Good afternoon. You're listening to Gambling with an Edge. Now here are your
host Bob Dancer and Richard Munchkin. Good afternoon, Welcome to Gambling with an
Edge on Bob Dancer and I'm Richard Munchkin. Today we have three guests,
Colin Jones from Black Chack Apprenticeship, Darryl Purpose from Ben Munchkin's gambling partner for
forty years, and Burning down the House, who is from Black Chack Apprenticeships
Stable, so to speak. We're going to be talking about black jack.
So, gentlemen, thank you for being here, Welcome to Gambling with an
Edge. Thanks for having us. Nice to be here, yeah, happy
to be here, all right. So what's new and different in the blackcheck
world? You should? You should ask burning down the House. He's playing
a lot more than I do. He's out there hitting, hitting the tables
hard. Yeah. Actually, I want to say that we've done blackcheck round
tables in the past, and so I wanted to before we end Gambling with
an Edge, I wanted to have somebody burning down the House is out there
playing one hundred, one hundred hours a month, still just counting cards,
I think, just counting cards. I want to ask him that, and
Daryl started forty five years ago, and um, and so I want to
talk about how things have changed. I just realized that it was fifty years
ago this year that my mother put the book Beat the Dealer in my Christmas
stocking and the rest is history, right right, right? So yeah,
why don't we start with you burning on the house? Uh, what's going
on out there these days? Well, I gotta say my fam of reference
seems pretty shallow after Darryl just mentioned fifty years longer than I've been around.
But uh, um, you know, it's it's it's a grind, It's
it's a lot of hard work. You know. I get people messaging me
on BJ all the time asking how do you do it? And sometimes on
trips, I don't even I don't even know how I do it. You
know. It's back off after back off and straight into a trespass into this.
It's uh, there are there are many beatable games out there. You
can there's no shortage of that. Um, you know, I think,
uh, I think facial recognition and different things like that got kicked in the
high gear, especially so many people took advance of it straight out of twenty
twenty with the face masks and got extra time and now I feel like the
casinos are really flyer happy and different things like that. But you know,
with with with all things, it's it's it's it's a lot of hard,
hard work. It's a lot of travel. Uh, it's you know,
got on top of that, dealing with working for three months and losing one
hundred K or sixty k or you know whatever your stakes are. But um,
but it is definitely still doable. And I managed to bring my family
along for most of it, so even you know, racking up higher expenses,
I'm still able to make a very good income off of card counting.
But it's there's no you know, like everything else, if you want to
be successful, I mean, you really gotta you really got to put in
the effort. Oh go ahead, Daryl, I was just gonna say,
burn it. Tell if you did what you're doing right now and just kept
doing it month after month after month, how long would it be before there
would be you'd be really be burned out. I am burnt out, okay,
I mean I mean to play or burnt out like most like I mean
places to play. But I'm interested in the other question as well places to
play. That's interesting. I've you know, I don't really keep exact numbers
on the number of actual completely burnt trespass casinos. Um. You know.
But but you have been going three straight years of one hundred hours a month,
right, Well, yeah, I've I've fallen a little short. So
basically I shoot for one hundred hours a month, but the annual goal is
a thousand hours a year. Um. I usually follow a little short of
a thousand hours a year, but this year alone, I have like three
hundred and seventy hours up to this point, so I'm actually really on track
for one hundred hours a month. Um. But yeah, it is,
it is doable. It's doable, and it's you know, it's it's it's
just tough work. But yeah, you can definitely do it. I do
it. I make I make money of you know, a specialized college degree,
maybe even like a doctorate. And I've I've never I didn't go to
college, so you know, I came out of being a professional musician.
Um, So to me, the stress and the income uh is still you
know, something that's worth it and just straight counting, just counting. Yeah,
I got introduced to a promotion through machine play once and I ended up
losing money and getting trespassed from the whole you knows, and pretty much my
own my only, uh my only experience doing something outside of card counting.
You know, I know the basic strategy to whole carding, and I've done
whole carding a few times that I've found it, but usually it's been that
session they've already corrected it, so never I haven't personally found I know other
people have, but I personally have many like lastable lasting whole card games.
But it's strictly, yeah, just straight up card counting, your your hours
count scouting and backcounting. They do not. So that's on the table.
That's on the table. Yeah, okay, yeah, And and your approach
is basically put it in their face, no cover that as little as possible.
Well, and then last I heard, you were maxing out at two
hands of a thousand, Um, do you go any more than that now?
