Price of Comp Munchies
and Kitchen Etiquette
21 February 2005
By Mark Pilarski
Dear Mark,
You column last week was very interesting
regarding RFID chips tracking your play. I'm
with you, I too prefer playing anonymously,
though working over the pit boss for an
occasional buffet pass (I'm a low limit player,
and that's usually the best I can do) is always
my goal. You stated; "These days, the monitoring
of your play at the table games is done via an
educated guess from a pit boss, but his/her
guesstimate is not always reliable". So, exactly
how do they determine your worth to them as a
player? Harold F.
Monitoring play, Harold, produces only an
educated guess because a single pit boss can't
hawk every player on every game. I was too busy
monitoring other games, changing decks and dice,
cleaning up spilled drinks on the roulette
table, filling out football parlay cards and
squinting to watch ESPN SportsCenter on the bar
TV. That's why I needed my nifty little math
formula to figure out what you're worth to the
casino in the form of comps.
To acquire these goodies, a reward system for
worthy play, you have to bet a decent chunk of
change for a calculated duration to justify the
casino's giving you a trip to the chow line. The
mathematical formula I used considers your
average bet, how many hours you play, speed of
the game, and the casino advantage. This, in
theory, computes essentially your expected loss
to the casino over the period of time you play.
So, Harold, let's get specific. Suppose you are
betting $20 a hand for three hours, averaging
100 hands per hour, coupled with a house
advantage of five percent the casino holds over
the average blackjack player, the casino can
predict in advance that you should lose $300
($20 X 3 hrs. X 100 hands X .05 = $300) of the
$6,000 wagered over that time period.
Losing $300 bucks should certainly get you a
trip to the buffet, so long as you ask to be
rated. Regrettably, most players don't ask;
consequently, a free feeding frenzy is not in
their offing.
Dear Mark,
During our basement games, I am attempting to
get all the players on the same page as far as
stacking your chips. I say you should not be
able to conceal your chips by hiding $1000 in a
$25 stack or something of that nature. Can you
please explain if there are certain criteria to
stacking your chips that all poker players
should follow? Nothing is
worse than when you think you put someone all
in, and suddenly they are pulling out thousands
and end up having more chips than you. Andrew R.
Players involved in rat-holing, taking money off
the table or hiding chips, make the whole
activity of playing poker a lot less pleasurable
for everyone else. And although many of the
kitchen table or basement games don't have
specific rules against it, camouflaging chips is
still poor poker etiquette.
Luckily, Andrew, most card rooms enforce the
rule that all chips must be in sight. All
players are entitled to a clear view of their
opponents' chips, with the higher denominations
made easily observable, usually by putting your
larger chips in the front of your stacks so all
players can know how much you have.
Gambling quote of the week: Going to the
bathroom during a poker or dice game is a
mistake. You might miss a hot hand worth a
hundred thousand, and nothing in the bathroom is
worth that much. Nick "The Greek" Dandalos,
quoted in Cy Rice, Nick the Greek, King of
Gamblers (1969)
|
