Huntington Press: Blackjack Autumn

Blackjack Autumn
by Barry Meadow

Description
Table of Contents
Excerpt

Excerpt:

It's All About The Benjamins, Baby

     In Beatty, the game halts because if I win the next hand, there are not enough chips in the tray to pay me.
     In less than 15 minutes at the Stratosphere in Las Vegas, I lose $1,8OO.
     I am trapped in Tonopah, the blackjack game so good that I dare not leave.
     In Sparks, I lose in every casino but one—and in that one, I am told never to return.
     Playing blackjack in every Nevada casino that offered a live game took me two months and 4,000 miles, and led me to towns where a tourist is as rare as a Hawaiian snowstorm. I went to places I thought I'd never see, and to places I hope never to see again. It was a long, lonely road, meandering through nearly 200 casinos, and I'm here to tell the tale.
     I played in one game where I had $1,000 on the table, and in another where the permitted casino maximum was exactly $5.
     Everywhere I went I carried a tiny tape recorder. Sometimes I mumbled into it while walking through a bank of slot ma-chines; I must have looked like a Secret Service agent on full assas-sin watch. Or I'd find some stairwell or lobby far from the action, feeling like Norm Macdonald dictating a "memo to self." I made more recordings in garages than a Seattle grunge band.
     Sometimes I was king of the casino, the biggest winner in the whole damn joint. And sometimes I was a blackjack piñata, pummeled by dealers having their own private party.
     Each night back in my room, I'd open my laptop computer and get to work. By the time the trip ended, the computer was in worse shape than Andy Sipowicz. And so was I.

