In this first post in the “How We Do It” series, I would like to discuss an extremely important task, nay, skill, that card counters have never even considered, but which my crew faces on a near-daily basis:
handing off a seat. Card counters generally have a choice of tables, and the particular seat available at the chosen table is not critical to the game. Some counters do not even sit at all, preferring to table-hop around a busy casino. Also, the majority of card counters play solo, and therefore never face a daunting seat handoff.
I realize that this topic is quite narrow, but I’m so sick of amateurish handoff screwups that I need to get this off my chest. This stuff is absolutely required reading for any pro.
The typical scenario we face is that an advance scout has found a hole-card game, and then needs to lock the seat and subsequently hand the seat off to the spotter who arrives later, possibly under busy conditions where civilian gamblers or competing crews may be trying to acquire the seat. Cutters, blockers, sequencers, translators, BPs, and other role players may need particular seats at a table, but the hole-card example is probably the most familiar.
Obviously the situation is simplified if the spotter initially scouts and secures the seat, but that is often not feasible. Perhaps the spotter is busy scouting other casinos, or is actually tied up playing a different target, or is busy doing computer work at home. When the spotter arrives on scene to receive the seat from the seat-locker, there are three goals: 1. The spotter must wind up in the “lucky” seat; 2. The BP must also have at least one spot available; 3. The handoff can’t look like a handoff. This last goal is actually so important that I will accept a slight risk of losing the seat if it cleans up an awkward handoff that would otherwise get us picked off by casino personnel or dangerous civilians.
I cannot stress the importance of eliminating handoff mistakes. Rookies worry, as they should, about betting and playing errors, but let’s look at the relative costs. Suppose we have a game with an 8% edge, and the rookie BP misses my signal to increase the bet from $1000 to $1500. That mistake costs us $40 in expected profit. Suppose the rookie BP autohits a $1000 hand that calls for a double down. Perhaps hitting is suboptimal by 20%, for a $200 cost for this error. But what about botching a seat handoff? The entire session can be lost, costing thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. A handoff error costs orders of magnitude more than any single error in playing a hand.
A smooth, secure handoff requires great coordination between the locker and the spotter, and generally requires both parties to read the personalities and likely reactions of the dealer and the other nearby gamblers. The general approach is for the spotter to signal when he is ready to receive the seat, but the locker has veto power to continue to wait if he thinks the handoff cannot be secured. The locker has a better read on the other players at the table who are a threat to intercept the handoff. Here are the steps to a successful handoff:
1. When the spotter arrives, the locker must not assume that the spotter is immediately ready for the handoff. The spotter will generally want to survey the pit quickly, checking for any threats such as dangerous bosses or competing crews. I hate when I show up at the casino and the locker just gets up and abandons the seat. We actually have two signals that the spotter uses to convey to the locker: (A) Wait, and (B) I am ready to switch now. The spotter has to watch closely and be ready to jump in if the locker makes an unexpected move without signaling.
2. When the spotter arrives, he should not immediately get close the table. He should approach the table from behind the dealer (on the other side of the pit), so that the locker can see that the spotter has arrived, but the dealer cannot see the spotter yet. The locker can now text or signal any special information, and the spotter is still able to leave without having been seen if there is any trouble.
3. If he does not already have chips, the spotter should buy up some chips at another table. Chips are tremendously useful in a handoff. The strongest and fastest way to acquire possession of a spot at the table is to put chips in the betting circle. I once had a civilian say, “That’s my seat,” to which I replied, “Then how come my chips are in the betting circle?” (I was confident that the dealer would rule in my favor in this scenario; otherwise, I would have been nicer.) For any casino that we target regularly, I would keep a small inventory of “handoff chips” for this purpose.
4. The locker needs to be mobile, ready to leave the table immediately when the moment is right. So, the locker should not have piles of chips on the table. It irritates me when I show up and see that the locker has $1500 in piles of green and red all over the table! At this point, the locker should color up MOST of his chips, but not all. Coloring up will give the locker an indication of whether any other civilians at the table are trying to move to the lucky seat. The civilians might ask if the locker is quitting, or might actually make a physical move towards the seat. If that happens, the locker can say that he’s going to keep playing a bit longer (and then communicate to the spotter that there is a possible interceptor). That’s the reason the locker should not color up all of his chips. He’s now mobile, but still has a handful of chips to play a few hands.
5. The locker should start intermittently sitting out some hands. Ideally, the locker would have been doing this for a few minutes already. The other players then see that the locker doesn’t play every hand, so they do not realize, when the time comes, that the locker is actually quitting the game and that the handoff is going to occur.
