Blackjack Dealing blackjack to Amazing Kreskin & Ken Uston

I dealt single deck blackjack to Kreskin in 1979 on the graveyard shift at Harolds Club in Reno. He was doing a show at Harrah's and decided to play blackjack afterwards. The table was empty and he came up to my table and bought in with a $100 bill. Kreskin hardly said a word and spread $5-$20 and won a couple of hundred dollars.

From seeing his shows, I was wondering if Kreskin could read my mind while peeking under a ten card or ace, looking for the dreaded dealer blackjack. Kreskin said he does not read minds and plays blackjack to unwind after a show. He also said that Harrah's barred him from playing blackjack and was welcome at Harolds Club playing this small amount.

The Amazing Kreskin is a true blackjack aficionado and from my own empirical analysis, one of the best 21 players in the world. He uses playing cards for a living as a mentalist and probably is as close to Ray from the movie "Rainman" in his ability to remember cards as anyone in the world.

On an another occasion at Harolds Club, a pit boss gave me a tap on the shoulder while dealing craps and instructed me to deal 21 to a high roller who was winning big. The whale turned out to be blackjack legend Ken Uston who was playing $500 chips and torching the table. The superstitious pit felt that a craps dealer can put an end to Uston's winning streak. I happened to be on a winning run for the house and beat him until he finally surrendered after losing much of his winnings back. Maybe the other dealers weren't protecting the game such as exposing hole cards and delivering tells to Uston when checking for blackjacks. In Uston's book "Million Dollar Blackjack" he refers to "Barbara, the Harolds Club front-loader" (front loader - a careless dealer who exposes the hole card in the process of dealing) and maybe I was sent to replace Barbara who was dumping house money.

While working at the Sahara Reno in August 1978, a cheer was heared among the pit when it was announced that Uston was beat up by security at the Mapes Money Tree. Didn't know who Uston was until the pit bosses claimed he was a cheat and deserved the thumping. Others said he was a card counter and this was a message to card counters all over the world. This perked my interest in card counting and the challenge it provides.

While dealing craps in Las Vegas in 1980, a casino called The Treasury (now Hooters) on Tropicana Avenue displayed Uston's name on its marquee. He was giving lessons on card counting at this casino! Did he sell his soul to the enemy or want to see his name in lights? Is card counting bunk and a scam was my first impression during the sight of this marquee.

Recalling Kreskin's skill at winning at blackjack has stuck to this day. Kreskin did not use weak dealers to gain an advantage and probably used his knowledge of excess aces and tens to win. Bet with your head instead of over it and don't worry about "cheaters justice" (from the movie Casino) because the corporations running casinos now are smart enough to avoid the old tactics.

 

Interesting. It's a shame that Uston was beaten up. If they don't like card counters just change the rules so that counting does not help.

 

The changes are
6-8 deck shoes
Continuous ,read again , continuous shuffle machine .
Discard cards after EACH hand put BACK into reshuffle BEFORE next hand dealt .

I believe the “gambling is all about the maphzzzz” and the reloading of the continuous shuffle machine would be just a “fraction” more difficult when you don’t get start and finish point of elimination of cards.

High minimum bet unit value ($50,$100,$200) and low , very very low maximum bet limit.

But
Plenty of ploppies still play . Lol.

 

Some 25 years ago I had the pleasure to share a table playing blackjack with Harrison Ford, here in skipptophia. He played about 3/4 hour (8 deck shoe, pre continuous shuffle machines that we have here now) played solid basic strategy but no counting action from him. Very well mannered and humble man. I think he enjoyed the low key attention that he received from the 4 others players at the table. Skipptophians tend to not harass stars when they are incognito/ chilling mode.
Cheers

 

The last time I was in Tunica the Gold Strike had the continuous shufflers. Very loud. Not really a pleasant experience.

 

Hahahah. I remember when Tunica first opened the dealers couldn't even add the cards up! Heaven help them if they had to draw 3 or more cards! I had to tally them up for them!.

J

 

Here’s my favorite video explaining why the conventional count Hi-Lo is misleading to the card counting public.

 

Is anybody using a balanced hi-lo without a side count of A's on a 2 deck game?!!! Can you find a 2 deck game with open seats? I wouldn't play Blackjack regardless of number of decks with more than 3 spots.

 

That session we actually had a brand new dealer. She was nervous and putting the cards into the continuous shuffler the wrong way. Some of the cards were about to come out of the shoe with the faces showing so the pit was discussing what to do as we were leaving.

 

We have a problem with the Hi-Lo Count since it counts a +1 as a high card. It’s a low card for the purposes of insurance. The perfect insurance count is the Ten Count A-9=+1 vs 10-K-2 with a +4 for the strike point. Good luck trying to incorporate an ace side count with Hi-Lo, you will find a rabbit hole trying to incorporate this.

 

This clown has been littering the internet with his card counting garbage for years. The same clown that video tapes and show himself in casinos. No REAL blackjack pro would do this. Why does Jstat? Because he's a card counting loser, in BOTH blackjack and baccarat, that knows his "system" doesn't work, has been PROVEN to NOT WORK. This is why casinos ALLOW him in their establishments to do what he does.

