Arnold Snyder

Posted on September 15, 2022January 25, 2024 by Arnold Snyder — 1 Comment

Poker Tournament Camp

Weekend at Camp Hellmuth

by Happy Camper
(From Blackjack Forum , Fall 2006)
© Blackjack Forum 2006

Arrive at Camp Hellmuth—Friday, August 11, 2006

I arrived in Las Vegas at approximately 5:00 p.m. After checking in at Caesar’s Palace, I prepared to meet Phil Hellmuth and the other camp pros. At 7:30 p.m., I attended the welcome reception at the hotel’s Pure Nightclub.

The place was packed and over the next half hour the pros started to arrive: Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, Evelyn Ng (all six feet of her), Scott Fishman, Mark Seif (actually he showed up on Sunday), Michael Mizrachi (ranked #1 in the world this year), Shawn Rice, Mark Kroon (Poker Ho from Ultimate Bet), Gary Debernardi (Ultimate Bet), and Alex O. (Ultimate Bet – he kept hand statistics for the World Poker Tour for 3 years).

Introduced by Phil Hellmuth, everyone took their turn on stage. It didn’t take long to figure out that Phil would be doing most of the talking this weekend; he enjoys the spotlight. Drinks were on the house and it was a first rate affair. Being that I was one of the senior members of the camp, I went to bed early and prepared for the morning.

Day 2—Poker Tournament School Session #1: Joe Navarro

After juice and coffee, the first seminar class started at 9:00 a.m. The presenter was Joe Navarro, M.A. Although he is not a poker player, his session turned out to be the most compelling. Mr. Navarro worked 25 years as an FBI agent and supervisor in the areas of counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism. He now teaches behavioral analysis and nonverbal communications at various universities. He is also a consultant for the State Department and Department of Defense. So what was he doing here? He can spot quirks in your behavior from across the room.

Mr. Navarro talked about the Limbic System, which is a portion of the brain that causes us to exhibit real behavior that we cannot hide. All players have “tells” that are automatic. They may last only a split second, but they can’t stop them. Our job as players is to spot these, and it can be done with practice.

There are 3 survival reactions that are necessary to play poker — the three F’s:

Freeze – over control – a threat, probably a strong hand
Flight – leaning away from the table after a bad flop
Fight – aggressive play, watch carefully

Interestingly, Mr. Navarro said that the most reliable body tells come from the feet, legs and torso. If you guessed the face, wrong, as it is the least reliable body part when it comes to tells. Signs of strength at the table include torso leaning forward, more of arm on table, hands in ready position, and flaring of the nostril wings (yes, the old nose tell). High confidence is shown by fingers laced behind the head, steepling of the fingers, thumb displays, and nose held high. Unless you have a strong hand, fold at these indicators.

Pacifying behaviors include touching the hand to any part of the body, forehead rubbing, neck touching, arm stroking, and hand wringing. Other pacifying behaviors are foot jiggling, lip licking, whistling, exhaling with puffed cheeks and playing with hair (usually women). These are signs of distress and you can raise, raise, raise. If you play with a smoker, look to see if he/she is blowing smoke up (strong hand), or down (weak hand).

Other significant tells include false smiles, half smiles, friendliness, and suppression of normal breathing. These are bluffing behaviors. Showboating by splaying out chips in an unusual manner, intimidating with the eyes, and overemphasis on a bet are also signs of bluffing.

Strong cards are equated with shaking of the hands when betting, nose flair, and gazing from cards to chips. Amateurs may prematurely reach for chips when strong (I saw this on a number of occasions in the Caesar’s card room). Other signs of strength are betting quickly after looking at cards, nonchalance, and trying to strongly convince you of something (rather than trying to inconspicuously convey).

Joe’s final advice at the table is to:

Collect intelligence on each player;
Note behaviors;
Note each person’s arm placement;
Note how quickly they reach for chips; and
Concentrate on your own behaviors

On both days 1 and 2, afternoon tournaments were held for campers. Joe was amazingly accurate at reading people as he ambled around the poker room. A final note of interest: Joe called Phil about 2 years ago after observing him on TV. He proceeded to tell him that every time Phil was bluffing, he hugged himself tightly. Even the best have tells.

This was a top rate presentation and a great way to kick off the camp. Also, look for a new book, co-authored by Phil and Joe. The title is, “Read ‘Em and Reap”.

Camp Hellmuth Session #2: Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari

This presentation was interesting only because of my fascination with seeing and talking to professionals. The actual material is available in several poker books. Antonio talked about being the “Wolf”, not the “Sheep”. He implored us to be aggressive, aggressive, and aggressive. This type of play has helped him be successful in tournaments.

He talked about early, middle and late play in tournaments, but again nothing new. He briefly talked about position, but gave nothing substantive with regard to betting strategy. It was interesting how he talked about spreading misinformation about how you play in the early stages of a tournament (lull your opponents into thinking you are a donkey).

His most interesting story was about Gus Hansen. It seems Gus is one of the few people that puts Antonio on the defensive. He said Gus is annoying to play against because he is always betting and there is no way to tell what he has. Antonio also said Gus is a “freak”. He locks himself in a room when learning a new game, and emerges six months later as one of the best players in the world.

Antonio was laid back, but didn’t seem very interested in his presentation. All in all, it was fun to see and hear him, but I didn’t learn anything new.

Camp Hellmuth Session #3: Scott Fishman

I found Scott to be engaging; he conveyed his love and excitement for the game. His presentation was “How to Win Online Sit’N’Go’s”.

Scott has made a living playing 6-7 online sit’n’go’s at a time. He has a defined strategy. He calls these tournaments a great training tool: they provide instant access, they are fast, fit every price tag, require you to learn to change gears, and they afford great experience for final table play (although here, everyone starts with the same amount of chips). It is relatively easy money, as I have found out.

He speaks of the 3 stages at sit’n’go’s:

Beginning Stage – You have plenty of chips to play any kind of poker you please. He advised tight play, as blinds are small and pots are small. Don’t lose the tournament here. Look for spots to safely double up (AA, KK or the nuts). Play only premium hands and open with 5 times the big blind so some oaf doesn’t call you and hit a miracle draw. Many players will call for 3x big blind, but usually not for 5x.
Middle Stage – This is when a few players have been eliminated and others are down to 8x the big blind. Now lower your opening raise to 2.5x the big blind. This reduces the hit to your stack if you don’t like what you see. Look for spots to raise all-in pre-flop, and steal blinds. Open raise in late position against medium size stacks. If you have 8x big blind, you still have “fold equity”. At 4x big blind you are in “all-in” mode.
Late Stage – Endgame starts on the bubble. Super aggressive/reckless play. Every decision, all-in or fold. Still factor in position and stack size. Once the bubble breaks, you can slow down a little bit. Better to push than call.

In conclusion, this strategy will result in a lot of 1sts and 4ths. Opponents will figure it out eventually, but a great way to build bankrolls. This is the best way to build confidence and experience for larger tournaments and final tables.

Camp Hellmuth Poker Tournament #1

After the 3rd session, we were given $40 lunch cards, good anywhere inside Caesar’s Palace (a nice touch). The afternoon session was a tournament from 2:45 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. All campers participated in a no-limit hold’em tournament with a first prize of $8,000. A portion of your camp entry fee paid for entry into this tournament.

It was great fun playing with all the pros. I sat next to Scott Fishman, Evelyn Ng and Shawn Rice. Unfortunately, I only lasted through the first two and one-half hours of the tournament. However, it was an experience I will always remember and cherish. The pros discussed how they played hands (after completion) and discussed their thought process about each play.

The tournament was played down to 9 players, including pros, and the final table was played at the Sunday evening, farewell banquet. Two of the final table participants were Phil Hellmuth and Michael Mizrachi (they were not eligible for prize money). This ended day 2.

Day 3 Poker Tournament School Session #1: Mark “The Shark” Seif

The first session of the day was presented by Mark Seif. Mark is a successful tournament player with 2 WSOP bracelets. He worked as a prosecutor for the DA’s office in Los Angeles. Mark is articulate and a joy to listen to. His presentation “Winning No Limit Hold’em Tournaments,”had, by far, the most substantive information,

Mark started his presentation with the basics: pay attention; play one table at a time:; change gears as necessary; have patience; play to win the tournament. Just as Arnold Snyder wrote in, “The Poker Tournament Formula,” Mark stressed position, position, position. In early rounds, keep the pots small and have a purpose for every bet. Force your opponents to make the tough decisions.

The discussion about sizing bets was succinct; opening bets (3-4x blinds), probe bets, continuation bets, preventative bets, and controlling pot odds. Nothing startlingly new, but explained concisely and clearly.

The next issue was identifying opponent’s style of play. First was a discussion about identifying “Calling Stations”. Interesting to me, Mark mentioned that Greg Raymer is a “Calling Station”. I didn’t know that. He talked about trapping all-in players and being wary of players who limp under the gun. A key issue that I have not exploited in my play is identifying players’ pressure points. When playing small ball (and wanting your opponent to fold), it is key to find the threshold of bet that your opponent will call, and then bet slightly more than that. This is an element that can be critical to survival in a tournament when your cards hit a dry spell.

Many questions were asked during this presentation and time quickly ran short. In the short time remaining, he reviewed how to exploit a player on tilt. Your play depends upon the player’s behavior while on tilt; whether overly passive, overly tight, or overly aggressive. He briefly discussed being in the “The Zone” and to beware of player’s playing at that level.

His final thoughts were:

Assess your opponent’s skill level and experience;
Pick the players you can outplay;
Watch your opponents look at their cards;
Watch how they bet;
Watch how they react to you; and
Identify betting patterns

This was a solid presentation and will definitely help me to reach the final table and win tournaments. Mark is bright, articulate and friendly. A wonderful experience enjoyed by all in the room.

Camp Hellmuth Session #2: Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi

Michael Mizrachi was the Poker Pages Player of the Year in 2005, and he leads the WSOP in points for player of the year in 2006. “The Grinder” exhibits a great presence, and I was impressed with his maturity and poise.

His presentation was similar to Mark Seifs’, with a few different twists ands stories. For the sake of some brevity, I shall not go into detail. More was to be heard from Michael in the day #2 tournament.