6. The spotter should approach the table and signal his readiness to receive the seat. If there are any civilians standing around the table, it is safer to wait until they are gone. Sometimes a simple invasion of space such as walking through their field of view can snap them out of their hypnotic trance and get them to move along to watch some other table.
7. When both parties are ready, the locker should remain seated but sit out the hand. When the dealer puts the cards on the table, and the civilians are in the middle of playing their hands, the locker should quietly get up and walk away, and the spotter should immediately put his chips in the vacant betting circles and sit down. Because this is done quietly while the civilians are involved in a hand, they may not even realize that the handoff has occurred! I have had the dealer and the civilians look at me after a hand or two and then say, “Oh! Where did the other guy go?”
8. When the locker gets up, he should not immediately leave the area. He should quietly get up and step away from the table to make room for the spotter, but he should be prepared to defend the handoff. If another civilians tries to intercept, or makes a claim that he was next up waiting for that seat, then the locker can defend the seat and say, “I wasn’t quitting. I just had to check my phone. I’m still playing.” The locker still has first claim to the seat, and should remain closeby to reclaim the seat. I hate when the locker runs away and doesn’t stick around to defend the handoff. A trick here is that the locker can leave one white or red chip discreetly to the side or near the rail. If the spotter secures the seat with no problem, the spotter can just say, “The other guy forgot this chip,” or tell the dealer, “That guy left this for you.” If a civilian tries to intercept, the locker can say, “I’m not done playing; that’s why I left my chip there.”
The safest thing to do is to execute the handoff when no civilians are around. If there is someone threatening to intercept, it is best to wait until that person goes to the bathroom or gets distracted on the phone. Every little step is important, but I would say that the main details where most rookies fail are: (1) the spotter should have chips ready to place in the betting circles, (2) the handoff should occur while the civilians are involved in a hand that the locker is sitting out, (3) the locker should remain close to reclaim the seat if necessary.
If necessary, the locker can execute a partial handoff as part of a two-step process. First, the locker needs to acquire two seats. So, if the locker is playing both the last seat (third base, anchor, “button” as we call it) and the next-to-last seat (we call it “the cutoff”), he starts intermittently sitting out on the cutoff spot. The spotter then walks up and tries to place a bet in the cutoff. The dealer will say that the locker is playing both spots, but the locker can relinquish the cutoff. It is very unlikely that any civilian will try to intercept this handoff, as the cutoff is not so desirable to them, especially with the locker still sitting on the button. To us, though, the cutoff is tremendously valuable, because it is physically adjacent to the button.
Now the spotter is seated in the cutoff with the locker on the button. When the locker then abandons the button a few hands later, the spotter has chips ready to immediately spread out to the second spot. It is much easier for the spotter to do this quickly and naturally since he is playing in the adjacent seat. As the adjacent player, he has a much stronger practical and procedural claim to the button than any of the civilians do. For the actual handoff of the button, the same safeties are in place. The locker can leave an insurance chip behind, and he should remain close by if he needs to reclaim the seat to wait for a safer moment.
The process can be a thing of beauty when executed by professionals. The analogy to a track relay is quite accurate. If a runner is a tenth of a second faster or slower running his leg, that may not affect the outcome much at all, but if the baton handoff is botched, the race is lost. Like a track team, your crew should practice the critical details to ensure a smooth, secure handoff.
7 is the best. I play solo and don’t have a crew for a locker or spotter and the one thing I hate the most are players who are occupying seat #2 but playing first base or vice versa. Maybe this scenario can be part of your ‘How We Do It’ series. Suppose your locker comes across this and the game is irresistible. WWLD? I personally cant talk my way into getting my lucky seat without having some type of spat with the player. They are usually rude telling me to sit on the other side. Involving the pit also doesn’t make sense. Whether its them, a purse, ashtray, leg, dog or whatever sitting on the lucky seat, it is surely annoying. Or maybe I am dealing with a locker!
Wow! You must really be running out of things to write about. And the sheer over kill on a non issue. Talk about mommy and daddy why didn’t you pay more attention to me. Maybe you can write another ten pages on how to sit in your chair properly blech!
Who do you have to kill nowadays to get a copy of Exhibit CAA. I have the stellar original, but for the life of me I can’t get my hands on the follow up.
