stacks, including denominations below your minimum bet. Your bets are nearly always multiple chips, but not exactly optimal. When you bet, you casually grab a stack or part of a stack and put it in the circle. The idea is to look like your betting is random and that you are just grabbing chips without paying attention to the amount of the bet. You may grab the chips without looking at the stacks while even looking around the casino as if uninterested. Of course, in reality, you know exactly what you are betting, and it is close to optimal. You constantly change the bets, and switch between one and two hands. When betting two hands, the bets are unequal. This method blurs the spread, does not look like the typical card counter and makes it difficult for surveillance to determine your bets.

Playing Decisions

Playing decisions can affect heat both positively and negatively. Correct decisions can add heat — stupid plays can reduce heat. Let me start with correct decisions.

Always making the correct insurance decision is one of the most obvious tip-offs. However, since insurance is not taken very often, playing short sessions reduces the problem. There are also several insurance cover methods discussed in the chapter on cover. 16 versus ten is a problem because the hand is very common, and since the index is zero, the correct decision often varies from Basic Strategy. This makes it easy for them to notice that you are not playing Basic Strategy. Most non-counters do not vary their play on this hand. Always standing on this hand is a cover play and will be discussed later. Correctly playing some hands, like A,7 v. 9, used to be a problem. In the early days of Atlantic City, the dealer would sometimes call out to the pit boss someone playing the hand correctly. More players play this hand correctly these days and it is not a problem now, in my opinion. Then there is splitting tens. It is often said that only card counters and idiots split tens. Therefore, if you are not an obvious idiot, you must be a counter. Because of this, almost no experienced counters split tens — which means that the statement is wrong and perhaps casino personnel should always assume you are an idiot. Of course, counters who have just read an older book on counting and have not met other counters still split tens since all the old books tell you to. In any case, since two tens is the most common hand, it is very easy for a casino to determine if

 © 2009 Norman Wattenberger