New Ideas in Backgammon by Kit Woolsey & Hal Heinrich

Another guest book review by Jake Jacobs

New Ideas in Backgammon

 by Kit Woolsey & Hal Heinrich

Does anyone know what piece of technology revolutionized backgammon? Picture a time so remote that assigning it a date would serve no useful purpose. Imagine a troglodyte, toiling in his lonely cave. Gnawing absently on the shank of a sheep (the tallow waxing his matted beard), he grunts in concentration. He seeks to invent...something. Fire, the wheel, papyrus, or perhaps a Maytag washer. Anything that will change the course of history. Finally, he has it. He holds up a curious object. It is a rectangle of stiff paper, with triangular symbols stamped like mystic runes upon it. Yes, it’s the young Larry Strommen, and he has just invented the position card! (I am not sure that Larry invented the position card, but I buy all mine from Larry, so I thought I would give him a plug.)

I take these cards and record interesting positions. Thousands of them. On the back I record pertinent data: history, players, rollouts. Then, I throw the cards in a huge paper bag, stored under my bed, where they have turned into compost. Friends, like Paul Franks, are always saying to me: “You know what kind of book people want to read? A problem book with lots of positions. I love those. Forget that “Fish” stuff. No one wants to read it. I only read the pages with my name on them, anyway! Take those little cards of yours and do a problem book.” Sorry, Paul. I don’t go into that bag without Kevlar body armor and tranquilizer darts. God knows what sort of dangerous mutant things are growing down there, but most nights I see emergency vehicles, mars lights flashing, zipping around under my bed. (I should switch to O’Doul’s). Fortunately for Paul, someone else went ahead and wrote one.

Hal Heinrich, the World Champ from Calgary, has, instead of positions, collected entire matches. He stores them away in a “data base”, which is the micro-chip equivalent of the paper bag under the bed. By now no one knows what festers there, but reliable rumor has it that seven or eight of the top rated players on FIBS are actually computer viruses spawned in Hal’s cyber-swamp.

Hal collaborates with famed player/author/analyst Kit Woolsey. Kit is one of the finest games players in the world. In addition to his accomplishments in backgammon, he is a world class bridge player (and writer - his MATCHPOINTS is rightly regarded as a classic), and a top blackjack player. In an article on the “ten best gamblers in the world” Kit’s name was second. He is only a mediocre player at “Settlers Of Catan”, but no one is good at everything.

Together they have done a series of annotated matches for book and computer. Their latest effort, NEW IDEAS IN BACKGAMMON, arose from their research. The other great technical advance in backgammon, almost as incredible as the position card, is JellyFish. JF’s creator, Fredrick Dahl, has provided Hal and Kit with a version of Jelly that rolls out entire matches. The program flags plays whenever it “thinks” the player has made a play significantly worse than the one Jelly prefers. When Hal and Kit found that they, too, missed Jelly’s recommended play, they decided the position merited study. After elaborate screening, including submitting several hundred plays to a panel of experts, they collected the 104 problem positions treated in their new book. The positions are grouped into seven chapters, each problem in the chapter relating to that chapter’s theme.

The format is simple, with all the best features of a problem book, and a few new, good features all its own. Each position is pictured, then Kit devotes a page or two to describing the candidate plays, and discusses their possible strengths and weaknesses. Then, the best play is shown in diagram, with a follow-up discussion of why that play wins out. In an appendix, the rollout results are given for all plays, along with an indication of which plays the panel chose, and what play was done over the board.

The problems are tough. Here are problems 81 and 82 from the chapter “Scrambling Home”. They have something in common. Can you guess what?

I warned you they were hard. The common element is the importance of the five point. If you want to take another minute to rethink your plays, go ahead before I give the best plays, and summarize the explanations.
Only one of the panelists chose to hit by switching points in problem 81. Good, because switching is very wrong. Most found individual solutions to the problem of builder deployment. Three found the best possible deployment of builders: put two men right on the five point with 7-5 . Kit’s explanation is that this is not a priming position, it is an attacking position. Build the five, then go after Black’s blot.

Almost to a man, the panel selected 13-7, 4-2 in problem 82. Only the original player tried the craven 15-13 , 7-3. The best play is 15-11 . One panelist actually chose that. Kit’s explanation is that without the five point, the bar point is not effective. The five can’t be built this turn, so the best alternative is the play that exerts the most “control” over the five point. Building the eleven point does that.

I like to imagine these problems arising in a consulting chouette. I think I might, depending on current climate conditions, choose to make the five point in problem 81. I further think I might convince my chouettemates to go with that play. I would not have chosen to make the eleven point in response to problem 82, and I am damn sure I could never convince my mates in any chouette to go along with it, even if I had access to NEW IDEAS and could read them the proof of its rightness.

Is this solution right? I think so. The authors devote the introduction to a detailed explanation of their rollout methods. They succeeded in convincing me that most of the plays in the book are probably right, and right by a lot. They concede that there may be a few that slipped through the cracks, but in all likelyhood, this book’s recommended plays are as accurate as the recommendations of any problem book published.

There are two other matters that do trouble me. First, although cube locations appear with the diagrams, we are told to ignore the cube. This does not mean that the plays given are the best play at double match point, it means that we have to ignore a factor that may override all other considerations. Also, no match score is ever given.

