It can definitely take its toll. When I first started I would start to lose track after just two or three shoes. With enough practice I was able to sit through a 2-3 hour session, then I would go back to my room to decompress for a bit. I’ve met pros who do it eight hours a day, though.
Lucky for you I kept detailed spreadsheets of nearly every session I played. As a green-chip player I averaged 1.19% return over my whole counting career, amounting to a net of $11,400, representing about 1200 total hours of play. My starting bankroll was $2500.
My biggest short-time loss was the incident I mentioned above where I lost about 30 hands in a very short time. I dropped $3150 in under half an hour. I am amused to find that line in my spreadsheet is still marked with a big bold 
.
My biggest one-time win was $4400 at the end of a three-hour session.
Over my career I played a total of 330 sessions lasting between one to four hours. I’ve had 156 losing sessions and 174 winning sessions.
I’ve had losing weeks but never a losing year.
Nice job! Of course a double-or-nothing system on a coin-flip bet is ultimately a losing system; eventually you won’t have enough money to double your bet, or you’ll run into the table maximum. But you’re right about one thing: as long as you don’t ever gamble again, you’ll be up for the rest of your life. 
Are you good at math and number stuff?
Not especially. I took two semester of calculus but I don’t know any advanced math. My day job is in computer programming.
Have you ever enjoyed an advantage greater than with normal counting? For example, in a casino near Barcelona the shuffling regime was to take the just dealt quintuple-deck (which of course you’ve counted), divide it in half, and then shuffle only opposite parts together thoroughly. In other words if we label the tenths of the old deck A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J; after shuffling the deck will be E+J, D+I, C+H, B+G, A+F. If you knew from the previous deal-out that, say, C and H were both ten-rich, you cut the cards appropriately and start betting big! (I’ve heard that some U.S. casinos used this defective shuffling regime, though I only saw it in Barcelona.)
BTW, the count I like is 3456 vs TJQK. You sacrifice some betting accuracy but get better play strategy. If you’re in form, it’s easy to also keep a side-count of Aces and get the best of both.
I used the KO count in Vegas, but I just played blackjack to supplement my income. I switched to poker because it’s more relaxed as you aren’t facing off against the house. I now prefer blackjack tournaments where you’re playing against other players instead of the house. Do you like the tournament play in Vegas?
Exploiting weak shuffles and shuffle-tracking are time-honored advantage play techniques. I’ve never done it as the manual shuffles on the Strip tend to be very good and I’ve only played for fun elsewhere. It’s also really hard and requires a highly-trained eye to estimate the location of good slugs in the shoe.
Another strategy which I’ve seen employed is edge-sorting in pitch games. If the casino is using cards whose back designs do not match on each edge, you can turn good cards one way and bad cards the the other way, then wait for the dealer to shuffle your sorted cards, and you can see whether a good or bad card will come next off the top of the deck. This is why Vegas shuffles now incorporate turns (even on face-up games.)
Yet another strategy is hole-carding: trying various devious means to see what card the dealer has in the hole. Sometimes it’s as easy as just spotting a dealer with poor form who doesn’t realize they’re flashing the hole card when taking it out of the shoe.
All of these opportunities are pretty rare and tend to be corrected by the casinos quickly, so I never really tried them. I read a lot about them and heard some war stories of dubious veracity, though.
I never tried any sidecount strategies, but I did meet a guy once who developed a suit count to take advantage of a badly designed side bet. It was one of those bets where you win something if your two cards plus the dealer’s up card make some nifty combination like three-of-a-kind or a total of 21. This particular incarnation offered some insane payout for suited combinations that had a very positive EV if you happened to know that one suit was a lot more depleted than the other three.
The Wizard of Odds has calculated EV on many blackjack side bets and they’re all pretty terrible, but that suited one is legendary for having been really exploitable.
I never played in any tournaments. Some people do play in them to get comps or prize money to add to their bankroll, but I never tried it.
