A.P Heat

Heads-Up Hold'em (HUH) is a novelty game with rules very similar to Ultimate Texas Hold'em (UTH) (see this post and this post).

Heads-Up Hold'em (HUH) is just Ultimate Texas Hold'em (UTH) with a 3x pre-Flop raise and a bad-beat payout on the mandatory "Odds" = "Blind" wager. Its analysis in every case follows the same logical structure.

I spent yesterday and today doing the research, programming and writing up an article on the "Slingo Bonus Bet 21" blackjack side bet. This wager is nearly extinct and there's a good reason for that. The first draft of the article is complete, but I need to double-check everything.

Though the game of baccarat appears quite safe to the untrained eye, there are many ways that APs attack baccarat. Some of these methods are targets of opportunity, for example dealers who expose the first card of the next round. Others occur because of perks for high rollers, like dead-chip or loss-rebate programs.

Lucky Ladies (LL) is a blackjack side bet that pays for any player 20, with premium payouts for suited or matched 20’s and a top pay for a pair of Queen of Hearts. I covered card counting the Lucky Ladies side bet in this blog post.

One of my first outings as a novice blackjack card counter was to Laughlin, Nevada, in the Spring of 1997. I recall seeing a wager on a six-deck shoe game called the Super Sevens (SUP7) side bet. It paid whenever the first card dealt was a seven, with higher payouts for two or three sevens and suited hands. This was my first experience with advantage play against a side bet.

In 2009, I made it my mission to visit every casino in the Las Vegas area and to take note of the proprietary table games and side bets they offered. One side bet (Lucky Lucky) in particular caught my eye, both because I had never seen it before and that it was now wide-spread. I decided to contact the distributors of the game and quickly got to know the young entrepreneurs.

Red Flex Bet (RF) is a side bet for the blackjack variant “Pure 21.5 Blackjack” that is played in California card rooms. This side bet can also work as a side bet for ordinary blackjack, though I am not aware of any blackjack placements. I am also not aware of any placement outside of California card rooms.

Some blackjack side bets are so obviously countable that extraordinary measures must be taken to protect games where they are offered. Ordinary blackjack Insurance is such a wager (see this post). Insurance is simply a side bet paying 2-to-1 that the dealer’s down card is ten-valued.

Back in 2003, when I was still a player, I advocated playing against the Lucky Ladies (LL) bet. Back then, there were a few great opportunities, particularly in Washington State. In early October, 2003, I stumbled on a variation of the LL concept on the tables at the Plaza casino in downtown Las Vegas.