The difference in expected value between the “best” play, 21-15 , 8-2x , and the chosen play, 21-9 , is .110. This is a HUGE amount. Pointing wins nearly twice as many gammons. What if the score happened to be 7-8 to 9, post-Crawford? Now, the player’s original choice of making the 9 point would be correct, as it wins about 5% more games than its aggressive counterpart. For that matter, does the expected value correspond with the depicted cube location in all cases? We are not told. JellyFish rollouts provide data for all four possible locations of the cube, but the book provides only one set for each problem, and never specifies just which of the four it is.

The second flaw has to do with Kit’s analysis. Most writers attack a problem with math, or logic, or rollout data. Their aim is to show that a particular move is right. Kit’s approach has always been to explain the approach that should allow YOU to arrive at the correct answer. Generally he arrives at his answers through “induction”, building argument upon argument till he has constructed a solid case. This time, he has to use “deduction”. He is looking at JellyFish’s answer, and finding ways of dismissing the alternate plays, until only Jelly’s choice remains. If he had tried to go both ways, first building his case, then,when his choice differed from Jelly’s (and according to the introduction that should have been at least half the time), explained why he had fallen into error, the book would be even stronger.

The above complaints aside, this book more than lives up to its billing. I would not recommend it to beginners. Kit’s style is clear enough that they will easily grasp his arguments, but beginners need to ground themselves thoroughly in the basics, to master and memorize the rules. This book will fill their heads with exceptions. For everyone else, from advanced intermediate to expert, the book is a must read. The more expert you are, or hope to be, the more certain it is that you need a copy of this one on your shelf.

Gambling With an Edge - guest Shirley Dancer

The guest on the show this week is Shirley Dancer, Bob Dancer's wife.  She discusses what it is like to be married to a professional gambler.

Shirley Dancer podcast

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Gambling With an Edge - guest BJ Traveller

The guest on the show this week is BJ Traveller.  BJT is Chinese and has played blackjack in 66 casinos around the world, and written 10 books about his exploits.  You can read my print interview with him here under the interviews link.

BJ Traveller podcast

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Backgammon Boot Camp - Book Review

Today we have a guest book review by backgammon expert Jake Jacobs. Ship me off to the front lines; I’m a graduate of Backgammon Boot Camp! Before proceeding with a review of Walter Trice’s new book disclosure is in order. Approximately nine years ago this month Walter and I began a collaboration that resulted the following year in Can A Fish Taste Twice As Good? (Still available from Flint area backgammon suppliers everywhere!) Co authorship is not always synonymous with friendship; Gilbert and Sullivan didn’t speak to each other during the later years of their collaboration. Walter and I though have remained friends, so I am predisposed to look favorably on his efforts. That would have presented a dilemma had Walter’s book proved mediocre, but fortunately it is excellent, so I don’t need to find diplomatic ways of burying it with faint praise. Backgammon Boot Camp was set up on the Internet, specifically on Gammon Village, a site where Walter and I were featured columnists. I don’t know if Walter ever poked his head in the door of my cyber cubicle to scan the articles I had posted on the walls, but I’m embarrassed to admit that I had not read his. Gammon Village Editor Michael Strato proposed that Walter do a regular column for beginners, hence “Boot Camp.” Early on I read one, deduced that the columns would be pitched to entry level readers, and never went back. My embarrassment is not because, as an erstwhile collaborator, I owe Walter the courtesy of reading his output. (We had no such agreement, spoken or unspoken.) My embarrassment is because I owed it to myself to read him. Why? Because reading fine writing is a pleasure in itself, regardless of content, and Walter is a fine writer. His clarity is such that he can unravel the eleven dimensions of String Theory for a seven-year old, or even teach your grandmother to program a VCR, and he is so precise that if a comma is out of place you may be sure it was moved by the maid while dusting. Luckily, thanks to Jeremy Bagai, I’ve gotten a second chance. Jeremy (smart enough to have followed Walter’s chronicle from the beginning) has launched a new backgammon publishing venture, the Fortuitous Press. Jeremy edited Walter’s sixty Boot Camp columns into a fifty-seven chapter book. (The book is a very attractive paperback running nearly three-hundred and fifty pages, which makes its $40 price tag a bargain.) The first ten chapters are indeed basic, but with Sergeant Trice putting the recruits through their paces, by Chapter Eleven they are ready for slightlymore advanced material. Here is Position 2-1 from Page 78, the first position presented in Chapter Eleven.

I would have gotten this wrong. My impulse was to enter on the twenty-point and hit White on the three; maximum builders remain aimed at the gap in the prime, and most of White’s entering sixes are awkward. The right play is to enter on the twenty-two, and quietly bring down a builder to the eight-point. Perhaps that was obvious to you from the beginning, but fear not, Walter will find something to test you.

How about this? Position 7-26 (Page 290) is one of a series Walter has taken from Bill Robertie’s 1981 classic Lee Genud versus Joe Dwek. In the actual match Joe Dwek opted for 18/16*, 6/1*, a play Walter describes as: “a rather suave bit of ‘70s/early-‘80s purity.” He adds that: “the play may look weird to a modern player, but it really isn’t so bad!” I don’t know whether to feel weird, or rather suave, as this would have been my choice. But I am a weirdly suave player who learned the game during that era. Let Walter explain the best play: “Position 7-26 shows off the normal correctness of the primitive approach. Hit blots. Make points. 18/16* hits a blot. 7/2 makes a point. Any questions?” Got that, recruit? If not, drop and give me fifty!

