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Promotions Come and Go
Caesars Palace used to give away free decks of used cards. It wasn’t advertised anywhere, but if you knew about it, all you had to do was walk up to the cashier and ask for a deck. How did we know about the deal? In this case, we read about it in the Las Vegas Advisor This is the sort of promotion that you find when you keep your eyes and ears wide open. It’s also the kind of promotion that’s here today, gone tomorrow One time you’ll go to Caesars Palace and the cashier will smile and hand you a deck of cards. Then the next time she’ll look at you like you’re out of your mind (and swear that Caesars has never given away free cards). It happens all the time.
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About Blackjack Casino Game
The Blackjack Move
"Nothing matters," he explained to me in the car as we drove down the mountain to Reno. "Not what the dealers see, not what color the chips are nothing. The move is too powerful. You bet three red chips; the dealer can look at it ten times. Then when you go out there and slap his hand while you're claiming, with your backup chips sitting on the table, you knock the dealer senseless. The backup chips," Joe stressed. "They're your protection. They fucking brainwash the dealer-and then the footman and pit boss. The dealer calls them to the table after a move goes down, and they see nothing but blacks on the layout-or purples if we're moving purples. How can they think the guy sitting behind those chips, always dressed to perfection, was only betting $15? They'd have to be morons to think that. So with all that working, you think this move is good?" Joe didn't wait for my response. "I'll tell you how good it is. The first hundred and fifty blackjack moves were done by Jerry zero misses. That's how good it is. We've been doing it for eight years. After the first miss, the payoff rate has leveled off at 90 percent."
Game Chips
That hundred and fifty in a row without a miss was impressive. And Joe went on to say that 40 percent of those moves had been done with purple chips, mostly ten-o-fives. He also explained the subtleties of the move. Gently pushing the three red chips the casino dealer initially paid you out of the betting circle was one of them. Avoiding eye contact with the dealer when you approached the table was another. To do that naturally, you could strike up a little friendly Conversation with the player seated next to you as you sat down, saying something mundane, like "How's the table running?" You always placed your bet when the dealer was sweeping the cards. If you came to the table while the dealer was shuffling, you waited till the end of the shuffle to place your bet. If you smoked, as did Duke and Jerry, you kept your cigarettes and lighter in your right jacket pocket, which was not needed for chip storage during the move. And, of course, no smoking during blackjack moves.
When You didn't Move
Certain situations occurred where you didn't move. If at the end of the hand yours was the only winning bet on the table, you didn't move. That was because, after paying you, the dealer had nobody else left to pay, and his hands would either be going back to his rack to replace chips-if he had taken excess chips from it to pay your right to your cards to sweep them up. If you moved and the dealer was in the process of sweeping the cards while you claimed, you were late and could have a very dangerous situation. If that occurred, the dealer would have to stop in mid-sweep, a very awkward position. Dealers tended to pass on their discomfort to the players causing it. So, to put it simply, you do not put the dealer in an awkward position.
We also didn't move when we were dealt blackjacks. A natural 2 I on the deal paid 3 to 2. Dealers almost always paid those winning bets with bridges, placing that so percent supplement evenly on top, as they did with certain odds bets at craps. Doing a move inside that structure took too much time, so we let it go and settled for winning the hand with the little blackjack bonus.
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