Category: Blackjack

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Blackjack Tournament Strategy

By Stanford Wong

(From Blackjack Forum Vol. XV #III, September 1995
© 1995 Blackjack Forum

Arnold has asked me to write something on casino tournament strategy, so I thought I would share a typical application of my new Tournament Blackjack software.

Here is a situation I encountered in a mini blackjack tournament I entered at Isle of Capri in Biloxi, Mississippi, a few weeks ago. Only one person was advancing in the tournament from my table. The maximum bet was $300.

It was the 29th round out of 30, and I was BR1 (meaning I had the largest bankroll at the time) with $900. Several other players were still in close contention. I was betting second. I bet $300, and my opponents all made bets around $100.

Then we got our cards. The dealer showed 10, I got eleven, and the other players ended up with totals of eighteen to twenty.

The decision I had to make was should I double down? The argument for doubling down is if I won I would have a commanding lead going into the last round of the tournament, perhaps even a lock. A lock would be especially nice because on the last round I would be betting and playing first. The argument for not doubling down is that I would still have a chance to win the table if lost only one bet, whereas losing a doubled bet would knock me out of contention.

In the actual tournament I had to make a decision quickly, and could not ask for time out to run a simulation. I doubled down, ended up with a twenty for a push, and so achieved the same result as if I had hit instead of doubling.

But was my double down correct? Tournament Blackjack can give the answer.

Blackjack Tournament Solutions

I do not recall the rest of the details of the actual situation—how many other players were left, their bankrolls, their bets, or exactly what their hand totals were—so I will use numbers that seem reasonable. I will use five other players with bankrolls of 825, 800, 750, 775, and 850. I will give them bets of 100 each. I will give them hand totals of 20, 19, 18, 19, and 20.

I boot up Tournament Blackjack. In the rules I ask for six players, minimum bet of 10, maximum of 300, double any two cards including after splitting, and dealer stands on soft seventeen because those were the rules I faced in Biloxi. I ask for one winner only. Then I close the rules box. I set the game to play hand 29 of 30. I set the bankrolls to the appropriate amounts, putting my own bankroll in the sixth position. I put the puck by the fifth player, meaning that player bets first this round.

So now we are ready for the bets. I want to control the bets of all the players this round, and an easy way to do it is to set all the players to manual (as opposed to automatic). Then I press F5 to start. The computer asks how much the fifth player wants to bet. I type in 100. Then I type in a max bet for me, the sixth player. Then I enter bets of 100 each for the other players.

Oops! Placing a bet for player 4 is automatically followed by dealing of cards. (I could have specified the bets by a different method, in which case the computer would have waited for me to assign cards.

But, no problem. I use Deja Vu to pick up all the cards and bets, and go back to the beginning of the round. Then I hit F1 six times to reconstruct the six bets. Now the computer waits for me to assign cards.

Assigning cards is easy. I deal myself a 5 and everyone else a 10 as the first card, including the dealer. Then another 10 to the fifth player, a 6 to me, 10-9-8-9 to the first four players, and 10 for the dealer’s hole card. (What I give to the dealer for a hole card does not matter if I am going to run a simulation; a new hole card will be randomly assigned each pass through.)

OK, each player has two cards totalling what I want each player to have, and the dealer has a 10. Now I hit F5 to start live play. The computer asks me how I want to play hand 5, and I stand on it. Now it asks me how I want to play my eleven. I want to simulate both hitting it and doubling down on it. So I select Simulate from the Run menu. I select double for 300 and hit as my two options. Then I hit the OK button and the simulation is on its way.

The simulation works this way. First the tournament is finished with my hand doubling down. I win the tournament. Then it is finished with my hitting the eleven. I win the tournament again. Then it is finished with me doubling down. I win again. Then it is finished with me hitting. Player 5 wins the tournament.

And so it goes time after time, finishing the tournament with me doubling on my eleven alternating with finishing the tournament with me hitting my eleven. Each pair of finishes takes eight seconds on my 586-66. After 50 finishes with each play, doubling down has won the tournament 42% of the time and hitting has won 35% of the time.

The program tells me that difference is not significant, and that the standard error applicable to each number is at most .071. A much larger sample size is going to have to be run, so I leave the room to attend to other business. (Actually, it is 9:30 pm as I write this, and the other business is drinking a beer while I read Newsweek.)

…later…

Now it is 10:30 pm. The sample sizes are up to 500. Doubling down is ahead, 44.9% to 31.6%, and the significance box shows five stars. This means the difference between the two sample means is greater than four standard errors. The standard error applicable to each number is down to .022.

We can say with certainty that doubling down was the better thing to do in this casino tournament situation. ♠

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An Interview with Julian Braun

by Arnold Snyder

(From Blackjack Forum Volume I #2, June 1981)
© 1981, 2005 Blackjack Forum

Julian Braun, author of How to Play Winning Blackjack (Data House, 1980), IBM computer programmer extraordinaire, and blackjack pioneer whose programs have provided the strategies of numerous card counting systems since the early sixties, made a recent trip to California. I took the opportunity to meet with him over dinner, during the course of which I conducted and taped an interview. Right from the start, Braun cast aside my preconceived conservative notions of him. I arrived in coat and tie. He was in his shirt sleeves. I suggested a quiet restaurant where the subdued atmosphere would be conducive to an interview. Braun had other ideas, suggesting a Moroccan restaurant where our dinner would be accompanied by music and an exotic belly dancer. We ate Moroccan style, in dim lighting, seated on cushions on the floor.

AS: Can you tell us about your original contact with Edward Thorp and how you started your blackjack analyses?

Braun: When Thorp came out with his book, I was very fascinated that he was able to do this kind of work with a computer and come up with a counting system. At that time, I had relatively free access to high speed computers. I wrote to Thorp and told him of my interest and asked if he would be kind enough to send me a copy of his computer program, which he did — with absolutely no documentation whatsoever — just a program written in Fortran which he had developed and run at MIT. I studied the program and figured out exactly how it worked.

