Blackhawk CO trip report

 i have a bad habit of doing things the much more expensive way, and im not sure for how long ive picked up that bad habit. (buying Bob Evans mashed potatoes because it tastes so much better than other brands, and paying for pre cut apple slices which cost a lot more than buying apples). even on the train, i had bought my ticket in coach for $45 instead of paying the $185 fare for a private room for the 5 hour trip. once i boarded, i changed my mind however, because i didnt feel comfortable so far away from my luggage, and didnt want them to sit anyone next to me, and i had to pay an additional $185 to upgrade it to a private room, which i moved to. but that wasnt the smartest way to go about it because it cost me $45 more. 

at least the 2nd time i rode the train, (when i left elko for Denver a few days later) i had enough sense to pay the $365 upfront for a private room the second time, so i wouldnt need to change it later. I probably wouldve stayed in elko longer since i was doing good at poker, had the poker room been open all 7 days and the Gold Dust west wouldnt have told me not to play any more BJ. it was the only decent game in town. 

I've been too tired and too busy playing live NL here in Blackhawk CO to play any BJ here like id planned to do. you see, here, unlike Reno, the game doesnt break up to where u cant play any poker, and the only thing to do is to play BJ. also, here unlike Reno, im not getting any free rooms and the prices of rooms are outrageously high and are going to get much worse over Nye. ill have to either be in denver itself or fly out of denver. 

so far ive won $390 the 1 day ive been in Blackhawk but considering the first thing i did was get a room and sleep ($508 for 3 nights) this is already the second day so my times about up and i need to figure out where to get a room. so im not getting anywhere financially here even though its a good game here, and also all 4 of the poker rooms in Blackhawk are open all 7 days a week again. 

main thing about Blackhawk compared to reno is theres always a game about 6-7am going when there often isnt a game going in reno. there is a long pause between this paragraph i am writing today, and the previous paragraph i wrote a couple days earlier. yesterday i did beat the big 0 game for $358, and at one time was up $582 in it. the min buy is 200 and there is no cap on the max buy. 

had a weird dream right before i woke up this morning, i was in an alley in a bad area of town and it seemed like it would never end, and i was flying in the air a little bit up off the ground and had a small fridge under me and i saw a guy with a bike coming towards me who wouldve done me harm normally, and i started yelling about knocking people off rooptops as i flew over roofs with a bunch of people staring. then im suddenly in an area with nice homes without my fridge and im trying to get on a regular street on foot and i accidently make a turn and find myself inside someones home and im carrying a letter and im thinking how do i get out of here and get rid of my fingerprints all over the place and i find the front door and start walking out and some girl walks up to the door yells out honey im home and gives me a big kiss and im thinking her eyesight must not be too good and she tells me that my brother is also inside the house and she thinks im her man and im thinking how can i get away from this woman before she realizes im not him? and i mention i need to run up the street for something and right back, and the streets are suddenly filled with snow outside and she says ill just give u a ride in the car, and i say no i have to talk to someone quick

woke up signed the bravo list and its a shame how little i update this blog anymore. this isnt near enough material and i shouldve posted from elko a while back. ive probably forgotten almost everything i had planned to talk about. so i need to post it anyway now before i wait any longer to add other things to make it more interesting and longer. 

Like a runaway Balloon it keeps going up

 The casino expects u to lose. and im not losing lately at live 3-2 6 deck shoe BJ. According to the host, im up over $7000 in the last month or two. Including $500 today. I overheard the pit boss talking on the phone while at the table, (seems like they call up on the phone everytime my bets go way up) and him saying "i dont know why we cannot beat this guy". "he just keeps winning". "at least hes taking care of us"

they see me putting big bets out at times on new shoes (with a payback below 100%) since the count is still zero, they see me at times refusing to take insurance with a true count of plus 6, and at times raising my bets on negative counts. and of course, never ever splitting 2 tens. so they have no idea i know the exact count at all times. But it does let me play 16 vs 10 properly and i wonder how closely theyve noticed that?

also i wonder if theyve noticed the only times i quit the table or leave to use the restroom mid shoe are doing highly negative shoes?

or if the only times i bet 3 spots of $500 max bet are doing highly positive shoes?

they just see me martingaling bets, they see me going 2 hands of 20 to 3 spots of 500 and reducing most bets after a win. but on a positive shoe, im reducing it to 25 plus 25 instead of 1 spot of 10. and on a positive count, im going 20 plus 20 to 50 plus 50, 3 spots of 75, etc  instead of 10 to 11 to 22 to 22 plus 22 etc. But yeah, im raising bets, even on negative shoes. but at times if its too negative (over a true count of minus 1) ill back off entirely and flat bet 10 for a while, and then bet whatever i need to win back in 1 hand on the new shoe at the shuffle point. 

now we all know i usually lose at BJ because i play this way so i wont get banned at any more casinos for counting the cards. but in the last couple months, they claim im up over 7k on them. and said surely gravity will make u come back down. at least the host said that. 

and they see me put out $1 bets for the dealer a lot of times once i get up a few hundred. that too will make them think im not playing for a living. 

that is as long as the dealer isnt wearing a mask. im not giving money to some radical democrat out to send money to Biden or Fauci. but since i told them this, seems they make sure most of my dealers arent wearing masks ever since. 

early on today, i was up over $1200, then i ran into a little trouble when i lost a few hands during a good plus count, and on the final bet of 3 spots of $500 each, won a BJ on only 1 spot and lost both the other 2 spots, one with a double down. and then i was down $800-900. had it not been for the BJ on one spot, id been down over $2000. 

But that kept me from having too big a loss, and after playing a slot machine called winds of sails or some name similar to that, i seen it with the free games feature coin banking bonus of 59 free games for gold and 33 for silver and i dont know the game at all, but it was so much higher than on the 2 next to it and the other denominations i thought id see it. it was on the $1.50 a hand level. anyone know this game?

i was eventually in for $300 instead of $100 but it finally hit on the gold level (after twice earlier hitting much lower numbers on the bronze level) and it paid enough to let me cash out for $356, slightly reducing my loss for the day. 

then i played the 6-5 VBJ a little bit, and got up about $90 on it then started losing some hands, and needing to bet $192 but not wanting to on the 6-5 game, returned to the table which only had 1 player which is rare, but all the casinos are dead up here today. even tonights NL game broke before 11pm. very unusual. 

i made a bet of $192 divided among 3 spots on the first hand out of the shoe. and it won, including a couple of double downs. and the count remained at plus 3 but since thats the running count and not the true count, u really arent supposed to raise the bet at that count. 

but i left 2 hands of $20 out anyway instead of reducing it to the min of 1 spot of $10 which id have done on a poor count. and running count soon reached plus 9 making the true count more than plus 1. 

i then put out 3 spots totalling about $600 after first losing 2 bets for cover purposes, and won all 3 bets and was highly relieved. then continued to play for another hour, and eventually ended up 500 up for the day. i was supposed to double my bet up to about $500 total right before i quit but decided against it because i didnt want to risk being stuck again, and also the count had just went to minus 2 from plus 5. so instead i left and went to my room to take a nap woke up about 7pm and went to play poker. 

so im still sitting now at about $42,600. thats a lot better than the $26k i left houston with, but still far less than the $57k i had on my birthday in febraury of 2023.