Mad Dog on Blackjack

[Guest CarlosM]

I know for a fact that you can play just the insurance method alone from table to table on a crowded Friday or Saturday night. Ellis, what was your record again for the number of hours straight you played just this method alone and kept on winning until you were told to leave because of perfect insurance play for so many hours? If I remember, you didn't even play a spot or any hands, just insuring the whole table?

[ECD]

Well, you haven't got it quite right but Close. While I have done that on occasion when it was too crowded to play that isn't how I got ejected. First, recognize that the more crowded the casino is, the more the cards are clumped and the more the cards are clumped the more accurate your insurance bets will be and the higher your win rate will be on insurance bets. In fact, as the cards clump more and more, particularly on a Friday or Saturday night, there comes a point where you are much better off to not play but just back bet insurance bets over somebody's shoulder. While you only need to win a third of your insurance bets, on such nights you can easily win 80 - 90% of them or more. When you know how, it is easily the best bet in the casino by a mile and puts you in a can't lose situation. At a $10 table the dealer should get an Ace up 1 out of 13 hands but in a clumped game, and the $10 games will be clumped the most, you will find the dealer getting an ace up 1 out of 10 or more due to the cycle bias caused by basic strategy. While normally you would find yourself only betting about a third of those Aces, on a crowded clumped night, it will be closer to half. You make up for your scarcity of bets by betting insurance on all 7 hands. Yeah, you'll lose now and then but when you win, you get paid 2 to 1.

Yeah, every BJ book but mine tells you never insure. Its a good thing those guys can write books because they certainly can't play BJ.

But the incident you are referring to occurred at the Claridge, AC. I hd been playing the same $25 table for nealy 5 hours when the dealer called the pit boss over right after I successfully insured yet again. She said this guy can see my hole card! He's been here over four hours and hasn't made a mistake on insurance. Every time I have the ten he's got insurance up and everytime I don't he doesn't. The pit boss said that's impossible! He came around behind me and placed his chin right on my right shoulder and told the dealer to deal. Sure enough she dealt herself an Ace. The conditions were right so I insurred the whole table. She turned over a BJ! He says, I don't know how you are doing it but buddy you're out of here. Well, The Claridge is GONE but I'm still here and still insurring in spite of what all the books say. What do they know? If the books were right, the casinos would have gone broke a long time ago.