Colin Jones (S2 E4): Can’t Get Me Love – Gambling With An Edge

The 1987 film Can not Purchase Me Like was a person of the best gambling movies of all time. Millennial APs probably haven’t seen it, so here’s the IMDB summary: “An outcast secretly pays the most well known female in school just one thousand dollars to fake to be his girlfriend for a thirty day period.” Probably the allegory is way too subtle. Exchange “An outcast” with “A card-counter” change “girl in school” with “dealer at the casino” substitute “his girlfriend” with “impressed by his bankroll.”

However never see it? Replace “pays” with “tokes.”

This is like a single of those people pixelated, white-noise 3-D pictures, wherever you have to stare at a focal level outside of the aircraft to see the image. When your mate stares at it for a couple seconds and then claims he “kinda sees it,” you are like, “Naw, you really do not,” for the reason that when he truly sees it, you know he’ll go: “Whooooaaaaa!!”

Two hours from now, some card counter is heading to put up a site comment that states, “I just viewed the motion picture, and it doesn’t have any gambling in it at all, but the guy’s $1000 ploy in fact kinda works!” Ok, let us just adhere to the title: “Can’t Buy Me Love.”

In his reserve The 21^st-Century Card Counter, Colin Jones interviews SemiPro, a seller-cum-card-counter who can verify what we have all been expressing for many years: “There’s no suggestion you can give to a the greater part of dealers that will satisfy them. Interval. … It is crucial to recognize this about the dealers who are brazenly angry at you ‘for not tipping.’ You just cannot afford to pay for to buy them.” Amen, Sister SemiPro!

I as soon as noticed a vendor practically roll her eyes at a $1000 tip (10 black chips), at a joint in which they maintain their own recommendations, since the gambler won a $75k jackpot, so clearly the dealer deserved a even bigger suggestion than just a measly $1000.

I know, counters suggestion for penetration. Positive they do. And they stay in lavish penthouse suites, and they win every single time out. And they are all savants. Yeah, I observed Rain Man and 21, too. I’m not heading to go off script to rant about the Tipping-For-Penetration Myth, but considering the fact that it would be on script correct now, let us do it, lunger!

1st, enable me describe the theory (browse: “myth”). The notion is that at the minute the supplier has to place the shuffle card, Boudreaux suggestions the dealer so that the supplier will go thinner, which is naturally what Boudreaux would like as a card counter. Ahead of I debunk this move-by-action, I’m making an attempt to obtain the right analogy to give you an overview. Tipping for penetration is like cow tipping. Boudreaux swears to have done it, but if you push him challenging for particulars, he sooner or later admits that he hasn’t individually completed it, but he swears that he has a pal Thibodeaux who has.

Tipping for penetration is like some Rube-Goldbergian process to accomplish a outcome, apart from challenging. To start with, the seller would have to know that card counters like deep penetration. Correct there, the possibility of this ploy functioning is commencing at considerably less than 1%, simply because there is not 1 vendor in 100 who appreciates the worth of penetration. Consider it from SemiPro: “The vast majority of workers in the greater part of casinos know minor to almost nothing about advantage perform.” And that is becoming generous. How many dealers even know primary system? I have encountered two sellers that I’m absolutely sure knew essential method.

What we APs look at so apparent is not at all clear to a vendor whose beliefs have been shaped by Hollywood, degenerate gamblers at their tables, and ignorant bosses who used to be ignorant sellers by themselves. I know a manager who thinks the very best time to wager large is off the top rated … [wait for it] … mainly because at that point all the Aces are in the shoe. Duh!

Next, the dealer would have to know that Boudreaux is a counter. That suggests Boudreaux almost certainly screwed it up. And if Boudreaux is so intelligent that he can toke sellers for penetration, then he really should have been intelligent more than enough to not get built as a counter.

Then, the vendor has to know that that tip is supposed to be an inducement for a certain motion, which the vendor hasn’t performed but. Only Boudreaux would check out to teach a pet by giving a canine the deal with right before the ideal action has been carried out! The supplier who, like your pet, is not a intellect reader, will acknowledge that toke accurately like the doggy accepts the take care of. The toke/take care of receives gobbled up devoid of so considerably as a Thank-You, adopted by puppy eyes ready for yet another!

