Keith Smith

Any body play it. I'm going down tm night to check it out. No tens in the deck. Sounds like a hitting game to me Double Attack Blackjack Similar to traditional Blackjack but with the 10's removed from the deck, this hot game gives you the opportunity to place an additional "Double Attack" wager (up to the amount of the original wager) after seeing the dealer's "up" card. Bust It bets and additional bonus wagers add additional thrills and excitement.

Where are we at with the results so far? Sorry I have been out had the flu bug.

Looks like Penn National in PA was granted their license and they are talking about table games not just slots http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/markets/marketfeatures/10311664.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA

This certainly Rivals the great win at Trump Plaza when we were using the team play with HArvey Garrison at First Base. Harvey saw a NBJ first base opportunity with three table max bets that hit at 5k each In addition it was again as significant as the win in the Denver casino that Ron D pulled off at first base. Too bad the higest bet allowed was 5 bucks but he cleared the chip tray and they had to reload.

Carlos trip report for Friday, Aug.4, 06 I rolled into Niagara Casino at 8 AM. That?s the casino near Niagara Falls on the Canadian side that many of Ellis?s students have played. It?s the same casino I had made $9500 for my first two trips last month, playing 8 deck, 3rd base. So I started this trip with a $9500 bank roll. I know Friday is certainly not the best day to go but I had no choice. At least I got there early so I could play new cards. At that hour I was able to park pretty close to the front door and I made a mental note of exactly where I parked so if the need should arise, I could make a bee line to my car as Ellis suggests. I was glad I did. I looked over the lower stakes floor pits first but didn?t see anything really good for either 1st or 3rd base play. The casino had just enough tables open to keep the open tables crowded at 5 to 7 players each. So I hit the 6 deck, machine shuffled, high stakes room! The stakes are $100 - $5000. They cut off at about one and a half decks. I don?t favor playing first base or third. As Ellis teaches, I let the cards dictate which I play. They were just coming out with new cards. Only three out of the eight tables were open but one of those was a head to head game with no mid-shoe entry. While this player seemed to only be holding his own, I noted that I could predict first card tens with pretty good accuracy. Highs were clumped just enough to usually get a high card with those first card tens. Low tens ratio rounds were not exceeding three in a row. While I had only played third base in my first two trips, this looked like a real good first base game. So, I buy in for $1000. I tested the water at 1-1 and won the first two hands where I would have bet high. So I went to a 1-2 spread. I keep my high bet pile separate from my low bet pile so I can see my performance on each, like Ellis teaches. Both are doing good and I?m actually a little ahead on my low bet pile. Then the only player left the game. I went to a 1-3 spread. I was doing a little better than 50% on my low bets and excellent on my high bets. I was up $900 in no time on my high bet pile and went right to a 1-5 spread. Now I get lucky and hit to a 21 with lows running and a BJ and I?m quickly up to $2400 on my high bet pile and still up on low bets. I had put my $1000 buy in back in my pocket. The game is going fantastic and I want to take quick advantage so shortly after the next shoe tests OK I go to $100-$1000. I know I can afford to lose two high bets and still be up. But I win the first hi bet and then won more than I lost and I see I?m up $7400 on my high bets and the game is still hot. So I go to $100-$3000 still checking every shoe with $100 flat bets at the beginning. I figure I?m more than two bets up even at $3000 hi bets. It worked before so I go for it. It seemed to be tougher now or maybe that was because I was so nervous. A really big crowd had gathered and the pit boss was watching every move I made. It seemed to take forever but I finally get my high bet pile to $16,400. Now I?m on the mission of my life. But I?m too nervous to go to $5000, the table max so I stay at $100-$3000. I win 3 more hi bets and my high bet pile is at $25,400. My low bet pile is still a little ahead, didn?t count them exact. The crowd is really big. I go to table max. It took me 7 high bets to get ahead three bets. My low bet pile is still good but I don?t care, I?m up $40,000! Three players jump in. I quit! A couple of guys come with a chip tray. They escorted me to the window. I cashed in and made that bee line to my car up an even $50,000 for the 3 trips. On the trip home, I thought about two things Ellis says. It?s a lot more nerve wracking to win than to lose. I now know that?s true. And counters will never have the thrill of doing something like this. This stuff rocks!

