HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: messiah@nevada.edu (MHW)
Subject: Re: even bets question...
Organization: University of Nevada System Computing Services
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 17:22:57 GMT

In article <1992Aug14.053256.29626@ichips.intel.com> bhoughto@sedona.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>In article <JACOBS.92Aug13134021@cells.cs.utah.edu> jacobs@cs.utah.edu (Steven R Jacobs) writes:
>-In article <1992Aug12.175153.21702@redbrick.com> jfr@redbrick.com (Jon Rosen) writes:
>-> In article <12913@inews.intel.com> bhoughto@sedona.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>->>In article <1992Aug11.054400.23686@redbrick.com> jfr@redbrick.com (Jon Rosen) writes:
>->>>  Bill Friedman's book Casino Management (written in 1974,
>->>
>->>Is it in print?  Does it have an ISBN?  Can I get
>->
>-> Down Blair, down boy :-)  The ISBN is 0-8184-0151-6.  I have no idea
>-
>-It is listed in the GBC catalog, at least in the 1990 edition, at the
>-low low price of just $125, but that price may have changed by now.
>-Hey Blair, can I borrow your copy? :-)
>
>Borrow, hell!
>
>You can LEASE it, maybe...

That book should be available under "Special Collections" at the Gaming
Research Center of the University of Nevada Las Vegas library. They have
tons of stuff there free of charge... you just have to read whatever it is
that you're interested in, in the reserve room. There's BJ player's
newsletters and BJ books, also oodles of stuff about Poker, sports betting,
casino mgt, etc. The place is on the 4th floor.
From: jka@ece.cmu.edu (Jay Adams)
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
Subject: Best bets
Date: 19 Aug 92 15:58:34 GMT
Organization: CMU ECE Dept.
Originator: jka@mustang.ece.cmu.edu


> Hello, I was wondering what is the best bet on the crap table?  Is there a suc 
> thing?  There are so many choices what is the best one?  Thanks in advance.

The best bet in craps is to play the pass/dont-pass/come/dont-come
with the maximum free odds that are allowed--keeping in mind that you
should always place free odds wagers that the casino can pay off
correctly.  The casino will let you round up your odds bet if need be.

For instance, if the casino offers 2x odds, and you bet $2 on the pass
line, and the point is 6 (or 8), your odds bet can and should be $5.
Even though $5 is more than two times $2 the casino will let you do
that because the payoff is 6 to 5 (i.e. they'll give you $6 if you
win).  If your odds bet is only $4, they would only give you $4 if you
won 'cause they're not going to pay out fractions of a betting unit.

If you're betting don't-pass or don't-come (like I usually do), you
bet whatever amount makes the payoff 2x your original bet (assuming 2x
odds are offered).  Again, you round up for 6 and 8 'cause they pay 5
to 6.  If at a 2x odds table you bet $2 on dont-pass, and the point is
6 or 8 your free odds wager should be $6 which will pay off at 5 to 6
(you win $5).  If the point is 5 or 9 your free odds wager should also
be $6 and it will pay off at 4 to 6 (you win $4).  If the point is 4
or 10, your free odds wager should be $8 and it will pay off at 1 to 2
(you win $4).

Also, if you're going to play craps you should look for a casino which
allows the largest possible free odds bets (assuming that your
bankroll can withstand the additional action).  I've heard that some
casinos offer 10-20x odds though I've never played at one.  

Large free odds bets bring your expected return very close (although
never more than) to unity (i.e. even with the house) because the 1.4%
that you're giving away on the pass (or don't pass) line bets is being
diluted by the free odds action (for which the house has no
advantage).  So, the house advantage as a fraction of your total
action is lower.

The only 100% sure bet that I know of in craps is that if you ask the
waitress to bring you a beer, she will.  I recommend making this play
as often as possible.  And try to shout a lot.

