Team Play NBJ

[Keith Smith]

Let's get our team play thread going here please.

[Guest CarlosM]

Keith. I know you have a lot of actual experience with NBJ team play. What is usualy the optimum team player number? In your experience, did you find team play better in clumped games, heavily clumped games, or near random/random games?

C

[ruswess]

Most of the team play that I have read or heard about was done by card counters. I don't believe a lot of the winning stories that they have told about. There may be a better way than card counting.

IMHO some of the team must be looking for opportunities for team play. Some of the team members would play more often than others and for higher stakes. The team would have to spend many hours together studying their strategy and learning how to identify possible winning games. They will need a large bankroll, a common understanding of the team strategy, and be able to trust each other. Every team member needs to be free to go to a certain casino town at the same time. These requirements may be insurmountable.

You cannot make enough money in small games. I think the best opportunity for finding winning games and winning the required big money is in the high roller games.

Cover is extreamely important.

What else?

[Keith Smith]

Most of the team play that we did was in the early 90's. We did have seminars and practice sessions in Gansavoort NY before we went. Our biggest team consisted of Ron D, Ellis, Suzanne L, and myself. Ironically Russ, one of the most successful games we played was in Central City casino where we in one morning session we removed every chip they had and the casino manager called two or three times for a refill. We were forced to play a spread of $2-$5 and still killed them. After a shoe or two we had the dealer breakng so much it was truly unbelieveable.

The greatest and higest stakes game team play was Harvey Garrison, Ellis, Michael Blacklock from NY and myself. We hit Trump Plaza one night on a quarter game. HArvey was one of the best first base players and had a sense of when to shove out a max bet. He hit two table Max blackjack's in a row, both bets if I remember correctly were 5K or 10k to be honest I can't remember which, while we all were playing some sort of negative progression on other spots. I have never saw a floor person get fluster but we owned the table.

I played extensively with Kenny Forbes, Ron and Charlie on Monday nights at the TAj in the 90's I will look up and scan some of the case logs and notes we wrote to Jerry Patterson concerning the play . We would play to a stop win of 1000 for the team. It was honestly quite easy at times.

Of course Ellis and myself played more together than anyone. We would play partners play quite a bit. We would change off from first to third and vis versa. We have countless Claridge stories, Foxwoods etc . We used to play with some oriental players there that never uttered a word of English but man they were good. They were excellent clump players and read hole cards so they didn't screw up the dealers break cards etc.

When Ellis and I played alot together we saw the impossible happen all the time with respect to casino counter measures. I have never experienced more dealers knocking over cards on shuffles in my life. It was almost comical after a good shoe, we could anticipate it. Drinks spilled and any horse shit they could pull to either change the deck or get more players in the game. The best one was when they turn a $50 game to a nickel game once to get more players in it. They knew I hated speed dealers and as soon as we would get ahead they would insert a speed dealer many times. Ellis like 'em.

I think that team play is good and a great way to play. You don't have to make it a formal if you know who you are playing with. Doesn't have to be a major ordeal simply try a table together. The biggest thing is knowing how your partner is going to play so you don't screw up his hit card. If i was playing first base, I knew with a 90% accuracy how Ellis was going to play his hand. In addition it was important to anticipate how anyone else at the table would probably play their hand. I would then base my decision on that and what I thought the dealer had etc.

We tried a flat bet sacrifice player with Ron and Charlie a few times with them at first. It was obvious colusion though and the floor person would stand next to me when we tried. Ron & Charlie were betting $100 and I was playing flat nickels at third. I used to love the attention and being able to mess with them. The problem was it was hard to get a 5 player game as the nickel tables fill up, In addition the shit I got at third base was insane. I am usually thick skinned but it was almost unbearable. It was fun trying though and prolly would work well at high stakes. Of course I was hitting 19 and twenty, splitting 10s in a low card clump and anything insane I needed to do to pull low cards tos et up the first base first 10 or to break the dealer. We needed to investigate further playing spread etc. You have to stop the dealer other wise they go to their hand if I was pat. I mean spltting Queen/Ten agains a Ten up and stuff was really a wild time. hahahha. The odd thing was that the sacrifice player plays close to even. I would like to really investigate this strategy further.

[Guest acfreak]

Is there anymore information you can share with respect to team play in Atlantic City. I would be interested in learning more form the small sampling of data you have provided. Do yu have it documented anywhere on how to play teams etc..

[ruswess]

“The odd thing was that the sacrifice player plays close to even. I would like to really investigate this strategy further.â€

***************

I agree that it is a lot of fun and agree about the “Coma Cozy†player. It seems that any odd plays he/she does to change the rhythm of the shoe will cause the dealer to lose. In my experience it only works for a little while. The cards seem to always figure out what you are doing and they rearrange themselves to beat you after a while.

