Curly Stops a Slug

Curly pushed through the packed casino. He was headed for the front desk to check out after a week of World Series action. In hotels anywhere else in the world, it was easy to get to the front desk, but Las Vegas wants every edge it can get, so casino hotels force guests to fight their way through slot machine forests and crowded pits. They've got it all down to a science. Studies have shown that the average patron wagers $15 on a trip across the casino floor. A 25-cent pack of gum that a person feels a craving for while passing a casino is worth $25 to the house if the gift shop is near the center of the establishment, which explains why most casino gift shops are not near exits.

He set his bags down for a second when the very large woman ahead of him stopped dead to try to ease into a blackjack seat that was just coming open. Curly contemplated the Las Vegas double standard that permits visitors to wear garb in casinos that they wouldn't wear in their own homes in the presence of strangers. The woman overflowed a halter top and a pair of dirty white shorts that left nothing, unfortunately, to the imagination. He might have wondered how the woman's husband could let her appear in public like that, except that the gentleman standing next to her, who was undoubtedly shackled to her in unholy matrimony, was dressed, too, in Desert Chic: green thongs, red-green-and-yellow plaid, baggy Bermudas, a T-shirt that struggled unsuccessfully to hide a hairy pot belly, and scarlet-framed mirror-lens plastic sunglasses that did nothing to conceal the two-day growth of beard.

Not only had the departing player's wallet been thinned out at the table, the player himself must have shrunk to a mere shadow of his former self, and he had no trouble slipping off into anonymity. The seated players were in no hurry to rearrange themselves to accommodate the woman struggling into place. Even with help in the form of shoving from her unshaven accomplice, it would be several moments before the path became unblocked. Curly didn't mind the opportunity to take a rest from trying to squeeze the heavy train case and awkward garment bag through the swirling masses.

Rather than rest his eyes on the mountain of sunburned flesh before him, Curly turned toward the blackjack game. The dealer was shuffling four decks. Curly was not normally interested in blackjack, but he noticed something. Would the eye-in-the-sky notice also? It was likely that the observer behind the one-way glass in the mirrored ceiling would see nothing unusual in the manner in which the dealer shuffled the cards – but Curly did – if, in fact, someone was even watching. With every table in the house in action, any one game was likely to be under observation about 10 percent of the time, and less if there appeared no reason for suspicion. Only a trained observer would know what to look for, and he would never see it from above. The dealer was carrying a slug. He was shuffling in installments, having split the multiple decks into several deck-sized packets. On three of the packets, he shuffled normally. But with each riffle of the fourth, approximately 12 cards at the bottom remained untouched. After each riffle, the dealer performed several pull cuts of the deck in standard blackjack practice, but he did it without disturbing the bottom fifth of the packet. And when he separated that packet to mix it in with another, the clump remained intact – most unusual.

When the dealer reconstituted the deck, the slug was still at the bottom. He handed the cut card to the player third from his left, who inserted it approximately 26 cards from the bottom. Curly noticed that the player was betting the table maximum, $500, five black chips. A large bet on the first round of a shuffled deck wouldn't interest a pit boss.

Now what was going on? That slug would not come out until all of the cards had been dealt to the players. Why the large first-round bet?

The empty place was to this player's left. The woman still could not wedge her large form into the chair, but, obviously a determined gambler, did not want to be dealt out. She threw a $5 chip into the circle at that position.

The dealer had placed the decks in the shoe and was rapidly sliding cards to the players. He dealt the eighth card faceup to himself, a 3, slid each player a second card, and then eased his downcard under the 3.

The dealer pointed to the first player, who scratched the table for a hit. A 5 came off the deck.

The next player slid his cards under his chips.

The third player lifted his cards for a peek. Curly saw an 8 and a 7 – 15. Not much of a start, but basic strategy indicated standing against a 3, and not enough cards had been exposed for a counter to go against that wisdom. Evidently the player was not following any strategy published by well-known blackjack authorities, because he was scratching for a hit. A 6 came, giving him an unbeatable 21.

