So you want to be a pro?
That's true. A rookie league or 'A' ball player is paid to play baseball thus he is considered a professional, but realistically he needs to have another job, playing ball at that level.
The delineation I prefer is part-time pro vs. full-time pro. I consider myself a part-time pro because my full-time job is still being an engineer, but I use blackjack as a part-time job and I rely on the income from it, just as if I had a part-time job tending bar or working in a supermarket. It allows me to have a slightly more opulent lifestyle than if I did not. A recreational player might have the tools to play with an advantage, but he does not plan on making a steady profit.
The skills and quality of play of all three types of players is variable and overlapping. In other words, there is no such thing as a "professional technique"- if you at your level of play learn to use some advanced technique, use it. It doesn't make you a pro if you use it, and a player who doesn't use it isn't necessarily not a pro.
One major difference between the full-time and part-time pro is the level of risk they can assume. It may be counterintutive at first, but a part-timer can assume much more of most types of risks than a full-timer. Therefore, it would be inappropriate for a guy like me to commingle bankroll with a full-timer? Why? Simple- if I lose all my money I still have a job. If he loses all his money, I can't very easily hire him as an engineer to replace it. Therefore I can play to a much higher RoR and also take greater risks of burning out a joint, because I spend less time playing than he does and can always go someplace else. The one risk I can assume less of than a full-timer is arrest. In the kind of work I do it would be unacceptable for me to have a criminal record, and even without a conviction, calling into work on a Monday morning and explaining that I'm in the house of detention and won't be in for a few days would be a professional embarrassment and not completely laughed off by my colleagues.
Advantage play attracts some very flawed people which is one of the reasons why most will fail. The lifestyle (as it is generally believed to be) is attractive to a drug addict and others who are not likely to be successful in mainstream employment. The successful full-time pros I know are not particularly warm but generally amiable, and the type of person who will say something nice to you or say nothing at all. They do not attack others, they do not crave attention nor set out to anger and offend people. They are reticent about their own professional techniques but will usually discuss the techniques you use with you, if you wish. Therefore when you see a person on a message board running off at the mouth, bloviating about how good he is and how everybody else sucks, you can be very certain this is a person with something to hide and not a good example to follow in your own career.
My recommendation on learning the advanced AP techniques is to start be reading books on them. There are a few books about tracking and sequencing out there; all of them have some value but all of them have their flaws. After you do all of that, you spend a lot of time observing shuffles and dealers, you sit down with your computer and your cards and fiddle about with modifying what you have learned from the books to be of value towards what you have observed in the casino.
When practicing my two careers of engineering and advantage play, I use similar methods and philosophy. Start with proven basics (like card counting) and never be clever for the sake of being clever. Discuss with your colleagues, arrange simple and inexpensive experiments to obtain data and prove the concepts of your hypotheses. Don't be afraid or ashamed to walk away from a good idea that turns out not to work very well in the real world. When other people want to take credit for your new ideas, let them, as long as they are willing to also take the risk of your new ideas. And be a nice guy. All of the opportunities I've had in life would have been given to someone else if I had been a miserable little prick.
That's true. A rookie league or 'A' ball player is paid to play baseball thus he is considered a professional, but realistically he needs to have another job, playing ball at that level.
The delineation I prefer is part-time pro vs. full-time pro. I consider myself a part-time pro because my full-time job is still being an engineer, but I use blackjack as a part-time job and I rely on the income from it, just as if I had a part-time job tending bar or working in a supermarket. It allows me to have a slightly more opulent lifestyle than if I did not. A recreational player might have the tools to play with an advantage, but he does not plan on making a steady profit.
The skills and quality of play of all three types of players is variable and overlapping. In other words, there is no such thing as a "professional technique"- if you at your level of play learn to use some advanced technique, use it. It doesn't make you a pro if you use it, and a player who doesn't use it isn't necessarily not a pro.
One major difference between the full-time and part-time pro is the level of risk they can assume. It may be counterintutive at first, but a part-timer can assume much more of most types of risks than a full-timer. Therefore, it would be inappropriate for a guy like me to commingle bankroll with a full-timer? Why? Simple- if I lose all my money I still have a job. If he loses all his money, I can't very easily hire him as an engineer to replace it. Therefore I can play to a much higher RoR and also take greater risks of burning out a joint, because I spend less time playing than he does and can always go someplace else. The one risk I can assume less of than a full-timer is arrest. In the kind of work I do it would be unacceptable for me to have a criminal record, and even without a conviction, calling into work on a Monday morning and explaining that I'm in the house of detention and won't be in for a few days would be a professional embarrassment and not completely laughed off by my colleagues.
Advantage play attracts some very flawed people which is one of the reasons why most will fail. The lifestyle (as it is generally believed to be) is attractive to a drug addict and others who are not likely to be successful in mainstream employment. The successful full-time pros I know are not particularly warm but generally amiable, and the type of person who will say something nice to you or say nothing at all. They do not attack others, they do not crave attention nor set out to anger and offend people. They are reticent about their own professional techniques but will usually discuss the techniques you use with you, if you wish. Therefore when you see a person on a message board running off at the mouth, bloviating about how good he is and how everybody else sucks, you can be very certain this is a person with something to hide and not a good example to follow in your own career.
My recommendation on learning the advanced AP techniques is to start be reading books on them. There are a few books about tracking and sequencing out there; all of them have some value but all of them have their flaws. After you do all of that, you spend a lot of time observing shuffles and dealers, you sit down with your computer and your cards and fiddle about with modifying what you have learned from the books to be of value towards what you have observed in the casino.
When practicing my two careers of engineering and advantage play, I use similar methods and philosophy. Start with proven basics (like card counting) and never be clever for the sake of being clever. Discuss with your colleagues, arrange simple and inexpensive experiments to obtain data and prove the concepts of your hypotheses. Don't be afraid or ashamed to walk away from a good idea that turns out not to work very well in the real world. When other people want to take credit for your new ideas, let them, as long as they are willing to also take the risk of your new ideas. And be a nice guy. All of the opportunities I've had in life would have been given to someone else if I had been a miserable little prick.
