From the Early Days: She Doubled Down on Blackjack

Well, I dunno when I'll be able to post a new entry, especially since I haven't even figured out what I'm gonna write about next.  So I thought I'd do something I haven't done in awhile, repost on of my old stories from the very early days of the blog. And even when i posted this, it was an old, old story from my pre-poker days in Vegas.  This is actually one of my most memorable stories from my very early trips to Vegas.  Hope you enjoy it!

-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -

This one goes back a long, long way.  It happened some 30 years ago, give or take.  This was well before I started taking notes on my Vegas trips so I’m going entirely by aging memory.  But I told this story so often for years that I think I can get most of the details right.  If not, I’ll just make them up.

My friend Norm and I used to visit Vegas regularly at this time, two, three times a year.  We enjoyed gambling of course.  Mostly blackjack and craps, with the occasional foray into Keno if we were losing too much.  We also enjoyed the mass quantities of cheap food that was available then.  The buffets back then were not profit centers, they were loss leaders, and almost every hotel had extremely cheap buffets where you could easily stuff enough food in your face to make you sick for just a few bucks.  And it was good food too.  In those days, we were actually young enough, stupid enough, and gluttonous enough to sometimes have more than one buffet a day!  I sure as hell don’t do that any more.

We also saw a lot of shows back then.  Whatever headliners we liked (almost always comedians, not music stars) and the big production shows too.  Again, they were a lot cheaper in those days.

After a few visits, our favorite casino, and indeed, our favorite hotel, became The Maxim.  As I explained recently here, the Maxim was located on Flamingo, across the street from the Bally’s employee parking lot.  Except that Bally’s was actually the MGM when we first started playing and staying at The Maxim.  The Maxim closed down many years ago and something called the Westin Casuarina now sits in the same corner.

We liked the Maxim for a several reasons.  As a hotel, it had the benefit of being cheap, and so were we.  Being off the Strip, it was lower priced than the rooms on the Strip.  And the room was nice enough, not luxurious but quite pleasant for the price.  Also, it was close enough to the Strip that it was an easy walk to it, right past The Stage Door bar that I talked about in the post I just linked to.  And that corner of the Strip had a ton of casinos we also liked to play at, such as Barbary Coast (now The Cromwell), Flamingo Hilton (now without the “Hilton” attached), Imperial Palace (now The Linq), the Holiday Casino (now Harrah’s), The Sands (where the Venetian now sits), The Dunes (where Bellagio now resides), Caesars (though we could never afford to play there) and the aforementioned MGM.

But we also loved the Maxim casino.  It was smaller than most of those on the Strip, but it was also a lot friendlier.  The dealers on the Strip were robotic and soulless.  The dealers at the Maxim (most of them, anyway) were friendly and often funny.  Hey, if you’re losing your money in a game where the odds are stacked against you, you might as well be entertained.  We even got to be fairly friendly with some of the dealers because we started going there so often.  If I’m not mistaken, Norm actually made a friend of sorts of the very attractive, very exuberant lady dealer who worked the Wheel of Fortune (or Big 6 Wheel, whatever the called it).

More importantly, the Maxim, being off the Strip, had lower limits than a lot of the Strip casinos, and that was important to us.  We could only afford to go to Vegas so often if we could play $2 blackjack and $2 craps.  And yes, it was still possible to find games like that in those days.  But the bigger, nicer casinos had already started to phase them out, so that was what was so appealing about the Maxim.

So if we stayed at the Maxim, we’d end up in that casino for our last session of the day before calling it a night.  So there I was, one night, playing $2 blackjack before retiring.  I don’t recall if Norm was with me at this point or at another game, or whatever.  All I know is that a rather cute, very young girl sat next to me and bought into the game.

OK, so I remember her being cute.  I don’t remember if she was provocatively dressed.  I suspect she was not, because, knowing me, if she had been, I’d remember it.  Actually, this took place so long ago it might have predated the era when women dressed sexily in Las Vegas.  Hell, it might have taken place before cleavage was invented.

