Kaiser
Well-Known Member
*warning - didn't realize how friggin' long this was until I posted it*
It wasn't your average AP outing; I think the strippers, $400 bottles of Crown Royal, prostitutes, cash and cell phone thefts, innocent bystanders being squirted with soy sauce, and the enjoymnent of 6-5 blackjack kind of make it stand out. OK, it's not as good as it sounds, but it was the stag (bachelor party for you americans) trip I was on last weekend and thought I'd jot down a few memorable blackjack moments for the hell of it.
First off, when did they double the size of the airport and quadruple the number of people using it? My god. I wasn't expecting it to be that busy at 12:30am on a Friday night. (well, technically Saturday morning) We weren't looking forward to trying to get 3 cabs to haul 13 of us to the Imperial Palace, considering the fact that I could count cards like lightning but wouldn't even attempt to count the number of people in that damn lineup. Luckily for us someone came up to us and offered us a ride in a stretch Hummer limo for $10 a head. Seemed worth it to avoid a who-knows-how-long wait for a cab. We had just finished drinking all the rye on the plane and using up all the ice they had on a (connection) flight from Denver, so patience wasn't really our strong suit at that point.
We finally got checked into our rooms and ready to head downstairs at 2:00am. Pretty late start to the 3 day trip, but we averaged about 2 1/2 hours of sleep a night, so I like to think we fit about 5-6 regular days worth of stuff into the trip. Actually it's kind of weird, it seems like it was a fast weekend because it was almost like one really long day with a couple of quick naps thrown in there. We usually slept from about 5am to 7-8am. Yay for RedBull and believing in the whole pumped-in-oxygen thing.
Of course I'd been getting in a lot of counting work the past several weeks, and had things pretty much down pat. I had a decent bankroll, even if it was partially funded with my credit line. I know, I know, but I don't plan on going back within a year or two so I was fully prepared to drop the whole thing and spreading the payback over 5-6 months if things went bad enough. Played $5 tables if I could find them, which meant I mostly hit $10 tables with the odd guess-I-have-to $15 one thrown in.
First session. Fresh mind, lots of excitement, wad of fresh hundreds in my pocket. Let's make some money! Err... let's lose 20 units in 15 minutes. Damn. Oh well, the next casino will be better, I'm friggin' good at this stuff, it's got to work. D'oh! Another $200 in the toilet. The damn shoes are killing me. Winning small bets at low counts, losing pretty much all the medium and big bets at good counts. My buddies look at me with puzzled expressions. Uh, dude, I thought you were like, counting the cards? Shouldn't you be getting carried out of here and then buying us all hookers or something by now?
BTW, my *god* is the Imperial Palace a shithole. The rooms are almost as bad as the blackjack tables. They have 6 single deck tables in a circle as you enter the place, all 6:5 of course. The dealers have to wear these ridiculous black suits with crooked hats. They also have a row of tables at the back with dealers dressed up like famous stars, dealt from a CSM and all 6:5. No thanks. The only thing these things were good for was a chuckle at the Stevie Wonder table that had the dealer's "John as Stevie Wonder" sign stuck in the slot upside down.
The first night was fun except for the blackjack. Finished the night off with a McDonalds bedtime snack and slept from 5am to 8am. A quick trip the amazingly bland buffet and we were headed downtown for some real tables. (oh god I'll regret that buffet in 8 hours)
So I'm with my best friend and his dad, and the poor guy can't walk too far in one shot, so we kind of get roped into going into the first place we come up to, the Four Queens. Ended up being pretty good though, and we spent quite a while there. We sat down at a handheld double deck game and played for a few hours. Went up and down, got myself very good at counting a pitch game, and drank way too many free crown & cokes. We had a really nice pregnant cocktail waitress, and a couple of $5 tips for 2 drinks had her attention. You'd think we were dropping fifties on her. She was back with another drink before we were finished the one we had. Not so great for the counting, but it made for a fun afternoon. I can't remember how I did here, only that we all had fun, drank a ton of free booze, and all left with more than we walked in with. The highlight was once at third base when I was having a little trouble counting a lot of doubles and splits, because the count was right around a couple of index numbers I was trying to recall, then the waitress is there, I'm trying to look at the table while I have my arm out waiting for her to take my drink, then while I'm doing this the dealer points to my two face down cards to ask what I'm doing. I wave him off, thinking "jesus man, they're face down under my chips, grab a friggin' brain". He has a 19 and flips my cards up. I stood on a 5-4. Oh yes, the table loved me. Some of them even called out to our lord saviour, jesus christ, to express this love. I convinced myself that this was a wonderful cover play.
