When I started working at the Primm, my first morning (worked graveyard, 3am till 11am) on my first break, Don suggested we have coffee.
"Let's flip for it."
We did, and Don won. Don won every time we flipped for anything.
One morning, after the shift was over, Don invited me to go with him to meet an old friend of his at one of the casinos in town. Turned out, I went to meet Joe Hill. Turned out, Joe Hill was a legend in certain circles. During the course of talking with him, and he was a floor boss in the pit at that time, he had a number of occasions to change cards on the 21 tables. He would open the decks, quickly fan them, put them back in the box, and deliver them to whichever table was due.
One box, he opened, fanned them our and checked them, put them back in the box, and he put them aside. Don asked him what was wrong with that deck. "Factory marked, bad deck," he replied. He then proceeded to take out various cards, look at the backs of them, "three of hearts." Turn the card over, and, sure enough, the three of hearts was there. He handed me the deck, "Look at the backs, you can see where in the cutting at the factory there was a nick in the cutting blade, sticks out like a sore thumb," or something to that effect.
He ended up giving me the deck to take home so I could see what he was talking about. Before leaving, he was due for a break, so sure enough, we flipped, and I bought the coffee. Sat there enthralled listening to these two old timers go over some of their experiences.
We were leaving, shortly after we went back to the pit, he said goodbye to Don, then we shook hands, and he leaned over toward me, "Don't ever flip with Don, he knows what it is by the way he catches the silver dollar."
Oh, the cards, Joe marked them when he rippled the deck, he was good, knew every card in the deck.
One of the many lessons that Don Eammelli taught me, don't trust anyone, with enough time and practice, anything can be learned and used in a casino, and trust no one. One of many lessons I learned from Don.
