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So You’re 15 and You Want to Count Cards?

May 4th, 2009

We get a lot of emails from kids ages 12+ that want to know if they should learn to count cards. That way, when they’re 21, they can get right to work at taking money from the casinos. Here’s my opinion on this:

DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME OR YOUTH

There are a thousand hobbies that an underage person can get into, that they can actually use NOW, not having to wait several years until they can do anything about it. So wait until you’re 21, then if you’re still interested, learn how to count cards at that point. It shouldn’t take several years to learn, so you’re just wasting time anyway.

Also, people are much more likely to become addicted to gambling if they start when they are teenagers. Granted I think counting cards is very different from gambling, but it still exposes you to that world. And I would never recommend someone to start drinking when they’re underage. But when they’re 21, hopefully you’ll be a LITTLE wiser about what you’re getting yourself into.

So if you’re a teenager and you’re wanting to learn how to master Card Counting, just drop it for now. You can have it mastered in a few months, so wait until you’d be able to put it into practice. If you want a way to make money, start a business. Find a market that you can capture on E-bay or something. Then, you might be ready with a $20K bankroll when you turn 21!

Posted in beating blackjack, card counting, practice, The Keys | 2 Comments »

How to Practice Blackjack Pt. II

April 20th, 2009

In Part I, I talked about Basic Strategy being the foundation of being a card counter. I want to emphasize that you should continue to keep going through all the basic strategy decisions regularly. Just recite the entire chart from memory in the car once a day, and you won’t find yourself at the casino in the middle of a big hand wondering, “does A,7 hit or stand against 9?”.

In this post, I’m going to talk about practicing counting cards. Ben gives a thorough explanation in one of our videos. But I’m going to give a few tips.

1. The obvious first step is to take a deck of cards and count through it, one at a time. If you don’t end up at zero, then you did something wrong. This will help you in creating new associations with cards. When you’re playing at a table, you want to see a 4 of clubs primarily as “+1″, not as a 4 of clubs. After time, you’ll start to see cards simply as +1, 0, or -1.

2. Have an approach to cancel that is foolproof. I see lots of rookie card counters trying to get too fancy with cancellations at the table. They wait until all the cards are out on the table, and are cancelling a 10 on one side of the table with a 2 on the other side. This is going to result in problems sooner or later. So have a method that you do the same every time, and that leaves no room for error.

3. Practice by going into a casino and standing behind the table, and just watching. If you can get thru an entire shoe without dropping the count, missing a card, or getting mentally fatigued, then you’ll have a better time when you’re actually trying to play while counting.

4. Buy CVBJ. This software will tell you when you’re off on the count, and so much more.

Remember that being a 99% accurate card counter won’t cut it. But a 100% accurate card counter can turn the tables on the casino!

In part III, I’ll talk about practicing true count conversions.

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Posted in beating blackjack, card counting, practice, The Keys | 5 Comments »

June 6th Blackjack Bootcamp

April 16th, 2009

Hey guys. I wanted to take a minute and tell you guys how excited I am about our upcoming blackjack bootcamp. I was thinking about it, and I’ve probably trained close to 100 people by now, but it’s been several months since I’ve gotten a chance to do any serious training. So not only will this give me an excuse to get to Vegas (and try to put even more hurt on their economy!), but this will give me a chance to impart to a handful of people the skills they’ll need to start taking money from the casinos.

So I thought I’d tell you guys the top 3 things I’m looking forward to at the bootcamp:

1. Watching trainees play, and helping them improve their game. The best thing to help solidify my game was having someone else watch me, and point out if and where I would make a mistake. If you don’t have someone point it out, you could go on indefinitely making the same stupid counting or strategy misake.

2. Teaching people the ins and outs of how to generate the most EV out of blackjack. It is very common to have 2 card counters, both who play perfectly, generate vastly different amounts of EV. Knowing the secrets of how to get the most out of card counting will make all the difference in the world.

3. Helping people create custom bet spreads and strategies, based on their individual bankrolls and goals. The most common question I hear is, “How large of a bankroll do I need to…?” or “what should my bet spread be with X bankroll?” The problem is, it’s a complicated answer, based on how much risk you’re willing to take, the size of your bankroll, the games you’re going to be playing, etc. So this gives me a chance to help people construct their optimal personalized bet spreads.

That’s all for now. If you’re able to make it, then I’ll see you there. If not, we’ll let you know how it went!

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Posted in beating blackjack, card counting, practice | 1 Comment »

How to Practice Blackjack pt. I

April 10th, 2009

Study Habits

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

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Posted in basic strategy, beating blackjack, card counting, practice, The Keys, Uncategorized | 9 Comments »

Hard 12 against 2 and 3

September 17th, 2008

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.

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Posted in basic strategy, beating blackjack, card counting, card counting systems, practice, The Keys | 4 Comments »

Three Ways to Know Your Ready for a Casino

September 11th, 2008

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.

Posted in beating blackjack, practice | No Comments »

Elite Training Kit

September 19th, 2000

store_kiteliteELITE TRAINING KIT: Turn your dining room table into a card counting training center.

INCLUDES:  (PRO KIT) All of our charts printed on glossy card stock, 6 decks of authentic casino playing cards, a discard tray (for deck estimation), a discard tray measure (for insanely accurate deck estimation).

PLUS: Full size blackjack felt, 100 clay poker chips, Cut Card

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in 1-Training Tools, practice, send over | Comments Off

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