Detroit Blackjack Team Quiz vs the Monument, Colorado Blackjack Humor Awareness Evaluation

The Detroit Blackjack Team Quiz discussed elsewhere in this forum is a tough, comprehensive online exam designed to distinguish novice card-counters from technical experts. The following quiz is much different—it tests practical awareness about blackjack and whether or not you have a sense of humor. See how you do:

1. While playing a friendly game of blackjack at the local casino, an incredibly drunk and obnoxious man takes the seat to your left. He has two large handfuls of green $25 chips. He reeks of booze and barely has the manual dexterity to push chips onto the betting circle. He is loud and crude to you, the dealer and the other players. During the course of play, the drunk makes several mistakes against Basic Strategy, and appears to be on the verge of passing out in the middle of hands. You should:

A. Ignore the gentleman.
B. Notify the pit boss of the situation.
C. Calmly and silently move to another table.
D. Watch the guy like a hawk because he is likely to drop chips on the floor in the middle of his drunken stupor enabling you to have a shot at one or several of the greens chips he will mistakenly lose over the course of the evening.

Answer: D. It might be stealing, technically, but I've pocketed chips dropped or mishandled by a drunk three different times at the casino. I'll even follow the drunkard around from table to table.

2. Some die-hard card-counters advise that you should never tip the dealer, because the act reduces the overall expected profit gained by card-counting. This advice is:

A. Sound. You should never tip the dealer.
B. Silly. How much you tip, and how you play blackjack are independent events.
C. Solid. The dealer is already well compensated by the casino.
D. Stupid. Only a cheap prick would give that kind of advice. In fact, let's all gang up and beat the crap out of the idiot who said such a thing.

Answers: B or D. Call me a ploppy if you want, but I think dealers should be tipped routinely when you enjoy their company and/or service, and maybe tipped more when you are winning.

3. After years of practice and experience, you've established yourself as a relatively good card-counter, and always play according to Basic Strategy. You are also a huge fan of the Denver Broncos. One Sunday in January, you find yourself trying to simultaneously count cards and watch the playoff game between the Broncos and the Indianapolis Colts on the big-screen television on the wall over and beyond the dealer's head. You mistakenly stay on a thirteen against the dealer's ten. By the time you notice the mistake, the dealer has already taken the next card, an eight which would have given you a twenty-one. You lose $35 as a result of your inattentiveness on the hand. You should:

A. Never, ever try to count cards while pre-occupied with something else.
B. Quit playing cards, or quit watching the game, one or the other.
C. Consider killing yourself for continuing to be a Denver Bronco fan and season-ticket holder after John Elway had retired.
D. All of the above.

Answer: D. This happened to a guy who is just like me, except dumber.

4. True or false. Using Basic Strategy in the game of blackjack is guaranteed to make you a winner.

Answer: True. I absolutely, positively, guarantee that if you play one-hundred hands in blackjack using Basic Strategy, you will win at least three of those hands.

5. You walk up to a table and attempt to enter a six-deck game of blackjack mid-shoe while another player is head's up against the dealer. The other player kindly asks, “Can you please wait until I lose a hand? I have a good streak going.” You should:

A. Wait until the player loses a hand. She did say “please” and appeared considerate with the request.
B. Reply, “I'll wait just one hand. You can't really expect me to wait much longer.”
C. Ignore the player and her goofy superstitions, then continue to enter the game quietly.
D. Reply humorously, but conveying a serious message, “Okay, but then I want you to wait thirty-two hands while I play alone.”

Answer: Any of the above answers are correct. A situation like this happens quite often. A player who asks you to wait is a bit selfish, but there is no reason to be mean or rude in response. We are all trying to accomplish the same goal of winning a few bucks. Actually, if you are counting cards, the answer to this question is “E. A card-counter should never blindly enter a game mid-shoe.”

Questions 6-10 from the quiz can be found at the following link:

http://blackjackstories.com/2012/10/20/detroit-blackjack-team-quiz-vs-the-monument-colorado-blackjack-humor-awareness-evaluation/

Glen Wiggy
Author, "1536 Free Waters and Other Blackjack Endeavors--Finding Profit and Humor in Card-Counting"

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Excellent work, mostly hilarious, and I also read the ones on the site.

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Quote: glenwiggy

Answer: True. I absolutely, positively, guarantee that if you play one-hundred hands in blackjack using Basic Strategy, you will win at least three of those hands.

I know its unlikely, but there could be a time you played 100 hands and lost them all. Someone here will see that as a bet, possibly leading to another 2400+ post thread :p

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Quote: Ibeatyouraces

Well then let's put the question to the mathies:

What is the probability of losing 100 straight hands in blackjack? Lets use a 6D, S17, DOA, DAS, Spl to 4 hands, RSA, NS game.

Good idea. Ill take under 0.5%.

Quote: Croupier

Good idea. Ill take under 0.5%.

Not even close. .479^100. My cell phone calculator can't handle that notation :)

Quote: teddys

Not even close. .479^100. My cell phone calculator can't handle that notation :)

1.08e-32. REALLY unlikely.

Teddys, next time just google ".479^100," it will do the math for you

The original claim though was losing 97 or more out of 100 though, right? I don't know how to do that one...

Quote: sunrise089

1.08e-32. REALLY unlikely.

Or, .0000000000000000000000000000000108 probability. I think the Universe has a greater chance of ending tomorrow at High Noon.

Quote: Mission146

Excellent work, mostly hilarious, and I also read the ones on the site.

Thanks for the kind words...it means a lot coming from a site administrator. Glen

Quote: Ibeatyouraces

Well then let's put the question to the mathies:

What is the probability of losing 100 straight hands in blackjack? Lets use a 6D, S17, DOA, DAS, Spl to 4 hands, RSA, NS game.

Please, please don't pose the question to the mathies. The true question is, "What is the probability that the author's comments were intended to be funny, not mathematically accurate? The answer = 1.0

Glen

You're welcome, Glen.

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Quote: sunrise089

1.08e-32. REALLY unlikely.

Teddys, next time just google ".479^100," it will do the math for you

The original claim though was losing 97 or more out of 100 though, right? I don't know how to do that one...

Using 0.433381578041624 as having a winning hand I get 1 in about 1,576,514,966,159,749,500,000 subject to brainos/typos and rounding.