I’m super excited about this opportunity to introduce you to one of the most feared and underground names in card counting. This man has been under the radar for years and I assure you, there have been no movies made about him and he has not been out there flaunting his accomplishments…until now.
He goes by, Loudon Ofton.
This man has been responsible for taking millions from casinos and he has agreed to write anonymous posts on blackjackapprenticeship.com about his experiences from the front lines of playing blackjack.
His column titled: Split Double Destroy! [real-time dispatches from behind enemy lines] will now be a regular feature here on the website.
You can read more about him HERE.
Or feel free to email him at: Loudon@blackjackapprenticeship.com
As a friend and fellow counter I am super excited to have him on our staff and know that you will enjoy his stories and learn from his experience.
Saving the World One card at a time.
Tags: loudon ofton, staff writers
Posted in Counter Culture, Hit, Double, Destroy | No Comments »
Well 09 was a crazy year over here at Blackjackapprenticeship.com. We don’t like to brag nor am I a huge fan of new year’s resolutions but this can be a great time of year to pause and reflect on the previous year and set our sights on the next year. So here is what went down in ‘09 at BJA:
- We completely re-designed our site so it doesn’t look like a piece of crap
- Lead a series of bootcamps in Vegas that we received massive amounts of positive feedback on.
- I don’t want to be too exact with the number but let’s just say we profited from clearing out more than 6 figures worth of $chips$ from casino racks.
- Wrote, designed, and published “How I went from Waiting Tables to playing professional Blackjack” – which is available for free
- Outlined 3 other books for the website. 1 of which will be free and 2 for sale.
- Responded to every personal email sent from members of the Card Counting Army
- Built a new infrastructure for the forum
- Released 3 Training Kit sets for new counters to practice easier.
What we hope to have accomplished for 2010:
- Publish 4 books through the site. More information coming soon!
- Release iPhone training software (we’re 95% done with this)
- Write a minimum of 1 post on the site per week that is applicable and awesome for card counters
- Release 2 more series of posts written by authors/card counters (we already have 1 that will be release in Jan and are currently working on a undercover surveillance operator)
- Release some awesome t-shirts that card counters would want to wear.
- And just generally overall continue to make a site and culture that is awesome for people wanting to be trained in counting and/or for fellow professionals.
Allright, enough about us. Do you have any goals for 2010? Here are some ideas (pick, choose, CUSTOMIZE and post as a response in comments):
- Training: Basic strategy, Deviations, Counting speed/accuracy?
- Casinos: Dollar amount you want to win? Amount of EV you want to generate? Travel on some trips to play in some new places?
- Personal: Have any goals you want that are related too blackjack? or not? Write a book? Run a marathon?
Well, Looking forward to another awesome year. Thanks for all of your support for the site and we hope you the best of results in accomplishing your goals for 2010!
Saving the World, one card at a time.
Posted in Counter Culture, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
The other day I went out to play a little blackjack. This isn’t a super common event for me since I spend most of my time training blackjack players and working on other businesses but the experience was memorable and has some lessons for all of us. This particular casino I played at was a small one. By small I mean, 4 table games open (only one of which is blackjack) and only one pit boss. This particular night the cards were landing for me. I couldn’t lose. No less than 3 times I emptied all the chips in the rack above $5. This means that I had stacks and stacks of chips in front of me and the casino had no chips in front of them.
This:
a) is really hard to do
b) feels really good
c) shows how completely incompetent the pit boss is.
You do not win all the chips in one hand. There are warning signs. The process of getting more chips usually takes from 5-12 minutes from start to finish. This is usually expedited when one of their customers is sitting there with tons of money on three blackjacks that the casino does not even have enough money to pay out. I know what you are thinking. I was the only person in the casino. What kept the pit boss from attending to his job? Was he dealing with some gaming theory issue? Was he training some confused dealer? No. he was texting on his cell phone. I’m not sure what what he was texting about, but my guess is it was either the latest Twilight movie or the next neck tattoo he was going to be getting. This is was happening in real life. And it wasn’t the first time. So, as I was sitting around waiting watching ev float out the window, I had time to think about why I should in fact not be upset about the situation.
- Any casino that is run this poorly in an area as simple as this is sure to have a poorly run surveillance / card counting detection dept. Think about it: If the guy doesn’t notice the tray is out of chips because he is texting do you think he’s going to notice that I am adding and subtracting the number one (in my head) and dividing it by the number of decks left to be dealt?
- Employees who perform like this do not usually care about their jobs. This means they don’t care about the money or if you are taking it. Contrast this with the owner counting with you over your shoulder and equating every blackjack you get with money coming out of his pocket (this has happened).
- It’s easy to make a pit boss like this like you. Talk to him. Treat him like a real person. Talk to him about Twilight, monster trucks, tattoos, casinos, whatever. If he likes you he’s probably not going to back you off. You’re probably the most exciting thing that can happen to him on any given night. Be an asset to him, not a liability.
In conclusion, there have been countless stories I can tell of seeing casinos being run poorly. I will post more later but remember to take it in stride and treat them like your customers because sometimes counting the cards is the easiest part. Sometimes the best thing you can do is take your ego out of it and watch your bankroll begin to grow.
Saving the World One Card at a Time,
Posted in Counter Culture, card counting | 11 Comments »
Goodbye old site. All good things must come to an end. For those of you visiting, thanks for your loyal patronage. This site would have never gotten here without your feedback and devotion to the cause.
We are in the process of launching our new site. Here at Blackjackapprenticship Land we have been referring to it as 1.0. So, Please be patient. For the next couple days to the first week we are going to be working on getting the programming and infrastructure on the site solid. And from that point on we can devote our time to developing content and products. One of our biggest shifts is the move to providing 90%+ of our products for free. As an example please check out my Story of How I got into Card Counting.
We’ve put a lot of work into the new site and are pretty excited about it. You guys deserve a change and we hope you like it. Please email feedback to me and let me know how we did.
Saving the World, One Card at a Time,
Ben
Posted in Counter Culture, Uncategorized, send over | 2 Comments »