Or or you go? So yeah, I was recently in the UK
maxing out at two by h two by a thousand pounds, which you know
is technically more like two by twelve hundred, So I guess that's kind of
the highest I've I've done I've done two by fifteen hundred a few sessions and
got absolutely slaughtered and then backed off. But uh but I yeah, I
so I'm bringing out So I used to max out a two by five hundred,
but now I'll I'll bring out out of a true three and then kind
of like bring out two by a thousand at a true five or two six.
So uh my, my so far my career has always been kind of
like the next level of of max bets, all put way out there,
like maybe you've been out of true eight or nine, and then I just
slowly bring it down just to kind of help get myself ready for swings.
It's it's pretty amazing what variance can do. Just moving your max bets down
one true count. It's pretty it's pretty drastic from what I've noticed. So
that's always been my technique, is it kind of when I want to brace
myself or get myself used to swings, hire max bet, I put them
way high in a high count, slowly move them down as my bankroll grows,
and also, you know, as my stomach thickens, I guess from
the swings. So, Daryl, when you first started, I mean very
quickly you got onto the Ken Houston team. And was your approach the same
kind of thing to, you know, go minimum to maximum basically, or
did you guys try to play some cover. Well? When I, you
know, I went to Las Vegas, I had just started practicing in my
apartment and I just I practiced, you know, ten hours a day and
more for many many weeks. I got my ten thousand hours and really quickly,
and I met a guy who knew a guy, and I got a
tryout for the Ken Euston team, right. And they had been doing this,
uh, they had been counting cards in their way. And I went
to this meeting at the Jockey Club on this strip, and I guess I
was going to be tested, you know, I was a teenager. And
they handed me a deck of cards. They said, count this down.
So I counted down. I realized they were timing me, and I stopped
and they said that's ten seconds. And I said, is that good?
And they said that's the fastest we've ever seen and so and so they fired
all their other counters. The Ken Houston team fired their other counters and they
hired me and Craig Brennan, who you know, and we became the card
counters, and we went right into a big player thing where we'd sit on
a table and we would you know, try to go and notice spect the
minimum and call plays for the big player on the other end of the table.
Actually, you guys were that song, you probably would go because the
big player was considerably older than you. Right, So that's right, So
that must have worked really well in the beginning. Well, they put me
with some people that were pretty heated up, so it didn't actually go like
Ken right, who had written a book by that point explaining the move with
his picture, you know, yeah, yeah, and this wasn't It was
a little different. You know. They did the BP thing for a while
where they called like Ken did in the Big Player book, and but this
was a little different. We would just sit on one table, one BP,
one card, one card counter and you asked, like, were we
just going for it? And I would say, yeah, we were pretty
much. We just bet high when the count was good, and we sat
through negative decks. We you know, spread we ate cards, the card
the play caller would eat cards, and we just yeah, we just bet
big. You know, you'd have to sit and await. But the penetration
was a lot better in those days. Yeah yeah, what about you Colin
with the Church team? Oh yeah, I mean none of us were planning
on doing it for for very long, so we absolutely and we were largely
influenced by a couple national teams that were you know that that we either learned
from or were inspired by that. I don't think they liked being named,
but the way they went was so fearless that, you know, it was
like, yeah, we wanted to live up to that same that same standard
of fearlessness. UM. But you would ask the question of how's it changed,
um over over the years. And I started twenty years ago. I
can't believe it's been twenty years. But even just in the last you know,
couple of years, the things that come to mind when people ask me
this, UM one is that, I mean, yeah, there's there's better
surveillance stuff, but not not really as much as people are afraid of.
I was in Vegas a few weeks ago. My friend Stephen Bridges spoke at
the World Gaming Protection Conference, and I thought it would be a funny idea
if he and I went to the Las Vegas Strip and just see it.
If you know, the two people that put their faces on YouTube if we
could actually play during a surveillance conference. And the goal was to get some
like he's got his little undercover camera. And I couldn't get backed off bet
enough to two by four hundred at places I've been backed off multiple times before.
I figured two by four hundred is more than ninety percent of card counters
out there are betting, So it was enough to like, and I was
playing I won't say the names, but major strip casinos, and we ran
out of time to try to get any backofs because because we had to be
somewhere. So of course, yeah, maybe we got lucky. I was
expecting back offs, but it's not that like, oh man, you walk
into an MGM property and you're getting backed off because of facial recognition or whatever.
