LARRY’S LAS VEGAS

In my previous article about the psychological and emotional challenges of blackjack, I covered how a tough casino game like this can expose any personal weakness - and it’s the job of the casinos to exploit these weaknesses. We covered:

- Laziness
- Fear
- Love of drink/Inebriation
- Pride/Arrogance/Ego

These are all forms of personal weakness that can make a technically winning or break-even player into a loser, and there is plenty for us to explore regarding how learning to be a good blackjack player can help you improve youself.

But today let’s explore the grandaddy of all emotions affecting casino games:

GREED !!

(duh!?) Hahahe yes, folks, greed is the fertilizer that built Las Vegas. The fact that so many people want the casinos’ money has allowed the casino industry to expand to multi-billion dollar heights that are truly almost unimaginable. The millions in action on the tables and the machines in Las Vegas are all there because of the greed of the players, and the casinos. Greed, the desire for money, is the basis for blackjack. Oh yes! There is fun and entertainment there also, but believe me - it’s a LOT more fun and entertaining when you are winning!!

So if greed is the whole basis for the game, how can it adversely affect your play? How can the very goal of the game be your downfall in the game?

The answer is that it must be a controlled kind of greed. Unchecked and uncontrolled greed is a guaranteed loser! Let’s look at some examples from my own experiences.

On a recent trip back home to Texas, I discovered that they had put two Indian casinos in Oklahoma, right across the Red River from where my internet POP and office is, barely 13 miles away. My first thought was, “Allright! Blackjack time!!”

WOW. I found the games there to be juicy and easy, with very player-favorable rules. Oklahoma has a very strange thing called an “ante” where you pay the casino 50 cents per hand just to play. That is a ripoff, no doubt, and should be the subject of another article. However during the month I was there one of the two casinos had a promotion where they covered your “ante” for you. Yay! We’re now looking at a 6 deck shoe game, early and late surrender, double after split allowed, practically every player favorable rule in place. And NO HEAT - you could win, change your bets up and down, expand from one to 4 betting circles and back and no one cared at all.

So.. I took $1,000, divided it into two session bankrolls of $500 each, and started playing. I didn’t drink, I played very well, and took advantage of the surrender rules and no heat and scored well for days. Just from my initial $500 I had built it up to $4500 in 4 days. When I would get anywhere close to a $1,000 win for the day, I would quit and this was working great for me.

Finally I decided, well it was time to get greedy. I had been quitting right in the middle of winning sessions when I reached my daily $1,000 goal and stopped playing before even starting to lose. So why not just keep playing past that $1,000 goal? What’s so magic about that? If I can win $1,000 surely I can win $5,000, right ? (pride and ego had also reared their ugly head, partnering up with greed apparently!)

So.. that afternoon I went across the river and settled in at a $25 table. I was betting really a bit too high for my $1,000 session bankroll, but I was after the “big bucks” today. I had a hot shoe, very player-favorable shuffle, and against the dealer heads up - by the end of the first shoe I was up over $1,100. Now I had turned my $500 initial bankroll into over $5,500 in 5 days. Normally I would quit, like I had done all the other days. But I still wasn’t losing yet. I was determined to exercise my greed and just see how far I could go.

Interestingly, the dealer was a great guy about my age who had been a dealer in Vegas. We discussed some of these very things that we’ve discussed on Larrys’ Las Vegas about blackjack psychology, money management, etc. His philosophy was that, when he played if he got 20% below his maximum win, he quit. I didn’t, and still don’t, completely agree with this approach. It all depends on what you want and what you want to risk, and I’ve recovered many, many times from being 20% down off the “high-water” mark. And yet, I can call this approach a safe and good approach for many people. You will leave a winner with his philosophy, assuming you can get ahead at all (sometimes you are never ahead!).

But that night, I was determined to press my luck, to get greedy, to not let a little $1,000 win stop me from really achieving a bigger score. Stupidly, I did not even have a set number to achieve, perhaps $5,000 was floating around in my head. But I knew I couldn’t stop with that $1,100 win - and honestly it only took about 20 minutes and I really wanted to play more!

