Rolling AC trip report

[Automatic Monkey]

This ends my first night of a three-day trip to Atlantic City. Hopefully by the end of this report we'll all be a little bit closer to accomplishing good play in a bad venue.

Didn't plan on coming here. I know better. But my trip to Biloxi got cancelled by US Airways, those indifferent idiots. After jerking me around for 90 minutes waiting on a plane that they knew damned well wasn't going anywhere that day, they finally admitted they were lying, took us off the plane and pretended to attempt to reaccomodate us.

"I'm flexible" I told them. "How about Jackson MI instead?"

"No."

"OK. Memphis Tennessee."

"No."

"Marquette MI?"

"No."

"All right. Surely, within 200 miles from here, there's a flight headed to Las Vegas Nevada, isn't there?"

"Are you joking, sir?"

"No."

"No."

In a few months, all those people are going to be unemployed. And I'm glad.

So I get back in my car and begin the 3 hour drive to AC. These games are hard to beat with straight counting so I hit the streets looking for opportunity.

First observation: the 6:5 SD games now dealt in all the casinos are no-hole card. I was hoping to catch some inexperienced pitch dealers flashing but that obviously is impossible.

Second observation: you can forget about Wonging in to any of these games. Packed solid, even on Christmas Day. Wonging, at least out, is necessary to beat these games and I wouldn't even attempt a play-all strategy with straight counting, anywhere in town.

Multiple Action BJ: This game looks somewhat beatable for a Wonger. The rules end up being equivalent to European no-hole card which is lousy, but you have the option of playing 2 or 3 rounds against the dealer on each hand. Now being the dealer is the only one taking extra cards, taking extra hands does not make a good count evaporate any faster. However you can make a bad count disappear right away by Wonging out. So it looks like this game has some potential.

Shuffle tracking: I watched the shuffle in every place in town and I saw some very secure ones. And I also saw a very beatable one! I'm not going to say what it is or where it is because the Mayor will justifiably run me out of town. But it's easy enough to find, and when you see it your eyes will light up. I'm running the sims now and tomorrow I'm going back to hammer them.

Ended the night at the 6D game at the Sands, up a few hundred. Day's results: up about $750 in 5 hours of WOnging, playing, and research. More news (hopefully good) tomorrow.

 

[Automatic Monkey]

Rolling AC trip report, Day 2

Today was a day for feeling sick. Woke up with a headache, and 6 aspirins and a Red Bull later I was feeling good enough to go and play.

First stop in the daytime was the 6D shoes at the Borgata. Things were moved around a bit; there is now an entire large pit of roulette where a BJ pit used to be. I've never seen a full pit of roulette before. Looked like there was some Wong-in action available so I sat down at a table that was well over my limit, just to buy some chip, play a few hands and leave.

But the count started going up, way up, and after 2 hands the count was high enough that the table min was where I should be betting. So I played it. And was losing. Count kept going up, kept losing. And about 2/3 of the way through I started winning and won every hand until the end. Walked away up $1200, feeling sick partly from the bad buffet I had eaten and partly from what I just experienced. Wonged around a little, didn't do well, left the Borgata up $1000.

Back to my room to finish my math homework, then back to the place with the vulnerable shuffle. Decided to attack the shoe in four 2D sections, A,B,C, and D, where the counts in the matching 2D sections after the shuffle can be expressed as:

A'= -[k(11)A+k(12)B+k(13)C+k(14)D]/n
B'= -[k(21)A+k(22)B+k(23)C+k(24)D]/n
C'= -[k(31)A+k(32)B+k(33)C+k(34)D]/n
D'= -[k(41)A+k(42)B+k(43)C+k(44)D]/n

where n is the sum of the constants in either the rows or the columns.

The constants were disguised as a phone number written on a cocktail napkin and taken with me to the table until I've used them enough to be sure of them.
And oh was this confusing! Tried it with one segment first, bet it, and everything went wrong. Something was terribly wrong and I couldn't figure it out. Yes, I remembered to reverse the sign of the count, but as I walked away down $400 I remembered, I forgot to divide by n! Duh!

Went to eat, and ordered some beef noodle soup. Oh God was it bad! Rancid broth, and the "beef" was just large chunks of fat. I only assume it was from a cow because no rat has veins that big. I gagged it down, as a reminder to myself never again to make costly errors at the table. Went to the men's room to make sure I was someplace appropriate if I was going to sick it up, didn't happen, so I went back to the table, doing my shuffle track properly. But, ah, curses! The shuffle is very fast, and I didn't have time to finish all of my math before it was done. So I went back to the room, redid the numbers or simplicity and made my constant n equal to 10 to ease the division. I returned to the casino and it worked a little better. Different phone number, surveillance must think I'm quite a stud, picking up a girl first from Chicago then from New York. Won back the remaining $200. But now I see how this shuffle tracking biz can really get you into trouble. Even slight errors in deck estimation and dealer grab size can create dangerous boundary effects. I'm not going to do it again until I've really worked the problem and practiced my method. Maybe a running count system would be more appropriate for this.