But the other things I would say is I think an act is more
important than it was twenty years ago or even ten years ago. And I
think that's a big mistake a lot of young cardcameters make, is that they
have no act. They just they learned the math of it and they look
like a robot. But anybody that I know that's had made significant money knows
how to fit in and look look like a gambler. And then the third
thing I'd say is is that I think that you want to know more than
one way to generate EV. Whereas when I when I started, we were
able to play full time for for several years just counting. And you know,
I suppose Burnon is proving me wrong, but but I tell people,
hey, it would be good to know more than one way to generate EV,
just so that if the tables aren't playable counting, you got you got
other options. Go ahead, how do you how do you fit in and
look like a gambler. I'm not telling you all my secrets, but I
did after only the best ones. Well, I mean it's it's the same
same, I'm sure you guys you know, like um, when when Stephen
and I were done, we ended up playing the same pit for our for
our last session, and I asked him afterwards, I was like, hey,
did you know what did you think? He's like, yeah, I
would have just thought you were a gambler. It's I think it's the mannerisms
and and uh, you know, the celebrations and and any of the things
that the people on on this uh call our prosap but I think a lot
of people don't don't work on that, and then they say I don't get
it. I get backed off all the time. You know, you're making
this stuff up. It's like, no, maybe you suck at the act.
Yeah, I want to I want to say that. Um. The
the in terms of how things have changed, the worst things that have happened
for card counters are the um the ability for the casinos to communicate and to
take very good photos, which I mean when Darryl and I started, a
lot of the places still didn't even have cameras, they had fake ones or
you know, they couldn't print out a picture and even put it in their
own pit. So and now the fact that they can communicate with all the
other places so quickly is one. And the other thing that's just been horrible
is the government regulations, because the casinos now have an excuse to track who
you are, and that has really has really hurt things because forty years ago,
it was much easier you could walk up to a cage at you know,
the Sands and cash out fifty thousand dollars with nobody would dream of asking
you your name and fifty thousand dollars which today is I don't know, two
fifty. But try to cash out fifty thousand dollars today anywhere. I mean,
they're gonna crap their pants and it takes an Act of Congress. Yeah,
yeah, three thousand in some places. Hell, at the Gold Coast,
one five hundred dollar chip. They have to call the pit, you
know, you have to tell them where you were. But yeah, so
that part. But the things that have gotten so much better are Number one,
there's a million casinos just in the United States. I mean when we
started, there was just Nevada, you know, Vegas, Sabrino at Lake
Tag. Atlantic City wasn't even open now, and then and then New Jersey
opened, and even that it was years before anywhere else opened, and and
it was just Nevada. But it was mostly Las Vegas, and it was
mostly the Strip, and it was mostly like six clubs right right, right,
right right. So, uh so I want to burn it down.
The house. You, I think had been playing a lot of foreign places.
Now. I guess when you travel around the United States getting thrown out
of everywhere after ten minutes, you need to expand. So is that is
that a lot of the impetus to start playing more foreign clubs. There's two
reasons that's that's definitely one of them. Also, I really like to travel,
and so does my wife, and we've got two young ones and one
still flies for free, so we figured we may as well take advantage of
that and go see the world before we're paying for an extra ticket everywhere.
But also I was probably just gonna keep traveling in the US. But actually
the night before the Blackjack Ball, I was in Vegas and my wife was
home and actually we had someone try to break into our house while I was
away and like attack my wife. Well, yeah, it was, which
is why I think I shared a bottle of Scotch with Rob Ritson. We
killed the whole bottle of oban. I was pretty like distraught at the Blackjack
Ball because of this end, and what we ended up doing is moving and
we just bought that place, so we put it on Airbnb. So this
whole year we don't really have like a home base, and that's just kind
of cash blowing. So I figured for a year, we're just going to
travel and go all out. So that kind of pushed us to do that.
Also because I'm still like kind of you know, freaked out to let
leave my family when I go on trips. So I was like, hey,
do you want to just travel this whole year and check out the world
and play blackjack? And my wife was totally down with it. So so
that plus also going to see what you know, different areas of the world
have to offer, are both what led me to going international mostly this year.
Is your wife a player? Uh No, she just crushed a lot
and I'm just kidding. She's a she's a she's a supporter of me doing
it, but she's she has no interest on being in being in casinos and
stuff. She's she doesn't like casinos it all. And but she's super supportive.
She understands the match, she understand she's she's actually the one, like
when I get crushed really badly, she's always the one saying it's gonna turn
and you know you got there. You're getting hours in here, so at
least you got that going for you. You know, she gets it so
and I'm really lucky with that. But yeah, so important to have a
wife that understands the and the hard to find. Yeah, well, you
know, there were definitely some other women that came along before her that probably
this would have went horribly just because but we've always had a good connection.
