Can you beat Blackjack in Atlantic City?

Published by colin on October 14, 2008 in beating blackjack, card counting systems and casino info. 0 Comments

I received this message recently from a member of our forum:

“can I use your system in Atlantic city? what is the difference between AC and Vegas? does it have any effect in winning?”

Simply put: Yes. You can use our system in Atlantic City, Vegas, Reno, Tahoe, and anywhere else that you can find a decent blackjack game. Better yet, we HAVE used our system all over the US and even in Canada.

So what’s the main difference between AC and Vegas? Besides one being on the ocean and the other being in a desert, the main difference between the two is the rules to the games you’ll find. In AC, you won’t find any games offering Surrender and rarely offering Re-splitting of Aces. Also, in AC, you can only split a pair up to 3 hands, as opposed to 4 hands. This will lower your overall EV slightly. But AC still offers a very beatable game. Heck, all this talk about AC is making me miss the boardwalk and smell of the AC casinos!

Hope that helps!

Why the different deviation charts in different books?

Published by colin on October 6, 2008 in Deviations, basic strategy, beating blackjack, card counting and card counting systems. 0 Comments

I received a question from a member of our website recently asking why some of the numbers on our deviation chart are different from what they have seen in another book or website.

Deviation charts can vary slightly, depending on

1. the rules, number of decks, penetration, etc that you’re assuming
2. your strategy for calculating the true count
3. the number of hands that you ran your simulation generator for

We ran our deviations based on the games that we most commonly played and how we calculate the true count. We ran a ridiculously long simulation. So I trust it’s accuracy. Also, keep in mind that the net effect of slight deviation differences between one chart and another are most likely fractions of pennies on the dollar. So if one chart says stand a 12 v. 3 at 2, and another says stand a 12 v. 3 at 1, the actual number may be something like 1.5, so there’s not a massive difference between the 2. You shouldn’t see different themes in deviations. For example, if our chart says to split 10’s against a 6 at a true 4 and above while another chart says to split 10’s only at negative counts, then there’s something wrong with the other chart!

Hope that helps clarify!

Hard 12 against 2 and 3

Published by colin on September 17, 2008 in basic strategy, beating blackjack, card counting, card counting systems and practice. 1 Comment

ColinMemorizing the playing deviations is great, but unless you know what they mean, it’s worthless. I recently received this question from a premium member on our site, and thought I’d share it with you guys in case anyone else has had the same question:

“I need to know what the correct play deviation is for two different scenarios. One is a hard 12 against a dealers 2. What does the play become at a true count of 3. And the other is a hard 12 against a dealers 3 at a true count of 2. Thank you.”

Here’s my response:

“With both a 12 v. 2 and 12 v. 3, you are going to follow basic strategy, which would be to HIT, until it reaches the indicated count. At the indicated true count (3 and 2, respectively), you will deviate, which in this case is STAND. The theory behind it, is that when there are that many extra 10’s left, you will not want to risk busting your hand, and the dealer has that many extra 10’s to bust his hand with. Hope that helps.”

Deviations are tricky, because they all have different meanings. So make sure you understand both the Basic Strategy decision for each hand, then what the deviation for that hand means.

How much does Penetration really matter?

Published by colin on September 12, 2008 in beating blackjack, card counting, card counting systems and penetration. 0 Comments

I recently received this question from a member of our website:

“hey can you explain the importance of deck penetration and if there is any change in strategy for different penetration. Thanks, love the site!”

ColinMember, thanks for asking, because penetration is incredibly important. First off, I’m going to assume that we’re all mature enough to avoid the jokes pertaining to the obvious sexual innuendo regarding “penetration”. In the world of blackjack, “penetration”, or “deck penetration”, is regarding to the amount of cards that the dealer cuts off, relative to the cards dealt out. In the first several months of card counting I gave no attention to deck penetration. I paid attention to the rules and the table minimum. That was it. Then, after reading “Burning the Tables in Las Vegas” by Ian Andersen, I realized that I should try to find games with better penetration. But it was still probably the third or fourth most important factor in my mind.