Day 5 (Saturday, 9/19/98, Las Vegas)
     I'm driving today, beginning with the Wild Wild West up Tropicana Avenue west of the freeway. The place used to be the King 8 motel.
     I sit down at a fairly full two-deck table, one of only two that's open. Everyone else is betting $2 or $5. The dealer's name tag says Ron and below it is the word "Dancing." For a moment I think Ron comes from some little Nevada town called Dancing be-fore I realize that in this establishment, employees have their favor-ite hobby rather than their hometown listed on their name tag.
     I start with a $60 bet, double it, and win with a stiff. Next hand I bet another $60, double it, and win with another stiff. In fact, for the first three deals, I win every single hand. Once with a big count I bet two hands of $l00, split each, and win all four hands. It becomes a subject for discussion from the other players when I fi-nally bust.
     The house opens a new $5 minimum table—too expensive for most players here—so I throw Ron Dancing a $10 tip and abandon him to try my luck against Eddie Swimming. Nothing like a two-deck game where I'm the only player and can really have some fun, getting in more rounds per deck and being able to vary between one hand and two. Only all the fun is Eddie's. I play seven hands and lose all seven. Time to go. I cash out with Russell Basketball, $515 ahead for my half-hour's play.
     Further down the road is the Orleans. To get there, I pass a series of fast-food joints, gas stations, and the Adult Superstore, which I guess is a porno Price Club. And while we're on that pleasant subject, the Orleans cocktail waitresses are more scantily dressed than the strippers at the Palomino. I find no problem with this attire.
     Just opened a couple of years ago, the Orleans evokes the feel of the French Quarter of New Orleans. Inside, mannequins populate balconies behind wrought-iron fences.  The dealers all wear beads of the type thrown off floats during Mardi Gras. A floorman gives me a set to keep. Suddenly I get a vision of myself dancing around my living room wearing only underwear and a set of beads. Boy, is that a chilling thought.
     I start trending downward immediately, grabbing 15s and 16s against a dealer who busts about as often as Luciano Pavarotti goes on a hunger strike. One deck turns so negative that I actually hit a 17 against an ace, and draw a 3 to win the hand. Finally a deck turns rich and I split a pair of 3s against a 6 on a $75 bet. I get a stiff on the first, but am dealt a 7 on the second. I double it and am dealt a 10 for a powerful 20. The dealer takes several cards, the last of which gives her a 21, and I lose $225. Now, appearing to steam with the count higher than Shaquille O'Neal on stilts, I fling out $400 and bet two black chips on each of two hands. My 17 and 19 turn into two losers as the dealer pulls a 20. I wind up down $990.
     At the coffee shop, I order catfish strips and jambalaya. Part of me wants to lose weight, and part of me wants to gorge on comps, making sure that if the comp is issued for a $25 maximum that my bill totals no less than $24.95. So far the gorge part is winning out.
     I take Cameron Street down to Flamingo Road, make a right, and soon arrive at the Gold Coast. It doesn't matter what I do or don't do—no matter what, I lose. The dealer is pulling 20s and 21s from any upcard. A good deck gets me into my $200-on-each-of-two-hands mode, and I lose both. I try two more of $200 and lose those as well.
     When things are going so poorly so quickly, my personality, never especially attractive to begin with, turns as sour as year-old milk. I'll tell the dealer how much money in tips she's losing, or ask a floorman if it's house policy that players are not allowed to win any hands. Dale Carnegie would approve of none of this. It would be nice if I could laugh and joke no matter how the game is going, but I don't. It's a real weakness in my game. A series of losses turns me sullen and angry, a regular Latrell Sprewell looking for people to choke. Playing blackjack is stressful enough. Playing blackjack with a bad attitude adds nothing good to the experience.
     Down nearly $1,000, I decide to take a walk to calm myself. The brief respite changes my outlook. I'm a good player who's just had some bad luck. Now it's time to make some money!
     I return to the table, lose all three hands—the last after doubling A-6, pulling a 3 for a 20, and losing to the dealer's 21—and quit with a loss of $1,150 after only 20 minutes of play.
     When you lose hand after hand, naturally you wonder if you're being cheated. But casinos rake in millions of dollars and would never risk their licenses by tolerating cheating dealers. You hear tales that sometimes a crooked dealer will team up with a confederate to loot the table, generally by second-dealing, and then try to make up the losses by cheating the legitimate players. But from my experience, it's nothing to be concerned about. In any case, if I don't feel comfortable with the dealer for any reason—maybe she deals too quickly or too slowly, maybe she sounds like Fran Drescher, or the reflection of her nose ring is blinding—I go to another table. Just as when you flip coins sometimes you'll get 15 straight heads for no apparent reason other than mathematics, sometimes you'll lose a whole bunch of blackjack hands in a row. No cheating involved. Just bad luck and the normal fluctuations of the game.
     Dealers usually have enough to worry about without playing funny with the cards. They're always under pressure. Let's say that they know how to deal blackjack, but don't know the other games, and the casino cuts back on the number of tables—chances are the dealer will have her hours reduced, or maybe she'll be fired. Because dealers rotate in and out of games, a dealer can't show up late or leave early, unless the boss says so (and she isn't paid for the lost time, either). The work is tiring, numbing, repetitive—an assembly-line job in a smoke-filled factory. Players spill drinks on you, curse you, or hit on you. You work odd hours. Make a rare mistake and you risk getting written up or suspended. Without a mentor, you're probably doomed to years at dinky casinos where you have to put up with a lot to make a little. Above you are six levels of management—floorperson, pit boss, shift manager, casino manager, vice president of casino operations, and president—any of whom can make trouble for you.