So, I mean, outside of blackjack and every everything, I think it's
important for people to find, you know, the right match for them and
they're you know, relationships. But yeah, yeah, I do feel lucky
for that. That's that's a huge part probably of even my success at this
grind and probably in other things when I go, is just having a supportive
partner. Yeah. So when you travel around the United States and you know,
you go into a casino, sometimes you'll only last ten minutes and then
sometimes you get to play for thirty hours. But when you're traveling in other
countries, sometimes if the casinos are a lot farther apart, and the expenses
of getting to them is more and all that, I mean, how do
you deal with all that? Um? Yeah, especially this last trip where
I went to the UK, it was it was pretty tough. It was
it was really really expensive, you know, just moving around and going that
far and then constantly getting a hotel and beating out all the time, and
it's just it turns into something where I just have to get in a lot
of hours. So I basically calculate my ev and I low ball the EV
and then I calculate what I think the trip expenses will be and I try
to get it somewhere around ten percent of what EV will be. And uh,
and then I just you know, if I call a massive downswing,
then I'm stuck just obsessing about getting in time at the tables and it can
make things even more stressful. But um, that's that's basically how I planned
the trip, and uh, you know, I have my expected value and
just you know, try try to not lose my mind if things go really
far south and still take time to hang out with the family. But uh,
but yeah, sometimes you're hit with other things, Like I wasn't ready
for how hard it was to get cash in the UK, so I didn't
bring like a massive bank or I just bought brought like twenty thousand in USD
and I lost that in like the first two days, and I was like,
oh no. And then like every place, you know, it's so
hard to get cash. The ATMs limit you to five hundred dollars a day,
so then I had to hit up like multiple ATMs a day, like
and then my max I could take out all my cards, it's like ten
thousand pounds and I lost that five pace in a row well bus like every
day and then I finally hit like an upswing. But yeah, there was
a lot of traveling involved, and you know, most of the places over
there, and I'm talking specifically mostly about the UK because that was my first
big like international trip and we're we're leaving here in a few weeks and then
we went like you know to another part of the world a few weeks ago,
but in a few more weeks we're heading back out internationally again. But
yeah, it was there was a lot of and then exchanging converting when I
had all the when I had all the British pounds. You know, I
had like about one hundred thousand worth of USD in pounds that I lost like
four to five thousand dollars just exchanging that. So there was like all these
keys that I wasn't used to, but you know, it was all part
of the learning curve. Ended up still, you know, making a decent
amount of money after all expenses and everything. So but it did make me
want to just travel more, you know, realizing that it was possible and
out of like all the adversity and unforeseen things and still still came out positive,
so and my wife enjoyed traveling, so we're gonna continue doing it this
year. You probably know some people who know some people who have some cash
over there. Yeah, it was just gonna say, like Colin just talked
about Stephen Bridges, like, I'm sure he would have vouched for you to
say hey, or you could have wired it to Steven and if he was
even in the UK. But I mean, yeah, thinking about that because
it also helps with the exchange rate too. Daryl and I our first international
trip was also to the UK, and it sounds like we had the one
Yeah. Nice, it was eighty three actually, but but yeah, one
of the problems we had was all of the casinos were private clubs and you
had to become a member, and back then you had to wait forty eight
hours after you signed up. Now so it sounds like a lot of the
clubs now are not like that. You can just go into them like a
regular casino. No, No, there's still all private clubs. You need
to play raided and which is why I only have a handful of sinos left
to play after two months. I only have a handful of casinos to play
in the whole entire UK. So so yeah, once they get you,
you're just done with the whole the whole chain, and you don't have to
wait. Though there are still a few of those private, super private clubs
um where there is a waiting list, and I tried actually to get a
membership at one of those and they just refused me right off the bat.
So yeah, once Scotland's, once Scotland Yard was onto us, we got
the next step. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we got one night of
play one night in Scotland Yard. They couldn't they didn't have enough money to
pay us, and we came back the next day to cash the chips and
Scotland Yard was there waiting for us. Search Star motel room. The only
place they didn't look was my ankle and that's where the computer was. Yeah,
yeah, that's right. It was a pretty harrowing first international experiences.
Several times on this show has been mentioned that clubs in the UK prohibit card
counting, and if you do it anyway, some players have not been paid
by the casinos. If you lose, they'll they'll keep your money, but
if you win, they won't pay you, saying you broke the rules.
Now you're doing this currently have you had any experiences along those lines of being
stiffed, not in the UK, but multiple times from Caesar's properties. I
had nine thousand and chips confiscated from me and they told me that I was
cheating, and I said, you know, card counting isn't cheating, right,
and they said yeah, And I was like, you know that's what
I'm doing, Like this is no secret, let's just call it what it
is, Like you need to give me my chips back, and they said
no, and they kicked me out, and I actually end up calling Bob
Lobe and he gave me like a list of what to do. I guess
I could share it, probably useful information for other people, but he told
me to call the local gaming and he told me to tell them what time
this was, and to call the casino that where it was, and to
tell them to keep all the footage from this to this, this amount of
chips were confiscated and we want all the footage kept, and you know this
is illegal, blah blah blah. Write at an official complaint to them,
and so I did that and literally the next day, the head of casino
security called me back like his job depended on it, and he was like,
We're so sorry. I don't train them to deal with cardcounters like that.
