A friend of mine calls me last night and he wants to go to the Soaring Eagle. We haven't been there since last April so I notice a few changes. As I am walking around, I see some BJ tables with Shoes instead of CSM's. I look at the table and a Natural pays 3-2. I don't know when they started this back up again, but it was nice to sit down and be able to play a decent game of BJ. My only problem with this game is they allow surrender and the guy to my right was surrendering all the time. When he surrendered, I would get the card he was supposed to take and it would either bust my hand or be small enough where I would have to take another hit and then bust. It seems that the only time I would win a hand is when he would have a playable hand or a winning hand. Only once do I remember him surrendering a 16 to a Dealer 10 when I also had 16 and I pulled a 5 which would have been his had he played the hand. In three hours of play, I had 6 BJ's. This guy had 5 in a row in one shoe. He won over $600.00 and I of course I won about $80.00. I should have been happy with that, but it sure was frustrating having somebody sitting next to me surrendering all the time. I'm not a big time gambler, but at least I play the cards that are dealt to me.