Position 7-15 (Page 276), White on roll leading 15-14 to 25. Should White double? After you’ve tortured yourself calculating the match equities to determine whether or not White’s lead makes a difference I’ll ‘fess up: the question was deliberately misleading. Not only should White double, White is almost too good! I would have snatched this cube. (Joe Dwek correctly passed.) By now it should be apparent: this is a book for players of all levels. I have been giving you content up to now, denying you (for the most part) Walter’s analysis. Here is a longer quote, the opening to the chapter entitled “How To Win Four Points.” It is no secret you can win four points in a single game of a backgammon match. Nonetheless, many players seem to forget this at key moments in their matches! The procedure has two parts: first you double, then you win a gammon. Both steps are essential, and they must be carried out in the right order. It does no good (less good at any rate) to get a powerful game with gammon chances when all you do with it is to collect one point!  In the chapter Walter discusses proper play when you need all four points in a four-point match. Understanding of the paragraph above (and those of you who don’t understand it don’t know who you are) will add the equivalent of fifty to one hundred rating points to your match play. That much from five sentences; figure for yourself what you can gain by reading this book! Having given Walter his due praise, I’ll mention a few items he should take up with his maid. First, Position 6-3 (Page 231) in the box listing the ranking of plays according to Snowie, he seems to have rolled out the best play against one of the worst. There are various explanations possible, but since he does not even mention the candidate that he apparently rolled out an explanation ought to be supplied. Next, Position 7-12 (pages 273 and 274). Walter faults Dwek’s pass. I would too, since based upon the score and color scheme it is Dwek doubling! There is also a Final Exam, and the maid’s duster must have been in a flurry back there. After each question Walter supplies the number of the chapter you should consult if you are not sure of the answer. Questions 2-4 all claim to be drawn from Chapter Ten. I did find the answer to Question 4 in Chapter Eleven (though annoyingly, the question is a fill-in-the-blank, and there seems to be no actual sentence that matches exactly what Walter calls for). I know I could find the proper chapter to answer Question 3, but I stopped looking. It was Question 2 that drove me nuts! “What are the three ways to win a game of backgammon?” Sounds like a bit of baseball trivia: how many ways are there to get to first base? There are about twenty-seven, as I recall: base hit, base on balls, hit by pitch, dropped third strike, Abner Doubleday’s birthday, catch her under the mistletoe, France invades Luxembourg … But the three ways to win a backgammon game? I can think of these: bearing off your last checker, opponent drops your double, opponent concedes, opponent’s flag falls in a clocked match, opponent picks up the board and hurls it through the window of Jay’s Bar & Grill out into the middle of State Street! Actually, that last one won’t apply again until 2006 (at the discretion of the Illinois State Parole Board). Walter doesn’t discuss most of those. Three ways? Maybe it is something really obvious, like: plain game, gammon, and backgammon, but good grief! There is one more tiny error. Walter compares backgammon to Roller Derby, which he describes as “defunct.” Not in Tucson, Walter! (And if Tucson has discovered Roller Derby, let’s hope backgammon isn’t far behind!) Why is backgammon like Roller Derby? Because both are races, where, if one is ahead, one strives to break contact, but if one is behind, one tries to mix it up. How apt! And the next time you run with an opening 65, and Mary Hickey body checks you into a wall, you’ll know who to blame!

Backgammon Million

Back in 2007 there was a million dollar tournament held at the Atlantis Casino in the Bahamas.  It was a big deal, and it is happening again.  This time the tournament will be held at the Playboy club in London.  The dates are November 25 through November 29, 2012.  There will be a bracket of 128 for the main event, and a high roller event with a bracket of 32.  They expect the total prize pool to be $1.7 million, and the tournament will be televised.  I'm not sure how that is going to work since watching people play backgammon doesn't seem like the most dramatic TV, but who knows? London is one of my favorite cities so this just may bring me out of backgammon retirement.

When to quit

My local paper has a poker column on Sundays, and today's column was about when a poker player should quit playing.  This is a question I see discussed a lot on blackjack forums, and is something I am often asked about by civilians.  The correct answer is going to depend on several factors, but first a couple stories.

When Atlantic City first opened there was a period of time where the blackjack game offered an advantage off the top for a basic strategy player.  Many professionals were there playing including Alan Woods who is profiled in Gambling Wizards. One day Alan reached some arbitrary winning number, like he was up $30,000 or $50,000 for the day, and he decided to quit playing.  What made this unusual is that he was in the middle of a shoe with a high count, meaning he had a bigger than normal advantage.  Other card counters teased Alan for years about quitting in the middle of a positive shoe.  They looked at this as some kind of voodoo since professionals should look at all gambling as one long session, and your results over a given day, or week don't matter.  You have to think about it in terms of your result over a year, or many years. Alan's justification was that  leaving a positive shoe was no big deal since positive shoes were everywhere.  He has reached a personal goal that made him happy, and playing out the rest of the shoe for another hundred or two in ev. was not worth the emotional risk of losing back several thousand.  It's not a choice I would have made, but I understand his reasoning.