I did take a break, drank a beer, checked out the poker room - no seats available. Came back to the pit and put my money down - lusting after those black chips! I had a rough time - but it’s always hard to recognize that bad variance at first. I lost back that $1,100 win but I kept betting large amounts, even putting down 4 $200 bets on 4 betting circles at once - way too big for my bankroll size - which was totally against everything that had gotten me to the profit levels I had already achieved. Even though I had two twenties and three other good hands (as I thought I would!) I lost that big bet to a 5-card dealer 21. Then a few more! Then more - nothing was working - this wasn’t what was supposed to be happening when I decided to press on and not settle for a thousand-dollar win! GREED had gotten ahold of me and was now gradually morphing into DESPERATION to gain back my winnings.

Finally, from having $5,000+ in winnings when I left that first table, I was down to about $2500 in a few shoes - all because $1,000 for the day’s winnings “wasn’t good enough” for me anymore. I wanted to “win more.” GREED, people - GREED!

Also note that it was greed, along with ego and overconfidence, that took me from a “go slow, be careful” type winning philosophy to overbetting my bankroll and doing “hail mary” type plays. “Golly, gee, I hope I get lucky!” - if there was every a losing blackjack strategy, that’s got to be it. Yet there I was, playing like a “ploppy.”

Luckily I was able to stop, take a break, play poker for a while, win a bit over there, and come back to recover some of my losses - yet nowhere NEAR my high water mark, when I decided to get greedy. But the lesson you can learn from me is that these losses did not have to occur, at all - it was all due to my uncontrolled GREED.

Greed and percentages in wins and loss - greed when you win:

Let’s talk about some other ways that greed can overcome good blackjack play. Some nights you may be sticking to your win/loss limits and goals, perhaps play is mediocre, with no real big up or down swings so far. Perhaps, like I often do, you have a $1,000 goal for the day with your play. You’re fighting hard, up and down, up and down, like blackjack so often is. You score some good hits on them - maybe some larger double downs or some split-and-doubles that are winners. Now you’re $875 ahead.

You haven’t hit your $1,000 goal yet. What do you do? Well YOU QUIT - that’s what you do. You’re at 87.5% of a very difficult goal to achieve - beating a professional blackjack dealer within the casino’s rules on the casino’s turf. Now you’re going to put that win at risk for another $125? For another 12.5% ? What for?

If the cards turn bad and you hit a downside variance, you’ll be wondering what in the world you were thinking. Look at the logic and the reasoning here - and you’ll find that there is none - it’s just GREED that is about to cause your bad decision. And it’s uncontrolled greed - you’ve already achieved almost all your monetary goal and yet it’s not enough for you. You may very well find that you’re already won as much as you are going to win that night, or you could put yourself in a position where you’re back down to your original bankroll and now you’re going to put THAT at risk too - all for another $125!! How does that lust for money feel now?

Greed when you lose -

OK there is a flipside to this, on the losing end of the spectrum. Let’s say you’ve had a tough night at the blackjack table. You’re down by $1,000 or more. You take a break, you slow down, maybe (in a very wise move) you go down to a smaller limit table, and play smaller bets until you get back some of your losses (if you do!).

SO… you’re playing well, good cards are coming off and on, you’re making progress. You get back to within $940 of your buy-in amount. You’re now down by $60. What do you do ? YOU QUIT … THAT’S WHAT YOU DO!!

You’re almost even - for several hours (perhaps) of entertainment and perhaps free drinks, maybe a comped meal! You came back from a $1,000 loss - what’s driving you to gamble more now? GREED - that’s what. Oh, you better quit now - you’re not ahead, but hey - it’s just not your night for that. Face it, today’s battle is a draw - leave.

If you continue to play, and you get down a few hundred or even over $1,000 again - OH, how you will wish you could only be down by $60!! Trust me on this, dear reader - I’ve been there. Take your little loss, and do something else for the evening. DON’T let your GREED turn you from being a very small loser, practically a break-even player, into a HUGE loser.

OK more later, readers - see you at the tables and keep those blackjack personality monsters under control!!

- C

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