He had an interesting algorithm that he had built into his program for cycling through the various combinations of cards. The computers back in those days were comparatively primitive to what we have now. Thorp had written what he called an Arbitrary Subset program, where he could feed into the computer any combination of cards he wanted, and the computer would crank out ten pages of information — one for each of the ten dealer up-cards. It would list on each page each of the fifty-five two-card player combinations, and the expectation if you stood or hit until you achieved the indicated standing number that was also computed by the program. It also showed what would happen if you doubled down — even on ridiculous combinations like two tens. It gave a complete analysis regardless. It summarized at the bottom the best strategy for any combination, and what the expectation was for that combination.

I wrote an improved version of the basic strategy program which did essentially the same sort of thing, but with a lesser degree of approximation. That’s the program I used to develop some of the count strategies that were subsequently developed. It’s the program that was used to develop the data which was used by Revere to develop his strategies, and by Lance Humble to develop the Hi-opt strategies. That same program was used to develop quite a variety of count strategies. I also used it to develop the indices for the Hi-Lo strategy. I also wrote an exact program for any basic strategy situation in blackjack except pair-splitting.

AS: Peter Griffin claims he has computed an exact single-deck pair-splitting basic strategy.

Braun: I’m not sure how Griffin can say he has an absolutely accurate strategy — an absolutely accurate program for doing this. It can be done theoretically, but I’m wondering if he actually has that much computer time to run it. I think he probably has a nearly exact program, rather than a completely exact program. My guess is that he has developed his program to consider what happens with one card of each pair, analyzing precisely what happens with all the possible combinations of the cards that can be gotten on it, interactively with the dealer’s hand. He probably assures that the second hand would on average be about the same as the first hand. That’s a fairly accurate approximation, but it’s not completely accurate. To be completely accurate, you’d have to interact every combination of the first hand with every combination of the second hand with every combination of the dealer hand. That involves such an enormous amount of computer time, I’m somewhat dubious that Griffin actually did that. If you really want to be accurate, most casinos allow you to resplit pairs, so you would have to go down to the next level as well.

AS: Stanford Wong is one of the few systems developers who has computed a single-deck basic strategy using his own algorithms. His strategy differs from yours on one decision. You say to split 2-2 vs. 3, and he says to hit. Peter Griffin informed me that on this discrepancy, your decision is the correct one.

Braun: AH! Then I’ve been vindicated.

AS: Griffin sent me his data on this decision, which shows the player’s expectation from splitting 2-2 vs. 3 carried out to 4 decimal places. It seems to me that Griffin considers his strategy to be exact. A couple of casinos in Las Vegas have recently introduced a one deck game of double exposure. Do you imagine that if you use the multi-deck double exposure strategy for the one-deck game it would be similar to using a multi-deck strategy for regular blackjack in a single-deck game?

Braun: No. It would be close, but the differences are more significant.

AS: Do you know Stanford Wong personally?

Braun: I’ve met him. I happened to have a business trip to Los Angeles a couple of years ago. I told Wong that I was going to be there, and he drove up from La Jolla to meet me. We had dinner together and a fairly pleasant conversation. I would not say that he exactly interviewed me, but we just chatted about things in general.

AS: Why is Wong so negative towards you now?

Braun: Well, I think it’s just like anybody else in business; they don’t like competition, and that’s the way it is.

AS: Do you think it stems from your remarks in one of the versions of your “Development and Analysis” papers that Wong’s Hi-Lo strategy tables were not quite accurate?

Braun: Yes, that’s one bone of contention that seems to irritate Wong — the fact that I made a statement that he had a good system with good indices that were… “close enough” was the phrase that I used. Wong, in one of his writings, came back and said that they are not only close enough, they are better — or something to that effect. At the time, I thought I was trying to be kind by saying they were close enough. In some areas, I now think his figures might actually be better. I think his method for developing indices may have been better than mine. Whether his indices are more accurate or not is a debatable point. I still contend that neither set of figures are completely accurate. A closer result to complete accuracy might be obtained by averaging where the two figures differ.

AS: How long does it take you to run off a one million hand simulation in order to test a system, such as you used for your “Development and Analysis” paper?

Braun: With the program that I have, and an IBM 370 model 155 or 158 computer it takes approximately three minutes. There are faster computers that would do it in less than a minute.

AS: In the March issue of Gambling Times, Stanley Roberts published a reassessment by you of estimated win rates for various count systems, including Uston’s Advanced Point Count. Did you use your simulation program recently to obtain these results, which Roberts reported he obtained from you by phone?

Braun: I never evaluated the Uston count on the computer I think I just mentioned to Roberts what I thought the Uston count would do. I’ve never run it on the computer, so I don’t have precise statistics on it. I can evaluate what I think the Uston count would do simply by looking at Griffin’s work.

AS: Did you ever consider making money as a card counter?

Braun: There was a time when I was playing more frequently, and was even barred in one casino. Some years ago, I spent four weeks in Reno and played here and there. The Nevada Club had the best rules at the time. They were still dealing a single deck all the way down to the bottom. In addition, they allowed you to double-down on 9, 10 or 11, rather than just 10 or 11 like most of the other Reno casinos.

AS: How long ago was this?

Braun: At least ten years ago. I haven’t played any serious blackjack for years now.

AS: What sort of stakes were you playing for then?

Braun: Very mild. I generally bet from two to ten dollars. I played at the Nevada Club rather regularly. After about a week, even though I wasn’t betting real big or winning any tremendous amounts of money, they decided the fact that they weren’t beating me out of my money was indicative enough. So I walked in one day and a pit boss motioned to me and very politely said, “The owner has observed you playing, and he has decided that he doesn’t want your action anymore.” I didn’t argue.

AS: What system were you using?

BRAUN: I was using the Hi-Lo system.

AS: You wrote to me that the “Money Management” chapter in your book, How to Play Winning Blackjack, which advises the player to watch for “hot streaks” and use betting progressions, had been written by Harry Fund, your publisher. Were you aware, prior to its being published, of the contents of that chapter, and have you spoken to him personally about your feelings about it being included under your name?

Braun: Yes, but he wanted to get his two cents in and he was the publisher.

AS: In that chapter, he writes as if he were you.

