Every once in a while a blackjack thread shows up in GQ and I find myself spending a lot of time correcting misconceptions and myths about the game and card counting and how it works. So ask me about blackjack, counting, basic strategy, true-count variations, bankroll strategy, spread ratios and more.
FWIW, I no longer count cards (I don’t have the time to put in) but I still play blackjack for fun a couple times a year.
How the hell do you learn to count? I’m not a gambler (neither are card counters! 
), but I have a casual interest. I’ve read about it a couple of times, but it seems complicated.
Do you find it difficult to have fun playing blackjack when you’re not counting cards? It would seem frustrating to me to know I wasn’t playing as well as I know I’m capable of.
What counting method do you find to be the most effective?
There are a lot of books on the subject. The classic is of course Ed Thorpe’s Beat the Dealer, but it’s a bit dated. I think Ian Andersen’s books (Turning the Tables and its followup Burning the Tables) are very good. In addition to lots of good information they have many fun stories about his career.
But the important thing to realize is that counting cards is not complicated. You don’t have to be a MIT math genius or even particularly smart. You just have to be willing to put in a lot of practice. You need to memorize the basic strategy table (here is an excellent reference) and you need to memorize about a half dozen “variations” – these are changes to the basic strategy that you use when the count is very high or very low.
Then you just need to practice (a lot) keeping a running count in a very distracting environment.
I don’t find it difficult. I started as a casual player before learning to count. My strategy towards gambling has always been “I’m going to bring X dollars to spend on having some fun.” If I manage to walk away with some money, great, otherwise I spent an acceptable amount of money having a good time.
What’s the most consecutive losses you’ve had? One time I was doing pretty well on a $2 table, and I made like $200 $2 at a time (starting with my last $2 actually.) Then, after everybody else left and I was alone, they brought in a new dealer and I swear I lost 20 consecutive hands, and half of those were hands where I could do nothing, e.g. I had 16, dealer had 15, next card was a 6.
The only one I’ve ever used in play is the basic Hi-Lo count (That’s +1 for every 2-6, -1 for every 10, J, Q, K, and Ace. Your truecount is the running count / number of decks left in the shoe.)
For me, I did not find the relatively tiny improvements in EV to be worth trying to master a more complicated counting system.
See, that’s the complicated part; memorising tables. What are ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ hands?
Oh man, I’ve had the kind of losing streaks that they write movies about. I once lost about 30 hands in under half an hour (not all in a row, but close.) On the other side, I’ve also had equivalent winning streaks.
Paradoxically, one frustrating thing is going on a streak by blind luck when the count is really low. You keep winning, but your bets are small!
Memorizing the table actually isn’t as hard. The trick is to recognize certain patterns instead of trying to memorize every cell of the table individually. For example, if you have a hard 18, you know you’re never going to hit no matter what the dealer has, so you don’t have to individually memorize every cell in the 18 row. For hard 12-16, you know you’re always going to hit if the dealer has something “strong” (7 or above.) The hard memorization really only comes in in a few difficult places, like soft 18. (A good test for a blackjack player is to ask him what you do on soft 18.)
A soft hand is one that has an ace values as 11. It’s “soft” because you can’t bust it; if it goes over 21, the ace becomes a 1. For example, Ace + 7 is a soft 18. If you hit it and get a jack, you now have a hard 18.
A stiff hand is a hand that can bust. That’s hard 12 and above.
I switched to hold em poker, and one time I lost 12 out of 14 starting with kk or aa. One time I had AA vs A9os, and they flopped 99.
Also, I don’t understand about the high/card low card thing. Doesn’t having more high cards also benefit the dealer? They’re virtually unstoppable if they get a 20.
Having more high cards is beneficial to the player because the player gets to choose what to do. The dealer is a robot. If you and the dealer both have 16, the dealer has to hit, but you don’t. If there are more high cards, the dealer is more likely to bust his 16.
Additionally, more high cards means that it is more likely that a player will get a blackjack. Of course, the dealer is also more likely to get a blackjack. But consider what happens in those situations. If I bet $10 and get a blackjack, I get $15 paid to me. If the dealer gets a blackjack, I pay him $10. I would therefore happily trade blackjacks with the dealer all night.
Soft 18 is easy. It’s when you split 10s and 16 vs a 10 where your discipline needs to take over your emotion.
Friedo - With the way the game is dealt these days - using multiple decks, burning several cards, re-shuffling very early in the shoe - do you think there is enough advantage counting vs. playing basic strategy?
In other words, is the extra effort worth the trouble, or is the (miniscule?) advantage gained negligible?
mmm
The total number of decks doesn’t actually matter that much - it affects your EV, but not by a lot. The far more important variables are the rules of the game and penetration (how much of the shoe is dealt before reshuffling.)
I’ve mostly only played on the Las Vegas strip where rules are still pretty liberal for shoe games. Finding good penetration can be tough, but often this can be engineered. You’d be amazed how often saying “hey, could you cut off a little less so we can play longer?” actually works. (First rule of everything in Vegas: it never hurts to ask.)
In the games I’ve played, I usually only see one burn card - the first of the shoe. I’ve heard that in other places they burn cards constantly, but I’ve never seen that. Here’s another great trick: “Hey, I have this silly superstition, can you show me the burn card? It’s good luck!”
ETA: To answer the second part, in any countable game, you’re looking at a long-term expected value (EV) of anywhere from 0.5-2%, depending on rules and penetration. But the short-term variance is huge. You can play perfectly and still lose 20 hands in a row. You can play like a moron and make a killing. But what people don’t realize about counting is that the margins are tiny, which means to make real money you have to grind it out and have a very large bankroll. An EV of 1% means you’ll make a buck for every $100 you bet, on average, over many hours of play. Counting is definitely worth it if you have the bankroll and the patience to grind at the tables for many hours, but it’s a full-time job if you want to make a living that way.
I did it mostly as a hobby, hitting Vegas for a week or two at a time in between consulting gigs.
If penetration is so important, why not just stick to single or double deck games?
The rules are a lot stricter on single and double deck games. For example, they won’t let you re-split aces, may not let you double after split, may restrict double-downs, won’t have surrender, will make the dealer hit soft 17, etc. Scouting rules in double-deck games is really important, because some of them are great and some are terrible.
Do you build up stamina the more you do it? When I was counting, I found that after an hour or so, I was worn out and needed to switch to three card poker or penny slots to recuperate for a bit…
Now for the real questions. How much was your average win over time in a session in dollar terms? Over your total playing time? What was the biggest short-term loss? Don’t bullshit me on these because I am quite familiar with gambler speak and you started the topic.
I may be one of the only unskilled gamblers around that has beaten Las Vegas and I can keep it that way if I never play at one of their tables again. I went last year for the first time and played craps on ‘Pass’ and ‘No Pass’ lines because I heard those are essentially even odds bets or close to it. I don’t even know how to play Craps and I refused to roll myself but it essentially just a coin flipping game for me and my bankroll. I just played a variation of double or nothing bets cashing out at any significant win and walked away with right at $5000 total wins in less than an hour. I left the tables for good and used my wins for some real fun for the rest of the time I was there.