Did you know that they charge $460 for a bottle of Crown at Seamless? 5 of us showed up there at 9pm to find out that the guys who had been there since 3pm had bought bottles for $460, $350, and $250 already. After a fourth bottle at $250 we managed to smarten the boys up and switched to beer. It got us a nice big area to ourselves and quite a few *ahem* ladies to visit with, but wow. Just wow. I matched my first day losses in money spent at this place, and went home with my tail between my legs. The appendage in front was *not* hanging, however. We had a couple of guys in the group drop $1500 and $2000 there that night.
FYI, you should not walk around and flirt with hookers you meet on the strip, nor should you get into a car with the pimp and cruise around looking for something to do. You will wind up so drunk (or drugged) that you wake up in your hotel room with not much memory of how you got there, and that whole $700 you had in your pocket missing. Trust me, there is a guy in our group (first night ever in Vegas) who now knows this all too well. You also want to avoid taking your expensive Blackberry into a club if you can help it. You'll notice it missing after two guys bump into you. Ouch. Most of our group were first timers, and there were lessons galore being learned.
More McDonalds and more rye, a sleep from 5am to 7:30am, and it's time to head back downtown for some *real* gambling. EsCortez, here I come baby.
We step out from under the curtain of the Fremont Street experience. "Are you sure this is safe?" I hear from behind me. It's funny how quickly the decor changes in one block.
The ElCortez is actually surprisingly nice inside. Nicer than I expected it to be. It is not busy at all, with maybe 2 blackjack tables having players at them. Every other table is manned by a dealer staring at a wall. We stroll around and find a nice low table with regular chairs at the end of the pit with a $3 minumum. Perfect. I'll be able to have a good spread and maybe win that $20 with my buddy. I bet him I could get kicked out for counting, with the rule that I can't actually say anything about counting.
I'm spreading 1-8 ($5 to $40) with the KISS III count, and only using a few indexes. I went to $50 on a few choice counts too. The dealer is new and not very fast, and the counting is so easy. I order a beer and slam it, get another, and start to rub my eyes. I can hold my beer really well and thought maybe I'd pretend to be drunk for a while. My trips to the bathroom are slow and deliberate, and there's lots more eye rubbing. I probably convinced my buddy and his dad that I was really drunk. Damn I'm a good actor.
It's a double deck game from a shoe (cool, never seen that before). I turn a $100 buy-in into $420 in about 5 shoes. I'm leaning back, putting sunglasses on and off, ordering a third beer, and acting drunk. I probably just look like an idiot but we're chuckling and having fun.
We were getting a lot of attention from the female pitboss. She was walking over and watching the table every few minutes it seemed. I had my glasses set so I could see the cards really easy but spent a lot of time watching the pit crew through the dark shades so they couldn't tell I was. Definitely watching us, talking about us, and coming over to get a closer look pretty often.
We were soooo obvious about it, too. We'd all be betting $5 (or I'd bet $3 while the others bet $5) to start, and when the count warranted, all three of us would shove out $30 or $40. And I guess they can't just shuffle on you when they're using a shoe, but after a while they started changing dealers on us quite a bit. The count would get hot after 3 or 4 rounds, we'd shove out a 4 unit bet, and miraculously we got a new dealer who would empty the shoe and here comes the shuffle (actually I think it was auto-shuffled cards she grabbed from the side). Naturally we all pull our money back and put out $5. Once this happened while the pit lady was watching, and I get a blackjack on my first hand of the shoe. "Oh, you only have $5 out now, too bad!" says the lady. I consider telling her "the count is only like 15" but don't, knowing it voids my bet with my friend. I just say "I know, I can't guess right!" or something stupid like that. We're all trying not to laugh.
