The Counter and the Country

Joe Resque (pseudonym) is a Gulf War veteran.

Joe Resque went into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He was a fire fighter then. He helped lead panicked people down from some of the high floors. The smoke got to him a little but he hung in there.

After the buildings toppled; after he had rested; he returned to the site and went through the smoky, poisonous rubble with his fellow fire fighters and the police. He risked his life in an attempt to save others’ lives. In the months after his heroic efforts, he suffered from lung problems. He also had nightmares brought about by seeing those poor souls who had to leap from the very highest floors to their deaths on the street.

He would never forget the horror of that. He also had friends in the fire department that died in the collapse of those giant buildings.

In 2010, Joe was given a wonderful gift at his retirement; a trip to Vegas. Between 2005 and 2010, Joe learned how to count cards at blackjack. He played in Atlantic City for small stakes. His dream was to finally go to “Sin City.” His dream was about to be realized.

In Atlantic City his play was not really noticed. He figured it would be the same in Vegas. He played two hours at a Strip casino and then got “the tap.” The casino executive said, “I am sorry, sir, but your play is too good for us. You cannot play blackjack here. You are welcome to play any other game or the machines but no more blackjack for you.”

Joe Resque was a veteran. Joe Resque was a fire fighter. Joe Resque risked his life for his fellow Americans in war and in a terrorist attack.

Joe Resque was barred from playing blackjack in an American casino, by an American citizen, in an American city.

Jeez, I dunno Frank. Would he have acted differently if he'd have known he would eventually be barred from counting cards in Vegas? Should all heroes be taught to count cards and then be given free rooms at The Mirage? I guess I don't see your point here.

there are more heroes in this country than regular people.....

I assume your trying to get people riled up, but I don't think it's going to work. "Joe" is definately a hero, but there are tons and tons of heros that the casinos will back off if they are found to be counting. Doctors, police officers, surgeons, hospice workers, all former and current military personnel, etc, etc, etc.

Just because it is your dream to do something doesn't necessarily mean you should get to do it if it infringes on other peoples/companies rights.

ZCore13

you forgot to mention school teachers

Clearly Joe was not trained for any covert skills in the military.

I respect school teachers (most of them). I do not consider them heros as I do the list I wrote. My definition of a hero would be more like someone that selflessly risks their life and/or saves other lives. A teacher can definately be a hero in the right situation, but just being a teacher doesn't make you a hero in my book.

ZCore13

Quote: Zcore13

Just because it is your dream to do something doesn't necessarily mean you should get to do it if it infringes on other peoples/companies rights.
ZCore13

any blackjack player
has the unwritten right to
not be forced to play against
a casino

any blackjack player can walk into a casino and can not be forced to play any game.
Silly

a casino
has the unwritten right to
not be forced to play against
any blackjack player

Silly
Sally

Quote: FrankScoblete

Joe Resque (pseudonym) is a Gulf War veteran.

...
Joe Resque was a veteran. Joe Resque was a fire fighter. Joe Resque risked his life for his fellow Americans in war and in a terrorist attack.

Joe Resque was barred from playing blackjack in an American casino, by an American citizen, in an American city.

Joe can be a hero, a life-saver, and even a General, but Joe still has to play by the casino house rules when in a casino house. The United States of America owes him great thanks and a pension, but not the right to AP without pushback. It's possible to be both saluted and backed off at the same time.

I don't get the point if your trying to make one frank. Anyhow maybe Joe should have used/wore his camo.

At my own risk, AC needs to beef up their game protection. Was Joe playing small stakes in LV?

I am not someone who carries water for any casino. Don't work for one, am not invested with any.

But in a bet, the person or entity offering it has the right to decide if he wants to or not. He shouldnt be forced to. Granted, it gets complicated when you want to offer a bet where skill is involved, but you only want to bet with some and not others.

I like the way AC has to handle this. They have to modify the game.

Nonetheless, otherwise, no one should be forced to offer a certain bet if they decline to do so.

I have a friend who manages a local buffet. Its $10.99
for dinner, eat as much as you like. He frequently
gets a certain element in there who's teen kids go hog wild
and waste a ton of food. They'll get a big overloaded
plate, eat a few bites and go back for another plate.

Is it illegal? Nope. But the guidelines say, eat all you like,
not waste all you like. So he politely gives them refunds
and 86's them forever.

Casinos look at counters the same way. Its not illegal but
it does effect their bottom line and they act accordingly.
No matter where you're considered a hero, business is
business..

