yes, but if a player hits when he should stand, the next player gets a different card than he would have gotten if you had played correctly. It doesn’t actually change the other player’s chances of winning, but gamblers are a superstitious bunch and will blame you for taking “their” card.
Playing “proper” blackjack will actually, in fact, improve that other player’s chances. There is a reason the aforementioned chart exists.
ETA: Over the long term, to be clearer.
Which is pretty much why I stopped playing blackjack. Hearing some drunken 50 year old guy whine for a good ten minutes about how “I took his card” when it ended up being the right play for me was the last straw.
How so? It is my understanding that whether you play correctly or moronically, it doesn’t affect other players in the long run because you never know what card is coming next. For example, say dealer has a six and you hit on hard 17. Sometimes you will get a 4 and the player next to you, waiting to double on 11, will thank you when he then gets a 10. But I’m prepared to believe that I am wrong about this if you have any more information on it.
I think you’re correct mathematically. Problem is, most players aren’t mathematicians.
If Billy Blunder’s play happens to help Willy Wiseguy, that will go unnoticed (Willy will credit his own wisdom!), but when Billy’s play leads to Willy busting, Willy will know who to blame. 
Which bet in a casino is something other than a “sucker bet”?
This. Vegas owes it’s success to the belief that understanding strategy gives you an advantage. It doesn’t, not against the house. All those high rise hotels were paid for by guys who had a system for blackjack.
Witness the explosion of interest in poker, particularly Texas Hold Em, after an “amateur” won the World Series of Poker in 2003. Never mind that the guy (Chris Moneymaker) had played thousands of hours of online poker.
The idea that you could make a living playing poker is thrilling to a lot of people – but they don’t realize that to get there, you have to play every day for years to develop the requisite skills, and even then you have to grind pretty hard to make a living. Same with anything else.
Thanks for that, Sky…
There is absolutely no “house edge” to the “odds” bet behind the pass line in craps.
FTR, you have to make a pass line bet to get the odds bet and the house has a slight edge in that bet.
As a frequent casino gambler, I consider any bet with a 5% or more house advantage, a sucker bet. One that is going to rob your bank roll pretty quickly.
Thus the “over time” qualifier. That is why the chart exists-- limiting the casino’s edge. Playing by the chart limits the casino’s edge to ~1.5%. Playing stupid blackjack increases the casino’s edge considerably. The casino will rake in more money, and that money has to come from somewhere.
It’s especially frustrating when someone playing $10 a hand pulls this bullshit when someone else is playing $100 per hand. It’s a really great way for one to find themselves playing alone or with other people that don’t know how to play blackjack.
At the end of the day, it’s not you against the casino, it’s you and the other players at the table against the casino. Especially since the casino need only bust once for everyone to win.
And since this is a thread about etiquette, let me emphasize that playing stupid blackjack is poor etiquette.
This is just plain wrong. The random mistakes made by unskilled players have absolutely no effect on the long-run results of any other player.
septimus nailed it when he said “If Billy Blunder’s play happens to help Willy Wiseguy, that will go unnoticed (Willy will credit his own wisdom!), but when Billy’s play leads to Willy busting, Willy will know who to blame. “
Anyone who whines or complains about how others are playing their hands is showing his lack of understanding of the game and is simply being rude by blaming his bad luck on other people.
I give you my Iron Clad No Exceptions Double Your Money Back Guarantee that those who think the play of others affects their results are not skilled BJ players.
My opinion is supported by:
Playing Blackjack as a Business
Professional Blackjack
The Theory of Blackjack
Blackbelt in Blackjack
Blackjack Attack
and all other serious books on Blackjack.
If you’re going to Vegas for a few days, get a Basic Strategy card if you like, or just sit down and have fun; over the course of a few days it really doesn’t matter … pay no attention to the whiners and the bullies. If you want to learn what it takes to actually beat the game,the first book on this list is a good start, but be warned that they get very math heavy after that.
Good luck … and most importantly for a tourist visit … Have fun.
Do you have anything factual to offer that supports your opinion?
Let us take for example a player who consistently hits 16 when the dealer is showing a 5. Can you explain mathematically how that will not impact the play of the rest of the table?
You do not understand probability at the most fundamental of levels. The cards are randomly distributed. The guy who hits 16 when the dealer is showing a 5 is making a poor statistical move for himself but is not affecting the odds of the other players over the long run. He can just as well be taking a favorable card as an unfavorable card.
Here is a good article on the subject.
I have explained this basic fact so many times to so many people that I have lost count. Almost all of them stubbornly stick to their superstition that other players in blackjack can hurt their odds.
I listed five very good books – read any one of them. “Playing Blackjack as a Business” is a classic and gives a very good basic introduction to the game. “The Theory of Blackjack” is heavy duty math if that’s your thing.
You want a math-free little experiment? Get a deck of cards, give the dealer a 5, give the player 16, and give yourself any hand you want. Now play out the hands over and over again having the player hit his 16 and keep track of your results, then play over and over again having the player stand on this 16. In the short run your results might vary due to luck but as you play it out more and more times, you will see the results begin to converge to the point where the results are same either way.
The dealer will make or bust his 5 the same percentage of the time no matter who hits what hand. If, instead of 16, the player had 9, do you think he should stand because he might take the dealer’s bust card? Of course you don’t. If you think about, it should become clear that it simply doesn’t matter who hits what hands, the way the dealer’s hand turns out is random and is in no way affected by what hands the players had or how they played them.
Ah, good … the evidence mounts.
I agree that bad play on one player’s part doesn’t impact the outcome of the game for any other player.
However, with regard to the intent of the OP, it is bad etiquette to sit at a table with many other players (particularly if there’s a wide spread in bet amounts and you’re playing the minimum) and play badly (i.e., outside the accepted conventions for hit/stand/split). If you want to play off odds, then get a table by yourself or just with your friends.
I understand what you’re saying, Turble. However, my understanding (and I am by no means a casino expert) is that your hypothetical dollar table may be a loss leader for the casino, but further back in the casino is another table with $25,000 minimums. So I’m sure it all balances out.
Furthermore, I think (from a business standpoint) that a few dollar tables are a good idea. Get some casual players who play a few hundred hands and don’t lose too badly and they’ll think they can win, so they bet higher amounts at higher tables, etc.
This is exactly why they have $5 tables, which Turble pointed out aren’t money makers either. But with low limit tables, you reach a point at which you’re losing too much money to make it worth it, and $1 is probably past that point.
I will likely never forget my last time at a blackjack table, during the morning hours when no one but my then-wife and I were at the table. I was and am a VERY novice player, and I had a pair of 10s (I don’t recall what the dealer had). I started staring at them rather contemplatively before deciding what to do, hoping to maximize what looked like a sure easy win. The dealer, a gruff-but-friendly older woman, looked at me and said, “You split those tens, I’ll split your head.”
I didn’t split.
Comments from a friend who is a manager at a local casino:
Their staff are trained to say something like “Maybe – but just last month, we had a player win $xxx on a bet like that – you might be that lucky too!” (citing a true case). But always being pleasant, never argue with a customer!
People with a strategy card ae usually new players, they WANT them to feel welcomed. The dealer will usually tell them about ‘learning’ tables that offer lessons. The only problem would be if a player takes too long studying the card and slows down play, especially at a busy time. Then the dealer may invoke the ‘15-second rule’ for each player to play, or may ask you to move to a slower table. But still politely.