The highlight of this session was too much. I almost spit my beer out trying not to laugh. I couldn't, and actually laughed outloud for a few seconds and high-fived my friend. The count shoots up like crazy. We all get 3, 4, or 5 card hands, dealer included, with every card a low one. I go from a $3 bet to $50. Both other guys go from $5 to $50. I'm trying not to laugh. My buddy knees me in the leg and I look over. He's trying not to laugh, or not to piss his pants, I can't tell which. Dealer turns her head and says "CHECKS PLAY". There are lots of eyes on us. We're the only ones at the table. Friend's dad on my right gets an 11, I get a blackjack, and my buddy on the left gets a pair of aces. Dealer had a 10. His dad doubles the 11 and gets a 10, after I tell him he has to, and the aces get split, each receiving a king. Dealer gets another 10 for a 20.
I actually burst out laughing. Then the other two do. High-fives all around. But damn, now the count is back down. Back to $5 bets for us. My god. This is working so well, we're having so much fun, and godDAMN this is an easy game.
Oh, I also made out like a bandit on insurance. There were so many times the dealer had ace in a low count and we didn’t take insurance… then in the next five minutes there were 4 times that it came up, and we were right on 3 of them. The first time we had $50 bets out and I took insurance, the other guys forgot what I had told them and didn’t take it. Dealer had blackjack so I said something stupid like “dude, insurance only works if everyone at the table takes it”. It came up again before the end of the shoe with big bets out, and this time we all took it – and it worked.
Now I don’t know if they’re just easier on double deck games or if my drunk-and-getting-drunker routine actually worked, but I thought for sure they were going to ask us to leave, and they never did. I couldn’t believe it. So El Cortez, thank you very much for the $400. I really appreciate the easy going pit crew, free beer, and inexperienced dealers who twice forgot to take our money away when we lost our hands. Cheers!
Have you ever had a girl try to give you a hummer through your jeans? Um, yeah, lap dances in Vegas are just a tad different than the ones in Canada. *Blush *
So we stop at some casino while in our stretch hummer limo on the way to another gentleman’s club. The boys run in to the liquor store there to buy some booze and I run in to a $5 double deck game with a $40 buy-in. Talk about a hit and run. Play a few hands at $5, then all-in with $50, win, $50 again, win, shuffle. A little ways into the second set I make a few big bets again, not worrying about cover at all. Lose a couple big ones at the end, but walk out with $80 profit for maybe 8 minutes of play. This game is cool.
I got a stripper’s e-mail address. Not sure if she actually wants to go out with me next time I’m there like she says, or if she’s going to try to milk some money out of me. Interesting time, though.
Twice I had short, fun sessions heads-up at a single deck game in the Imperial Palace on a 6:5 table. The first was about 30 minutes where I made a couple hundred bucks. The last was while my buddies were standing at the front door waiting for our ride to the airport. I thought what the hell, I’m going to spread like a madman and if I get kicked out, who cares. I spread from 1-10, never employing even the slightest cover. Bets were up and down like crazy. I got heat almost immediately, with the pit boss making trips to the table every minute or so. It’s a crappy little ring of 6 or 7 tables, all single deck 6:5, so there isn’t far for the PB to go. After a few ridiculous spikes in my bets, and going immediately back to $5 on the shuffle, the guy parks himself at the table. After the second round I spike up to a 10 unit bet, and he reaches into the discard tray, moves some cards, and the dealer shuffles. I look the guy in the eye and just smile, pulling my money back and shoving out $5 again. I was pretty much asking to be barred and he wouldn’t bite. After another round he left the table and I took advantage of a good count again. Only left with $50 as some big bets didn’t fall my way, but it was fun as hell. I also didn’t get any blackjacks so I convinced myself it was just like playing a 3:2 table. I was also kind of drunk so it didn’t take a lot of convincing.
Anyway, that’s it for my first (and probably last for a good long while) trip report. I probably left out a lot of blackjack stuff that wasn’t that memorable, and I absolutely left out a lot that was (but didn’t have anything to do with blackjack). Vegas is one hell of a city. I ended up making about $600-700, which is a pretty nice haul for me. I spent most of that on, uh, other stuff there though. Not that I'm complaining.
