Questions by a newbie

buster5 · Jul 26, 2007

I was dragged on a gambling cruise about a month ago, and played BJ for the first time in my life. I somehow ended up winning $200. Ever since, I've been reading up on strategies and been visiting websites such as this one, but I have a few basic questions..

1. Will I eventually have to learn how to count cards? If I can win $200 everytime, I'd be happy with that. I just want to have a little fun, and counting cards seems so confusing..

2. Can I win consistently by using basic perfect strategy? Or once again, do you start winning like that only when you start counting? I really don't know how I won when I went. Looking back, I made some dumb moves, but I somehow ended up winning those hands.

3. What is a 6 shoe, 8 shoe, multiple deck game? I've been told that pretty much single deck games are few and far between.. How many decks are used in a multiple deck game?

4. What's a ploppy?

Thanks..

RJT · Jul 26, 2007

Hey Buster,

1. There are a few ways to beat blackjack, but counting cards is the simplest - so short answer: If you want to play and win yes you will have to learn to count cards.
2. Even basic strategy will lose you money in the long run. Not as much, but it won't win. You can put your win down to 'dumb luck' (on offence intended). Think of it this way. Everyone who gambles plays to win. If the only people that ever walked away a winner in a night were highly practiced pros, all the unknowledgeable players would stop playing the game. Everyone can have a lucky night from time to time.
3. The numbers 6 and 8 reffer to the number of decks in play. So a 6 deck shoe is a game played with 6 decks shuffled together. Multiple deck games can be any of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 decks mixed together (although the odd numbers are far less frequent) and it will be stated on the table when you sit down.
4. Ploppy is a fairly derogatery term used to reffer to someone who doesn't know how to play the game and will often get irrate at what they see as other player's poor play, or even give bad advice to other player based on their voodoo systems.

Hope this helps you out.

RJT.

ChefJJ · Jul 26, 2007

Good questions...and I'll give you some brief opinions/answers:

1) You hit some good luck winning $200, especially on a cruise. Counting cards won't win you money, but learning how to make different plays and bets depending on the count could give you a long-term advantage.
2) Basic strategy (BS) will help keep your losses over the long run minimal compared to just winging it.
3) A 6-deck or 8-deck shoe contains that many decks of cards...although not all are used.
4) I'll let the others define ploppy for you...I think the term is lame; pretty nerdy if you ask me.

Definitely, though, learn PERFECT basic strategy by memorization and drills. Pick up a book or two on counting and practice on counting through a deck(s) of cards to learn the basics.

good luck

dacium · Jul 28, 2007

Blackjack has some very high variance. if or not you win is largely left to the what dealer cards the dealer draws himself.

Personally I have won $400 flat betting $5 starting with just $50. WHen this occured, a woman who had no clue at all (splitting tens and standing on soft 15 etc) was also able to win also, because the dealer just kept getting low up cards and kept busting.

Other times I have dropped $300 or $400 flat betting on a $5 table from a seemingly endless run of 14's 15's 16's 17's and continous double downs that lost.

If you play basic strategy blackjack has a house advantage of about 0.5%, so if you are making $5 bets, that is about 2.5 cents per hand you will loose. But the variance is so high you can go: $200 win, $300 loss, $150 win, $50, $100 loss etc. etc. and in the end you loose about 2.5 cents per hand. You won't see it for many many hours.

A friend who introduced me to blackjack didn't even know perfect basic strategy and he was up over $1200 after visiting the casino for at least ten 4 hour sessions. He kept playing while I learnt counting, know is down several hundred.

Unless you learn to count and count properly you will loose. The rules of the game force this.

PS. A ploopy is someone who doesn't count and doesn't know basic strategy. They just plop down a bet and try to win. They kind of people who have to think what they should do every hand instead of acting to basic strategy moves. About 1 in 100 (or fewer) people play basic strategy. About 1 in 10,000 will card count. About 1 in 100,000 card count properly as to be profitable. So like 99% of players are ploppies.

ChefJJ · Jul 28, 2007

dacium said:

If that is close to being accurate, WOW.

surf911 · Jul 30, 2007

ChefJJ said:

No way there is close to being accurate. I have no idea where you play and at what mins if you only see 1 person in 100 playing BS. More than half play OK BS. Near Perfect BS is even more than1 in 100.

shadroch · Jul 30, 2007

surf911 said:

From my many hours of observation,I'd say less than 10% of players have BS down to anything approaching perfection.I've seen perhaps a handful of non-counters that were at perhaps the 95% level.And it doesn't matter what the minimums are.Hit an A/7 against a 10 and you'll catch flack at most tables.

Reno Dude · Jul 30, 2007

shadroch said:

This is funny. Just a few days ago I hit an A/7 with a dealer 10 and the guy next to said "you had 18" and I replied " no, I had 8 "

hotroddy · Jul 30, 2007

shadroch said:

Hit a 12 against a 2 and people act like you just blew up a bus full of babies.

I think it's funny that even the dealers look at you weird and give you crap for that kind of stuff, as well. Then you ask them to look at their BS card they have on them, and they're quiet till the next "weird" play. Repeat that process.

EasyRhino · Jul 31, 2007

I'd say the percentage that know really perfect BS is even lower than 100%. Maybe 1% get really close (except for A,7, 9,9, soft doubles).

buster, I want to harp on the "variance" bit some more.