He's like, I'm so sorry. We can give you a check,
you can come back and get the cash, whatever you want to do.
And I was like all right. I was like, you know, I
tried to tell them that they were telling me that what I was doing was
illegal when they knew what they were doing was illegal. And if they didn't
know that, you guys, you aren't doing a good job at explaining to
your staff, you know, the laws of gaming. And uh yeah,
but it worked, but you said it happened multiple times at Caesar's properties.
Another time, my chips were confiscated at Harrah's in Vegas and uh it was
twelve thousand in ships and uh yeah. I called Bob, their sassy,
and he said he told me a few things to try, Uh nothing was
working. Um, but yeah, and ended up getting those back though as
well. But uh, it's just it's just crazy to me that one of
the biggest you know, uh, gaming companies in the US, I just
just does not pay attention to the law. I'm surprised in Vegas too,
Like I can I would expect that more like somewhere out in the middle of
the country or whatever in Vegas. You would think they would know better by
now. Yeah, yeah, that but the casino before was was in Indiana,
Um, the one before, but that I was talking about. But
yeah, there's other times I've been, you know, refused to be cashed
out because in their in their Caesar's system, I guess it says that like
I'm marked as an advantage player, and some people misinterpret that is like they
don't have to pay me. And so that's happened before too. And I'm
just at the cage on the phone and I've just called Gaming myself and told
them what was happening, and then Gaming calls them and I'm like there,
then they pay me, just like all pissed off and quiet. I'm like,
I told you, I told you gaming on speed now let's yeah.
Well, depending on where I am, I usually just google it, you
know, whatever, guess you need to go with whatever local gaming there is,
it's always a different number. But in my experience, gaming has always
been very helpful and even tribal even I've had issues with the tribal casino not
paying me, and I called the tribal Gaming and they they made them cash
me out. That was in Arizona. Yeah, they were very nice to
us. In Arizona. They were they reluctantly barred us. Yeah. Yeah.
And the guy even said, like, I'm I think this is a
mistake, but my ball were making me do it. We were getting a
crazy lot of vassya. Yes, have you guys told told that story on
gambling with an edge? No, I don't think so. Okay, I
may have heard the story at some point, but we'll keep it there.
Yeah. Oh, there's not a lot of the story. We just want
a lot of money. And it took them fifteen months to figure it out.
And even then they weren't sure. Um you know. I actually that's
another thing you'll changed. You were my bodyguard, weren't you much getting you're
driver? You're driv Yeah, yeah, playing and much. You could just
stood behind me and you know, and poked me when I should make a
bet stuff. Yeah yeah, and sometimes I would sort of They would think
I was asleep because I had my head down and a hat and you know,
yeah you were thinking hard. Yeah I was thinking hard. Yeah.
Those places where exhausting, but um uh, but they were a lot of
fun. I have to say when you were talking Colin about having more than
one way of generating EV, it does seem much harder to generate EV at
blackjack in different ways, Like yeah, back then we had shuffle tracking and
a sequencing and now there's so little of that anywhere. Yeah, I was,
I was going to say that there are certain plays that you know,
we're even in books twenty years ago that people say, oh, yeah,
you know, are you gonna cover this at a boot camp? But say
I can, but there's no, not really any point in covering it.
Good luck, you know, making a living off of it. Maybe you
can find an obscure a couple of places to do it. But actually people
sometimes contact me about learning shuffle tracking, and and I'm like, you know
what, Uh find a game that's beatable first, because yeah, as you
say, you could go years and never find a casino with a trackable shuffle
in it. Well, I've never practiced hard enough or gotten my technique down
enough where I would cut like a slug of low cards out and then just
come out like a at a true four or five, knowing that all those
were cut out. But I have successfully been able to just kind of willy
nilly track and then cut the low cards to me, so that way I
know off the bat that I'm not just like coming off some like wonky deck
estimation or something like that, like I know, okay, well, I
think that's where the slug of really low cards are, like all right there,
So I will try to cut them to myself. And I've actually successfully
like after the first deck is burnt, had like a true three, you
know, or something like that, just because then I know, because I
saw all the high I counted all the low cards. But I've successfully done
that a handful of times. But but but you look like a counter.
Yeah yeah, but it's yeah, that's ideally you want to do the opposite.
