aegis21

Ok First let me start with my excuses.... lol My wife and I went down to Foxwoods for an overnight fun/relax get away. We spent time shopping at the new outlet stores, where she picked out a coach purse and I wound up surprising her for our up coming anniversary. So my mind wasn't focused as it usually is on blackjack. I wound up losing my first two games which hasn't happened in a long time. (talking years) Anyway, I also lost more than I should have, due to not testing the waters. So I played slots with the misses and of course found the only machines in the casino that did not hit once in 26 spins! Sheesh, we were supposed to have fun! Well my wife was hitting well on almost every machine and she had a HUGE grin at the nights end. I usually fund her slot play from blackjack winnings but that was not the case this trip. Now after a great dinner at cedars steakhouse and a good nights sleep, I was ready to check out the one dollar blackjack games in the fox tower. I had seen them the prior day but since we were in the middle of outlet shopping it kinda of left my mind. However the next morning refreshed and alert I went over to the fox tower (which is quite the walk through the outlet center) and found the couple of one (1) dollar blackjack games. There was one guy playing at this table and I asked the dealer what rules were different for this game. she said any bet below $10.00 you had to put up a quarter (25 cents) in a circle that the house took whether you won or lost the bet. In fact they take it after your bet but before they deal. I promptly bought in and as I was getting chips another guy sits down and buys in. The original player leaves, saying he liked to play this game head to head. He was up a couple of hundred dollars. (not bad for a dollar game) I took the first base position and started to play. Well it was almost a perfect first base game, or maybe it was a perfect first base game. The minimum bet was one dollar and max was 500.00 dollars! I started and stayed with a dollar small bet and started with a green as my big bet. On the first two shoes I did not lose a single high bet! In fact the player told me I should always play the green chips, because when ever I play that color I ALWAYS get either twenty or twenty one! The third shoe saw me finally lose a high bet, however I did win 8 out of ten. I quit after the third shoe, I recovered from the prior days stupidity and the game started getting players looking and finally entering. I did not want to take a great comeback and push it as I did the day before. Well, this is an opportunity that is begging to be exploited. I do not know how long they will keep the 1 to 500 spread. I know people play first with no rent or a 1 to 5 spread. However, in the morning time, with new cards around 8am it presents itself as a good opportunity. I wish I had more free time to go back a couple of more mornings, however I am two hours away and that is an early start for me. Good Luck All!

I'm going to Foxwoods tomorrow and Tuesday to play some blackjack. Even tho they use six or eight decks, the games there have been extremely beatable. I'll post results later this week.

Spent a couple nights at the casino and could not pass by the blackjack games. I like playing blackjack and will always test those games and if they are tough then it is to the bac games. Well I didn't lose a blackjack game, so I never played a bac game. I looked at some tote boards and they were consistent games. High disparity from those that I checked, if threes were missing they never showed up, same with fours and twos. This was from about a dozen totes over two nights. Well I am back home and back to work... Sorry I don't have more info John

Hi Ellis, I'm in Milwaukee killing the blackjack tables, but I'll give sap /reverse sap a whirl one night and let you know how it went. John

If the cards are clumped to a point that you have to play dealer strategy, well you will last the longest at the table but it would be tough to beat. There are always other tables and other games or days to play when the clumpling isn't that severe. Look how easy the 3rd base game was, I know table selection is a pain, but losing is painful! I play dealer stategy only in sections of lows, but also safe in sections of high cards and basic when it is random. Once you get the flow of the game it will either be either a tough game or an easy game. I try to get out of tough games with a small win or small loss. Just my style

Mosun is actually 10 miles closer, I live in central Ct. LOL

I always go after the young females, but when it comes to blackjack, a sloppy shuffling dealer is better for basic strategy and NBJ third base. And ALWAYS cut the shoe on the thin side when you are in a good game. This applies to most hand shuffled games. I'll see if Foxwoods has machine shuffled tables and see if this holds true. Can anyone collaborate or found the opposite??? Thanks John

