Table way too choppy unless heads up.

I drove 200 miles round trip to find a $10 Spanish 21 table. I tried to buy-in with $180 with 30 reds and 30 whites to start off with fifteen $12 bets. I got some seriously strange looks from the dealer. Everybody is just betting red chips, ain't no white chips in the betting spots. Then there's only one rack of white chips in the dealer's tray and they only have half a rack. So they can't fill my order of chips and they give me 2 greens and 20 whites and the rest reds. I've got my 3 stacks of $60 set up. When I get ahead, I start betting $18. When I hit a BJ on $18, the dealers are so used to paying out in $2.50 chips and 2 quarters that it never even dawns on them to pay me $27 like with a green and 2 whites; they were going to pay me $24 and a $2.50 chip and two 25 cent pieces, and it's not just one dealer. When I surrendered an $18 bet one time the dealer tried to give me $6 plus a $2.50 chip and two 25 cent pieces; no, just give me a red and 4 whites. I got ahead about 5 hands after an hour and a half at a nearly full table. The cards were too choppy to get any winning streaks going on. The dealers, however, could draw a 21 whenever they wanted like a magician. There's an automatic shuffler machine at the table, but not a continuous shuffler machine. I didn't try any excess progressions on the full table, and eventually the dealer winning 2 hands for my every 1 winning hand was knocking down my session money and knocking everybody else off the table. When it got down to heads up, then I tried my excess progressions as I thought I might have a little better chance of having less chop and more chance of winning streaks. I did have more winning streaks, but so did the dealer. So I would recover my session money only to have the dealer win a bunch in a row to knock it back down. I had to re-buy in for another $180 and try to win my money back. It was late and there was only 25 minutes left before table closing time, I thought I had more time. They came around about 2:35 am and said 5 hands left. Somebody else sat down at the table for the last 5 hands and I sat out trying to count up my 48 red and 48 white chips that had to be separated out. I won back $108, so loss of $72 for the night. I did get a few $40 bets in on my progression from $12 but only one won, which means I completed winning at least $120 on that progression, 6 wins in a row.

I won't try that excess progression unless I'm heads up or near heads up with one or two other players. The chop is just awful at a full table. Using white chips created a heck of a lot of extra work for the dealer. They had to separate the white chips from the red chips in the betting circle when I split or doubled down and when I won anything. They had to make sure the stacks were even and slide their finger across the stacks of my chips as they were paying out or checking the bets. Having white chips in my stack made it easier to count how many bets I had in my stack. But when I went on these excess progression runs, I had to keep a slosh of chips outside my stacks in case of splits or double downs. I was losing most of my splits and double downs all night, and it was a wrecker.

My previous experience was at a $2 or $3 table decades ago, so being at a $10 table is new to me. I had a couple sessions at a $5 table in 2019. I could play just red chips and $2.50 chips if I don't run my progression on just $10 bets. But I really needed to win $120 back this time so white chips it is.