Hole-carding is cheating. I feel certain that anyone who hole-cards for a living would vigorously and indignantly reply that it’s not cheating, it’s taking advantage of dealer carelessness. There is, however, a rather massive distinction between the dealer accidentally flipping over his hole card and a player altering the way he plays his hand based on this unexpected information, and positioning a goon in the exact right place to spook the hole card and signal that information. It’s sort of like the difference between looking when the wind blows a girl’s dress up and getting down on the sidewalk and looking up her dress when there’s no wind. (And to further drag out that analogy, the house could never peek at all or use those little window readers, and the girl could wear pants.)
Derek’s post is an example of the sort of thing we won’t encourage here. I don’t mind dissenting views, but there’s no value in this sort of response. Disagree with some decorum or you won’t see your comments here at all. By the way, it’s this very kind of attention to detail that separates the best from the others.
I think this is the best entry of the series so far. Sure it’s not the most important issue. Handing off a seat seems pretty straightforward, but why not do it perfectly? The intermittently sitting out/switching during a hand is a great idea I never considered. Advantage play is so full of these realizations.
But that isn’t why I think this is a great entry. This article really illustrates a professional approach. Every little piece is important. They go about this seemingly insignificant task in the best possible way. My takeaway from this article: whatever you are doing, do it as well as you can. This applies to more than just advantage play.
The baton relay analogy is very accurate. Batons don’t get dropped often, but when they do, it’s a disaster. It SEEMS like it should be straightforward. Oftentimes it is. But if you’re not prepared for the @ 5-10% of the time it’s NOT straightforward, the cost in EV can be huge, as JG states.
Looks like civilians and wannabes don’t understand AP nuances, and how important they are. That’s fine with me. Nothing to see here folks, move along…
I have experienced all of JG’s scenarios. I’d like to boast that I handled them all smoothly… but I can’t. I botched one up @ a year ago, against a dealer who was already paranoid, with the end result being her snapping that we were together, and caused us to abort the play that day, and made future play against her much more difficult. If I read this article before that, or should I say, had I followed his advice (big difference between the two), I’d probably be a few thousand richer, even at my notoriously low stakes..
It would seem intuitive that civilians don’t really make a stink about claiming a seat, so why is JG wasting time on this one-in-a-million scenario? Answer- because anti-intuitively, it’s more like a 1-20 occurance, and this exact scenario played out with colleagues of mine just last month (I was not there). Big money involved (not mine, good thing because they wound up getting crushed), potential for disaster if the territorial ploppy was handled amateurishly.
For inconsequential AP’s like me, this article is really good stuff. For world class pros, this is serious, mandatory knowledge.
It’s a bit of scammish and but it’s a legal scam. A casino is a legal scam as well.
Why are you getting all bent out of shape at someone getting at worse odds than you get against thousands of customers on your keno and slots games? Hole carders do lose you know!
“it’s taking advantage of dealer carelessness”
You said it yourself.
“positioning a goon in the exact right place to spook the hole card and signal that information”
Your statement tells me you are confused between hole card play and spooking.
If the reader is gaining information away from the table and signals it back is called spooking. That is cheating. I don’t feel like explaining the difference.
Now if you think hcp is cheating then that is your opinion. I just hope you don’t work for a casino.
“If the reader is gaining information away from the table and signals it back is called spooking. That is cheating.”
Spooking has never been tested in court so it is technically an uncharted legal area.
“Now if you think hcp is cheating then that is your opinion.”
Now in this case there ARE laws that say it is 100% legal.
“Spooking has never been tested in court so it is technically an uncharted legal area.”
Interesting…good to know thanks
Please don’t quote sentence fragments out of context and then pretend that they are verbatim statements from the person quoted. That’s intellectually dishonest.
In point of fact, hole-carding refers to ANY method, legal or not, of ascertaining the identity of the dealer’s hole card. Spooking is, in fact, a method of hole-carding. What I’m sure is actually being discussed here is “front-loading,” wherein the player tries to ascertain the identity of the hole card as the dealer deals it to himself. Of course, the opportunity for third-basing and first-basing still exists if the dealer peeks under face cards and aces.
I reiterate that I consider all forms of hole-carding to be cheating. This with the full admission that I more often than not have been able to find one or more dealers who are careless and flash the hole card when taking it off the deck. You can usually at least tell if it is paint or non-paint. I don’t generally approve of angle-shooting even if technically legal. I definitely smell AP arrogance here in some of the terms used to refer to non-APs (“ploppies,” “civilians”), but it’s born partly of a defensive attitude. I used to beat the Vegas shoe game, straight up, without shooting any angles, and did so for eight years. I have and had thought that someone who was about jockey height and had sharp eyes should be able to see the hole card half the time at least. But I wouldn’t have wanted to win that way, and didn’t need to.
