ECD

Casinos have always been our most persistent buyers. There is no way we can stop them. There purchasing departments call me direct. "If you refuse to sell to us we'll just have one of our employees make the purchase". I ask them if they ever bought books from other writers and they just laugh and tell me that they never got a purchase order for any other author's materials. I don't see a thing we can do about it.

Oh, I don't know why you aren't seeing the book ads. Copy your post and Email it to Keith. Whatever it is he can fix it. And check out Excerpts from the pro forum. You might find it interesting

Ok, friends again! I guess your post got out of cue with mine. I'll have Keith delete your second post if you don't mind since, where it ended up it makes no sense. Feel free to ask any questions you want on cash mgt. But just as you don't talk to race car drivers about car crashes, you don't talk to pro Bj players about players ruin. That belongs over on the amateur card counting channels, not here. You should be pretty squared away now on our cash mgt. Aren't you? It's pretty simple. I'm shocked you haven't asked any questions on our insurance betting. I'm sure that's the hottest BJ tip you ever got. You just don't realize that, yet.

And here's my reply: Well you are asking the right questions Char: First, I started with $8000 in winnings. I had won substancially more than that but It did not occur to me to save money for a bankroll because at first I didn't know I would be needing one. I had just received tenure as a college professor and together with a good Summer business I was making about $80,000 a year. That was a LOT of money in the late 80's. So going pro was a big decision for me. But a tiff with the college made up my mind. I refused to teach a blind black boy mechanical drawing. I was immediately charged with racial bias as the college was in hot water with the feds over their black quota. I explained, to no avail, that I was not racially biased whatsoever; that I wasn't refusing to teach a black boy, I was refusing to teach a blind boy to draw; that the whole idea was preposterous. But colleges can be incredibly stupid. The union would have backed me and I certainly would have won but it was the straw. I drove to AC directly from the college (2 hrs) and was up 8 grand in 2 days. I called home and told my wife I was going pro and I'd be home in a week. She was overjoyed. See, I always gave her half my winnings. When you do that they start booting you out of the house, you know, as long as you are winning. That worked great the whole 3 years. The first thing that impressed me was that I was almost always the only winner at the table. You know, I had read all these books and I thought all these guys were pros. But I never saw any of them. So I called them one by one and invited them to come and play. One by one they all turned me down. Meanwhile the casinos were treating me like a celebrity. EVERYBODY knew my name, even cocktail waitresses. One morning at the Sands I sat down alone at a table that had not been played yet. The very young female dealer burst into tears! I said what on Earth is wrong with you? You're Ellis! How do you know that? I just saw a movie of you playing in the dealer room. They got a movie of me?!? Yeah and they are threatening us to beat you no matter how. I'm just a beginner and I don't know how to do that stuff yet and I'll be in big trouble. I said no you won't because I'm not going to play you. Tell them you scared me off! I wasn't there 2 months when I noticed I had a group of about 15 blue coats with clip boards following me everywhere I went. I used to tease them because I didn't know any better. You know, I'm going to the john guys, watch my chips. Or hey, lets go get a Pizza, don't worry, I'll buy. I sat down at an empty quarter table at the Claridge one morning and immediately 4 blue coats sat down and bought in before I even got my chips. I looked at them and I said, Geez guys, you've got to be the best dressed BJ players in the entire world. Their leader mumbled "we're bartenders" and they all jumped in unison and left, chips in hand. So I yelled after them "hey, can one of you bartenders bring me a Scotch rocks? The war was on! and it was just beginning. But where were the pros? In six months I never saw a one except Kenny Houston. So I watched him play and quickly realized he couldn't play for shit. But all these things were beginning to add up in my head. One night at the Madison house with a table full of dealers over a Scotch, it finally hit me. These guys aren't asking me who I am because they all already know who I am. These guys aren't the enemy, they are my friends. I'm their hero. They don't bother the other pros because THERE ARE NO OTHER PROS. That's why I'm the center of attention. These book writers are ALL phonies. That's why they refused to come. Hey! Geez, why not! I'm gonna write my own book. A REAL book on Blackjack. I think I'll call it just what it is. Yep! New Blackjack! Well I guess I didn't get to all your questions yet, but I will.

