Tarkblog

As most of you know, I find myself down at the Caesars riverboat every once in a while. I never go with any expections other than having fun. I’m not superstitious and I know that over the long run I’ll lose money. I consider this entertainment expenses, and generally go just to have a good time.

This past Friday night I was there with a coworker, and we were losing quite a bit at blackjack. She ended up running out of money, so she was just sitting in her spot. I was about to my “won’t lose any more than this” amount, but I still have 40 bucks left. So, on the next hand I decided to go for broke. I put down 30 for my bet, and also put down 10 in the spot she was sitting in - thus I was playing two hands.

The dealer looked at me funny. I asked her if anything was wrong, and she said no. So I played both hands. I lost the 30, but won on the 10. Suck.

So, the next hand I played all 20 on my spot - back to one hand.

The dealer looked at me funny again. Now, playing two hands is perfectly legal in shoe-dealt blackjack, so I wasn’t sure what was going on here. I asked her what. She told me to “be careful”.

Now I’m thinking that perhaps I’m drawing attention to myself from pit bosses or something, and soon they’re going to throw me in the backroom and beat me up for some kind of elaborate cheating scheme I’ve devised. Be careful? From what?

Well, I hit a blackjack on that hand, paying out 30 bucks!

I decided to go back to two 10 dollar hands again, just to egg the dealer on. She shook her hand, and I said: “what’s wrong?”. She said that doing that kind of stuff is going to “change the cards”, and everyone at the table would start losing.

That floored me.

I told her I didn’t believe in that kind of crap. She said: “yeah, don’t listen to me. I’ve just been doing this for 14 years so I don’t have any idea what I’m talking about. You will change the cards if you do that.”

Good god. I cannot seriously believe someone who has dealt for 14 years still has superstitions about dealing out blackjack cards. So let me say this once and for all: after the first shuffle, the card order is essentially RANDOM - there is no such thing as “changing” the cards. It’s RANDOM.

Yes, the order of the cards and the outcome of the game is all pivotal on the plays people make. But when someone makes a bad play (one that isn’t “by the book”), it doesn’t magically mean that the next card is going to be the one that screws someone over. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a complete idiot.

Oh, and by the way Mrs. Dealer - I haven’t been dealing for 14 years - you got me there. I did, however, go to school for a substantial period of time, during which my fervent study of math told me that you are an idiot.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 31st, 2005 at 7:55 am and is filed under Random Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.