I've just dealt you three 5s.

Very creative card and chip sound effects there, Turtle! Blackjack is one of my fave games in the casinos, but I always remind myself it's not computer game blackjack! A tribute to blackjack21? I hope he gets to read this one! Oh well, you just won a hand at blackjack for $555!!

Man, if i had a dollar for every time someone wrote a theme song for me.....I'd have two bucks! ;-)

Good job of capturing the flavor of the game. (Drawing a Two is not usually a big help to the player, but is to the dealer.) I liked it very much, most enjoyable. And savvy? Yeah, that works. :-D

Only cards left in the deck are fives.

John Barry: Tthat leaves me in a bad spot, with the dealer showing an 8, but I'll take 'em anyway, cuz BJ's been reading the deck, so I'm sure to hit another five for a winner :) Thanks, John.

Christie Marie M: He did. :) Thanks for v/c (votes and chips)! BJ21, do I cash in Christie's chips, or let 'em ride?

blackjack21: Spit your songs and double down -- it's lookin' good! :)

Appreciate your explaining my line to the readers, so that I didn't have to (first hand not going your way, hitting a 2). .... Now, if the deck is all Fives, won't all future hands be a draw, at 20-20? (lol)... Glad ya liked yer theme -- and, of course, you pay a percentage of your winnings to your backers, right? :) :)

Typo Turtle strikes again (@#$% flippers!) "Split" your songs, of course.

If you won $555 on one hand of blackjack, you obviously had your max bet of $222 out there and hit a blackjack, which paid you 3:2 odds. Don't get greedy, stick with $222 until the count goes back to neutral. ;-)

Sometimes I spit my songs too. :-D

Deck is all Fives means your next hand would be 3 Fives, but you knew that. :-D (You would actually lose if the deck was all Fives because you would never hit your 15 against the dealer showing a Five.) :-(

LOL @ Typo Turtle!

Dealin's done, fine author!!! Hey TT, i used some of your skills for my 100th the other day: http://www.amiright.com/parody/80s/theproclaimers16.shtml

All hands on deck? All decks in hands? All-Texan bands? (I rather like that one...) ANYway... a "hand"some parody to equally handsome, if not more so, BJ21!

Stylish, nice imagery, well paced, tense. I'm not a player but I know a card when I see one. 555

Has a certain Turtle been in Nevada recently, perchance? Excellent subbing all the wat through, TT. 555

blackjack21: If it's a six-deck shoe, and the remaining 24 cards are all Fives, wouldn't I *have* to hit my 15, knowing that the dealer also has 15 and *must* draw, making 20? Hence the ties.... right? :D

Matk Scotti: Aw shucks, *very* kind of you to typo yer own nick just to make the clumsy turtle look not so bad :D ... sorry I missed your 100! Will check it out, def.... got some dealin' and collaboratin' to do, but it's on the "must-read" list -- bet on it! Thanks, Matk! or, uh, Mark!

Fiddlegirl: Sorry, leaves out the Beatles, Motown, and a lot of others.... but yay Lubbock! (three tribs by TT) ... thanks for v/c, Pardner! (tips Stetson, tipsy stepson, steps on t*ts....) .... security code 7FG -- lucky omen!

metaphorsbwithu: "card": LOL! Good one! :D thanks m4!

Polymath'iambico'stestickly'laudacious!

Nicely dealt to your readers. Maybe Neil could sing this version in Vegas.

Kristof Robertson: Sorry we cross-posted there, which is why your reply wasn't in the previous batch. This is a tribute to AIR's own writer, blackjack21, as per the link in the intro. Thanks for v/c, Kristof!

Playin' With A Fool Deck: Thankethsoverykindlyyouwhobesogracious!

Timmy1000: Oh, I so wish... I could use the royalties! Thanks, Timmy!

Aw. shucks, ma'am...thank ya kindly. ;-)

Only if you had Rain Man counting the cards for you, but theoretically you are correct.. But, if you *knew* they were all Fives you would get up and find another table. Why waste time when you know you're just going to push? You're there to make money! ;-)

Did you get a read of my Fiddlegirl trib last week? I'm sure you would have a comment or two. Check it out, if you dare. ;-)

(From several comments ago)

Yes, but there just isn't room for *everyone* inside my computer screen! [Just think how often it would need cleaning...] ;)

But all along, I thought *you* were Rain Man. I asked once about six-deck shoes, and thought you were counting them. Does *any* casino, at least in Vegas, deal from a single deck? For years now?

Sorry I missed your FG trib. It takes all of my spare time to satisfy her needs ... speaking of parody collaboration, of course! :D ... will go read it.

V/c'd your FG trib.

OK, think I 'splained it before, but I'll give the extended version, 'cause I love talking blackjack. ;-)

I DO count the 6-deck shoes and have also counted 8-deck shoes. It's quite possible to count an infinite number of decks because: I'm only tracking the ratio of high (10-A) cards to low (2-6) cards. Neutral (7-9) cards are not counted. I also have a side count of how many Aces have been played.