Story 2: I went on a trip with a friend, and we hit a casino at noon for a very good game which we played for 8 hours.  The shift was changing, and we drove to another casino, found another very good game and played another straight 8 hours.  At the end of swing shift he said, "You know, there is an even better game on graveyard." I had to decline.  16 straight hours was my limit.  I felt like Alan; there is always a good game somewhere, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  You have to decide what kind of life you want to live. I didn't quit because I had won a certain amount of money, I quit because I was tired.

Story 3: I leave on a trip from Wednesday to Sunday.  I call my wife on Friday and say we're up 20k so far.  She says, "Quit playing.  Come home."  Now that is voodoo, and she knows when she says it that it will never happen, but it has become kind of a running gag between us. Similarly, if I call on Sunday morning and say I am losing she will say, "Don't come home."

These are the reasons I will end a play.

1. The conditions have deteriorated such that I think the game is no longer worth playing, 
2. I get fatigued and feel my ability to play well is diminished.
3. I feel like there is heat on the play that may cause me to be barred or the casino may figure out what I am doing.
4. I am close to triggering a CTR.  (Not because I am worried about CTRs but because it would mean having to give the casino my ID.)
5. I winning an amount that I think is a choke-point for that casino. Every casino has an amount that if a player gets that much ahead the casino manager has to be called, and management starts freaking out. At the Wynn that amount might be $100k whereas at Harrahs it might be $20k.  I don't want to win over that number.
6. I am still alert but I have put in enough hours and want to eat or sleep.

If you are not playing with an advantage, say you just like to go to your local casino or Vegas to gamble. Then you should realize that the less you play the better it is for you.  Look for reasons not to play. I read some craps system that advised waiting for a shooter on the craps table to make at least 5 rolls before you start betting on him.  Well this is great because those 5 rolls with no bets are saving you money. If you must gamble with a disadvantage then have a set amount you are willing to lose and don't go below it.  Come up with rules to sit out hands at blackjack, like - I always sit out a hand after being dealt 16. The more rules you have not to make a bet the better it will be for you.

One more story - On a recent trip I was playing with a partner.  We played for 2 days, did very well, and won what I think was a significant amount at that particular casino.  The third day we both had late flights, and had to decide whether to play the third morning.  I decided not to play, and let my partner play it alone. I thought it would look odd for both of us to show up again on the same table 3 days in a row.  I thought it would be better for both of us in the long run, and it gave me time to go scout another casino before my flight. He played and picked up an extra thousand or two in ev. but I'm happy with our decision.

Gambling With an Edge - guest Eliot Jacobson

Eliot is a Ph.D. mathematician and former advantage player. Now Eliot works as a consultant designing casino games, auditing Internet casinos, and advising on game security. On the show Mike and Bob ask Eliot about switching sides, and the latest advantage plays, among other topics.

Eliot Jacobson podcast

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Gambling With an Edge - guest Michael Bluejay

Michael Bluejay is this weeks guest.  He talks about how to save money in Las Vegas and his website Vegas Click.

Michael Bluejay podcast

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Cyber Scouting

On Gambling With an Edge Bob and I had several shows where we talked about the importance of scouting.  I mentioned that it is important to check all the games in the casino, not just blackjack. This is especially true in casinos outside of Las Vegas where they are less savvy and often decide to run some promotion on a game where they really don't understand the math behind what they are doing.  Scouting is time consuming.  You could spend all day just scouting the casinos on the corner of Tropicana and the strip.

But there is another type of scouting that can be done from the comfort of your home.  I call it cyber scouting and I recently had some email questions asking if I could elaborate.  I break cyber scouting into two categories, news, and forums.  First let's talk about news.  Scouring news sources brings you information like: When the new casinos will be opening in Ohio (mid May) or places that are building new casinos (Fiji and Cyprus), or countries that are thinking of legalizing gambling (Japan).  You may find information on a cheating scam or new books coming out; all sorts of things turn up in my news sources.  So where do I find all this stuff?  Here is a list of the sources and websites I scan.

Google Reader is a collector of news and blogs that you choose.  Say there is a website that you like to read, that changes periodically, like this one.  You don't want to keep checking the site to see if there is something new, well Google reader will do it for you.  Whenever something new gets posted it will show up on your Google reader page.  Gambling sites that I subscribe to in Google Reader, The Wizard of Odds, The Bear Growls, Blair Rodman's blog, and the most informative is Online Gambling News at calvinayre.com.  That feed alone sends 15-20 gambling stories a day to my reader.  Many of them I can skip because they are about online gambling in Europe, or poker news that doesn't interest me, but it is still a great resource.

Google News  is a news aggregator that you can tell to search for news stories about gambling, poker, blackjack, or whatever you like.

Trapit This is another news aggregator and I like this site a lot.

BJ21 Newsletter This is a newsletter from Stanford Wong's site.  It is good but it only comes out once a week.

The Catwalk This is a newsletter for surveillance people that often has good articles by Bill Zender.