There’s an important distinction between saying that hole carding is cheating and saying that “[you] consider” hole carding to be cheating. You can consider it such and conduct your play accordingly. But the reality is, regardless of anyone’s moral/ethical stance, it’s been ruled legal, which means that calling it cheating without qualification is an inaccurate depiction.
Perhaps 20 years ago there was a promotion at Klondike’s (dumpy joint on the Strip at Russell — mostly known for free spaghetti and meatball dinners you could get via free mailers sent to everybody in greater Las Vegas) where every time you got a natural, you received an early-surrender-for-free “chip” that could be used on any subsequent hand. Written up on Wong’s CBN, each player was limited to two $100 hands.
You had three tables full of pros. I was a low-level blackjack semi-pro at the time, but I was certainly good enough to do well at this promotion. I had my two seats and was going planning on being there for the duration. I had never bet black before — let alone two places — but I had enough on me and I recognized enough of the “big boys” that I felt it was probably safe enough.
At another table, there was going to be a handoff from guy to his girlfriend/teammate. That table had opened late when there were many wannabe players hanging about, so each player was only able to playing one spot apiece. As the guy stood up for his girlfriend to sit down, the player next to him immediately slid a black chip into the betting circle. As the girl sat down, this player said “Sorry, I’m playing two spots. That’s my money.”
“But I wanted to play,” said the girl. “And I want to play two spots and that’s my right” was the reply.
The guy who had just left tried to defend handing it off to his girlfriend — but he knew enough not to say, “We’re teammates and we want to continue to kick your ass on this promo.” But the guy who was already at the table stood his ground and I believe was allowed to keep the spot.
As it got a bit loud, the rest of us were silently hoping it got handled quickly and quietly before the casino figured out that if all these max-bet strangers were fighting over seats on a game where there are usually empty spaces even for $3 minimum bets, probably the casino miscalculated the promotion.
A half hour later the casino shut down the games. I had busted early on my last hand (not on purpose) so I was able to rush to the cage immediately to cash out as soon as the announcement came. Those at the end of the line had to come back the next day to be paid. At that time of my career I had no idea that cashing out immediately might not be a good idea. At the time it definitely felt right, although I was a local and it would have been easy for me to come back the next day.
As it happened, Arnold Snyder was at the table where the botched handoff took place. He was not involved, but he had a bird’s eye view. Perhaps he remembers some part of this differently than I do and would like to chime in. I will send him a note to which he may or may not wish to respond.
That’s a great story. That’s exactly the type of scenario when we would evaluate the poach risk from every other person in the vicinity. The options are: 1. Don’t handoff at all, and have original player (OP) continue; 2. Blow your “we’re-not-together” cover and have the girl play with the OP for a while and then have the OP leave; 3. Make some deal with the adjacent pro; 4. Pray that the pro goes to the bathroom and then quickly make the handoff; 5. Call the casino and have the guy paged, and then make the handoff if the guy gets up or turns his back.
I consider it a hostile act if the adjacent pro forces us to do #1. Dude, you’re not going to make any money off our seat, and we’ll have the OP play all night if necessary, so all you’re accomplishing is screwing us by not allowing us to make the handoff. An ex-teammate of mine pulled that garbage on us years ago at an off-Strip casino (home of G-host Bar). We were trying to make a handoff, and this guy hovered for HOURS, and our girl had to just sit there alone and bleed all night.
JG’s response presumes threat is only coming from one side (say the guy on right). In this promo, there was a potential threat on the left as well. EVERYBODY was betting black. I don’t know who knew whom so it may not have been clear which side was going to make the hostile move. Waiting until BOTH of them went to the bathroom might take awhile.
This narrative is yet another example of greedy pros destroying a good play. What blows my mind is that these bottom-feeders think they can walk into some dust joint and start betting black and arouse no suspicion whatsoever!! Chain all the pros to telephone poles and a good promo might last for weeks. Release them and the promo will be destroyed in half an hour. The greedy pros could just bet $10-20/hand and make a modest profit, which opportunity would persist for some time, in all probability resulting in a greater net EV (albeit with more time invested). But noooooo…none of the pros can control themselves, or more precisely, the tragedy of the commons intervenes. And the two-hand nonsense? Why not just put a flashing beacon on your head? Aside from the fact that you’re crowding other players out (an ethical consideration that, like other such considerations, carries very, very little weight with the pros), you’re dooming the play for yourself AND for everyone else.
