When I was about 7 my father bought a tachistoscope. “Why?” you may ask. He was learning to speed read. Illinois had banned Henry Miller’s The Tropic of Cancer as obscene. My father was hired as an expert witness on pornography, and had to read 200 pornographic novels before testifying. But I had this amazing […]
Posts in category Advantage Play
“Doctor, it hurts when I do THIS”
“Well don’t do that!” the good doctor quips. I have always found this joke entertaining, not so much for the wisecracking humor, but for the subtle wisdom therein. Note that the doctor’s advice is not “I’ll prescribe some medical marijuana for you,” or “You need to learn to live with the pain,” or “You need […]
Blackjack Ball 2014
In 1997 Max Rubin decided to throw a party for all his professional gambler friends. All the blackjack teams, big and small, would be in Las Vegas for New Years Eve, so after new years it would be time to kick back, count the money, and have a party. Rather than a boring party where […]
The Best Gambling Movie of All Time–Not!
A friend recently forced me to watch the movie “Casino” for the first time. You may be shocked that a professional gambler wouldn’t have already seen “Casino” twenty times, but Hollywoodizations of what we do for a living aren’t always so appealing. Besides, we be werkin’ all the time! It turns out that “Casino” is […]
The Club Calling the Spade Black
On a blackjack Website, I read a thread about a card counter doing a “great drunk act” (that’ll be another blog entry later). The post read: The count goes up a bit, the drunk stops play with, “Can I change my bet?” The pit says sure. The drunk then takes the two greens he had bet and […]
Do you trust your partner?
I received an email recently in which a player asked about his partner. He said the partner had lost $220 scouting a hole card game with a $5 minimum. He said that he could usually tell in one or two hands if a dealer was good or not, and didn’t I think this completely unreasonable […]
The Denominator—Where “Due” Happens
After a weekend of listening to football broadcasters, I need to detox. I still feel this zinger from a few weeks ago during the Sunday Night Football broadcast: the commentator noted that Adam Vinatieri, the kicker for the Indianapolis Colts, had a career record of 18 of 36 when attempting field goals over 50 yards, […]
Pushback and Bayes’ Rule
I’m only one post into this blogging adventure and I’m getting pushback from the cognoscenti. In my intro post, I advised APs to avoid using the word “stuck.” A player then tells me, “Using that word doesn’t make you a pro—it just makes you old school.” Sigh. I’m not sure where to start. First of […]
James Grosjean’s new blog
For those who haven’t heard James Grosjean has a new blog. I wanted to get the link out there since any serious player should put this in their RSS feed. Here it is, enjoy. http://beyondnumbers.lvablog.com/
No Work and All Play – Book Review
No Work and All Play: Audacious Chronicles of a Casino Boss When I was a teenager I was obsessed with gambling. I was reading any book I could find, mostly about backgammon and poker, but also general gambling books. There was a pit boss from Las Vegas named Mike Goodman who wrote a book in […]
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