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Blackjack (and baseball) update 10/21

After watching the Astros beat up on the Yankees last night (which netted me a nice $75) I decided to play a little blackjack at my favorite low limit tables. I had an interesting thing happen that I went to tell you about.

I was on spot 5, just to the right of the third base player, who appeared to be a novice player. At one point he tucked a busted hand. This is when you bust, but tuck the hand under your bet like you didn't bust.

The guy was a littler tipsy, but not really drunk, and he probably just counted wrong.  He had drawn a 3+3+7 while holding a 5 + 4 for a total of 22.

What I found unusual is not that he tucked the busted hand, it happens from time to time, but that the dealer did not notify the Pit Boss when it happened. She just said something to the player and then continued on with the take and pay.

This is the sign of a sloppy dealer. The reason that the Pit Boss gets notified about it is in case the player does the same thing with a different dealer. Having this happen once is probably an honest mistake, with most players. But if it happens more than once in the course of an evening, then it's probably the player trying to take a shot at getting a free payout.

Since the dealer changes at least once an hour, and the player can change tables at any time, the only person who can track this properly is the Pit Boss. It's definitely in the dealers' procedure manual that the Pit Boss should be notified whenever a player does such a thing. So the dealer is sloppy, and doesn't follow procedures, and apparently the Pit Bosses either don't pay attention or don't care.

I'm not saying that you should ever cheats or attempt to cheat at a blackjack table. This is just a piece of intelligence that you need to file away in the back of your mind, as it may someday help give you an advantage.

By the way, on the Yankees/ Astros game, I had the Astros on the run line giving up 1.5 runs and getting +150 for it. So for a $50 bet I won $75 plus my fifty back. I felt like the Astros were due to start hitting well, after not doing so for most of the series.

As for the Blackjack session, I ended up losing all of the $75 that I had one on baseball. I played for about an hour, mostly flat bedding at $5 although I did go up to $20 on a positive 7, which I won. It didn't matter in the long run however, as I don't remember the dealer busting once. At least I was playing with house money.

Good luck everybody.

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