- Jay
From: ron@osf.org (Ron Birnbaum)
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
Subject: Re: Big August rec.gambling excursion
Date: 13 Aug 92 20:10:05 GMT
Organization: Open Software Foundation

In article <1992Aug13.062602.16405@nevada.edu>, funky@nevada.edu (MATTHEW KAPHAN) writes:
|> In article <g94mq_+.slick@netcom.com> slick@netcom.com (Martin Veneroso) writes:
|> >Hey!  Count me in;  this sounds like a blast.  I just made my
|> >reservations this afternoon.  Is this gonna be BYOHB (Bring Your
|> >Own Hot Babe [tm]), or are there others planning on scoping out
|> >the local action?
|> >
|> >
|> >-- 
|> >Martin Veneroso
|> >slick@netcom.com
|> >Jung'f vg gb ln?
|> >jneybeqf fhpx fjbeqf
|> 
|> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|>  
|>     I've never posted to rec.gamblers yet, but I have been reading it.  Anyways
|> I live in Vegas, and I wouldn't mind getting together with you guys.  I'm not
|> much of a blackjack player, but I enjoy poker and Pai Gow Poker.  I thought I'd
|> include a short story of how great a town Vegas is.  I was at the Desert Inn 
|> once playing poker <7 card stud>  and heard screaming coming from teh Baccarat
|> pit. So I wandered over there and witnessed a chinese man betteing $10 to $100 
|> thousand dollars a hand.  I also witnessed the guy throwing chips out to the 
|> people cheering him on.  Realizing I had better odds winning money over here 
|> then on the poker table I hung out and managed to score a black <$100> chip. 
|> Vegas, what a great town.  Let's all agree on a place to meet and I'm there.  
|>  

  Sure looks like the Baccarat pit at the Desert Inn is a great place to meet
  and camp out!!

-Ron



|> Forgive the mistakes and how this message looks, I haven't posted before :<
|> 
|> Take it easy... Presto!
|>  

 Looks like you got the lingo! I still think your an undercover pit boss!

-Ron


|> Matthew William Kaphan
From: hack@arabia.uucp (Edmund Hack)
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
Subject: Viva Las Vegas!
Date: 17 Aug 92 20:04:36 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Lockheed ESC, Houston

This old chestnut was on TNT Sunday AM.  It was interesting to see Elvis
turn a few bucks into $2500 without any concern whatsoever.  Wayne
Newton provided commentary during the commercial breaks.  The aerial
shots of the strip and downtown were interesting also. At least 2
defunct casinos were featured - the Thunderbird and Tally Ho.

-- 
| Edmund Hack - Lockheed Engineering & Sciences Co. - Houston, TX
| hack@aio.jsc.nasa.gov    SpokesPersonp(Me,or(NASA,LESC)) = NIL
| "No the game never ends when your whole
|       world depends on the turn of a friendly card"
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
Subject: Penetration ?
From: <SPIESS@NDSUVM1.BITNET>
Date: Friday, 21 Aug 1992 21:46:37 CDT
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computer Network

The casino in this area (Minnesota) that offers the best rules
is Jackpot Junction. the rules are:
double on any 2 cards
double after splits
stand on soft 17
no surrender
resplit to four hands
draw only one card to split aces, no resplit of aces
insurance is offered

They offer two and four deck games. The two deck games have 50% penetration
The four deck games have 75% penetration. As a card counter (Uston APC),
which game should I play? I have read games with poor penetration should
be avoided and games with four decks are worse than two decks. It seems that
the two deck game has more advantages, can someone give me the correct answer
please? thanks..


Newsgroups: rec.gambling
From: jacobs@cs.utah.edu (Steven R Jacobs)
Subject: BARGE into Vegas
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
Date: 13 Aug 92 20:15:24


OK, this sucker is shaping up into a definite net.event.  I've been
contacted by at least one rec.gambler who is interested in sharing
room expenses.  I'd suggest that anyone who wants to share a room,
or who has a room that they don't mind sharing, contact me via email
and I'll put the supply in touch with the demand.  Caveat emptor, enter
at your own risk, and all that -- I will not accept responsibility for
pairing Wilbur Milquetoast with Charles Manson.  Alternately, I could
email a ROOM/ROOMATE wanted list to those who want it, and let you sort
it out yourselves.  Please include arrival/departure dates and times
and a rough idea of what kind of accomodations you have/need/demand/tolerate.

What about the WOMEN?  Come on, we know you're out there.  Your not going
to let the men have all the fun, are you?  Patti -- get someone to tend
the fish and come join us at the poker tables.  Who else?  Surely you don't
want Nurse Hack to fend off all us unruly men with only Edmund to defend
her!