But yeah, yeah, but that's the That's the most I've gone,
and I've gotten pretty ripe count But it also disclaimer, this is not a
place that I think has like people in surveillance counting the tables basically well.
But also often those places are too cheap to have shuffling machines, which almost
everybody has now and and and often those places won't really take any action either,
so and then they're just very hard to find those games. That was
one funny thing at I was just eavesdropping to Stephen Bridges talking to surveillance people
after his talk, and a number of them came up and said, oh
yeah, we don't get card counters or advanced players at Arcasine House. And
I'm just snickering to myself. Yeah, You're like, where where is this?
Exactly? This sounds like a good time to take a commercial break.
So Richard, why don't you lead us off with that? All right?
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Okay, we are back, and so both Burning Down the House and
Darryll our musicians who have had some degree of success and notoriety in their fields.
So and Darrell has gone back and forth between blackjack and music. Currently
you're more into music right now, right, Daryl, That's right, And
so I just want to ask you guys about about that, about being musicians
and if you think that helps being a blackjack player or hinders and the ability
to go back and forth and how music plays into your life as blackjack players.
Well, I'm still trying to figure that out. Really. I've I've
had periods of time, you know, and I may never but I've had
periods of time where I've been just a folk singer a good ten years and
at one point where I was just a folk singer, panned my bills by
taking my acoustic guitar and singing songs for people, And then of course many
periods of time, especially in my twenties, where I was just a blackcheck
player, and then the rest of the time I've just sort of been juggling
it. I like, you know, the thing that sort of connects them,
I think is that they're both sort of self employed, you know,
they're self made efforts, and they also both entail a lot of creativity,
you know. I mean sometimes with if you're just counting cards, that maybe
that's not as much creativity. But if you're looking for other edges or trying
to figure out how to lay it down in a way that you won't get
backed off, even so maybe it is card county. But a lot of
creativity in both on both fronts. So my songwriting, you know. And
then the idea that we go into these casinos and we look at these games
and we just think, well, you know, what do they think is
random that isn't? And how how are we going to bet it? Know?
And it's it can be really interesting. You know that that play that
we were talking about, Munchkin, that you and I did, I mean
I had that it was the hand I'm remembering the hand of a lifetime where
I actually knew that the first hand, my first hand, and third hand
we're going to be black checks. I knew that right, and I remember
I was slow to make the bet I was so excited. I was slow
to make the bet and they started to pull the card out and like I
only had two hands bet. I'm like wait, you know, and I
just like, oh man, I just fought for it, and they let
me bet the three hands, and you know what, the second hand was
a black check two just random randomly maximum bets three hands after me making such
a fuss, you know, let me bet three hands. Let me bet
three hands, and then boom, boom boom. I don't know why that
came up to me that it has I have something to do with your question.
I'm not sure, but no, wait, but I have to say
because it brought up something for me, which was my favorite hand and out
of all of that play over fifteen months, was we had a hand where
you had ace deuce against a seven and I'm giving you double and you're scratching
your head like h and I'm giving double and uh because I knew the next
card coming was an eight and and so you finally shoved it out there and
you know, and caught the eight and uh yeah. And so that was
the one hand that I really remember because I was just like, you know,
please see this signal um but yeah. Anyway, so burning uh unto
you music and uh favorite hands and that music imprompted you well actually kind of
along the lines of that one funny in the in the UK. Uh uh,
As far as hands are concerned, I was, I was just playing
it was it was it was a low count, so I was just betting
tablemen and uh. The taeler goes to take another card and uh and I
think it was something like stand on soft seventeen and it was soft. She
went up and then I saw it and it was an ace and she saw
it too for the next for my next hand for the next round, and
I was like, uhally cleared off the table and I was just like Max,
just table, Max, Like I just put our table food. And
she goes and I was like yeah yeah, and she goes, Okay,
she just dealt it. Black jack, Darrel. Do you want to tell
your UK story about your hand? Or is that or is it too soon?
I don't know which which hand, but um, the one, the
big one, Okay, yeah, I don't know if you know. I'm
just gonna finish maybe, but to finish up and um to answer your question
about music and and gambling. Um, oh I guess I got nothing more
to say about that. Yeah, I think they have some overlap because of
creativity, and you know, I probably you know, the black check is
something you share with a few people, you share with your teammates. But
in music, you can stand up before you know, one hundred people or
two hundred people, and take the take the whole room on a ride,
on an energy ride. And that's that's really kind of an incomparable thing.
