Read Online Where the Rain Gets In by Adrian White - Free Book Online

out.”
    “How accurate are you?” asked Mike.
    “I was confident about the card being in
the bottom third, the rest was an educated guess.”
    “Educated?”
    “Yes, because I think I took into
account all the relevant factors.”
    “And you were counting the cards?”
    “No,” said Eugene, “I was simply
observing and remembering. I wanted to show you what could be achieved through
trained observation.”
    “So what about counting the cards?”
asked Mike. “How could watching the shuffle be of any use in a casino?”
    “It couldn’t – not unless you were very
accomplished. If they saw you concentrating on the cards to that extent, they’d
ask you to leave.”
    Mike waited for Eugene to continue, but
Eugene said nothing.
    “So?” asked Mike. “Are you going to tell
us about the card counting trick – the card counting thing?”
    “It’s possible to observe which cards
are laid down in a game of cards,” said Eugene. “It’s easier than tracing the
shuffle of a deck. In a casino, the cards that have been laid down once cannot
be laid down again until the dealer reaches the end of the deck; this tells us
which cards are still there to be dealt.”
    “But they use up to six decks in the
shoe at a time,” said Mike.
    “The same principles apply,” said
Eugene. “I’m not saying it’s easy, I’m just saying it can be done.”
    “The shoe?” asked Katie.
    “The box from which the dealer gives out
the cards,” explained Mike. “Once the cards are shuffled, the shoe dispenses a
card at a time; it prevents any sleight of hand by the dealer.”
    “But what advantage could you hope to
gain?” asked Katie. She looked first to Eugene and then to Mike.
    “There is a way,” said Mike. “In blackjack
– or pontoon, as you might know it – or twenty-one, the advantage is with the
player if there’s a run of high cards. The house will always pay out over a
certain number, say seventeen, and the dealer will never choose to go higher,
for fear of going bust. You’re likely to be dealt a better hand if the cards in
the deck are higher, while the dealer is more likely go bust. But Eugene,” he
said, “you’d have to be concentrating like fuck to remember all the cards that
are laid down, and to think about your own game at the same time.”
    “It’s not essential to remember each
individual card,” said Eugene. “Experienced card counters all have a system –
generally a plus or a minus value for all the low cards that have been dealt.”
    “So you keep track of a running score?”
asked Mike.
    “And your running score counts for more
the further into the deck you go,” said Eugene.
    “Again?” said Mike.
    “Just as Katie’s chances improved after
picking up that first card. If lots of low cards have come out the deck, there
are lots of high cards still there to be dealt. But because there are fewer
cards left in the deck, the odds are even better that you’ll be dealt a high
card. And that the dealer will go bust if he takes a third card.”
    This was all beyond Katie.
    “You’re still talking odds,” she said.
“It’s still a game of chance.”
    “Yes,” said Eugene, “but you’ve used
your intelligence to make an educated guess.”
    “And you’d put your money on that?”
    “I wouldn’t,” said Eugene. He sneaked a
glance at Katie. “But I think Mike would.”
     
    Apart from Katie’s vodka and orange once
a week in the White Horse, her only other outlet from study was the gym. The
facilities were basic, primitive even by the standards of the late seventies,
and the whole gym experience was different back then. This was not a hip place
for beautiful young bodies to hang out and show off their tans; the gym was the
preserve of sportsmen hoping to regain their strength after injury, and just a
few serious body builders – the gym was not a glam place to be seen by your
friends. Katie had come across weight machines while she was still in care; it
was encouraged as a