As I’ve gotten more familiar with the math of the game, and as I have spent more time with simulation software, I’ve realized that deck penetration is drastically undervalued. People think that the main ways to make more money at card counting are to bet more and to play games with better rules.  Did you know that you can add much more value by finding a game with 10% better penetration than by betting 10% more on high counts. Let’s say you’re using a 1-10 bet spread. Now, on a typical game, you’d add around 10-15% to your EV by betting 10% more on all positive true counts. On that same game, if you get 10% better penetration, you’re going to add 40-60% to your EV.

Cutting the DeckAnd that’s not where the benefits end with improved Penetration. The fewer cards that they cut off, the more of a sure thing that game becomes. One of the reasons I don’t play games with poor penetration is because it would take so many hours to overcome variance, it’s not worth the risk.  However, as the penetration gets better, the number of hours necessary to reach the “long run” becomes less and less. I typically won’t touch a six deck shoe game with more than 2 decks cut off.

So next time you head out to a casino, pay careful attention to how many cards they cut off the back of the shoe before dealing out the deck. It often varies from dealer to dealer, so stick to those dealers that offer better penetration. It’ll take fewer hours to guarantee a profit, and your $/hr will skyrocket!

Three Ways to Know Your Ready for a Casino

Published by admin on September 11, 2008 in beating blackjack and practice. 0 Comments

Casino Image

I recently got this letter from one of our members…

Hey Ben,

I totally dig your thought on investing rather than gambling. I am just in the middle of memorizing the charts, but as you know life in your 30’s is busy.

I really want to make some cash from this, I know it is not quick and easy and that is why I chose your site and expertise.

If you have any advice to pass on like, when you know you are ready. When the first time you visit a casino is and so on, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the inspiration

(name removed).

BenFirst of all, thanks for the letter. Investing is smart gambling is stupid. If you have been on this website and you have not figured that out than you have not been paying attention…but back to the email. As far as how to know when you are ready? As always, I am going to give some cop out answer like: There is no one answer. I will go a step further and give you 3 things to know that you are ready and 3 things to know that you are not ready to go to the casino. Here they are…

How to know you are ready to go to the casino:

  1. You are stunted in your learning curve. This means you already know basic strategy and understand AND have practiced counting and you want a more real life training scenario.
  2. You have some money that you can afford to spend on training. That’s right..I said SPEND! While you are training you should NOT EXPECT TO MAKE MONEY. It is seen as an investment expense. If you can not afford it at this time do not go into a casino.
  3. You are ready to follow up casino sessions with homework. What’s the point of finding the holes in your game if you’re not going to fix them. Don’t kid yourself in thinking that you want to be a card counter if you’re not willing to put the work into learning it.

How to know that you are NOT ready to go to the casino:

  1. You care more about how much you win and lose vs how much you learned. Just in case you did not hear me the first time: you should NOT expect to win money.
  2. You have not learned everything that you can for free. How well do you know basic? 99%? Forget it! Stay home till you know it 110%. This is the biggest mistake everyone makes.
  3. I’m sick of typing so just read # 1 & 2 over again.

The Big Player and playing the part: Story Time!

Published by colin on August 20, 2008 in story time. 0 Comments

ColinLet me tell you about the first time I was the Big Player.

I was pretty excited to be the one throwing down thousands of dollars. So before going in to the casino, I started thinking, ” What’s my story going to be?”

So, before entering the casino, I decided to borrow the story of a friend of mine: guitar player in a rock band. A long time friend had recently gotten his band, The Taking*, signed to a major record label deal, and got a large signing bonus in the process. So, young white kids probably all look the same to Casino Pit Bosses, I assumed I could say that I was guitar player for The Taking, and just got a six-figure signing bonus from the record label. Then, if they looked it up online, they’d see that it was a legitimate band, and it would explain why I was throwing around money like it was no object.