Not to mention the mac id of the network device that connects your computer to the internet is unique for every ones cable modem or network interface card.

State Budget needed passed. There open now for business.

When is the legislature going to get it together and open them back up? I can't believe this!

Well since the thread said online cardcounting I would put in my 2 cents. I have tried online and I can tell you without a doubt that Counting online doesn't yield an advantage. It seems everyonce in a while when you have a key hand or reasonable size bet you lose.

Yea Scoopers I remember. It was a glorius time. Order the Bailey's, get the room at the Taj and lets hit Sand's again .... Those bastards hahahahah. We'll do it for Big Time.....

Yes that was in Central City. All in all they were good sports about it. Yes it was a glorious time. We had the seminar at our Hotel, well actually it was Jerry Patterson's NBJ seminar in Denver that week. Ron and Myself were the dealers and you brought in two dealers from Minnesota I can't remember their names. The big deal was if we could have play AC stakes would could have bought the house. If anyone still plays out there I would love to hear what its like now its been so long.

Most of the team play that we did was in the early 90's. We did have seminars and practice sessions in Gansavoort NY before we went. Our biggest team consisted of Ron D, Ellis, Suzanne L, and myself. Ironically Russ, one of the most successful games we played was in Central City casino where we in one morning session we removed every chip they had and the casino manager called two or three times for a refill. We were forced to play a spread of $2-$5 and still killed them. After a shoe or two we had the dealer breakng so much it was truly unbelieveable. The greatest and higest stakes game team play was Harvey Garrison, Ellis, Michael Blacklock from NY and myself. We hit Trump Plaza one night on a quarter game. HArvey was one of the best first base players and had a sense of when to shove out a max bet. He hit two table Max blackjack's in a row, both bets if I remember correctly were 5K or 10k to be honest I can't remember which, while we all were playing some sort of negative progression on other spots. I have never saw a floor person get fluster but we owned the table. I played extensively with Kenny Forbes, Ron and Charlie on Monday nights at the TAj in the 90's I will look up and scan some of the case logs and notes we wrote to Jerry Patterson concerning the play . We would play to a stop win of 1000 for the team. It was honestly quite easy at times. Of course Ellis and myself played more together than anyone. We would play partners play quite a bit. We would change off from first to third and vis versa. We have countless Claridge stories, Foxwoods etc . We used to play with some oriental players there that never uttered a word of English but man they were good. They were excellent clump players and read hole cards so they didn't screw up the dealers break cards etc. When Ellis and I played alot together we saw the impossible happen all the time with respect to casino counter measures. I have never experienced more dealers knocking over cards on shuffles in my life. It was almost comical after a good shoe, we could anticipate it. Drinks spilled and any horse shit they could pull to either change the deck or get more players in the game. The best one was when they turn a $50 game to a nickel game once to get more players in it. They knew I hated speed dealers and as soon as we would get ahead they would insert a speed dealer many times. Ellis like 'em. I think that team play is good and a great way to play. You don't have to make it a formal if you know who you are playing with. Doesn't have to be a major ordeal simply try a table together. The biggest thing is knowing how your partner is going to play so you don't screw up his hit card. If i was playing first base, I knew with a 90% accuracy how Ellis was going to play his hand. In addition it was important to anticipate how anyone else at the table would probably play their hand. I would then base my decision on that and what I thought the dealer had etc. We tried a flat bet sacrifice player with Ron and Charlie a few times with them at first. It was obvious colusion though and the floor person would stand next to me when we tried. Ron & Charlie were betting $100 and I was playing flat nickels at third. I used to love the attention and being able to mess with them. The problem was it was hard to get a 5 player game as the nickel tables fill up, In addition the shit I got at third base was insane. I am usually thick skinned but it was almost unbearable. It was fun trying though and prolly would work well at high stakes. Of course I was hitting 19 and twenty, splitting 10s in a low card clump and anything insane I needed to do to pull low cards tos et up the first base first 10 or to break the dealer. We needed to investigate further playing spread etc. You have to stop the dealer other wise they go to their hand if I was pat. I mean spltting Queen/Ten agains a Ten up and stuff was really a wild time. hahahha. The odd thing was that the sacrifice player plays close to even. I would like to really investigate this strategy further.

