I had to go to a lengthy meeting a couple of months back, the thing was fairly close to a couple of Indian casinos that I normally do not consider playing at (games are usually lousy, even the 8d shoes give 50 percent penetration.) Not worth the trouble. But I had some time and decided to hit the 21 tables the first night out to see if anything had changed.

I found a DD game where the auto shuffler was busted, and the dealer was having to shuffle by hand. He was not normally a BJ dealer, but was apparently pressed into service that night due to several other dealers calling in with some sort of virus. As I walked by, I noticed that even though that DD game was always a bare 50% penetration, he was still dealing with less than 1/2 deck left. I sat down to play with one other player (who left shortly after I arrived) and discovered (as he explained) that his hands were very painful in the joints and the shuffling was hurting him, and that if I didn't mind, he would put the shuffle card at the usual place, but he was going to deal way into the deck to reduce the number of shuffles. Shoot, I said, make it as easy on yourself as you want. Deal to the bottom if you like.

Needless to say, the game was profitable, and within about 2 hours I had won just over $1,000. As the session wore on, I was playing exactly with the count, spreading 25-250, and using absolutely no cover. Near the end I noticed a couple of suits looking my way and whispering. I decided to color up and leave as the meeting the next day was early.

I returned the next night, but the 21 tables were void of the dealer I was looking for. I decided to wait around to see if he showed up, and since the pits were arranged where there were always two 21 tables side-by-side, I thought I'd start back-counting two tables at a time when possible and do some wonging while waiting. I didn't win a whole lot, but I noticed that the attention was becoming a bit more serious and it wasn't that long before two suits walked up and gave me the usual "your 21 game is too strong for us, we are not going to let you play 21 any more, but you can play any other games you want. Why don't you try our 3 card poker table over there and they pointed...

Of course that is a suck game, but when I looked, there was "my dealer" so I thought I would at least stop by and chat with him and play a couple of rounds for fun. Turns out he had just as much trouble with that game, in that removing the 3-card hands from the automatic shuffler had him exposing the bottom card for every hand, his included.

Unfortunately, I had never studied 3-card poker strategy when one of the dealer's cards is known very much, but on a couple of AP sites it was discussed at length before 3-card poker nearly faded away. So I started to play. And I won. Not quickly, but at a $10 table, the money adds up fairly quickly, usually in terms of losses. But I was winning, and this went on for about 2hours. I think I was once again up about $600 bucks or so when it became obvious that once again I was under scrutiny. One said "We don't know what you are doing, but we are watching... You had better not be cheating the house." I reminded them "Hey, you guys asked me to stop playing 21 and you even suggested I play 3cp and pointed to this very table... so what are you complaining about now?" He mumbled something and went back to the podium and got on the phone. As the suit count climbed, I decided to leave for the night. Now +1600 and counting.

Next night I go back, and now my favorite dealer is nowhere to be found, not on 21 or 3cp. But I noticed that as I walked around, I developed a "parade of suits". Picked up 2 in the first pit, a third in the second pit, and by the time I had made it around the floor area, I had 5-6 that were looking very concerned, following me from pit to pit. They were actually causing a commotion as they had to maneuver around tables, dealers, players, etc. Remember that they had backed me off 21 so I was not going to play. But apparently they thought I was up to no good after having two good nights in a row. As the "parade" continued, finally two of the grouchier-looking suits came up and said "you are going to have to leave..."

I did. As I motioned to my wife, who was playing slots, she came over and asked "What on earth was that commotion about?" I told her "someone called me Custer and I think they were getting ready to scalp me."

The suit-parade was a priceless image that was beyond ridiculous. My intent was to keep walking around the floor until they had no one left to join the parade...