Although it you know, it is fun to go back in the hotel room
and count the money with your friends. I would say it's the same because
you know, like I'm out in public and people want me to autograph their
their album, and then you know, I'm at the table and pit boss
wants me to autograph his pad when he realizes who I am. You know,
no, just kidding. It's completely different. It's exactly more along the
lines of like what you're saying, you're so used to like like giving yourself
to this audience that appreciates what you're giving to them, and like you expressing
yourself and then you spend all this time and energy and risk management and all
this stuff to beat the game of blackjack, and people are like get the
hell out of here, so unappreciated, and then like with music, people
appreciate you so much. But as far as far as the as far as
the similarities, I think something that really prepared me for blackjack is the travel,
because I was a traveling musician quite often. And I mean, you
know, I travel longer for way less money, so so it kind of
made it easier too to go on these shorter trips and make way more money.
But but I miss I do miss the ability of like you express yourself.
And this this like catharsis when you write a song and share with people
and they get it and they understand it and they feel it, and you're
all like you're all there together. And then you go on a blackjack trip
by yourself and you lose horribly and you're just helping a hotel room and you're
just like wanting too and my wife just like gives me like encouragement, but
she does not know how I feel. And then it's and then like you
know, and I don't feel like writing a song when I'm on a dead
downstading. I should just be like punching a wall. But and then when
it's really high, usually like oh, my god, I just won like
thirty thousand dollars in a shoe, Holy shit. And it's like five in
the morning, and everyone I know is asleep, and I'm like, well,
I guess or a beer for myself alone in this hotel room and stare
at this cold stack of cash. But it's it's different, but it's also
I don't know, it's an interest juxtaposition. Yeah, that all rings true.
Yeah, I'll chime in. As a non accomplished musician, for about
ten years of my life, all I want to do is play music.
But I was gonna say, I think probably the most fun thing I've ever
done is performed with other musicians when you're just like locked in together like it
is so it's it's like euphoric. And I would say the second closest is
team play. Pulling off team play effectively, where you know everyone's in lockstep.
This thing that you put all this energy into is just going going perfectly
it. You know, it's not the most profitable thing I ever did as
a as an AP, but definitely the most fun thing I've ever done is
an AP. Yeah, I have to commit mostly guitar, guitar, bass,
and drums. I wanted to talk about burnon when you were talking about
going back to the hotel room at five am by yourself. Um, that's
why I really UM was basically always a team player because I did not want
to go back to the hotel room by myself. And for me, the
like when Darrell was saying, you know, it's fun to go back to
the hotel room and count the money, but UM, for me, the
time in the hotel room with the other teammates was always way more important than
the time on the table and getting to Darrell's creativity point. The most rewarding
things for me were going back to the hotel room and sitting around and like
people throwing out ideas like did you see this on this table? Like what
if we tried that? Or what if we and somebody else is like,
oh, but we could try this, you know what I mean that that
is where the creativity would come in and when that all comes together and works,
to me, that's the best part of playing the game. Well you
have friends, good for you. I'm not a musician, but I still
perform sometimes in improv and storytelling and hope to get back to teaching classes and
it's it's a different part of my personality than just playing in the casino.
And now my game's not blackjack, but it's But I can easily play one
hundred hours a week every week and focus in. But when I take time
to do those other things, I think I live longer. I think I'm
more well rounded. I think I can relate to people better. I can
as long as I'm doing those other things, I have things to talk about
with people. If alls I'm doing is playing video hooker and going, well,
this is double points on Tuesday, I have to do that, It's
like I run out of things to talk about with non video hooker players.
And so that balance is good. Yeah, creative outlet, we all need
a settle. You said the word focus too, and that's another thing that's
really similar. I mean when you're performing and when you're on the black check
table, which in a sense it's like performing, and you you just need
to be able to shut out you know, the you know, suits that
are watching you from every angle, and the and the and the cameras and
the same. You know, it requires a focus that's really similar to performing,
where you need to shut out everything. But what's going on between you
and the people that you're playing for. Yeah, um burnon. Uh you
know, I keep hearing people say things like, oh, it's different now
you can't play without a player's card. Uh do you use a player's card?
No? I mean, oh, very very few places, but no.
