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“Keep the dealers and pit bosses ignorant of your ability and they will be happy.”
Stanford Wong, Blackjack Secrets
As I’d expected, not more than two weeks later we were headed back to Vegas. We were on pace for about twenty casino trips for the year. Our energy remained high, but the toll it started taking on me physically began to creep into other areas of my life. Aside from work, I had little time for friends, family, or myself. In between trips I was growing lethargic. Nothing seemed to compete with the highs of my underground career and I yearned for our next trip. Daily life back home seemed mundane and boring. I focused mainly on work, with little time for anything else. At times, I struggled with the guilt of my newfound solitude, but rationalized my focus on blackjack as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. In time, I reasoned, my life would return to normal, but for now my other priorities were put on hold.
I called Brooke a few days ahead of our trip. We arranged to meet on Saturday for her to show off her art gallery and then have lunch together. I waited near the taxi stand outside of MGM and for the first time in a long time, I was nervous in Vegas. I’d been on plenty of dates before, but never with a casino executive trained to sniff out card counters like me. The suits we encountered were just obstacles.
I couldn’t process whether Brooke was a casino executive that I was using to gain an edge or whether my interest in her was genuine. I convinced myself I was on the job, in character, and that I had work to do, which was to befriend someone on the inside.
When her car rolled up and she got out to greet me with a smile and a hug, deep down I sensed the impending conflict with which I would have to contend. She wasn’t wearing a suit and she wasn’t keeping an eye on a blackjack pit. She seemed unreserved and full of life, quite different from the person I’d met at the tables. Then again, I wasn’t truly the person she first met either. My goal was to continue the charade of a high-rolling gambler who frequented Vegas several times per year with money to blow. Author Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote “Everyone has three lives: a public life, a private life, and a secret life.” I’d seen Brooke at work and now she was showing me another side. I was open to reciprocating, in part, but had no intention of revealing my secret life.
We arrived at her gallery, which was about 15 minutes off the Strip. I was amazed by her work. Abstract mixtures of colored acrylics were exhibited throughout the large room. The patterns and textures jumped off the canvasses. Her casino role was just a job, but her life’s work was the art she made in her free time. Her talent took me by surprise and I lauded her work. She talked about her apathy when it came to others liking or disliking her art. She said she found it insulting to hear buyers expressing that a piece would match nicely with their living room furniture or their foyer rug. She painted for herself and her art spoke to her. If anyone wanted to buy her work, she wanted it to be because it spoke to them, as well.
“This one. I love it. I want this one. How much is it?”
I pulled a $5,000 wad out of my pocket and suddenly felt a wave of anxiety come over me. Brooke believed that I was a high roller when, in reality, I was just a young professional of fairly average means. I braced for the impact of her potentially inflated price.
“I don’t know … a few hundred dollars?” she offered.
She was an artist and not a salesperson. That was OK with me and I appreciated the sincerity in which she approached her craft. It was authentic and I genuinely wanted to acquire the piece. I counted out $500 and handed it to her.
“That should cover shipping.”
“Sure does. Thanks. Can I treat you to lunch?”
As a casino executive, she didn’t feel comfortable too close to the Strip, so we made our way southeast of Vegas to the suburb of Henderson and the green Valley ranch casino. It was a large complex with adjacent shops and restaurants. Neither of us was very hungry yet, so I offered a suggestion as we walked through the front entrance.
“How about we play a little blackjack first?”
“Okay, sure,” she said obligingly as I opened and held one of the doors for her. Perhaps it was a little rude of me. She spent her work hours on the floor of a casino, with the incessant noise of slot machines and obnoxious patrons like my character she’d met just a few weeks earlier.
“Actually, we don’t have to. I know you’re probably sick of being around table games,” I said.
“No worries, Nathaniel. You’re my guest here in Vegas. Whatever you want, you got it. Just don’t expect me to count the cards for you.”
I was taken aback by her comment and wasn’t sure how to respond. I wondered if she knew I was an advantage player. Amid my anxiety and confusion, I tried my best to process the comment. I concluded that it was simply false bravado. If she knew I was a pro to begin with, she wouldn’t have subjected herself to the judgment of an expert unless she was one herself. Not to mention that she likely wouldn’t have crossed the line by giving me her number in the first place.
“Do you really know how to count cards?” I asked as surprised as I could sound without being too overzealous.
“Yeah, it’s just one of those things you just pick up as a pit boss.”
