The Chatterers

You get them in real life and you get them in the casinos. The Chatterers. People who have to talk and drag everyone into their – often mundane or stupid – arguments.

In blackjack, you have the “experts,” those chatterers who must explain how the game should be played. They explain how to play your hand; they explain to everyone how they should play their hands. They puff themselves up as the be-all and end-all experts.

They are almost always wrong too.

They haven’t read much and the writers they have read have no idea of how to play. They don’t know “basic strategy,” the computer derived play of every player’s hand against every dealer’s up-card. You don’t know basic strategy then you are fishing in a dried-up lake.

And too many players, even some players with some experience, fall for the chatterer’s ideas.

I recently sat at a table with one such chatterer. “You never ever hit a 12 against a dealer’s two up-card. Why do that? The dealer has many chances to bust with a two, why take that away from him?”

“Don’t split those aces and eights. What’s the point? You could wind up with hands that stink. Why try to get two losing hands when you probably already have one losing hand?”

“Why hit your 16 against the dealer’s 10 card? Duh! You’re probably going to bust. Maybe the dealer has a low card in the hole, ever think of that?”

“You have a blackjack against the dealer’s ace. Take insurance! Why throw away a guaranteed win? How dumb is that?”

At one point another player asked me what to do. I said, “Ask the dealer.” I never give advice at the table. The chatterer turned to me and said, “You think the dealer has any idea of how to play this game? Ha!”

I colored up and left.

Gray Hair

She was probably 80 years old. Her face was white and wrinkled and showed her many years but her hair was pitch black. No one since the 1930’s movies has hair that color. We were playing Pai Gow Poker. She wanted to talk. She did talk.

“I do not like gray hair,” she said authoritatively. “It makes you look old and fuddy-duddy. What do you think, sir?” she asked me.

“Uh,” I mumbled. “I don’t know. Different people have different opinions I guess.”

“Then why do so many women dye their hair? Can you answer me that?”

The dealer (a smart woman) was ignoring the conversation and just dealing the cards.

“You see, men only like women who look young,” she said through her amazingly white, wrinkled face. “My late husband wouldn’t even look at me if I had just one gray hair on my head. He died when I was just fifty.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“He was a crummy husband but a good bread winner,” she said. She put her hand through her black-black hair.

Pai Gow Poker is a leisurely game and this woman’s chattering about gray hair made the game even more leisurely – boringly leisurely. The dealer didn’t care. She went with the flow.

“Now, you have gray hair,” she said to me. “But men can have gray hair because they look distinguished unless they are super fat pigs that is.”

I colored up and went to join my wife, who has beautiful gray hair.

Craps Chatterbox

There are so many ideas about how to play craps that you tap a player on the shoulder and you probably get a different one with each player you tap there.

I am a truly conservative player but most craps players go from “okay” to “out-of-their-minds.” That’s fine with me. They bet their own money and they can bet it any way they choose.

One such outrageous player was right next to me at a game several years ago in Atlantic City, just before Covid-19 nailed us.

Craps players will cheer and shout but they usually don’t care what other craps players are betting. They just want to have fun as they define fun. That’s fine with me.

Everyone at the table was a “right bettor” as they were rooting for the shooters to hit numbers and make points.

The guy next to me wanted to know why I didn’t go all out to play the bets that returned the most money. I just said, “Well, I don’t really like to buck the big house edges on those bets. I have a limited supply of money.”

“Your bets are pretty big,” he said.

“I’ve had a good day,” I lied.

“Go all in is what I say. The table gets hot and you make a bundle.”

Of course, yes, he was right but his wrong was way bigger than his right. The more you bet the bad bets, the more the casino makes from you. That’s a truth the math proves time and again.

You can make a lot of money on the bad bets but you will lose a lot more over time on those very bets.

But I didn’t want to argue. No point in ever doing that. “I’ll give it some serious thought,” I lied. “I will. Just got to have time to think about it. I am a scared type of player.”

“That’s not good,” he said.

“I guess not,” I lied.

I waited a few shooters and then colored up and went to have a drink.

All the best in and out of the casinos!

Frank Scoblete’s web site is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books, libraries and bookstores.

This article is provided by the Frank Scoblete Network. Melissa A. Kaplan is the network's managing editor. If you would like to use this article on your website, please contact Casino City Press, the exclusive web syndication outlet for the Frank Scoblete Network. To contact Frank, please e-mail him at fscobe@optonline.net.