The King of Ploppies Strikes Again

[zengrifter]

One of my friends and students, a dealer and pitboss, sent me this -

CMT wrote:

My roomate and I lost a month ago at the XXXX Casino partly because we didnt know correct play based on knowing the hole card [or] the magical blackjack powers of the dealers.

Here is a great example of our luck that night. A story I tell often to my players when they whine about how bad their luck is and after hearing this, they feel a bit better knowing it could be worse.

There are 2 dealers that show their hole card AND often flash their hit card as well. Well were on the double deck game, last hand of the shoe +6 hi/lo count with 3 aces left, This hand ended up being the last hand we played that night. My roomate was sitting at spot 5 because he gets the best angle there and I was first base because this dealer would sometimes show her top card while waiting for people to place bets and I would change my bet accordingly.

I saw that the first card was a 7 and decided to sit out and run to the restroom. It is now a an older Mexican man at spot 3, Nick at 5, and a black male probably in his 30's sitting at 6. My roomate, Nick, bets half of his remaining chips, $80 and gets two 8's against a ten. He spots a 6 in the hole and is eager to split. First player ended up busting. [Matt] gets another 8 and takes some of my chips and splits again. Dealer knew we were together and let him take my chips. He makes and 18 on the first hand and then gets another 8. He takes more chips and splits again and makes 4 18's. Now its the black man at 3rd base with his soft 17 thinking about hitting. Dealer showed her hit card was a 3 and [Matt] told the guy to double down.

He says he wants to stay. [Matt] flips out and it is at this time that I was returning to the game to see [Matt] holding up the game begging this man to hit. He asks for my last $25 in chips and offers it to the man for his $3 bet. "Look," he says "This is all we have left, I will give you $25 right now to take a hit." The man in his most prideful tone says "No! The dealer has a low card and is gonna bust!" Tucks his cards and tells the dealer "BUST!" The dealer flips over the 6 as third base yells "I told you!" and then the 3 appears to all and she takes their bets.

Dealer then shows what her next card was to add insult to injury as it was a face. It was hard to convince [Matt] not to punch the mans lights out because it was in our best interest to be allowed back to play another day. We laughed at our luck the whole ride home, as mad as we were about it, we knew we had a great story to tell for a long time.

I have some other stories from that trip that I will share later. Its time to go to work.
​

 

[ScottH]

What do you mean by "student"? Do people pay you for lessons or something?

 

[EasyRhino]

Telling the guy to just hit would have been smarter. A more obvious BS play and it would be less likely to give away the flashing.

But man, Nick got the crap ploppied out of him.

 

[zengrifter]

What do you mean by "student"? Do people pay you for lessons or something?

I consider YOU one of my students. zg

 

[ScottH]

I consider YOU one of my students. zg

Ah, ok. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing out on some secret training class you had or something...

 

[zengrifter]

Ah, ok. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing out on some secret training class you had or something...

Next class starting soon: King of Neophytes! zg

 

[Craps Master]

This story sounds like a complete fabrication. What kind of knucklehead bets $80/hand on a game where the hole card and hit card (and sometimes even the first card to be dealt) are both visible? And who would bother counting at all in that situation? Spreading is idiotic when you're playing with such a massive edge, and the extra tenths of a percent of an edge you get from playing the counting indices is relatively worthless compared to the 25%+ edge you're looking at from spotting both the hole card and the hit card. And who runs to the bathroom when he's about to be dealt a 7 in a game where he gets the hole card and the hit card? That's just plain retarded. These players, if they exist and really play this way, are awful, and they really have no business talking smack about ploppies if they themselves are this amateurish.

Smells like a lot of BS.

 

[zengrifter]

What kind of knucklehead bets $80/hand on a game where the hole card and hit card (and sometimes even the first card to be dealt) are both visible? And who would bother counting at all in that situation? Spreading is idiotic when you're playing with such a massive edge, and the extra tenths of a percent of an edge you get from playing the counting indices is relatively worthless compared to the 25%+ edge you're looking at from spotting both the hole card and the hit card. .....These players, if they exist and really play this way, are awful, and they really have no business talking smack about ploppies if they themselves are this amateurish.

Well I did say one is a dealer and pitboss, so that should explain it. zg

 

[biggamejames]

This story sounds like a complete fabrication. What kind of knucklehead bets $80/hand on a game where the hole card and hit card (and sometimes even the first card to be dealt) are both visible? And who would bother counting at all in that situation? Spreading is idiotic when you're playing with such a massive edge, and the extra tenths of a percent of an edge you get from playing the counting indices is relatively worthless compared to the 25%+ edge you're looking at from spotting both the hole card and the hit card. And who runs to the bathroom when he's about to be dealt a 7 in a game where he gets the hole card and the hit card? That's just plain retarded. These players, if they exist and really play this way, are awful, and they really have no business talking smack about ploppies if they themselves are this amateurish.