And she sat down next to me and started chatting with the dealer.  And ordered a drink.  Yes, she definitely ordered a drink.  Repeatedly.  From the conversation she was having with the first dealer, it was apparent that she used to be a cocktail waitress right there at the Maxim.  I soon learned that she was now working as a blackjack dealer somewhere else. But not in Vegas.  I’m not sure if she was working in one of the (then) two casinos that are located in what is now known as Primm, which is right on the California/Nevada border, or she was working in Laughlin.  Laughlin wasn’t much in those days.  Neither was Primm.  I gathered she was working at a locale like that because she was brand new as a dealer and was attempting to get some experience on her resume so that she could work her way into a position in Vegas.

So she knew all the dealers and the cocktail waitresses who were serving her—they were all her old colleagues.  She was getting tips from the dealers as to how to be a better blackjack dealer.  And she was tipping big herself whenever she won, which wasn’t very often.  She was also tipping the waitresses generously for the drinks they kept bringing her…..and bringing her.

It seems she was depressed about something, but I can’t remember why.  Maybe she didn’t even say.  But it was obvious that she was there to get hammered as much as for any other reason.  She was drinking to forget.  And it worked, because, all these many years later, I’ve totally forgotten what was bothering her.  I’m sure she also wanted to visit her old friends, and tell them she was now a dealer and no longer a waitress, as well. 

She was friendly at the beginning, but mostly with the employees.  As she downed more and more drinks, she started interacting more with the other players as well.  One thing she was upset about, at least at the beginning, was the way the deck was treating her.  She was losing money rather quickly, and had to keep buying in.  I guess I must have doing ok myself, as I stayed there for quite some time.

At first, she was playing totally normal, totally by-the-book blackjack.  And losing steadily.  After awhile, though, she started veering off the basic blackjack strategy, and started playing based on “feelings” and “hunches” and guesses about what the next card would be.  I’m sure some this was due to the fact that she was losing with the basic strategy, but most of it was due to the alcohol.

Now, as she was getting more inebriated and thus more outgoing, she started taking it upon herself to help me with my game.  This wasn’t really necessary, but she couldn’t help herself.  Interestingly, as she kept playing crazier and crazier, she never gave me the wrong play.  So for example, she would stick on a 16 when the dealers up card was a face card, because of a hunch, but she would tell me to take a card in the same situation.  Again, to be clear, I didn’t need her help, she was just being “helpful.”  Have I mentioned she was drinking a lot?

She also started doing weird things whenever she got a double down, or a split situation, or a soft hand.  She would split cards you shouldn’t split and vice versa, double down when she shouldn’t, and even not take a card when she had a soft hand that she couldn’t bust.  But again, whenever she offered me advice, it was always dead on the correct play.

The combination of being drunk and playing crazy had an amazing affect.  She started winning.  The crazier she played—and the more she drank—the better she did.  She started winning almost every time she did something dumb—like splitting face cards, or hitting hard 12’s, weird things like that.  She frequently told me before she did something stupid that she was going to do it.  I would of course say that it was a bad play and suggest she not do it.  She ignored me and made the bad play and usually won the hand.

As she started winning, she started getting very excited.  The dour demeanor of a drunk woman disappeared, to be replace by a bubbly drunk.  And she started interacting with me more and more.  For one thing, every time she won one of her crazy bets, she would actually grab my arm in delight.  Sometimes, she would put her arms around me and hug me.  When I won a decent sized bet, she also grabbed my arm.  I’m not a touchy feely type, but I didn’t object. 

As I said, she started giving me advice, making suggestions as to how to play my hands. Again, I didn’t really need this, nor did I ask for this, she just couldn’t help herself.  But she never once suggested that I do anything but play by-the-book blackjack.  She always gave me the correct advice.  And when it worked, she would squeal with delight and grab my arm. 