Camp Hellmuth Session #3: The Whole Crew

The afternoon session was an interactive lesson taught while playing a simulated tournament. Each pro sat in on the tables and discussed every hand that was played. Cards were not mucked, but placed on the rail.

At the completion of each hand, 4 or 5 player’s showed how they played the hand (whether playing or folding). The pros would then dissect what occurred and gave recommendations when mistakes were made. During this session, I sat with Gary DeBernardi, Shawn Rice, Krazy Kanuck, and Scott Fishman. It was very helpful to hear how each pro analyzed each hand. Their actions are dictated by all the table factors; player style, stack size, blind/ante size, and position. This was the most valuable session for me as I literally got in the head of these successful professionals.

Camp Hellmuth Poker Tournament #2

This tournament was a freeze out. There were 18 tables and the final 2 standing at each table would then participate in a 2 ½ hour final. At the conclusion of the final session, the player with the most chips would be declared the winner. The first prize was a $12,000 package to Aruba (including 8 nights stay in a hotel and entry into the $5,000 Aruba Tournament). Needless to say, everyone was trying to play their “A” game and win the trip. Places 2-10 were rewarded with various prizes.

The interesting twist to this tournament was each player had a chip that could be used to summon a pro of his choice, to help with a decision on a particular hand. This chip could only be used once. As the tournament wore on, “The Grinder” became the pro of choice to help with difficult decisions.

In his first twelve recommendations, all of them were the right decision (hands were turned over and cards dealt out to conclusion). He also showed a remarkable ability to accurately name the cards the opponents were holding. It was a most impressive display of card reading, and remember, he was not sitting at most of the tables in which he was called upon to help.

Interestingly enough, his first miss came in hand 13. With 3 players left at my table, he told a player to lay down his hand when I made a bluff on the turn. I had nothing and my opponent had a pair of 10’s. That hand propelled me to finish in the top 2 at my table, and go on to the finals. At the conclusion of this round, I took a break in the hallway and I saw my opponent in that hand muttering angrily to himself (something about trusting his own instincts).

In the finals, I felt pressure to get a good start and build the biggest stack. I did not play well and was knocked out early in the proceedings. It was the most enjoyable experience of my life as a poker player, great fun. The winner, a young man in his late twenties was starry eyed as he accepted to winner’s gift during the evening banquet.

Camp Hellmuth Poker Tournament School Final Banquet

The awards ceremony and final table from the day #1 tournament were the culminating events of the weekend. The food was buffet style, and quite good. Unlimited drinks and a variety of desserts capped off a wonderful time. Truth be told, I did not stay for the conclusion of the final table as I wanted to enter the late evening tournament at Caesar’s. I did not fare well in the tournament, but nearly half of the final table was campers.

In all, this was a first rate affair. Two young gentlemen from Canada orchestrated the entire weekend and I spotted no major glitches. I found the pros to be gracious and accessible. It definitely was worth the $2,000 tuition.

P.S. Phil Hellmuth really likes to talk—a lot. ♠

Posted on September 15, 2022January 25, 2024 by Arnold Snyder — Leave a comment

Blackjack in Oregon

Way-Out West Coast Blackjack

by Arnold Snyder
(First published in Card Player, April 1994)
© 1994 Arnold Snyder

Question from a Player: Here in Oregon we have a five-dollar limit game. We have basic Nevada rules, with one exception. The dealer takes 17 pushes. What is your opinion on how this changes the odds?

Answer: Stay away from this game (unless you’re the dealer!). If the dealer wins on tied 17s the house gains 1.7%.

My understanding of the Oregon games is that they are player banked. I haven’t played blackjack in Oregon yet, but if this means that rotating players take turns being the house, you may find it beneficial to act as the house as frequently as possible. If it is possible to bank the game more than your “fair share,” i.e., because other players at the table do not want to bank the game, or cannot afford to bank the game, then you might find a rule like this to be very beneficial. At a crowded table, even with that $5 limit, you could earn a tidy little hourly income from such a game. Nor would you have to fear card counters since card counters would not be able to beat this rule without a fairly large spread — which is precluded by that $5 limit! In this case, it would probably be wise for you to learn the basic strategy changes for this rule (see Stanford Wong’s Basic Blackjack) so that you can play as correctly as possible when you do not have the deal, if it is necessary for you to stay at the table and play in order to get your turn to bank again.

Your most profitable strategy in this game would be to look for a table where most of the players are betting the $5 maximum most of the time. When you are not dealing, bet the table minimum if you must stay and play until you get the deal again.

Another consideration, and a very important one, is whether or not the dealer/banker must follow a fixed strategy, as is commonly done in all normal house-banked casino blackjack games. Again, I am unfamiliar with Oregon’s rules. In some player-banked private games, dealers are not required to follow a fixed strategy. A game like this is very dangerous, and is really more akin to poker than to blackjack. The 1.7% house advantage for the dealer-takes-tied-17s rule is only applicable if the dealer must follow a traditional house blackjack strategy. If the dealer may play his hand however he chooses, then there is no fixed advantage or disadvantage for any rule variation. ♠

Posted on September 15, 2022January 25, 2024 by Arnold Snyder — Leave a comment

The House Edge at Blackjack

Calculating the House Edge for Any Number of Decks and Rules

by Arnold Snyder

(From Blackbelt in Blackjack, 3rd Edition, Cardoza Publishing 2005)
© 2005 Arnold Snyder

Card Counting is Not Enough

Many card counters believe that as long as a game is called “blackjack,” and is being offered by a legitimate casino, they can win by applying their counting systems. But the fact is that while some games can be beaten by card counting strategies many can’t, and table conditions make the difference.

This article will give you simple guidelines you can follow that will help to keep you from throwing your money away in unbeatable games.

First, let’s define table conditions. There are four distinct conditions of any blackjack game that directly affect the profit potential for card counters:

1. The number of decks in play. In U.S. casinos, this may currently range from one to eight.

2. Rules. There are about two dozen common rule variations, and dozens more uncommon variations, in U.S. casinos.

3. Crowd conditions. You may be the only player at the table, or one of as many as seven. Crowded tables mean fewer hands per hour and lower earnings for card counters.

4. Depth of deal, or deck penetration, between shuffles. Anywhere from 2% to 90% of the cards may be dealt out.

The House Edge and Depth of the Deal (Penetration)

Of all of these table conditions, penetration is by far the most important. When I published my first book, The Blackjack Formula, in 1980, many players were skeptical of the weight I gave to the effect of deck penetration. No other authors had mentioned penetration as an important factor up to that time, and I received numerous letters from players who simply could not believe that there was any great difference in profitability between a single-deck Reno game with 55% penetration and one with 65% penetration.

“10% is only five cards!” one player wrote to me. “Yet your formula shows the advantage almost doubling with the same 1 to 4 spread. That’s impossible!” Other card counters, who were playing 4-deck downtown Vegas games with 70% penetration and 1 to 4 spreads, were incredulous of my claim that such a small spread, with such poor penetration, left them with barely a tenth of a percent advantage over the house.

These days, any decent book on card counting will tell you that penetration is the name of the game, but before my book in 1980 no one knew! None of the books on card counting had ever mentioned the importance of deck penetration before.

The general rule is this: The shallower the penetration, the larger the betting spread you must use to beat the game. With a bad set of rules and poor penetration, you may not be able to beat the game with any spread.

In most single deck games, you can’t win big unless more than 50% of the cards are dealt out between shuffles—with Reno rules (double 10/11 only and dealer hits soft 17), make that more than 60%. There are two main reasons for this: One, most single-deck games have poor rule sets; two, you generally can’t get away with a very big spread in single-deck games.

With 2-deck games, you’ll want at least 65% dealt out. (But don’t even bother with a 2-decker when playing Reno rules.) With 4 or more decks, a bare minimum of 70% of the cards should be dealt out. Regardless of the number of decks in play, a 10% difference in penetration will make a huge difference in your profit potential: A 6-deck game with 85% penetration (about 5 decks dealt) is vastly superior to a 6-deck game with only 75% (about 4 ½ decks dealt).

For more information on penetration, and a formula for quickly and easily calculating the profitability of any blackjack game, see the Snyder Profit Index in Chapter 11 of Blackbelt in Blackjack.

This rest of this article will deal with the number of decks in play and the effects of rules on the profitability of blackjack games. Before you can profit from any card counting system, you must overcome the house edge—that is, the cost in percent of playing the game. Below you will find all the information you need to quickly calculate the basic strategy house edge for any number of decks and any set of blackjack rules.

How the House Edge is Affected by the Number of Decks in Play

Now let’s consider the effect of the number of decks shuffled together. All other conditions being equal, single-deck games would be the most profitable for card counters. The more decks being used, the less profitable the game becomes, not only for card counters, but for basic strategy players as well. A single-deck Vegas Strip game (blackjack pays 3:2, double down on any two cards, and dealer stands on soft 17), is pretty close to being a break even proposition for a basic strategy player. With four or more decks in play, and the same set of rules, the house has about a ½ percent edge. Use this chart to estimate your basic strategy (dis)advantage due to the number of decks in play:

# Decks	Advantage
1	+0.02%
2	-0.31%
3	-0.43%
4	-0.48%
5	-0.52%
6	-0.54%
7	-0.55%
8	-0.57%

How the Blackjack Rules Affect the House Edge

The second condition you must consider is the set of rules used on the game. Some rules, notably those that offer the player more options, are favorable to the player, assuming the player applies the correct strategy. Such rules would be surrender, doubling after splitting allowed, resplitting aces allowed, etc. Those rules that limit the player’s options, such as doubling down on 10-11 only, or no resplits, are disadvantageous to the player.

Some rules neither limit nor offer options to the player, but alter the dealer’s procedure. An example of one such rule would be “dealer hits soft seventeen.” This is disadvantageous to the player. An advantageous dealer rule, used occasionally in short-term special promotions, would be “blackjack pays 2-to-1.”

A different type of advantageous rules for the player are the “bonus” rules, such as “dealer pays $XXX bonus to player hand of 6, 7, 8 same suit.” Most bonuses, due to the rarity of the bonus hand(s) occurring, have very small $ value to the player.