It appears that several BARGErs will be arriving on or before Wednesday 8/19.
Perhaps we should get together for an informal "opening ceremony" of some
kind.  Maybe we can find a small pit.critter to feed to the tigers at the
Mirage or to sacrifice to the volcano, something like that :-)  Suggestions?
(No, the Michael Flying event won't be scheduled until later in the week)
--
Steve Jacobs  ({bellcore,hplabs,uunet}!utah-cs!jacobs, jacobs@cs.utah.edu)
"Never teach a card counter to sing.  It wastes your time and gets the card
 counter barred."
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
From: hall@kronos.arc.nasa.gov (Michael Hall)
Subject: BJ: Shuffles (was Re: Vegas trip report, 8/7-8/9)
Organization: NASA/ARC Information Sciences Division
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 00:46:44 GMT

In article <16em9iINNl05@network.ucsd.edu> leary@bozo.sdsc.edu. writes:
>Could anyone clarify what a 'bad' shufle is at BJ and what effect,
>if any, this has for the player's expectation (i.e., should a player
>stay away from a 'bad' mechanical shuffler)?

A bad shuffle is one that reduces the expectation of the players :-)

Almost all published blackjack strategies assume the cards are randomly
ordered.  (The only exception I can think of is Patterson's New Blackjack,
which is almost certainly bogus anyway.)  My computer studies of simulated
shuffles indicate that real world shuffles are not random.  For shoes,
there is sufficient like-card clumping to be detectable with correlation
tests.  For single deck with a small (6 or less) number of riffs, the
cards do not have an equal probability of winding up at each location.

*However*, despite this nonrandomness, it is extremely difficult to
ever find any impact on the player's expectation.  Snyder did some
studies showing that, if anything, incomplete shuffles tended to
help the player, but with an amount of shuffling that nearly any casino
would do, the effects vanished.  In one of my studies, I found that
a casino style shuffle had a weird negative effect on expectation for
different seat positions when the 5 card Griffin rule was in effect.
Snyder also found effects of very nonrandom shuffles on seat position
results.  But again, all these effects are extremely small and usually
only detectable when shuffles worse than the real world ones are used
or when weird bonus rules are in effect.  For all practical purposes,
a casino shuffle is random enough for blackjack, including card counting.

Contrary to Eddie Olsen's claims in Blackjack Confidential, there is
simply no reason to fear "strip shuffles" or any other sort of shuffles,
unless of course you are doing shuffle tracking or card locating and
this shuffle would throw you off.

Still, I've always been suspicious of 4 Queens' shuffle.  It's just
riff, strip, riff.  It could be that the player blackjacks removed
first go to the bottom of the deck and then up to the top after the
shuffle, and then a typical player cut in the middle sends these good
cards back to the bottom, out of play.  I don't know whether 4 Queens
realizes this, or whether they have just noticed that this shuffle makes
more money for them, but certainly this shuffle could be "cheating"
unsuspecting players.  In New Jersey, this would be illegal, but I'm sure
with respect to the _wonderful_ Nevada courts, this is fine.

Probably most mechanical shufflers are for blackjack purposes random,
but those top 20 cards staying together at Four Queens has to be either
good or bad for the player, I'm just not sure which.

-- 
Michael Hall            \  You "trust" the dealer, but you cut the cards.
NASA Ames Research Center\ Similarly, you "trust" the dealer, but you should
hall@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov \not cut the cards in the middle.
From: jason@dcs.umd.edu (Jason Steinhorn)
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
Subject: Re: Bet Doubling Method
Date: 19 Aug 92 18:15:35 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park

In article <1992Aug6.133132.14270@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> mnh@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:

>I've seen people (including myself) lose 10 hands in a row in BJ or 10 near
>50/50 odds bets in a row, so if a bad streak hits you, you are dead.  Now, for
>a very rich person with a very big bankroll, this is a great strategy with one
>catch.  The casinos have maximum table limits beyond which one cannot increase
>his/her bet, which fails the method.

Actually, we were just talking about this at lunch.
Apparantly, the Horseshoe in LV just changed it's rule which provided for NO
table maximums at any of their table games.  This is one case where this 
method WOULD work, PROVIDING you had enough capital to endure an Xth standard
deviation loss streak.  Also, places like Caesar's Palace, would most likely
give you a table with no bet limits if you were a high roller and asked (
until they figured out what you were doing).

