NEW James Grosjean article

[NightStalker]

And

And supposedly;this is only a drop in the bucket as to the WHOLE story.
I will state that to my knowledge, I have never PERSONALLY had ANY negative interaction with this person, so I really can't be 100% sure of WHO to believe. Perhaps HE'S right and the WORLD is wrong. All I can say is; in the blackjack world, I trust NOBODY with my darkest secrets.

What's the whole story?

 

[aslan]

I remember that too from way back in 1981. The movie about it was Money for Nothing (1993) with John Cusack and James Gandolfini in it.

From Wikipedia: Joseph "Joey" Coyle (born 1953 in Philadelphia) was an unemployed longshoreman in Philadelphia who, in February 1981, found $1.2 million in the middle of the street after it had fallen out of the back of an armored car. His story was made into the movie Money for Nothing starring John Cusack and also a book written by Mark Bowden titled Finders Keepers: The Story of a Man Who Found $1 Million.

Joey struggled with a drug addiction for most of his adult life. He committed suicide by hanging himself in his basement on August 15, 1993.

I didn't know Mark Bowden, who wrote Black Hawk Down wrote this book.

Good stuff.

Thanks.

I remember one about some teens who found an a bag of money that fell out of an armored car. They hid the money, but the police got on their trail. Could it be the same story? They finally got caught I believe.

 

[jerseyshop101]

I remember one about some teens who found an a bag of money that fell out of an armored car. They hid the money, but the police got on their trail. Could it be the same story? They finally got caught I believe.

I think so. The following is from the obituary. Its sad he killed himself 3 weeks before the movie came out, but he was facing his 6th drug charge. Coyle was 28 when he and his 2 friends came into the money.

I looked up some other similar cases, and they all say the same, that it is illegal to keep the money.

It was Feb. 26, 1981, when Mr. Coyle and two friends were driving behind a Purolator Armored Services truck as its back doors swung open and two money bags fell out.

Mr. Coyle then became a local folk hero for passing out $100 bills around his neighborhood. He was arrested at Kennedy International Airport as he was checking in for a flight to Acapulco, Mexico; at the time, he was carrying $105,000 in 21 envelopes with $5,000 each. The envelopes were stuffed around his ankles in the tops of elastic socks. The two friends, who told the authorities about the incident, were not charged.

In February 1982, a jury found Mr. Coyle innocent of theft by reason of temporary insanity. The armored car company recovered all but roughly $196,000 of the money.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/16/obituaries/joey-coyle-40-dies-philadelphian-took-armored-car-s-cash.html

 

[tthree]

As the wise one once said, beating the game is trivial. Managing heat is the challenging part, which requires skill and experience.

I saw some posts about managing heat in card counting blackjack by playing within the casino tolerance levels as the art of playing in the best games and winning for decades. I guess with hole carding the same is true. Anyone can play and win but the real experts do that and are welcomed back time and time again. The truly exploitable opportunities are not found at every table or in every casino.

 

[johndoe]

I saw some posts about managing heat in card counting blackjack by playing within the casino tolerance levels as the art of playing in the best games and winning for decades. I guess with hole carding the same is true. Anyone can play and win but the real experts do that and are welcomed back time and time again. The truly exploitable opportunities are not found at every table or in every casino.

To be clear, most of the people exploiting these games are using a team approach, sometimes with a 'disposable' big player (and more). They are not pulling their punches via reducing their advantage or profits in any meaningful way.

 

[aslan]

These are all valid points, but I think that you may be overcomplicating matters (or I'm oversimplifying them!). All advantage play is about acquiring additional information that the casino would prefer you not have. Blackjack can generally be beaten by card counting, but not because the rules dictate that to be the case; in fact, casinos would quite certainly prefer that the game be unbeatable, but alas, this is the primary reason for blackjack's rise to popularity in the 1950's and its sustaining popularity today.