Now let’s look at the approximate effect of each rule on your basic strategy expectation. By adding the effect of the number of decks in play to the effects of the rule variations, you will know the house advantage against basic strategy players. Card counters call this the starting advantage, or the advantage off the top.

Most rules, to be sure, affect card counters differently than they affect basic strategy players. The house edge off the top, however, is always an important consideration, as this is what your skillful play must overcome.

For instance, insurance has no value to a basic strategy player, since correct basic strategy is to never take insurance. If a casino disallows insurance, however, this hurts card counters, since counters profit from their selective insurance bets. Likewise, the surrender option has little value to basic strategy players–less than one-tenth of 1 percent increase in expectation. For a card counter, however, surrender is, like insurance, very valuable.

In order to figure out our starting advantage, we need to begin by defining a benchmark game, i.e., a set of standard rules to which we can add or subtract the effects of the rule variations. Most authors define this benchmark game as Vegas Strip rules:

1. Dealer stands on soft 17.
2. You may double down on any 2 original cards.
3. You may not double down after splitting a pair.
4. You may split any pair.
5. You may resplit any pair except aces.
6. Split aces receive only one card each.
7. No surrender.
8. Dealer either receives a hole card, or the player’s original bet only is lost if the player doubles down or splits a pair and the dealer gets a blackjack.
9. Insurance is allowed up to one-half the player’s bet, and pays 2 to 1.
10. Player blackjack is paid 3 to 2.

Now the effect of any other rules must be accounted for in determining your starting advantage. These are the rule effects:

Effects in Percent
Common Rules	1-Deck	2-Deck	Multi-Deck
Double on 10-11 only:	-0.26	-0.21	-0.18
Double on 9-10-11 only:	-0.13	-0.11	-0.09
Hits Soft 17:	-0.19	-0.20	-0.21
No Resplits:	-0.02	-0.03	-0.04
Double After Splits:	+0.14	+0.14	+0.14
Resplit Aces:	+0.03	+0.05	+0.07
Draw to Split Aces:	+0.14	+0.14	+0.14
Late Surrender:	+0.02	+0.05	+0.08
Late Surrender (H soft17):	+0.03	+0.06	+0.09

Less Common Rules
Double on 8-9-10-11 only:	-0.13	-0.11	-0.09
Double on 11 only:	-0.78	-0.69	-0.64
Double 3 or More Cards:	+0.24	+0.24	+0.24
Double after Ace splits:	+0.10	+0.10	+0.10
Double on 3+ cards:	+0.24	+0.23	+0.23
No Ace Splits:	-0.16	-0.17	-0.18
Early Surrender:	+0.62	+0.62	+0.63
Early Surrender (H soft17):	+0.70	+0.71	+0.72
Early Surrender v. 10 only:	+0.19	+0.21	+0.24
BJ Pays 6-to-5:	-1.74	-1.71	-1.71
BJ Pays 1-to-1:	-2.32	-2.28	-2.26
BJ Pays 2-to-1:	+2.32	+2.28	+2.26
Suited BJ Pays 2-to-1:	+0.58	+0.57	+0.56
21 Pushes Dlr. 10-up BJ:	+0.20	+0.20	+0.20
No Hole Card (European):	-0.10	-0.11	-0.11
5-card 21 Pays 2-to-1:	+0.20	+0.20	+0.20
6-card 21 Pays 2-to-1:	+0.10	+0.10	+0.10
Suited 678 Pays 2-to-1:	+0.01	+0.01	+0.01
7-7-7 Pays 3-to-2:	+0.01	+0.01	+0.01
6 Cards Unbusted Wins:	+0.10	+0.10	+0.10
No Insurance:	00.00	00.00	00.00
Multi-Action:	00.00	00.00	00.00
Over/Under:	00.00	00.00	00.00
Royal Match	00.00	00.00	00.00
Super 7s:	00.00	00.00	00.00

Most of these rule effects have been calculated by using data from Peter Griffin’s Theory of Blackjack. Note that the last five rules show effects of 00.00 percent for basic strategy players. When it comes to the “bonus” rules, such as 6,7,8 suited or 7,7,7 pays 2:1, the general rule is to never change your basic strategy to attempt to get a bonus payout.

In some cases, where a specific dollar amount is awarded for the bonus hand, the value in percent is dependent on the player’s bet size. For instance, if 6,7,8 suited pays a $100 bonus, then the value in percent will be quite different for a player who has a $2 bet and a player who has a $200 bet.

The first player would receive a 50:1 payout on his hand, while the second player would receive only an extra half-bet. The $2 bettor would likely be correct in hitting his hand against any dealer upcard, if his hand contained two of the needed suited cards. The $200 bettor would usually be making an error if he hit this hand in violation of his basic/count strategy.

Also, take note of the huge negative effect of “BJ Pays 6-to-5,” a rule now common in many Las Vegas single-deck games. This rule is a killer. And note how much worse yet it is if BJ Pays 1-to-1 (even money), as is standard in all “Super Fun 21” games. All those other “good” rules that the “Super Fun” game allows do not make up for this huge negative. Serious card counters should stick with the traditional “BJ Pays 3:2” games.

Let’s walk through an estimation of our “off the top” expectation in a more typical blackjack game. Consider a standard Atlantic City 8-deck game, which allows double after splits, but no resplits. Our basic strategy expectation is derived by adding together the effects of the number of decks in play, and the rule effects (from the multi-deck column). We get:

8 Decks:	-0.57
Double After Splits:	+0.14
No Resplits:	-0.04
House Advantage:	-0.47%

Blackjack may be just a card game, but you’d better take it as seriously as the casinos do if you expect to beat them. That means paying attention to the house edge from the number of decks and blackjack rules, crowd conditions, and, above all, penetration. Believe me, the casinos are dead serious about beating you. ♠

Posted on September 15, 2022January 25, 2024 by Arnold Snyder — Leave a comment

Poker Articles

Poker Tournament Win Rate
by Arnold Snyder

The Value of Skillful Play in Poker Tournament Satellites
by Arnold Snyder and Math Boy

Poker Tournament Camp
by Happy Camper

Female Poker Pro Tells All
by Cat Hulbert

Chip Value in Poker Tournaments
by Arnold Snyder

Poker Tournament Rebuy Advice
by Arnold Snyder

Rebuy Analysis for Multi-Table Poker Tournaments
by Pikachu

Multi-Tabling Online Poker
by Syph

Getting Started in Poker Tournaments
by Math Boy

Poker Tournament Strategy: Harrington vs Snyder
by Radar O’Reilly

True M vs Harrington’s M in Poker Tournaments
by Arnold Snyder

Posted on September 15, 2022January 25, 2024 by Arnold Snyder — Leave a comment

Poker Tournament Win Rate

How to Calculate Poker Tournament Win Rate

by Arnold Snyder
(From Blackjack Forum Online)
© Blackjack Forum Online 2007

Is Your Tournament Strategy a Winner?

One of the biggest problems new poker tournament players face is figuring out whether or not they are playing a winning game. And one of the biggest problems they face in evaluating the strategy advice they receive is figuring out whether or not the person who is giving the advice is a winning player who knows what he’s talking about.

The poker world is unique within the professional gambling world in the carelessness with which players’ records and skill are evaluated. The “Player of the Year” ratings at Card Player, for example, are useless in evaluating a players’ skill or the merit of his strategy because the ratings express the players’ records as total win rather than win rate. Total win is a meaningless number. You can have $1 million in earnings over the past three years, with appearances at the final tables of high-profile televised events, and be a losing player, or you can have $1 million in wins over three years, be virtually unknown, and be the best tournament player out there, earning at a phenomenal rate.

Win rate, not wins, is what tells you whether you’re playing a winning game or not, and it has to be a win rate sustained over a statistically significant number of tournaments. Anybody can luck into a big payout in a single event, but it doesn’t mean he’s a winning player. It’s only if a player can sustain a win rate over many tournaments that he can know that he is playing a winning game.

Win rate is simply your total profits divided by your total buy-in costs, multiplied by 100 to express your win rate as a percentage. For example, if you’ve bought into 100 tournaments for $110 each, your total buy-in costs for those tournaments are $11,000. If your total payouts for those tournaments were $34,000, your profits from the tournaments were $34,000 (total payouts) – $11,000 (total
buy-ins) = $23,000. To calculate your win rate, you divide $23,000 (total profits) by $11,000 (total buy-ins), and get 2.09. Multiply 2.09 by 100, and you get a win rate of 209%.

And what if you paid a total of $11,000 to enter 100 tournaments, but your total payouts were only $8000? I’m afraid that puts you into the situation of having to calculate your loss rate. In this case, your loss over the 100 tournaments is $11,000 (total buy-ins) – $8000 (total payouts) = $3000. To calculate your loss rate, you divide $3000 (total losses) by $11,000 (total buy-ins), and get 0.27. Multiply 0.27 by 100 to express the figure as a percentage, and you get a loss rate of 27%.

The Easy Way to Track Your Poker Tournament Win Rate

If you can use a spreadsheet program, like Excel, use it. But if not, you can easily track your win rate with just a pad of paper and a pocket calculator.

In one column, list the tournament cost, including the buy-in, entry fee, rebuys, etc. In another column beside it, list the return in dollars. For example, if you paid $100 + $30 + $50 for one rebuy, the tournament cost was $180. You busted out halfway through, so the return was $0. Example 2: You paid $200 total combined buy-in/entry with no rebuys, so the tournament cost was $200. You placed sixth, which paid $545. The return is $545. Example 3: You paid $75 +$5, so the cost was $80. You busted out Chris Moneymaker and collected a $25 bounty—but then you busted out before you made it into the money. The return was $25.

What is your win rate for this series of three tournaments?

Step #1: Put the numbers into columns and add them up:

Cost       Return
$180        $0
$200        $545
$80        $25
$460        $570

Step #2: Subtract the total cost from the total return to get your dollar profit:

$570 – $460 = $110 profit

Step #3: Divide the profit by the total cost:

$110 / $460 = 0.24

Step 4: Convert this decimal to a percentage by multiplying by 100: 0.24 x 100 = 24%.