It wasn't your average AP outing; I think the strippers, $400 bottles of Crown Royal, prostitutes, cash and cell phone thefts, innocent bystanders being squirted with soy sauce, and the enjoymnent of 6-5 blackjack kind of make it stand out. OK, it's not as good as it sounds, but it was the stag (bachelor party for you americans) trip I was on last weekend and thought I'd jot down a few memorable blackjack moments for the hell of it.
First off, when did they double the size of the airport and quadruple the number of people using it? My god. I wasn't expecting it to be that busy at 12:30am on a Friday night. (well, technically Saturday morning) We weren't looking forward to trying to get 3 cabs to haul 13 of us to the Imperial Palace, considering the fact that I could count cards like lightning but wouldn't even attempt to count the number of people in that damn lineup. Luckily for us someone came up to us and offered us a ride in a stretch Hummer limo for $10 a head. Seemed worth it to avoid a who-knows-how-long wait for a cab. We had just finished drinking all the rye on the plane and using up all the ice they had on a (connection) flight from Denver, so patience wasn't really our strong suit at that point.
We finally got checked into our rooms and ready to head downstairs at 2:00am. Pretty late start to the 3 day trip, but we averaged about 2 1/2 hours of sleep a night, so I like to think we fit about 5-6 regular days worth of stuff into the trip. Actually it's kind of weird, it seems like it was a fast weekend because it was almost like one really long day with a couple of quick naps thrown in there. We usually slept from about 5am to 7-8am. Yay for RedBull and believing in the whole pumped-in-oxygen thing.
Of course I'd been getting in a lot of counting work the past several weeks, and had things pretty much down pat. I had a decent bankroll, even if it was partially funded with my credit line. I know, I know, but I don't plan on going back within a year or two so I was fully prepared to drop the whole thing and spreading the payback over 5-6 months if things went bad enough. Played $5 tables if I could find them, which meant I mostly hit $10 tables with the odd guess-I-have-to $15 one thrown in.
First session. Fresh mind, lots of excitement, wad of fresh hundreds in my pocket. Let's make some money! Err... let's lose 20 units in 15 minutes. Damn. Oh well, the next casino will be better, I'm friggin' good at this stuff, it's got to work. D'oh! Another $200 in the toilet. The damn shoes are killing me. Winning small bets at low counts, losing pretty much all the medium and big bets at good counts. My buddies look at me with puzzled expressions. Uh, dude, I thought you were like, counting the cards? Shouldn't you be getting carried out of here and then buying us all hookers or something by now?
BTW, my *god* is the Imperial Palace a shithole. The rooms are almost as bad as the blackjack tables. They have 6 single deck tables in a circle as you enter the place, all 6:5 of course. The dealers have to wear these ridiculous black suits with crooked hats. They also have a row of tables at the back with dealers dressed up like famous stars, dealt from a CSM and all 6:5. No thanks. The only thing these things were good for was a chuckle at the Stevie Wonder table that had the dealer's "John as Stevie Wonder" sign stuck in the slot upside down.
The first night was fun except for the blackjack. Finished the night off with a McDonalds bedtime snack and slept from 5am to 8am. A quick trip the amazingly bland buffet and we were headed downtown for some real tables. (oh god I'll regret that buffet in 8 hours)
So I'm with my best friend and his dad, and the poor guy can't walk too far in one shot, so we kind of get roped into going into the first place we come up to, the Four Queens. Ended up being pretty good though, and we spent quite a while there. We sat down at a handheld double deck game and played for a few hours. Went up and down, got myself very good at counting a pitch game, and drank way too many free crown & cokes. We had a really nice pregnant cocktail waitress, and a couple of $5 tips for 2 drinks had her attention. You'd think we were dropping fifties on her. She was back with another drink before we were finished the one we had. Not so great for the counting, but it made for a fun afternoon. I can't remember how I did here, only that we all had fun, drank a ton of free booze, and all left with more than we walked in with. The highlight was once at third base when I was having a little trouble counting a lot of doubles and splits, because the count was right around a couple of index numbers I was trying to recall, then the waitress is there, I'm trying to look at the table while I have my arm out waiting for her to take my drink, then while I'm doing this the dealer points to my two face down cards to ask what I'm doing. I wave him off, thinking "jesus man, they're face down under my chips, grab a friggin' brain". He has a 19 and flips my cards up. I stood on a 5-4. Oh yes, the table loved me. Some of them even called out to our lord saviour, jesus christ, to express this love. I convinced myself that this was a wonderful cover play.