Jason
jason@dcs.umd.edu
From: kinosr@rs6112.ecs.rpi.edu (Roy Kiyoshi Kinoshita)
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
Subject: Come bets at 10-20x odds
Date: 13 Aug 92 18:01:14 GMT

Does anyone know how many come bets should be made when placing full odds
at a 10 or 20x table?  Since each roll is independent of the previous roll,
it doesn't seem like it matters.  But if you have all the numbers covered
and the 7 comes up, you're screwed.  Having a lot of money on the table
doesn't seem like a wise choice.

Several books have suggested having 1 pass-line bet and 2 come bets working
at a single- or double-odds table.  That's fine; I can deal with that.  But
to follow this same strategy at 20x odds makes my knees and my bankroll
shiver.

Are there any hard-core craps players out there that have a system that
works at these very attractive tables?
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
From: bhoughto@sedona.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton)
Subject: Re: BJ: Shuffles (was Re: Vegas trip report, 8/7-8/9)
Organization: Intel Corp., Chandler, Arizona
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 01:06:48 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.190000.28559@kronos.arc.nasa.gov> hall@kronos.arc.nasa.gov (Michael Hall) writes:
>Blair has one of the lowest casino time to article bandwidth ratios of
>all rec.gamblers.  Frank Irwin is right that they are checking used decks.
>After the cards are sorted and verified complete, they are sold in the
>gift shops (often they are mutilated first) or given away at the table
>if you ask.

And Mikey has one of the lowest IQ to anything ratios of
the human race, and if it weren't for the weight of his
concrete cranium we'd not need the helium in his hair to
buoy him aloft in the sky above Stupak's incredible
construction site.

The only thing that keeps me from saying bad things about
him, here, is that I did indeed indicate that perhaps those
who spend days at a time abusing their fingers as abaci at
the BJ tables may have noticed a procedure different from
that which I've noticed while practicing strategy and
intellectualism in the poker rooms.

I was indeed talking about "setting decks," in which new
decks are checked before they are put into play for
completeness and quality.

				--Blair
				  "As of now, I predict I'll have a
				   lovely influenza virus to pass along
				   to him come Saturday, should he
				   choose to call me on this in person."
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
From: stantz@sgi.com (Mark Stantz)
Subject: Re: Chip diving
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 03:54:20 GMT

In article <JACOBS.92Aug19163607@cells.cs.utah.edu> jacobs@cs.utah.edu (Steven R Jacobs) writes:
>In article <1992Aug19.221214.10028@odin.corp.sgi.com> kubey@sgi.com (Ken Kubey) writes:
>> You could always throw a $25 chip in there before going "diving in".
>> No one here would give you a hard time about fishing $29 worth
>> of chips out of a toilet.
>
>Depends.  Frank might say he was a wimp if he didn't flush just before
>diving in....

	It's all in the reflexes...

	-mfs
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
From: lucifer@unlv.edu (Marco Westerweel)
Subject: Re: Clumping in Blackjack
Organization: UNLV
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 92 06:43:20 GMT

In article <1992Aug14.221835.21549@intelhf.hf.intel.com> eshen@intelhf.hf.intel.com (Eric Shen) writes:
>Hi,
>
>I've recently read a blackjack book (I think the name was
>"Blackjack Handbook" or something link that).  In there,
>the author mentioned the phenomena of card clumping whereby
>even if the count is increasing to riduculously high counts,
>the dealer is still hitting on 16s and surviving.  He states
>that is due to a large group of small cards that are clumped
>together after the shuffle and as a result, the count rises but
>the deck is still in favor of the dealer.  

That's not the entire story but close. "Clumping" groups together
portions of high valued cards which the dealer manuevers to the
front of the deck in the hope that you will cut them out of play
(i.e. behind the cut card.) Even if the player doesn't cut them 
out of play, there are those who claim that it is still a big
disadvantage because the clumped portion of the cards will result
in a lot of player:dealer ties with totals of 20 while the rest of
the deck favours the dealer. Since I have never done simulations
on that I don't know if a clump that is not cut out of play is
actually disadvantageous or not. Fortunately, if such tactics are
employed, a skilled player can use the non-randomness of the
shuffle to advantage by cutting small card clumps *OUT* of play :-)

One thing that I do know about shoe games is that the ol' sky-hi
count @ the cut card is not exactly a rare phenomenon. When the 
count keeps rising without ever falling the player is at a HUGE
disadvantage. In these situations the player will be forever doubling
with 9, 10, 11 vs small cards and catching small cards only to watch
the dealer make yet another miraculous stiff into a 20 or 21... :-(