Let's get our team play thread going here please.

The last time I played there was years ago, and I mean when it first opened. It is documented in one of the NBJ news letters.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12479455/ Maybe the BJ game will get better there now....

Play with us when me and Ellis play together. We never lost together. You remember the first and second base game at the Claridge with the oriental fellows playing third? God the dealrer was breaking almost every other hand. The fellow at third knew to hit when the cards were non random and it just set the deck up almost perfectly for at least 5 or 6 shoes if I remember.

Do we have any PBJ players in here. Ron's site is here http://precision21.com

Anybody know if Jerry Patterson is still out playing anywhere? What about Eddie Olsen?

There was always much debate over whether the cards are random in the casino. Of course the card clump players ( NBJ) always contended that they are non random and have a certain amount of predictability. The card counters always say they are random. This was an interesting article on how hard it is for a computer to deal truly random cards. Aside from walking into a casino and using your powers of observation to actually see that the cards are obviously non random, simply read how hard it is for a computer to deal random cards. IF the below is true how can simply shuffling 8 decks of cards make them truly random? Obviously it can't. The article was referenced at http://www.pokerstars.com/security.html http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/entdev/article.php/616221http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/entdev/article.php/616221

If the cards are random play basic strategy

1.) Don't play 7 player games Your turn now Ellis, Ron Carlos

You can always tell the players.... :*) They actually bet. KS

Great post Carlos and many over look the fact that casinos actually push basic strategy books in casino stores. What a scam..