Braun: I know. He was writing under my name because he’s using my name to sell the book. He wrote a lot of the other stuff too. I don’t claim to be a book writer, per se. He wrote all the colorful stuff and the background, and I wrote all the technical stuff for the book. The only thing I got in on the Money Management chapter was the footnote at the end.

AS: That footnote seemed to be the only intelligent part of that chapter.

Braun: I wrote the footnote because I was trying to play down what he’d written in the rest of the chapter. The thing is, there are a lot of people who like to play that way.

AS: Do you mind all the back-stabbing and name calling that’s going on in the blackjack scene?

Julian Braun: Not particularly, but I wish it wasn’t there. FLASH! Just received Ken Uston’s latest newsletter… As of May 28, 1981 the New Jersey Casino Control Commission will permit the A.C. casinos to abolish early surrender! Uston is organizing a group called CHIPS — Committee to Have the Industry Preserve Surrender. They will be leafletting, making bumperstickers, T-shirts, and picketing the casinos. Yes, marching! Is this the beginning of a card counters’ union? United Pit-workers Local 21? ♠

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Beyond Wong: Professional Casino Tournament Tips

by Anthony Curtis
(From Blackjack Forum Volume XV #3, September 1995)
© 1995 Blackjack Forum

One evening in late 1985, my phone rang. It was a call that I look back on as one of the most important of my life. Stanford Wong was on the other end, and as is his custom, he came straight to the point.

“I’m forming a tournament team,” he said. “There are four of us and I think five would make a nice, efficient group. You came to mind. Would you like to play with us?”

I was shocked. Wong was one of my earliest gambling heroes. We’d had a brief correspondence, and we’d met once. Now he was calling me at my one-bedroom apartment, asking me to join his team. It was like a football hopeful getting a call from the 49ers. A dream come true…

“N-n-n-o,” I stuttered.

“Why not?”

“I’m a good blackjack player, but casino tournament play is another world. I don’t know anything about it.”

“Neither do I,” said Wong, “but I have some ideas. We’ll all learn together.”

And so began an incredible experience that made me a lot of money (and even a little fame).

By now, many of you know the story. Recognizing an opportunity, Stanford Wong constructed a computer model to analyze the tournament blackjack end game. He compiled his findings in spiral notebooks and passed them out to me and the others on the team. (The information in those secret spiral notebooks can now be found in Wong’s 1992 Pi Yee Press book, Casino Tournament Strategy).

For about two years, we traveled extensively to play tournaments-Reno, Tahoe, Atlantic City, the Bahamas, and Aruba. Three highly successful years later, the team dissolved. It should be noted that Wong wasn’t the first to figure out tournaments. When we came on the scene, players were already utilizing these concepts. I learned later that they had dominated the tournaments for years, during a time when the prizes were much larger than they are today.

Wong knew going in that he would only devote a couple of years to serious tournament play. He wanted to write the great book on the subject, then go on to other things. I, on the other hand, saw tournaments as a deep well (of profits) that I would be able to go to for a long time to come. A few of the other guys and gals coming at the time saw it the same way. We formed friendships, talked a lot, played together, and elevated the art.

Being young and impetuous, my buddies and I wanted to rule the tournament world. We stayed up late into the night discussing the day’s rounds if we’d played, or general strategy if he hadn’t. We picked apart everything that might add up to our advantage, and the conversations got more esoteric as the free-drink tally rose.

Among the topics of discussion: end-game, middle-game, secret bets, playoffs, adjustments for format, positional considerations, pros and cons of correlating, creating swings, techniques for counting chips, tendencies of opponents, shuffle-tracking in tournaments, hole-carding in tournaments, tells in tournaments (by dealers and players), time-management in timed tournaments, how to exploit a player’s rules infraction, how to exploit a dealer’s error, how to exploit our reputations, how to play if we were unknown, how to play with more than one of us on a table, how to deal with another expert on the table, how to secure a good table position at the draw, how to make an opponent bet out of turn, how to influence opponents by betting out of turn, and of course, how best to get a date with the good-looking tournament director’s assistant (a skill I never quite mastered). Keep in mind that I’m talking blackjack tournaments only; there were whole other sets of topics for craps tournaments, keno tournaments, etc. The point is, we spent a lot of time outside the pages of Wong’s tournament manual.

These days, I don’t play the tournaments nearly as often as I used to, so I don’t mind letting you in on a few of our conclusions. Don’t get too excited, though. Compared to the value of the information in Casino Tournament Strategy, and the strength of the singular tactic of betting your money (see “Bombs Away” below), this information is of marginal value. Then again, you just might pick up a tidbit that will get you through an extra round or two.

Choose Casino Tournaments Wisely

One easy way to improve results (regardless of skill level) is to be choosy about which tournaments you enter. Several factors are involved here, but equity is the fundamental measure of playability. Equity is the percentage of entry fees collected that is returned in the form of prize money. It’s an important consideration. Any time the prize pool returns less than 100%, you have a decision to make. Namely, are you superior enough to the average player in that tournament to make up the shortfall? I don’t care who you are, there is always a point where the answer has to be “no.” The better you are at pegging that percentage, the better your results will be.

I find myself laying off of more and more tournaments these days because of the dramatic increase in the public’s skill level. If the average player is nearly as skilled as I am, then even a tournament that pays close to 100% equity offers too small a return on my investment to make it worth playing from a purely monetary standpoint.

Often there are ancillary considerations. In my case, I have the unique luxury of being able to play in tournaments where I have a small edge thanks to the publicity value I derive from winning. When I calculate equity, I sometimes assign double or triple value to the prize pool because of the increased credibility that winning the championship gives my career as a gambler-writer. A professional, for example, might assign added value for the hard-to-come-by practice he gets by playing. A novice might justify his entry by considering the vacation value-he makes up the difference with a free room, comps, parties, drinks, and other perks that go with tournament entry. I know of many people who just plain love to play tournaments. For them, the enjoyment factor lessens equity requirements.

Here are two other realities that literally leap out at you when you examine extensive records of tournament results. First, early-entry discounts are available. Be sure to plan far enough ahead to take advantage of the savings they represent. Second, over-the-table losses represent a huge cost of doing business. Tournaments contested with funny money are usually best of all.