Did you know that they charge $460 for a bottle of Crown at Seamless? 5 of us showed up there at 9pm to find out that the guys who had been there since 3pm had bought bottles for $460, $350, and $250 already. After a fourth bottle at $250 we managed to smarten the boys up and switched to beer. It got us a nice big area to ourselves and quite a few *ahem* ladies to visit with, but wow. Just wow. I matched my first day losses in money spent at this place, and went home with my tail between my legs. The appendage in front was *not* hanging, however. We had a couple of guys in the group drop $1500 and $2000 there that night.
FYI, you should not walk around and flirt with hookers you meet on the strip, nor should you get into a car with the pimp and cruise around looking for something to do. You will wind up so drunk (or drugged) that you wake up in your hotel room with not much memory of how you got there, and that whole $700 you had in your pocket missing. Trust me, there is a guy in our group (first night ever in Vegas) who now knows this all too well. You also want to avoid taking your expensive Blackberry into a club if you can help it. You'll notice it missing after two guys bump into you. Ouch. Most of our group were first timers, and there were lessons galore being learned.
More McDonalds and more rye, a sleep from 5am to 7:30am, and it's time to head back downtown for some *real* gambling. EsCortez, here I come baby.
We step out from under the curtain of the Fremont Street experience. "Are you sure this is safe?" I hear from behind me. It's funny how quickly the decor changes in one block.
The ElCortez is actually surprisingly nice inside. Nicer than I expected it to be. It is not busy at all, with maybe 2 blackjack tables having players at them. Every other table is manned by a dealer staring at a wall. We stroll around and find a nice low table with regular chairs at the end of the pit with a $3 minumum. Perfect. I'll be able to have a good spread and maybe win that $20 with my buddy. I bet him I could get kicked out for counting, with the rule that I can't actually say anything about counting.
I'm spreading 1-8 ($5 to $40) with the KISS III count, and only using a few indexes. I went to $50 on a few choice counts too. The dealer is new and not very fast, and the counting is so easy. I order a beer and slam it, get another, and start to rub my eyes. I can hold my beer really well and thought maybe I'd pretend to be drunk for a while. My trips to the bathroom are slow and deliberate, and there's lots more eye rubbing. I probably convinced my buddy and his dad that I was really drunk. Damn I'm a good actor.
It's a double deck game from a shoe (cool, never seen that before). I turn a $100 buy-in into $420 in about 5 shoes. I'm leaning back, putting sunglasses on and off, ordering a third beer, and acting drunk. I probably just look like an idiot but we're chuckling and having fun.
We were getting a lot of attention from the female pitboss. She was walking over and watching the table every few minutes it seemed. I had my glasses set so I could see the cards really easy but spent a lot of time watching the pit crew through the dark shades so they couldn't tell I was. Definitely watching us, talking about us, and coming over to get a closer look pretty often.
We were soooo obvious about it, too. We'd all be betting $5 (or I'd bet $3 while the others bet $5) to start, and when the count warranted, all three of us would shove out $30 or $40. And I guess they can't just shuffle on you when they're using a shoe, but after a while they started changing dealers on us quite a bit. The count would get hot after 3 or 4 rounds, we'd shove out a 4 unit bet, and miraculously we got a new dealer who would empty the shoe and here comes the shuffle (actually I think it was auto-shuffled cards she grabbed from the side). Naturally we all pull our money back and put out $5. Once this happened while the pit lady was watching, and I get a blackjack on my first hand of the shoe. "Oh, you only have $5 out now, too bad!" says the lady. I consider telling her "the count is only like 15" but don't, knowing it voids my bet with my friend. I just say "I know, I can't guess right!" or something stupid like that. We're all trying not to laugh.