If you’re not used to converting decimals to percentages, it’s simple. Just move the decimal place two spaces to the right, then add a percent sign (%). Some examples:

0.24 = 24%
0.04 = 4%
1.24 = 124%

Note that in Step #2, if your cost is greater than your return, then when you subtract the cost from the return, you will get a negative number. For example, if my total cost was $460, but my total return was only $310, then subtracting $460 from $310, I would get -$150, and this would represent my loss (a negative profit). Following Steps #3 and #4, I would find that I had a loss rate of 33%, which is the same as a win rate of -33%.

So long as you keep a record of all costs and returns, you can quickly figure out your win rate or loss rate after you add up the columns, using the method above. Using a spreadsheet to keep your records makes it very easy, because each time you add the cost and return of each tournament you play, it will automatically total the columns and figure your dollar profit and percentage win rate.

Any serious tournament player should be keeping track of his win rate this way. It’s also a good idea to keep separate data for different types of tournaments. For example, it would be smart to keep separate data for online versus live tournaments. You might also keep separate data for multi-table tournaments versus single-table tournaments. Or high buy-in events versus low buy-in events. Or fast tourneys versus slow tourneys. Or no-limit events versus limit events. This type of data lets you know where you’re making your money, and where you’re struggling.

Poker Tournament Win Rate and Variance

It’s important to realize that luck does play a role in tournament results, and the fewer the tournaments you’ve entered, the more of a role luck will have played in your win rate.

If you have played just a few tournaments, and you’ve gotten lucky, you can appear to have a high win rate just because the big payout from your good luck is being divided by so few buy-ins. Before you can start talking meaningfully about your win rate in tournaments, you have to have played a lot of tournaments.

Basically, the bigger your win rate, the fewer the number of tournaments needed to have a statistically significant win rate. The smaller your win rate, the larger the number of tournaments needed to have a statistically significant win rate. “Statistically significant” means that you’re mathematically beyond the results you can reasonably expect to get from luck.

Again, when a player or an “expert” tells you how good he is, don’t ask how much he’s won. Ask about his win rate.

Radar on Win Rate

In a field of 125 players, all other factors being equal, you should probably be in the money roughly one out of every five tournaments.
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When field size goes up, variance goes up, but your edge and win rate should go up as well, so that takes care of some of the extra variance. For example, if field size doubles, your draw-downs won’t be twice as bad, and you won’t finish out of the money twice as often. The flux may get something like 25% worse. For example, in tournaments with a field of 250, you should probably in the money something like once out of every 6-7 times. And so on. This assumes a strategy where your priority is building your bankroll rather than maximizing first place finishes, even though top payouts are crucial to your win rate. In other words, I’m not basing this on a max flux strategy. And this is an estimate based on feel and experience, rather than on any particular calculations.
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If you’re going through terrible long stretches where you never get in the money in 20 or 30 tournaments (assuming you’re not playing in the WSOP main event, against 6000 other players), you’re probably safe in assuming you’re doing something wrong. You may still be playing with an edge, but it is probably too low of an edge.
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To figure out what you’re doing wrong, always keep track of the hands you go out on or lose large amounts of chips on. (You may actually go out on an all-in with a 10-8o because you’re desperate, but that’s not what you’re interested in. You’re interested in the losses that got you to the point of desperation.)
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You will see patterns. For example, you will see that you are frequently losing large numbers of chips with AK or big pairs. (Guilty. Sentence served.) Or you will see that you go out calling all-ins when you know you have the best hand, and they suck out. Or whatever. Once you spot a pattern, think about how you might play that situation differently. Try to think completely outside the box. Forget everything you ever learned about how to play poker, because much of it is wrong for tournaments.
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Maybe there isn’t a pattern with particular types of hands–maybe you’re just getting short too often. That’s a bad pattern too. Why aren’t you making more chips?
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Also, take note of when you are going out of tournaments. If you’re always going out of a particular tournament between the 7th and 9th blind level, you’re doing something wrong. Or if you’re always going out in the first two hours, you’re doing something wrong.
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If you’re moving up in Skill Level, you’re most likely to be making mistakes in how you handle a big stack, not a small stack. Small stack basic strategy is pretty simple. Big stack strategy is where all the money is and where all the mistakes are too.

A win rate of 204% means that, if you paid $100 total in buy-ins, you cashed out $304 total in payouts, for a total profit of $204 and a win rate of 204%. (204 / 100 = 2.04, or 204%).

So, if you played 240 fast tournaments at an average buy-in of $200, to get a 204% win rate you’d have to have earned $97,920 in profits on your $48,000 in buy-ins, which means you received $145,920 in payouts in those 240 fast tournaments.

To get the brother-in-law’s win rate of 100%, you’d have to have earned $48,000 in profits on those $48,000 in buy-ins, which means he would have had to receive $96,000 in payouts. ♠

Posted on September 15, 2022January 25, 2024 by Arnold Snyder — Leave a comment

Burning the Tables in Las Vegas Reviewed

Burning the Tables in Las Vegas (Revised and Expanded) by Ian Andersen

Review by Arnold Snyder

Ian Andersen’s first book, Turning the Tables on Las Vegas, was original and important enough to make him one of seven nominees in 2005 for the Blackjack Hall of Fame.

The book was the first to deal with beating blackjack as a dual with people, specifically casino personnel, rather than strictly a mathematical entity.

Andersen updated his early work and released it as Burning the Tables in Las Vegas in 1999. Most of the text of this book is the same as in the 1999 edition. Three new chapters have been added. Should you get this expanded edition? Let me briefly describe the new material.

In one new chapter, Andersen tackles the problems faced by green chip players, by going himself into Las Vegas casinos to play at the green chip level. He discusses the problems of how crowd conditions affect game conditions, and he attempts to employ a fairly aggressive betting/playing strategy with minimal camouflage. His results are successful, and he describes the experience in detail.

In another chapter, he discusses playing strategy camouflage, beyond what he described as his “Ultimate Gambit” in the first edition of this book. Specifically, he discusses what he calls “crazy surrender,” how he applies the strategy, what it costs, and how he tested it, etc. As with the Ultimate Gambit, I would not advise most players to copy this particular camo strategy to the letter, but rather to use Andersen’s philosophy of camouflage in developing your own unique style of play.

In the third added chapter, Andersen discusses the psychology of casino management, how they view players, and how players can use their understanding of what casinos expect from them to their advantage. There is also a discussion of loss rebates at high-stakes baccarat in this chapter, which would be of little practical value to most BJ players, except that it is always enlightening to see how the top pros think about advantage play in every form.

So, if you have the first edition, should you get this one? In my opinion, it’s worthwhile. If you don’t have the first edition, I recommend this book highly for its insights into dealing with casino personnel.

Posted on September 15, 2022January 25, 2024 by Arnold Snyder — Leave a comment

Bringing Down the House Reviewed

Bringing Down the House, The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions
by Ben Mezrich (Simon & Shuster, 2002); 257 pages; hdbd; Price: $24.00.

by Arnold Snyder

Bringing Down The House is subtitled: “The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions.” And that is exactly what the book is.

I liked the book. Knowledgeable players, including many readers of Blackjack Forum, will be somewhat put off by the sparse credit given to the forerunners of card counting and the team-play concept. Many who read the book will probably think these MIT guys invented the Hi-Lo count and the concept of BP play with spotters. However, the book was not written by a blackjack expert, but a professional writer, who wasn’t trying to document the history of team play so much as the incredible adventures of this small group of college nerds who had the guts and ambition to go for the big bucks in Vegas. Much of the story rings true to life.

I especially liked the descriptions of the barrings and the other hassles with the casinos. Also amusing are the descriptions of what it’s like to travel with large amounts of cash, and even to keep track of it. These are the same stories I’ve heard a hundred times from pros who must sometimes go through airports with hundreds of thousands of dollars strapped to their bodies.

By the end of the book, the lead characters have all become “dinosaurs,” players so well-known they can no longer play without instant recognition and harassment. It is also amusing that they lament the golden days of card counting when this team play concept still worked, like there aren’t teams out there who are still doing all this stuff today!

In any case, Bringing Down the House has its flaws, but I think any counter will get a kick out of it. The author did obviously get his story from real players, and that makes it a fun read. No real secrets are revealed. ♠

Posted on September 15, 2022January 25, 2024 by Arnold Snyder — Leave a comment

Interview with Bob Bright, Day Trader

Meet the Bright Brothers: Card Counters Turned Stock Market Billionaires

by Arnold Snyder
(From Blackjack Forum Volume XX #4, Winter 2000)
© Blackjack Forum 2000

[In the Summer 2000 issue of Blackjack Forum, we ran a small advertisement for Bright Trading, a Las Vegas stock trading firm specifically seeking card counters to become professional day traders. Many readers asked me what I knew about this company, and my answer was zilch.

Day trading is considered to be among the more high-risk (if not the most high-risk) methods of attempting to make money in the stock market. Then again, as investment opportunities go, counting cards at casino blackjack is not exactly considered “money in the bank.” I figured Blackjack Forum readers might be interested in Bright Trading, which in its small Blackjack Forum ad stated it was “started by a professional card counter.” I also wondered if these guys were on the level.

Shortly thereafter, I learned that Don Bright writes a regular Q/A column in Stocks and Commodities magazine. His older brother, Bob, is the CEO of Bright Trading, and was the card counter/founder of the company.

On the Bright Trading web site (www.stocktrading.com), I learned that they had some three dozen offices throughout the country. It appeared to be a fairly large firm, with some 350 traders, well-known and reputable within the industry.

I visited their Las Vegas offices personally. Bob Bright agreed to be interviewed for Blackjack Forum. (Some technical questions were answered by Don, but all responses to my questions are simply identified as by “Bright.”) I was surprised at the size of their Las Vegas operation. I saw some two dozen traders in various large rooms on two different floors, watching a hundred different computer screens. –Arnold Snyder]

Bob Bright’s Start as a Card Counter

BJF: Were you with any investment companies prior to starting your own?

Bright: No. I played blackjack in the 70s, on my own. I didn’t like the team action. Ken Uston spotted me one night and watched me for over two hours. I didn’t know who he was. All I did know was there was a man, dressed in a suit, standing behind me for over two hours.

