Recent content by The Suburbs

Don't play Even at a $1 minimum game with good rules, you'd still be under-bankrolled. Never mind a $5 or $10 minimum game. Even one or two hour's worth of bad variance at a $5 game could see your whole bankroll evaporate. Work on building at least a $5,000 replenishable bankroll for a $5...

Mohegan has better rules (stand on soft 17) but terrible penetration (generally 66% or less). Foxwoods hits soft 17 on all their games except the HL areas, but pen varies from okay to very good (I've seen 1 deck cut off on their 8 deck games). For APs, FW is the better game. For non-APs...

I believe the standard format is 50% to the players and 50% to the investors. So if you had $1,000 profit, you would get $500 as the only player, and the other $500 in profit would be split according to the amount invested. In your example, he would get $375 and you would get $125 as investors.

Thanks for the replies all. I think I'll probably take a little less cash with me, although I don't foresee it being a problem anyways as long as I take precaution. I guess I'll also be toning my spread down for shoe games a little, at least until towards the end of the trip. I guess the...

I'll be heading to Vegas in a couple weeks (for 6 nights) with some buddies and wanted input from other players with more experience playing blackjack in Sin City. This will be the first time going to Vegas while being confident in my game. Some background: Have logged around 400-500 hours of...

I don't think 100 hands/hr with 3 other people at the table is realistic, unless you have a speed demon for a dealer. I think you'd be lucky to get 75 hands/hr. That will cut your EV by 25%. Also, as KewlJason said, you're still at a disadvantage at TC = 1 (.57 house edge or so with that...

Your bankroll will determine your max bet (what RoR you're comfortable with), the tolerance of the casinos you play at will determine your spread, and your spread will determine your bet ramp. I think the general consensus is that you need to spread 12:1 without excessive wonging at shoe games...

It's my understanding that being able to side-count is always preferable (specifically Aces and 7's) to only using a level 1/2/3 count, even if the count incorporates 7's. It's always advantageous to have more information about the composition of the remaining cards. The problem is a matter of...

I'd imagine it would also mostly affect your soft double indices? A/2 or A/3 vs. dealer 2, 3, 4. It can also affect your decision to double/not double your soft 15/16 hands vs. dealer 2, 3, 4 in high counts as well, as you are very likely to end up with a stiff and the dealer is slightly...

Indeed. While I did rathole as much as possible, it seemed like the majority of my winnings were from having big positive variance shoes where I would win 1.5k-2k in a shoe, rather than grinding it out. I always figure that it's best to leave a table after a big win rather than stay around and...

Agreed. I think the most I've spread was 3x12 units or 2x18-20 units on the last hand of a shoe @ TC >= 8. If you're bringing 1,000 "units" to a session, you're probably not sizing your bankroll units correctly. Unless you're bringing your whole bankroll to every BJ session, that is...

It's not my goal to be backed off, but I'm realistic. My goal is to make as much money as possible in a week in Vegas. Since I only go once a year at most, there's very little value in putting much effort into not being backed off. Am I wrong?

My first back-off happened not too long ago at a big store on the east coast. Was a regular (once a week or so) there for the past year or so playing pretty chunky green action ($25-500 spread) with very little cover. After taking ~$50,000 off them on my player's card (plus thousands in...

Also one thing to be aware of is that stores that offer surrender will often times give you back the matchplay coupon AND half of however much you bet when you surrender. That means you're effectively getting 75% (or 66%, if you count matchplays as worth 1/2 their face value) of your bet back...

While I generally agree with this, it can be a little cumbersome to carry your whole bankroll around, especially if your bankroll is over $15-20k. Still, your whole AP career should be seen as one long single session. Realistically, I'd say don't play at a table without at least 15-20 max...