That problem affects me, not so much with friends and\nfamily, but with rookie teammates. Over the course of a team trip, there are\ninvariably opportunities for me to make a bet or execute a brief play myself,\nwith no teammates witnessing the play. That\u2019s standard for an ECA (Every Counter\nAlone) team, but my team trips generally involve a primary target that involves\nmultiple players together (such as a spotter and BP). So it\u2019s a bit of a grey\narea when a team member goes off and plays something alone during the trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There should be some discussion or understanding about that.\nFor instance, what if the team\u2019s primary target is HC play, and a team member\nsays, \u201cI lost $5000 on a hot deck in a monster count while checking dealers in\nthe high-limit pit.\u201d I\u2019ll chop the loss, but that teammate probably won\u2019t be a\nteammate for long. Sure, we could strictly outlaw that, but I\u2019d rather give\npeople some flexibility, see what decisions they make, and then chop them off\nif they self-reveal idiocy, degeneracy, or recklessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think the 2nd<\/sup>-best compliment I ever got was\nfrom D Money, an old BP teammate from Vegas (whom I ran into in an elevator fifteen\nyears later in a small hotel in Europe just before the covid lockdown), who\nsaid: \u201cI\u2019ll always take a piece of your action.\u201d That shows that he trusts both\nmy skill and my counting of the money. (The best compliment I ever got was from\na dealer in the Rio high-limit pit, who said: \u201cWe have a word for people like\nyou\u2014\u2018degenerate\u2019!\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem when gambling with OPM is that maybe those Other\nPeople don\u2019t actually have the Money! A rookie teammate might be unable to chop\na loss. A rookie who\u2019s been winning with the team for two years or longer\nshould have saved up some money, but, inexplicably, some people are just too irresponsible\nto save any money whatsoever. That puts the team in a bind, because now we\u2019re\nfloating that loss, and the rookie owes us, but possibly the only way the\nrookie can make money is continued play with the team. So we have to dig the\nrookie out of his own hole. Instead of the rookie being our minion, the\nveterans on the team become minions for the rookie. We\u2019re out there scouting,\nrunning numbers, finding and hitting targets to put money in this rookie\u2019s\npocket, so he can pay us back the money he owes. And then the rookie complains\nthat we don\u2019t respect his skills. What a joke. But I digress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In other cases, the person can afford the loss financially,\nbut getting in a big hole can cause depression or grumpiness, especially if\nwinning was expected. And rookies often have the most unrealistic expectations\nabout winning every time. On a good game, we will<\/em><\/strong> win every time,\nbut not every game is a good game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A third problem is that if I play something without witnesses,\nand then lose, the rookie might want to know what I was playing. Veterans on my\nteam know that I have a bit of a \u201cdon\u2019t-ask-because-I-won\u2019t-tell\u201d policy, and\nthere have been many times when I played something and put the profits in the chop\nthat they knew nothing about. It\u2019s like the bag of money that the movie villain\/hero\nleaves at the orphanage, telling Sister Theresa, \u201cDon\u2019t worry about where this\nmoney came from, just do some good with it!\u201d But explaining advanced moves to\nrookies is something that isn\u2019t about to happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a bit of ego involved as well. Losing too often\nwithout witnesses might raise red flags and damage a player\u2019s credibility.\nThere are two\u2014only two\u2014ways that frequent losing can occur: either the game is\nnegative, or there\u2019s skimming. I wouldn\u2019t want to be suspected of either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, like CJ, I find myself under stress when OPM is\ninvolved. I think that\u2019s a good litmus test of a team player. You will\nencounter some players who play fast and loose with team money, while people\nlike me and CJ probably play tighter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I knew a team that had brought on a rookie, and bankrolled\nhim to go play some supposedly high-edge games (that was the team\u2019s first\nmistake). Anyway, they found that he was tipping too much, way too much. I\nspied on this player (he didn\u2019t know me) and confirmed excessive tipping, among\nother mistakes. So they changed the team policy and said that all tips would\nhenceforth come out of his own pocket. Guess what happened. The guy immediately\nstarted complaining about toke-hustling dealers, and how these tips were adding\nup ($100-$200 per day). It didn\u2019t take long before his tipping level went to\nzero. Zero!<\/p>\n\n\n\n At that point, you might think that the team had solved its\nproblem, because they eliminated the EV-offensive behavior of excessive\ntipping. That was true in the short-term, but long-term, they had a bigger\nproblem: this guy plays fast and loose with the team money, but when it\u2019s his\nown money, he\u2019s tight as a drum. To me, that\u2019s a huge warning sign. That might\neven warrant cutting the guy loose right there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Their \u201csolution\u201d that led to the guy not tipping at all isn\u2019t\noptimal for the team anyway, because now the guy isn\u2019t making the modest\nprofessional tips that he should be making. For high-edge games, some amount of\ntipping is generally optimal, and strategic tipping is a useful tool for a veteran.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n I want teammates who are as tight or tighter with team money\nthan their own personal money. You\u2019ll see some players start blasting on a\nsuper-marginal game with maybe no edge at all the second they get their hands\non a big team bankroll. (Overbetting marginal games is one of the red flags for\nskimming, BTW.) For me, it\u2019s always been the opposite: my game selection is\ntighter when I play on a team bankroll. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In between team trips, I might play marginal games on my own\nbankroll. There\u2019s a team benefit to that. Maintaining my solo exposure and\npersona at the casino can be good for the team later, provided I don\u2019t get\nbacked off. However, I\u2019m at a point in my career when I want to do more coding,\nless playing. To that end, I\u2019m trying to skip the marginal games that I tend to\nplay on my own time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So it came to pass that I was on a marginal game the other\nday. I was in the middle of a small loss, and frustrated by the inconsistent\ngame quality. In my youth, I would have stayed to dig out of that hole. The\ngame was a crappy 10% game, but mama always said, \u201cFinish your game\u2014there are\nstarving card counters in Vegas!\u201d Low edge be damned, I\u2019m digging out! That was\nthe old, young me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The new, old me asks, \u201cWould I be playing this game on a\nteam bankroll?\u201d Hell no! If Colin Jones and Sister Theresa could see me on this\ncrappy game, they\u2019d assign some inter-denominational penance, like writing \u201cI\nwill not play poorly cut shoes\u201d a thousand times on the chalkboard. Or worse,\nthey\u2019d make me play those shoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I walked away from that game. Thank you, Colin Jones, you\nsaved me. <\/p>\n I walked off a game the other day, and I have Colin Jones to thank. On paper, the game could be a 20% edge or higher. In the real world? Not so much. My frustration grew. Why am I playing this 10% garbage? I\u2019m out. Where does Colin Jones fit into this? Something he wrote […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[1979,2049],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Facebook\"](\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/96x96\/facebook.png\" "\\"Follow")
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