EvenBob, good points but I disagree. I know analogies are just analogies but I think your analogy deals with cheating. It is an all-you-can-eat buffet. Those who are taking food which they purposely don't eat are scamming the restaurant. (Yes, there might be some food left over on anyone's plate but you get the idea.) That is the equivalent of someone stealing chips, not winning them. Anyway, that is how I see the analogy.

I'd put the food analogy this way. The world's greatest eating champion shows up. He will eat a lot of food but he will eat it, not waste it. You bar him for his ability. Then you say that you only want anorexics to come to your establishment. The anorexics are the losers in the casino.

Anyway, so much for the analogy. I like to make analogies too but I realize that they do fall apart at times.

The "Innkeeper Law" (rule) is ancient and I realize the criticisms of my post are technically justified. However, as I see it, the casino is not presenting itself as making a one-on-one bet with a single gambler but is inviting anyone to come in and make bets. There is no sign saying, "Advantage players not welcomed," or "We won't take bets from fat people," or the "world's eating champion must stay away." It announces that it will book bets from anyone who wishes to bet. It is inviting people to come in and play their games. Once in the casino, yes you are betting against the house but the house invited you to bet against it in its publicity, mailings, invitations from hosts and so forth.

Someone posted that it doesn't matter if this guy is a hero, so what? What if the President of the United States came in and counted cards? Would the casino bar him? His position would tell me that the casino would fawn all over him. I wrote about a technique my blackjack team used to get all heat off of us in some high roller rooms. You bring in a celebrity and that person plays blackjack at the same table as you do. Yes, you are counting but you are talking to the celebrity and no casino yet has told one of my teammates to leave even though the counting was obvious. Position in life counts.

Now I want to expand the definition of "position" in my post. I think being an American citizen playing in an American casino is a "position." (Let's not worry about non-Americans. I am merely making a generalized point here.) That position should be respected. You offer games to everyone in your commercials; someone can beat those games. Too bad. You have already accepted the bet by your advertising and invitation.

Okay, these are just thoughts off the top of my head. I realize if you had a team of billionaire advantage players coming in to play, the earth might tremble for the casino. Still a very simple line in all the advertising would go something like this, "We are allowed to refuse bets from anyone who can beat our games." And that would be that.

Of course casinos have the right to refuse play to anyone for any reason.....but you make a good point here......"you have accepted the bet by advertising and invitation"........

I suspect there is no real "Joe" from your story Frank, so I will skip all the Joe deserves our gratitude comments. Whether there is, or isn't a 'Joe', your intent was to bring up the discussion as to whether casinos should be able to bar any patron playing by the rules, so I'll just skip right to that topic.

The law in Nevada, says they have a right to, whether you or I, like it or not. So if you (or Joe) wants to play there, deal with it.

Now, I support myself by AP play and the majority of that is good old fashion card counting. I am in my 10th year of doing so. 5 1/2 years based out of Atlantic City and now the last 3 1/2 years based out of Vegas. There is a reason, why I relocated to Vegas. Given the choice between the two venues, one who can bar patrons at will and the other who can't, the Nevada model is far superior for the player. If you or anyone wants to re-litigate the "Innkeepers law" and force a different outcome, the result would be the 'better' games that can be found in Vegas and Nevada will disappear. No more decent single deck up north. No more good double deck in Vegas. No more 6 deck games dealt to 90%. All will be 8 deck games, with 2, 2.5, even 3 decks or more cut off.

Instead of bi*ching that the current set up is not fair, a smart AP will learn to play the game and take advantage of the current rules. I have tailored my game to do just that. Changed the way I play, (short sessions) and learned the tolerance and comfort levels of different places that I play. Yes there is work involved in doing so. No body is going to hand you anything on a silver platter, Frank, you have to take what you want.

Now, that said, I think the casino industry over-reacts to card counters. They have every right to protect themselves against AP's. But they would be far better off to concentrate on the more advanced methods of AP and ignore all but team play and the highest level of card counters. Several of the smarter industry folks have pointed this out numerous times, but the industry as a whole still takes the 'stupid approach'.

Pit boss to casino manager: "Hey we caught and 86ed a card counter today. He was spreading $25 -$200 on a 6 deck game and costing the casino $38 an hour or $75 for the 2 hours that he played. I fixed the problem by reducing penetration on all 6 deck games to scare off future card counters. There was a small price to pay for this reduced penetration in more shuffle time, resulting in less rounds per table for all 20 tables in the joint. Works out to a reduction of 8% of our daily blackjack hold, so it's only costing us thousands and thousands of dollars per day. But we solved this card counter 'problem'. Casino manager to pit boss: Good job, Tom. Gotta nip those card counters in the bud.