It was then that I knew she couldn’t count. I thought back through my journey, from attending Semyon’s seminar to the intensity of passing Mike’s checkout. It wasn’t a skill that could be “picked up,” but I didn’t care. Aside from her small white lie, I’d appreciated her hospitality. I could see in our short time together that she no longer thought of me as a high roller. She thought of me as a friend or possibly something more. I started to feel the same. The nerves I had came from who she was as a person, not the role she had at work.
Regardless, most casino patrons extend too much credibility to pit personnel’s expertise. The fact of the matter is that most dealers and floor people are underpaid and many wear inferiority complexes on their sleeves. In The Card Counters Guide to Casino Surveillance, Cellini characterizes the idea that floor people are well-versed in game protection as being “the biggest myth of all.” Cellini writes, “The floorperson is required to wear a suit in order to look more important than he is. The job is really that of a low-level clerk. The steely-eyed glares and the extra attention given to you and your play or the table you’re playing on are usually dead giveaways that this floorperson has no clue as to what he’s doing. There are a few who know that when small cards come out of the shoe, counters raise their bets, but that’s about all they know.”
Although Brooke seemed intelligent and was an attractive and a talented artist, I assumed that a part of her wanted to establish her ground with me. She most likely couldn’t count cards and that was fine with me. Our time together was a refreshing change. My life had come to consist of financial planning, traveling, and blackjack. I hadn’t had much time to date, so I valued the time I spent with Brooke.
“That’s so cool. I always wished I could count cards, but as you can probably tell, I ain’t no genius,” I mocked.
She laughed as we made our way onto the casino floor.
“This way,” she said as she took my hand in hers.
We played for about an hour and she “instructed” me on how to bet more when we were on a winning streak or how “the book” says to always take even money on a blackjack when the dealer shows an ace. Mathematically, I knew she was wrong on both concepts. The mistakes she was suggesting were common errors that I heard at tables every day. Players had hunches, systems, and beliefs, but few of them were founded on logic. They were gamblers and there was no “book.” There were correct decisions and then there were decisions that cost players money.
I feigned ignorance and made the plays that I knew were correct, which meant that I sometimes shunned her advice and rationalized it as “another stupid play that I can’t help myself with.” I was excited to be with Brooke. The flirtation was reciprocal, but I had difficulty playing by her rules. Fortunately, I colored up with a win that was enough to not only pay for the piece of art I’d just bought, but a few future purchases, as well. Brooke, on the other hand, dropped her $300 buy-in so I offered to pick up the lunch tab. It was the least I could do.
Our time went on longer than I’d expected. We spoke at length about our professional and personal lives. It was interesting to learn that she was originally from New England, about an hour south of Boston and in an area that we passed through every time D.A. and I hit the casinos in Connecticut. Our families were similar and we both had some wounds to share with each other over a few glasses of wine. A connection was forming and I began to feel guilty about the deceitful way in which we first met. I figured that the only thing I was dishonest about was my blackjack abilities. I was giving her a true glimpse into who I was and she generously reciprocated. The occasional moments of silence even felt comfortable, which was not the case with most of the women I met.
I enjoyed the soothing numbness from the pinot, good music, and the warm desert air that flowed freely through the car windows, as she drove me back to my hotel. It was a nice end to the late afternoon. As we pulled back in to the MGM drop-off area, Brooke lowered the volume on the radio and I thanked her for the time she spent with me. We both got out of the car and she gave me a long hug goodbye and a soft, lingering kiss.
“Do you want to come up?” I asked.
“Yeah, but my shift starts at eight and I have to get ready. When are you coming back?”
I doubted she still thought of me as the obnoxious gambler she’d met weeks earlier. We’d developed a connection that day and I had every intention of calling her on my subsequent trips. We finished our goodbye and I walked into the lobby of the MGM. It was a spacious reception area with a temporary boxing ring centerpiece that marketed that weekend’s big fight. The odor at MGM was calmingly familiar, a soapy aroma that had once made me feel nauseous but had grown on me over the past year. Instead of heading back to the room I decided to find D.A. and fill him in on my day. I knew he’d be enjoying his reprieve from blackjack by saddling up to a poker table toward the back of the casino near the sports book.
At that moment, I made up my mind to never again play blackjack while Brooke was working. I didn’t feel good about keeping my skills a secret from her, but anonymity was the key to our success. So any play at Wynn would be limited to times she wasn’t there. On the other hand, I was careful not to spend too much time with Brooke on our trips. D.A. and I were there to work and I was committed to our team and our new system, which was proving to be as successful as we’d hoped.
Brooke was the icing on the cake.