I read these forums each day, and have learned a lot on them, so I thought I would give back. Don't be fooled by my name - I have logged probably about 1,000 hours now. Before I give advice, let me review my story, which people have questioned but is indeed true.
As a full-time advanced degree student, I had no money. I have always been a gambler, and had tried very casually to count cards in BJ, but with little knowledge, and very little play. In August, I stopped at a PA casino on my way back to school, and dumped some money that cost me all of my excess funds. My best friend wanted to hang out a few weeks later (poker player) so I agreed to meet him at the casino where I lost, where I planned to play poker also. I wound up using a slot free play ($100) which won me $1600 and became my boom or bust bankroll at the time (didn't know anything about bankroll). After a lot of winning, I just barely survived my first cold streak in January, at which point the cards turned and my bankroll went up faster than Apple stock. I once went $50,000 in wins without a losing day and was up to a BR of 75k despite lots being pulled out for routine expenses.
Since June, I can manage to do nothing but lose. I have made a lot of mistakes (which I will address here), but terrible luck and variance has persisted, well beyond 500 units later. Now I am left with a severely damaged BR - to the point where I don't want to play anymore. In fact, until I find a full time job, I will just live off the winnings that still remain.
Probably every single point I make has been thrown around countless times in these forums, but I wanted to consolidate some thoughts from a higher stakes, somewhat experienced player, in order to help the influx of new players. Here goes:
- point #1, which will be controversial... I believe that playing Blackjack as an advantage player for anything less than a $25 betting unit is usless unless you are in Vegas. For $25, you can bank roughly $50 profit per hour if you play very well and find the right games. If you have the skills and the bankroll needed to play blackjack, than the opportunity cost of your time is too high to play for lets say $30 per hour. One can make a nice living off $30, but stuff I am going to say later makes it hard to make that much profit (except in Vegas), and not worth the risk/volatility
- 2) I don't care who you are, how smart you are (think you are), how many books you read, etc... if you don't have EXCELLENT discipline, you will not profit in the long run or will be well below EV. Counting cards is interesting because the probabilities are very marginal. If you accidently flipped the sign on the count (I haven't done this, and doubt anyone has!), you very easily could win 2 max bets in a very negative count... I am exaggerating the point, but what I allude to is something KJ says all the time: your profit/loss from a hand is based on EV, not results. I can't emphasize DISCIPLINE enough... this board spends countless posts bashing the 'ploppies,' and rightfully so. After all, the ploppies have numerous myths on the game which make little or no sense. I want to emphasize one of these in point 2a:
2a) There is no such thing as a streak. This is where I believe a counter can make a mistake. Careful analysis of my results would suggest that I went on one of the luckiest streaks of a counter, followed by one of the unluckiest. That's not the case. What happened was a series of uncorrelated events continually favored me for several months, followed by a series of uncorrelated events going against me for several weeks. I know this point seems very obvious, but your resolve will be tested when you are losing. I experienced shoe after shoe of high counts TC+5, +6 etc, where I got 0 BJ's, the dealer got many backdoor BJ's (no insurance
), and stiff hands. The last hand of these shoes (16 units), ALWAYS went against me with the dealer pulling a small card to make a hand. Some of my biggest losses would come when I was playing heads up, and someone would join at the very last second before the cards were dealt. There is no math behind this event at all! But when the shoe is 1 or 2 SD's below EV, it's easy to think that if I was luckier and the player didn't join, the results would be different. I digress, but the point is it's extremely difficult to maintain discipline and proper play in these circumstances. If you don't have perfect discipline, either don't play, or learn it before playing. It's mostly only tested when you're losing, and can be fatal. I have no advice for how to acquire it or avoid steaming (I saw a thread on this), but avoid Blackjack if you don’t have it.
3) Wong out of at least 50% of negative counts, particularly on each coast games - requires discipline again.
4) Find games that offer surrender (hint, try Pennsylvania). It adds ~ 25% to a counters advantage with less volatility. It's like offering a stock investor a higher return with less risk.
5) I don't care what books you read and what simulations you run, but 8 deck games suck. Don't play them unless pen is above average or you are back counting. On the east coast, I find this not to be possible in AC, but there are opportunities in PA.
