Streaks happen

18 September 2014

By John Grochowski

Streaks happen. You don’t know when they’re coming, and you don’t know when they’re going to end. They can be good, bad or indifferent for your bankroll. But streaks are a part of normal probability.

From time to time, I hear from players who have been on unusual streaks. Here are a few of their stories.

Daniel: My brother told me that baccarat was the ultimate game for betting the streaks, and if I ever played that’s what I should do. His strategy was to wait until either banker or player won two hands in a row, then jump on that side and keep betting it until it lost.

I decided to try. I was at a mini-bac table, betting $10 a hand. It was all choppy, not a lot of two-win streaks, and when there were two in a row, the other side always won the next one. My chip stack was getting smaller and smaller.

I’d lost $120 and wasn’t going to stay much longer. Finally, player won two in a row, and I jumped in. This time player won again, then it won a fourth, and a fifth. It wound up with eight wins in a row, and I was there for six of them.

From there, I changed my brother’s system, and started betting whichever hand won the last one. I got lucky. There was a series of mini-streaks, three on one side, four on the other. When I found myself ahead, by $100, that was enough. Betting the streaks was fun, but truth be told, I like shooting dice better.

Yolanda: I thought I was never going to win a (blackjack) hand last night. I wasn’t losing either. There was this weird push streak.

My first hand, I got a blackjack. I figured, “Yay! That’s the way to start,” but the dealer had a blackjack, too. Then I got two faces for 20, and the dealer had a 6. She had a 10 down, so it was looking good, but then she drew a 4, and it was push again.

The dealer was sympathetic. "I’m sorry, honey. That’s a tough way to start. You want to win both of those."

Then I had a 5 and a 4, drew a 3, then another 5. I had 17, and the dealer had a 10 up. I figured the streak was ending, and not in a good way. But she had 7 down. We pushed again. I laughed and told her, “I’ll take that one.”

On the next one, it was like a dealer hand where you keep stringing out all those little ones and they finally add up to 21, only it was on my side. The problem was, she got 21 too, with a 9 up, 6 down and then another 6.

I said, “I can’t believe this streak! Four hands, and they’re all pushes.” The dude at third base said, “Count your blessing. Breaking even is winning as far as I’m concerned.” We all laughed.

You know how the streak ended? I had a 16 and she had a 10 up, so I hit, and I got another 10. The third baseman was right. I should have kept pushing.


Doug: I play a betting progression at blackjack, and as long as I’m winning, I keep betting up.

The way I do it is to start at $10. If I win two in a row, I take it up to 20. Two more in a row, I take it to $40, then to $60, $80 and so on.

One day my wife came over and saw me betting $100. I thought she was going to have a cow. “What are you doing, betting $100?” But I showed her all the chips in front of me. One of the $40 wins was a double down, and one of the $60 wins was a blackjack. So I was ahead $490 and had a winning streak of 10 hands in a row!

Well, while she was watching, I got a pair of 8s, and the dealer had a 6. I had to split that pair. I got a 3 on one 8, and another 8 on the other. So I doubled on the 11, and got an 8 for 18. On the other two 8s, I got a 10 for an 18, then got a 5 and a 4 for 17. I’m a little nervous, with $400 of my $490 profit back in action.

The dealer wound up with 18, so he dealer beat my 17, and that ended the streak We pushed on the 18, and but I won double on the 19. So I won $100 for the hand, and was up $590.

My wife called an end to it. “Let’s go, high roller. We can find something else to do with that money.”


Look for John Grochowski at www.casinoanswerman.com, on Facebook (http://tinyurl.com/7lzdt44) and Twitter (@GrochowskiJ).