If I use a player's card, it's either going to be an automatic
back off or a tres pass. But I have had instances where I see
tr and it's been a place that I should not be playing, and I've
been backed off several times. And I this has happened like twice in my
career, and I give them it's it's a high count. And the next
casinos far I just give them my ID and then they make me a player's
card and they're like, here you go and play all night. And I'm
like, how is this even possible? So, I mean there's weird things
that happen like that, And that's why I say even you know, like,
like our actual ev IS is statistical variance, but I feel like hours
in grinding creates this variance as well, where all of a sudden you'll just
get this session where you have a marathon session at a place you could only
get a half hour in it, and that's only overcome by like cranking away
hours and going place to place to place. But um, but no,
I do not. I do not play rated. Uh you know there's a
there's a couple of places that I do. Um but you know they're off
the beaten path, and they don't they don't have any they don't subscribe to
any databases. But no, my go too, and I would I would
recommend people don't. I mean, everything's circumstantial, you know, because you
have these red chippers that can't even travel to where they need to travel to
play unless they get some coughs. But that's a tough situation. But I
would always tell people that just keep your ID, save your ID. In
the long run, if you're gonna keep doing it, it's not worth just
exposing yourself. How old you have? How old you have to be before
you can just forget about that because of the so many years have already gone
by, and there's done not that many years left. How that's that's my
question. I asked myself all the time, how old do I have to
be before I just go blast? Because what's the worst that can happen?
You know? I could be I could be eighty years old and not happen,
not get to play. You know, yeah, I don't know.
That's above my above my experience. Well, all you have to do,
Darrel is figure out exactly when you're gonna die off of that. And that's
the number. What's the problem the thing? Do the numbers? All right,
We're go ahead, bub We've had a nice chat or blackjack round table,
and at the end of our show we have a recommended section. So
um, your your friendly hosts are going to take a break this week,
So call, do you have a recommended for our audience? I do.
I just finished a series it's on HBO Max called We Own This City,
and it's created by the guys that made The Wire, and it's based on
a book, a nonfiction book of the true story of corruption in the Baltimore
Police Department. And I didn't know until I got to the last episode that
it was based on true story, because my brother just said, oh,
you should check this out, And the whole time I was watching it,
I thought, well, it's probably you know, sure, there's probably corruption
out there, but this is fiction. And then I got to the end
and it's completely based on a true story and it's you know if you like
the Wire, you'll you'll enjoy this. Kevin Bacon, right, isn't it?
No? Oh, I'm thinking of a different show then he's in everything
else. Yeah, Daryl, do you have a recommended for us? You
know I had some music to share. I've got this album in my hands,
Singer songwriter Heaven, the Songs of Kevin Ferty. It's my friend Kevin
Ferty from Nashville. It's twenty songs he wrote and it's all his good friends,
each singing one of his songs, twenty songs total. I know you
can't everybody can't see this. We're only audio, but I can show you
guys in the in the chat, So that's highly recommended. I also,
you know, I have to self plug. I'm I'm. I'm headlining McCabe's
in Santa Monica on April twenty third, Sunday, April twenty third. It's
a big deal. I've seen everybody from rich de Havens to Farren, Peter
Case, Roger McGuinn many more there and I get to play there and it's
uh, it's it's probably my best gig. I've seen townsman Zan there the
first time I ever went there. I saw townsman Zan. I don't know
if you guys know Towns, but anyway, so April twenty third, mccabees
in Santa Monica, A very good talent. Yeah, Vernon, do you
ever recommended for our audience? I do, um. You know, I
just feel like a lot was put into this project, and I just feel
like whoever whoever checks it out is going to be entertained in many, many
ways. But it's actually the book that Colin put it together with a bunch
of blackjack stories from tales from the Felt, twenty one card counters, and
twenty one short stories about you know, life experiences or specific experiences from playing
blackjack from professionals, and it has amazing illustrations. And I also put my
own story into it. It was a story that was straight from the heart,
involves my father, and you know, I just feel like a lot
of people racked their brains for this put it together really nicely, and I
think calling did an amazing job. This is definitely a passion project because you
can tell how well it was a put together. But I would I would
recommend checking out that that book that they put together tales from the film,
and we'll have a link in the show notes for it on that subject,
calling, do you anticipate a volume two? I'd love to do a volume
two. I'm trying to sell enough copies of Volume one to pay for itself
and get you know, get into the money for the nonprofit. We'll get
there. It's just but but I would absolutely love to do a volume two.
I'm just trying to sell copies a Volume one right now. Actually,
I think it'd be great to have a podcast just like that where it's just
one person telling one gambling story. You know, the whole podcast would only
be ten minutes long each week or however often you did it or whatever.
So yeah, yeah, there's so many great stories. So if we if
we do a volume two, Uh, Darryl, you'll you'll be the first
person we reach out to. And and Bob, if you've got a tale
from the felt I do. I do more than one. Actually, Bob
is a great h blackjack story about being staked out by gaming um so,
which he is told on the show. Yeah. There's guns and naked women
and all kinds of things in the story, so it's uh, sounds like
a movie. Yeah, yeah, all right, um, thank you Colin
Darryl Burning. Thank you, Richard, go out and hit lots of royal
flushes everybody and dealt blackjacks. Bye bye,