How did you get started on table games?

How do you deal with being squeezed in with several other strangers putting up with their body odor or them being loud and obnoxious or drunk and their excessive smoking especially stinky cigars?

Originally Posted by mdee

How do you deal with being squeezed in with several other strangers putting up with their body odor or them being loud and obnoxious or drunk and their excessive smoking especially stinky cigars?

The same way I deal with it in every day life. I don't sweat the small stuff..........and it's all small stuff ;-)

Originally Posted by mdee

How do you deal with being squeezed in with several other strangers putting up with their body odor or them being loud and obnoxious or drunk and their excessive smoking especially stinky cigars?

It's easy when you are the loud, obnoxious and drunk one!

Originally Posted by mdee

How do you deal with being squeezed in with several other strangers putting up with their body odor or them being loud and obnoxious or drunk and their excessive smoking especially stinky cigars?

You say that like it's a bad thing!

-SilverStreak

To answer the question in your title: How did I get started on table games?

I wanted a game where some skill and decision making could affect the outcome, not just pure chance. Poker and BJ are the only two that really qualify. I’ve never been very good with poker, so BJ it is.

As for the rest of it, I’ve come to consider it under the heading of “Inherent Hazards.” I smoke, so that’s no bother. I count cards and to help hide that from the house I tend to play it up kind of loud and obnoxious: I go very “touristy”. So that’s no problem (if I’m one of them, I can’t complain much). As for drunk and body odor, if a drunk spills enough booze on himself you don’t smell the body, so again not much problem.

It sort of all balances out in the long run. Like SilverStreak said, “You say it like it’s a bad thing.” To me, it’s all part of the game. Sure I would rather play alone against the dealer, but that’s not a very realistic goal most of the time.

You get used to it. I can’t figure out how slot players can tolerate the mind-numbing boredom of their game. We each have our preferences. Variety is the spice of life, yes?

Originally Posted by mdee

How do you deal with being squeezed in with several other strangers putting up with their body odor or them being loud and obnoxious or drunk and their excessive smoking especially stinky cigars?

Haven't really encountered that.

I have to say that this post totally made me laugh.

Body odor, stink, etc, is all an accepted part of gambling in Vegas. You do find howeve, that at the highter end places, the body odors are covered with more expensive perfumes or cologne, or higher end cigars.

You can always move to another table, but I have found that the stinky obnoxious drunk people are the ones I have the most fun with at the tables. For quiet, nice smelling table action time, I suppose some poker or 21 at home would work

As for mind numbing boredome of slots, I have to agree, but that is the reason I like them. For many years, I had a highly stressful situation at home, so one of the ways I could decompress and pull myself back together to calmly deal with it, was several days in Vegs, just totally vegging at a machine, cocktail in one hand, and cigarette in another. Now that the homefront is much more stable and calm, I find that slots don't interest me nearly the same and I do get bored on them after a short while. Now I would much rather sit at a bar, talking with the bartenders and people around the bar and play VP than sit for hours by myself playing slots. I can play craps and have fun, but more than an hour or so at BJ makes me squirm and I just have to move around.

Im not going to comment on the BO because I think with age I lost my sense of smell... I might be the one smelling up the place but I use extra deodorant these days and an extra shpritz of cologne to cover anything up that Im not aware of.

I dont smoke, and can't stand the smokers.

But to the original question:

years ago I played slots, only slots. and my sister and her husband dragged me from the slots one day over to the craps table at Caesars. this is when Caesars had $5 craps. we were the first to show up at the table. one other table was open and it was in use.

they gave me the dice first. I started with $5 on the passline. about 25 minutes later I had won about $35 and the table was full and everybody was making hundreds of dollars. so I asked -- "why is everybody making so much money?" and I was told because they were betting "the numbers" and "placing odds" and dummy me... I still had $5 on the passline.

so, I started betting the numbers and placing odds, and another 22 minutes later I was up $655.

thats how I got started on craps... that's how I got hooked... my next story will be how Ive lost more than 200-thousand playing the game since that very first time. LOL

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

I dont smoke, and can't stand the smokers.

But to the original question:

years ago I played slots, only slots. and my sister and her husband dragged me from the slots one day over to the craps table at Caesars. this is when Caesars had $5 craps. we were the first to show up at the table. one other table was open and it was in use.

they gave me the dice first. I started with $5 on the passline. about 25 minutes later I had won about $35 and the table was full and everybody was making hundreds of dollars. so I asked -- "why is everybody making so much money?" and I was told because they were betting "the numbers" and "placing odds" and dummy me... I still had $5 on the passline.

so, I started betting the numbers and placing odds, and another 22 minutes later I was up $655.

thats how I got started on craps... that's how I got hooked... my next story will be how Ive lost more than 200-thousand playing the game since that very first time. LOL

Now that's what I'm talking about! Great post! Oh and sometimes cologne can be worst that cigarettes...

If you can't tell who the loud, obnoxious one is at the table...it's you.

Seriously, I long for the loud, obnoxious tables. A group of "serious" BJ players is a bore to me.

Back in the early eighties I went to Atlantic City with my mom and grandmother. We went on one of those casino bus trips where for $10 they would drive you down, let you off at the old Ceasars with a $10 roll of quarters and a voucher for a free buffet and told you to have fun for 4 or 5 hours or so. I dropped the quarters quickly in the slots with nothing to show for it. I thought that was pretty boring. I went to a blackjack table knowing next to nothing and proceeded to royally piss off the people at the table because I kept "taking their cards". So I got up and heard the cheers at a rowdy craps table nearby.

I went over and just watched for a while. When they opened up a new $5 table next to the rowdy one so I went and started slow...pass line....field bet. Then I learned to play the numbers - confused as hell as to why I needed to bet $6 on the six and 8 at a five dollar table. I was hooked. I learned to ignore what everyone else was doing and just pay attention to your own bets. There was an older guy was next to me. After I had a pretty good roll lasting almost 10 minutes he said "son, you are pretty lucky, you have to learn to press your bets". So I started my now standard strategy of pressing up a unit after the second win on a number. Over the years, I learned the language by listening - 44 inside; five dollar yo; Horn high aces. I learned to play come bets and hearing my favorite phrase - "off and on for 20". A few years later I was at a table in the Bahamas and an older guy taught me to play the dark side. I still don't do it often, but I have learned to understand it. I learned the courtesies and superstitions - sometimes the hard way. And i learned how and when and why to tip. But what I learned, I learned from doing and from talking and listening to the players and dealers.

Leave and find another table..UNLESS the table is HOT. Then i stay.