You probably didn't know how to play basic strategy very well, so the house edge increased from the optimum of 0.5% up to maybe 2-3%. And yet, you still won $200. Pretty crazy huh?

Over any short or medium time frame, your results gambling will be indistinguishable from dumb luck. Only over a long time frame (and this means sometimes more than a year) will the size of your advantage or disadvantage become apparent.

So, even if you learn how to count, your odds of winning any one session are still about 50/50. In fact, you could lose $200 just as easily as you won it.

ChefJJ · Jul 31, 2007

surf911 said:

If that is close to being accurate, WOW. But I doubt it.

rogue1 · Jul 31, 2007

Based on what I've witnessed......................

very very few people play blackjack according to basic strategy. It really surprises me too-you'd think more of them would at least go to Barnes & Noble Bookstore and at least get a decent basic book on blackjack, especially since they are laying down real money inside the casino!
Very often you can hear them asking the dealer for advice, which is all too often like the blind leading the blind.

shadroch · Jul 31, 2007

I remember my first visit to AC. I was going for a niteclub trade show and someone gave me a sheet with what to do on your first two cards and the dealers up card.At first,I dismissed it,but then realized how helpful it could be.

Mr. T · Jul 31, 2007

Shadroch, this one is for you

Check out the NCL Spirit which is doing many 1 night cruise to nowhere out of NYC. If the casino comps are anywhere like Star Cruises ( parent company of NCL) you would have hit the comp jackpot.
Now for the first timer question.
It is just plain luck for a one timer. But for heaven sake don't play BJ if you are not conversant with Basic Stretegy. Otherwise your house advantage will shoot up sky high. If you dont even know the difference between the dealer hitting or standing on soft 17 then forget about BJ. One of them increase the house advantage by 40%.
As for counting cards, casinos just dont like them to put it mildly. Dont end up like Ken. He got disbared at his local casino and some no name cruise ship casino recently.

buster5 · Jul 31, 2007

I was actually at Barnes and Noble a few days ago and purchased a book called "Illustrated Guide to Blackjack: 150 Situations & Solutions to Make Winners Out of Beginners" by Dennis Purdy. It wasn't very good, so I returned it and got "Blackjack Bluebook II - the simplest winning strategies ever published" by Fred Renzey today. I've been reading it all day and learned tons.

I also find it surprising how many people DON'T go to a bookstore to read up on this. I guess most simply think if they get closer to 21 than the dealer without going over, they'll win millions. Most have no clue there are actual "strategies" involved.

Mikeaber · Jul 31, 2007

One of you math gurus:

What is the "variance" in Blackjack. Assume that you are going to play 1000 hands, flat bet and use perfect Basic Strategy on a six deck game. I was looking for a chart and didn't find one. In Blackjack Attack I saw a formula for Standard Deviation stating that it is calculated:

1.1 / (sq root of # hands) = SD or Standard Deviation.

So, with 1000 hands, you would come up with 3.475% SD. I seem to recall variance being the square of SD roughly so, 3.475% squared is 12.075%.

Is this correct or is there more to it? It seems too simplistic. 12% is more than I thought BJ yielded yet, 12% is way less than 19% var in 9/6 JOB and to another extreme, far less than the 42% you are playing with 10/6 Double Double Bonus VP.

glovesetc · Jul 31, 2007

congrats rhino

for stating the truth on BS in as much as it is always over the long term and NOT the SHORT TERM that you will come out ahead if you play BS near correctly or correctly !!!!!!

:grin:

ChefJJ · Jul 31, 2007

glovesetc said:

Not sure exactly what you are getting at, but for the sake of the noob who posed the original questions...basic strategy does not offer a long-term winning edge for the player, not with the rules offered today.

Sonny · Jul 31, 2007

Mikeaber said:

The variance for a hand of BJ is about 1.33 bets. To find the SD for any number of hands just multiply the Var by the number of hands and take the square root (Technically this is the same as the formula Schlesinger presents, just rearranged slightly). For 1,000 hands we get:

Code:

SD = Sqrt(Var * Hands)
   = Sqrt(1.33 * 1000)
   = Sqrt(1330)
   = 36.5

So you would expect to be within 36.5 units of your EV about 68% of the time. You can just double and triple your SD to get the range of results for 95% and 99.7% of the time. Here’s that chart you were looking for:

http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/Blackjack_Basic_Strategy_Betting_And_Risk.htm

Snyder assumes 60 hands per hour so it would take just over 16 hours to play 1,000 hands using his chart.

-Sonny-

MollyRose · Aug 2, 2007

another newbie question

Ok - I am also a newbie and have a question. (I'm not sophisticated enough to be counting cards yet, but I've got the basic strategy down pretty good). I have been practicing with the trainer on this site, playing 100 hands per session and have my "trainer agreement" up to 99%. When I play like this I win about 43% of the time.

I tried an experiment and played like a dealer - hit on everything up to 17. PLaying this way I also win about 43% of the time.

What I've always wondered is this: if hitting on everything up to 17 works for the casinos, why don't people just use that strategy?

(I realize this may have been discussed before and maybe there's an obvious answer, but I'm trying to learn!)

Questions by a newbie

New Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

New Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

New Member