The would-be moralist card counter will tell you that hole card players are somehow less ethical because of their opportunistic nature and willingness to take advantage of flaws in a game. But the same card counter will not just sit at any blackjack table—they'll specifically choose ones that offer them an additional edge over other games, including tables where they know a particular dealer gives better penetration than a particular house may allow.

Acquiring additional information: A card counter keeps track of the cards dealt in order to evaluate the changing odds of a game of dependent trials. A shuffle tracker evaluates deck composition or card location based on the effect of non-random shuffles. A hole card player obtains information about the dealer's hole card (often accomplished by physically seeing the card). A video poker player or comp hustler weighs the value of expected comps verus expected loss at their game and bets when they have an edge. A poker player uses tells and analyzes player tendencies to exploit their weaknesses. You get the point.

All advantage techniques also exploit loopholes in procedure and weak games, to some extent. Counters compile lists of games across the country with the best penetration, lowest house edge, and even include notes about the attitudes of the pit. Shuffle trackers look for weak shuffles or dealers that expose cards before, during or after the shuffle. Hole card players look for dealers with incorrect dealing technique. Then there's roulette clocking, controlled dice shooting in a casino that doesn't require contact with the alligator foam, progressive slot banking, and so on.

This hand-wringing about how unfair it is to obtain information about a dealer's hole card while simultaneously having a deep interest in other AP techniques is misguided. As Steve Forte notes in Casino Game Protection (to paraphrase): the only thing separating advantage players and cheats is the issue of legality. All legitimate advantage techniques involve deception (dishonesty?), misdirection, and other hallmarks of the professional cheat. You can split hairs on the fine line between the two all day, but the law is clear: card counting, shuffle tracking, and hole carding are all legal.

As to your other point about backing off or barring players that are simply using their brain in a casino, I actually disagree. A casino is in most cases private property, and they are in the business of making money with people willing to gamble with a negative expectation. If a particular customer is able to reverse that outcome, they should absolutely be able to refuse service to that particular person. They don't need or want our business, and I'm perfectly fine with that.

A very good dissertation affirming hole carding as a legitimate advantage play.

Two points stood out. One was your using legality as the line between advantage play and cheating. My only comment is that Qfit and I were not addressing the legality of hole carding, but the morality. The two are often at odds. A 1950's demonstration against racial prejudice by a lunch counter sit-in may have been illegal, but to my way of thinking, it was morally correct.

The second point was the right to refuse service. Yes, it is legal. But I do not agree with the law. Since courts have ruled that it is not illegal to use one's mind to win at cards, to my mind it should be likewise illegal to allow casinos to hide behind another law, the right to refuse law, to bar a person who is doing nothing illegal, i.e., counting cards. The casino offers it's games to the public at large. To ban people on the basis of their ability to win at those games is disingenuous. Because casinos have the right to offer negative EV games does not mean that when they offer a positive EV game, as is the case of blackjack (in most instances), they then have the right to exclude members of the public whom they consider too intelligent or too knowledgeable. Nor would they have a right to ban anyone with an IQ over 100, for that matter. When you offer services to the public, I believe you have placed yourself beyond the right to refuse service, except for the usual misdemeanors, cursing, disruptive behavior, disturbing the peace, drunkenness, etc.

Now if you start a private club, and only persons who have an IQ over 100 can join, or over 145 perhaps in the case of Mensa, that is different. If casinos want to become private clubs and require members to sign a legally binding statement that they will not count cards, then I believe that is fine. Of course, then they may not be able to have their cake and eat it. The rise in popularity of blackjack was due to the finding that the game could be beaten by card counting. Once that possibility is eliminated, the popularity of the game may return to its former lackluster status. And the bottom line is that a casino should not be able to stipulate that a person cannot think in the course of playing its games. Of course, in the private club scenario, once a member begins counting cards, he would then be subject to legal barring, since he has broken his legal agreement with the casino.

Anyway, thats the way I see it. In any case, I respect your right to think otherwise.