I toned my bets down, and then I got up from the table, walked over to the cage and cashed out. When I turned around I saw him standing there. I thought he was with the casino, and was probably going to ask me not to play. I was certainly surprised when he showed me his I.D.

He said, “That’s the best play I’ve ever seen as a lone wolf.” He asked me if I would teach him how to play as a lone wolf, because all he had going was the teams. I joined his team for a few weeks. Ken showed me everything about his team play, and I showed him how to play lone wolf style.

That was the last association I ever had with him. In 1978, my reputation had grown to the point where casinos around the world were barring me. The Horseshoe, in Las Vegas, finally barred me. They had always maintained a position where they welcomed any and all action. Many casinos do not bar counters; they are inclined to deal the proficient player worse and worse games by shuffling frequently.

After being turned away from a number of casinos, I saw the handwriting on the wall. I looked around for another game where I might have an edge. That’s when I joined the Pacific Stock Exchange.

BJF: This is after Uston had been long gone?

Bright: Yes, this is after he left the exchange. Actually, he was at the Exchange as a bureaucrat, not a trader. He was in telecommunications.

Eventually, he left that job and headed up a blackjack team that played not only in the United States, but in various casinos around the world. From 1978 until 1990, I basically traded the market and played blackjack on the side. I made more money in the market than I did with blackjack because in the market, you don’t have to tone your bets down. If you’ve got something good, you just go with it.

Bob Bright on the Switch to the Stock Market

BJF: When you started playing the market were you just doing this completely on your own money?

Bright: Yes.

BJF: Did you have a lot of money?

Bright: No. I moved to town with $3000 in my pocket and I left with somewhat more than that. I was able to put $50,000 in the market. That was all I needed as a market maker to start with.

As a market maker, you get extremely high leverage. As a market maker on the options floor, options are leverage instruments of their own. Then, as a professional market maker on the floor, you get even more leverage. So, with that I was able to get in with $50,000 front money and it grew from there. I retired from the market in ’87 and didn’t get back in until ’92.

BJF: How would you compare day trading to card counting?

Bright: Both take focus and discipline. In the market, you need to be a little more flexible than you do in card counting, but focus and discipline are the two key ingredients, and understanding numbers is the means of access for both of them, especially with derivative products.

We use various kinds of derivative products to give us indicators as to entry points and exit points in the market; just like you might use a count system to make your entry points into a game of blackjack. High count, you know the edge is in your favor, you jump in. With derivative trading in a certain manner, we have the same feel in the market. We jump in when they’re giving us a so-called high count.

Most good day traders will make money on 70 or 80 percent of their trades. Just imagine playing blackjack and only making a bet when you have a count in your favor. It doesn’t mean you win every bet, but you’re going to win more than you lose.

BJF: In day trading, is what you’re doing purely mathematical, or are there psychological factors also?

Bright: It’s not mathematically “by the numbers.” You’re a day trader until you open a position. Then you’re a risk manager. You’re not “investing.” You’re in for a short term.

You see derivatives starting to move, or some type of indicator that you’re watching, and it gives you a good idea that the stock that you’re watching will probably move in a certain direction. So, you jump in. When those indicators or other things tell you it’s too risky to hang onto the position, you get out. That could be 15 seconds later or hours later.

BJF: I’m an investment dummy. What are “derivatives?”

Bright: Options and futures.

The Bright Trading System

BJF: So you’re not watching the stock price itself, but you’re watching the options and futures?

Bright: You’re watching various indicators including the index values. Say you see crude oil, which is a future. If it starts to go up, it may tell you that the drillers have a chance of—in just a few minutes—going up, or big oil companies.

If you’re watching the British pound and it’s strengthening, the drug companies might do well because most drug companies are somewhat more related to the British pound than they are to the U.S. dollar. You’re watching the S&P 500, which represents the top companies in the country. Everything relates to the other side, too, because we trade both sides.

If the futures start to go up and the stocks haven’t moved yet, it’s highly likely they’re going to pull the stocks up with them. It just means the big institutional firms are in there buying the futures ahead of their institutional orders. And we just get in before they’ve placed those institutional orders to buy some stock in whatever direction they are going. Those are the types of indicators that tell us when to get in or when to get out.

BJF: In other words, you’re watching an indicator that has historically shown that when this indicator moves this way, this stock, or this type of stock, moves up or down, and you execute a sale.

Bright: That’s right.

BJF: So your ability as a day trader would have to do with your ability to isolate the indicators that actually are indicating something.

Bright: And they change from day to day. An indicator telling you one thing one day might be different the next day. So, that’s why you have to be flexible in the market. The market requires focus, flexibility, and discipline. Playing cards for a living requires focus and discipline.

BJF: Yes, but generally speaking, if the count goes up at blackjack, you would assume you have an advantage on the next round because you can stick it into a computer and run a simulation, and every simulation is going to come up showing the same thing. You may win or lose the hand, but you do have the advantage.

Bright: There is a period when certain indicators will tell you to jump in and you will probably make money. Then at some point in time, it could be three days later or three months later, those indicators become less and less valuable. They don’t work as well because as more day traders see the indicators that are working, they jump in and eventually those indicators are no longer viable. You have to constantly stay ahead of the curve.

BJF: So, you have to stay ahead of the other day traders who are also looking at the same indicators.

Bright: Right.

BJF: In a sense, there’s more of a similarity with sports betting or betting on horses where your success depends on staying ahead of the public.

Bright: To a degree. The only difference is we have the edge over the rest of the public because we have direct access and faster data feeds. There are 7500 professional day traders. There are also 13 million online day traders. 13 million traders are always going to be behind the curve on the professionals.

BJF: And these 13 million are people sitting at their home computers?

Bright: Sitting at their home or office and trading occasionally.

BJF: Trying to predict from the same indicators?

Bright: When I say 13 million online traders, those are all electronic traders. There are probably another 30 million that have a brokerage account somewhere that haven’t gone online yet, but they will.

And then there are a hundred and some million investors in the market mainly through pension funds, 401Ks, etc. As day traders, we make our money largely from trading against the online traders at home and trading against the mutual funds and pension accounts. You can imagine a Dreyfus or a Fidelity, they want to go in there and buy 100,000 shares. They don’t care about a quarter point. They say, “Buy it around 90, 91.” We do care about a quarter point. If we make a quarter point once a day, it’s $100,000 a year.

BJF: These funds move slowly?

Bright: They move very slowly. A good example—institutional brokers tend to hear every morning, from their own firm’s squawk box, what stocks they want to tout that day. For example, they might recommend IBM. The broker would call the bank trust department and say, “Our firm is recommending IBM.” They’d say, “Fine. We’ll talk about it at our next meeting,” which might be Wednesday. On Wednesday they approve it and on Thursday they call back and say, “Yeah, go ahead and buy us 100,000 shares.”

So, the timing could be days for them to make decisions, and they’re not as interested in an eighth or a quarter point or so. We will go in and then jump right back out if it doesn’t look like we’re right; or if it’s not going to move like we anticipated it would. Our cost is so much lower than what the funds pay. As professional traders, we have the lowest costs around. You couldn’t even get close to the cost as a public customer or as a mutual fund if you were trying to get soft dollars back.

BJF: I would imagine most of the 13 million day traders out there sitting at home at their PCs are not hugely bankrolled.

Bright: No, and they’re not sitting there all the time. These are online traders. How many of those 13 million are actively sitting there wanting to trade that day? Maybe 10 million trade once a month. So, there might be three million that periodically will look at their terminal during the day at work or at home and make some trades. Probably not more than a million are sitting there really thinking they’re going to make a living out of it.

BJF: That’s still a pretty sizable number of people. Three million people that would be doing this fairly seriously. The majority of these would be doing this “lone wolf” style though, right? They would be on their own using their own money, whatever resources they themselves have. Would the majority of these probably be under-bankrolled, in your opinion?

Bright: For trying to day trade, yes, they would be. Most of them don’t understand the risk involved in day trading and the capital that it takes to do it. The market has made a lot of smart online traders in the last few years. It’s been pretty straight up until this year. Thirty percent a year for three years running. A lot of people thought they were professionals because they made money. They were called swing traders. They buy it until it swings their way. And if it doesn’t work that day, well, they just hold onto it for a couple of weeks, and as long as the market would go up, they made their money.

Professional day traders understand the risk involved. They understand how you can really get hurt if you’re stubborn, and they understand that you need to do some size with a small profit potential to make the real money. Just like blackjack, you’d rather play 500, 1000, 2000 dollar hands than the ten dollar hands. Same way with professional traders. They want to trade 2-, 3-, 4-, 5000 shares at a time, not 200 shares at a time.

BJF: Technically, though, a person could do 100, 200 shares at a time.

Bright: We recommend to our new traders that they do 100 shares at a time until they get comfortable with that. Then they go to 200.

BJF: But if you’re trading 100-200 shares at a time, is it unlikely that you’re going to be able to make any sizable amount of money?

The Bright Brothers Trading Room

Bright: At 100 shares a crack, you’re probably not even going to pay the overhead.

BJF: In other words, it’s like playing nickel blackjack. You won’t make your travel expenses even if you have an advantage. So how much of a bankroll does a person need to have a chance at making a living from day trading himself? Let’s say he wants to do it by himself and he’s very smart, understands the indicators, really follows everything, watches everything. How much money does he need behind himself?

Bright: And he’s going to be a lone wolf trader at home? He probably couldn’t do it, no matter how much money he had, long term. Even if he had a million dollars to trade with, he’s not going to make the money he would if he was in a professional environment.

BJF: In other words, it’s better to be in a group situation where there are a lot of people watching a lot of indicators, sharing information? Is it similar to a blackjack team?

Bright: Right. I didn’t want to join a blackjack team, but in a trading environment, it’s much better to have 20 or 30 pairs of eyes looking out for you than doing it all by yourself. If you’re trading General Motors, you may miss that trade in Ford that just down-ticked a buck or up-ticked a half.