RockstarWe enter the casino, and the Big Player act is working perfectly. I’m actually playing next to professional athletes, betting much more than they are, and everyone loves me! I’m up a ton and things couldn’t be better. After several hours, a Pit Boss says to me, “So, you’re in a band, huh?” Even though I couldn’t remember telling my story to anyone yet, I decide to go with it. I say, “Yeah. I play guitar.” I’m just about to go into my story about how “The Taking” just got signed, blah, blah, blah when the Pit Boss replies, “Rocketeer*, right?” My mouth drops and I start to panic, because Rocketeer actually WAS a band that I played guitar and sang for a couple years before. Not a famous band that makes tons of money, but a poor, obscure, short lived band with no website, a 20 person fanbase, and no Major Record deal. Oh no! My cover’s blown. They’ve even figured out the band I used to play in! This is bad.

I had no option but to go with it. So, mustering up false confidence, I say, “Oh yeah. You’ve heard of us?”

A couple hours later, we decide to call it a night. We meet up in the hotel, and Ben says, “So, did you like that story I told the pit boss about you?” It turns out that Ben was playing at a table, spotting for me, and he said to the pit boss, “I recognize that guy. I think he’s the lead singer of Rocketeer!” Since Ben knew about the band I used to be in, he thought it’d be funny if word got back to me that I was famous from the short lived band. The moral of the story is, if you work out an ingenious story as Big Player, make sure the spotters know your story too, so they don’t contradict yours at the tables. Or if your spotters are as witty and mischievous as Ben, be prepared to think on your toes.

*Note: Band names have been changed to protect the innocent and guilty.

Should you join a Card Counting Team?

Published by colin on August 15, 2008 in 21 movie, Team Play, beating blackjack and cover. 0 Comments

Colin When thinking of creating or joining a Blackjack Team, most people are thinking about Team play…you know, the exciting Spotter and Big Player approach talked about in “Bringing Down the House” and shown in the movie ‘21′. You should join a team because of the exciting team dynamics, right?

Well, not exactly. Team play is not the most important reasons to team up with other people. The primary reason I’ve ever teamed up with others in the past is to be able to play off a joint bankroll.

Team PlayThink of it this way: if you and 2 other people each have $5,000, then each person can go to a casino and bet off a $15,000 bankroll. That’s a HUGE deal! You can generate a lot more EV, have lower risk, and counter-balance your variance by teaming up with others.

However, before you put an ad on Craigslist for people to join up with, consider what you’re getting into. Trust is SO important. I cannot overstate this. Take the time to get to know and build trust with anyone before you team up with them. You need to trust their playing ability AND their integrity. If you have ANY questions about either of those points, it’s not worth it. But if you can find a couple people to combine a bankroll with, you can generate more EV per hour, as well as accrue more hours collectively, thus reaching the long run faster.

BJRM 2002 vs. CVCX v.4

Published by colin on August 15, 2008 in beating blackjack and card counting. 0 Comments

ColinPeople are asking me all the time what the best Blackjack Simulation software is. I’m going to compare my 2 favorite canned-sim programs: Blackjack Risk Manager 2002 (BJRM 2002) and Casino Verite Chapter 10 v.4 (CVCX).

A canned-sim program has massive data from a simulation already run, then you can change the criteria to suit your needs. This saves tons of effort, and is a must for any serious card counter who wants to value the EV (expected Value) and Risk of various games.

So which program is better? I find both programs a must, because they each offer some valuable things that the other doesn’t.

BJRM 2002

BJRM: offers a way to calculate how many hands/hr YOU are able to play (BJ Clock). This shows how diverse different playing conditions can be with hand shuffles, machine shuffles, other players, heads up, and so on. BJRM also has some training drills that are useful when you’re still training. And it offers as a way to create your own sim files with Statistical Blackjack Analyzer, but it’s kind of annoying to use. It’s a great program, but still pretty limited.