The woman leaned over the table and grabbed her cards, affording the dealer a view that he probably could have done without. He looked into her eyes. Curly saw her cards, K-8. She slid them under the chip. Enough of her remained in the purported aisle to prevent Curly's further advance, which was just fine. He wanted to see how this came out.

The other players had their cards beneath their bets. The dealer pointed at each in turn, just to make sure, but no minds were changed.

The dealer turned up his hole card, an 8. Powerful start. Could that have been why the fellow had not stood on 15? But how could he have seen the hole card, when the dealer hadn't looked at it? Curly didn't think the cards were marked. He had seen no flash, no edge work, and nothing that looked like a daub. Even though he was not familiar with every form of juice, marked cards were just too risky in a multiple-deck blackjack game. And the dealer had dealt carefully, not exposing his hole card.

The dealer gave himself a 9 – 20. He started turning up the players' hands.

The first player had hit 8, and stopped on 13. The dealer took his $10 bet along with the two cards.

The next player had two queens. The dealer patted the table twice lightly with the back of his right hand, indicating a push.

He turned up the next player's hole cards, the stiffs that had become 21, grabbed a stack of black chips, measured off next to the five chips, cut them off at five, separated the original bet into two stacks of two with the odd chip resting on top, and returned the extra black chips in his hand to the rack. Exactly according to procedure, noted Curly, so the eye-in-the-sky could clearly see the size of the bet and payoff. The dealer wouldn't dare cap the bet – too easy to get caught. No, that wasn't the scam. There was no funny business with chips. Was there a scam?

The woman had finally shoved herself into the chair, and was reaching into her monstrous purse for money as the dealer turned over her 18 and scooped up the red chip.

The next three players had totals of 14, 16, and 19. The dealer took their bets, and slid the handful of cards into the discard receptacle.

He wheeled his arm in an arc past each position, the standard signal that means get your bets out there. He saw that the woman had pushed a $20 bill in front of her circle. He frowned, grabbed four red chips, said, "Change $20" in a barely audible voice, and the bill disappeared into the drop slot. Curly knew the reason for the dealer's unhappiness. Twenty bucks wouldn't last long on this table. The woman would have to dig for more in a moment. Why couldn't she just buy $100 in chips and not force him to make change five times?

The players put their bets out. The woman left one chip in her circle.

The man to her right dragged the five chips he had won, and left the original $500.

The cards rapidly slid out – 9 for the dealer.

The dealer pointed at the first player, who scratched the table. The dealer slid him a 5, and the first player pushed his hole cards firmly beneath his stack of 10 or so red chips.

While that went on, the man with the big bet looked at his cards. By this time, Curly had pressed close to the table, next to the lady's husband, kicking his luggage out of the pedestrian path.

Fascinating – a blackjack for the $500 bet. The man turned up the hand, and the dealer immediately paid him $750.

The next player's cards were already beneath his chips.

The woman held her 10-3 combination for a moment of contemplation, then scratched the table for a hit. The dealer slid her a 3, which improved her situation not one bit, but she quickly shoved the cards beneath her chip. Some players never hit 16.

The next player took no cards.

The next player asked for a hit, and then turned up his bust hand.

The dealer turned up his hole card – a 6. He took a hit – king. Bust. The dealer paid the rest of the table.

The player who had just made a quick $1,250 put the chips in his pocket and got up, leaving a $5 toke at his place.

The dealer smiled. "Thank you, sir. Good luck."

The departing player had a face that looked like it would break if he smiled. He didn't put the theory to the test.

The other sartorial wonder eased into the empty spot, and Curly picked up his bags. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he knew what had happened. Pretty strong. If they were careful not to do it too often, they might get away with it forever.

Returning to San Francisco by plane was a matter of an hour and 19 minutes. Getting his luggage, waiting for the shuttle to long-term parking, and the drive home – complicated by a chemical spill that closed two lanes of Bayshore and had traffic backed up from Redwood City to maybe somewhere in Oregon – took longer.

