I received this email last week, and thought I’d use it as an opportunity to break it down for those wondering “why do you keep a count of the cards“: Read the rest of this entry »
For those who still don’t know why to Count Cards
September 22nd, 2009Bootcamp Testimonials
July 17th, 2009In case you want to hear what people who have been trained in a bootcamp have to say. Sign up for the bootcamp here.
Another Satisfied Member
May 11th, 2009
Someone on the BJA forum posted this last week, and I thought it was such an awesome testimonial, I asked if I could post it here on the blog. To protect his anonymity, I’ve removed any of the parts that talked about where exactly he plays. But the rest is completely unedited.This is a fantastic site for the serious blackjack player.
At the moment, I’m up about 7K this year, card counting, using deviations and mainly playing positive decks. These are all strategies that I have learned from this site. In addition, I try to use a stop loss when I play, per table.I consider myself risk adverse (at least at this point), which means I’m trying to limit my down shoes and ride my profits. I believe that Colin said somewhere on the site that his best advice was not to play a negative shoe. In my opinion, that is why I’m up this year. I have no problem moving from table to table to find a positive shoe or to just stop playing and watch the dealer wipe out the table.
Needless to say, after playing every weekend this year, I’m noticed by a lot of the pit bosses and dealers. But I receive no heat. In fact, many go out of their way to say hi. I’m guessing it’s because I’m not making huge up bets. I also receive comped rooms (on weekends) and a lot of comped food, which isn’t calculated in my profits.
I attribute all my success to this site and am looking forward to eventually mastering the betting strategy, which will take my game to the next level.
Good luck to everyone!
XXXXX
Join the ranks of the money-making card counters!
-Colin
How to Practice Blackjack pt. I
April 10th, 2009
So a lot of people have been asking for tips on how to practice blackjack, so I’m going to start a blog series about what I’ve learned about training:
PART I:
Basic Strategy is the Foundation
A lot of people say, “I know about 95% of basic strategy. Show me the deviations, get me to a table, show me how to bet! I’m ready to have at it!” But if you are still either making Basic Strategy mistakes, or having to use large amounts of mental energy to make BS decisions, then you’re in trouble! I don’t care how well you can count and how many deviations you memorize… if you make Basic Strategy mistakes, you’ve just killed any potential advantage you could have over the casino.
And even if you don’t make mistakes, if there are situations that arise where you have to put mental energy into remembering the correct decision, you will have a really hard time adding the other elements: counting, deviations, betting decisions, etc. If, however, for every playing decision, the correct Basic Strategy answer comes instantly, and without energy, then keeping a running count, converting it to true count, and referencing deviations and bet decisions will be MUCH easier.
Ok. So how do I get better at Basic Strategy quickly?
1. I recommend talking through the entire chart every day, a few times a day. Start with Splits, and say “Aces always split. 10’s never split. 9’s split up thru 9, except against a 7.” etc. You should be able to effortlessly run thru the chart.
2. Make flash cards. Put every situation on a card, like “A,7 v. 2″ on one side, then the correct decision on the other side. There will be lots of decisions that are so easy, you can start removing them from the stack of cards, and before long, there will only be the 10-20 toughest decisions in the stack. Keep reviewing them until you don’t have to think thru the whole chart to access individual decisions.
3. Play Basic Strategy. Buy CVBJ or use an iPhone App (we have one we’re finishing up). Drill yourself on basic strategy decisions. Until you can play Basic Strategy perfectly, you shouldn’t get obsessed with counting or deviations.
4. Keep reviewing. Basic Strategy is sort of an abstract thing. So you won’t retain it if you don’t keep practicing and reviewing it. You might go 10 hours of playing blackjack without seeing some decisions. But when you DO see it, you want to know what to do instantly.
Bringing down the house since 2003,
Colin
Why the different deviation charts in different books?
October 6th, 2008I 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
September 17th, 2008
Memorizing 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.
Why the differences in Basic Strategy?
July 30th, 2008UPDATE: Downloads our charts here
So you decide you want to play Blackjack right. You download our basic strategy chart, and you go online and start playing a basic strategy game to test your skills. Before long, the game says you made a mistake, but you followed the chart! What the hell? Do Colin and Ben not know what they’re talking about?
Rest assured, Padawan’s. We would never lead you astray. Basic Strategy represents the default optimal strategy for attempting something. So I could say that my basic strategy for Qdoba Mexican Grill is a Steak Queso burrito with black beans, extra cheese, sour cream, corn salsa, and double red hot sauce. I believe that this is the optimal approach to eating at Qdoba. It gives me the best odds of having a great lunch experience.
But back to Blackjack…The problem with basic strategy for blackjack is that it depends on the rules of the game you’re playing. 99% of the time, the difference in strategy centers around one simple, but very important rule: Does the dealer HIT or STAND when they have a Soft 17? If the dealer stays when they have a soft 17 (S17), you are going to treat a few hands differently than if the dealer will hit until they have a hard 17 or better (H17). There are really only a few hands that are played differently depending on the game: A,8 versus 6; 11 versus A; A,7 versus 2.
