Cashing in on a blackjack coupon

The other night I went to the Palms to play the first of four "start your hand with an ace" coupons that casino had sent me for this month.

The coupon replaces the first card of a hand, serving as an ace. So when you're ready to use it, the dealer gives you just one card instead of the usual two.

The Palms coupon can be used only on a 6-deck shoe game. The unusual thing about this coupon is the high maximum bet allowed -- $100. I have gotten these coupons from other casinos with a $10 max, which isn't worth a special trip.

Wanting to use the Palms coupon to full advantage, I sat through more than a shoe and half at a $10 table until the count got high enough to put out 10 units.

When you use one of these coupons, whether you're counting cards or not, what you have in mind is the hope of getting a blackjack. That's because 30 percent of total cards in the shoe have a value of ten.

What I got turned out to be better -- another ace. The dealer flipped over a ten for his upcard.

Of course, I split the aces, pulling a ten to the first one and another ace to the second one. Fortunately, the rules allowed me to resplit. The dealer threw another ten on the seond ace and yet another ace on the third ace. In a grand finale, he threw down two tens, giving me four 21s, each with $100 in chips behind it.

I was just relieved that I wasn't going to lose any of my $400. But I knew strange things can happen, and my four 21s could just wind up a push.

This was one of the few times I was glad to see a ten as the dealer flipped over his hole card.  The other players went crazy; the dealer said he had never seen such a thing in 20 years, and the pit critter who had been watching -- and appeared to be all of 21 years old -- just looked dazed.

I held up a green chip and asked the dealer if he wanted to take it or bet it. As nearly all dealers do, he wanted to bet it, which proved to be a good decision as I won the next hand he put $50 in the toke box.

I played out the shoe and cashed out with a $675 profit on two shoes, $400 of it on that one fateful hand.