Card Counter`s blog. COUNT CARDS AND WIN!!!

Being Backed Off

This is an interesting one, and provides for a little bit of comedy just in so far as what it means. When you’re backed off, the casino will advise that you are no longer welcome to play special blackjack, but you can (and, in fact, are welcome to) stay and play any other game offered by the casino. “If you continue to play blackjack, you will be asked to leave, and if you then refuse or return to the premises at some later time, you will be arrested for trespassing.”

In other words, play any of our other games where obtaining an advantage is impossible, but don’t play blackjack.

If you weren’t smiling over the “private club” ruse, I’m sure you’re smiling now.

Rule or Procedural Changes

This is an interesting one, too, because this is what happens in a jurisdiction in which barring or backing off an advantage player isn’t allowed by law.

As mentioned earlier, several rule or procedural changes can be made that essentially eliminate the possibility of obtaining an advantage over the house. The pit boss or floor person will come over to the table and instruct the dealer to do one or more of the following:

l. Place the cut card in the middle of a freshly shuffled pack of cards, forcing a reshuffle after dealing out only about half of the shoe. (In some cases the cut card is placed only a deck or two from the front - even more absurd.) Since such a limited number of cards is dealt before a reshuffle becomes necessary, the likelihood of a positive true count high enough to invoke a large bet becomes virtually nonexistent. If there are a lot of players at the table, the cut card, at worst, will likely be placed in the middle rather than towards the front, with the hope that the other players won’t notice, and therefore won’t complain about short deals or a dealer seemingly always shuffling. But a six-deck shoe in which three decks are cut off reduces penetration so much that a proficient counter will likely leave the game in search of greener pastures.

Once, many years ago, a pit boss came over to a table I was playing at (with one other player) and instructed the dealer to shuffle after every hand. This wouldn’t have been memorable except that I was playing a four-deck shoe. I sat there for a short time just to absorb the absurdity of it all: Shuffle four decks of cards. Decks extended for player cut. Cards placed in shoe. Shoe made ready to deal. First card burned. Deal one hand. Pay off or take wagers. Remove cards from shoe. Locate cut card and distribute. Place all cards in discard tray and then shuffle all over again.

To be continued…
I hung around for two complete cycles, then left the casino and the city.

To be continued

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Congratulations. You’ve just sat through your first barring, back off, or procedural change instituted just because you’re an expert at the game. Now, may it never happen again.

When a player is identified as a card counter, the first step is for man-agement to decide what course of action, if any, to take. More often than not what they decide depends on the laws governing the state or the grounds on which the casino is located. That’s why, for example, in Las Vegas a card counter can be barred from play whereas in Atlantic City he can’t. But that’s not to say a casino remains defenseless in those locales where barring a person from play isn’t allowed. When casinos can’t bar or back off an advantage player, they resort to any one of several rule procedural changes that negate the counter’s advantage over the house - thereby accomplishing essentially the same thing as legally removing him or her from the premises.

Countermeasures imposed against advantage players come in several forms. Let’s examine each one in detail, so you’ll know exactly what you’re up against or what to expect in the event you’re identified as a card counter. Let’s start with the most severe.

Being Barred

If this is allowed by the authority having jurisdiction, it means that you are no longer allowed on the premises, and must leave at once. Picking up where we left off above, the dealer will step aside and the floorperson or pit boss will read you a legal statement that essentially advises, “you are no longer welcome in this casino.” Behind the scenes what is really going on is that the casino you are sitting in has decided to exercise its rights as a private club (which it is) and by doing so is able to pick and choose its members. The statement you’ll hear will further ad-vise that “if you refuse to leave or return to the premises after being barred, you may be arrested for trespassing.”

If you’re sitting at a blackjack table, this means picking up your chips and proceeding immediately to the cashier’s cage, where your chips will be converted to cash, and then leaving through the nearest door possible. The whole time you’ll be escorted (like a criminal) by sev-eral members of the casino’s security force.

Trespassing? You’ve got to be kidding me, right?

Wrong, unfortunately.

You’re not being barred because you’re too good of a card player. (Well, you are, but that’s not the official ruling.) You’re being barred be-cause the casino becomes a private club that all of sudden no longer wants your action. That’s some really fancy footwork relating to the law, isn’t it? But, unfortunately, that’s the reality of the situation if you’re playing in a state like Nevada, for instance, where the casino industry and the government hold hands in the night.

To be continued…

How does someone get identified as a card counter? Basically, it all starts and ends with bet variation. Of course, if you study every card as if your life depended on it, or your lips move faintly to the sound of +1, +2, etc., expect to eventually get read the riot act. But assuming you don’t make those types of cataclysmic blunders, it all comes back to the size of your bets and how they differ from one another. Which means, at least from our perspective, it all boils down to a cat-and-mouse game - or to the art of engineering the largest bet spread possible without standing out in a crowd. If you bet the table minimum, except on the last hand of the shoe when out goes the table maximum, you’re going to do more than just raise a few eyebrows. You may not immediately be pegged as a counter, but the red flag has been raised. Which means you’ll probably be watched a whole lot closer than you were previously - either by several pairs of human eyes, or worse yet, by a bunch of electronic ones. Knowing you’re under surveillance is a lot better than not knowingyou’re under surveillance. Unfortunately, being observed, in many instances, is something you won’t know about until only after it’s too late. What’s more, someone in the surveillance room may be counting down the game as well, and watching how nicely your bets now correlate with the rise and fall of the count. Now your spread to two hands of $400 each will have somebody somewhere nodding his head with assurance that you’re someone better off back out on Las Vegas Boulevard.

But wait. The casino manager suddenly shows up in the blackjack pit you’re playing in. Then the pit boss comes over, folds his arms, and stands about twelve inches off of the dealer’s right shoulder. All of this is going on while a mini-conference is being held back at the podium - with at least one boss in the group giving you the hairy eyeball. By this point, hopefully you know that somewhere along the way your act wasn’t as good as it should’ve been - or that you’ve overstayed your welcome. The next movement made is by the dealer, who steps aside so that the pit boss can either read you the Trespass Act, back you off, or give the dealer instruction to invoke any one of several other countermeasures we’ll talk about next.