CVCX CVCX: doesn’t offer any training drills or BJ Clock. I also find the interface pretty annoying. But they more than make up for it with it’s features. One of the most important feature being the ability to run your own massive simulations within the program. If you are using a different playing strategy, different rules, etc., you can run your own simulation that will give you the data to be used within the program. CVCX also offers a way to have a bet spread that changes from 1 hand to 2. Many players I know will add a second hand only when the count has gone up. There’s now a way to do account for this strategy. CVCX has more interactive risk analysis, easy ways to compare your own results with probability. CVCX also has 1/2 count betting strategy options, if you’re changing your bet spread at 1/2 count intervals, rather than whole true count intervals. Finally, it has a way to freeze your custom bets. So you can enter in a bet spread, and see how different rules, penetration, number of players, decks, hands/hr, etc. all effect the EV and risk of that spread. BJRM is just too simple to have any of these options.

So if I were to use just one, I’d have to go with CVCX. The interface can discourage you, but it just can do so much more than any other program out there. I’m pretty sure I’m going to end up coming up with my own design and having a programmer write it for me, but until then, CVCX is where it’s at.

Question from Katie: Can Casinos Hurt You?

Published by ben on August 7, 2008 in Horror Stories and card counting. 3 Comments

This week I got this letter from our friend and member Katie:

“When you count cards at a casino, are the casino employers ( Backroom people, ect.) allowed to use physical force aginst you if they find you counting?I’m not talking throwing you out kind of force, but like breaking your hands, cutting off your fingers, leaving you in a hole in the desert to die force. My father said they still do this in places like Vegas but I told him that they were probably not allowed to use that sort of force against anyone, even if it is on private property. My mother said the same thing. I would like to know what they would do to you if you were caught and the options available as a punishment (Barred from the casino, Backroom, ect.) Thank you for your time.”

Well Katie, I’m glad you asked.. First of all let’s get some perspective here. Most casino surveillance look like this:

casinosur-copy.jpg

Instead of being armed with baseball bats and brass knuckles they are armed with beta max VCRs and donuts.

Now there two things I’m going to do to explain this little concept. The first is to talk about the nature of giant corporations.

Along time ago Vegas (and all other casinos) were run my mobsters and crime families. Nowadays they are owned by big giant corporations. Now in the “good ol days” the mob was the law. If you were counting cards or cheating or ate at the wrong pizza parlor you would find yourself buried in the desert or wearing concrete shoes at the bottom of the river. Well, the times have changed. Now we have the equivalent of Home depot, Disney and MGM owning casinos. So what does this mean? If word gets out that they are breaking in people’s faces or chopping off their fingers , or hell! segregating people in wheelchairs, the ACLU and association of handicapped card counters will sue their asses and they will be in the newspapers and everyone will stop buying frappuccinos or going to Disneyland or whatever the company is trying to sell and they will lose hundreds of millions of $dollars$. All for what? Some card counter that cost them 2 or 20k? Doesn’t really add up.

So, more likely, what you will get is some guy in some corporate suit that is much more scared of you than you are of him saying “…uhhh excuse me sir/mam…c..c…c…cccould you please stop playing blackjack cause if you don’t I could lose my job.”

Here’s the second thing to think about. A casino security guard has no more power than the checker at Wal-Mart. These people are not God, they are not the president, they’re not even cops . So imagine me walking up to you at wal-mart and saying “show me your ID, follow me to some backroom or I’m to punch you in the face and put handcuffs on you. ” You would (or at least you should) say “shut up you idiot, I’m an American Citizen and this isn’t the wild west. If you look at me again I’m going to sue you for sexual harassment or emotionally scarring me!!!”

Whatever, you get the idea. A lot of people think that because they have some shiny piece of metal that the casino gives them and call it a badge you have to listen to what they say or obey them. Keep in mind you are an American citizen and they are too, nothing more nothing less. You have as many rights to punch them in the face and break their knee caps as they do, which, unless it is self-defense, is nil.

