Getting a Team Together- or joining one

[ladykiller]

After reading the comments on Mayor regarding team play, how does one get into a team? I myself am pretty much on my own except for a couple friends I've taught (spotters, that aren't always able to go). Do I or anyone else just try to get our BJ resume out to different forums asking to join a team? I myself have a 40k BR right now and want to join a bigger team where I can put my money in. What do we do?

 

[Sonny]

> Do I or anyone else just try to get our BJ resume out to different forums
> asking to join a team?

A resume will not cut it in this line of work. The only way you will get onto someone's team is if everyone on the team completely trusts you with their money. Unless you are their immediate family (and often times not even then!) you will not get hired. Simply put, nobody is going to trust you enough.

Your best bet is to start a team on your own using friends or relatives that you trust.

Or...you could join MY team! Just mail me your 40K and I will gladly tell you where our next team meeting is...

See what I mean about the trust issue! I don't trust you and you shouldn't trust me, or anybody you have never met. It's not that I don't think I can trust you, it's just that I don't KNOW that I can. This is a huge difference when it comes to gamblers, and they will always protect their bankrolls first.

-Sonny-

 

[Automatic Monkey]

Couldn't have said it better myself. There's this about team play:

1. Team play will provide extra profit.

2. Team play will provide extra risk.

How can you make extra profit? There are a couple of paradigms for team play.
One is the spotter method, with small players around the casino signlaing good counts. Another one is multiple players at the table with different jobs. One can be doing the Tens count for perfect insurance information. No matter what though, you have to be making enough to pay everybody and it is questionable if you can make enough extra to pay your team properly.

Now here's the risk. There is the matter of trust that Sonny mentioned. All you need is one incident with one player to destroy your EV. And you will have no recourse, except for the recourse that criminal type gamblers use which is violence. Do you really want to get involved with that?

Then there is the other kind of risk which is something happening to a team member. Unexpected things happen in the casino environment. The more people involved, the greater the chance of something happening to one of you and the rest will have to help him out. Even something like a car getting stuck on the highway, it's going to take away from play time. What's more, with the added money you have in play you are going to attract attention to yourselves exponentially. From pit, surveillance, and any troublemakers hanging around the casino. The troubles always come from the situations you didn't think of. This is why I prefer to stick with solitary play. It works and I'm already familiar with most of the contingencies that can arise.

 

[ladykiller]

Both your points are very well taken and I have considered many of them before. Schlesinger in Blackjack Attack even required his team members to be polygraphed. I guess I'm part greedy in wanting to increase my wins quicker and part want to become more of a master at the game- and not the simple counting part; but the different acts, getting a shuffle tracking team together and taking over tables, mastering cover plays as Mayor was talking about and other intricacies that could preserve my play. People like Snyder and Schlesinger seriously need to offer training sessions for wannabe pro's. I guess there's something like that out there. I guess I'll just have to keep pushing my friends. But I'll always keep my out for a good counter at the tables.

 

[SammyBoy]

I'm a solitary player as well. I don't know that I have a desire to join a team, but it would be nice to get together with other counters that I could learn from and associate with. Everything I've learned has been from books, the internet, and real casino play. I can only imagine where I'd be with a good mentor.

I've only run into one other player that I can say for sure was a counter. There have been 2 others that were possibilities. This is after 340 hours of play.

 

[Feep]

Cashier's check in the mail! Oh this is so exciting.