Variance
The old man caught up with me last night. Played for 5 hours and lost what I'd won the night before (and a little more).
Yes, Midnite is right. This is an Indian Casino constructed of metal building welded together. It is mostly a Bingo Hall with wings that have a lot of slot machines in them. People put their names on a list to sit at the two (some times, just one) Blackjack table. You get up and you might as well go home because it will be literally hours before you can get another seat. They have four VP machines that are supposedly 9/6 JOB but they are Class II machines (tied to some hypothetical Bingo game somehow).
Yes, with $5 bets and the quarter ante, the house edge is -5.65% or therebouts in Oklahoma...worse in most of the casinos where the ante starts at $.50 and is progressive.
Smokes are at least $10 a carton cheaper than off-reservation. Gas is usually $.05 to $.10 a gallon cheaper. It's 2 hours closer to home than Kansas City where the better non-ante games are located. About the same distance are a couple of Indian casinos north of Topeka that have no ante games. One of them (Sac & Fox) has a 6-deck hand shuffled game with the dealer standing on soft- 17. House Edge is something like -.42%.
But, to stay in Northern Topeka, you have to consider gasoline to get there and back, tolls on the turnpike there and back, food and a place to sleep. It's just almost too far for the wife and I to drive up, play all day and drive back in the same day without staying overnight. We ain't youngsters like we used to be <smile> With those expences considered, and figuring in the amount of time it would take to pay the Oklahoma casino a quarter a hand...I can play and pay antes for somewhere around 10 to 14 hours for the same amount of money it would take to make an overnight trip to the northern casinos.
"Yes" ZG....it's a sucker game and I'm fully aware of it.
As for counting, I have stated it before. I can count, have not perfected the skill, and have not employed it much at tables (other than those double deck games dealt face up in Vegas). My main holdback is that I quite simply do not have the bankroll to finance the betting spreads needed to take full advantage of the skill-set. Why develop it if I can't use it? I think I would be more intelligently invested were I to concentrate on playing BJ tournaments. But, same problem....distance from Wichita to anywhere tournaments are held.