Newsgroups: rec.gambling
From: jacobs@cs.utah.edu (Steven R Jacobs)
Subject: Re: Big August rec.gambling excursion
In-reply-to: jj@slc.mentorg.com's message of 12 Aug 92 18:49:29
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
	<JJ.92Aug12184929@presto.slc.mentorg.com>
Date: 12 Aug 92 21:41:46

In article <JJ.92Aug12184929@presto.slc.mentorg.com> jj@slc.mentorg.com (Jeff Jennings) writes:
>>>>>> On Wed, 12 Aug 1992 21:07:16 GMT, rbmoore@crchh95.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Robert Moore) said:
>
>Robert> Sounds great, which I could be there.  So how about this: Next year,
>Robert> we have the 2cd Annual BARGE, from Friday, August 13th through Monday
>        the 16th.
>
> This will be the 2nd annual rec.gambling Las Vegas trip.  The 1st annual trip
> took place during July 1991.

Yup, although I think Blair is still asleep at the Trop from last year....

> My vote for the 3rd annual trip is some month when it isn't so damn hot!

Hah!  And you called _me_ a wussy for whining about the heat.....

> I think that many of the people who will be there have a problem with an
> advertised meeting place.  It would be real convenient for the casinos
> to find out about it and identify a lot of "undesirable" people.

Paranoia.  You BJ players crack me up.  If the casinos are shaking in their
collective boots over a half dozen high tech weenies meeting in Vegas, then
they have much deeper problems than competition from the gambling houses that
are springing up all over the country.  If they were that paranoid and had
access to rec.gambling, your names would already be on a master blacklist
somewhere and you'd find they hardly ever had rooms available (not to mention
what they'd do to anyone who ever said "presto" at a BJ table).  Anyone
named Hall would be automatically "back roomed" at the airport, and anyone
named Irwin would be denied access to public restrooms.  But then, just
because you guys are paranoid doesn't mean they're NOT out to get you :-)

But hey, no problem, we can send the final meeting time/place out through
non-broadcast means to help cover your card-counter asses.  Just apply
the usual code translation to "*PRESTO* Frontier 2AM SAT craps table *IRWIN*"
and you'll know where to go ;-)
--
Steve Jacobs  ({bellcore,hplabs,uunet}!utah-cs!jacobs, jacobs@cs.utah.edu)
"Never teach a card counter to sing.  It wastes your time and gets the card
 counter barred."
From: hall@kronos.arc.nasa.gov (Michael Hall)
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
Subject: Re: Clumping in Blackjack
Date: 21 Aug 92 23:45:25 GMT
Organization: NASA/ARC Information Sciences Division

In article <1992Aug21.232412.26028@kronos.arc.nasa.gov> hall@kronos.arc.nasa.gov (Michael Hall) writes:
>In article <1992Aug21.064320.4081@unlv.edu> lucifer@unlv.edu (Marco Westerweel) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug14.221835.21549@intelhf.hf.intel.com> eshen@intelhf.hf.intel.com (Eric Shen) writes:
>>>Hi,
>>>
>>>I've recently read a blackjack book (I think the name was
>>>"Blackjack Handbook" or something link that).  In there,
>>>the author mentioned the phenomena of card clumping whereby
[munch]
>>
>>That's not the entire story but close. "Clumping" groups together
>>portions of high valued cards which the dealer manuevers to the
>>front of the deck in the hope that you will cut them out of play
>>(i.e. behind the cut card.)
>
>No, no, no.  Like-card clumping is a phenomenon that occurs even
>in nonantagonistic computer simulations of casino shuffles, due
>to the pick-up order and the fact that the shuffles are too weak
>to really mix up the cards.  The sort of reverse shuffle-tracking
>you describe (I vaguely recall it might be called "zoning" in _Card
>Counting for the Casino Executive_) requires intensional antagonistic
>actions by the dealer.  That sort of thing is illegal in New Jersey,
>but I'm sure it would be fine with the _wonderful_ Nevada courts.

I just wanted to add to my comment... "zoning" does not require
the existence of like-card clumping to work.  Zones of high and
low counts occur naturally as a result of randomness.  Like-card
clumping is a weak local effect that really doesn't do much towards
creating large zones of high or low cards.

-- 
Michael Hall            \It's easier to count cards than to remember which
NASA Ames Research Center\bet you are supposed to use next in some silly
hall@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov \progression, anyway.
Newsgroups: rec.gambling