The net effect is that casinos that would normally offer good-to-excellent promos are reluctant to do so because they know that three minutes after they do so, every pro within a 1000-mile radius will crawl out from under his rock and try to exploit the opportunity, as crudely and blatantly as possible. News flash: attracting bottom-feeding pros so that they can pad their bankrolls is NOT the purpose or objective of a casino promotion. At the Klondike, the net effect of the promo was to crowd out regular players.
James this is a nice blog that you have. I like it. In the “How We Do It” series, is there anyway that we could discuss how we scout out tables and dealers as a topic?
I wrote an article about that Klondike promotion in the Fall 1996 issue of Blackjack Forum, and that precise situation is described. Unfortunately I don’t describe how the argument was settled. The pit boss allowed the girl to enter the table, disallowing the player who was betting one spot to spread to two. I think the boss made the right decision. In fact, there was no method for handing off your betting spot to another player at that promotion as the aisles were thick with pros standing behind all three open tables waiting to pounce on any opportunity to get a bet down. The article is in the BJF online Library here: http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/surpriseparty.html
“Greedy pros”? What about greedy casinos? Casinos are in the business of making money, and they have few moral restrictions on how they go about doing this. Even their promotions are frequently motivated by a desire to attract more losing players, who will eventually give back whatever money they may win from the promo, and then some.
“The greedy pros could just bet $10-20/hand and make a modest profit…..But noooooo…none of the pros can control themselves.” Casinos certainly don’t exhibit self control either. Last month, I was playing table max at one of the worst games in a casino. Once in a long while, I’d spread to all six spots. If other players tried to sit down, the floor person wouldn’t allow it, even though I was the only player at the table and using the other spots less than twice per hour, and the minimum was $5. This wasn’t because the floor person was so fond of me. It was simply because he expected the casino to make more from someone betting $500/hand than from someone betting $5.
Don’t misconstrue this as a “two wrongs make a right” argument. I happen to think both parties are in the right. If a casino acts to maximize its profits, so be it! I don’t fault casinos for making rule changes that cost the average player money (e.g. 6:5 BJ), for adding side bets with high house edges (take your pick), or any of the other decisions intended to make more money. As long as a casino doesn’t break the law, it’s under no obligation–moral or otherwise–to protect its customers from their own bad choices. I usually don’t fault casino personnel when they back me off or bar me. I’d do the same thing if I had a casino! (Though I would generally be polite about it. Thank you, Venetian, and your demure Asian octogenarian who’s in charge of high-level barrings.) I just see it is a natural consequence of the competition between me and them.
You can logically hold the position that both advantage players and casinos are despicable, money-grubbing bottom feeders. Or you can hold the position that both entities are simply acting in their own best interests in the true spirit of capitalism (god bless America!). But you can’t logically hold the position that advantage players are greedy bottom-feeders, while simultaneously believing that casinos are morally upstanding entities.
I’m not saying whether APs or casinos are right or wrong–everyone can decide that for himself. What bothers me, however, is your clear hypocrisy and double standard.
This was a really, really dumb response–putting words in my mouth (that I somehow have touted casinos as shining examples of moral rectitude) that I never said. Don’t call me a hypocrite for something I didn’t say in the first place.
In fact, I have always been highly critical of the many, many ethically dubious acts performed by casinos, from deceptive practices to outright cheating and lying, and (yes) denying access to casino games to only certain players. I feel, however, that in such an environment, we as players can only object to such practices if we hold ourselves to a higher standard. Otherwise, it would be (and, in fact, is at present) a totally amoral, dog-eat-dog environment.
Just wondering, are you the Kevin Lewis who appeared on GWAE last year discussing Reno VP?
HI WRX, to answer your question, yes, I was. Interestingly, almost every Reno play I mentioned then is gone now. Also, the topic of the first half of the show was a loss rebate program at an eastern casino called the Revel or something like that. I told the hosts that in my strong opinion, the promo was far too good to last and that I expected the casino to renege on the promo, and very soon at that. The hosts were skeptical of my stance, but the casino actually canceled the rebate program the very next day, and not only that, reneged on all the loss rebates as well.
There just might be some correlation between mentioning a play on ANY public forum and the subsequent disappearance of that play.
Lighten up AC. LVN was built on that kind of wit. You must have really been buzzed when mom and dad took you to see Rickels for your 21st birthday.
Bravo KL for keeping it real.
It’s great to be here with everyone, I have a lot of knowledge from what you share, to say thanks, the information and knowledge here helps me a lot.