Or say there’s a news item. Somebody in the room’s going to notice it and yell it out. We encourage our people to mention facts that occur. We don’t want to hear opinions. We don’t want to hear, “Oh, I think General Motors is going to go up.” But if Ford Motors just did a one point down-tick on a three million share block print, it’s nice if someone saw that and mentioned it to the room in case anyone else has similar stocks and might want to take some action.

BJF: In an environment like this, where you’ve got 30-40 traders…

Bright: This is our biggest room. Most of our rooms have typically around 15 traders.

BJF: So, if they are all working in the same room and watching a lot of the same indicators, how often do you have a problem where two traders are competing with each other?

Bright: That’s not a problem because, even in the same room, where there might be 12 traders, two of them might be trading the drillers, but there are 12 different drillers. You’ve got to remember most traders won’t do more than two or three stocks in the same day. So, you’ve got a couple trading the drillers, you’ve got a couple trading the high techs, a couple trading the drug companies.

It’s just that the people in the room, they get to know what the other people trade so they share information. You know that John down the aisle there is trading drugs, maybe trading Merck or something, and you see some news item on one of them, you’d say, “Hey, John, did you see the news on Merck?”

You’ve got to remember that every trader isn’t watching everything. He can’t see everything by himself. If he’s watching an indicator, he might not be watching the news tape. You have a news tape, you have futures indicators, you’ve got options that you’re looking at, you’ve got indexes of various segments of the market you’re looking at. And you’re watching your individual stock so you don’t let a trade get by without seeing it.

We see every trade on the stocks that we’re watching, every quote change. You might see 5,000 bid for, 8,000 offered. That means something to us. We work with people. It takes them a year or so to learn even what to watch for. We have a one-week training program that we put them through to get them a so-called “basic strategy” on trading. We teach them who the players are. They have to understand who the players in the market are to try to be able to identify those players by watching a tape.

When you see a tape of a trade or a quote change, after a while you get to visualize the actual people who are doing these things, and it helps you with your trading. You learn to anticipate, to push that button and be in there early to make that trade, because you’re not the only one seeing certain things.

Let’s say there are 10,000 shares offered, and you go in to buy 5,000, and you don’t get it. We have people who say, “I should have had it. Why didn’t I get it?” Because 75 other professional traders out there, plus a lot of other people, saw the same thing you did. What makes you think you’re the only one who saw it? Speed is very important.

BJF: When you say you should have half a million dollars or more to do this as an occupation, how much of that capital is required because you must buy in large quantities, and how much is needed because there are very large fluctuations where you’re going to make purchases that lose money?

Bright: Almost all of it is due to having the dollars needed to buy in large quantity. That’s what we provide the capital for, for our traders. They provide a small deposit to cover their fluctuations. So, they come in with a $25,000 deposit. That, in general, will cover most fluctuations. And we put up the half a million or million or whatever someone can handle effectively. That way, we’re providing them with the capital to trade with, but we’re certainly not expecting them to lose any part of it. If they lose, it comes off of their security deposit.

BJF: In other words, if they lose, it comes off theirs; if they win…

Bright: It adds to their deposit.

BJF: If they win, if they make money on their trades, is that win completely theirs or is there a percentage that goes to your company?

Bright: The win is 75% theirs the day they make it and they get the other 25% at year end, assuming they kept out of trouble. We let people manage themselves as far as risk and things like that. We have it designed that if they never go below $15,000 in their trading account, they automatically get a 25% bonus of what they made. If they made $100,000 for the year, that’s $25,000…

So, whenever they take $75, we take $25 and put it in a reserve. Say they make $10,000 the first month. They want to take a draw. They take $7500. We take $2500 and put it in a reserve account. At the end of the year, if their account never went below $15,000, they get the $2500. Or if they average $25,000 for the trading account for the year, we give them their bonus. So, in effect, if they manage themselves responsibly, they do get their bonus, they do get the other 25%.

BJF: So, what if on day one somebody comes in, puts in his $25,000 deposit, and then loses $30,000 in the first week or something?

Bright: In our eight years that has happened to us once.

BJF: Is that because you stay on top of people at the beginning or…?

Bright: It’s because we stay on top of people. We have the software watching them, and every office has a manager who’s supposed to watch them closely, especially the first few weeks.

It’s very difficult to lose that kind of money. We have parameters that new traders can’t exceed 5,000 shares of any one stock per trade. Now, how does a person lose $25,000 if they’re only doing 5,000 shares of a New York listed? Most of the time, by the time a stock moves a point, it shows up in the red area on our software that they’ve lost $5,000. Especially a new guy, we’re going to call him and find out what he’s doing.

We don’t even encourage new guys to trade 5,000 shares. We want them to trade 100 shares to start. The one time that we did lose was a guy that sat there and bought 5000, 5000, 5000, 5000, 5000. He had 25,000 shares. He ended up doing it on two other stocks. He had a total of 75,000 shares before either one of the stocks moved. Once one of them started moving, it showed up on our list and then we forced him out because it was in complete violation of all our risk policies.

He was a trader from Bear Stearns, and he came over and traded with us. He was just trying to take a shot with us—with our money. He lost his $25,000 and he lost a bit more than that of which we had to eat the difference.

BJF: In a major negative swing where all the stocks go down…

Bright: Our traders love that. Like the days the market was down 500 points, they usually make two or three times as much money as on an up day.

BJF: Why would that be?

Bright: Because stocks go down faster than they go up. Our traders don’t care which way the market goes, as long as it moves. They don’t want a flat line because there’s no way to make money. Market’s going down, they jump on board and they get short. So, a typical bad day in the market, a stock might be down four points. A typical up day in the market, it might be up one or two points. So, you can see they can make twice as much on the down side.

BJF: Are there any good books or publications for day traders?

Bright: No.

BJF: Nothing?

Bright: Were there any good books before 1962 in blackjack? How about in the 50s? I never saw one. There were some people even here in town playing blackjack in the 50s. They’re not going to write a book until the game is over.

There are no good books on day trading. We provide a school; we teach people; it’s in our interest to make sure our people stay around a long time. We make money when they’re trading 2000 shares at a time, maybe doing 100,000 shares a day a couple, three years down the road.

So, we put a lot of time and effort into retaining people. We call it R&R, recruit and retain. We put more of our effort into retaining them because we make our money down the road when they’re doing large volume because we get such a small amount of revenue from their volume.

We charge them the same thing as what they would pay if they were on the trading floor. You want to trade, go buy a $2 million membership in New York, or a $400,000 one in Chicago, and you stand there on the trading floor and trade for a penny a share. Or you can join us without having to buy the membership and trade for a penny a share.

BJF: How many offices do you have right now?

Bright: 35.

BJF: All in the U.S.?

Bright: All but one; we have one in Canada.

BJF: How long has Bright Trading been in business?

Bright: Since 1992. I’ve been involved with the market since ’78. I joined with Eddie Franco in ’92 and we formed Bright Trading. I had retired after ’87 and I was trading a little bit from home. But it’s really difficult to make much money trying to trade as a lone wolf from home.

During a visit to San Francisco, Eddie demonstrated electronic trading. It was just becoming feasible in the early 90s. He said, “Pretty good. Technology is about there. About ready to do it.” So we joined forces in 1992. I had the capital and we had the networking ability to do it, both in people and in getting it done with the computers. We’re 50/50 owners.

He was a blackjack player in the 70s also. I joined the Exchange in September of ’78, and he came out about six months later. Eventually, I retired, but Eddie stayed and continued trading. When he was playing $10 blackjack, I was playing $50. When he was playing $50, I was playing $500. The same way in the market. So, we formed Bright Trading with his knowledge of technology and my capital. It’s grown ever since. Our first trader joined us the same month we started. He’s still with us. We have a lot of people come and go, like any other business. Everyone can’t be a card counter, and the same thing can be said for the day trading business.

BJF: Is it conceivable that a day trading system could be set up in which a computer itself made all the trades?

Bright: To a point.

BJF: A computer can play blackjack better than a human player, but the casinos won’t allow it. But technically, in the stock market, if you could just go in…

Bright: It is allowed in the marketplace. I know a lot of people who have been working on that for years. They do have some computers that trade the market. Every year they get a little better, but the main thing they’ve learned is that if they unplug the computer for two days, it doesn’t do as well as if it stayed online all the time, because you have to keep the continuity going.

Again, you have these indicators and these things that work. They slowly work or not work over time. And as more traders see indicators that are working, more people jump into it. Pretty soon they don’t work. So, whatever way you design the computer to make decisions, the computer will have to react to those changes also.

BJF: In other words, you would have to have a program that was flexible in which trends it watched changing and which indicators changing?

Bright: Right. We have traders in our firm who are 99% computer. They sit there and watch the computer and they override it once in a while or they don’t. We have a guy in Chicago that we call “the computer system.” Hal. He has just himself and a few other people that just watch the computer and make sure it’s doing what it’s supposed to do.

BJF: Are they using their own program?

Bright: Yes. A proprietary program. They asked to work with us. Blair Hull, you may know, back in ’92, had a computer doing it. He was showing me 30,000 orders a day going into the New York Stock Exchange. Back then, if you had left the order in more than two minutes, they could charge you an extra penny per share. So, he had the program set for a minute and 45 seconds to kill the order.

Blair and I traded in San Francisco for a few years, and then he moved back to Chicago, around 1980. I went back in ’83. He retired in ’83. When he saw how I was doing in ’84, he jumped back in again and he built a very large arbitrage type company in Chicago. He eventually sold it to Goldman about a year ago for $600 million.

But even in ’92, when I was beginning to form this company where traders could come in and trade from an office instead of having to stand on the trading floor, he had already developed computers that would make the entry point decisions on the stocks. So, he was way ahead of the curve on that.

So, yes, there are people that do that. But no computer will do exactly what it’s supposed to do, where you can fly away somewhere and come back a month later and count your money. It doesn’t work that way. In ’87, they thought it would, but that was the cause of the ’87 crash—computers were doing a lot of stock selling themselves regardless of the price of the stock…

Exchanges will change rules when they discover certain things happen. So, there were all new rules about using computers. If the market moves more than a certain amount, you can’t utilize computers to program trade.

BJF: Do you yourself sit down and trade personally anymore?

