BLACKJACK IN PARADISE: PARADISE ISLAND

Young British dealer "innocently" asked if I kept track of the cards. I guessed that any offhand answer would be suspicious, so I lied. I told him I kept track of only the Aces because I knew that I had a better chance of getting a Blackjack if there were extra Aces in the shoe. I think he bought my story, but he contin-ued:

"Do you play here often?" he asked.
"No," I said, "this is only the second or third time I've been here. I do most of my playing in Las Vegas." That was the truth. My wife spent almost every day on the beach at the back of the Flagler Inn. I would spend the late morning and early afternoons with her before the sun got too hot. On Wednesday she intro-duced me to a whole family she met on the beach. Hank, the fa-ther, was a retired sergeant major who lives in St. Louis.

I found he was an excellent gambler, like most noncoms, who played al-most perfect Basic Strategy. He won a few hundred dollars play-ing with me on several occasions. Whenever Hank was leaving for the casino and his wife would ask him where he was going, he'd say, "Oh I'm going shopping." He brought back money every time from these shopping trips.

On Thursday evening while strolling through the casino with my wife, I bumped into "Bob." Bob is the most successful Black-jack player I know, having winnings of over five hundred thou-sand dollars in the past four years. When I talked with him, he was down close to ten thousand dollars, but was only a little con-cemed about it. He took us to dinner in the Bahamian Club, which served by far the best meal we had on the island. And it was all complimentary, thanks to Bob.

I saw Bob only once after that, near the end of the week. He had recouped all of his losses except for a couple of thousand dollars. He admitted that he had made a mistake coming to the Bahamas during the busy season. His original intent was to take a holiday in Florida, but the weather was so bad there he couldn't resist the casino on Paradise Island. Once a gambler, always a gambler.

IN PARADISE [ 1 ] - [ 2 ] - [ 3 ] - [ 4 ]