Bahtatboy

No, they're two sausages.

scrubbedexpat141

I never saw anything wrong with your head.

Re; temperature, just get the casino to turn off the a/c or up the heating. They'll do anything to keep you in there. The one in Southampton used to make me ham and cheese sarnies FOC....and you know I'm no high roller.

Bahtatboy

My heads worse on the inside than outside, but that a whole different cheese sandwich...

Casino at Mazagan is very accommodating, although they haven't quite flung floozies at me yet (sarnies, yes). It did take me 4 1/2 hours to win 15 quid last night, but last night aside I'm averaging £100 in 15 minutes. Reckon it'll be more with the right hat...

scrubbedexpat141

Blackjack?

Sticking to the simple rules?

What about other players? Do you get let down by people taking cards and letting the dealer off (occ.)?

Bahtatboy

Yeah, Basic Strategy as modified for the rules (which are very, very soft, giving a house edge of less than 0.5%): no hole card, double on any two cards, double after splits, re-split up to 4 hands, dealer stands on soft 17, surrender (except against dealer’s A), bet spread of 20:1. Unfortunately out of a 6-deck autoshuffler, so can’t count properly although some dealers leave about a deck-and-a-half in the discard pile before putting back into the autoshuffler, so some limited counting is possible. Also interesting side bet paying 9:1 if player’s first two cards + dealer’s first card create 3 of a kind, flush or run: odds are about 12:1, so strictly speaking not worth doing…

Also there’s a membership scheme, and they log how much you buy in for which creates points for discounts. I always buy in for at least 5x my target, sometimes more. Speaking to a few of the staff I’m pretty sure they don’t check how much you win, but I’ve yet to see anybody playing Basic Strategy, and there’s a lot of money out on the tables, so I guess they’re not too concerned.

Its equally possible that the right play will give a good result for the dealer as a bad play, so you gotta let it roll. I only get frustrated with the length of time other players take—dumb decisions are good, coz means more money for the casino which, in turn, means they’re not focussed on me. Players standing on hands less than 12, hitting stiff hands against 5 and 6, surrendering against almost anything if they have a 13 or 14…have yet to see someone splitting 5’s or 10’s, but wouldn’t surprise me.

With more or less everything I’ve experienced so far in Morocco, its all pretty laid back and friendly. Golf at the Pullman in El Jadida was fabulous yesterday (well, not the golf, but the course). Less than £30 a round (£50 without my company discount, or about £600 a year which exempts you from green fees), a tenner for the caddy, immaculately kept, beautiful course. Not going to reveal my score, but did par bogey bogey bogey the last four…

scrubbedexpat141

Sounds awesome.

I know most of the stuff you talk about, especially doubling 10's etc etc.

I used to get annoyed at people playing slowly, because it's a quick, fun game.

To be honest, I'm not that good but 80%ish of the time I'd come out up, even if only marginally. The times I didn't I was just being stupid and taking cards at stupid times. Still, all fun and games.

The Dean

Re your first paragraph........... what language are you speaking?

krado

I did see a few novel hats in Riyadh the other day. one very similar to the attached but minus the wheel. Why in gods name would you need a wheel on your hat. the other was a white polystyrene box but not sure if he was keeping the heat out or keeping his head hot

Bahtatboy

BJese.

Autonomy

Winner, winner, chicken dinner... Did you like the film 21? I'd love to know more on Blackjack and Poker but never got round to it - always thought if I put my mind to it I'd be pretty decent - did win at poker, more luck than skill though...

Bahtatboy

Yeah, quite liked 21: good mix of fact and Hollywood. Blackjack is actually quite simple. To play it to win you've got to do three things.

1 Play in an environment that has relatively favourable rules, that is safe, and where you can take your winnings easily. This applies to both online and bricks-n-mortar casinos.

2 Memorise Basic Strategy. There are 350 combinations of Dealer card v Player's cards, and a statistically correct choice for each of those among Stand, Hit, Double, Split, Insurance and, where available, Surrender. That's not as daunting as it sounds--most of the choices naturally group together and are intuitive, so its only the exceptions / unusual plays that you need to really learn. Some complication arises from the fact that the various rules of Blackjack can be altered by the casino (although not so in UK, where the rules are, in effect, fixed), and as a consequence Basic Strategy can change, so you need to know the Basic Strategy relevant to the rules you are playing. But the changes are small. You need to know Basic Strategy off-by-heart when playing in a bricks-n-mortar casino, but obviously you can have an aide memoire to hand when playing on line.

Basic Strategy shouldn't take more than a few hours to comprehend, and a couple of days to memorise. An understanding of the probability on which Basic Strategy is built is, in my view, advisable, mainly for those occasions when you lose hand after hand and start to question things.

3 Manage your money properly. This is perhaps the most difficult part, both in terms of the logic behind it, and in applying it in the heat of battle. It involves how big a bankroll you need, minimum and maximum bets, when to increase or decrease bets, and when to stop (both when you're winning and when you're losing); all those things are inter-related.


Card counting is a whole different ballgame, and increasingly is not possible. It relies on assessing the relative proportion of high-value and low-value cards in the cards still remaining--the creeping introduction of autoshufflers (meaning that the cards are shuffled before every hand, or very frequently) means that you cannot improve the odds. However, as stated in my previous post, with generous rules the house only has an edge of about 0.5% (assuming that you play perfect Basic Strategy), so you stand a very good chance of being up at some point, which is where money management (in this instance quitting while you're ahead) comes into play.

Happy to share more via PM.

scot47

When the "Ikwan" of King Abdulaziz ibn Saud took over Jeddah in the 1920s they destroyed un-Islamic articles that were on sale in Jeddah Souk. These items included brassieres, alcohol, bibles, hair-dye, wigs and HATS. After reading that I have always made a point of being in possession of several hats. I manage quite well without the other articles on the list.

Tockalosh

Get an akubra

Worldwide delivery

Pm me and I will send a link to a place that does em cheapish

Meow

Hair dye is un-Islamic? Hmmm, so the uber-black hair of King Abdullah of KSA, aged 88, is entirely natural...

scot47

The Sunna of the Prophet is to use henna and not hair dye- which is a DECEPTION !