The next category is forums.  These are the forums I check, some much more than others.
http://www.beyondcounting.com/forums.html
http://www.qfit.com/bj/forum.php
http://backedoff.com/forums/index.php
http://bj21.com/frames/main.html
http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/w-agora/index.php?bn=bjf_forum
http://wizardofvegas.com/forum/gambling/
http://www.blackjackapprenticeship.com/

The thing about forums is there is a LOT of crap you have to wade through to find a little interesting or useful information.  Rarely will you find someone posting something like - I live in Podunk Utah and my local casino is having a promotion this weekend where blackjack pays 3 to 1, but it does happen.  The reason that forums are so valuable is because of the contacts you can make there. If you read people's posts you can tell pretty quickly who is a newbie, who believes in voodoo, who is a blowhard, and who just wants to stir up an argument.  But I also find that there are 5% or maybe less that are there for the same reasons I am.  They may still be new, or not have a big bankroll, but are serious.  I have made some tremendous friends that have become team mates just from talking to people in chat rooms.  I have made contacts all over the world on these forums. That means, I don't have to fly to Singapore to scout the new casinos; I know someone who lives there.

Gambling With an Edge - guest Dollie Wong

Bob and Mike discuss Mike's getting a license to carry a firearm.  Their guest this week is Dollie Wong who is a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas.  Her websites are Cocktail Doll and Cocktail Blogspot.

Dollie Wong podcast

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Gambling With an Edge - guest Josh Axelrad

The guest on the show this week is Josh Axelrad.  Josh played on a very high-stakes blackjack team, and then lost all the money he made playing online poker.  Josh's story is told in his book, Repeat Until Rich.

Josh Axelrad podcast

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Gambling With an Edge - guest Jason Been

Hosts Bob Dancer and Mike Shackleford discuss Super Bowl betting with sports handicapper Jason Been.

Jason Been podcast

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Holy Rollers - A documentary about card counting Christians

Holy Rollers calls itself  "The True Story of Card Counting Christians" and documents a team of card counters that called itself "The Church Team."  The team was run by two guys, Ben and Colin, who shared a love of blackjack and Jesus. At some point they decided to expand their little blackjack team by recruiting and training new players.  Who better than members of their church? The team grows with both players, and investors, and from 2006 to 2009 they manage to win $3.2 million dollars before disbanding.

The film uses some simple animation to explain how card counting works at its most basic level, and also to explain how their bankroll is set up.  The Church Team had investors, players, and managers.  Their target was to win $100,000 at which time they would "close the bank" and divide the money.  The money was then divided among investors, managers, and players, but they never tell you what the percentages are.  The players are paid based on the number of hours they played.  In the case of the teams I played on the total number of hours played would be divided into the amount of players share dollars to determine the hourly rate.

A typical trip

When I tell people I am leaving town on a gambling trip they usually imagine something like this.

You need your tuxedo to blend in with all the other tuxedo-wearing high-rollers, and of course your silenced pistol to fend off the evil casino owners who all belong to the mafia and will kill you for counting cards; or at the very least take you to the basement, and beat you to a bloody pulp like in the movie 21. My experiences have been very different than James Bond so I thought I would offer some insight into what a typical gambling trip is like for me.

For me it always starts with a phone call.  Someone calls and says, "I found a game.  When are you free?" When I was young and single it would be nothing to take off for 2 or 3 weeks to Aruba, or Poland, or Korea, but now I have family obligations so I am limiting myself to domestic trips of 3 to 5 days. I check with my boss wife, and X and I pick some dates.  I head to kayak.com to look for flights and a car, but I like to use travelaxe.com to look for hotels. Booked and done.

Travel day - I'm up at 5:30am because I have an early flight.  The number one concern is how much cash to bring, and where to carry it.  Just as in the olden days when travelers had to worry about highway robbers, professional gamblers have the same concern.  Today it is not thieves on horseback with bandannas around their face; now it is TSA, DEA, and State Police who steal your money. When they find someone carrying a large amount of cash their attitude is confiscate it first, and ask questions later.  Anyone who carries cash must be a drug dealer right?  The professional gambler must then spend four or five thousand dollars on a lawyer to get his money back.  Cash will not set off the metal detectors in the airport so I usually carry it in a money belt and in my pockets.  I also have some chips for this casino we are going to, so I also carry those in my pocket.  Chips will show up in the Xray as something unknown.  The TSA will flag a bag that has chips in it so better to carry them on my body, and make sure I have nothing metal to set off the detectors.  If I were carrying a lot of chips, too many for my pockets, then I double bag them in clear Ziploc bags, and put them in the bin with my shoes and cell phone.  Be sure to keep your eye on that bin when it goes through because there have been cases of TSA Agents stealing from those bins. I zip through without problem and wait for my flight.

It's a few hours to Dallas, and now I have a couple hour layover.  Dallas is a great airport, but they don't have free wifi.  What's up with that?  I grab something to eat, and do some practicing.  I'm not going to this casino to count cards so I need some last minute brushing up.  I board one of those little puddle-jumper airplanes they use for regional flights.  I hate these things but I'm headed to the middle of nowhere and don't have a choice.  These planes have a row of single seats on one side, and 2 seats on the other.  Always book the A seat so you don't have to squeeze in next to someone.  The other bad thing about these planes is you can't take a normal size carry on bag onto the plane with you.  They take them when you board and then toss them out on the tarmac when you land, usually in a slush puddle.

By the time I land it is 10pm local time.  I pick up the rental car and now have about a hundred mile drive to the hotel.  The car is some type of new Ford, and it looks like an airplane cockpit.  There are nobs and lights everywhere.  I hit what I think is the cruise control and the car starts talking at me.  I can't figure out how to make it stop but I do find the thermometer.  It says 12.  When I left L.A. it was 80 degrees, and now it is freaking 12.  I don't have clothes for this.  I roll into the Super 8 Motel around midnight, and try not to wake X as I crash into bed.