A few final notes. Believe it or not, not all security guards are screened for their IQ, and there are even security guards that have not passed the bar exam, which means the 10 cent legal rundown that I just gave you might seem like foreign policy Al Kida nonsense to them. Awesome, let them handcuff you and take you to the ground. Just make sure it is on video camera and let your lawyer explain to the judge why his client does not like to be assaulted and detained and physically and emotionally abused in public (but for 100k his client is willing to forget it ever happened).

Also, watch out on Indian Reservations. Technically they are what is called a “sovereign nation”, which means you are no longer in America. So, you are subject to their laws or lack of them. I always take extra care when in these situation, but remember that these places are still not run by the mob, and they are still the equivalent of giant corporations. Newspaper headlines showing them chopping off customers fingers is not good for business. In all my years of card counting I have had one “bad” experience and I wrote about it here.

Finally, what should you to do to avoid situations like this? If you are approached by security, declare “I am going to cash out my chips and leave the property.” If they ask you to follow them declare again very loudly “I want to leave the property.” Unless they are accusing you of cheating (which you can sue them for later) they are not allowed to detain you.

Then you, (now listen carefully), you put your hands by your side and you walk towards the cage or exit in full site of all video cameras. The last thing you need is to give them an excuse where they can say we handcuffed him in self-defense because he pushed us or whatever.

So, Katie, tell your parents to rest assured that card counting is really quite safe. You are much more likely to get a hex put on you by the degenerate asian lady sitting next to you for stealing her blackjack then getting your fingers cut off.

Next week I will post on how to defend and counter-spell against the hex.

How much money should you bring to the casino?

Published by colin on August 6, 2008 in Money management and beating blackjack. 0 Comments

ColinI’ve been asked this question a lot of times. Your total bankroll might be $500, $5,000, or $50,000. But does that mean you should bring all that money to the casino for each session? Probably not.However, I’d say one of the worst things that can happen is finding yourself under-funded at the casino. You don’t want to leave early, or even worse: be in the middle of a positive shoe and run out of money! Especially if you flew into a town or had to drive a ways to get to the casino. So I’d lean more towards bringing more than you’ll need than not enough. But then again, I’m willing to take the risk of traveling with extra cash on me.

Money

That being said, here’s my advice: Keep in mind that it kind of depends on how long you plan on playing, as well as the variance of the game you’ll be playing. But a decent rule of thumb would be to bring at least 50 big bets. So if your big bet is $100, then I’d bring $5K. That might sound like overkill, but I’ve had sessions where I’ve been in for that many bets or more. If you don’t feel comfortable carrying that much extra money “just in case”, then you can bring less, but I’d rather have too much on me than not enough.So how about deciding how much money to be betting when you start losing, and the money left in your trip bankroll is getting smaller and smaller as the session goes on? An important rule is to always keep 6 bets to back up any bet you place. So if you bet $100, make sure you have another $600 to back it up. The reason being, you need to be prepared to split and double down multiple times. I know what you’re thinking: “But Colin, I just doubled down on a $100 bet, and I only have $500 left. The running count just jumped up to 30! Surely I should put even a larger bet out to win my money back?” No, padawan. You will have many chances to get your money back. But it is always more important to perfectly follow your playing strategy than to bet more money. So i you find yourself with $500, and you’re betting strategy says to bet $100, you’ll have to actually bet $70, so you have 6 bets to back it up.

CVCX

If you want to calculate how much to bring with you with greater accuracy, I would recommend using the “Trip Bank” feature on CVCX or BJRM2002 to help you calculate how much money to bring. You can enter in the length of session or trip you plan on taking, as well as the game you’ll be playing, and it will tell you the risk of running out of money for various trip bankroll sizes. You’ll have to weigh the risk of possibly running out of money on a trip with the risk your willing to take of carrying X amount of money. One last bit of advice: don’t ever advertise how much money you have on you.Neither the casino nor the other gamblers need to know how much you’re hiding in your pockets or wallet. A safe card counter is a happy card counter!