First of all, let me return the shoutout to Boz that he gave me and thank him for it! I also think someone remarked to the extent of me being reasonably good at gambling math, but that might have also been Boz, so thank you for that to whomever it was.
My lying eyes, an actually interesting gambling topic at VCT AND then Eliot also makes an appearance? Awesome! I'll take it. I figured this site would be too busy identifying specific steering wheel characteristics of RV's for that to ever happen again...so good to see some decent gambling stuff.
Okay, so let's get into some stuff:
Eliot, Generally:
I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that I unconditionally defend Mr. Jacobsen in this respect, but it's certainly fully within his right to do whatever he wants to do, in that regard.
I see the word, "Traitor," first thing? I ask this: A traitor to fucking what? The brotherhood of love, acceptance and goodwill towards men that is the AP Community? Fucking please. It's like anything else, you've got good guys and you've got bad guys...but in gambling, let's face it, is there anyone who doesn't expect someone to not have his mind on his money and money on his mind? Excluding totally apathetic useless fucks like me, of course. But, that's not out of some great moral motivation and I'm not going to pretend for a second it is...I just am too dispassionate about life to give a shit, most days.
Oh my God, we've got Benedict fucking Arnold up in this mothafucka, a betrayer of God, country and man! Again, please. Half of the AP's would slit they Momma throat for a nickel, by their own admission. Any so-called loyalty or friendship is either by convenience, necessity or people potentially having a use for you in the future. I don't fool myself into thinking that anyone ACTUALLY likes me. Why the fuck would they? Maybe someone will have a math question sometime down the line they think I can figure out (or get close) really quickly. I'm pretty easy to get ahold of, relatively speaking. I'll at least get you close while you wait for someone even more skilled than I am to respond, you know? Allegiances make sense, but there came a time when Eliot's allegiance no longer made sense for him.
So, Eliot did what Eliot thought was best for Eliot...as if any of you wouldn't do the same. Come on.
Yeah, Eliot worked and did seminars for the Dark Side...I guess the Dark Side pays better for his services than would APs. I wouldn't personally work for the casinos, even if offered, but I don't fault anyone who does.
And, take all of this with a grain of salt, of course. I'm a low value hustler who has made at least as much from writing (in less time) than from gambling. I'm not going to get into any specific numbers, but I do promise nobody would be impressed.
Card Counter Stuff
I don't know that Eliot ever directly advocated to just let the card counters have it, honestly, probably not the best career choice in his line of work. With that said, I personally vouch for the fact that I have read Eliot's stuff and, on no fewer than a dozen occasions, Eliot basically said something to the extent that they are no real threat. In fact, in disclosing the value of other advantage plays, Eliot would often use card counting expected profits as a metric to compare other plays against.
He would specifically say that, from a game protection standpoint, time and resources being used to protect the house from card counting would be better used elsewhere. He analyzed and revealed the potential lucrativeness of at least one game before it had even come out. He made it clear that the biggest financial risk to the table games pit, financially, was the table games pit itself because of their flawed operations. I won't use any specific words here, but we all know what I'm talking about. Well, most of us.
AP History
Also, it's not like Eliot has ever said he was a great advantage player. He admitted, on multiple occasions, to essentially not be a successful AP. The most lucrative play he ever had was getting assaulted, again, basically by his own admission.
---And, hey, does anyone want to pay me six figures to take a shot at old Mission? I'll take the money. Maybe I'll get lucky one day and security will kick the shit out of me, god knows I tried last time I was 86'ed, didn't work.
Don't get me wrong, I totally get why APs would be royally pissed off at him. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being pissed off at him; there's not. I'm just saying it's not like we're some kind of fucking commune who devote our lives to the mutual benefit and protection of one another. If anyone in the AP community so much as speaks to me, I assume it's because I might be useful, at some point.
That doesn't mean we can't play nice. It doesn't mean that we can't all hang out and be buddies. It just means that there are no real friends in the community, but again, that's no big deal.
I mean, you see it with MaxPen and MickeyCrimm going at each other. MaxPen basically just does a variant of what MickeyCrimm used to do, to the best of my understanding based on what little MP has said. That's the gambling community, folks. This forum is the gambling community. I think this is actually a more accurate portrayal, in some ways, than is the WoV forum.
So...if there's more to gain on the other side, why in the fuck would Eliot even want to be associated with us?
Backoffs and the Like
I mean, it is what it is and there's a whole white-gray-black spectrum. There are some AP plays that are milky white, blackjack card counting, vulturing (not creating, straight vulturing) and any number of other things. There are gray plays, and I'll not get into specifics...but the plays sometimes involve violating the Terms & Conditions that you either technically agreed to or know about. Okay. So, you're representing that you're going to do that and then you proceed not to do that. Basically fraud, but not in the legal sense, but hey, we all know the casinos are no angels, either.
Anyway, you have free association. The casinos say, "We don't want you here because you do x," and then you can make an argument whether or not the casinos are REASONABLE in that backoff, trespass, whatever. You can't make an argument that they don't have the right to do it, because barring perhaps a few state laws I might not be aware of, they most certainly do. The other side of the free association is, if I walk into a casino and don't see anything that can be beaten, then I choose to leave and not visit it anymore.
This is not some great moral struggle. It's not Light v. Dark or Good v. Evil, Young Padawan. It's just all parties involved looking out for their best interest.......and sometimes the occasional overzealous assclown from security.
As far as card counting, they could tighten the damn spreads if they wanted to, but they don't want to. Why? No idea. You've got some mostly empty table that's one of four mostly empty tables in the house that day and you need it to have a spread of minimum-50x minimum? Nobody ever accused them of being smart.
MickeyCrimm says:
I should also point out that some AP's are hellbent to ruin the reputations of system players like Rob Singer. They should actually be promoting the Singer's of the gambling world as they pass on what AP's consider to be bogus information which can blunt the competition.
As much as I hate to disagree with MickeyCrimm, I don't think that anyone should promote misinformation. It's one thing not to actively try to disprove misinformation, nobody has any great automatic responsibility to do that, but I certainly wouldn't promote it.
Yes, without the casinos winning money, APs cannot win money. I agree with that 100%. After all, to have an AP, first you have to have a casino.
But, it doesn't mean that we should do anything to actively cause civilians to have false beliefs about gambling, systems, voodoo, rabbit's feet...whatever. For my part, I counter people promoting systems on WoV when I feel like it, will not knowingly lie to anyone in-person about anything gambling-related (though I will withhold good information or dodge questions) and generally just try not to interfere in anyway with other casino-goers.
It's not like casinos are the be all and end all of all of existence. If nobody else ever gambles again from this moment on, I'll just go do something else for money.
But, again, it's easy for me to say because I don't really care about lifestyle or too much in the way of material stuff. I might be more like some other people, and I don't mean that in a bad way, if I did.
CONCLUSION:
Anyway, that's my sort of defense of Eliot and positions on some other matters. I look forward to continuing the conversation with you guys. It is nice to see a thread over here that is not on its face absurd.