Don’t Count Cards In Blackjack Tournaments

I always rub my hands together when I run into card counters on a tournament table. Why? Because they’re so predictable. A powerful play in tournament competition is to create the opportunity for a swing when you’re behind. That usually means betting big when your opponents bet small (or vice versa). This can be problematic when the key opponent bets after you because he can simply mirror your bets to the degree that he chooses. Since some card counters would rather be publicly caned than raise their bets into a negative deck, you can create the potential swing any time you want just by betting contrary to the count.

The most remarkable example of this I’ve come across occurred in a big tournament in the Bahamas. I was on a table of five and all of my opponents were dyed-in-the-wool card counters. A third of the way through the round, the shoe went positive and the four others jumped on it. Having already drifted a few maximum bets down, I was happy to let them go, hoping that a few good hands by the dealer would bring them back to me. But by the time the shoe was finished, I was too. The four were in a dead heat for the lead some eight max bets ahead of me. Given the one-person-advance format, I was all but sunk.

The next shoe, however, quickly went negative. I made a max bet while everyone else bet the minimum. I won and gained a bet. As we played on, I didn’t even worry about what I was dealt. I was busy praying that the count would stay negative so I would continue to be the sole big bettor. It did, I was, and on the last hand I had only to win my bet to advance to the four-man final for $250,000. (Alas, my remarkable comeback wasn’t consummated.)

After the round, one of the players who knew me as a card counter came up and said, “Nice comeback, but why were you betting so heavily into that huge negative count?” The question was even more ridiculous than is obvious-we were playing with funny money!

Though a vivid example, it’s by no means the main problem with counting cards in tournaments. If you know how to count, you’ll do it while you play, and there’s nothing wrong with that in the early stages. In fact, in one-advance formats where it’s almost certain that you’ll have to make at least one (preferably uncorrelated) big bet sometime during the round, making that bet early and according to the count will improve your results over the table. But in the last five to ten hands, you’re out of your mind if you maintain the count at the expense of all the more important things there are to be aware of, like an accurate accounting of the threatening bankrolls.

The Importance of Position In Casino Tournaments

Few players give position the consideration that it merits. It’s important to base your total game plan on the last-hand betting order, especially in the one-advance format. In a nutshell, the worse your position on the end, the more aggressive you need to be before you get there. If position is determined by a dice roll or a draw at the table, you must immediately calculate where you will bet on the last hand (if everyone makes it that far), then play accordingly. You must also be prepared to recalculate and switch strategies when players bust out and change the last-hand order. Positional considerations, by the way, are much more important (and complicated) in tournaments other than blackjack, like craps.

It’s Better When The Casino Likes You

The most successful card counters spend a lot of time making sure that the welcome mat remains out. You’d expect that tournament players would do the same, but they don’t. For some reason, the typical tournament expert can’t resist flaunting his talents, not so much to the casinos or other customers as to one another.

Tournament players congregate in groups and cliques, openly analyzing every move they and their cohorts make during play, and making not-so-subtle jokes about the non-optimal play of the less informed. The tournament pros need to realize that the very players that they’re exploiting are often the casino’s best customers. Antagonize them enough and they’ll eventually complain to casino management, and there goes the welcome mat. The casinos won’t risk losing their good customers for the sake of a few entry fees.

Some of those esoteric discussions I mentioned earlier had to do with how much leeway to give the regular casino customers when they make mistakes (rule infractions, receiving overpayments, etc.) before raising an objection that might make an enemy. Don’t underestimate this consideration. Some of the most successful long-term tournament winners I know are also among the most likeable people I’ve ever met.

Bombs Away–Casino Tournaments Are About Betting

If you’ve done any studying of tournaments at all, you’re probably already aware of what I’m about to say. But it’s so important that I just can’t imagine discussing tournament play without mentioning it. No other strategy is as powerful as this: Bet your money when you’re behind. A tournament is a gunfight, and the chips are your bullets. You must shoot those bullets until you either win the gunfight or run out of ammunition. If the heat is on and you’re not sure what to do, employ this rule: When in doubt, put it out. I do. Betting the max may not be the best play, but it’s rarely the worst.

I once played in a mini blackjack tournament where the whole table had the betting bug. It was a frenzied affair with five of us turning a $500 buy-in into more than $2000. When the smoke cleared in the tournament, I had advanced along with a young airman from Nellis Air Force Base who was playing his first blackjack tournament ever. The airman had caught on quickly, making max bets every time someone’s stack of chips exceeded his. After the round, the excited airman jumped out of his seat, ran over to his girlfriend and shouted: “That wasn’t about playing cards. That was about betting!” Truer words… ♠

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A Nevada Court Victory for Card Counters

By Robert A. Loeb, Attorney at Law
(From Blackjack Forum XX #1, Spring 2000)
© Blackjack Forum 2000

On March 9, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled in favor of a card counter and ordered the return to him of $40,400 in winnings which had been seized when a casino discovered that he had used false identification at the blackjack table.

This is an extremely important case, because there are very few decisions from the Nevada Supreme Court that affect counters, and because it deals with many important issues related to card counting.

Ultimately, the court found that the player did not commit fraud, because he had not cheated in the play of the game, and so the court ordered that the seized chips be returned to him.

The Legal Facts of the Card Counting Case

In order to analyze what the case means and doesn’t mean, we have to go back, look at the facts, and review what happened at the blackjack table, at the cashier, at the gaming board and in the lower court.

Card counter Richard Chen bought in for $29,000 at a blackjack table at the Monte Carlo casino in Las Vegas in April, 1997. As a known card counter, his picture was already in the Griffin book, so when the casino asked for identification (presumably to fill out a cash transaction report, as required by the government), Chen presented a purported passport from Burma (which does not exist anymore) in another name. Later that evening he bought in for an additional $15,000, but no identification was requested at that time.

Chen then played blackjack, apparently for several hours. At some point, pit supervisor Dave Schugar recognized him as a card counter, stopped Chen from playing more, and asked Chen to accompany him to the cashier to cash out. At the cashier, Chen produced $84,400 in chips, and when asked for identification, produced the same false passport.