The next morning X and I are up early.  We head off to the casino and find a disaster.  The game we were planning to play is no good anymore.  It is worthless.  This is a small casino, and there is nothing else here we want to play.  We head back to the hotel to decide what to do next.  I call the airline, and my ticket can not be changed so I am stuck here for 2 more days.  We take the next option, drive 3 hours to the next casino and see if there is anything there for us to play.  3 hours in the car, but at least it has warmed up to a balmy 22 degrees.  We get to Casino 2 and get some good luck - they have a game even better than the one we were hoping to play at Casino 1.  We get in a few hours of play, and book a small win.  We drive a few miles out of town to have some dinner and celebrate our good fortune.  We don't want to be too close since it would not be good for some casino employee to see us eating together. This is the midwest so the restaurant was named something like Deep Fried Lard on a Stick. Yum.

The next morning we get to the casino before the games open.  The tables open, we get to work, and spend 8 hours on the game.  We go up, we go down, we go back up.  I'm pleasantly surprised after 8 hours when X wants to call it a night since he is getting fatigued.  I used to play with a guy called The Vampire.  On my last trip with him we played 8 hours of day shift, then 8 hours of swing shift, and then he said, "I know a really good game on graveyard."  This isn't an Ipad Factory in China.  16 straight hours is about my limit.

The good news, after hitting a disaster at the first casino we have found a great game and scored a 5-figure win.  The bad news, I will have to get up at 3:30am and drive 3 hours to catch my early morning flight.  It's snowing pretty hard when I hit the freeway at 4am.  The freeway has not been plowed yet, and the driving is quite scary, especially when passing trucks.  But I make it to the airport with plenty of time to spare.

I was gone 4 days.  I spent 20 hours either in airports or on airplanes, 8 hours driving, and maybe 12 hours playing.  We won less than expectation but still good considering it could easily have been a busted trip. It may not be tuxedos and Bond girls, but it sure beats digging ditches.

Blackjack Ball 2012

Every year there is a party for some of the greatest minds in Blackjack.  Attending are great writers, and theoreticians like Stanford Wong, Arnold Snyder, and James Grosjean.  Also in attendance are some of the great players of all time, like Al Francesco, members of the MIT and Hyland teams, and James Grosjean.  But the Blackjack Ball 2012 was an epic gathering.  Cocktails began at 5:00 and my wife and I were fairly early.

James McDermott

I was thrilled to see this man in attendance.  Who is James McDermott?  In the 1950s this man, along with Roger Baldwin, Wilbert Cantey, and Herbert Maisel first calculated basic strategy for blackjack.  There were no computers.  All they had were adding machines.  They published their findings in a little book called Playing Blackjack to Win in 1957.  For the game of Blackjack this was the Big Bang.  Before this no one had figured out exactly when it is correct to take another card, or double down.  (Or if they had no one had published it.)

That little book inspired this man:

Ed Thorp

Ed Thorp wrote the first book on counting cards, Beat the Dealer.  It was the first book to prove that blackjack could be beat by keeping track of the cards.  The book changed blackjack forever, and without exaggeration was responsible for the earnings of tens of millions of dollars by the people in this room.  It was no wonder that he received a standing ovation when presented with a plaque which read:

With deep appreciation, we salute you for the immeasurable contributions you have made to the craft of Professional Blackjack

Max Rubin presents Ed Thorp with a plaque. 

Ed Thorp was the first person inducted into the Blackjack Hall of Fame, and every year at the Ball a new member is inducted.  This year it was Ian Anderson, author of Turning the Tables on Las Vegas and later Burning the Tables in Las Vegas.  Most books for card counters teach you how to count the cards, and what the proper strategy decisions are. Anderson was really the first author to discuss how to get away with counting cards; how to actually take the money out of the casinos, and this was a really important contribution.

A quick note about the Blackjack Hall of Fame.  It is not without controversy.  Often people question, why is this person in and that person not?  The people who founded the Hall of Fame wanted it to not just be for blackjack authors, but for players.  Guys (and girls) who have gone out and consistently taken money out of casinos, as well as people like Thorp and McDermott who have contributed through publishing.  Because of the secretive nature of what we do it is hard for people to know why someone belongs in there if they don't know that person, or have heard the tales of their exploits. For example, last year the inductee was Zeljko Ranogajec, a person you probably have never heard of.  But trust me on this, if anyone belongs in a blackjack hall of fame it is Zeljko.  There is probably someone out there sucking millions out of casinos that none of us have ever heard of.  Someone who really belongs in the Hall of Fame but will never be there because they keep their activity secret. It is not a perfect system, and it is evolving, but it is the best we have at this time.

After dinner was a calcutta auction, and then the famed competition for the Grosjean Cup.

The competition starts with a test of 21 questions.  Here are some of the questions from the quiz.

3. If you get this one wrong, you’re disqualified. Casino Player Magazine awarded this casino the title of “Best Blackjack in America” in 2011. As the sponsor of the Blackjack Ball and home of the Blackjack Hall of Fame, this casino can offer their loose rules and high stakes games because everyone who attends the Blackjack Ball agrees not to play blackjack there. Name that casino.

