Assessing Vegas Bac Conditions - Ellis

[Guest]

16 shoes were not enough to fully asses Vegas conditions but I did get some interesting impressions:

Whenever you are playing touch games, you are playing new, "preshuffled" cards. In other words, you are playing fixed cards - some expert's idea of an unbeatable shoe. We only played 3 or 4 such games and won about half.

But you can't be assured of old cards by sticking to only the touch games. They change to new cards every chance they get - any time all the players leave after a completed shoe but also sometimes at the start of a new shoe. This is totally logical from the casino's point of view because new cards are fixed cards.

But often a table empties out mid shoe leaving a half full tote board at an empty table. And also we see half full tote boards at half full tables. These two presented the best opportunities because we could get a good read before sitting down.

Starting in the blind with new cards was pretty much suicidal because these games went totally against SAP. We quickly learned not to do that and to assume that any table with an empty tote board was new cards.

So it became a question of reading tote boards regardless if there were other players in the game or not. Once we figured this out we did OK.

Another thing to our advantage is that there were no F tables. All tables were a mixture of S40 and OTB4L. This also stands to reason since casinos do worst in F games.

Our biggest mistake was that every time we finally decided to change from 40 to OT or vice versa, we were too late. We'd have been better off to stick to one or the other.

But better yet, I think we would have been best off to anticipate change. The games tended to change about every 7 or 8 plays. So if OT did well for 7 or 8 plays, we should have changed to 40 W/O waiting for the shoe to tell us to. And vice versa. It was almost like clockwork. We did OK but I wish I had it to do over again. I think if we anticipated change we would have done a whole lot better. I'm thinking "anticipation" is the name of the game in Vegas these days. Ha, the ONE time we tried F, it was dead wrong.

[dcurllll]

Any possjbility of posting some of these vegas trip games? Thanks.

[zebra]

I totally agree with Ellis. I have never seen conditions so hard to beat. If you play at

a table where you are starting a new shoe you have to assume the cards are new and

pre-arranged (a better term than pre-shuffled.) One particular shoe where Ellis left down

8 I was going to leave as well, but I was sitting next to a student and decided to stick

around to help. After a couple of wins I decided to jump back in because the shoe was

changing. It became an OTB shoe and I wound up +8. I consider these pre-arranged cards

to be cheating by the casino and should be banned.

The Vegas trip was enjoyable and a little profitable. It was nice meeting the other players

and comparing notes and war stories. And it's always great to pick the brain of the master.

Paul

[Guest]

Any possjbility of posting some of these vegas trip games? Thanks.

Paul, that first one that started with an early 9iar would be a good one. I think that is the one you were talking about and you have the whole shoe.

[zebra]

I want to give you an example of what we were up against.

An unnamed person (Keith) told Me and Ellis that we should

play at Luxor because the shoes were very choppy and we

should be able to kill them. So we went to Luxor. It was

early afternoon and there was only one table and nobody

was playing (red flag). We started a new shoe. (My scanner

is down so I can't post it). The shoe began like this:

P B B P P B B B P

We jumped in on the second hand and played OTB4L. At

the end of the 9th hand (above) we were +5 and were having

visions of one of those +40 shoes. The next hands were:

B P B B P B

So of course OTB lost and we switched to S40 and won the

last two hands above, but were now only +2. Then we got

hit by this:

B B B P B B B P P P

We did not stick around to see what followed. If we switched

to F we might have won some of the last hands, but there was

no warning - no 2 ever went to 3. And who is to say if the streaks

would continue. If we went back to OTB we might have won a few,

but what indicated that we should switch back. Even in hindsight

this was impossible to play.

My point is that this shoe typifies what Vegas is putting out there.

Not everything is this bad and we managed to win more than we

lost and come out with a little profit, but every shoe was a grind.

Paul

[zebra]

Paul, that first one that started with an early 9iar would be a good one.

I think this is the one you are talking about:

P1131111122912333123331

We entered on the 3rd hand of the 9iar and went to -8 before

coming back to finish at +4 only because we started making

SAP bets on the 3's. This was the first shoe at GC after the

seminar.

Paul

[zebra]

At the request of NormA I am posting a bunch of the other shoes we were dealt in Vegas.

There were several others that we left early either to secure a win or to get out of Dodge.

I am only posting shoes we stayed a while at.

These are Gold Coast shoes:

1. Best of the trip - made big SAP bets toward the end (won 6 of 7) betting 2's don't go to 3

B13212112211111

B221221113221

B12112111211133

2. Tough one - went to -11, finished at +6

P242211111311

P211122281

B1224321221

P1322

3. Went to +10 (shoulda quit) ended +4

B14171221

P11221151222

B31

4. got out at +6 after high of +9

P232121113121

B533211

Palace Station Shoes

1. Out at -8

B11131261211

B1121113113111

2. Quit at +4 after high of +7

P1412121211112

B112123

3. Best PS shoe +10 (high +11)

P1117111232

P221122121312

P2213

[Norm A]

Thanks Paul

[Guest]

Right, good job!

Your first one was Fri night where I quit S40 after 41 bets with +21. I think this one also scores well with OTB4L. But note the very high 1's.

[Norm A]

at the request of norma i am posting a bunch of the other shoes we were dealt in vegas.

There were several others that we left early either to secure a win or to get out of dodge.

I am only posting shoes we stayed a while at.

These are gold coast shoes:

1. Best of the trip - made big sap bets toward the end (won 6 of 7) betting 2's don't go to 3

b13212112211111

b221221113221

b12112111211133

2. Tough one - went to -11, finished at +6

p242211111311

p211122281

b1224321221

p1322

3. Went to +10 (shoulda quit) ended +4

b14171221

p11221151222

b31

4. Got out at +6 after high of +9

p232121113121

b533211

palace station shoes

1. Out at -8

b11131261211

b1121113113111

2. Quit at +4 after high of +7

p1412121211112

b112123

3. Best ps shoe +10 (high +11)

p1117111232

p221122121312

p2213

paul, in shoe 3 you only have 19 hands on the first line ??

[Guest]

paul, in shoe 3 you only have 19 hands on the first line ??

Yep, that's where he drank the Scotch!

[zebra]

paul, in shoe 3 you only have 19 hands on the first line ??

Can't believe you actually counted them all, and that I didn't make any

other errors. The shoe is correct - just miscounted my cut off.

And Ellis - you had the scotch, or should I say scotches!

Paul

[Norm A]

Can't believe you actually counted them all, and that I didn't make any

other errors. The shoe is correct - just miscounted my cut off.

And Ellis - you had the scotch, or should I say scotches!

Paul

That sounds like another rule he broke !!!

DON'T PLAY WHEN YOU DRINK LOL

[Guest]

Who? Me?????????????

[Guest]

When you get my age you realize that there is nothing left out there that can bother you anymore.

You don't think in terms of long term health anymore. You think in terms of tomorrow!

It's like this even older friend I ran into the other day.

I asked: How are you?

After a pause he replied: Well, I got up.

[Sport]

hey ellis,my sister in law passed 2 years ago with the big c.for 6 months prior every one knew what she had and would often ask her "how do you feel"one day she turned to me and said are these people just stupid,how am i supposed to feel being in pain 24hrs a day.she was a big slot player and did hit some very big big payouts.the $25 x5 didn't seem to bother her.she lived her life always saying "the shots i miss are the ones i don't take"