The winning response to today’s random Baccarat games: E. Clifton Davis’ All Out War The only method that beats today’s random shoes What we are up against today: In the ‘80’s and ‘90’s Casino Baccarat shoes often contained certain discernable trends exploitable by knowledgeable system developers and trend players. These trends were created either accidentally or purposefully by casino card prep procedures. All Baccarat systems to date attempt to exploit trends. Some past systems were successful to some degree. However, in their constant quest to optimize profits, casinos identified this weakness and promptly corrected it. Through their use of random shuffle machines and random card prep procedures, casino Baccarat shoes today are largely trendless and, for all practical purposes, random, rendering all systems to date obsolete. There are many ways I can prove this to you but for now, let me ask you just one question: Whatever system you are playing right now, how’s it been working for you lately? Need I ask more? Identifying the task: The first step toward any solution is to identify the problem. Pure and simple: Beat random shoes. That’s the name of the game today. Mathematicians argue amongst themselves on just about everything. But they all agree on one thing: random numbers cannot be beat. They even joke about it with comments like: ”That’s as stupid as trying to beat random numbers.” But is Baccarat truly random? I’m convinced that today, the selection between Bank and Player is, for all practical purposes, random. However, we are only looking at a slice of true random. To be true random, the game would need to have infinite selection. But it only has two, thank you very much. Either P wins or B wins. There is no C, D , and F possibilities. Only two, P or B. Forget T! If you still bet on ties, now is a good time to stop. I submit to you that the problem of choosing between only two possibilities can be solved by sufficient torque applied randomly. It took me years to discover exactly how to do this. I call it All Out War because that is exactly what it is. No timid system can beat today’s random game. AOW Overview: We employ the Fibonaci progression because it has proven itself to be the most successful high torque progression ever developed. We marry that prog to net betting. Net betting, a previous creation of mine, has proven itself to be the most effective way of taming high torque progs. Net betting actually increases avg. win size while lowering avg. bet size and vig. This has proven to be an ideal marriage. We apply betting in a virtual random fashion that does not favor Player or Bank or Opposites or Repeats. Or, better said, we favor all of those equally. We fight random with random. AOW Objective: To play the AOW successfully, it is critically important that you fully understand and appreciate our objective. Our objective is to either win the shoe at about +120 units or break even. All of the rules and all of the cash mgt. are designed to work harmoniously to achieve this objective. And it does, if you play correctly. We can afford to lose a prog IF we start over again at 1 vs. 1 immediately and complete the shoe. In 72 plays, we will end up close to even. The third sample shoe is an example of this. Fortunately, today, most shoes are somewhat longer than 72 plays (not counting ties) increasing your chances of achieving the break even part of our objective. AOW early statistics: Thanks to Keith, we will soon have proven finite numbers on all aspects of AOW computer tested over thousands of shoes. Until then, I’ll give you the manual test outcomes. Manual testing indicates we will lose 7 progs in 24 shoes or about 1 prog every 3.4 shoes. Also, we will hit our stop loss twice in 24 shoes by hitting multiple losing progs in the same shoe, scoring about -80 in each of those losing shoes. This gives us an average of about +67 units per shoe overall. If these statistics are anywhere near correct, the AOW is the highest scoring system ever created by a country mile. We will know very shortly. Recognize that even if we lost a prog in 9 out of 10 shoes we would still walk away a winner. What we lose to: We employ an 8 bet prog. Normally an 8 bet prog loses to a certain 8 play pattern. We don’t. The AOW loses to certain 9 play minimum patterns. You will soon note that the 8 play pattern we lose to in one instance, we sail right through the next instance. Therein lies some of our advantage. To lose to a pattern we must hit it wrong. As we test, we will identify losing patterns for informational purposes only. The importance of playing correctly: Time and time again, we have found that AOW mistakes can be costly. If you miss a switch or fail to note that you have won your two bets, or go back to 1 early, you get into a condition we have come to call wrong footed. This inevitably ends up in losing a prog to a normally non losing pattern. Therefore practicing until you play flawlessly every time is imperative. Practice, practice, practice! Personal Scorecards: The AOW is difficult enough without the added complication of unfamiliar scorecards. My recommendation is to take our card or the card of your choice to a copy shop (if you do not have a copier) and have plenty of copies made on heavy gage light colored paper that you have checked for its ability to take your writing and erasures. Make sure you have sufficient room to play a full shoe on the same side of the same card without having to turn the card over or resort to two cards. Scorecard legibility: As you play, make your circles as large as possible and try to draw them in horizontal ellipticals as I have on the sample games. We aren’t used to double digit entries on our card, let alone triple digit entries. Write your numbers as large and as clearly as possible. Nothing can ruin your day more than making mistakes because you couldn’t read your own writing. The importance of conservative play: I have dropped the conservative prog because it lacks the advantage and win rate of the Fibonaci. I would much rather see you play nickels on a dime table in the interest of conservation. The minimum bankroll requirements listed below are just that, minimum. While 100 units should suffice, Baccarat seems to be the very proof of Murphy’s law. I would much rather see you start with 200 units even if it means starting with nickel play until your Bankroll reaches $2000. Then go to dimes. Advancing your unit: The same applies to advancing your unit. Many players have learned the hard way that advancing your unit is the most dangerous decision you could make. You get into