The answer - Barona.  I have to say that I think this is actually a brilliant move on Barona's part. They give the members of the Hall of Fame a comp for life with the understanding that those people will NOT play blackjack there.  All the people who attend the Ball are also supposed to agree not to play at Barona, and some of them are not so scrupulous about this, but still I I think Barona saves many thousands of dollars with this.

7. True or False? For the basic strategy player, the blackjack switch games at the Bellagio, which are dealt out of a continuous six deck shuffler, have a lower house edge than the Bellagio’s best double deck games.

Answer - It’s hard to believe, but the double deck games at the Bellagio that stand on soft 17 have a .19% edge off the top and their blackjack switch games, even with a continuous six deck shuffler are only .18%, so the answer to seven is True.

20. According to Stanford Wong’s December issue of Current Blackjack News, where would you find the most blackjack tables in December of 2011?

          A. In the Greater Seattle Area 

          B. In Florida’s land based casinos 

C.  In Reno

          D. At the Mohegan Sun

Answer - As of December, 2011, there were 132 blackjack games in the greater Seattle area, 173 blackjack games in Florida and 173 blackjack games at the Mohegan Sun and Reno, even when you take out Sparks and Verdi, tops the list at 189. The answer is C. Reno.
 
Four people scored a 13 on the test, Anthony Curtis, Big Tony, Wahoo and Mr Yuk.  We needed a fifth and there were 6 or 7 players who scored 12 so they had a sudden death playoff.  They came to the front of the room and had to "name a casino in California that deals the game of blackjack."  If you named a casino that had already been named, or if you blanked, you were eliminated.  One by one they checked about 30 casinos off the list before they started getting eliminated.  Poker player Blair Rodman got sort of a bad call from the ref when he named Trump 29 and was eliminated because the real name is Spotlight 29. Eventually WRX grabbed the 5th spot at the final table.

The first competition was card counting.  Each of the 5 players at the final table was given a single deck with 5 cards removed.  Because people use different counts the question was, "How many black cards are missing from your deck?"  I don't remember if he had the slowest time or if he made a mistake in the count, but WRX was the first eliminated.

As you can see, some of the rounds are serious blackjack skills, like ace sequencing, and some are just silly, like arm wrestling.  The biggest upset of the night came when Mr Yuk defeated Anthony Curtis in the arm wrestling competition.  Anthony has competed in this event many times and this is the first time he has ever lost the arm wrestling competition.

Place your bets.  How many cards in the discard rack?

I called it 42.  James Grosjean was standing next to me and said he wasn't very good at card estimation but he'd call it 45.  Correct answer - 44.

For the memorizing cards section a deck was spread for 30 seconds giving the players time to memorize as long a string as possible.  They then took turns naming what card would come next as Max dealt.  When you named the wrong card you were out.  Mr Yuk won again and seemed to be on  a roll.  Wahoo was the 2nd man eliminated from the final table.  Then came shuffling chips.

Mr. Yuk - epic Fail!

Mr. Yuk apparently no experience with this essential blackjack skill, whereas Big Tony got his name from the size of his hands.

Even with this win Big Tony was low man at the chip count.

Then there were 2.  Anthony Curtis, seasoned veteran, and Mr. Yuk a young newcomer, his first time at the Blackjack Ball.  The final test - a 5 hand blackjack tournament.  They each start with $1000, and Anthony Curtis has the button.  This is a big disadvantage. Blackjack tournaments are the opposite of poker tournaments.  The button acts first.  That means that on the crucial last hand Anthony Curtis will have to bet first, and act first.  Will Mr Yuk be intimidated by the fact that for years Anthony Curtis was considered the best blackjack tournament player in the world?  Or is Anthony intimidated by the fact that Mr. Yuk is the first guy to ever put his arm down?

At this point Joe Pane says to me he'll take Anthony Curtis and lay me $15 to $10.  I quietly say to Yuk, you play many tournaments?  He says, a lot.  I tell Joe we have a bet.

Hand 1.  Anthony bets $100 and Yuk bets the same.  They both win.
Hand 2.  Yuk bets $100 and Anthony realizes he need to take the lead.  He bets $300.  Yuk gets 18, Anthony gets 11, and the dealer has a 7 up.  Anthony chooses to just hit which seems to clearly be the right play when the bankrolls are only $1100 and he has 300 bet.  Anthony makes 20, and the dealer makes 18 pushing Yuk.  Anthony is now up by $300
Hands 3&4.  I don't remember exactly what happens but between the 2 hands Anthony has some very bad luck, gets swung and going into hand 5 Yuk has $1,350 and Anthony has $900.
My bet is looking really good at this point, but then Max announces that the final hand is a secret bet!  Oh no. This means that if Mr. Yuk is not an experienced tournament player he could very easily blow this.
Hand 5.  Mr Yuk gets dealt 20, and Anthony is dealt hard 6.  Anthony is drawing dead.  Anthony doubles down - his secret bet was 450.  Turns out Mr. Yuk bet $500 which is an excellent bet.  This bet means that if Anthony were to bet his 900 and get to 1800, if Yuk also wins his 1350 goes to 1850 beating him.  If Anthony had bet 900 and Yuk sees he has a blackjack (taking him to 2,250) then Yuk can double down with whatever 2 cards he has and if he wins he gets to 2350.  Yuk only loses if he gets swung - Anthony wins while Yuk loses.  I think that only happens about 8% of the time.  

