Ploys

Girlfriend as the BP and then find another person to help you back-count shoe games. Having her do the betting is great camouflage because casinos are still rather chauvinistic and many old-school pit bosses immediately dismiss women as potential threats.

And if she balks at having to learn card counting, there are ways to simplify this technique. It's possible for her to only make flat bets when she is called in. You and your buddy could do all the counting and have her learn a modified basic strategy for positive shoes. This will dilute your overall edge, but will still yield a winning game.

There is value in playing and working together with a loved one, both financially and emotionally. If you don't end up fighting over the money (or fighting over the girlfriend), then the entire experience can be very worthwhile and remove many of the negatives of traveling alone.

NETWORKING

Having teammates and card-counting friends also provides other perks. I've obtained a ton of information by maintaining contact with expert players. It can be very useful to compare notes with other people you respect-you might find the latest hot game or get a feel for casino tolerance on a particular shift.

Also, teammates can be your eyes and ears in valuable places. It is not uncommon for floor men to talk openly about a player after he is gone. If one of your spotters still happens to be hanging around, he might pick up some useful intelligence on how the pit really views the BP.

An amusing version of this "fly on the wall" scenario happened at the Sands
casino in Las Vegas. I set up to do a short play there with Alex and Greg, as the Sands was always a pretty tight club, and it was difficult to play long sessions.

I will sometimes back-count shoes myself, in addition to using spotters, and on this particular day I got a hot one right out of the gate. I laid down four $100 bills on the felt and calmly said, "Money plays." The pit started buzzing like a beehive, as it rarely got much big action. I won the first three hands and ,the count continued' climbing, so I tucked the cash back into my pocket and started firing away with the small stack of black $100 'chips in front of me. The cards all went my way, and I never had to reach back into my pocket again for more cash. By the end of the shoe I had won $9,600. Now the beehive was really buzzing.

There weren't any $500 chips at the table, so I had huge mounds of black chips spread in front of me. Typically, after a really big win, I would immediately leave and cash out later. However, because the chips were so heavy and the
online casino was soon to be closed, I decided to go to the cage right then. It took a few minutes, but I finally got paid and starting jamming the large stack of C-notes into my fanny pack when I noticed Alex Strickland was giving me the hot signal. He evidently had a monster count on his shoe and was miffed that 1 was cashing out rather than running over to his table. 1 had already won far more than the usual choke point for the Sands, so 1 waved him off and headed out the front door.

Normally, spotters never play any serious money at the table they are back-counting-no matter how high the edge. The reason is that it is a blatant way to blow their cover. However, since the old casino was scheduled to shut down and be imploded, Alex figured he had little to lose, so he jumped in and started playing the high count with his own money. By doing so, he was able to relay what happened within seconds of my departure.

A stocky woman with short-cropped red hair, evidently from surveillance, suddenly came running into the pit angrily waving a faxed picture of yours truly, shouting, "I knew it was him. That was Kevin Blackwood! And you just let him beat us out of ten grand!" .