 

[clubsoda]

These are all valid points, but I think that you may be overcomplicating matters (or I'm oversimplifying them!). All advantage play is about acquiring additional information that the casino would prefer you not have. Blackjack can generally be beaten by card counting, but not because the rules dictate that to be the case; in fact, casinos would quite certainly prefer that the game be unbeatable, but alas, this is the primary reason for blackjack's rise to popularity in the 1950's and its sustaining popularity today.

The would-be moralist card counter will tell you that hole card players are somehow less ethical because of their opportunistic nature and willingness to take advantage of flaws in a game. But the same card counter will not just sit at any blackjack table—they'll specifically choose ones that offer them an additional edge over other games, including tables where they know a particular dealer gives better penetration than a particular house may allow.

Acquiring additional information: A card counter keeps track of the cards dealt in order to evaluate the changing odds of a game of dependent trials. A shuffle tracker evaluates deck composition or card location based on the effect of non-random shuffles. A hole card player obtains information about the dealer's hole card (often accomplished by physically seeing the card). A video poker player or comp hustler weighs the value of expected comps verus expected loss at their game and bets when they have an edge. A poker player uses tells and analyzes player tendencies to exploit their weaknesses. You get the point.

All advantage techniques also exploit loopholes in procedure and weak games, to some extent. Counters compile lists of games across the country with the best penetration, lowest house edge, and even include notes about the attitudes of the pit. Shuffle trackers look for weak shuffles or dealers that expose cards before, during or after the shuffle. Hole card players look for dealers with incorrect dealing technique. Then there's roulette clocking, controlled dice shooting in a casino that doesn't require contact with the alligator foam, progressive slot banking, and so on.

This hand-wringing about how unfair it is to obtain information about a dealer's hole card while simultaneously having a deep interest in other AP techniques is misguided. As Steve Forte notes in Casino Game Protection (to paraphrase): the only thing separating advantage players and cheats is the issue of legality. All legitimate advantage techniques involve deception (dishonesty?), misdirection, and other hallmarks of the professional cheat. You can split hairs on the fine line between the two all day, but the law is clear: card counting, shuffle tracking, and hole carding are all legal.

As to your other point about backing off or barring players that are simply using their brain in a casino, I actually disagree. A casino is in most cases private property, and they are in the business of making money with people willing to gamble with a negative expectation. If a particular customer is able to reverse that outcome, they should absolutely be able to refuse service to that particular person. They don't need or want our business, and I'm perfectly fine with that.

Very good post. I concur with your thoughts completely.

 

[Lonesome Gambler]

Aslan, I don't mean to imply that legality is a perfect barometer of ethicality. All I was suggesting is that the only thing separating legitimate advantage play and outright cheating is the issue of legality. The parallels between AP and cheating are clear as day. Some techniques are extremely similar but are on opposite sides of the law (eg. front loading and spooking).

Since legitimate AP is so close to cheating in various ways, you'll often find yourself looking at increasingly grey areas. I've thought long and hard about the ethicality of HC play, and it's my personal conclusion that skilled HC play is completely ethical. As card counters and advantage players, we're constantly involved in various levels of deceit and predatory activity. I think that drawing the line at HC play is disingenuous in many cases, and completely ridiculous in others (for reasons I explained in that last post).

Naturally, everyone needs to decide for themselves. Personally, I hold myself to what I feel is a much higher standard of ethics than the average person. But hey, if some people won't play HC because of their own personal ethics, more power to them. The less competition, the better!

 

[aslan]

Aslan, I don't mean to imply that legality is a perfect barometer of ethicality. All I was suggesting is that the only thing separating legitimate advantage play and outright cheating is the issue of legality. The parallels between AP and cheating are clear as day. Some techniques are extremely similar but are on opposite sides of the law (eg. front loading and spooking).

Since legitimate AP is so close to cheating in various ways, you'll often find yourself looking at increasingly grey areas. I've thought long and hard about the ethicality of HC play, and it's my personal conclusion that skilled HC play is completely ethical. As card counters and advantage players, we're constantly involved in various levels of deceit and predatory activity. I think that drawing the line at HC play is disingenuous in many cases, and completely ridiculous in others (for reasons I explained in that last post).