6) Find places that will "let you play." I played high limits ($50 units, sometimes higher). I found it easy to identify a casinos tolerance. I had 4 back offs... 1 at a notoriously sh*$&@ casino on their DD (first visit, shady players card situation), 1 on a first trip to a PA shop, one in a sweaty HL room in Vegas, and 1 for a cumulative win after 12 straight winning trips totaling well over 40k. At that place, I would play alone in the HL room for 10 straight hours. I find that these forums emphasize moving around too much - in Vegas, the pits and surveillance are more knowledgeable, so of course it's important. But on the east coast, I generally played with no heat. At my "home" casino, I have won EVERY trip since January (a lot of them!) and they comp by far the best of every casino I have played at.
7) Unless you are in Vegas or AC moving around fast, deploy SOME cover. Don't use too much, because like I said, either a casino looks for counters, or they really don't care. One or two cover tactics is enough... when I was winning, I would always you the "parlay" approach discussed in Blackjack Attack and Burning the Tables (only increase after win, decrease after loss). This made me consistently win (perhaps sample too small) and DEFINIETELY lowered my SD. It lowers EV substantially, which can be offset with a high spread.
8) Correlate your bet ramp with the count well... In other words, never deploy a strategy where you keep increasing your bet just because the cards in your favor (+2, +3 etc.). You will increase your SD too much.
9) Don't ramp your bet at all until +1.5 or +2 (Hi-lo)... you sacrifice some EV but for much lower SD.
10) No matter how much you travel to play, let the casino have it's day. Casinos will analyze your results by day, and playing to win when down will make your track record appear as a constant winner.
11) I believe strongly that the vast majority of casinos don't care about small action. Throw out #10 and many other points (cover included) if you never bet above 400 a hand. If you aren't booking wins/losses in the thousands, play perfect BS/indices all the time, with little playing cover... on the east coast, you can't afford not to because playing conditions aren't good enough at low stakes games
12) back count when you can, and ONLY back count in AC where the games generally suck.
13) take advantage of comps especially at higher playing limits. At my 'home' casino, I have translated comps into AT LEAST 5k in straight cash added to my win. The notoriously s*^#( casino i mentioned that backed me off recently sent me a comp for 1/2 off a drink (I played black only there).
14) learn poker - it's a good break from BJ especially after the big swings, and can break up sessions (with positive EV if you're good). I would take a 30 minute break from poker and go back count a shoe before returning to the table
15) you are not a good enough counter if you can't play heads up, with a fast dealer, with a great count, max bets out, without the indices being easy to figure out in a few seconds (especially insurance)... AND you can keep track of an 8 card dealer draw AND add the cards (once again, fast dealer)... which leads to my next point....
16) Always add the cards. I have made at least $2k off dealer mistakes. Very ironically, I was at my home casino last week, finally had booked some wins, so I dropped to $25 units for the first time ever just because I was waiting to play poker. with 2 X 200 on the table, the dealer (a horrible one in every way), paid 1 Double and one hand incorrectly ($1200 swing I think). Never speak up unless a pit boss is watching.
17) Never ever go broke at the table - this goes back to discipline. The #1 time you may need to go to your car/atm/where ever, is right after a big loss. But don't start a new shoe with only 40 units on you. Especially at higher stakes, which might require carrying 10k, make sure you still do it.
18) Always speak up when you can make money off other peoples hands. This has made me a few thousand. If someone doubles for less, quickly ask if you can have the rest (works about 50/50 for me). Base your decision on the count and the type of person, as well as the expected advantage, which you could easily estimate from common sense
19) Never bet more than your BR allows. Remember, RoR changes constantly. KJ is right that you will always mean revert to EV, but this happens over a verrrry long period of time. Each shoe/day/week etc is COMPLETELY independent. Winning a ton doesn’t make you more likely to lose and vice versa. This is imperative to remember when at the casino playing. It goes back to discipline and not wanting to play higher limits to recover losses. Also, sessions, days, weeks, etc, are artificial intervals of time and mean nothing to you (might to the casino). Aside from managing wins and losses at a casino, it shouldn’t matter at all whether you win or lose… only EV matters, and these two can and will diverge enormously for very long periods.
20) I don’t believe in the higher level counting systems. I think they are more mistake prone and decrease hands played. If you are excellent at the counting aspect, then perhaps they can be used. I would play very long days, and couldn’t imagine all those numbers in my head for 10 hrs. With hi-lo, I once carried on a conversation with 2 pit bosses about sports betting while spread 2X600 by only looking at the table for 2 second intervals… I could never do this with a level 2 count.