The highlight of this session was too much. I almost spit my beer out trying not to laugh. I couldn't, and actually laughed outloud for a few seconds and high-fived my friend. The count shoots up like crazy. We all get 3, 4, or 5 card hands, dealer included, with every card a low one. I go from a $3 bet to $50. Both other guys go from $5 to $50. I'm trying not to laugh. My buddy knees me in the leg and I look over. He's trying not to laugh, or not to piss his pants, I can't tell which. Dealer turns her head and says "CHECKS PLAY". There are lots of eyes on us. We're the only ones at the table. Friend's dad on my right gets an 11, I get a blackjack, and my buddy on the left gets a pair of aces. Dealer had a 10. His dad doubles the 11 and gets a 10, after I tell him he has to, and the aces get split, each receiving a king. Dealer gets another 10 for a 20.
I actually burst out laughing. Then the other two do. High-fives all around. But damn, now the count is back down. Back to $5 bets for us. My god. This is working so well, we're having so much fun, and godDAMN this is an easy game.
Oh, I also made out like a bandit on insurance. There were so many times the dealer had ace in a low count and we didn’t take insurance… then in the next five minutes there were 4 times that it came up, and we were right on 3 of them. The first time we had $50 bets out and I took insurance, the other guys forgot what I had told them and didn’t take it. Dealer had blackjack so I said something stupid like “dude, insurance only works if everyone at the table takes it”. It came up again before the end of the shoe with big bets out, and this time we all took it – and it worked.
Now I don’t know if they’re just easier on double deck games or if my drunk-and-getting-drunker routine actually worked, but I thought for sure they were going to ask us to leave, and they never did. I couldn’t believe it. So El Cortez, thank you very much for the $400. I really appreciate the easy going pit crew, free beer, and inexperienced dealers who twice forgot to take our money away when we lost our hands. Cheers!
Have you ever had a girl try to give you a hummer through your jeans? Um, yeah, lap dances in Vegas are just a tad different than the ones in Canada. *Blush *
So we stop at some casino while in our stretch hummer limo on the way to another gentleman’s club. The boys run in to the liquor store there to buy some booze and I run in to a $5 double deck game with a $40 buy-in. Talk about a hit and run. Play a few hands at $5, then all-in with $50, win, $50 again, win, shuffle. A little ways into the second set I make a few big bets again, not worrying about cover at all. Lose a couple big ones at the end, but walk out with $80 profit for maybe 8 minutes of play. This game is cool.
I got a stripper’s e-mail address. Not sure if she actually wants to go out with me next time I’m there like she says, or if she’s going to try to milk some money out of me. Interesting time, though.
Twice I had short, fun sessions heads-up at a single deck game in the Imperial Palace on a 6:5 table. The first was about 30 minutes where I made a couple hundred bucks. The last was while my buddies were standing at the front door waiting for our ride to the airport. I thought what the hell, I’m going to spread like a madman and if I get kicked out, who cares. I spread from 1-10, never employing even the slightest cover. Bets were up and down like crazy. I got heat almost immediately, with the pit boss making trips to the table every minute or so. It’s a crappy little ring of 6 or 7 tables, all single deck 6:5, so there isn’t far for the PB to go. After a few ridiculous spikes in my bets, and going immediately back to $5 on the shuffle, the guy parks himself at the table. After the second round I spike up to a 10 unit bet, and he reaches into the discard tray, moves some cards, and the dealer shuffles. I look the guy in the eye and just smile, pulling my money back and shoving out $5 again. I was pretty much asking to be barred and he wouldn’t bite. After another round he left the table and I took advantage of a good count again. Only left with $50 as some big bets didn’t fall my way, but it was fun as hell. I also didn’t get any blackjacks so I convinced myself it was just like playing a 3:2 table. I was also kind of drunk so it didn’t take a lot of convincing.
Anyway, that’s it for my first (and probably last for a good long while) trip report. I probably left out a lot of blackjack stuff that wasn’t that memorable, and I absolutely left out a lot that was (but didn’t have anything to do with blackjack). Vegas is one hell of a city. I ended up making about $600-700, which is a pretty nice haul for me. I spent most of that on, uh, other stuff there though. Not that I'm complaining.
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