position to advance your unit because you have won several shoes in a row. You are overdue to lose. However, the AOW presents opportunities to advance your unit quicker than any other system. If you choose to do this, don’t do it until you have 200 units minimum of the higher denomination. Cash mgt. explanation: Once you have successfully completed your first shoe without a prog loss, cash mgt. is no longer much of a factor. Therefore, our cash mgt. is designed to get you to that point. The reason we hold off on the 55 bet until play 20 is because when you lose a prog in the first col. you are at your most vulnerable to lose two progs in the same shoe. You are also at your most vulnerable to hit your stop loss. The hold off on the 55 bet is an attempt to get you through this calamity with enough chips to continue play. Additional computer testing will pinpoint the optimum play to initially deploy your 55 with minimum exposure. Casino heat: There is no question that the AOW will draw more attention than any system we have ever played. It will draw attention from the other players as well as casino personnel. Be alert to this. The last thing you want is to be asked to leave. Leave on your own before you are asked to. There are other casinos and other days. Now, we are ready for the AOW rules. Learn them well and practice as much as possible. When you have everything down pat practice until you can play automatically and confidently. AOW Rules 12/07/05 1. Scorecard: Prepare your scorecard in ECD Bac fashion: 4 columns, 20 plays long, 5 lanes per column. Head the first two lanes P and B. The remaining 3 lanes are for your running score. The two extra score lanes are for future use should you want to compare progressions, systems, or variations. At each play, make your P and B entries according to the rules below. Circle the side that wins and enter your running score. See sample games. 2. Progression: AOW: 1 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 3. Betting: The AOW utilizes the ECD Bac net betting strategy: Starting on the first play at 1 vs. 1, start your progression down both sides. Bet up 1 rung when you lose and down 1 rung when you win. Each play will have a P and B entry. Subtract the low bet from the high bet and table bet the difference on the high side. When the two entries are the same, we have no table bet that play. 4. Mandatory 3: The 1 bet, win or lose is ALWAYS followed by the 3. Accordingly, the first two plays are always 1vs.1 and 3 vs.3. Our first table bet is always at play 3. 5. Objective: The objective of each progression is to win 2 bets either in a row or separated by 1 loss. (Win-Lose-Win) Once accomplished, that prog goes back to 1 and starts over. 6. Inserting the 2: Since we must have room for the two winning bets without decreasing to 1, whenever we lose the 1 and win the 3, we insert the 2. When we win the 2, we have won our 2 bets so we go to 1. When we lose the 2 we do not bet 3 again. We skip up to 5. If we win, that’s our two bet win so we go back to 1. 7. The lose 2 win 1 rule: Whenever we lose 2 bets (only 2) and then win, and that winning bet is 13 or higher, we take the 3 bet series over again. (we go down 2 instead of 1). As a conservative measure, once you are in the 3rd and 4th columns, I recommend that you employ this rule at the winning 8 bet level. This conservative measure protects us from the terrible threes, BBB PPP BBB PPP. 8. Switching on winning 1’s: The progressions do not continue betting straight down. This would cause us to lose shoes that strongly favor one side or the other. To keep our progressions relatively even and to keep our high bets to a minimum, whenever we win a 1 bet, (with the exception of the first play of the game) the resulting 3 bet goes on the other side. The other progression accommodates by also switching sides. The two progressions remain on the switched side until the next winning 1. Recognize that the win 2 objective follows its progression. Example: We win a 1 bet on Player. The resulting 3 bet goes on Bank. If we win that 3 bet we have satisfied our 2 bet objective so that progression goes back to 1, on Bank. If we win that 1 bet we would switch again. If we lose the 1 bet the 3 goes straight down. You may want to color code your two progs on your first couple of practice shoes. Cash mgt. : Don’t go passed the 34 in the first 19 plays. At, and including play 20, play the whole prog. Should you lose the whole prog, start over at 1vs 1. This way the AOW tends to break even when it loses a prog. The only way we can lose is to lose multiple progs in the same shoe. This is rare about 1 shoe in 12. Overall stop loss: However rare, since it is possible to lose multiple progs in the same shoe, do not make a bet that could take you beyond -100. This makes your worst case scenario somewhere around -80. Not bad, since your avg winning shoe is about +120. Minimum bankroll required: 100 units min. Note: The stronger your starting bankroll position is, the better your odds of success. We seldom lose a session after winning our first shoe. Practice: It is imperative to practice beforehand at the stakes you intend to play. We get into some high bets that could be just about anything. You must automatically know the correct number of chips to bet and on which side to bet them. Playing $5 chips on a $10 table : For low bankroll concerns and perhaps for your first casino game of the day (until you get your Baccarat brain in gear) consider playing $5 units on a $10 min. table. Since 1 bets are very rare simply treat 1 bets the same as a no bet. Once you have reached $2000, you can elect to advance to $10 units, but not before then. Max Unit: I would think twice about going higher than $25 units. You now have the best Baccarat system of all time. The LAST thing you want to do is get ejected. Tip: Should you find yourself at a consistently choppy table, it is a good idea to drop the every other bet rule and always go for 2 consecutive wins. This makes the system extremely strong in chop but at the expense of streak strength. Sample games: The two sample games below are recent Las Vegas games. The same two sample games are shown for both progs for comparison purposes. Sample games: AOW Sample game #1 http://beatthecasino.com/aow/sample_game_1.jpg Sample game #2 http://beatthecasino.com/aow/sample_game_2.jpg Sample game #3 (single prog loss) http://beatthecasino.com/aow/sample_game_3.jpg Note the oddness of this shoe: Super chop to super streak. Those 3 scores in the wrong col. in col. 2 was a mistake. The phone rang. <!-- / sig --><!-- edit note -->