Congratulations to Mr. Yuk, a victory for the new generation of blackjack players.

Gambling With an Edge - guest Laurie C.

Our guest this week is Laurie C. long-time member of the MIT Blackjack team, and wife of Johnny C. who ran the MIT team.  We talk about counting cards, the movie 21, and the advantages of being a
Chinese woman in the casinos.

Laurie C. podcast

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Gambling With an Edge - guest Daniel Negreanu

Our guest this week is Daniel Negreanu aka "Kid Poker" although he has now been playing so long he may have to change his moniker to "Middle-Aged-Man Poker."  Daniel is the author of  Power Hold'em Strategy which outlines his "small ball" tournament strategy.  He says this is the strategy that most of the tournament pros have adapted. We talk poker on TV, poker on the internet, poker tournaments, and whether he had the right side of the great poker-kickboxing match of 2011.

Daniel Negeanu Podcast

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Gambling With an Edge - guest Don Johnson

Our guest this week is Don Johnson.  At his day job Don works at Computer Assisted Wagering for one of the largest horse bettors in the world.  As a sideline he won $15 million playing blackjack in Atlantic City with the help of a 20% rebate on his losses.  Bob and I also discuss the importance of scouting both games and promotions.

Don Johnson podcast

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Gambling With an Edge - guest Mike Shakleford

Our guest this week is Mike Shakleford aka "The Wizard of Odds." We talk about proposition bets for the upcoming Super Bowl, and The Oscars. Learn why you should bet the under and the dog. Mike will be taking over for me on the show starting in February so we also talk some about the new direction the show will take.

Mike Shackleford podcast

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Repeat Until Rich by Josh Axelrad

I recently finished Repeat Until Rich by Josh Axelrad. I should start by saying that I am a big fan of this type of book. I devoured Ken Uston's books before playing on big teams myself; not for the “how to” but for the stories of what it is like to be a professional player. I thoroughly enjoyed Blackjack Autumn by Barry Meadow, and thought Kevin Blackwood's, Play Blackjack Like the Pros was reasonable even though I disagree with many of his conclusions. I'm sorry to say I couldn't make it through more than a couple pages of Stuart Perry's Las Vegas Blackjack Diary. It read like my old tax records, and really shows the difference between writing and record keeping.

Josh does a good job of capturing the excitement, fear, and insanity that go with high-stakes blackjack. Unlike Ken Uston, he does not think he is the world's greatest blackjack player, and actually admits to being a bad one. He struggles with simple things like keeping the count, and has a really hard time with things like adjusting for true count, and sizing bets. One of the team leaders says, “anyone who can calculate an 18% tip in a restaurant can count cards.” The team, called Mossad in the book, quickly hands him thousands of dollars, and throws him into the shark tank with very little instruction. To non-players this will seem insane, but it is very much my experience with big teams. They may argue for hours over what the proper bet is with a running 17, 3 ½ decks to go, and a $450 unit, but then throw 2 or 3 ten-packs at a guy in the car, and as they're getting out start yelling rapid fire, “Oh, this signal means 'come into game,' this is 'end of play,' this means 'bet more...'” all the while the poor newbie is pleading, “Wait, wait, where do I go? How much do I bet? How do I know when to quit?”

Josh starts as a spotter, and it seems within weeks he has major heat all over Vegas. Pros will want to scream at the book, “Dude! Cut off your freaking dreadlocks!” You're the only white guy in the casino with dreadlocks and you can't figure out why you are getting barred the minute you walk in the door.
But Mossad had a policy that no one would be dropped from the team for getting heated up. They may throw you in the fryer, but they wouldn't abandon you when you got extra crispy. I find this loyalty admirable.

Josh now goes from a spotter with heat all over Vegas, to BP. Say what?! While everyone in town knew the guy with dreadlocks, they didn't have his name. Maybe he cut his hair, or hid it somehow, but he was reborn as a BP and was clean... for a while. Now to me this is the most interesting part of the book. Every professional has to deal with issues like, carrying cash, CTRs (cash transaction reports), ID, and heat. Mossad's approach was this: No fake ID ever. CTRs, file them with your real name. Heat – ignore it. Go right into the furnace and keep firing until they threw you out. This approach was unique in my experience. Mossad encouraged all players to invest and had a very large bankroll. This allowed them to bet up to 2 or 3 hands of $10,000. They won millions (I remember one New Years week where the rumor was they won 2 million) but it fried BPs, and eventually burned out the “big player call in” completely in many venues. To this day if a player in Las Vegas, with no players card enters a blackjack game in progress and bets the table maximum he will probably be barred before the shoe is over.

The book flies along with crazy blackjack stories, and Josh doing even crazier things. He goes into his bank in New York and deposits $18,000 in cash. Two weeks later he withdraws it in cash to take back to Vegas. It sounds like he did these kinds of transactions dozens of times. Dude, didn't anyone tell you they have bank branches in Vegas, and safe deposit boxes there too? They have the usual run in with cops in Louisiana, and by some miracle the cops don't confiscate their $120,000 in cash, although they do get taken out of the car at gunpoint.

Then the book takes a hard left turn. Josh gets out of blackjack and becomes a degenerate poker player. What had started as a breezy, fun read now becomes bleak and depressing as he blows all his money, and wallows in his addiction. He should have made this a second book which we all could skip.