Winners and Losers: True Tales From the Blackjack Trenches

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By Tobaksa, Tommy Hyland, Taylor James, Dan Paymar, Pro21, Dustin D. Marks, One More Shoe, Bob Loeb, Abbot Avarissa, Bill Haywood, Anthony Curtis, JC, Cizef, Max Rubin, James Grosjean, John Brahms, Moe Cash
(From Blackjack Forum XXI #3, Fall 2001)
© Blackjack Forum 2001

[New card counters are often astonished by what they consider to be 'impossible' bankroll fluctuations. I recently sent emails out to a bunch of longtime players, some professional gamblers, some writers, some known, some not, and asked them if they had any memorable stories of wins or losses they could share with Blackjack Forum readers.

I contacted card counters, shuffle trackers, blackjack team players, hole-card players, old-time concealed blackjack computer players, video poker players, tournament players, sports bettors, Internet gamblers, comp and coupon hustlers, and even an admitted cheater. If you think you’ve got an 'impossible' fluctuation or two, listen to what some of the pros have to say… — Arnold Snyder]

Tobaksa

One hundred thousand dollars. Spelled out, with every zero, and a great big dollar sign up front that’s $100,000.00! When I started playing blackjack, winning one hundred thousand was the benchmark. If you had, you were a pro. Any amateur could win a thousand, or ten. That was fluctuation. A hundred thou was work. It took a long time, usually a couple of years to win a hundred thousand. Once won, we knew that you never had to worry about going 'lifetime stuck.' (Hah!)

Malcolm, a flamboyant fixture on the blackjack scene, won his in a little over a year. Unfortunately, his teammates lost $100,000 the same year. 'Woody,' (a mutual friend) 'has won $140,000 lifetime, and has saved $160,000!' (Woody had also invested in winning banks.) 'I’ve won $160,000, and I’ve saved… $1.40.' Over the years, the bankrolls got bigger, and the fluctuations bigger as well. Still, a hundred thousand was a hundred thousand.

In the late 1980s, the greatest game in the world was being dealt in Korea. The Walker Hill Casino in Seoul was quite polite, and would generally not bar you until you got up from the table, but bar you they would. Once barred, given that everyone else in the casino was Asian, it was hard to slip back in the door and blend in.

A team of friends and relatives got themselves barred, but one of them came up with a great idea. Most of Walker Hill’s patrons were Japanese. It was thought that the Korean bosses would never bar a Japanese player. Why not recruit some Japanese, and train them as Gorilla BPs? Why not indeed?This worked so well that a year and a half later, in the spring of 1988, Walker Hill limited the bet spread of one of our players (Rocky, the World’s Greatest BP), and also changed the rules that had made the place so attractive.

So in May of 1988 I flew down to Pusan, Korea, to try the Paradise Beach Casino on for size. Though I had been calling plays for the team for over a year, it was my first time in Korea with my brother, Pro21. After a dramatic weekend (see Pro21’s account elsewhere in this issue for details), he flew back to the States, while I went back to Seoul to hang around the team’s apartment. (One good way to get hired for the next trip, in preference to other freelance PCs (play callers), is to already be there, 8000 miles away, which saves the team airfare.)

Every few weeks, through the summer, a second PC would arrive, BP in tow. We played from Friday night through Sunday afternoon, because the casino was empty during the week. PCs needed to sleep a few hours between shifts, but we worked our BPs relentlessly. Rocky set the record: 39 hours at the table in a 44-hour period. Just one more reason he was the World’s Greatest BP.

Finally came a trip where a bad thing happened. The casino decided that Rocky was winning too much, and called Walker Hill to see if they knew of him. (It probably hadn’t helped matters that a Yakuza boss whom I had had run-ins with up in Seoul lost $50,000 playing with us one afternoon, and started screaming that it was all Rocky’s fault because he 'played like an American!')

No sooner had they hung up the phone, than Rocky was limited to a bet spread of 100,000 – 300,000 won. (Approximately US$150-$450, with a table limit of two million won). For good measure, they limited me too. 'But I’m only betting a hundred thousand won!' 'Doesn’t matter. From now on, 100,000 to 300,000.'

That was the end of it, I thought, until a month later a phone call informed me that a PC and BP would be arriving at the end of the week. 'Where are we going?' 'Pusan.' 'Not with me!' Had I actually been barred? Well, not really, but I was sure that the casino wouldn’t tolerate me. 'You’ll be working with Darryl. He hasn’t been to Pusan this year. And, you’ll have a brand new BP. He’s never been there. He’s never been anywhere. Never been in a casino in his life! Anyway, we’ve got no one else to send.'

And so on Friday night, while Steve, our new BP, checked into the Paradise Beach, and Darryl settled into our room across the street at the Green Beach (only $40 a night), I opened up a dead table in the casino.'You! You!…You!' The Shift Manager waved a finger under my nose while he tried to think of some other English word to shout at me. 'You! One hundred thousand – three hundred thousand!'

Oh, and because I was playing heads up, I would have to play three hands until someone joined me. As the only customer, I might have been the center of attention anyway, but since I was the nefarious American card counter, I was more than that. The manager brought together every boss, and every dealer, lined them up, and had them memorize my face, pore by pore. I smiled weakly, and prayed hard for a run of bad cards. Naturally, I drew more naturals than any session of my life. After 45 minutes, flat betting, I was up 65 bets, around US$10,000. I left before shift change, 30 pairs of eyes glaring at my departing back.

In the morning, at the end of graveyard, I put in my next appearance. Same story, same dialogue, slightly different cast. This time, I won only 35 bets.They hadn’t stopped me from playing, so an hour later I returned for day shift, and my first session with the BP.

For a Big Player whose entire casino experience was limited to his session with Darryl the night before, Steve did fairly well. He didn’t quite blend in with the other Japanese (they were all Yakuza chieftains, and he was a sushi chef), but he followed signals well, without any obvious hesitation, or inordinate interest in my hands and chips.

We played for 6½ hours, and won slowly but steadily. As the shift progressed, the pace picked up. The other players began to follow Steve’s bets, pressing when he pressed, backing off when he backed off. The dealer obliged, by turning ice cold. She began breaking, hand after hand. Since the Japanese players almost never break (it might be the dealer’s bust card, and the others would never forgive them), everyone won.

After 6½ hours, I sent Steve from the table. With him gone, the others immediately left. He had won forty-and- a-half million won. I had picked up another million and a half. The other players piling on had reaped twenty-eight million more. The table was down seventy million, or almost exactly that magic $100,000!

'Too much! He win too much!' Three bosses were there, the damage being too much for one to assess. They looked to me for sympathy, and I obliged: 'You’re right! That Japanese guy was the luckiest player I’ve ever seen!' They nodded, shell-shocked. Sweat dripped clammily from three sets of brows. 'Too much! Win too much!'

Swing and grave weren’t much to speak of, but on the plane to Seoul Darryl was cro

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