Blackjack 101 Introduction Read this whole thing and then you decide for yourself if the casinos subvert the game of Blackjack to favor the house. ALL the rules favor the player except one - If you both break, the dealer wins. The entire game odds are based on that single rule. Join our Free Forum and talk about Blackjack and what we discuss in this post. Register here it's free. Network with other players, help each other by sharing information. Information is the key to winning play so why let it go by. What is Blackjack 101? The basis of Blackjack 101 is non-random cards. Anyone who has been playing for a few years recognizes that the shoe game seems harder to beat over the last several years. Dealers win more hands. The reality is luck has nothing to do with it. The game has changed. Beating it requires a radically changed playing method that corresponds to, and addresses, those game changes. The basis of the casino's new Blackjack game is non-random cards. We fight Blackjack with BLACKJACK 101. IF BOTH DEALERS AND PLAYERS BREAK LESS, THE CHANCE THAT THEY WILL BOTH BREAK ON THE SAME HAND IS GREATLY REDUCED. E.C. Davis Questions please register for the forum and post your questions. It only takes less than two minutes to register for the forum. http://www.beatthecasino.com/bb/register.php It is a pure and simple mathematical fact. This fact greatly reduces the house odds and gives the advantage to the player, IF HE KNOWS HOW TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT. Look casinos do everything they can to get all the high cards to come out in long clumps or overly saturated areas and they try to do the same thing with low cards. I might add, that they do a very good job of it. Why would they do this and how? First the reasons they do it. They know how 99% of the people play their cards before they walk into the casino. When the dealer has a low card up and you have a stiff hand you stand and wait for the dealer to break, don't you? If they could get a higher saturation of low cards in a certain round of play wouldn't the probability of getting stiff hand increase? YES. Would the chance that a dealer gets a stiff hand increase? YES. If the low cards continue can the dealer break if he/she hits her hand NO! If you are in a clump of low cards, the dealer can't break, low cards being Ace through 6. Oh there is one way, it happens all the time: If the dealer has any combination of cards that total 16 and hits it with a six. Why would they want all the high cards to clump? How many two card twenties have you pushed in the casino? Those are the hands you are supposed to win! Well at least 82% of the time you should win a two card twenty. What about Blackjack? How often do you push blackjacks? I'll tell you, about 1 in 10 times. The random odds of pushing a Blackjack are well over 200 to 1. These are just a few of the casino tactics that you have been exposed to. How do they do it? They pick up the break cards firsts. Most of the hands that break are composed of more low cards than high cards. The majority of hands that are left are pat hands. They pick them up and place them on top of the breaking hands. The pat hands are composed mainly of high cards. They crowd the tables. The more players the more breaking hands per round and the more the cards clump up. They sell basic strategy books. The more basic strategy players in a multiple deck game the more the cards clump up. Basic strategy is the worst way to play a clumped game of Blackjack. It will feed the dealer the best low cards to complete his/her hand. Why? Everyone stands in a place in the shoe when there is a high density of low cards. They get you to double in the worst possible place. Look, if there is a high density of low cards your double and split opportunities are increased. Why? Low cards make hands of 10's and 11's Too often you double your 11 and get another low card. Then they make even longer clumps with all those low card hands. They pick them up and put them on top of one another. Right about here somebody always says: " But they shuffle the cards." Yes they do. TWICE!!!! Count it, TWICE!!! If we were playing poker on Saturday night and I had the deal passed to me and I shuffled the cards twice what would you say to me? I'll tell you if you didn't shoot me first, "SHUFFLE THE CARDS!!!" Now an expert a long time ago said that to make a single deck of cards random you must shuffle it 7 times. How many decks are we playing with? Let's figure it out. Therefore, to randomize 6-8 decks of cards you would have to shuffle 7x7x7x7x7x7x7x7. I got news for you, It's Impossible! Not to mention that they do everything to make the decks non-random. IS BASIC STRATEGY WRONG ? OH