The reappearance of $5 blackjack tables in Niagara Falls found me back in the "Green Felt Jungle" doing research for a story on discount gambling in The Buffalo News and pursuing one of my favorite pastimes as well.
I started playing blackjack --- the popular card game also known as "21" or "Beat The Dealer" --- back in 1997, shortly after the opening of Casino Niagara in Niagara Falls, Ont.
I won't boast that I have mastered the the game. But I have figured out that a combination of intelligent play (stick to a strategy), progressive betting (when you're ahead, bet more), money management (quit when you're ahead) and a little luck, I've found a fun and affordable hobby.
But although the "lure of easy money, it's got a very strong appeal" (to quote the lyrics from "Smuggler's Blues" by Glenn Frey), I think the biggest lure of blackjack is the fact that, like sports, no two games are ever alike. Every time I sit down at a table and hand over $100 for a stack of chips, I'm embarking on a new adventure.
Since Aug. 5, 1999, when I won $100 at Casino Niagara, I've kept a bare-bones diary of my blackjack life. Here are a few high (and low) memories.
Good streaks: On Oct. 18, 2000, I walked away from CN with a profit of $52.50 and recorded my 11th straight winning session, a streak that started seven months earlier with wins at the $3 tables at the Las Vegas Club and the Golden Gate Casino in downtown Las Vegas. During the streak, I won a total of $623.50.
As players in all sports and games can attest, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, as good as a winning streak. When things are going your way, you "see the ball" real well, all the close calls go your way, and at resulted in a total profit of $700. This streak started and ended with sessions at the $10 table.
For me, the difference between playing at a $5 (per hand minimum bet) and $10 table is like night and day.
For one thing, to play under my personal rules at the higher level, I have to decide to risk $250 (25 times the minimum) instead of $125. At that level, my heart beats faster, my breath gets shorter, my blood pressure goes up, especially when --- in instances when my rules say to split and double down --- I might have some $60 or $90 riding on the turn of a card. Sometimes I walk around the casino and watch people playing blackjack at the $25, $50 or $100 tables and wonder how they do it.
Bad streaks: While I've had some terrible times at the tables, my longest losing streak has been just four sessions in a row, all at Seneca Niagara Casino (Niagara Falls, N.Y.) in December 2004. My notes say I lost a total of $80 during that time playing "Gollehon style." That refers to John Gollehon, author of a book called "What Casinos Don't Want You To Know." Apparently I didn't read it closely enough.
My notes say that I quit playing on game in the streak because the pit boss raised the minimum bet from $5 to $10 and didn't "grandfather" the existing $5 players so they could keep playing at that level. This has always been one of my biggest complaints about casinos. When the day goes on and the crowds get bigger, they raise the minimums. Ask me if I feel sorry for them now that times are tough.
Buzzsaws: My first use of this word came on March 3, 2003, when I lost $250 in a $10 game at Casino Niagara. You know how a buzzsaw zips right through a piece of wood, throwing sawdust all over the place as it rips from one end to the otherƒ Than's what happens to a stack of chips when you run into a buzzsaw dealer. You lose every hand. You get 20, the dealer pulls 21. You split aces and draw a pair of deuces. You double down with an 11 and draw a three. You shoulda walked away long ago. Luckily, buzzsaws don't come along that often. I've noted only four of them in 204 sessions, but they accounted for losses totaling $752.50.
Cool it: When I first started playing I would get very upset when other players at the table made the "wrong" move and played what I considered to be stupidly. Like they'd hit their 16 when the dealer showed a four or stand with 12 against a dealer's two. I, and many others like me, believed that such play louses up the karma of the deck and causes everybody at the table to lose.
But then one hot summer night I found myself at "third base" (to the immediate right of the dealer) a table with a handful of hard-drinking German tourists who neither spoke English, nor understood blackjack. They played every hand wrong. But to my surprise I won, and won and won. It was the beginning of my mellowing, Over the years, I've come to believe that in the long run, it doesn't matter how others play their hands as long as you play yours correctly.
Spillover: It's September 21, 2005 and I'm playing in a $5 game at the new Fallsview Niagara Casino in Niagara Falls, Ont. It's about 10:30 a.m. and a man carrying a glass of beer sits down at the table. This guy is bad news," I say to myself after it becomes obvious that he's not an experienced player. A few minutes later, he spills his beer all over the table, which management closes immediately, leaving me $30 in the hole. I didn't play again for three months. Next time out, a coffee spiller wiped out the table while I was $50 ahead. Good thing I've mellowed.
Free ain't free: Back in the day, the Canadian casinos would set me coupons good for, say, $10 or $20 in free chips. My records show that in 2003-04 I got $70 in free chips and put them into play on four occasions. The first three times I won a total of $115. The last time I lost $125. There's a lesson here someplace.
Day to remember: October 20, 2004, Seneca Niagara Casino. I have never before nor since sat in on a $5 game as hot as this one. The dealer was a young lady and the shoe (box from which the cards are dealt) was Tabasco hot. I hit my win goal ($50) plus another $15. I decided to stay around until Iost three in a row. Well, it took a long time for that to happen. Hand after hand went the players' way. The dealer went bust about 12 times in a row. The guy next to me looked at his watch, like he had someplace better to go. "Do you realize what's going on?" I whispered to him. "This is the hottest table I've ever seen." When it cooled down, I left with a profit of $175.
Cheater's proof: One day I sat next to a man who told me he'd come all the way from Rochester to play blackjack at CN. During the game, the man lost a hand but the dealer miscounted and mistakenly paid him. The guy kept the chips and I whispered to him "This is your lucky day." He then lost the next nine hands in a row. "I shoulda gave it back," he said.
Woulda, coulda: Twice --- on Dec. 10, 2002 at CN and Feb. 4, 2005 at Fallsview --- I sat down and won my first nine hands in a row. Nine in a row! Keeping with my usual pattern of betting $5, then $10, then $15, then back to $5 and so forth, I walked away with a profit of $52.50 each time. I was happy, but the thought crossed my mind that if I'd, say, kept adding $5 to my bet each time, I could have ended up with $225. And what if I'd double my bet each time. A nine-in-a-row parlay would total $2,515.
Constant comment: I am a follower of "Basic Strategy." I have memorized the correct response to all possible combinations of hands and try to never vary from what they call "The Book." For example, if I have a pair of nines and the dealer's up-card is a seven, I stand. But if the dealer shows an eight, I split my nines and take new cards on them. I also believe that once I sit down to play, I keep playing until I either hit my win goal (usually $50 plus) or lose my $125 session bankroll.
But I have a friend who has a completely opposite philosophy. He never takes a card if he holds 12 or more, no matter what the dealer shows. And he plays hit-and-run. He'll step up to a table, put down $100, and play one or two hands, win or lose.
Last time I saw him at Seneca Niagara, we argued over our methods. Then he stepped up and won $250 in two hands and went home. Guess he'll never listen.
--- Bob Summers