21) Never play at Turning Stone Resort
Feel free to post any questions on my advice and I will be happy to answer.
As a full-time advanced degree student, I had no money. I have always been a gambler, and had tried very casually to count cards in BJ, but with little knowledge, and very little play. In August, I stopped at a PA casino on my way back to school, and dumped some money that cost me all of my excess funds. My best friend wanted to hang out a few weeks later (poker player) so I agreed to meet him at the casino where I lost, where I planned to play poker also. I wound up using a slot free play ($100) which won me $1600 and became my boom or bust bankroll at the time (didn't know anything about bankroll). After a lot of winning, I just barely survived my first cold streak in January, at which point the cards turned and my bankroll went up faster than Apple stock. I once went $50,000 in wins without a losing day and was up to a BR of 75k despite lots being pulled out for routine expenses.
Since June, I can manage to do nothing but lose. I have made a lot of mistakes (which I will address here), but terrible luck and variance has persisted, well beyond 500 units later. Now I am left with a severely damaged BR - to the point where I don't want to play anymore. In fact, until I find a full time job, I will just live off the winnings that still remain.
Probably every single point I make has been thrown around countless times in these forums, but I wanted to consolidate some thoughts from a higher stakes, somewhat experienced player, in order to help the influx of new players. Here goes:
- point #1, which will be controversial... I believe that playing Blackjack as an advantage player for anything less than a $25 betting unit is usless unless you are in Vegas. For $25, you can bank roughly $50 profit per hour if you play very well and find the right games. If you have the skills and the bankroll needed to play blackjack, than the opportunity cost of your time is too high to play for lets say $30 per hour. One can make a nice living off $30, but stuff I am going to say later makes it hard to make that much profit (except in Vegas), and not worth the risk/volatility
- 2) I don't care who you are, how smart you are (think you are), how many books you read, etc... if you don't have EXCELLENT discipline, you will not profit in the long run or will be well below EV. Counting cards is interesting because the probabilities are very marginal. If you accidently flipped the sign on the count (I haven't done this, and doubt anyone has!), you very easily could win 2 max bets in a very negative count... I am exaggerating the point, but what I allude to is something KJ says all the time: your profit/loss from a hand is based on EV, not results. I can't emphasize DISCIPLINE enough... this board spends countless posts bashing the 'ploppies,' and rightfully so. After all, the ploppies have numerous myths on the game which make little or no sense. I want to emphasize one of these in point 2a:
2a) There is no such thing as a streak. This is where I believe a counter can make a mistake. Careful analysis of my results would suggest that I went on one of the luckiest streaks of a counter, followed by one of the unluckiest. That's not the case. What happened was a series of uncorrelated events continually favored me for several months, followed by a series of uncorrelated events going against me for several weeks. I know this point seems very obvious, but your resolve will be tested when you are losing. I experienced shoe after shoe of high counts TC+5, +6 etc, where I got 0 BJ's, the dealer got many backdoor BJ's (no insurance
), and stiff hands. The last hand of these shoes (16 units), ALWAYS went against me with the dealer pulling a small card to make a hand. Some of my biggest losses would come when I was playing heads up, and someone would join at the very last second before the cards were dealt. There is no math behind this event at all! But when the shoe is 1 or 2 SD's below EV, it's easy to think that if I was luckier and the player didn't join, the results would be different. I digress, but the point is it's extremely difficult to maintain discipline and proper play in these circumstances. If you don't have perfect discipline, either don't play, or learn it before playing. It's mostly only tested when you're losing, and can be fatal. I have no advice for how to acquire it or avoid steaming (I saw a thread on this), but avoid Blackjack if you don’t have it.3) Wong out of at least 50% of negative counts, particularly on each coast games - requires discipline again.
4) Find games that offer surrender (hint, try Pennsylvania). It adds ~ 25% to a counters advantage with less volatility. It's like offering a stock investor a higher return with less risk.
5) I don't care what books you read and what simulations you run, but 8 deck games suck. Don't play them unless pen is above average or you are back counting. On the east coast, I find this not to be possible in AC, but there are opportunities in PA.