Curly enjoyed the ride. He heard his favorite piece on KDFC, Liszt's Les Preludes. Fog threatened to boil over the hills on the other side of Crystal Springs, a welcome change from the 113 degrees he'd left in Las Vegas.

A few months after his return from Vegas, Curly checked out a small joint near the airport.

Surprise! Had that blackjack dealer been laid off, or maybe fired? There he was dealing no-limit lowball, and what a coincidence! Who should be playing in this dealer's game but the "lucky" blackjack player who had seemed to know what cards were coming off the deck. It looked like a big game, too. The smallest stack was more than $1,000, and most of the players had many times that. There were three blinds. The game had probably started out $20-$20-$40, $80 to go, but by now the dealer was putting up an $80 blind, making the minimum bet $160. It was likely they were playing that perpetual "one round from home." There was a seat open, too.

Curly approached the floorman, someone he'd played cards with at The Club, his favorite joint, farther on down south on the Peninsula. "Put down three for me in the big one." He counted 30 bills into the man's hand, and went out to the bar for an OJ.

At the table, he sat behind the neat stacks of hundreds and twenties, two positions to the dealer's right. "Gentlemen."

A couple of the players knew him. "Hello, Curly." "Win anything in Vegas?"

"Few bucks."

The deal position was just to Curly's left. He could either wait six hands until the blind got to him, or get a hand now by overblinding. The player just to the left of the dealer put a $20 chip in the pot, and the player to his left put in two chips. They were the middle blind and the big blind, respectively. Now that this had become a dealer kill game, the player in the deal position put in $80. To get a hand now, Curly would have to put up a $160 blind. The minimum bet in Northern California lowball being twice the size of the largest blind, for this hand the minimum bet would be $320.

Curly saw that the house dealer wore a name tag consisting of a generic flat white plastic plate pinned to his shirt with his name on it in embossed blue tape – Jerry.

The first player to the left of the big blind dumped his cards.

Ernie, in the next spot, threw in three $100 chips and a $20 chip.

Two players folded. Since Curly had decided to kill this pot, the action temporarily skipped him and went to the middle blind. (Before the draw, blinds come in size order, not position.) The middle blind folded, as did the big blind. The dealer's attention seemed elsewhere, so Jerry, the house dealer, gently reminded him it was his turn. "It's on you, Smiley."

Was that a nickname, or a joking reference to the hit-and-run blackjack player's morose expression? "Smiley" hastily picked up his cards, glanced at them briefly, noted that the pot had already been opened, and threw his hand away.

Now the action reverted to Curly, who was pleased to discover that he had a pat hand. Often when you kill the pot to get dealt in, you get garbage, or just enough to get sucked in. What often happens is that you play a hand at twice the stakes that you wouldn't play at the ordinary level. Curly's hand was a pat 8-6. "Raise." Curly put eight black chips in the pot.

Ernie called. "Gimme one."

Jerry looked questioningly at Curly.

"No cards."

Jerry left the deck flat on the table in front of him. He burned a card, by allowing the friction of his fingertips to slide it off the deck, then carefully slid the next card off the deck to Ernie.

Curly bet $800.

Ernie folded.

It was a typical pot for this size game.

The next hand, Frenchy, the loosest player at the table, opened for the minimum, which had now reverted to $160.

Curly had A-2-3-4-K, a powerful drawing hand. He raised $800, knowing that Frenchy liked the big pots.

Frenchy pulled two cards out of his hand and threw them facedown on the table. "Two for one?"

The reader who is not familiar with no-limit lowball must at this point be introduced to the concept of propositions.

(Curly drummed his fingers on the table. C'mon, man, just tell the story.)

(This'll only take a moment. It wouldn't read very well if I had you going on about propositions, and the story won't make a lot of sense to many of the readers without the explanation.)

(OK, OK, but make it snappy. We haven't even got to the pivotal scene yet.)