Finished the night at the Claridge Wonging in and out of their shoes. Down $100, for a total take on the day up $900. I didn't deserve it, any more than I deserve my losses, nor any less. See you tomorrow.

 

[Automatic Monkey]

Rolling AC trip report, Day 3- final

Today I started at the Downbeach section where the Hilton and Tropicana are located. The Tropicana is a nice property, looks like it tries the most to imitate the LV Strip experience. 8D shoes are dealt there with variable penetration. Many dealers on this weekday day shift were senior citizens

Interesting fact about humans: Did you know that senior citizens sometimes have very arthritic hands? This arthritis can be especially bad on cold mornings making manual tasks difficult. For fear of divine punishment I only exploited this fact for a short while, walked out up $250.

Next stop was the Hilton. First thing I noticed is that there are no lavatories on the casino floor at the Atlantic City Hilton! You have to walk to the ones in the hotel lobby. They are filthy and if you use trips to the lavatory for Wonging purposes this is significant. A somewhat playable 6D game is played there, no mid shoe entry. They beat me bad for a while but I fought back and left a few hours later up $150.

Then back to Midtown and the Sands. The Sands used to have a decent 6D game. Now the pen is poor and the environment unpleasant. Had my first real losing session of the trip there, down about $400. Had a comped dinner and took a rest break.

My final mission was to inspect the two stores I had not yet seen, Harrah's and Trump Marina. Played a shoe at the Trump for a $100 profit and nothing struck me as playable at Harrah's. The Trump Marina and the Borgata use Shuffle Masters. Every other game I noticed in town was hand-shuffled and there was no sign of CSM's at BJ tables anywhere.

My next stop was the most rewarding- the night depository at Bank of America to drop my bankroll. Bank of America is almost everywhere and I opened an account with them just for the purpose of securing my bankroll after a BJ session. Ended up +$1600 after expenses over 3 days, a profitable trip indeed. RPC with a Wong in/out at +2 was used on these games.

General notes: the best games in town for counting appear to be the Borgata and the Hilton. And they're still lousy. There's no heat and a dealer and PC even joked with me about my being a counter but you need more than "no heat" to make a game worthwhile. Pen is variable all over town but I never saw anything better than 1 deck.

Sloppy procedure is everywhere here. Some of the dealers look like they got lost on the way to the homeless shelter and walked into the casino HR office instead. Cards and cheques handed carelessly and I don't think I saw one good riffle in 3 days.

The food in this city is awful. You can't find meat that isn't full of fat and skin, and despite being on the ocean the seafood available is of the cheapest kind. Stick to places like Hooters, Hard Rock Cafe and other national outfits.

Extracurricular activities: For those who like to mix pleasure with business, in the AC casinos you will see a lot of unaccompanied women out for a good time. They are mostly in groups of 2 or 3 and run the gamut of age, size, race, and style. If you're the kind of guy who prefers to take his pleasure a la carte, on the streets you can find an appetizing selection of whores. But be smart, respect your body and your EV, don't.

Lodging: Rt 30 (White Horse Pike) leading into town has a lot of habitable motels in the $30-40 range.

Crowds and timing: Same as LV, crowds start winding down aroun 2 AM until about 4 PM.

Getting around in AC: Most of the casinos are on the Boardwalk. And there quite a ways apart, it's like walking from store to store on the Strip. But the Boardwalk is bicycle-friendly and a bike might be a handy thing to have around to save time when moving around. Parking is $4 in all casino lots and a parking receipt is good for parking at one other casino until the next 6 AM.

This is not a fun place to play and I can think of a dozen other BJ venues I'd rather be at. But still the game is beatable with advanced techniques. These games look like they would be vulnerable to team play. So I shan't come back unless I have something really good planned out.

 

[The Mayor]

Great reports, thanks!

 

[stainless steel rat]

question...

My wife keeps wanting to go back to NYC, and while there visit AC, particularly to see Trump's casino. Is it worth going to AC in general? Or should I talk her into going to NYC for a while, then taking an indirect route back home through a better set of playing conditions???

 

[SammyBoy]

Just an Observation

From AM's report it sounds like you would be better off finding a better place to play.

 

[Automatic Monkey]

Probably not

If you like beaches and boardwalks AC is worth the trip in the summertime and you can count some BJ as a sidetrip. But for an individual counter using standard tools it's not worth a dedicated trip. The CT stores are somewhat better due to the LS rule and smaller crowds.

 

[Goose]

Foxwoods

I haven't ben to AC in years but the crows at Foxwoods are horrendous. Wonging there even during the day mid week is almnost impopssible and they use 8 decks too.

Mohegan is less crowded but will struggle getting a good cut.