This no brainer for a casino, is for a casino that either doesn't have brains or knows it will win. Picture This - -I can imagine 6000 players, playing one game, and they have some winners and some losers like most casino floors have (ten losing tables 7players time 10 = 70 losers, and three winning tables 7 players times 3 tables = 21 winning players) Ok now the evening winds down and most games close except one, that stays open and players kill it! You standby and watch the total domination of the dealer take place and wished there were more seats! Ok, what happened? casino lost some money without other tables making it back. When casinos have several tables open they are actually hedging their bets, casinos have survived by not having all their eggs in one basket. If 6000 players get in sync with the game and start killing the casino, how will the casino survive? "All in...." is the term that comes to mind. Have you ever heard a casino say "all in"? Nope, just gamblers that eventually lose! Are the casinos that dumb, nope.... then they must know they can't lose, EVER! For that to happen, the game odds and standard deviation go out the cheating window. To know you are going to win, you have to have rigged the game! Just sayin............

Hi All, I do not sell anything on this or any other forum, (hopefully you can see I am not biased) no pun intended. Casinos do not play a game, they do not gamble, they therefore do not cheat. The casinos provide entertainment and will charge what the market will bear for that entertainment. I am not saying this, the casinos say this point blank. They present an entertainment product that they control the admission price. They are run by major corporations which have great marketing and totally control the cost of that entertainment. They control the price you pay for this entertainment by presenting non-random games. They spend lots of money to present these games and as ANY corporate executive will tell you, what ever they spend, there is a an expected ROI return on investment! How do you have an expected ROI above the odds of the game, if the game is random? If you think differently, or question what I have written here, just read the legal transcripts from the Atlantic City court proceedings about banning card counters. The casino claimed they weren't paying for their entertainment, plain and simple. So, casinos do not cheat! They raise the price of entertainment. ok off the soap box and onto winning. John

Although not active lately on the forum, I do keep up with most of the posts. Reading through these posts, many post shoe results and ask excellent questions on playing those shoes. Would it be too time consuming to have an area set up for each casino and record the time of day, new cards, different tables? I understand that places like Vegas with a multitude of casinos may not lend it self to accruing enough data to make some casino judgements. But, if there are favorite casinos (usually casinos with a large bac table count), like Gold Coast, Palace Station that will get lots of data. We could use this data to track the games the casino is dealing, OTB4L, F2/F3, S40 etc. Then we will have more than just an indication when we see a shoe in that casino that has a history of S40 to feel comfortable to jump right in and know what to test the water with... A lot of time is spent on watching shoes, tote boards (when available) and either opportunities go by or people start too early. I think a casino signature for that time of year, that day of week, that time of day, would be extremely valuable. This info by itself would be worth joining the forum to obtain. Time is money and the more time you spend to watch games, log results and find out what works, the less time you have to play and win! It would be interesting to watch and see if casinos rotate the game they present at different times of the year, or different times of the day. They are smart enough to make a 50/50 game pay 26%, I am sure they do not present a fixed target and allow them selves to be hit at any one time. But they have all these MBA's running the games and they tend to watch what works (track metrics and such) and when it works, then they can't resist making themselves look good and maximizing profits accordingly. Not sure on the particulars at this point, just throwing this out there for comment. If you feel it should be just thrown out, I won't be offended, for sure.

A couple of years a go I went down to Foxwoods on a Monday early afternoon, took the 1 1/2 hour drive leisurely enjoying the the beginning of spring. April in Ct. is actually a pretty nice place to be and I thought taking a weekday off would give me a virtually empty casino. In fact I started to wonder if there would be enough tables open to have a choice of games. Well I arrived and could not park in the normal close parking lot, it was full! With a very quizzical look on my face I asked an attendant where was the nearest parking. The gentleman gave directions (right there was a huge clue) to an off site parking lot with shuttle service. I still was under the impression they were rebuilding there main lot and had it closed. I parked and took the shuttle bus to the casino where I found every single person that lives in Massachusetts in the building! WOW what a crowd!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I asked a slot attendant what was going on and she said it was Patriot's day and they had over two hundred buses from Mass. I went over to a little coffee shop, had a coffee and muffin, looked around and then took the shuttle back to my car and enjoyed the ride home. I got home and my wife asked why I was back so soon. I explained to her about Patriots day, the crowds and she asked if I played at all, I said nope, not a dime! I had a great deal of self satisfaction knowing I did not play the casino's game that day! Great feeling! Good Job Carlos!!!!!!!