MY GOD HOW COULD ALL THOSE BOOKS BE WRONG??? ARE THE CASINOS BROKE? Table take rates of the casinos over the past few years have skyrocketed. Are the dealers getting luckier? Basic Strategy was designed, over thirty years ago, for single deck games. Experts assumed that multi-deck games were like single deck games with more cards. This was an unfortunate assumption. They are a different animal altogether. WHY DO MOST PLAYERS LOSE? The closest to 21 wins. That makes it even. But, we had to give a casino advantage. They have operating expenses. Now stop there, forget about breaking, down cards etc. In the long run, if you and I play a game of 21 and we both hit our hands to 17 and then stop, who will win? We will both come out about even up on hands won. Now let's say this, I'm the house, if we both break on the same hand I win. Before, when you went over 21 we had to play out the hand to see if I broke because in the old rules, if I broke on the same hand, it was a tie, but now we changed the rules. If we both break on the same hand, I win. Now it's a different animal. Now don't get caught up in playing first or last it really makes no difference in blackjack. When we played before, you got just as many stiff hands as I did and a certain percentage of them you broke on and exactly the same percentage I broke on. But now if we both break on the same hand I win. Remember also that we are both hitting our hands to 17. Now the way casino blackjack is setup playing out the hand becomes a moot point. It is unnecessary to play out. But think of this: Suppose that after you break the dealer must play out his/her hand to see if she breaks. If she breaks then you broke - it's a tie. It isn't like that is it? See the whole game is based on that single rule. Ok tell you what, you don't have to hit your hand to 17 anymore you can play your cards anyway you want. You can bet as much money as you want, you can insure against a blackjack if you want. In addition, you may double, split, and surrender your hands. Guess what you still can't overcome the house advantage of that single rule. Now, I want you to think about the last game you lost. Did you lose because of the break-push rule? Probably not. You lost because the dealer won more hands than you. The break ratio of the dealer had nothing to do with it. If the dealer breaks less, then if the player plays his hands closer to dealer strategy, in certain circumstances, he will break less also. Of course! The cards don't know who is dealing. That's the advantage the casino handed you on a silver platter. Why? To beat card counters. They beat 'em even thought most of them won't admit it. It is in the casinos best interest to perpetuate this card counting myth. You are playing right into their hand. You need to switch your strategy, get Blackjack 101 and turn the tactics against the casino. How could you lose when you could play your cards anyway you want? You lost because of the way you played your cards. You lost because you bet the dealer was going to break and he/she didn't THE SYSTEM (BASIC STRATEGY) YOU USE MAKES YOU LOSE, NOTHING ELSE! You bet the dealer was going to break too often!!! WHAT THE RULES TEACH US. All the rules favor the player but one - when you both break you lose. Dealer play is mindless Players can lose a hand 3 ways but dealers can only lose 2 ways. A. PLAYERS - The player loses whenever he: a. Stands short when the dealer makes b. Makes a hand less than the dealer's c. Breaks B. DEALER - The dealer loses whenever she: a. Makes a hand less than the player's b. Breaks when the player doesn't Standing with less than 17 is betting the dealer will break. Hitting a hard 12-16 is betting the dealer won't break. If you stand with less than 17 you lose - unless the dealer breaks. The dealer cannot break on low cards of 1 through 6 except on 16 The dealer cannot break with all high cards. Doubling is betting a single hit card will beat the dealer. The hole card is low just as often as it is high. To break even on surrender we must be right 75%. Splitting is deciding what hand we prefer to start with. You decide when and where to play, when to stop, how much to bet, when to double, split, insure, or surrender and how much to tip. Want to read and hear more visit Beatthecasino.com and learn all about Blackjack 101. Order your download version of Blackjack 101 here online and get on the winning track to better blackjack play. Turn the casino tactics against them. Order Blackjack 101 $39.95 - Forum Support and updates. Questions please register for the forum and post your questions to this thread. It only takes less than two minutes to register for the forum. http://www.beatthecasino.com/bb/register.php