Schugar noticed the irregularity and notified casino security and the Gaming Control Board.

Chen admitted to Carl Vidano, the Gaming Board agent, that the passport was false; he provided his true identity and the casino filled out a corrected cash transaction report (the Nevada 6A version of a CTR). Vidano directed the Monte Carlo to retain the chips and to give Chen a receipt for the full $84,400, pending a review of surveillance tapes and a criminal investigation.

A few days later, the Monte Carlo informed Vidano that the tapes showed card counting but no cheating. Vidano directed the Monte Carlo to release the money to Chen, and the casino refused. Vidano initiated a patron dispute case and issued a formal decision directing Monte Carlo to pay Chen the $84,400. The casino again refused, and appealed the agent’s decision to the full Nevada Gaming Board. Vidano did note that Chen did not commit any criminal violation, other than the misdemeanor crime of possession of false identification.

Three months later, the casino returned $44,000 to Chen (the total of the buy-ins), leaving the $40,400 in winnings as the subject of the dispute before the gaming board.

On the Legality of Card Counting: The Gaming Board and Lower Court Decisions

After hearing the evidence, the Nevada State Gaming Board ruled in favor of the Monte Carlo, allowing it to retain Chen’s winnings.

The hearing examiner felt that both parties agreed that had Chen provided his true identity, he would not have been allowed to play, although, I think it would have been more accurate to say that Chen could have begun playing; his session just wouldn’t have lasted as long.

The Gaming Control Board found that Chen’s use of false identification was a fraudulent act to gain admittance to the blackjack game. The Gaming Board also found that if Chen had provided his true identity, he would not have been allowed to play.

The District Court in Las Vegas considered the briefs and arguments of both sides, and it upheld the Gaming Board’s decision to allow the Monte Carlo to seize and retain the winnings. Chen appealed the case to the Nevada Supreme Court.

The Player’s Side of the Case

The Nevada Supreme Court is a court of review. This means that, like most appellate courts, it does not hear testimony or substitute its own view of the facts of the case. Its job is to accept the testimony given in the lower courts and determine if any legal mistakes were made, such as improper admission of evidence or erroneous legal conclusion.

In this case, the primary issues were whether or not the District Court made a mistake in reaching its conclusion that the casino had the legal authority to confiscate the chips, and whether Chen had committed fraud in acquiring the chips.

Chen’s contentions are contained in the brief which his attorney (John Hawley) filed with the Nevada Supreme Court. They took the position that no law or administrative rule gave a casino the legal right to seize and confiscate chips in this manner, and pointed out that Agent Vidano agreed that there was no such statute or regulation to authorize impounding the chips by either the casino or by the Gaming Board.

Chen and Hawley also took the position that the profits resulted not from the use of the false passport, but rather from Chen’s legal blackjack play according to the rules set by the Monte Carlo. Finally, they pointed out that a CTR is not a prerequisite to playing blackjack.

The Casino’s Side of the Case on the Legality of Card Counting

In the brief filed by the Monte Carlo, the casino framed the issues in different and perhaps chilling terms.

The casino stated that the issues were: “Whether a gambler can present false identification under a false name in order to play blackjack? and Does the Nevada State Gaming Control Board have the authority to use common law principles to protect the integrity of gaming in Nevada?”

If the Nevada Supreme Court had ruled in the casino’s favor on the first issue, casinos would be allowed to compel legal identification from any player.

If the Court had adopted the casino’s argument in the second issue, it would be fraud to give the casino a false identification, allowing for the seizure of profits after detecting a fake ID.

In the absence of a statute or rule authorizing confiscation of chips, the Monte Carlo was asking the Court to rule that the commission of common law fraud gave the casino such authority.

The casino’s choice of words in its brief is interesting. For instance, the Monte Carlo claimed that Chen “is a self-admitted card counter.” (What a humiliating admission to make!)

The Monte Carlo then describes his play as “he would observe a blackjack game for a few minutes, then begin to play and bet heavily and win several hands in a row…This style of play is consistent with the techniques employed by card counters.” (If only it was that easy!)

Finally, the Monte Carlo would characterize Chen’s winnings as unjust enrichment because of the use of the false passport.The casino made its case by claiming that the commission of fraud would allow for confiscation even without a specific statute or rule, and that Chen’s actions constituted fraud.

The elements of fraud are discussed in the next section. The Monte Carlo’s brief ends by asking that the Nevada Supreme Court “send a message to casino patrons that the use of any type of fake identification when engaging in legal wagers will not be condoned.”

The Decision: Why Fraud Was Not Proven

While this case was pending, I feared that it had the potential to be the most catastrophic court finding ever for card counters.

That is because if this decision had gone the other way, it had the potential to allow the casino to seize the profits of a card counter using an alias but to let the player lose at his own risk. In other words, the casino could let that counter play; if he won, the casino would seize the chips he had won. If he lost, the casino would certainly not return any money to him. There would be no risk to the casino.

Conceivably, it might even apply to players who had been previously backed off under one name, played later under a different name, but never even used false identification.

It was with a great deal of trepidation that I awaited the decision in this case. The court noted that to establish fraud, the Monte Carlo had to show that (a) Chen provided a false representation of a material fact, which he knew to be false; (b) that Chen intended the Monte Carlo to rely on the misrepresentation; (c) that the that the Monte Carlo detrimentally relied on the misrepresentation; and (d) that the misrepresentation proximately caused damages.

It is pretty clear that Chen in producing the fake passport, provided a false representation of a fact which he knew to be false; that representation was material when made in that it helped provide him the opportunity to play. It can easily be inferred that Chen intended that the Monte Carlo relied on that misrepresentation. Thus, as the court found, the Monte Carlo successfully proved the elements in (a) and (b).

But the court found that the Monte Carlo did not prove element (c), that the casino detrimentally relied on the misrepresentation. The identification requirement was to comply with Regulation 6A dealing with the government requirement of cash transaction reports; the identification requirement was not a prerequisite to the purchase of chips.