Great Job on that game! I understand your reasons for head to head play. It helps out here if they have no mid shoe entry, there are lots of people that will table jump, even in the high stakes pit! Sheesh!

I see they shutdown Atlantic City, They were afraid we were going to return! LOL!!!!

Atlantic City Trip Report 10/20/12 thru 10/22/12 Overall it was a very successful trip. One good part of the trip was winning the first game I played. The other was spending time with old friends and meeting new ones. Having to start the trip on a Sat. Night in AC is like going to a gun fight with a pocket knife. Unless you plan extremely well and get a little lucky you will get shot down real quick. I had more luck than planning and I am always thankful for some good luck. My tendency was to jump in the same game that Ellis and Keith started playing. There were two reasons I did not, first and foremost the number of players in the game would have been at five but six spots would have been played. (one player, playing two spots) The second reason was due to my not being up to top/peak performance. See I started that day leaving Ct. @ 8am driving 3-4 hours, attending a seminar, checking into a hotel and then meeting everyone at the casino. I certainly was not at my top game for sure, so I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of Ellis, Keith and the rest of the casino. After I saw Keith and Ellis doing ok at that table I scouted the area and found a decent game for a firstbase try. I bought in for one pile of chips and started playing. (normally a foolish move on my part) Like I said, I got lucky with that game, it went back and forth for a shoe and a half and then it went to head to head. That was good for me for two reasons, one it kept me on my toes and my adrenalin kicked in to play head to head. It was a good head to head game and I almost made a pile of chips in one shoe. This was a no mid shoe entry game and I was able to play out that shoe head to head. At the end of that shoe two players entered the game. At this point I realized my limitations and with Keith saw I was doing well and jumped in the game, an always welcome addition. He saw me make two mistakes and I decided to end that game up one pile. Sorry for the mistakes Keith.... Although one I had a reason to make, tens were following aces almost 90% of the time in that game. I thought that was the case and stopped hitting when I got an ace for a total of 14. Of course the next card made the dealer hand and I would have made a pat hand and broke the dealer. So it was high time to leave that game. Now I had a buy in for the next day supplied by the casino! Much more relaxed way to play the game on their money instead of my money! Next day I called Keith and Ellis to meet up for breakfast and some play, Keith did not answer his phone so I decided to walk the boardwalk on a beautiful sunny day. I would of course stop in a casino and check out the pits and mentally record which ones were open and which were closed. I though I may use this info later to find games with new cards. It was now about 10am and I was at the tropicana and walked into a pit that looked like it just opened. One table at the end was still doing card prep. I sat down on a corner table and asked the dealer how long the game was opened and how did people do? She nicely replied that it was open for an hour and it wasn't a bad game. I asked why no one was playing and she said three people started the game and left breaking even. So I decided to give it a try myself, I bought in for a pile and commenced to play head to head. The game wasn't particuarly good but not bad either, I would go up a couple of chips and then even for almost two shoes. I then started to recognize that I wasn't losing three hands in a row and installed a neg. prog. to my firstbase head to head strategy. This worked out quite well and I was up a pile and a half in the next shoe. At the end of that shoe two players got into the game and played safe strategy with lows running and dealer strategy when highs were running. This not only had them losing several hands in a row, it started the dealer on a small non breaking streak. I decided it was lunch time and I would leave this game up one pile of chips. Not the big win I was thinking about two shoes ago but still a win. Most of the trip went along this path as I am a conservative player normally and the conditions lent themselves to a hit and run style. The couple of shoes I did lose, I never had a chance. Using the same table selcetion and strategy decisions (first or third) I had a difficult time winning any hands in those games. The games I won, usually had areas that were very easy to play/win. I only won one game that was a real struggle... That sums up my trip to AC this past weekend, if Sandy wasn't so threatening I would have made a trip to foxwoods or Mo-sun this weekend. Good Luck All John

It was great meeting everyone who attended the seminar. I am still in AC and so far doing very well at the tables. I'll give a full report when I get back home wed. John