[ECD]

Keith's post about the old days brings back a lot of memories. Keith, that casino was in Colorado wasn't it? I remember that after the third dealer tray refill the owner came rushing over and demanded to know what we were doing. I sais: it's easy, we can see the hole card reflected in the dealer's fingernail polish. He invited us all to lunch. That was cheaper than letting us continue playing and Ron kept trying to tip the dealer a dollar. But she wouldn't take it. Those were the best times of my life, probably all of our lives???

BTW Keith's post caused me to realize that I had my two Doctor Harvey's confused in some recent posts. I was referring to Dr. Harvey Garrison not Dr. Harvey Cohen, if, in fact, they really are two different people. Easy to do when you have two Jewish Dr. Harveys. Keith, what was the name of that other Doctor who played with us all the time? Not the Asian one but the lung disease specialist?

Anyway, Team play: Russ is right, logistics is a major problem. I think I lost ten pounds durring the whole Bahamas team play extravaganza. As my memory was refreshed I realized we had a total of 41 players. We stayed at four of the Great Houses on South Ocean Beach, own by DiviDivi On New Providence Island (Nasau), a fabulous place to stay. I also realized that we played 6 sessions not 4, with every team winning all 6 sessions. I had forgotten about the two afternoon rain sessions.

But just organizing a 4 or 5 player team presents a host of problems. First, recognize that you must time your trip to make sure you can all get on a table. In the Bahamas, we made table reservations to insure that we could get on tables and to insure the casinos had enough dealers working. Recogize that for normal teams to operate you first must avoid weekends to insure table availability. That can be a major problem for many if not most players.

Then, you need to train the team beforehand. Then there is the money arrangement problem. We split the profits right at the casino after every session and sometimes durring the session. Of course, you can't let the casino see you do this. Then you have to avoid getting called for collusion. Collusion is illegal and teams have had all their money confiscated by the Casino in the Bahamas. We came close. It is very difficult to control your players once they become jubilent with winnings. In other words you need real pros with strict rules regarding table talk and money transfers.

The easiest part is winning. Once you have players pulling lows out of the game, winning is virtually a foredrawn conclusion. It takes several shoes to set the cards up. Then you go through a winning window that can last anywhere from several shoes to all day. You need exit signals and strategy. You need a team captain that all will obey. Sometimes the shoe goes completely random and your players need to know how to react to this. Sometimes the game becomes over clumped.

You will get heat and your players need to know how to react. Chastize the third base player when he stands against basic strategy. Every body has a roll to play and they must play it right. Your sacrifice players must act and look like they never played before. Sometimes they might stand with less than 12. You've got to "cover" this "foolish" play. You need a good strategy to keep the wanderers off your table. There is a lot to it.

Basically your strategy is this: Put your big player at first base. He bets min., like everybody else until the cards turn in his favor, which they ALMOST always will. That's another thing you must deal with. Sometimes they don't. The job of all of the other players is to usurp the lows and feed highs to the dealer. This increases the dealer break rate and gives your big player a lot of first card tens. It's the other players job to help him get the second ten. Once you've got the game going the big player needs to move up to at least 5times the bet of the sac. players. And that's just for starters. Your goal is to get the big player to black while everyone else plays red. You need to know what to do if second base starts winning or any other spot.

Depending on the casino rules and the number of wanderers, sometimes its good to have some of the sac players play two hands to keep control of all the bases. At least try to get a reserve chips up on the empty chairs. We always had the third base player sit in the sixth chair instead of the seventh. Likewise for the big player at first.

Once you get everthing down pat its more fun than a barrel of monkeys and its hard to keep a straight face. But you will learn to.

[ruswess]

To qoute Ellis, "Once you get everthing down pat its more fun than a barrel of monkeys and its hard to keep a straight face."

It's not only hard to. You can't.

[Keith Smith]

Yes that was in Central City. All in all they were good sports about it. Yes it was a glorious time. We had the seminar at our Hotel, well actually it was Jerry Patterson's NBJ seminar in Denver that week. Ron and Myself were the dealers and you brought in two dealers from Minnesota I can't remember their names.

The big deal was if we could have play AC stakes would could have bought the house. If anyone still plays out there I would love to hear what its like now its been so long.

[Guest CarlosM]

Ellis, Keith, Mad Dog, Char! Tell us some of your experinces on team play and partnes play?

[Mad Dog]

My only team play was one time at Harrahs and the Mirage with Ed Goldstein. I played sac, and Ed played to my right. We did very well, but splitting the money was kind of weird for both of us.

I would not play as part of a team. I have had discussions with pit bosses about the way I play, and about the subject of barring, and one thing I hear consistently is: "...as long as you are not playing as part of a team..."

I think NBJ is just great as an individual endeavor, and do not want to risk the casino's ire with team play. I think beginners could enjoy team play without much risk, but everybody knows me where I play, and I need to respect their wishes regarding team play. In general, I try as hard as I can to get them to communicate with me about that kind of thing.