In addition, the casino had no policy instructing casino employees to cross-check the player’s id with a list of counters who might not be allowed to play. If the casino had such a policy, and had taken that step in this case, then element (c) would have been proved, according to the court.

The most important element in this case was (d), and the court perceptively found that the false passport was not the proximate cause of Chen’s winnings. The court stated, “The false identification allowed Chen to receive $44,000 in chips, but it did not cause Chen to win. Thus, we hold that the Gaming Control Board’s determination that Chen committed fraud is contrary to law because the Monte Carlo did not establish all of the elements of fraud.”

Other Observations of the Case on the Legality of Card Counting

The issue of the legality of tendering a false identification was not before the court, and accordingly, the decision does not deal with that issue.

Instead, the court was deciding whether the seizure of the chips was proper or not.

No police agency brought a criminal charge dealing with the false identification, and the court did not discuss that aspect. It would be wrong for a player to conclude from this decision that the use of false identification is legal just because no charges were brought.

It is important to note that since March 9 when the decision came out, Hell has not frozen over, and there have been no sightings of flying cows. Both of these phenomena had been predicted to occur before the Nevada Supreme Court would ever rule in favor of a card counter, but the predictions were wrong.

Additionally, this case was not a slam dunk for the player, in that the casino came close to establishing the legal elements of fraud. But a different decision may have even been detrimental to Nevada casinos, because it could have given the appearance that Nevada games are rigged in favor of the casino, an image that would have been far more costly to the casinos than the $44,000 which was at issue.

In any event, a player-friendly decision from the Nevada court system is worthy of recognition.

Finally, a different decision in this case could have given semi-official status to the Griffin book. If the use of an identity different from that which was in the Griffin book had been found to be fraudulent, then Griffin book entries would gain the imprimatur of law enforcement to the point where it would be considered fraud to give identification different from that in a Griffin book, regardless of Griffin’s accuracy. This might have been a longshot, but it was not impossible that a court would so find.

Implicit in the decision is that the legality of counting cards is again recognized. It’s not that there was any question as to that issue, but it’s reassuring to see that reaffirmed.

Three justices of the Nevada Supreme Court recused themselves from the case; this means that they did not participate. Three justices joined in the decision.

The final justice (Maupin) disagreed with the decision, and wrote that “neither card counting nor the use of a legal subterfuge such as a disguise to gain access to this table game is illegal under Nevada law. I conclude, however, that the misrepresentation here, the use of a fraudulent passport for identification, was not a legal subterfuge and enabled [Chen] access to high stakes play for the purpose of frustrating legitimate attempts by [Monte Carlo] to prevent this from occurring.” ♠

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General Blackjack

Here We Go Again . . .
by Arnold Snyder

The Key to Success as a Gambler (read me first)
by Arnold Snyder

The World’s Foremost Blackjack Authority
by Arnold Snyder

The House Edge at Blackjack
by Arnold Snyder

Blackjack Reality vs Blackjack Hype
by Arnold Snyder

Graduating from Red Chips to Green
by Barfarkel

Four Simultaneous Blackjacks
by Arnold Snyder

Exploiting Dealer Errors
by ETFan

Losing Money on “Good” Rules?
by Arnold Snyder

Disappearing Spots at the Blackjack Table
by Arnold Snyder

Toking Guidelines
by Arnold Snyder

Blackjack Routes of Las Vegas
by G.K. Schroeder

Accommodations in Las Vegas
by G.K. Schroeder

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A Look at Arnold Snyder’s Radical Blackjack

Arnold Snyder is one of the initial seven members inducted into the Blackjack Hall of Fame. His book, Radical Blackjack, published by Huntington Press, has been in the works for years. I’ve heard many of the stories in it from Arnold himself, but I finally got to read it and there were lot of new things.

I’m not going to give all of Snyder’s arguments as spoiler alerts. But I will touch on what he discusses. If this is something you are interested in, get the book. My goal is to give you enough information for you to decide whether the book has value for you.

  1. When is it smart to double on a hard 12?
  2. When is it smart to insure for less than half your bet?
  3. What are the main features of loss rebates and how do you figure out how much you should win or lose before you stop?
Continue reading A Look at Arnold Snyder’s Radical Blackjack
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Twenty-First Annual Blackjack Ball

Recently, at some mysterious location in greater Las Vegas, almost 100 of the world’s best blackjack players and other gaming professionals, along with dates for some of the guests, met for the Twenty-First Annual Blackjack Ball. I’m always grateful that host Max Rubin allows one video poker pro to attend, and this year Bonnie was allowed to be there as well.

In addition to being invited and accepting the invitation early enough to get one of the coveted seats, guests are required to bring one bottle of premium champagne — preferably comped. This year getting two comped bottles wasn’t possible for me, so I went to Lee’s Discount Liquor Store and forked over $340 for two bottles of Dom. More than I usually spend for an evening out, but I was NOT going to miss the ball, especially the 21st.

There is pretty tight security surrounding the event — both because there is a significant amount of money in the pockets of the attendees, but also because there are only so many seats. If extra people get admitted, somebody is going to have to stand up. Some guy named Phil Ivey and his date crashed the party. Seems this guy plays a little poker. These gate-crashers were allowed to stay and, in fact, found seats right up front.

Guest speaker was Professor Edward O. Thorp, whose seminal Beat the Dealer was the book that allowed the career of “blackjack professional” to exist and whose equally seminal Beat the Market basically created the profession of Wall Street quants. Each gambling professional at the ball received an autographed copy of A Man for All Markets, Thorp’s newly released autobiography. Professor Thorp referred to himself as a pebble thrown into a lake, whose ripples became a tidal wave. A video of Dr. Thorp’s speech was posted by Richard Munchkin on January 31 at gamblingwithanedge.com.

There was a musical duet by Megan Riordan, who happens to be Max Rubin’s daughter and starred in the Dublin production of Once: The Musical and Blackjack Hall of Fame member Darryl Purpose. I wasn’t familiar with the haunting and lovely Academy Award winning song, “Falling Slowly,” but Bonnie and I had worn dance shoes “in case” such a moment occurred. We had scoped out the best nearby dance floor (off to the side so it wouldn’t interfere with the performance) and we danced our quiet two step while Megan and Darryl did their rendition. It added to our night without subtracting from anybody else’s.