 

Jstat, I don't think you have ever understood just what hi-lo is about. Card counting is about identifying a higher or lower ratio of certain cards, remaining, by tracking the cards that have been played. There are two benefits to having this information. The first is about betting, called betting correlation. Basically knowing when to bet more based on a higher number of aces and 10 value cards remaining that make up a blackjack which is paid at 150%. There are other smaller benefits, but mostly it is about the blackjacks paid at 3-2.

The second part is knowing when to alter basic strategy play based on an abnormally higher or lower ration of certain cards remaining. This is called playing efficiency. Playing efficiency is much more important in single deck game. Betting correlation much more important in 6 & 8 deck shoe game. Hi-lo is strong in betting correlation, but pretty weak with playing efficiency.

So if you are a player that plays only somewhat decent single deck games in Reno or some other small town in Vegas that might still have these games, Hi-lo may not be the best choice. Jstat, you and the late Keven Keen who posted as Moses and Tater, fit into that category. I have no problem with you or a player like you that plays the few remaining decent single deck games deciding to play "stronger" count, with higher playing efficiency. The problem is that 99.9% of players don't have access to and aren't playing those kind of games. Nearly everyone else is playing 6 & 8 deck games or double deck games, and most double deck games are really all but unplayable because they are so closely watched. (regardless of what the higher limit player, writing a fantasy story tells you). Casinos protect these vulnerable games by monitoring them closely.

Now it just so happens that when casinos attempted to negate or lessen the advantage a card counter can get, by adding more decks, they actually played into the strength of hi-lo, betting correlation, making hi-lo a great choice for anyone playing 6 and 8 deck games. Players can opt for a level 2 count (where as hi-lo is level 1) for a slight increase in strength, but it is very slight and often wiped out by even a slight increase in error rate. VERY diminishing returns (if any) for the effort.

Now as far as ace side count. I play hi-lo and side count aces on double deck. And I know other players that do also. Personally, I didn't set out to do this, it is just hard not to notice the aces played when there are only 8. Now what do you do with this information. Almost anything a player does as far as betting because of this ace information is probably a mistake because the ace is already incorportated in the primary count. If you start basing betting decision based on the aces, you are essentially counting that card twice, or over-betting. About all I do as far as betting is maybe make a bigger bet, just a hair earlier than normal. Like if my normal max bet is TC +4, I will make it at TC+3 with a couple "extra" aces remaining or maybe +3.5 with and "extra" ace remaining

Now playing decisions there are two big times I use that ace side count. The most important is insurance. Just subtract the "extra" aces from the primary count for a more accurate insurance decision. And one other special play is the 10 vs 10 double. The normal index number for this is +5, but if there are a couple extra aces remaining, you will want to make this earlier. Definitely +4, maybe +3.

To recap, it is fine that someone like you (Jstat) or the late Kevin Keen, who plays exclusively or a lot of single deck in Reno chooses a different count. But just know that there aren't many players in your situation. For most players, from recreational to professional, hi-lo is a great choice for the games we play. That is evident by the many, many professional players and teams that continue to employ hi-lo as their primary count.

 

Let’s me introduce my six deck play KJ

 

Only watched a couple minutes. You are doing some back-counting and I guess only playing positive counts. That is great. I advocate that in this day and age players cannot sit and play all as they used to. On this we pretty much agree. I do it a little differently, playing a bit more of the neutral counts and aggressively exiting negative counts, rather that back counting and ONLY playing positive counts. This allows me to play off the top of a fresh shuffle and then exit aggressively. If you are strictly back-countimng as it looked like you were doing, I just don't know how sustainable that is for very long. Players milling around back counting do get noticed in my opinion and experience. That is why I went to a play off the top - aggressive exit. Sort of a compromise. But anyway, we are in agreement that players just can't play all those negative counts.

So in the several rounds that I watched, high cards came out and you said "we are out of here" 3 times after one round. Once with a negative count of 2 (that is running count, not true count), you said something like, "the count just won't turn positive". A bit of nit picking, but that is not true. The count flips from negative to positive all the time. Even a running count of -9, -10 can flip positive pretty easily. What doesn't happen very often is that once a count goes fairly negative (-9, -10 is a good example) that it flips positive all the way to the point that I would place my max bet which is TC +4. That is what I am after, and that is why I exit. Not that it can't turn positive, but it is unlikely to turn positive to the point that I want (max bet). I just do not want to sit and play negative, neutral or even slightly positive counts for 30 rounds of a shoe if there is no real chance of the count getting to my max bet point (TC +4).

So we are not in total disagreement about everything.

 

There is more than one way to skin a cat. This has been updated since the problematic Hi-Lo. The perfect insurance count is AceMT (which counts Ace, K, Q, J and Ten only and ignores the rest) with an added Ace side count.

 

John Stathis (JSTAT) on Twitter: "YES! My article was published today on the "Gambling With an Edge" website. Friends and foes are encouraged to comment. It involves me dealing blackjack to Ken Uston and The Amazing Kreskin. An experience of a lifetime https://t.co/XKJrNKK700" / Twitter

 

Here’s my article on the Las Vegas Advisor in GWAE https://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/gambling-with-an-edge/124844-2/