Casino Player November 2022

PLAYING THE TABLES

TABLE TALK

Oddities Strange, but true stories from table game players

➤ by John Grochowski

O dd things happen at the gaming tables every day, and some times the players are readers who relay their tales to us.Let’s let them have their say on some strange days indeed. MOIRA I was having one of THOSE blackjack sessions. Every time I had black jack, so did the dealer. If I had 20, the dealer had 21. If I had 11 against 6 and doubled, I’d draw a 5 and the dealer would make a hand. It was working that way for the whole table.No big stacks of chips in front of anyone.You were rich if you had two chips to rub to gether. When it was time for a new shoe, the cutter said,“It’s time to put some magic in this table,”which drew a chorus of“amens”and“I’mwith you,brother.”He waved his hand over the cards and said,“Protego!”be fore he cut. One of the other players asked,“Protego?”and the cutter said,“It’s the Harry Potter shield charm. I’m shielding us from dealer blackjacks.” A couple of people laughed.A supervisor said,“Hey, I’m not sure the state allows magic,”and then she laughed. I know it was just coincidence, but that shoe was great.The third hand into it, I got a blackjack and actually won. I won all my blackjacks in the shoe, and I think everyone else did, too.A couple of hands later, I had 8-3 and the dealer had 10. I doubled,got a 10 for 21 and the dealer had a 7 down for 17. I think everyone won or pushed that hand. By the end of the shoe,every player’s stack had grown. I was back in the black, ahead a couple of hundred. I don’t know how it went from there. My bit of magic was dis appearing with a profit. COLIN Craps player here. I have a pretty good gambling budget, so what I like to do when I join a table that already has a 6 or 8 working as a point is to make a put bet with odds, if you can bet enough odds. I play a lot at a joint with 10X odds and $10 minimums. So I put $10 on a point 6 and backed it with $100 in odds. The other thing I like to do is follow it with two come bets until I have three numbers working.Then I back those with odds, too. The shooter rolled a 4, so that was my point on the first come bet. Next was an 8, so I had 6, 4 and 8 working. So far so good. Here are the weird bits. A couple of guys immediately started mouthing off about my put bet. One guy said,“Who even makes a bet

like that?”The other called me a“noob”and said,“You don’t want to bet pass without getting the comeout.That’s insane.” I shrugged it off. Putting 6 or 8 with 5X odds has the same house edge as place bets.With 10X odds the edge is lower. The other weird bit is that after I had my three numbers, the shooter went on a streak that didn’t matter to my bets.He rolled 9,3,11, 5,10,2,12,9,9,5…10 numbers in a rowwith no loser 7s but didn’t win on my 6, 4 or 8, either. Finally he rolled a 6 and I had a winner on my put bet and 10X odds. I kind of gave a smirk to the two naysayers,but nobody really said anything.We were all too busy cheering the shooter. The next roll was a comeout, so my odds were off on the come bets. I bet $10 on pass.The shooter rolled a 7,so I won $10 on pass, lost the two $10 come bets and got to keep my odds. It was a long way to a small profit, but the odds on that put bet had me in the black. CAL I see most of the strange but true stories you get are from blackjack players.Mine is at Mississippi Stud. There were three other players, and three of us took turns at get ting four of a kind. I felt bad for the one who missed. I was first. I was dealt a pair of Queens,so I knew I couldn’t do any worse than an even-money payoff. I made all three 3X raises, so I had a $10 base bet and three $30 raises. The first community card was my third Queen.Then came a 9, which was no help, but the last card was the fourth Queen. My bets were paid at 40-1. I even had to sign a tax form. Next,another player made the maximum raises from the start.She finished with four 6s, so that was a big winner, too.Then a young man, still in his 20s I’d say, got four 10s.Another big payoff. We were all rooting for the fourth player on the next hand,but no soap.We each tossed him a couple of chips, though.A miracle run like that was worth celebrating. NELLIE I don’t know howweird this is,but I just had to tell somebody. I bought in at roulette, and it was on the board that three of the last seven win ners were 12s. I decided I was going to bet the numbers next to 12 on the wheel, thinking same area, different number. So I made single-number bets on 8 and 29. It came up 29! I stuck with it, and in the next 10 spins, I won twice more. For me, that was a thrill. ´

2 8 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 2 • w w w . c a s i n o c e n t e r . c o m