One feature of the Blackjack Ball each year is the induction of a new member into the Blackjack Hall of Fame. This year’s winner, Don Johnson, arguably the most famous blackjack player in the world after his well-publicized $15 million win in Atlantic City, is both highly qualified and very popular. It could be argued that he stacked the ballot box, so to speak. Both this year and last, Johnson donated HUGE bottles of champagne to the ball for the winners. This year’s winner of the blackjack ball competition, who I will keep secret for a few more paragraphs (but you have heard of him), says the bottle was the Nebuchadnezzar size, containing 15 liters of the bubbly.

The ball is primarily about like-minded folks who don’t get to see each other that often, getting together and partying. They have a skills competition, preceded by an “impossible” test to get the final table number of contestants down to five. I call it impossible, but there is significant correlation between who ends up at the final table every year. This year Anthony Curtis made it there for something like the seventh time out of the 21 balls and two guys who were on the MIT Blackjack team (John Chang and Andy Bloch) also made it back to the final table. I made it to the final five one year — kind of like a Slumdog Millionaire situation where I just happened to know the questions asked that year. This year it took 12 correct answers out of 21 and I only got nine correct. That might sound close, but there were probably 40 others in the competition with nine, 10, or 11 correct. I was definitely an also ran.

Although I have been known to submit questions to Max for the ball, and I was really proud of my question this year, Max decided not to run it. There was one video poker question submitted by somebody else. I’m glad I got it correct because it would be embarrassing for me to miss the only video poker question. Let’s see how you’d do:

At the Casino Snoqualmie, you are playing Double Double Bonus and are dealt 9TJQA, all of the same suit. Choose your best play from these five choices:

  1. Hold all five cards for a flush
  2. Throw the A away and draw to an open-ended straight flush
  3. Throw the 9 away and draw to a royal flush
  4. Throw all five cards away
  5. It doesn’t matter what you do. Your EV is the same whatever play you make.

I’m pretty sure all of my readers know the right play in Nevada would be “c.” Going for the royal is much the better play when the game is dealt fairly. But if you know that Snoqualmie is in the State of Washington and games there are rigged by the state, you have a chance to come up with the correct answer of “e.”

One of the rules of the quiz was that you had to take it in ink and if there were any double answers, blanks, or scratch-outs, you were automatically disqualified. I was grading the test sheet of someone whom I didn’t know before the ball, a young man who calls himself Loco. He got 12 correct, which would put him at the final table, but there was a scratch-out. The scratch-out, however, was at least contributed to by Max misreading the question.

Max had a question regarding who said, “Sentence first — verdict afterwards.” Was it Joseph Stalin, the Queen of Hearts, or Attorney General nominee Jeffrey Sessions in his confirmation hearing? Unfortunately, Max said Robert Sessions, not Jeffrey Sessions. Loco, who guessed it was Sessions (as did I — we were both wrong because the correct answer comes from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland) wrote down “Robert Sessions” and then crossed out the “Robert” when Max corrected the question.

There was no debate that Loco missed that question — but should he be disqualified for Max’s unintentional misreading? Other than briefly meeting Loco an hour previously, I didn’t know him from Adam and had not bet on any player winning. Still, I thought that applying the “no scratch out” rule in this case wasn’t fair and took it up front for Max and his assistants to make an official ruling. It was decided to not penalize Loco for this scratch out and he was in the final five, along with the three players I’ve already named and a player named David Spence. I had seen David at an earlier ball but had never met him.

There were four questions at the final table, each question eliminating one player. The first player out doesn’t get any of the prize pool, but the approximately $14,400 pool is shared among the other four, as $7,200, $3,600, $2,160, and $1,440. That prize pool was generated by everybody anteing $20 at the door and then bidding on who they thought was going to win. My apologies to Munchkin, who has “owned” me for a couple of balls and has yet to receive any return on his investment.

The first and last questions were both, “How fast can you count cards accurately?” For the first test, each player was given a well-shuffled single deck and was asked what counting system he used. If he used the Hi-Lo system, the cards 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are considered low; cards 7, 8, and 9 are considered neutral; and T, J, Q, K, A are considered high. Some players used this, some didn’t, but whatever count you used had to be announced up front. Max then removed one card from each deck and set it face down on the felt in front of the deck.

Players were told to turn the deck over and start counting — slamming the deck down on the table when they were finished. When asked in order from slowest to fastest, the player needed to tell whether the card removed by Max was high, low, or neutral. First guy wrong was out. If everybody got it correct, the slowest guy was out. From fastest to slowest, the order of finish was John Chang, Anthony Curtis, David Spence, Andy Bloch, and Loco. All players correctly identified the missing card, so Loco was eliminated.

The second test was that you were given 10 seconds to estimate and write down the number of cards in a discard tray. Max put out 135 cards. Anthony estimated 136. David 131, and both Andy and John 124. They basically cut cards to see who stayed on, but with a twist for blackjack professionals. Max let them examine a well-shuffled single deck for about 15 seconds. Max then lightly riffled the cards once and let them use a cut card to cut to, hopefully, a high card. John cut to a deuce, effectively eliminating himself. Although Andy could have also cut a deuce, ending up in a tie which would require a re-cut, Andy cut to a ten and John was out.

The third test was to cut exactly 22 cards from the bottom of a single deck in less than ten seconds. Anthony missed by one, David by two, and Andy by three. So, Andy was eliminated and we were down to two players, David Spence and Anthony Curtis. Since I’ve already told you that you’ve heard of the winner, and David is not that well known to my readers, the actual winner won’t be a big surprise. But there was some drama still to unfold.

The last test was similar to the first, except this time it was a double deck and also, it only mattered what the faster counter said. That is, if the faster guy answered correctly, he was the 2017 Grosjean Cup for the World’s Best Blackjack Player winner. If he answered incorrectly, the slower guy was in.