     The people you work with all day, the customers, are quickly seen as replaceable spokes in the big wheel of suckerdom. But you have to be nice to them, or else you won't get tipped. That means endlessly answering such questions as "Are you hot today?" Yes, it's wonderful that your grandson goes to Michigan State, and it was cold in Cincinnati last week, and Danny Gans puts on quite a show, but I'm trying to deal some cards here, and my kid is sick at home and the pit boss keeps telling me dirty jokes and some twerp this morning was smoking right in my face and the other day a guy actually threw his cards at me and I've really got to keep this job so...could you please shut the hell up and let me deal?
     It takes a special quality to be able to put up with the demands of the dealer's life—a quality called insanity.
     Next door to the Gold Coast is the Rio, which opened in 1990, has expanded several times, and has become the biggest success among all the off-Strip hotels. No matter when you get here, the place is jammed. Whether it's because the cocktail waitresses wear skimpy outfits or because the Carnival World Buffet features everything from sushi to enchiladas to hushpuppies to lasagna or because the Masquerade Village sky show is one of the most popular entertainments in town or because the nightclub is the hottest—who knows?
     The rooms here are called suites, though in Nevada these days the term means anything larger than a matchbook. Would you prefer the postage-stamp suite or the thimble suite, sir?
     For me, though all the games are six-deckers, the most attractive feature is that I have a $10,000 credit line and will be easily be able to siphon some of it. Joining several other players at a $25-minimum game, I sit down and start with a $2,000 marker. On five of the first seven hands, the dealer, Wendy, begins with an ace up. We're all groaning, and all the other players but one leave. Then the shoe turns hot, and I win several hands in a row, raising my bet along the way from $40 to $150. Now it's Wendy's turn, as I lose three big bets in a row.
     I do the old alter-the-order-of-the-cards routine to switch to two hands at $250, which is wasted breath because no one is paying the slightest attention to my play.
     Against Wendy's 2, I get dealt two 9s. I split them. On the first I pick up a 2, double my new 11, and pull a 6 for a 17. I get a picture on the other for a 19. So now I've got $1,000 on the table, $750 from the split-and-doubled hand and $250 on my second hand, which turns out to be a stiff. If Wendy busts, I win $1,000. If she pulls a 20 or better, I lose $1,000.
     So much of a player's success at blackjack depends on situations such as this. You can play for hours or even days, going back and forth winning or losing a few dollars, and suddenly you have a $2,000 swing on a single card. And you never know when these situations are going to arise.
     The time has come. Underneath Wendy's 2 turns out to be an 8. Next up is a picture card. I lose the $1,000.
     My $2,000 marker is close to being gone. Just a couple of minutes later, again with a pair of $250 bets, Wendy shows a 4 upcard while I'm dealt another pair of 9s, both diamonds. I split them, and strangely enough a third 9 of diamonds appears for another split. I play them out, and none of the four hands I have showing exceeds a 19. Again I have $1,000 at risk, and watch in disbelief as Wendy turns over a 7 to go with her 4. I've given up all hope when miraculously she finds an ace, then another ace, and then a beautiful queen of clubs for a bust. I win the $1,000 and begin to breathe again.
     This breathing business will come up again and again on this trip, for blackjack for high stakes is stressful not only mentally but emotionally as well. Say you've got a $200 bet up and are dealt a 20 to the dealer's 6. You're feeling pretty good about life, maybe great about life, a regular Up With People choir member as you consider how you're going to spend the $200 you are about to win. And then, faster than a New York-New York minute, the dealer flips over a 5 and crowns it with a picture and you lose your $200, a $400 turnaround. And you go from a true humanitarian to a man who wishes he had a large and powerful machine gun, the faster to murder the evil dealer responsible for your misery.
     This personality change cannot be considered healthy. Funny, the low you get by being sucker-punched by the dealer's 6 is always more memorable than the high you get from stopping on a 14 vs. a 10 and lucking into victory when the dealer busts. So, every day, you wind up thinking of how much you could have made if only...
     Of course, since I have just won this latest $2,000 turnaround, I don't stop to reflect on these psychological truths. I am giddy. For after having gone through a $2,000 marker and en route to quickly losing a second, I wind up winning more than $500. I also get a ticket for the buffet, which is valuable for two reasons—the buffet is among the best in town, and with the ticket I can go to a special VIP entrance to avoid the usual hour wait.
     At the Rio, I've risked a lot more money than on some of my other excursions. The count was good, but not that good, and maybe I'm betting more than I should. Sure, when you bet more you can win more, but if you bet too much you risk losing it all, even with an advantage. To take a ridiculous example, imagine you win 99% of your bets. However, you bet your entire bankroll on every hand. As soon as you have a loser, you're bankrupt. I have to be careful not to overbet even when the counts are +7 and +8, as they were through much of that Rio shoe.