Bright: As the company has grown, I have been trading less and less. My partner hardly trades at all anymore. Our average trader will trade about a million shares a month. I used to trade maybe 5 million shares a month. I’m down to about 2 million.

I do better when I travel to another office to audit the office or see how things are going. There are 35 offices. We’re adding a few offices this summer. It’s hard to keep up now. We may have to hire some additional help. We only have three employees in the whole company. We have 400 traders.

BJF: How long have you been teaching classes in day trading?

Bright: Not quite two years. For the longest time, we were bringing people from the trading floors. It was cheaper for them to join us and trade than it was to trade off the trading floor.

The first 100 traders we had were mainly experienced who may have had a year to ten years or so experience. Then some of them said, “Well, I’d like to run an office for you in San Diego or Kansas City or wherever.” Fine, so we were looking for people who knew how to make money trading to run offices so we could build other offices.

We knew the technology was there, but not the expertise within the non-exchange cities to be able to get the traders. So, that’s how we grew. Whenever we had someone willing to run an office in another non-exchange city and they wanted to go back home and do it, fine. Do it. We’ve gotten some pretty good offices that way.

The Bright Trading Training Process

BJF: How often do you have a class, and how long is the training period?

Bright: Right now we have a class about every 4 to 5 weeks. They’re four hours a day for five days. Taking the course is to day trading what reading your book one time would be for a blackjack player. That’s all it is. At the end of the week, you know just the basics, whatever you retain.

A lot of them will come back in three months and take it again. We charge a one-time fee for the class and it’s a lifetime fee. We believe in continued education. We want to retain our traders. So, they go through the class, most of them come back three months later, a year later. And they continue to come back.

BJF: Are most of the people who take the class doing this with a view to trading with your company?

Bright: Not necessarily. Some of them take the class just for their own benefit. We open it up for anybody, but it really doesn’t apply to at-home people. They can’t utilize the techniques we teach because the cost is prohibitive. A lot of them get a lot of value out of it even if they’re not going to do this… It opens their eyes up. It helps them save a lot of money over the long run on their investments.

We had nineteen people who attended our last two classes, plus some of our own people who came back for a refresher course. They try to come back once a year anyway to keep up on any new strategies that we’ve developed or that we’ve seen. People who are making less than a quarter of a million a year, we strongly encourage them to attend, because they’re obviously not making what they should be. So, of the 19 people that have never traded with us before, 13 signed up, and six decided not to.

BJF: How many students in total have you trained over the years?

Bright: Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think we’ve ever had a class over 19 or 20… Say 18 times 20, 360.

BJF: How many of these 360 do you think are now serous professional day traders?

Bright: I’d say 25% of them. When I joined the San Francisco Stock Exchange on the trading floor, I was appointed to a committee where I was able to see the turnover. For every hundred new people that came, 80 were gone within six months. Half of the remaining 20 were gone within the year. Of the ten who were there for the full year, eight of them were still there three years later.

So, it’s like eight out of a hundred made a career out of it. Here, we used to have about 15 out of a hundred. Since we started the school, we’ve got about 25 out of a hundred that are making a career out of it. But that’s the same in any business. How many succeed in card counting? The cream of the crop, they make a great deal of money. I would guess 2% of the people… This is one of the reasons we started the school. We saw that many of the people were just not getting it. They weren’t being retained.

BJF: Are there day traders who form teams in the way that blackjack players do, where they combine their bankrolls?

Bright: Yes, there are. That’s what Blair Hull did. He hired a lot of people and had them work as a team. He had people on various trading floors. He interconnected all the computers so that if someone in the CPQ pit or the General Motors pits bought or sold a lot of options, it would reflect the bids and offers for his people in the S&P pit or in the IBM pit.

There are a half dozen major firms tht are doing that as a team where the people are being paid salaries for the company. They’re not independent. I remember Blair Hull had numerous people… He would hire these 6’6” guys to trade on the CBOE floor because they were tall and had loud voices. All they had to do was read off what was on the computer…

Once they got together, and they told Blair he had two weeks to come up with a better pay for them because he was paying them $30,000 a year. After about eight trading days went by, they got worried that he hadn’t gotten back to them. So, they appointed one of them to go up and see what he was doing and give him a date when they were all going to quit. They found him in a room training 30 new people. He just said the heck with it. He hired new people. When you tell people exactly what to do, you don’t need to pay them much.

But our traders here are all independent traders and they make what they make based on their own efforts. There are a lot of traders for Goldman Sachs and for a lot of firms on the trading floor that get to keep maybe 30-40% of what they make. And they use the firm’s capital. They don’t put up anything. These are people who came up through the ranks and were given the ability to trade and they get a percentage of what they make for the firm.

We just took a different way because I learned from being on the trading floor that the bigger traders were backing the smaller traders and it was working out okay. So, we began to do that here. And we started off giving traders like 50-60% instead of 30-40%. It went up to 75%. Then we eventually went to 100% because we were able to do it and get traders to come directly to us from the trading floors, even the ones who were highly profitable.

Through the economies of scale, we were able to offer them the same income, in fact, more net income, but the same gross income with lower costs and there’s still something for us. We charge everybody $600 a month for a workstation. They were paying $20,000 a month on the trading floor for their overhead just to show up. They had to make $20,000 in a month to pay their overhead. With us, they have to make $600 to pay their overhead.

It’s like you have a lot of players out there on a team, and they keep all their winnings, but you get all the comps. You can resell the comps. On a bigger scale, a wider scale, with more traders and a bigger thing, it’s probably better to have individual traders make money. Our people don’t pay commissions. They pay transaction costs. You bypass brokers completely. We’re a broker-dealer acting as a dealer, not as a broker, because we have no retail accounts.

Therefore, we get dealer transaction fees, not broker commission fees. So, our people pay transaction fees. We get some of that back from the clearing firm because of the economy of scale. The clearing firm looks at our firm rather than every individual. They don’t care about the individual. If an individual trader loses half a million dollars, they don’t care. Just take it off my account, under the firm account. They give us back the cost so to speak.

Much of what we do at Bright Trading is modeled after blackjack, because since I left Johns-Manville in 1974, blackjack and the market have been roughly 50/50 of my time. And one models the other. We took the blackjack model and moved it into the stock market in ’78, trading stocks and options. Actually, I went to L.A. I said, “I want to join the stock market.” They said, “What do you know?” I said, “Nothing.” They said, “What have you been doing?” “Playing blackjack for a living.” They said, “Why don’t you go up to San Francisco and trade options?”

They saw me as a novice who knew nothing about stocks. But options were more mathematics-related. I went up there. One of the clearing people asked me, “How are you going to trade?” I said, “I haven’t the slightest idea, but I will figure it out. I will take some of my blackjack abilities and discipline and apply it to the market.” And they said, “There’s already one blackjack player doing this. Why don’t you contact him? It could save you some time.” It was Blair. He already had a computer model for what we needed and I shared costs with him.

BJF: How long did you work with Blair Hull?

Bright: I didn’t work with him, but we worked as independent traders sharing information from ’78 until… I left in ’82. And then in ’84 and ’85, we talked a bit back in Chicago. I retired in ’85 and then he kept his company going. Then I jumped back in ’87. I saw it was a great market opportunity. And then I retired again in ’88.

Since ’88, I probably haven’t run into Blair more than once or twice. Then, in ’92, Eddie and I started Bright Trading. Blair was a dominant force in Chicago. There were two of them. He was one of the two who were really in control of everything out there just because he was smarter than everyone else.

He wasn’t really dominant in San Francisco, but he was one of the sharpest. I’d love nothing more than to get poker players and blackjack players to come trade with us, especially now that the casinos are all putting in perpetual shoes. There have to be a lot of counters out there who could use their abilities with us, and probably make a lot more money.

I don’t know if you have a clear sense of the similarity between blackjack and the stock market, but it’s pretty much the same. You go from red chips to green chips to black chips to pink chips. In the market now… the casino scene is small potatoes. Every time we make a bet here, you can make or lose thousands of dollars. Typically, our trader, after about two years, are making six figures or more. Not everyone can do it. The ones that pick up on it, are with us for life. This is what keeps our firm growing. ♠

Posted on September 15, 2022January 25, 2024 by Arnold Snyder — Leave a comment

Snyder Reviews Break the Dealer

Review of Break the Dealer

by Arnold Snyder

If I owned a casino, I would place Break the Dealer prominently in my gift shop magazine rack. I would give it away to all of the high rollers who played at my tables. I would place a copy in every room of my hotel, next to Gideon’s.

I don’t know who told Patterson and Olsen that they were brilliant blackjack theorists and system developers. I had hoped that after their TARGET fiasco they would smarten up.

Now comes Break the Dealer, in which Patterson & Olsen reveal for the first time ever their methods of blackjack shuffle-tracking. God help us.

Shuffle-tracking is an effective technique for multiple-deck blackjack games. I first learned about it in 1982 from Crazy Bob, at which time I promised him I would not publish his secrets since the casinos were ignorant of it, and nothing in print was available on the subject. As long ago as 1980, Keith Taft, inventor of the “David” blackjack computer, had a team of players using modified David computers, which Keith called “Thor” computers, which computer-tracked the multiple-deck shuffles in Nevada and Atlantic City casinos.

Shuffle-tracking is what the name implies. In multiple-deck games, all cards from all portions of a shoe are not mixed with each other. The first blackjack author who mentioned this in print was Lance Humble in Blackjack Supergold (1979). A shuffle-tracker first observes and analyzes the shuffle procedure of a casino, so that he knows which portions of the shoe will be mixed with which other portions. A shuffle-tracking player may then cut the poor portion of the shoe out of play, while playing through the most advantageous section.

In Break the Dealer, Patterson and Olsen, to their credit, provide adequate descriptions of standard casino shuffles, along with some very efficient methods of tracking the shuffle. It’s too bad, however, that they don’t know which information to gather, or how to use that information.

