Her reverie was interrupted by the voice of the monocled man. “Is this the sort of hand I should hit with, would you say?” He was asking, of all people, the dealer.
The man’s total was fifteen.
The dealer’s upcard was 8.
It was a delicate call, certainly. But the dealer answered without hesitation. “It depends on the circumstances, of course, but if you were playing by the book then the correct move would be to hit, sir.”
A first-class dealer was always ready to respond to such questions from the player. He would have all the possible combinations memorized, ready to reel them off pat. A dealer who didn’t know the 290-odd possibilities “by the book” wasn’t a first-class dealer.
“Having said that, it’s up to the player’s mood whether he wants to double down,” the dealer continued calmly.
Doubling down seemed to have become something of a signature tune for the monocled man.
“Of course, those who want to determine the flow of the game have to be prepared to pay the price.”
The monocled man nodded in agreement with the dealer’s words and boldly hit. A jack to his fifteen. Bust.
But the man now had his eyes closed; he seemed to take at face value the dealer’s suggestion that it was inevitable he had to pay the price and just shrugged his shoulders.
–It’s a double bind.
–A double bind?
–That’s what it’s called when you manage to implant an idea in your opponent’s mind, inducing them to act in a certain way. The way the dealer handled that then, by mentioning the doubling down—it made hitting become the default option for the player.
–But that was the right decision, wasn’t it?
–As a basic tactic, yes, it was the right move. But the basic tactics stop being of any use once you’re under the dealer’s spell. What he’s doing is conditioning the man’s mind, ridding him of the possibility of any move but hitting.
–Ridding him…?
–Doubling down—that’s quite a big call to make, not one you do lightly. By drawing focus to the difficult move and juxtaposing it with an easier one, the dealer is basically suggesting that the only really sensible move is the easier one—to hit. All other possibilities are forgotten. On top of that, the dealer appealed to the rather vague and ambiguous idea of the “player’s mood.” Caught between the rock and the hard place of the difficult decision and the ambiguous instruction, the player ends up choosing the “only” sensible option, which in fact is nothing of the sort. That’s what the double bind is.
–So what should the man have done?
–What he should or shouldn’t have done isn’t really the issue. What the man should have been focusing on—or rather, resigninghimself to—was the fact that he had a losing hand. But now he only has eyes for victory. He’s convinced himself, or allowed himself to be duped into believing, that losing along the way is a necessary part, a price that he has to pay in order to achieve his ultimate goal. But it’s not. A losing hand is just a losing hand, nothing more, nothing less.
The monocled man and the fat lady played in the same way: the more cards they drew, the more they focused on their own hands, paying less and less attention to the dealer’s cards.
“Double down,” called the man, only a couple of hands later. He drew a 9 to his existing hand of thirteen and went bust.