I was standing at Max’s right shoulder throughout the competition — taking notes for this column and an upcoming radio show. As David and Anthony raced through the double decks, it appeared to be very close. As they slammed down their cards at the end signifying they were through, for me it was actually too close to call. Instant replay would have been useful! Max wasn’t sure either so he asked the crowd. The consensus was that David was first. Anthony didn’t dispute this, so it became official that David was the faster one.

Unfortunately for David, he miscounted. He said it was a neutral card removed (7, 8, or 9) and it turned out to be low. So, Anthony Curtis was our winner! I told Anthony that it didn’t affect whether he won or not, and he wasn’t required to answer, but did he think the removed card was high, low, or neutral?

Anthony had the confidence to announce that the removed card was low. We turned it over. We’ll tell you whether he was correct or not on the February 9, 2017 podcast of Gambling with an Edge, which will be all about the Blackjack Ball. Richard and I will be joined by Max, Anthony, and newest Blackjack Hall of Fame member Don Johnson. Should be fun!

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Sydney Phillips, Come Play Blackjack!

Sydney Phillips, a 7th-grader at St. Theresa’s private Catholic school in New Jersey, wanted to play on the boys basketball team after the girls team was discontinued. After the school said no, Sydney’s dad sued. So the school just expelled Sydney, and her sister, too, via a snotty letter! Unfair! Am I the only one whose blood is boiling right now? Sydney, if you need a summer job in six years, look us up! Continue reading Sydney Phillips, Come Play Blackjack!

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More than Six and a Half Little Words

I recently read a blog by James Grosjean titled Six and a Half Little Words. It reminded me of an incident in my own life. I was debating whether to respond to his blog or to post it as a separate column several weeks later. It turned out to be quite a bit different from Grosjean’s original post so I’m publishing it separately. If you read the original, you’ll see where my title comes from.

I moved to Vegas in 1993 to be blackjack player. In addition to playing a lot of promotions (such as “Play 4 hours for $10 a hand and receive a free buffet, one free hotel night, and $60 in some kind of promotional chips”), I would obtain and cash numerous coupons — lots and lots of coupons — for a number of games.

I had a girlfriend (I called her Ginnie in my Million Dollar Video Poker autobiography and there’s no need to invent a new name now) and between us we’d earn more than $500 weekly from these coupons — in addition to whatever we could make with the blackjack and other promotions. It was subsistence living, but as far as I was concerned, I was “making it in Las Vegas.”

One of the myriad of tricks I learned doing this was that in a single deck game, if a dealer shows an ace on the first hand and you’re playing two hands (either by yourself or one each with a partner), and if all four cards you see in your hands are non-tens, then it’s correct to take insurance.

Eventually Ginnie left and I started seeing Shirley — to whom I would end up being married from 1997 until 2014. In 1996 I had a couple of $10-for-$5 match play coupons at a “one coupon per person per day” single deck place. Shirley didn’t know the first thing about playing blackjack intelligently, so I told her to sit next to me and I would tell her what to do. She picked up her cards with two hands, of course, and bristled a bit when the dealer told her one hand only.

The dealer dealt himself an ace. In my hand I saw a four and a five and looked over at Shirley’s hand. If she had no face cards, I would have asked about insurance.

(The rule I cite is correct when there are no match play coupons in effect. I used the same rule, right or wrong, when I had a coupon. Should they wish, others can address how the variations of rules on match play coupons affects this insurance bet.)

But Shirley was holding her cards close to her chest, preventing me from obtaining the information I needed to make the correct decision.

“Show me your cards! Now!” I whispered urgently.

“No! It’s against the rules to show anybody your cards,” she whispered back. It didn’t seem to matter to her that we were the only players at the table and while the money being wagered wasn’t officially “community property” bankroll yet, clearly it was the next best thing.

“SHOW ME YOUR CARDS!”

Intimidated, she did — showing me a jack nine. We didn’t take insurance and the dealer flipped over a queen, sweeping our nickels and coupons off the table. No big deal to me. You lose hands all the time at blackjack (or at video poker, for that matter). She was upset that I lost my money and I had raised my voice to her.

We had a discussion very shortly afterwards about what it means to be partners…at the gaming table and in life. First of all, whatever rules she learned about card playing with her sisters as a child had no bearing now. And second, for better or worse, when it came to figuring out the strategies to beat the casinos, I was going to be the boss. I was no table games expert by any means, but when the choice was between the two of us, I was light years ahead of her. I was the best we had.

We got through that moment — and it was a good partnership for a long time. But it didn’t have to be that way. That moment could have ended up being a show stopper had she not been willing to accept a “my way or the highway” inflexibility when it came to gambling decisions — including sometimes giving her an order that had to be executed IMMEDIATELY, without discussion until afterwards. She had to be able to accept that losing one hand was just a very minor bump in the road. If she was going to mourn and grieve over every losing session, I wanted no part of that. Finally, she had to believe that I could really win against the house — and I had to prove that again and again.

Clearly I’m not the best guy to be giving marital and relationship advice. Whatever things I think I know in that area have worked well some of the time, but other times not so much. Most of us prefer our experts to have a better batting average than I can boast. I know I do

At the same time, after Shirley and I split and I began seeing Bonnie, I had essentially the same discussion with Bonnie — albeit it “out of the blue” and not triggered by a specific incident. Had Bonnie not been able to agree that in this area of life I was going to be the boss, we would never have gone forward.

For many of my readers, it’s WAY too late to have this discussion before you’ve become serious romantically — because you’re already connected. Some of you have been married for 20 years or more. For others, it’s not so clear which one of you is the gambling expert. Many of you can’t present a convincing argument that you’ve been a winning player over time. And for most, success at gambling is a smaller part of your life than it is mine. All I can do is to share what works for me — and let you decide if there are lessons that you can apply to your life. Clearly, different readers will come to different conclusions and nobody is arguing that one size fits all here.

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I Think My Card Might be Poisoned: What Now?

After getting heat hitting a repeat target, my teammate Bullet sometimes says, “I’ve gotta go in there and find out if my player’s card is good.” Why? Why?? Why???

No! No!! No!!! First of all, do you really even need to know the answer to the question? Continue reading I Think My Card Might be Poisoned: What Now?