A return to the country

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about blogging. I'm not sick of it. My students haven't discovered it. I'm not even a crazy short Italian guy who starts things and then let's them go after a while.

I'm just busy. But I'm learning to cope with my hectic life, and so blogging will hopefully continue on a weekly basis.

Hey, wait a minute... I don't have any students...

well anyway, there's so much to talk about. I just finished my vacation. I'm traveling more for work. And I'm about to change cell phones.

But you don't care about that.

So, instead, I'd like to share some wisdom that was imparted to me at dinner one night, in Puerto Rico. For those of you who hate my rambling, I'll tell you ahead of time that this is about playing Black Jack, and how some simple strategies won me a good chunk of change. But we can't tell the end of a story without showing how we got there....

Once upon a time (last week), a fair maiden (J-Love) and I went on a cruise through the Eastern Caribbean. Each night, you go to dinner at the main restaurant of the ship (if you want to) and are seated with some other people. You'll probably eat with these same people for the rest of the trip so you get to know them rather well. There were 6 of us at the table, but only one couple is important to the story. Well, to be honest, the other couple will be mentioned but only so much as to show why I'm writing this in the first place.

Anyway, I won't share their names because I don't want them finding my blog (they were kind of annoying). So let's call them Winston Churchill and Anne Boleyn (yes I know they don't go together).

At this point in the story, I had really considered talking about how they were obsessed with Astrology, AND how a lot of what they said really did make sense. But this blog isn't about that. So maybe next time.

Moving on. As you all know, I'm a degenerate gambler. However, I know that I don't have a problem for 2 reasons. One, I never gamble with money that I cannot afford to lose. Two, I am very capable of walking away when I'm ahead (I quite enjoy doing that, actually). But as I said, I do like to gamble. Unfortunately, the ship didn't cater to my normal interest (poker). Suffice to say, I was very sad.

Then, on that fateful night outside Puerto Rico, Winston gave me some advice on the game (heh, I bet you thought I was going to share that advice now.... tough luck, sucka). I then proceeded to put his advice into action on the tables that night. And I won quite a bit of money doing. So, the next time we saw each other, we further discussed the game. At the end of the conversation, one of the other people at the table (an Irish/English fellow named William) told me that I should blog about it. And so I am.

I'll break the advice into 2 categories. The first is about gambling on a cruise. The second is about playing Black Jack.

First, Winston and his wife had been on 19 cruises. So he had done a lot of research on cruise ship gambling. Over time, he began to see a trend. People win money in the beginning of the cruise... but not so much at the end of the cruise. He had noticed that at the end of a cruise, the dealer seemed to get better cards more often. And this wasn't limited to Black Jack. If you watched a roulette wheel, you would notice that 0 and 00 came up a lot more often. So, his advice was that if you want to gamble on a cruise, do it early, and stay away towards the end of the journey. Now, I witnessed this myself, and after seeing a dealer clear out a table on the second to last night, I believe it.

Second, we talked about playing Black Jack. I confessed to him that I knew how to play the game but didn't have any strategy. I would simply try to get as close to 21 as I could, and hope that the dealer either stopped at a lower number, or busted. You would be correct to assume that I never made much money off of the game. So Winston gave me some simple advice. One, you should play the dealer's cards before you play yours. This means that you should look at the one card showing for the Dealer, then assume that the down card is worth 10. As you know, a dealer has to HIT until they get to 17 or bust. So if the UP card is a 7 or higher, then assume that the dealer won't be taking any cards. Now, if you do the math, you'll see that in a multi-deck game, there are a ton of cards that are worth 10. So the odds of your next card being one of these, is pretty good. Therefore, if the dealer is showing a 2 through 6, then they are weak. Let me elaborate for non-gamblers. If the dealer is showing a 4, then assume that the down card is worth 10. That means they have 14. They will have to HIT. If their next card is higher than a 7 then they bust.... and you win. Those are good odds. So that's the first step. Play the dealer's hand and see if you think they will bust.

Now, it's time to play your hand accordingly. If you think that the dealer is going to bust, then the only thing that can mess you up is if you also bust. You can never win if you bust. So if you have anything higher than 11 then you may want to consider just staying. Now, if you don't think that the dealer is going to bust, then obviously you need to try to get to a higher number then you think they will have. If the dealer is showing a 7 then you assume they have 17, so you need to try and beat a 17. But keep in mind that you don't want to bust. As I said, you can NEVER win if you bust.

Now, here's the advice he gave me that will help you to make more money. Everyone in the game knows how to HIT or STAY. But there is also SPLIT and DOUBLE DOWN. I won't go into too much detail here on the mechanics. Basically, if you have 2 identical cards (ex: two jacks) then you can split them. You put down a second bet equal to your first, and are now playing 2 hands instead of one. When you DOUBLE DOWN, you double your bet, and receive one more card from the dealer. For instance, if you have 11, then it may be a good idea to DOUBLE DOWN because it is likely that you will get a card worth 10, and then you'll have 21. Not only will you win, but you'll win twice as much because you doubled your bet.

There are probably all sorts of times when you should do one of those actions. But I only do it when one thing happens. If the dealer is weak. Example: the dealer is showing a 6, so there is a good chance that they will bust out. Now, you want to get your bet as high as possible to maximize your winnings. If you're strong (let's say you have 2 jacks) and the dealer is showing a 9, then you have to decide if you want to risk splitting up a good hand, for the possibility of 2 bad hands. It's up to you.

I know that this sounds like common sense, but I wasn't aware of it before. And it made me a few hundred dollars richer. So I wanted to pass on the tips.

Oh, right, and the whole cruise part. Hm. It was fun. I bought lots of Duty Free alcohol :-) and I can't wait to do it again next year. Enough said.