Boudreaux throwing a greenback chip on the format is like throwing a dollar on the phase at a strip club. That place in their function space is theirs, and any pounds lying there, are theirs. Whichever they’re supposed to do to earn these dollars, they previously did it. Tokes are a birthright. The thing they do to generate the dollar is: They offer the major profitable fingers! That’s what they do. Duh! Despite all the chants of U-S-A! U-S-A!! U-S-A!!!, they all turn out to be communists the instant those people vendor uniforms go on.

Boudreaux hasn’t noticed Just can’t Invest in Me Enjoy, but he’s witnessed a ton of motion pictures, so he’s obtained the thoughts-studying dilemma included. He’s likely to proclaim “Thin to gain!” as the seller cuts the shoe. When that Jedi head-trick fails, he begins conversing about how difficult on the sellers arms it must be to shuffle all the time, and implies that chopping further would indicate significantly less shuffling. When that Inception fails, Boudreaux tries cutting the shoe thin from the front, so that the penetration winds up becoming specifically in which he desires it, given that they use a second shuffle card on the base of the shoe. When that fails, he goes to all-out bribe mode a la Gilbert Gottfried in Beverly Hills Cop 2, keeping out the dollar chip and asking, “Is there anything in my hand, that might make you fail to remember you are intended to reduce off two decks, and maybe reduce off, say, just one deck?”

And then the seller suggests … [wait for it] … “Oh no, I simply cannot, we get in hassle.”

So after all the machinations, Boudreaux has to prevail over that final issue. If the seller sooner or later realizes what Boudreaux wants, she’ll likely not be prepared to danger hassle for a measly $1. And don’t forget, even a nickel is measly to the standard vendor. Conveying his desires has backfired for Boudreaux. The dealer states, “Oh, when you explained ‘Thin to win’ I assumed that was just a thing gamblers say, but now that I know you truly want me to reduce thin to acquire, then no, I just can’t do that.”

But Boudreaux claims it has labored for him a lot of moments. Truly? I have seen counters who looked so self-contented when a deep minimize followed a toke, but … [let’s all say this together now] … “Correlation does not indicate Causality!”  That should go on the record of nursery rhymes, along with “One, Two, bet the shoe, 3, Four, double for far more, 5, Six, pick up chips! .. [you know the rest].”

Waddya know, the future shoe the same vendor cuts in the exact spot without the need of a toke! Or the toke is given once again, and then the vendor cuts off two decks, realizing that the preceding reduce was way too thin! Any person who tries to simply call out the Tipping-For-Penetration Fantasy is then met with, “You just really don’t know how to do it.” Okay, I never know how to suggestion cows possibly.

But I would occur back again with, “Maybe you just never know how to get something for no cost rather of shelling out for it.” A lot of points can be experienced if you pay more than enough, but the artwork is finding the issue as cheaply as probable, totally free if attainable. Try to use all people psychological techniques, but minus the toke.

Or, an additional way to get penetration for free is to scout for it. Some gamers, and authors, poo-poo HC participate in as being impure or even unethical, mainly because it is supplier-specific. Here’s a secret: ALL gain enjoy is dealer-specific, even counting cards. A counter ought to have a psychological checklist (if not a composed one particular) of the dealers who continuously lower deep, or who offer quickly (some sellers supply two times as several fingers per hour as many others), or who hold their mouth shut when you jump your bet 10x. And some sellers go on the No-Perform Record, because they are merely as well perilous. I’ve had to call off group plays a lot of situations, since a seller arrived who was much too sharp, as well hazardous.

If Boudreaux gave me a list of dealers who will lower further for penetration, that is exactly the checklist of sellers whose tables I would never ever enjoy. A vendor who understands that penetration is critical to counting, is aware that Boudreaux is a counter, and who will cut it deeper for a $1, but if not won’t, is a seller to be avoided. And one working day Boudreaux is going to wander in the pit and see that that vendor (who is clearly sharp and bold enough to climb the ladder) is a manager.

My guidance to Boudreaux is to prevent trying to acquire their like, or penetration. The greatest matters in lifestyle are cost-free. The fantastic Yul Brynner might have explained it best: really do not toke.