The term proposition has special meaning in a no-limit lowball game. One player offers to play another player under certain conditions, usually more favorable to one player, in exchange for calling a bet or raise. The offerer usually takes the worst of it, while trying to get a certain concession from the other. A common proposition is two for one. A player opens the pot; someone raises. The presumption often is that the raiser would normally stand pat if the opener draws two cards. The opener, who wishes to gamble, in effect says, "I will call your raise and take considerably the worst of this situation by drawing two cards if you will promise to draw one card." The person being offered the proposition can turn it down, in which case the offerer usually folds, and the raiser wins the small amount that the opener originally wagered, or he can agree and take a chance on a much larger pot. If the raiser likes to gamble, particularly when the odds favor him, he might even break a pat hand to accept a proposition. The pot can become considerably larger than what is in it after the opener calls the raise, because the betting after the draw is often spirited. For example, if the two-card draw passes, and the one-card draw pairs, he almost always tries to win the pot on a bluff.

Although most clubs do not hold players to such an agreement, it is considered poor form to either offer or accept a proposition and then not follow through on its terms. A player who reneges will be thought of as an unsporting fellow, and get little action thereafter.

(There. Short enough?)

(Just get on with it.)

Curly pulled the king out of his hand and threw it on the discards. "You're on."

Frenchy matched the bet, including the three blinds; the pot now contained $2,060.

Frenchy pushed his two discards into the muck, and Jerry slid him two replacements. He slid a card to Curly, and then, while they looked at their cards, counted the stub. This was standard practice at the end of each deal, to make sure that no one was holding out any cards. He counted them quickly by groups. Five, four – just right, nine cards left. The burn card plus the three drawn made 13, plus the 40 dealt to eight players added up to 53 (including the joker).

Frenchy tapped his cards on the table, signifying he was passing after the draw. He looked Curly in the eye somewhat belligerently.

He couldn't have a 7 or better, by the rules. Because he was an action player, he almost certainly would have bet an 8 or 9, but that look of confrontation – he wanted to call.

Curly looked for the first time at the card he had drawn – a jack. Well, Frenchy would have him beat with only a 10. He would probably call with any jack or queen, and maybe even a king or small pair – far more hands worse than a 10 than precisely a 10, so even though a jack wasn't much of a hand, the odds favored a bet from Curly. "All the way." Curly pushed his stack toward the pot for the dealer to count – close to $3,000. Frenchy had about $2,500 left. The bet was about right for the size of the pot.

Frenchy pushed his chips in, a mixed pile of hundreds, twenties, and nickels. Jerry counted it down. "Twenty-four fifty." He matched it with an equal amount from Curly's chips, and pushed the remainder back to Curly.

Curly turned his cards faceup. "Slick jack."

Frenchy smiled. "Thought I had you. I made a J-7. Nice play. Chips!"

The houseman came over. The house dealer in the big game did not have enough chips in his rack to sell chips to the players. Those chips were used mainly to make change when time was collected.

Curly's stack had now grown to more than $7,500.

On Smiley's deal, The Reverend opened the pot. When The Reverend opened, smart players did not get in with anything less than the nuts. Curly had nothing, and folded.

The bet temporarily skipped Smiley, because he had the largest blind, making him last to act before the draw.

The middle and the big blinds folded.

Smiley called the bet, adding four $20 chips to the pot.

The Reverend stood pat, as did Smiley. Normally, a pat hand raised before the draw, but against The Reverend, everyone played it cagey. Players had been known to drop pat sevens against his raise.

The drawing over, Jerry counted the stub. Five, five, two.

The Reverend bet $160, his standard bet. In fact, that sort of underbetting – betting the minimum after the draw on any hand – was known in this club as "a Reverend bet."

Smiley called. He undoubtedly had a slick 8 with which he wanted to get only minimally involved in this pot, not wishing to risk any more of his $8,000 in chips than necessary against The Reverend.

The Reverend started to turn over his pat 6-4, but before he could even get it on the table, Smiley gently took the cards from his hands, set his own cards on top of them, and pushed the 10 cards to the dealer. That was a somewhat unorthodox, but effective, means of conceding the pot.

