Is the game of BJ soon to be extinct???

moo321

Well-Known Member
#41
MJ1 said:
Well keyboard warriors are a dime a dozen. No offense, but how many legit BJ players do you know of that use a 60 to 1 spread? If you can really pull that off in a casino, then the more power to you. But I am sure most players would agree that this spread is extreme.
I do it all the time.
 

moo321

Well-Known Member
#42
MJ1 said:
This makes me rather despondent to say the least. Nice to see somebody tell it like it is rather than try and blow smoke up my a$$.

Face it guys, as Jeff Ma wrote in his essay at the end of BDTH, the Golden Era of card counting came to an end when him and his crew stopped playing in 2000. There is a reason why the MIT Teams no longer play the game or train new crews to attack the tables. Contemporary conditions make the game not worth the effort...the profitability just isn't what it used to be. Ask any of the former MIT players...they will tell you.

Back then, nearly all the 6D games in Vegas were S17, DA2, DAS, LS, RSA...ahh the good ole' days.
I'm only going to say this once: you're not looking in the right places. Think outside the box.
 
#44
Spreading Like the Plague

If you go back far enough in time wasn't bj only legal in Nevada?:joker::whip:
Now over time you have bj in about half the nation and still growing with Pennsylvania being added to the list?

Many who now have a couple casinos in their area would have had to travel fairly far 20 or so yrs ago in order to play!:joker::whip:

Probably in any one casino conditions are getting worse but there are far more places to play.:joker::whip:

I bet casinos made more money when their games were better! If you notice the casinos with the best rules are the ones who get real big action!:joker::whip:

Those of you who were in casinos yrs ago probably remember lots of crowded bj tables whereas now you see tables of carnival games that are mostly empty!

If I ran a casino I would offer the best game and advertise it and beat the competition!:joker::whip:
 

RJT

Well-Known Member
#45
MJ1 said:
This makes me rather despondent to say the least. Nice to see somebody tell it like it is rather than try and blow smoke up my a$$.

Face it guys, as Jeff Ma wrote in his essay at the end of BDTH, the Golden Era of card counting came to an end when him and his crew stopped playing in 2000. There is a reason why the MIT Teams no longer play the game or train new crews to attack the tables. Contemporary conditions make the game not worth the effort...the profitability just isn't what it used to be. Ask any of the former MIT players...they will tell you.

Back then, nearly all the 6D games in Vegas were S17, DA2, DAS, LS, RSA...ahh the good ole' days.
The Golden Age of BJ ended for the MIT teams around 2000 for several reason - and it wasn't rule related. There best players were becoming well known, their strategy - despite how smooth and well practiced it was - had been recognised and casinos were starting to pay far greater attention than they had in the past to their blackjack playing asian high rollers.
These factors all meant that the teams could no longer play at the stakes that they were used to playing at. Without the high bets, you lose the high profits. Counting is a small edge game - difficult to get away with big bets at a small advantage when they know how to detect counting and immediately run down someone betting $10k/hand (and a lot less). Without big profits it's not looking as worthwhile and certainly not a much of a draw for high flying students that had other avenues to make big money.
If big money's what you want to make, finding a stronger edge and using a lower bet size can still get the money without drawing the immediate heat.
But I'm just guessing - if you really want to know why JM felt the Golden Age of BJ was over in 2000 ask one of his associates. We've had one of the MIT players openly state their presence on the board in the last couple of month. Ask him.
Personally i don't really think there have ever been that many people making serious money solo counting. There are a few, but if you're going to count professionally, you're going to spend enough time at the tables to find other opportunites that will likely be more lucrative. I consider counting more of a gateway drug than a class A.

RJT.
 
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RJT

Well-Known Member
#46
BJQueen said:
and be prepared to get slagged off!
Now let's be fair BJQ - you've been slagged off because you've claimed to be something you're not and you've pretended to have knowledge that you don't have. Anyone with a reasonable degree of experience - even just a talking to serious players never mind playing themselves - could pick your posts out as not having the understanding you've alluded to.
Thinking outside the box is a critical skill that all good advantage players need.

