I recently read a blog by James Grosjean titled Six and a Half Little Words. It reminded me of an incident in my own life. I was debating whether to respond to his blog or to post it as a separate column several weeks later. It turned out to be quite a bit different from Grosjean’s original post so I’m publishing it separately. If you read the original, you’ll see where my title comes from.
I moved to Vegas in 1993 to be blackjack player. In addition to playing a lot of promotions (such as “Play 4 hours for $10 a hand and receive a free buffet, one free hotel night, and $60 in some kind of promotional chips”), I would obtain and cash numerous coupons — lots and lots of coupons — for a number of games.
I had a girlfriend (I called her Ginnie in my Million Dollar Video Poker autobiography and there’s no need to invent a new name now) and between us we’d earn more than $500 weekly from these coupons — in addition to whatever we could make with the blackjack and other promotions. It was subsistence living, but as far as I was concerned, I was “making it in Las Vegas.”
One of the myriad of tricks I learned doing this was that in a single deck game, if a dealer shows an ace on the first hand and you’re playing two hands (either by yourself or one each with a partner), and if all four cards you see in your hands are non-tens, then it’s correct to take insurance.
Eventually Ginnie left and I started seeing Shirley — to whom I would end up being married from 1997 until 2014. In 1996 I had a couple of $10-for-$5 match play coupons at a “one coupon per person per day” single deck place. Shirley didn’t know the first thing about playing blackjack intelligently, so I told her to sit next to me and I would tell her what to do. She picked up her cards with two hands, of course, and bristled a bit when the dealer told her one hand only.
The dealer dealt himself an ace. In my hand I saw a four and a five and looked over at Shirley’s hand. If she had no face cards, I would have asked about insurance.
(The rule I cite is correct when there are no match play coupons in effect. I used the same rule, right or wrong, when I had a coupon. Should they wish, others can address how the variations of rules on match play coupons affects this insurance bet.)
But Shirley was holding her cards close to her chest, preventing me from obtaining the information I needed to make the correct decision.
“Show me your cards! Now!” I whispered urgently.
“No! It’s against the rules to show anybody your cards,” she whispered back. It didn’t seem to matter to her that we were the only players at the table and while the money being wagered wasn’t officially “community property” bankroll yet, clearly it was the next best thing.
“SHOW ME YOUR CARDS!”
Intimidated, she did — showing me a jack nine. We didn’t take insurance and the dealer flipped over a queen, sweeping our nickels and coupons off the table. No big deal to me. You lose hands all the time at blackjack (or at video poker, for that matter). She was upset that I lost my money and I had raised my voice to her.
We had a discussion very shortly afterwards about what it means to be partners…at the gaming table and in life. First of all, whatever rules she learned about card playing with her sisters as a child had no bearing now. And second, for better or worse, when it came to figuring out the strategies to beat the casinos, I was going to be the boss. I was no table games expert by any means, but when the choice was between the two of us, I was light years ahead of her. I was the best we had.
We got through that moment — and it was a good partnership for a long time. But it didn’t have to be that way. That moment could have ended up being a show stopper had she not been willing to accept a “my way or the highway” inflexibility when it came to gambling decisions — including sometimes giving her an order that had to be executed IMMEDIATELY, without discussion until afterwards. She had to be able to accept that losing one hand was just a very minor bump in the road. If she was going to mourn and grieve over every losing session, I wanted no part of that. Finally, she had to believe that I could really win against the house — and I had to prove that again and again.
Clearly I’m not the best guy to be giving marital and relationship advice. Whatever things I think I know in that area have worked well some of the time, but other times not so much. Most of us prefer our experts to have a better batting average than I can boast. I know I do
At the same time, after Shirley and I split and I began seeing Bonnie, I had essentially the same discussion with Bonnie — albeit it “out of the blue” and not triggered by a specific incident. Had Bonnie not been able to agree that in this area of life I was going to be the boss, we would never have gone forward.
For many of my readers, it’s WAY too late to have this discussion before you’ve become serious romantically — because you’re already connected. Some of you have been married for 20 years or more. For others, it’s not so clear which one of you is the gambling expert. Many of you can’t present a convincing argument that you’ve been a winning player over time. And for most, success at gambling is a smaller part of your life than it is mine. All I can do is to share what works for me — and let you decide if there are lessons that you can apply to your life. Clearly, different readers will come to different conclusions and nobody is arguing that one size fits all here.
I think it is a mistake to bring your life partner into your gaming decisions. My wife understands that I know how to win at video poker, but when she plays (rarely), she is absolutely going to make her own decisions. We have separate checking accounts.
Do you think the play with Shirley could have ran smoother Bob? It seems she may have been intimidated by the casino atmosphere coupled with playing a game that she wasn’t familiar with even though you were going to help her. As partners she should have willingly showed her cards to you and that should have been well understood before the two of you began play. Now I’m not sure if she seen a sign at the table that informs players to not show their cards to other players but I would have to presume that being a possible reason as to why she didn’t initially show you her cards. Or, maybe she thought it would be considered cheating if she showed you her cards in front of the dealer and that’s why she may have been hesitant as she stated.
Overall she should have showed you her cards and made the dealer do his/her job. I see a lot of players in SD and DD BJ games expose their cards and the dealer never stops to correct a player who may be exposing their cards. I see nothing wrong with bending the rules slightly in a players favor, the house has to tell me I cannot do it or I will do it.
I have been married for 34 years. My wife is a certified genius, at least to me. She is very intelligent. But when it comes to playing VP, she is pretty good, but when we are playing together, she always asks me if she is unsure what the correct play is. She has even called me a couple of times for advice. When it comes to business, she is the expert. I guess I got lucky and it works great for us.
Insurance is a separate bet from the main net. Doesn’t matter if it’s all cash, a match bet, a free bet, or whatever else it may be — the insurance bet is +EV at that point. Also, this does not strictly apply to the first round, but to every round. Unless you’re card-counting, that is.
My wife and I have been married for 44 years. She has just started ro play VP. Instead of me teaching her I just gave her a copy of Bob’s book on how to win at JoB…….if she loses there is only one person (other than herself) to blame……sorry Bob.