What was your normal bankroll?
How many times were you banned?
Did you ever do the Wong method(only play positive counts)
Did you split tens often?
Prefer double, single or shoe games?
Ever count two shoes simultaneously?
Work in a team?
Longest play session?
Biggest swing in a single session?
Average low and high bets?
Any purposeful actions that were poor play designed to throw off the house from catching you ?
Did any casinos ban you, and if so, which one(s)? How was the experience for you?
What are your favorite blackjack books?
One thing that burned me out on the blackjack tables was other players with their smoking and superstitions. Did that ever get to you?
Did you play other casino games for a change of pace, and if so, did you win or lose money on them?
I started with $2500 but eventually settled on a $5000 bankroll for each excursion. (Note that many strategist would still consider this low even for just a green player, but it worked out OK for me.) I would only buy in for $500 at a time, though, so as not to attract attention to myself. If I had a losing streak then I’d buy $500 more.
I was never banned, but I got backed-off twice. Both times they were very polite about it. Green players just don’t attract as much scrutiny as people think. If I had been playing in a high roller room without any cover strategy, I would be banned pretty quickly. But I was never that brave. (And I didn’t have enough money, anyway.)
You know when the best time for a bathroom break is? When the TC hits -2.
Only when the count justifies it. Splitting tens attracts attention, and will particularly be remarked upon if the dealer knows you as a pure basic strategy player. So I would usually be all like, “ah, what the hell, I’m feeling lucky! Let’s split 'em!”
Some players employ sophisticated cover strategies to make all their moves look like superstitions, but again I never found that necessary.
I prefer shoe games, face-up. However, I once found a pretty good double game which was dealt face up that I liked. (That was at the NYNY; I don’t know if they still have that game.)
I don’t like pitch games. The extra effort of manipulating the cards with your hands makes it very hard for me to concentrate on the game. And it’s a lot harder to see the other players’ cards.
Nope.
Nope.
About four hours.
Hmm, I’m not sure exactly since my records only keep track of buy-in and cash out. I do have one session in my list with a buy-in of $2000 (that means I lost $500 four times) and apparently I walked away with $1975. Take that, casino!
Strictly green-chipper, which means I bet in units of $25. My spread was typically 4:1, single spot, then 6:1 if I could get two spots, then 12:1 if I could get three spots.
So depending on the count, I would go from $25 on a single hand, to $100 on a single hand, then up to $150 divided between two hands ($75 on each), then up to $300 divided between three hands ($100 on each.)
This is a low spread according to some standards, but it worked OK for me.
IME, very little cover was required as a green chipper. One thing I did employ was to always bet two units at the beginning of the shoe (when the TC is zero) since “everybody knows the first hand is lucky!”
See above.
Beat the Dealer by Ken Thorpe,
Professional Blackjack by Stanford Wong,
Blackbelt Blackjack by Arnold Snyder,
Turning the Tables on Las Vegas by Ian Andersen
Bringing Down the House by Ken Mezrich (it’s complete bullshit, but it’s a really fun read.)
The smoking can get rough, especially if some asshole lights up a gigantic cigar right in your face. Fortunately some of the bigger properties have non-smoking tables. (This isn’t always enforced, though.) If it’s crowded you just have to put up with it.
Superstitions never bugged me. I don’t care how other people play, although it is always nicer to have a table to yourself. As long as the guy doesn’t make a scene because he thinks I should have done something else, I don’t care. I was always more bothered by drunk people who want to engage me in idiotic conversation. That’s why I tended to only play off-hours and avoid tables between 8pm-2am.
I’ve really only ever been interested in blackjack. I might bet ten bucks or so on a roulette spin here or there, but I never dedicated any serious time to other games. I don’t understand craps at all.
OK, past my bedtime. I’ll answer more questions tomorrow if there are any.