Be sure to know what game you are playing, and play the basic strategy accordingly. The good news is that if you plan on learning how to count and use playing deviations, all of these decisions will be dependent on what the count is. But since you should always start by building a SOLID foundation of basic strategy, figure out if you’ll be playing a S17 or H17 game. The way to do this is to look at the blackjack felt, and it will either say, “Dealer must draw to 16 and stand on all 17s” for S17, or “Dealer must Hit Soft 17″ for H17.
STAND 17 TABLE FELT
HIT 17 TABLE FELT
Also, if you’re practicing on a Basic Strategy game, make sure you know if it’s assuming S17 or H17. Most games assume S17, since that was the original way all Blackjack was played, and is still the way played in MOST of the country. If you have the choice, always pick S17, since it favors the player more than H17. Unfortunately, H17 is creeping in more and more, especially in Vegas. Don’t worry though, H17 games are still completely beatable.
I Hope that helps. Now I gotta run to practice my Qdoba basic strategy.
College Professor teaches Blackjack Probability Class
February 26th, 2008This is an interesting article about Ken Hunt, a college professor at Fort Lewis College, who got tired of people making stupid actions playing Blackjack. He understands the math, and he knows that you can get the House advantage as close as .05% when playing correctly. Now he wants to enlighten everyone in his community.
Some of his advice: Never play with your gut. Look for Stand 17 tables. Never let the dealer count your hand for you.
Hunt has mastered the first step in successfully beating the house, which is playing Perfect Basic Strategy. The next step is counting cards and the final step is deviating your play and your bet when the count warrants.
Read the full article here.
Put Basic Strategy on Your iphone
February 22nd, 2008Fellow Iphone users:
Follow these easy directions to turn your iphone into a blackjack
super computer:
1. Create an iphoto album called “bj” or “charts” or whatever
2. Drag the Basic Strategy chart into the album. If you don’t have it already download it here. You can drag the deviation chart in there too if you have a premium membership.
3. Plug in your iphone and under “info” command your iphone to sync
all of the pictures in the “bj” pics folder from iphoto
4. The charts will be under photos
5. For higher resolution images I recommend emailing the whole pdf file to
yourself. The two problems with this is that sometimes it takes a
while to download and these are also inaccessible if you do not have
edge network access.
What is Basic Strategy?
February 1st, 2008To beat the game of Blackjack you have to know Basic Strategy and play it perfectly. A lot of people think they know Basic Strategy but really only know some of it.
Basic Strategy is an incredible aid to your Blackjack game and can bring you up to a .05% disadvantage to the house if used correctly. People who do not play Basic Strategy can easily have a 4-5% disadvantage.
The Basic Strategy Chart shows every hand possibilities between you and the dealer and the correct action for each hand. Actions include hitting, standing, splitting, doubling down. Below are a bunch of examples of Basic Strategy Charts. As you can see they all look different but give you the same information. I didn’t look these over to make sure there wasn’t any mistakes so don’t use them. Download ours here.
There are certain things Basic Strategy tells you to do that a lot of people don’t do, such as Hit a 16 verses a 10. When you have a 16 and the dealer is showing a 10 you know you have a bad hand, and it feels like the chances of busting are so high that you would rather chance it to just see if the Dealer has a bad under-card and busts instead of you. This is why a lot of people don’t hit their 16’s when they don’t “feel it”.
I was playing at a casino and hitting my 16’s and busting almost everytime. I chuckled to the dealer, “Well, you got to play Basic Strategy, right?”
The dealer disagreed. “Basic Strategy is based on a computer playing millions of hands. I know I’m not playing millions of hands so I have to adjust.”
The dealer was right about where Basic Strategy came from. During the advent of computers, we were able to find out statistically what the best action for any given hand was. To find this out the computer would simulate millions of hands and see which actions were best in the long run.
But the dealer was wrong in advocating to change Basic Strategy based on one session.
It is like if you had a ten sided dice and six sides were red and the remaining four were blue. Assuming the pay out was 1:1 on whether you bet on red or blue what would you bet on? You should always choose red. Even if the dice are on a “blue streak.” If you keep playing, and most people who go to a casino go back and play more, you will win in the end. This is the same for a 100 sided dice, where 51 sides are red and 49 sides are blue. It might seem like there is a very long blue streak but every time you make a bet you should bet red. This is how casinos operate and make their millions. This is how you should operate too.
You might find some discrepancies in Basic Strategy charts. This is due to the fact that some blackjack games have different rules and people change actions that are very, very close to begin with. Or it is due to the fact that someone recreated the chart and was sloppy. You can use our Basic Strategy chart, which is accurate and good for all H17 and S17 games. Download here.
People will make the craziest decisions playing blackjack and deviate from Basic Strategy left and right. Sometimes they get lucky and win their hand. But in the long run, those kind of deviations will loose you money. In order to be a successful blackjack player you have to think about the long term.
There are times to deviate from Basic Strategy, but to know precisely when those are you have to be counting cards. To go back to the 16 vs 10 example – if you are counting cards you will deviate from this action often since it is very close. As soon as the remaining decks becomes even a little “10″ heavy (anything over a running 0) you will stop hitting 16’s vs 10.
Don’t do this on a hunch or because you just saw a bunch of little cards. You need to be counting accurately to know when the deviation really occurs. With the example we have been using (a 16 vs a 10) the cost of making the wrong decision in the long run is only pennies even with a large bet. But other actions will be worth much more and every penny saved is a penny earned.