They start out all right, suggesting a method for tracking tens only, but this is more difficult and less accurate than tracking with a standard card counting system. And contrary to Patterson’s and Olsen’s team method, you should never use shuffle-tracking to create a shortage of aces. Patterson and Olsen believe that a scarcity of aces contributes to “dealer breaking activity.” This may be true, but the ace is far more valuable to the player for it’s blackjack potential. Ultimately, Patterson and Olsen advise that aces, fives and sevens should be cut out of play, in order to increase this dealer breaking activity. This is nonsense. Having multiple players keeping various side-counts, then trying to manipulate this diverse information into an efficient cut, is unnecessary, difficult, and a losing strategy as presented by Patterson and Olsen.

At the end of their shuffletracking chapter, Patterson and Olsen correctly advised players to cut to the portion of the shoe which is heavy in tens and aces, but they do not explain the contradictory information.

The authors also advise shuffle-trackers not to use their tracking information for betting and playing their hands, but only for the cut. They think betting and playing should be done according to a normal counting system after the cut. Sheer folly. If you can cut the low cards out of play, then you should definitely bet big off the top, and play your hands as if your count is high. If you cut the high cards into play, then obviously the count will be going down as these cards come out. But you should continue betting big as long as you know the portion of the shoe you are playing is heavy in high cards. Following Patterson’s and Olsen’s advice, you would be betting small, and playing your hands as if the count were negative, precisely when you should be betting big and playing positive! The whole value of shuffle-tracking is lost with their system!

Many casinos with multipledeck shoes are ignorant about shuffle-tracking. These multiple-deck games can be as advantageous to card counters as single-deck games. The difficulty of thoroughly shuffling multiple decks has always been the Achilles heel of the shoe game. None of this, however, gives credence to Patterson’s and Olsen’s “non-random shuffle” theories upon which they base their TARGET system. Shuffle-tracking is a card-counting strategy, and a highly sophisticated and difficult strategy.

The first part of Break the Dealer adequately describes basic strategy and the high-low system. But the book is dominated by it’s multiple-deck shuffle analyses, shuffle-tracking theories, and a prolonged advertisement for the TARGET system.

If you’re interested in reading Patterson’s and Olsen’s descriptions of casino shuffles, the only part of this book of any value, pick the book up from Gambler’s Book Club in Las Vegas. ♠

Posted on September 15, 2022January 25, 2024 by Arnold Snyder — Leave a comment

Interview with Andy Blumen, Attorney at Law

Do Casinos Have the Right to “Back Room” You?

by Arnold Snyder
(From Blackjack Forum VI #3, September 1986)
© Blackjack Forum 1986

[Andrew Blumen is a Las Vegas attorney who specializes in representing professional gamblers vs. casinos. With so many reports in the past few years in these pages of honest blackjack players being backroomed, harassed, arrested and even physically beaten in casinos, many card counters have requested advice on their legal rights and how to avoid such incidents. Mr. Blumen agreed to a phone interview regarding these matters. This is a transcript of our taped conversation. –Arnold Snyder

Addendum: I believe Andy Blumen is now retired. — A.S.] ]

Arnold Snyder: Does a player have to go to the “back room” when a security guard asks him to?

Andrew Blumen: In the State of Nevada there is a statute which allows a casino through its security guards to detain a player for a reasonable time if they believe that player has committed a felony. The operative words here are: “Has a felony been committed?” If you’re just a card counter and you’ve committed no crime, then there’s no statute which authorizes the casino to detain you or to take you into a back room. So, the answer to the question is, no, you do not have to go to the back room.

Snyder What should a player do if he’s asked to go to the back room by a security guard for identification or any other reason?

Blumen: Ask immediately, “Am I under arrest, or suspected of a felony?” If they say yes, ask what the felony is, and request for Metro (Las Vegas Police) to be called immediately. If the answer is no, then you should inform the security guard that he has no right to take you into the backroom, and that if they don’t want you on the premises you’ll leave. The security guard can read you the trespass act walking you to the door as easily as he can in the back room. So it all depends on whether or not they’re going to allege that you’ve committed a felony.

Snyder: What if they say, “Yes, we believe you’ve committed a felony,” and they take you into the backroom.

Blumen: Force them to call Metro, because if they have nothing to go on, they’re not going to do that, and they’ll let you go. If they do detain you without any proof, you’ve got a good lawsuit.

Snyder: Would the casino be breaking the law at this point?

Blumen: There is no hard and fast statute that says this, but this is what we have sued on many times. Of course, the juries have come back with various decisions. They have found in our favor at times and they have found against us at times. Each individual person has to evaluate their background. If you’ve been arrested many times in the past, then you might consider going along with them, because your lawsuit would pale in the eyes of a jury. Legally, the casino does not have a right to detain you if they do not suspect you’ve committed a felony.

Snyder: Does a player have to provide identification or any other information to a casino security guard?

Blumen: No, unless he’s suspected of a felony. And in that case he still doesn’t have to provide any information to the security guard. But my suggestion would be that after the player has requested to have Metro called, he should ask to make a phone call — and call his lawyer — and then he should give his name – his true name – and say, “I’m saying nothing else until the police come.” When the police come, he should say nothing except, “I want to speak to my lawyer.”

Snyder: Do you have to give your name?

Blumen: Give your true name because if you give a false name to a police officer they will probably arrest you for obstructing a police officer. It’s possible that if you give a false name to a security guard, and he transmits it to the police officer, you could have some problems. But the security guard is nothing more than an employee of the casino. They have no right to demand any identification from you, save and except if they believe you’re under the age of 21. In which case you should say, “I have no identification. I will leave.”

They can’t force you to give l.D. Every 21 player — and I firmly believe this, not because I’m a lawyer — every blackjack player who plays in Las Vegas, Reno, or Atlantic City, should have a name and telephone number of his lawyer, and should have made arrangements so that if they are back-roomed, that lawyer will come to their aid. Because that will deter a lot of the conduct that the casinos might do.

Snyder: What’s the best single piece of advice f or a player who wants to protect his rights in a casino?

Blumen: In Nevada, a player doesn’t have a whole lot of rights. By that I mean that a casino has the right to ask any player to leave. You do not have a right to play blackjack in Nevada. In Atlantic City, you have that right. They cannot ask you to leave just because you’re a card counter.

The rights you do have as a player in the state of Nevada are our constitutional rights. They’re pretty much covered in what I’ve already discussed. They cannot detain you without suspicion you’ve done a criminal act. They cannot force you to have your photograph taken. They cannot force you to present l.D. or any other information.

They can read you the Nevada trespass act. If they do read that to you, and you go back on the premises you’ll be guilty of misdemeanor trespass. Other than that, you have all the rights you’d have in any other place. If the casino violates those rights, you have recourse through the court system.

Snyder: Let’s say a player is from out of town and does not have an attorney in Nevada. If he finds himself in a position where he is back-roomed, and he is afraid his rights may be violated, is there a quick and easy way to come up with an attorney?

Blumen: In all honesty, probably not, and I’ll tell you why. If I’m going to get a call at midnight from somebody, asking me to come down to a casino, I’m going to want to be retained. I would suggest a daytime phone call on arriving in town, indicating to an attorney that, “Look, I hope I don’t need you, but if I do, will you be available?” The attorney can then say, “Yes, I’ll be available, and this is what it will cost you if I have to come.”

If somebody I don’t know just calls me at 2 a.m., what I’m going to tell him is, “Look, don’t say anything. When they get done, call me tomorrow morning.” I’m not going to rush down to the casino like I would for my clients. . . I have a whole list of people who could call me anytime, day or night, and I would go to them, without advance money, because they’ve been clients for a long time.

Snyder: Is there a list of attorneys available in the various gambling areas who are known to represent players who have problems in casinos?

Blumen: I only know two who specialize in this in Las Vegas — myself and Les Combs.

[Note from Arnold Snyder: Since the time of this interview, Bob Nersesian has become an attorney who specializes in the rights of professional gamblers. Nersesian is the attorney who beat Caesars, the Griffin Agency, and the Imperial Palace in James Grosjean’s lawsuits. See: Interview with Bob Nersesian. Bob has become the go-to attorney in Las Vegas for most professional gamblers I know.]

I know of none I could recommend in Reno who specialize in it. My number is in the phone book, my home number. I don’t get many 2 a.m. calls, but I don’t mind that – or, I should say, I feel it’s part of the deal. I do criminal work and these things happen.

Snyder: So you think a player should try to make contact with an attorney in the areas where he gambles prior to having any trouble?

Blumen: I certainly think so, if for no other reason than for name recognition. I’ll take 5 minutes out of my time to talk if I’m available. I don’t expect to take 20 minutes and be pumped. A lawyer only has one thing to sell and that’s his time. I can’t have every counter calling me and asking me, ” Can I do this, and can I do this, this, this and this?” But a simple call of, “Look, I’m here to play for a few days. If I have any problems can I call you?” No problem.

Snyder: Thanks, Andy. You’ll probably get a lot of calls! ♠

Weekend at Camp Hellmuth

Arrive at Camp Hellmuth—Friday, August 11, 2006

Day 2—Poker Tournament School Session #1: Joe Navarro

Camp Hellmuth Session #2: Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari

Camp Hellmuth Session #3: Scott Fishman

Camp Hellmuth Poker Tournament #1

Day 3 Poker Tournament School Session #1: Mark “The Shark” Seif

Camp Hellmuth Session #2: Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi

Camp Hellmuth Session #3: The Whole Crew

Camp Hellmuth Poker Tournament #2

Camp Hellmuth Poker Tournament School Final Banquet

Way-Out West Coast Blackjack

Calculating the House Edge for Any Number of Decks and Rules

Card Counting is Not Enough

The House Edge and Depth of the Deal (Penetration)

How the House Edge is Affected by the Number of Decks in Play

How the Blackjack Rules Affect the House Edge

How to Calculate Poker Tournament Win Rate

Is Your Tournament Strategy a Winner?

The Easy Way to Track Your Poker Tournament Win Rate

Poker Tournament Win Rate and Variance

Radar on Win Rate

Burning the Tables in Las Vegas (Revised and Expanded) by Ian Andersen

Meet the Bright Brothers: Card Counters Turned Stock Market Billionaires

Bob Bright’s Start as a Card Counter

Bob Bright on the Switch to the Stock Market

The Bright Trading System

The Bright Brothers Trading Room

The Bright Trading Training Process

Review of Break the Dealer

Do Casinos Have the Right to “Back Room” You?

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