I knew the basic strategy, and almost always played it, but I have to admit, that some of the double downs on soft hands, and some of the splits, were a bit problematic for me.  They came so rarely that I didn’t always know them cold.  Then too, it seemed that anytime I did make the right play doubling down on a soft hand, it didn’t work out, so a lot of times I didn’t make that play, and just took a card instead.  A couple of times she caught me doing this and suggested—more like begged me—to double down (the right play).  As long as she suggested it, it worked.

I suppose you might be wondering if, with all the arm grabbing she did, and all the hugging, this is going to veer off into something tawdry.  But then, as now, I would never take advantage of a drunk female.  Now, I might offer them a ride, but I would never take advantage. 

As she started winning, she started betting more and more.  This too paid off, as she was still having her run of luck and was therefore winning more and more money.

This went on for awhile and then after a couple of nice wins, she put out the biggest bet she had all night.  I don’t remember what it was.  But since it was $2 table it was likely around $40, $50, I doubt it was more than that.  Still, it was a big bet for her, having sat there because she wanted to play for two bucks a hand (and consume a lot of liquor).

And thus, with that big bet out, she was dealt a blackjack.  It was the first one she had been dealt in quite some time, probably since before she started betting more than just a few bucks.  She squealed and jumped up in her chair and grabbed my arm.  I noticed that the dealer’s upcard was a 6.

I really don’t know what possessed me to do what I did then.  It’s possible that, back in those days, I might have had an adult beverage or two myself at that point.  Or maybe it was because she had been ignoring all my good advice, and she had been only too willing to offer me her advice.  But I got a little devilish right then.  As she was celebrating, I suddenly found myself saying to her, “You should double down on it.”

Now she had done some stupid plays before, but nothing that stupid.  But she stopped celebrating to consider it.  “What?  Really?”

I continued, although I knew I shouldn’t.  “Yeah.  I mean, it’s just an ‘eleven’ right?  You could double your win.  You’ll probably get a face card, and the dealer’s gonna bust anyway.  You should definitely go for it.”

I’m sure I felt at the time that there was no way she would do anything quite that stupid.  Giving up a guaranteed $150% payback while risking 100% of her bet—with only 50% more reward if she won?  She wasn’t that drunk, was she?

But she started thinking about it, and stopped the dealer from paying her off for the blackjack.  “I don’t know.  Should I really do it?  Should I?”

It was that at that point that I meant to say, “No, no, I was just kidding.  You don’t double down on blackjack.  Take the money.”

But somehow, it came out, “Sure, go ahead.  Do it.  It’s practically money in the bank.”

And she pondered it a few seconds longer and then—just as I was about to say, “No, no, I’m kidding, don’t do it,” she grabbed some more chips and said, “Double down.”

I think I kinda prayed there for her to win the hand.  I would have felt like shit if she had lost.  I don’t recall the details, I don’t remember if she drew a face card or what.  But she definitely won the hand.  She squealed and yelled like she had just won a million dollars.  She leaned over and gave me a really big hug.

Of course now, I was only too willing to take credit.  “See, I told you.”

She thanked me and kept squealing.  And then…..

Well, that’s all I remember.  I don’t even remember for sure if she left the table before I did or if it was the other way around.  I can’t recall if she ended up keeping all those chips or not.  I seem to have a vague recollection of her asking one of her cocktail waitresses buddies to drive her home at one point, which was a very good thing.

But for years and years, I had a story about the girl who doubled down on blackjack, and how I was the one who talked her into it.

(May 2019 addendum:  I should have noted that since this took place years and years ago, of course the blackjack paid 3:2.  This was in the good ol' days when nobody would even dream of offering 6:5 blackjack.  So, I suppose if this story had taken place in 2019, at a 6:5 table, her play wouldn't have been quite so horrible.  Still a dumb play, but the math would be a little better.)