6) Find places that will "let you play." I played high limits ($50 units, sometimes higher). I found it easy to identify a casinos tolerance. I had 4 back offs... 1 at a notoriously sh*$&@ casino on their DD (first visit, shady players card situation), 1 on a first trip to a PA shop, one in a sweaty HL room in Vegas, and 1 for a cumulative win after 12 straight winning trips totaling well over 40k. At that place, I would play alone in the HL room for 10 straight hours. I find that these forums emphasize moving around too much - in Vegas, the pits and surveillance are more knowledgeable, so of course it's important. But on the east coast, I generally played with no heat. At my "home" casino, I have won EVERY trip since January (a lot of them!) and they comp by far the best of every casino I have played at.
7) Unless you are in Vegas or AC moving around fast, deploy SOME cover. Don't use too much, because like I said, either a casino looks for counters, or they really don't care. One or two cover tactics is enough... when I was winning, I would always you the "parlay" approach discussed in Blackjack Attack and Burning the Tables (only increase after win, decrease after loss). This made me consistently win (perhaps sample too small) and DEFINIETELY lowered my SD. It lowers EV substantially, which can be offset with a high spread.
8) Correlate your bet ramp with the count well... In other words, never deploy a strategy where you keep increasing your bet just because the cards in your favor (+2, +3 etc.). You will increase your SD too much.
9) Don't ramp your bet at all until +1.5 or +2 (Hi-lo)... you sacrifice some EV but for much lower SD.
10) No matter how much you travel to play, let the casino have it's day. Casinos will analyze your results by day, and playing to win when down will make your track record appear as a constant winner.
11) I believe strongly that the vast majority of casinos don't care about small action. Throw out #10 and many other points (cover included) if you never bet above 400 a hand. If you aren't booking wins/losses in the thousands, play perfect BS/indices all the time, with little playing cover... on the east coast, you can't afford not to because playing conditions aren't good enough at low stakes games
12) back count when you can, and ONLY back count in AC where the games generally suck.
13) take advantage of comps especially at higher playing limits. At my 'home' casino, I have translated comps into AT LEAST 5k in straight cash added to my win. The notoriously s*^#( casino i mentioned that backed me off recently sent me a comp for 1/2 off a drink (I played black only there).
14) learn poker - it's a good break from BJ especially after the big swings, and can break up sessions (with positive EV if you're good). I would take a 30 minute break from poker and go back count a shoe before returning to the table
15) you are not a good enough counter if you can't play heads up, with a fast dealer, with a great count, max bets out, without the indices being easy to figure out in a few seconds (especially insurance)... AND you can keep track of an 8 card dealer draw AND add the cards (once again, fast dealer)... which leads to my next point....
16) Always add the cards. I have made at least $2k off dealer mistakes. Very ironically, I was at my home casino last week, finally had booked some wins, so I dropped to $25 units for the first time ever just because I was waiting to play poker. with 2 X 200 on the table, the dealer (a horrible one in every way), paid 1 Double and one hand incorrectly ($1200 swing I think). Never speak up unless a pit boss is watching.
17) Never ever go broke at the table - this goes back to discipline. The #1 time you may need to go to your car/atm/where ever, is right after a big loss. But don't start a new shoe with only 40 units on you. Especially at higher stakes, which might require carrying 10k, make sure you still do it.
18) Always speak up when you can make money off other peoples hands. This has made me a few thousand. If someone doubles for less, quickly ask if you can have the rest (works about 50/50 for me). Base your decision on the count and the type of person, as well as the expected advantage, which you could easily estimate from common sense
19) Never bet more than your BR allows. Remember, RoR changes constantly. KJ is right that you will always mean revert to EV, but this happens over a verrrry long period of time. Each shoe/day/week etc is COMPLETELY independent. Winning a ton doesn’t make you more likely to lose and vice versa. This is imperative to remember when at the casino playing. It goes back to discipline and not wanting to play higher limits to recover losses. Also, sessions, days, weeks, etc, are artificial intervals of time and mean nothing to you (might to the casino). Aside from managing wins and losses at a casino, it shouldn’t matter at all whether you win or lose… only EV matters, and these two can and will diverge enormously for very long periods.
20) I don’t believe in the higher level counting systems. I think they are more mistake prone and decrease hands played. If you are excellent at the counting aspect, then perhaps they can be used. I would play very long days, and couldn’t imagine all those numbers in my head for 10 hrs. With hi-lo, I once carried on a conversation with 2 pit bosses about sports betting while spread 2X600 by only looking at the table for 2 second intervals… I could never do this with a level 2 count.
21) Never play at Turning Stone Resort
Feel free to post any questions on my advice and I will be happy to answer.
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