I tried Red 7 last weekend at the Taj in AC, and won $40 after an hour of play at the $15 table (and two hours of waiting for seat #5). I've got it down and just need to learn to keep my concentration for the whole shoe, but I was able to engage in some conversations. Not bad for my first solo session.
Now I want to learn something better, if possible. So a little background if you don't mind, so you can understand my ability and weaknesses.
#1: I can learn. Four weeks ago I didn't know how to play BJ. Now I know BS for AC perfectly and again, used Red 7 on the floor.
#2: I'm still not perfect on Red 7 - I abandoned the suit count and use 0.5 for the 7s, which is a lot easier for me. But once in awhile I get confused if I should count "up" or "down", esp. near 0 when the count fluctuates between neg and pos.
#3: I'd like to stay with unbalanced counts. One of the reasons is I've always been a bad liar, so I'm paranoid about getting caught counting. I want to play dumb so I don't ask the dealer about # of decks or the rules. But I know options are limited here and UBZ2 seems to be the only worthwhile one to learn.
#4: I don't have a partner to help me out.
#5: I play small stakes and want to minimize variance. $15 tables are as much as I want to go, for now.
#6: As I'll mostly go to AC, once a month or less, it's AC rules I'll encounter most. And I'll play shoe games exclusively.
I plan to get Blackbelt in BJ but just came across Modern BJ, so I'll finish that first.
As a side question, I want to know if sitting out bad hands is a bad idea (it's probably covered in those books, but I haven't gotten through them yet). This weekend I sat out anything below -13, which was still a lot of hands. A friend of mine joined the game so I was able to "explain" it a little, but I felt it was way too obvious. I didn't want to walk off, though, because like I said, I waited two hours to play at #5, which gave me enough time to do the counts.
Thanks for the help!
Now I want to learn something better, if possible. So a little background if you don't mind, so you can understand my ability and weaknesses.
#1: I can learn. Four weeks ago I didn't know how to play BJ. Now I know BS for AC perfectly and again, used Red 7 on the floor.
#2: I'm still not perfect on Red 7 - I abandoned the suit count and use 0.5 for the 7s, which is a lot easier for me. But once in awhile I get confused if I should count "up" or "down", esp. near 0 when the count fluctuates between neg and pos.
#3: I'd like to stay with unbalanced counts. One of the reasons is I've always been a bad liar, so I'm paranoid about getting caught counting. I want to play dumb so I don't ask the dealer about # of decks or the rules. But I know options are limited here and UBZ2 seems to be the only worthwhile one to learn.
#4: I don't have a partner to help me out.
#5: I play small stakes and want to minimize variance. $15 tables are as much as I want to go, for now.
#6: As I'll mostly go to AC, once a month or less, it's AC rules I'll encounter most. And I'll play shoe games exclusively.
I plan to get Blackbelt in BJ but just came across Modern BJ, so I'll finish that first.
As a side question, I want to know if sitting out bad hands is a bad idea (it's probably covered in those books, but I haven't gotten through them yet). This weekend I sat out anything below -13, which was still a lot of hands. A friend of mine joined the game so I was able to "explain" it a little, but I felt it was way too obvious. I didn't want to walk off, though, because like I said, I waited two hours to play at #5, which gave me enough time to do the counts.
Thanks for the help!