Naturally, everyone needs to decide for themselves. Personally, I hold myself to what I feel is a much higher standard of ethics than the average person. But hey, if some people won't play HC because of their own personal ethics, more power to them. The less competition, the better!

If it were not a difficult area to discern, you would not have thought long and hard. As for myself, I am still thinking about it and have not yet decided.

I assume the comment about less competition was meant in jest.

If a dealer flashes his hole card at me, I will take advantage of it. As for designing my strategy for beating blackjack around it, Qfit raises a good point.

 

[Gamblor]

As to your other point about backing off or barring players that are simply using their brain in a casino, I actually disagree. A casino is in most cases private property, and they are in the business of making money with people willing to gamble with a negative expectation. If a particular customer is able to reverse that outcome, they should absolutely be able to refuse service to that particular person. They don't need or want our business, and I'm perfectly fine with that.

Very good post. I concur with your thoughts completely.

You would have to be a casino employee to agree with this wholeheartedly :grin:

 

[clubsoda]

You would have to be a former casino employee to agree with this wholeheartedly :grin:

. . . and never to return :cool2:

 

[zengrifter]

I think so. The following is from the obituary. Its sad he killed himself 3 weeks before the movie came out, but he was facing his 6th drug charge. Coyle was 28 when he and his 2 friends came into the money.

I looked up some other similar cases, and they all say the same, that it is illegal to keep the money.

It was Feb. 26, 1981, when Mr. Coyle and two friends were driving behind a Purolator Armored Services truck as its back doors swung open and two money bags fell out.

Mr. Coyle then became a local folk hero for passing out $100 bills around his neighborhood. He was arrested at Kennedy International Airport as he was checking in for a flight to Acapulco, Mexico; at the time, he was carrying $105,000 in 21 envelopes with $5,000 each. The envelopes were stuffed around his ankles in the tops of elastic socks. The two friends, who told the authorities about the incident, were not charged.

In February 1982, a jury found Mr. Coyle innocent of theft by reason of temporary insanity. The armored car company recovered all but roughly $196,000 of the money.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/16/obituaries/joey-coyle-40-dies-philadelphian-took-armored-car-s-cash.html

He does look temporarily deranged >>

 

[bigplayer]

QFIT is correct and informative, for those novices who are naive about how these advantages are gained.

It completely escaped me that most of the posters here have never thoroughly thought this through.

"Reflective Devices" worn like pinky rings, are almost as popular "devices" as highly polished flat chrome cigarette lighters, like the old fashioned ZIPPO lighters, used to be.

If caught with a small sliver of a mirror taped into the inner part of your hand or wrist one assumes the risk of being arrested for use of a "cheating device."

Note: I never said or implied that J.G. has ever cheated.

Like in Poker, the players are responsible for protecting their own hands. The dealer via training and procedures are responsible for protecting their own hand...players can use any information they might "gleam" from the game to decide how to play their hand. It's not the players responsibility to protect the dealers hand.

 

[aslan]

Like in Poker, the players are responsible for protecting their own hands. The dealer via training and procedures are responsible for protecting their own hand...players can use any information they might "gleam" from the game to decide how to play their hand. It's not the players responsibility to protect the dealers hand.

Clever play on words.

 

[Sucker]

Like in Poker, the players are responsible for protecting their own hands. The dealer via training and procedures are responsible for protecting their own hand...players can use any information they might "gleam" from the game to decide how to play their hand. It's not the players responsibility to protect the dealers hand.

In poker, if you get caught using unreasonable means such as leaning back in your chair in order to see an opponent's cards, even though you are legally seated and therefore it's probably not an ILLEGAL act; you run the risk of getting kicked out of the poker room. Just like in blackjack!

The key word here is "unreasonable". If I'm playing poker and seated in a reasonable position; I'm allowed to look for tells in the guy seated next to me. If I'm looking for the "shaking hands" tell, and he picks his cards up too high, that's nothing that I'VE done wrong!