     The Holiday Inn Boardwalk used to have one of the busiest racebooks around, because they'd give 10% rebates to big players. Then the state outlawed the rebates, so the Boardwalk tried to get around the restrictions by offering some easily won house bets at high limits to their preferred players. The Gaming Control Board launched an investigation, new regulations outlawed anything even resembling a rebate, and now all signs of life at this place have disappeared. The Mirage bought the place in July and rumors are it will soon be gone, perhaps to be converted into a parking lot.
     The game is a reasonable two-deck, but at these quiet little places I don't feel like making big bets. At the Mirage or Caesars I can easily bet $300 or more on a hand, but at tiny places I rarely go much over $75. Maybe subconsciously I don't want these places to close, as if a $500 win would send them out of business. The dealer is Laszlo, a white-haired Hungarian who says he used to own a body shop. "We had problems all the time," he tells me in a thick accent. "Here, I come in the morning, put in my eight hours, and get paid. No hassles, no problems." I win $35 and leave this tomb.
     The Monte Carlo, which opened in 1996, is probably the best-looking hotel you've never seen. It has a statue-filled exterior, more than 3,000 rooms, one of the town's best pool areas, and a very popular microbrewery and pub. The inside of the casino is one of the prettiest in town, with large chandeliers and the feel of a Monaco casino, or at least what I think would be a Monaco casino because I've never been there.
     The game seems fast, until I realize that this two-deck game is played face-up. That means I'll have to count a little quicker, but I can still take my time on some playing decisions, which will help me keep up with the count. After a short while I wind up as the only player at the table, and suddenly the count turns good. Paul Rodriguez, a comedian who's performing here later tonight, walks in with two friends and they start to join me. Then, noting the $25-minimum-bet sign, Rodriguez says, "This is too rich for me," and the three of them get up before playing a hand. This is good—I want all these great cards to myself.
     But it turns out my chances of winning here are a million to Juan. The dealer, not I, gets most of the great cards. Moving up along the way to two hands of $200, I lose most of the hands. An energetic pit boss, Emil, quickly offers me a comped dinner at the steakhouse and also asks where I'm staying. I tell him the Tropicana (well, my money is there) because if a guy can afford to bet $400 per round, why is he bedding down at the Motel 6? Emil says, "Why not stay here? I can set you up with a comped room."
     Now this is service. I've bet only a very short while, and though I've lost $953, I've hardly put in the time to rate such treatment. I decide to remain at my motel because I don't want the hassle of moving every two or three days, but I appreciate the offer. Strolling around the Monte Carlo after my defeat, I'm impressed by many of the little details. I like this place. Maybe I'll stay here next time, and hope the cards go my way.
     I return to the Rio for the buffet, saving the Monte Carlo comp for another night. And on the way out of the Rio, I figure, hey, why not play a little? That's how they get you—throw you a free meal, and out of convenience or maybe just guilt you wind up playing. I ask for a $2,000 marker and quickly lose half of that. Maybe this after-dinner play isn't such a great idea after all. Then the deck turns rich. I bet two hands of $100, both winners, one on a successful optional play of doubling A-2 vs. 2. Up go the bets to two hands of $250, then two hands of $300—my largest bets of the trip. This time luck is with me, and I end the session ahead by $952.
     Except for $1, I have made back all my Monte Carlo losses, though I still lose four figures for the day. But it had been worse, and that's encouraging.
          On my way back to the motel, I decide to stop in the Excalibur’s coffee shop for a late-night milkshake. As I sit quietly in the cafe booth, in the background I hear Jackson Browne softly singing “Somebody's Baby.” This was the tune I used to sing to my then-tiny son as I rocked him gently in my arms. When he got to be five and was tired and wanted to be carried, he'd say, "I want to be somebody's baby," and I'd cradle him in my arms as he'd fall asleep. Suddenly I miss him, very much.
     Then the song and my reverie are interrupted by an Excalibur announcer intoning, "The Excalibur proudly presents stud poker in the poker room," followed by some details. The song resumes, but the spell is broken. Just as well—I'm here to gamble, not to think about the rest of my life.
          Daily total: -$1,011 Trip total: +$2,774

Description:
When Barry Meadow decided to take two months off from his everyday life to play blackjack in every Nevada casino, he had no idea what he would find. Leaving behind his business, his fiancee, and his son, he set out on the road with a suitcase, a tape recorder, and $8,000 on the trip of a lifetime. He ran into cowboys and Indians, suffered the Stardust curse, split 10s in Winnemucca, and learned more about real-world gambling than anyone should have to know. With wit and wisdom, Meadow takes you on an incredible journey—literally, figuratively, even spiritually—all within the context of a professional blackjack player’s remarkable way of life. Gambling lessons, life’s lessons, Nevada geography lessons—this one’s got it all. One of the most highly acclaimed gambling books in the past half-decade.

Reviews/Media Mentions:

“Fresh, entertaining, and intelligent … Meadow’s book is as good as it gets.”
—Gaming Today

“A very funny book that will appeal to the gambler in you."
—Bookviews

“Educational and hilarious … you will love this book.”
—Blackjack Forum

“Blackjack Autumn chronicles an odyssey that is by turns hilarious, enlightening, suspenseful and even, at times, a bit depressing. But it’s always interesting.”
—Las Vegas Review-Journal