Smells like a lot of BS.

Especially the part about him betting some one else's money. Never in my life at a casino have i seen some one able to pull that off! I have even gotten into a screaming match with some kid who was ripping the dealer because the dealer refused to let him touch his buddies money while the guy was in the bathroom. (kid just kept going on and on, i totally lost it because i was on a killer winning streak and he was just ruining my mojo)

But how knows, some casinos have different rules!!

Not to mention, (why would any one with such an advantage bring that much attention to themselves. Just let the play go, if you lose, run to the atm...who the heck goes home just because he lost $320, at a table where the dealer if flashing everything infront of her but her pu$$y?)

 

[EasyRhino]

Especially the part about him betting some one else's money. Never in my life at a casino have i seen some one able to pull that off!

I've seen it happen a few times, but one player usually instructs the other to play for him while he's gone.

Still seems dumb.

 

[zengrifter]

These guys could get away with more sh*t, for reasons that I cannot reveal. But, yes, they are not very experienced - the old "just enough to be dangerous" moral. zg

 

[EdgeCapper]

For Your Information

I set aside time today to clear things up. At Zengrifter's request, I will address the disbelief of what happened to my roomate and I in the story I emailed ZG with no intention of having him post it here others to be critical of. We were exchanging emails last week because I wanted to know how to play when knowing the dealers hole card. I was only giving him an example of how bad things went for us that trip and I have many more equally unbelievable stories about the same place.

First of all, what is wrong with $80 per hand? Too much or too little? Should we have bet the table max of $100? Or should we have asked for them to raise the limit to $500 so that we could make the biggest bet those tables have ever seen?

The money we lost on the last hand was not the total loss. We lost much more and I wont say how much because we were probably one of this particular properties biggest wins to date. We made a lot of money on sports bets that week and ended up losing all of the winnings on a game that I have been told gave us >10% edge over the house. I will say one thing, it was more than I have ever lost in a casino and in my career in the casino business, I have rarely seen people have such a bad run of luck. We couldnt catch a break that trip. We got screwed on so many hands it was demoralizing.My roomate was a dealer too and neither one of us could believe how we ended up losing. Im not saying it was all bad luck, our lack knowledge on what to do in that situation was a factor, but we didnt play like a couple of average ploppies. We adjusted our play the best we could and tried to make the play that we thought made the most sense. Before that trip, neither one of us had spotted hole cards before and it was a hurried effort to take advantage of a game which I now know will be there whenever I am ready and properly equipped for it.

We didnt have a 25% edge very often. The Dealer didnt expose her hit card ALL THE TIME like one of you assumed. It was mainly random when she expected you to hit, she would start the motion by sliding the card up past her fingers enough to expose the value of the card.

My roomate could take my money and I could take his with no questions asked. Heres why, I did the entire buy in so I would get credit on my players account and every now and then we made our chip stacks even so the dealers knew we shared a bankroll. Anyways, I could get away with murder there because of my previous position with the company. I even told one of the floorman that I was counting and he/she just laughed and told me not to win too much. This particular floorperson never even learned how to count a deck down. While I was there a couple weeks prior ,counting cards and not spotting, the surveilence operator called the floor and had him/her tell me that he says hello.

This story wouldnt be so unbelievable if you knew which casino I was talking about. Its a joke of an operation. When I worked for them. I was one of very few people who paid attention to the games and fixed mistakes and watched for cheaters and counters. The floor supervisors that are there now couldnt tell you anything about basic strategy and couldnt catch a cheater if they had a black marker out and wrote on the backs of the cards. One of the floorpeople is almost completely deaf and barely speaks english. When we were spotting, a first time player was holding the cards with two hands, saying "hit" or "stay" outloud without any motion, and other things new players do. He was trying to tell this guy about only one hand, but the player couldnt understand him so he asked me to deal with it. Just like when I was a boss there. He said "Tell him!", throws his hands in the air and walks away back to roulette where he hibernates until a dealer screams his name repeatedly before he hears them.

The dealers working there now are the worst I have ever seen, at least 20x more pathetic than the dealers who worked when I was there and I thought THEY were the worst out there. The current pit staff is there only because they have seniority based on years employed there, no other factors considered, such as work ethic, manager recomendations, or even a general knowledge of table games.

This is a short list of things we got away with or something we witnessed happen at our table:

-Double down for more, 100% success rate betting triple may original wager. Floor couldnt be watching to get away with that, but the dealers dont know any better until they get told.

- Double on breaking hands when we saw the hit card. This makes the other players so pissed because they think that just because your making the wrong play, its going to magically change the order of cards in favor of the house when in fact the dealers have already sold their souls to satan for god-like blackjack powers and didn't need any assitance taking our money.