This is in addition to memorizing the 270 basic strategy plays and the 18 variations of basic strategy based on whether the true count is positive or negative. This is all my feeble brain can handle, and I don't always get it 100% right.

Working on it at home is easy, taking it live to Vegas with all the dick-stractions and free drinks is a monu-mental challenge. :-D

You can still get a single-deck game in Vegas, but it's hard to find one with decent rules, the killer being natural 21s only pay 6:5 or even money. Most of them also only deal out about half the deck before shuffling. Even a single-deck would be hard to *Rain Man* because it's basically 13 side counts at a fast pace.

But going back to our original scenario; all Fives left in the shoe. There is a simple count called the Ace-Five count that would espose this unlikely situation. This is a beginners count that only tracks the ratio of Aces to Fives, being that Aces are most favorable to the player and Fives are most favorable to the dealer. So IF they dealt out the whole shoe and IF there was exactly 24 cards left and IF you knew that and IF you had not counted any Fives to that point, then you would have only Fives left in the shoe. I have calculated the odds of that at about 555 bajillion to 1. =;-D

Sheesh! All that because I tried to use what I thought was a clever way of voting you three Fives for your parody, LOL!!! Rock on, Turtle dude. ;-)

Eek, a typo! And I don't even have flippers to deal with. ;-) I suppose I could have been trying to *espouse* it also, but the A-5 count would *expose* the unlikely situation. :-D

I wondered about that payout when you gave me 3:2 in Christie Marie's comment, after previously saying it was now 6:5.

Also wondered whether you did the full count (2s, 3,s, 4s, etc.) vs just high-low. Remembered some mention of the latter, as yeah, the full-count method would be tough into six or more decks, except for moi, of course, (Do you remember a comment at one of your songs a while back, from Rain Man? T'was moi :)

And I calculate the chances of the last 24 cards of six decks being all Fives at exactly 1 in 4.7075507423209413911013120151957 x 10^35. Well, almost exactly -- that's rounded to 31 places. :)

I cannot tell a lie -- I didn't do that in my head. I used the calculator built into Windoze. I'm not really Rain Man -- but not too bad with numbers, either. I used to do a party trick of writing down the first 75 decimals of pi, then reciting them aloud as peeps matched it against the sheet. A mind is a terrible thing to waste -- and a waste is a terrible thing to mind.

Refuse the free alcohol, drink caffeinated beverages or take a pseudoephedrine or whatever gets your juices flowing, and, uh, make sure all other needs are well taken care of (wink-nudge), so that the dick-stractions can be ignored -- or at least, be not quite so dick-stracting -- before sitting down to play.

Half of a single deck still seems a lot better for you than a six- or eight-deck shoe played to the end. At the very least, you could cut that to four side counts: 2-4, 5-7, 9/10, A (8 neutral), or however you would tweak that. But if they cut the payout, forget it.

I liked the voting method (kinda expected it, actually :) as well as the discussion, but if you wish, a simple 555 will suffice :D ... btw, did you ever get yer Rolex out of hock? And the Ferrari out of Customs? :D

Standard payout for all reputable shoe games is 3:2. The standard for single-deck games has pretty much become 6:5. You can find the 3:2 in some of the higher minimum games, usually $50-$100 min. bet per hand, too rich for my current bankroll.

I do a single level hi-lo count; all low cards are assigned the same value (+1) as well as high cards (-1) and neutral cards are zero. So if you see: 7-3-K-A-2-5-10-A-9-3-6-J-A-4-Q-8-A, your running count is (-2) and 3 Aces have been played.

Nice calculation, but much easier to say, “Ain’t gonna happen!” ;-D

Free drinks are my number one comp and I’ll not give them up! ;-)

Number of decks used is only a small part of a good game, rules and how many cards dealt out of those decks before shuffling being the most important factors.

Clever 555s are much more fun, but do require more work.

I had a Rolex? AND a Ferrari?!? Hmm, maybe I *do* need to give up those free drinks. :-D

There's a reason for those free drinks. You named it. Carry a flask and pour them in, to save for later. heh heh . :).... *One* drink impairs your reflexes, per driving instructors, so surely impairs ability to remember so many things and to think rapidly "on your feet" so to speak.

The calculation wasn't that hard nor that time-consuming. It's been more years than I care to admit since I took Probability And Statistics -- I had Calculus at age 15 -- so I wouldn't stake my life on it, but the formula is pretty simple IIRC. Surely you had that course (P&S), too?

Ref. to the movie, Rain Man -- Tom Cruise hocking Rolex to stake RM to the game, so he could win enough to bribe Customs to let the non-emission-controlled pasta rocket through. Don't tell me you don't watch that movie every night, as a bedtime story? :D