No one wished to embarrass Smiley by asking to see his hand, so the dealer scooped up the cards, casually setting the 10 cards atop another hand. Anyway, the other players all reasoned, just as Curly had, that Smiley had had a good 8.

While Smiley had been combining the two hands, Curly had quickly stored a mental picture of all the cards he could see. He had a feeling he would be able to use that information later. From front to back, he had seen the 4, 6, A, 2, 3, and one card from Smiley's hand, the 6.

Jerry shuffled several times, each time carrying a slug of 15 or so cards – no surprise. Curly had seen the same move a few months ago in Vegas. Jerry cut the cards, about three-fourths of the deck.

This confirmed for Curly the scam he had seen in the blackjack game. There, Smiley had memorized the sequence of the 12 cards that constituted the slug that Jerry carried through the shuffle. Those cards had, of course, been among the last cards dealt prior to the shuffle. By placing the cut card such that the bottom 26 cards came first out of the shoe, he would know what cards were coming as soon as the first player to take a hit brought forth one of the cards in his memorized sequence. No wonder he had hit his 15 against the dealer's 3 showing. He must have known that the next card off the deck was a 6. And he had left the table-maximum bet out, knowing that he would get a blackjack on the next hand. If the cards coming were bad, he likely would have played only the one hand. Sometimes the first card off the shoe would already be into the memorized slug, and then, by counting backward, he would also know what the dealer's hole card was. Pretty strong, even for just two rounds, knowing what the dealer's hole card was, and what was coming. It was good for a thousand or so, once or twice a day, particularly since he never played long enough to bring any heat. Of course, he couldn't always be the one to cut the cards. When he didn't cut, if the cards were not cut near the bottom, he probably didn't place a big bet until he saw the start of his slug, or maybe he just made one small bet and got up.

How would it work in poker?

Everyone folded up to Curly, who had a one-card draw to a 6-5, specifically, 6 5 4 2 K. He opened.

Smiley raised $320. He pushed the chips into the pot with the hand that held his cards. Curly could see the 4 in the door position. So, remembering the sequence, Curly knew that the burn card would be the 6, and the next four cards off the deck would be the A, 2, 3, and 6. Curly would make his hand when he drew.

Smiley hadn't set this up just for $480 apiece before the draw. No, this would be the killer pot. One or two right spots a night and, just like in blackjack, Smiley and Jerry would split a bundle.

"I'll gamble with you. A thousand more."

Smiley now pulled two cards from his hand. "Two for one?" Curly had gone for it before; he probably would now.

"Sure, for all of them." This was a counterproposition. That is, Curly would indeed go for the original proposition if Smiley called not just the $1,000, but all the rest of Curly's chips.

"OK. Count 'em, dealer."

Yeah, sure OK. Curly would get the ace, and the 2-3 would give Smiley, who could never be accused of anything more than getting lucky, a wheel. Jerry would be very careful to slide the cards off the deck just the way he had done all along – no seconds, no funny stuff. The scam would work because Smiley knew ahead of time what was coming. He just didn't know that Curly also knew. Of course, Smiley hadn't counted on Curly reraising when offered the two-for-one proposition; he had planned on playing for the rest of the chips after the draw. But, if anything, this was better, since all the chips were in before, and Curly would have no chance to smell a rat.

Jerry counted Curly's entire stack. It came to $7,490. He counted the same amount out of Smiley's chips.

Even though he knew how many cards the players wanted, the proper procedure was to wait until they announced their draws.

"Guess if I go for two-for-one, it's also OK to go for more than one. Gimme three," said Curly. Since the point of a proposition was for the accepter to have the best of it, he was well within the spirit of the gamble to take the worst of it. Curly discarded the 6, 2, and the K. Jerry burned a card, and slid three to him.

Since the expression on Smiley's face was already permanently pained, it would not be correct to say that he now frowned. He did, however, do something that increased the number of lines on his mug. He dumped two cards and received two replacements, one of which Curly knew was the 6.

Curly picked up his three cards – A, 2, 3 – which went very well with the 5 and 4 he had kept. He beamed as he turned his wheel over.

Was the right guy named Smiley?