RJT.
 

johndoe

Well-Known Member
#47
The decline of the MIT Team had little to do with general blackjack conditions changing. The conditions changed for them, and I doubt these changes led to any other teams being affected (unless they also happen to use young asian BP's).

There were plenty of successful teams before and after MIT.
 

rukus

Well-Known Member
#48
MJ1 said:
This makes me rather despondent to say the least. Nice to see somebody tell it like it is rather than try and blow smoke up my a$$.

Face it guys, as Jeff Ma wrote in his essay at the end of BDTH, the Golden Era of card counting came to an end when him and his crew stopped playing in 2000. There is a reason why the MIT Teams no longer play the game or train new crews to attack the tables. Contemporary conditions make the game not worth the effort...the profitability just isn't what it used to be. Ask any of the former MIT players...they will tell you.

Back then, nearly all the 6D games in Vegas were S17, DA2, DAS, LS, RSA...ahh the good ole' days.
hey now, some MIT players still exist :flame::whip::devil:
 

Koseao

Well-Known Member
#49
Ha.. I am sure one day many yearsss down the road, it might be difficult to count cards. Adding more decks, placing the cut card after a deck in an 8 deck shoe. However, I have noticed that when my bests go up then the other people go up in theirs as well, that is as long as I have been winning hands consecutively at high bets. But, their basic strategy is a major fail. Such as splitting A-8 vs 6, and not splitting A's. Just crazy moves. So, in the long run the gamblers are to out weigh the advantage players. Blackjack is here to stay. The casino is still ahead as long as we keep giving the other players glimpses of hope that they too can win big. So we kinda help out the casino. In my life I have noticed,dumb people far out weigh smart people.. hell even people with a little bit of common sense!
 

StandardDeviant

Well-Known Member
#50
Koseao said:
In my life I have noticed,dumb people far out weigh smart people.. hell even people with a little bit of common sense!
If the majority are stupid, then the casinos can change the rules to destroy the game for the advantage players, and the majority won't even notice. Why wouldn't the casinos do this? It would be in their best interests.

And besides, dumb people outweigh smart people because dumb people typically practice poor nutrition! It has nothing to do with BJ. :eek::laugh:
 

RJT

Well-Known Member
#51
StandardDeviant said:
If the majority are stupid, then the casinos can change the rules to destroy the game for the advantage players, and the majority won't even notice. Why wouldn't the casinos do this? It would be in their best interests.
It's fairly simple really - barring 6:5 on blackjack and H17 - changing rules always limits player options and the players like to feel they have a lot of choices. Not allowing re-plitting or doubling only on 9-11, taking away surrender or not allowing splitting of unlike T's, these all take away choices that the average punter likes to have whether they know how to use them or not. None of this changes the fact that dumb people infest our planet and if a war ever comes smart people will be hopelessly out numbered.
The other ways the rules can be changed to be to deal less of the avalible cards or make the shuffle more complex but these both carry time and motion implications. Casino staff are often as dumb as the punters, but they know time speant shuffling is a loss to the casino.
Aside from that i suppose they could impliment NMSE or place more restrictive table limits, but again these will affect the choices that the players can make - they'll vote with their feet and go to the next casino over.
These are the reason that while the average blackjack player is pretty much a knuckle dragger, they do provide a barrier to rules everywhere plummeting overnight.

RJT.
 

Deathangl13

Well-Known Member
#52
SystemsTrader said:
I'm sure there will be some guy somewhere who finds a glitch in the machine....
Dom is a personal friend of mine.... Type his name into google.... There is nothing random about machines, and yes they are beatable... over and over again....



THE GAMBLERS THAT COULDN'T STOP WINNING

Dominick Sgarlata walked into the Seminole casino in Hollywood, Fla., one night in April 1995 and won $200,021.

The next day, he won again -- $2,500 in the morning; $4,300 several hours later.

In fact, Dominick Sgarlata beat the video slot machines in the Hollywood casino 22 times in 1995. His total take: $532,727.

The St. Petersburg Times has tried to find Sgarlata, whose remarkable streak was detailed in records obtained by the newspaper. But no such luck.
 
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