Short of being backed-off or even banned: How often did you assume that you had appeared “on the radar” of pit bosses and dealers, in other words: did casino employees suspect that you are a skilled player, did they pay special attention to your play (compared to the average casual player)?
(The last time I was in a Las Vegas casino, I watched a pit boss standing right behind a player at a blackjack table for more than 10 minutes, looking over his shoulder and watching every move he made. It was borderline rude).
Could you explain further what you mean by this? I understand the math component, but is this something you incorporate into your betting strategy?
Or do you simply make your bet based on units?
For example, 1 unit = $25. Plus 3 count means a bet of $75.
Also…
How do you keep from getting nervous/tentative when you’re pushing a big bet out there? There have been times when I place a large-ish bet (using basic strategy only), then see that I am in a position to split, then split again, for example. I know it’s the right move, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking “Yikes!”.
mmm
If you did 25 - 300, your spread was 12:1 which is quite low for a six deck shoe game. You probably cut into your expected return that way. And if you started at $25 (except for the first hand) how did you reduce it for TC -1 and lower?
Did you sign up for the player cards to track betting for comp purposes?
Another thing, you only had 16 big bets as your bank roll. How close did you ever come to losing the whole thing? My impression was that for playing shoes, 100 big bets was the number, which would mean 30,000.
What were your favorite casinos for blackjack, and where did you spend most of your playing time?
Haha, the first time I tried counting in a live casino I was paranoid as hell. I was convinced “the heat” was on me from the moment I walked in the door. Of course they weren’t and nothing happened. As I said above, players at my level just don’t attract a lot of attention. Lots of people stick strictly to basic strategy, and so does a counter most of the time, so that’s not attention-worthy. Spreading your bets does attract attention, but my spread ratio was fairly low and I did it by opening multiple hands when possible so it looked lower than it was.
Both times I was backed off, I had no idea anybody was observing me. A security guy just came up behind me and said something to the effect of, “hey man, you’re playing too good for us, I can’t let you play blackjack here any more.” And that was it.
I’ve observed that in high-roller rooms (I think they do it to amp up the tension) but it never happened to me. Most of the time if a pit boss is suspicious they’ll just call the eye in the sky and let them deal with you.
That’s it. With a basic Hi-Lo count, you want to bet some multiple of the true count in units. (One unit if you’re playing through zero or negative counts.) So if the TC was 3 I would bet $75. The true count calculation is important because the running count tells you how biased the deck is towards high cards, but your probability of drawing a high card depends on how many cards are left.
It’s nerve-racking, but it is exciting. I started as a casual player where I only bet the minimum (typically at $10 tables) so the first time I bet more than the minimum it was a bit scary. But I got used to it quickly.
I also knew that if I busted out, then that was it. I’m not a compulsive gambler; I’m not going to sell my kidneys or mortgage my apartment for blackjack money. If I went bust then I’d just be done and maybe in a few months I’d save up another bankroll from my job and try again.
Yes, it was a low spread and low bankroll as I mentioned, but that’s what I had to work with at the time. However, spreading across three hands is not the same as a 12:1 spread on one hand; the EV on multiple hands at high counts is actually higher than the equivalent bet on a single hand. I forgot the mathematical reasoning for this, but it’s probably in one of the books I mentioned above.
Yes, although as a small fry I never got any particularly lavish comps. I found that bringing $5000 was about the minimum necessary to get Strip casino hosts to pay attention to you. But one tip is not to just play and expect someone to notice you. Instead, I would call ahead and ask to speak to the casino host department, and say, “Hey, I’m going to be there on these days, and I’m going to bring $5000, is there anything you can do for me? Here’s my player’s card number.” And with that you could usually get a small discount on the room, maybe an upgrade if things are slow, and some restaurant comps.
Ian Andersen has some stories in his books about some pretty epic comp hustling scams. He used to get casinos to pay for first class airfare for him and his friends to fly into town, even though he already lived there. But you need to be a pretty high roller for that sort of thing.