STREETWISE Blackjack

Too Hot to Handle

Here in the Valley of the Dollars, things are heating up fast. There is no getting away from the May to September broiler. You open your car door and the blast furnace smacks you full force. Welcome to Las Vegas, where relief comes from sunset for several summer hours before the city swelters once more.

Inside the casinos, relief can be a temporary matter. Sure, state of the art air conditioning cools things to a more tolerable level. But, your personal comfort zone depends on how you handle the vicissitudes of casino life‹the hot and cold runs of the cards you're dealt.

How is your casino personality? Most people don't suddenly acquire new behavior patterns as if struck by lightning in a casino. How you deal with success and failure in the outside world is probably going to shape your responses in a gambling arena.

I don't want to submit I've seen it all‹I've seen a lot in more than three decades of casino life‹but I'm afraid of what I haven't seen. I'm probably not the first to note the volatile mix of alcohol, cash and gambling can be hazardous to the well being of some otherwise reasonable folks. Do you think casinos give you free adult beverages because they are just plain benevolent hosts?

A very wise casino manager once confided to me that his business was very simple and could be reduced to this concept: Casino gambling is the only legal enterprise where you help get people as inebriated as they desire, then sit back as they give up their money without a thought. In gambling, we're dealing with risk-taking. Alcohol can turn Walter Mitty or Don Knotts into a combination Richard the Lionhearted and Ken Uston in a flash.

Lost that sure-thing 20 when the rascally so-and-so sitting at third base took a hit on his fifteen against the dealer's 4? What do you do? Are you the measure of composure for the human race, nod complacently and move on? Do you gag up lunch? Commit imaginary unspeakable acts of violence? Launch your double vodka in this fool's direction?

More experienced casino habitués are used to the vagaries of the games. They realize one of the larger divisions between rank amateurs and seasoned professionals lies in the mental approach‹how well you suffer losses and handle success. I was reminded of this by a visit to Gambler's Book Shop by a writer/player of some note. We had participated in a media tournament several years ago and I was dumbfounded by his behavior. I had never seen anything like it, ever.

At the final table, despite numerous warnings concerning communication between spectators and participants, upon receiving a decent hand, this fellow leapt from his seat and held his cards for his supporters in the gallery to applaud. He came off as an immature rank amateur. As a wise man once said, "Pretend you've been there!"

We all feel a thrill when we win. That fast pulse, the adrenalin rush is what keeps us coming back for more. But have you ever wondered why certain games lend themselves to open displays of emotion more than others? The noisiest area of the casino, by far, is the craps pit. Here, yelling, whooping, screaming, and barking are par for the course. The opposite end of the spectrum is over at the baccarat salon where reverential ritual and silence prevail. Blackjack seems to fall somewhere in the middle of expected casino decorum. Some high-fives, mumbled cursing, a scattered cheer or two is as much of a public display as you'll generally encounter.

These games coexist on the casino floor, within the same universe, but it is as if they are on isolated islands. What is acceptable behavior in one culture is marked as aberrant several yards away. But then, casinos are remarkably tolerant of behavior that might get you in trouble elsewhere, particularly if you are losing large quantities of money.

This reality was brought home last week. I was talking with a shift boss at one of the larger Strip casinos when we were both startled by a loud screeching sound emanating from the high-end blackjack pit. We walked toward the noise and not more than fifteen seconds later, heard it once again.

The sound resembled a choking parrot. It was coming from a woman, obviously inebriated. Playing quietly at first, she had thrown down double scotches like a sailor. Tanked, she was pounding the table, barking, "BREAK!" in a high-pitched voice at the poor dealer. With every hand, this wealthy woman in her mid-fifties hoped to intimidate Omar and the silent cards into senseless surrender. It wasn't working.

Meanwhile, the entire high-end gaming area had crumbled under this woman's verbal assault. Every few seconds, her throttled parrot screech filled the casino. This was, quite simply, one of the worst displays of casino hysterics I've ever witnessed. After he recovered his initial dismay, Steve the shift boss calmly walked to the floor supervisor, checked the woman's card showing how much she had initially bought in for, added to, and won or lost. As you might imagine, she was losing her shirt, but not her vocal cords. Steve merely smiled and told me the only question that she needed to be asked is, "Do you care for another drink?"

Right. Coincidentally, one table away, a quiet man about this woman's age, was also playing heads-up for a large sum on each hand, totally non-plussed by the screech owl close by. Wagering for thousands, he indicated his play using a finger scratching the felt or silently waved off a hit. The contrast was startling. They were both losing more money than most make in a year, yet their individual reactions were as different as a lullaby played adjacent to a heavy metal songfest. One completely submerged the other.

Remember, there are few casinos out there which feature employees who will tap you on the shoulder to ask if you've had too much to drink or lost enough money. Before you go on tilt, try to establish a sense of limit or proportion. None of us enjoy losing. The degree to which you let the aggravation affect you is directly proportional to several factors: your own personality, alcohol consumption and ability to deal with varying degrees of loss and gain. Similarly, if you are winning, you don't need to act like Tarzan displaying your prowess or luck.

Most pros never get too high nor too low‹they are in the game for the annual marathon, not any single sprint. Gambling is filled with myriad twists. Your sure-thing 20 dissolving into a six-card dealer 21 is just one small example. The mental approach to the game is one of the most difficult to master, but one that will only help you join the very small group who regularly call themselves winners.