Rooter's) to 2.5/4.0 (Sport's Bar and Side Street).
Several oddities: (1) there is no pitboss and often only one dealer, whose only break thus consists of selling pull-tabs between shoes to the saps at the table; (2) I've never heard so many explicit references to card counting at the table; (3) I have never seen such generous tipping, which is extraordinary given the town's austere Scandinavan-American stock; and (4) the tables are so tiny you have almost no room to place your idle chips.
The highlight of my sojourn was the refrain of a gregarious and otherwise bright player -- he played perfect BS. He kept belittling some player from an earlier session (where I was not present) who split 10's and countered the table's rebuke by saying, "I only split 10's when it's logical." The gregarious player delighted in mocking the player by repeating that line. How tempted I was to enlighten him with the knowledge that the joke may well be on him.