And the best part: 6 months down the road, when pit boss Tom, is shopping his resume around because he lost his job, when his casino cut back due to declining revenue, he can proudly boost on his resume that he single handedly, solved the card counter 'problem'. At-a-boy Tom. :)

deleted

Let's say the rules are changed so that casinos can no longer bar card counters. The result? One deck with a continuous shuffle machine for each round at the table. Effect: the perfect elimination of card counting. And just to make sure the game goes quickly: one CSM for the blue deck, and one CSM for the red deck.

So you can win your battle, but lose the war.

True, the radical changing of the game would eliminate all card counters. AC has actually done something like that. The casino can do any of the following:

1. shuffle after every hand
2. limit number of hands you can play
3. limit the maximum you can bet

There is no doubt they can make a game (almost) unbeatable. I write "almost" because there is usually someone out there who will figure out how to get an edge, even a little one.

The whole topic is glurge masquerading as outrage.

"Joe" needs to play the game of life just as the rest of us do...by the rules of the places where we play and live. Being a "hero" is great but it doesn't entitle to you anything more than our gratitude--you don't get special rules for being a hero.

It is like the Marine (or other veteran) that moves in to a community that has rules saying "no flags over a certain size and they will be displayed as specified only" and then he builds a 60' flag pole and flys a huge USMC flag on it...and complains to the media or sues when the rules people tell him to take it down.

If you are subject to a set of rules, follow them!! Sure you can try to change them and there are many necessary changes to rules that have been made over the years....but you don't get to do what you want when you want to do it all the time.

Frank you might appreciate this: card craps was once almost a beatable game.

In the early days of card craps, specifically at Morongo, near Palm Springs, cards were dealt from two shoes... one blue shoe and one red... with the cut card inserted about two-thirds of the way through the shoe. When the cut card was reached the shoes would be reshuffled at the next seven out. But if there were no 7-out the play would continue till the end of the shoe.

Morongo also permitted note taking about cards played.

Well, one night I bought into the game at the start of the shoes. Actually I missed the "come out" so I placed the point and I started with $32 across. No 7-out and the table went right through to the end of the shoes. (My original $32 across grew to almost four thousand dollas in my rail, plus about $300 on the table.)

And here's how the game became almost beatable: by the time we were about 7/8 through the shoes it was pretty obvious there were no more "little cards" left. And a few of us started betting 10, 11, 12. I didn't bet as heavily as others and Morongo did have a $100 limit on the horn numbers and $500 on the place numbers. But I remember as I was putting black chips into my pocket after each draw, another player at the opposite end of the table was putting $500 purples into his pockets.

I haven't been back to Morongo in more than 4 years but I heard that the shoes are gone and the CSMs are being used.

Quote: FrankScoblete

In Atlantic City his play was not really noticed. He figured it would be the same in Vegas. He played two hours at a Strip casino and then got “the tap.” The casino executive said, “I am sorry, sir, but your play is too good for us. You cannot play blackjack here. You are welcome to play any other game or the machines but no more blackjack for you.”

Joe Resque was a veteran. Joe Resque was a fire fighter. Joe Resque risked his life for his fellow Americans in war and in a terrorist attack.

Joe Resque was barred from playing blackjack in an American casino, by an American citizen, in an American city.

He was barred from playing blackjack because he did something he knew could get him barred from playing blackjack, that could have gotten anyone barred from playing blackjack, that if it were allowed would make it impossible to offer blackjack. And this is some sort of treason.

The entitlement, it burns.

Quote: FrankScoblete

I'd put the food analogy this way. The world's greatest eating champion shows up. He will eat a lot of food but he will eat it, not waste it. You bar him for his ability. Then you say that you only want anorexics to come to your establishment. The anorexics are the losers in the casino.

Right. Because the power to count cards, i.e., recognize cards, increment and decrement a number in your head, and - harrowingly - divide! deserves such respect. And anyone who wishes to gamble for its own sake is equivalent to an anorexic.

So in your analogy, the vast majority of the people who would consider patronizing this establishment are anorexics, the buffet price is set up to just profit from a crowd of anorexics, even losing money on a few anorexics, and it's well-publicized that the restaurant only serves anorexics. Then enter Adam Richman and an equal gourmand who happened to save dozens after the Indian tsunami, despite knowing their policies, and the former tries to start a riot when they're turned away.