Huntington Press: Blackjack Blueprint

Blackjack Blueprint
by Rick "Night Train" Blaine

Description
Table of Contents
Excerpt

Excerpt:

How I Got Started:

     In the late 1970s, I’d just finished college and moved back to the New York City area. In the fashion of many my age, I landed a job on Wall Street, along with an apartment in Manhattan (no BMW though, and my hair was still a bit long). Soon I became friendly with a neighbor whom I’ll call Pete. Pete, a former federal agent, was wheelchair-bound. I used to talk to Pete for hours, as his stories fascinated me. He’d been all over the world and he knew a lot about surveillance, a topic that always amazed me. Pete had a part-time nurse who stopped in twice a week. But he wanted to be self-sufficient and did great on his own. I occasionally stopped by on my way to the supermarket to see if Pete needed anything.
     One day I found him sitting at the kitchen table with a huge stack of playing cards and a few piles of paper clips. When I asked what he was doing, he said that he was teaching himself how to count cards to beat the casinos at blackjack. I paid him no mind and left. For some time, though, it seemed that when-ever I visited Pete, he was involved in this routine.
     Pete explained that card counting meant assigning a plus or minus point value to each card. By doing so, a counter could determine how to bet and play. Finally, after a few months of practice, Pete told me he was ready to go to Atlantic City. I’d never been there, nor to any casino, but I told him that if he wanted to go, I’d take him on the bus. We decided to go on a Saturday morning.
     It was late spring 1981. The bus fare was $15 per person and they gave us coupons good for $10 in coin upon arrival in Atlantic City. The bus was loaded with older folks, all of them excited about the trip. After a three-hour ride, we arrived at Bally’s Park Place around noon. After we ate lunch, Pete asked me to take him to the blackjack tables. The place was crowded, and maneuvering Pete’s wheelchair was no easy task. Finally, Pete pointed to a table with some empty spots and I took him over. He gave me the voucher for his roll of coins (dollars) and said he’d be okay there for about an hour. I left him and went to the slot machines with 20 silver dollars.
     Observing the slot machine players, I quickly concluded that it was some sort of religion for those folks, some of whom were feeding coins into two or three different machines at a time. They seemed to have unbelievable coordination in doing so. Finally, I decided on a machine for myself, one next to an attrac-tive young lady who completely ignored me. I ended up winning a little over $300 playing slots, then took a stroll around the rest of the casino.
     I saw a roulette wheel, and after watching for a while, placed a $5 bet on red. I lost. On to the crap table, where lots of people were hooting and hollering. I’d done a little homework on craps and knew that when you rolled the dice, if you got a 7 or 11, you won, and if you got a 2, 3, or 12 you lost. That was all I knew. I asked someone to help me and ended up placing a $5 bet on the pass line. The person rolling the dice rolled a 6 and it was explained to me that now the shooter had to roll a 6 before roll-ing a 7 for me to win. I scratched my head, confused, as the shooter rolled a 10. I didn’t even want to ask what that meant. The next roll was a 7 and the dealer collected my chip.
     Next it was on to the blackjack tables. I stood by a table and watched the game being dealt. At this point I knew only that the object of the game was to get closer to 21 than the dealer, with-out going over 21. I sat down and clumsily handed the dealer $50. He instructed me to place the money on the table, so I put the $50 down on the circle in front of my seat. The dealer asked if I wanted to bet the $50. I shook my head no. I had no way of knowing that the cash should not have been placed in the bet-ting circle unless I wanted to bet it all.
     After instruction on how to get change the proper way, I had 10 red chips in front of me, each valued at $5. Two cards were dealt in front of me and I reached to pick them up. “Please don’t handle the cards, sir,” the dealer snapped at me. I apologized and proceeded to play, quickly learning the proper hand signals for hit and stand. Still, I noticed that the people at the table were upset with me. I couldn’t figure out why, though I clearly remem-ber friction over a hand on which I had two 8s. I don’t recall what the dealer had showing, but a loud-mouthed person sitting next to me said, “You’re gonna split those, I hope.” I gave a puzzled look and said, “Split?” I ended up standing on the 16. After the round, the loudmouth mumbled a few choice words and left. I won $100 at that table. Then it was time for me to check on Pete.
     I walked over to his table and he asked me how I was doing. All excited, I told him about winning $300 playing slots and $100 playing blackjack. He whispered that he was winning and wanted to play some more. At this point we agreed that I’d check back with him in another two hours. I quit while ahead and went off for a stroll along the Boardwalk.
     After the two hours, I returned to the casino to check on Pete and I noticed that the pile of chips in front of him was smaller than when I’d left. It was about 4:30 and Pete decided to call it a day. He asked if I wanted to have dinner. I nodded. He showed me a slip of paper and told me that dinner was free. Once again, I was puzzled. When we got to the restaurant, Pete told me that I could order whatever I wanted. He explained that after you gamble for a certain period of time, the casinos give you free meals, tickets to shows, and free rooms. My eyes widened. I was amazed that all you had to do was gamble at the casinos and they would give you all these things for free. Pete told me that many people lose lots of money getting those free meals. As the saying goes: There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Pete said that when I first checked in with him, he was winning, up about $900. But when I returned two hours later, he’d lost all but $50 of his winnings. Dinner was great, then we hopped on the bus home.
     Although I never went back to Atlantic City with Pete, he made several trips down there over the next two years. I thought that because he was counting cards, he should be able to win money. Based on my talks with him, however, Pete seemed to lose more than he won. But win or lose, it all seemed too com-plicated for me to worry about.
     In December 1983, Pete moved away, leaving me with a box of books and some other odds and ends he thought I might find interesting. After a couple of months, I finally had time to sort through the box and found several decks of cards and a hardcover book titled Million Dollar Blackjack. I noticed that it was autographed by the author, Ken Uston. I decided to keep the book and the cards and soon I began reading the book.
     To this day, I still consider Million Dollar Blackjack to be one of the most informative and entertaining books on the game ever written. I read through that book chapter by chapter, stopping to practice the drills as they were presented. I was on my way.
     Throughout this book are more details of my experiences with playing the game at various levels—for example, how I got involved with blackjack teams and my journey of playing at high-stakes for more than 20 years. At the time of this writing, I can still confidently walk into a casino and play a winning game. I’ll end this chapter with some notes from my diary of the final days of a recent play:

Thursday Night/Friday Morning
My final plunge. Hit the tables at 11:15 p.m. and got a private table in the VIP Room. During several wild sessions throughout the evening and into the early-morning hours, I went from down $50,000 to winning $22,900. Took $36,000 in my last shoe. Then played Friday afternoon in one final session and won $12,500, putting my trip total at $5,000. It was a long night/morning!

Friday Night/Saturday Morning
Decided to sleep a good deal of the day Friday, to squeeze in one last play before leaving for home. This time I arrived as the VIP Room opened for the evening and continued with the aggressive style of play. I opened up the table, with no other players. After three shoes, I was up $46,000, putting my overall trip total at $51,000. A couple of other players joined the table, so I left. I’m done.
I’m glad to be going home, as the trip was a bit tiring. The swings were wild and I’m pleased I ended up with a decent enough win.

Description:
The buzzword in blackjack these days is MIT. Last year's bestselling book Bringing Down the House, along with several TV documentaries, have chronicled the casino exploits of this team of college students and focused national attention on the fact that casino blackjack can be highly profitable when played properly. Living the high life by beating the casinos at their own game is an exhilarating prospect--only most players lack the skills. Blackjack Blueprint shows you how to play like a pro. From the first turn of the card to getting out of a foreign country with a suitcase full of winnings, this is the most comprehensive training manual for blackjack players ever written. Blackjack Blueprint teaches the same strategies that the MIT players used to "break Vegas," including a few that they never disclosed. And best of all, these techniques can be employed part-time as a money-making hobby, just as the author, Rick "Night Train" Blaine, has applied them for years while maintaining his day job at a New York Fortune 500 company.

Reviews/Media Mentions:

Casino Player, Cigar Aficionado, Southern Gaming & Destinations

"Blackjack Blueprint proves to be an excellent book."
—Cigar Aficionado