- One dealer would give $25 for a $20 bill. We saw it only twice and we laughed our asses off because they need floor approval on all cash change and he got approved both times. We told one player after recieving his chips to leave the table while he was ahead, but he just smiled and gave it all back to the house like everyone else in the place.

- Dealers fixing their own mistakes including major gaming violations. I remember one instance when a know-it-all dealer, 2nd day on the job, gave hits out of order and decided to make her own solution. She starts to move some cards, but I tell her to stop and call a floorman. She just gives me a snobby look and goes on to fix her own mistake and I plea with her saying she needs to call a floorman or she would get written up for sure because that is one of the few things dealers get fired for is fixing their own mistakes without floor approval. She just ignores me and acts like she can do whatever she wants and takes all the hit cards and puts them back on top of her deck! Then she goes back to the player she skipped to redo the hand. The shift manager was watching from a couple tables down and saw her do her not so smart solution and started walking toward the table . I said "(BOSSNAME) , we gotta self fixer over here, I tried to help her out, but theres no hope for this one." With an angry look in his eye, he has her pick up all the cards after paying all bets and then said the classic line "Come see me when you get tapped out!"

- Player blatently capping his bet. He was an idiot though because he would only add 2 or 3 dollars. He must have put a lot of thought into the risk vs reward.

- Dealer taking card halfway down when players motion is confusing and then, after seeing his/her card asks the player what she has and tells her to hit.

It was at this casino that Zengrifter revealed his identity to me, something that takes a lot of guts to tell somebody in my position. He knew by telling me I could stop him from playing another hand of blackjack in that place and he would miss out on one of the best games in town to take advantage of. He took down my email address and sent me a link to the Zengrifter interview. I read through it laughing out loud at times. I would read about something that he does while playing as part of his cover and think about how I saw him do the same thing the other day. The line he says to get new players to pass on the table was funny everytime he'd say it, as rude as it is to say, he would address the new player by saying "Would you play with someone who splits tens?" And the player always says no and he says "Hurry up dealer, deal me some tens!" It was wild to learn that he is such an expert in his field while at the same time being a successful businessman. Instead of telling any other staff members what he was doing, I chose to keep his identity a secret and learn from the master himself and he has taught me a great deal about many subjects, gaming and non-gaming. The knowledge I gained from him about the many forms of advantage play has made me better at what I do for a living . ZG can tell you many stories of this place that you wouldn't believe, but you must give into the fact that there really are dealers and floorman out there that make these mistakes and even do it repeatedly after being warned. The casino mentioned iin this post is certainly not the only place with this going on, but even at the strip property I now work for, I know of a few dealers who continue to make the same mistakes, but for some reason, they keep their jobs. Their way of fixing the problem is to make them go to graveyard where they deal to less people.

Theres so much more I could tell all of you about this place and how bass-ackwards it is that by the time I finish, I'd need a publisher to print the latest blackjack bestseller. I have said enough about this card counter and cheaters version of heaven for now and I'm sure you think that a place like this cant exist and not be bankrupt by now. I assure you, this place is a gold mine. The average player will still lose even after so many dealer mistakes should make winning a sure thing. The casino isnt closing soon, take my word for it. If you are one of this sites members who have been told of the location, I trust you will use the information wisely and not do anything extreme that could warrant a major change to the way things are managed there because the way things are now, its quite possibly the best spot around for people who do what we do.

Im sure some of you are thinking that I would be playing there a lot myself if this was really going on.To sum it all up, it comes down to the lack of bankroll. I cannot afford to lose money right now. Im getting divorced and at the same time working on launching a new business and that about covers where my money goes. This isnt anybody else's business, but I want to make a point. Before you say things like asking why we would be so mad about losing $320 in a single hand and give up instead of going to the ATM when we ran out of cash, think about the fact that not everybody is in YOUR situation. You may not care about the loss and may head strait to the ATM and reload. We went with money we could afford to lose, money that we won over the previous week on our sports bets. Once we lost what we took there, we stopped ourselves before we gave away money we needed for everything else in life besides blackjack.



Good luck out there!
EC

 

[Craps Master]

Should we have bet the table max of $100? Or should we have asked for them to raise the limit to $500 so that we could make the biggest bet those tables have ever seen?

Yes. Why wouldn't you? Especially when you go on to talk about how totally incompetent everyone at this casino is. Or did you learn the $80/hand thing in +6 counts from your teacher? Whatever the case, you guys are clearly on the junior varsity squad when it comes to advantage play and, I hope the other people at this site don't take after you in your play or attitude.

 

[zengrifter]

Yes. Why wouldn't you? Especially when you go on to talk about how totally incompetent everyone at this casino is. Or did you learn the $80/hand thing in +6 counts from your teacher? Whatever the case, you guys are clearly on the junior varsity squad when it comes to advantage play and, I hope the other people at this site don't take after you in your play or attitude.

I didn't even give them "junior-varsity" status. (((BOOM))) & <<POP>>! zg