Here's his reply:

Well you are asking the right questions Char: First, I started with $8000 in winnings. I had won substancially more than that but It did not occur to me to save money for a bankroll because at first I didn't know I would be needing one. I had just received tenure as a college professor and together with a good Summer business I was making about $80,000 a year. That was a LOT of money in the late 80's. So going pro was a big decision for me. But a tiff with the college made up my mind. I refused to teach a blind black boy mechanical drawing. I was immediately charged with racial bias as the college was in hot water with the feds over their black quota. I explained to no avail that I was not racially biased whatsoever; that I wasn't refusing to teach a black boy, I was refusing to teach a blind boy to draw; that the whole idea was preposterous. But colleges can be incredibly stupid. The union would have backed me and I certainly would have won but it was the straw. I drove to AC directly from the college (2 hrs) and was up 8 grand in 2 days. I called home and told my wife I was going pro and I'd be home in a week. She was overjoyed. See, I always gave her half my winnings. When you do that they start booting you out of the house, you know, as long as you are winning. That worked great the whole 3 years. The first thing that impressed me was that I was almost always the only winner at the table. You know, I had read all these books and I thought all these guys were pros. But I never saw any of them. So I called them one by one and invited them to come and play. One by one they all turned me down. Meanwhile the casinos were treating me like a celebrity. EVERYBODY knew my name, even cocktail waitresses. One morning at the Sands I sat down alone at a table that had not been played yet. The very young female dealer burst into tears! I said what on Earth is wrong with you? You're Ellis! How do you know that? I just saw a movie of you playing in the dealer room. They got a movie of me?!? Yeah and they are threatening us to beat you no matter how. I'm just a beginner and I don't know how to do that stuff yet and I'll be in big trouble. I said no you won't because I'm not going to play you. Tell them you scared me off! I wasn't there 2 months when I noticed I had a group of about 15 blue coats with clip boards following me everywhere I went. I used to tease them because I didn't know any better. You know, I'm going to the john guys, watch my chips. Or hey, lets go get a Pizza, don't worry, I'll buy. I sat down at an empty quarter table at the Claridge one morning and immediately 4 blue coats sat down and bought in before I even got my chips. I looked at them and I said, Geez guys, you've got to be the best dressed BJ players in the entire world. Their leader mumbled "we're bartenders" and they all jumped in unison and left, chips in hand. So I yelled after them "hey, can one of you bartenders bring me a Scotch rocks? The war was on! and it was just beginning. But where were the pros? In six months I never saw a one except Kenny Houston. So I watched him play and quickly realized he couldn't play for shit. But all these things were beginning to add up in my head. One night at the Madison house with a table full of dealers over a Scotch, it finally hit me. These guys aren't asking me who I am because they all already know who I am. These guys aren't the enemy, they are my friends. I'm their hero. They don't bother the other pros because THERE ARE NO OTHER PROS. That's why I'm the center of attention. These book writers are ALL phonies. That's why they refused to come. Hey! Geez, why not! I'm gonna write my own book. A REAL book on Blackjack. I think I'll call it just what it is. Yep! New Blackjack! Well I guess I didn't get to all your questions yet, but I will.

Well, here's a few pointers from my pro days. First, I stayed there but I didn't live there. AC I mean. It's a nasty town. I used to rent effientcy apts until I realized that there is no grocery store in AC. So I got weekly rates at the Madison House. The first thing you'll notice is that you have a whole lot more time on your hands. No travel, no family no nothing but you, the ocean and the tables. You need to use this time wisely. I scouted casinos and took notes, Today I would use one of those miniature tape recorders like Hanson uses. I knew everything about every casino in AC. I knew their shift hours, their card preps, everything. I new which pits were ripe for first base at the beginning of which shift, which were ripe for third base and how long these good games lasted. I knew exactly where the best place to be was at 7:30 in the morning on each day of the week. One of the reasons I could easily win EVERY day was because I ALWAYS won in the morning because I always knew from my notes exactly where the best NBJ game was. Afternoons were tougher. But I ALWAYS captured my morning buyin for the day. So if I had any trouble in my afternnon session I quit for the day ahead at least $300. So winning every day was simply a function of winning every morning. And that was easy. My goal for the morning session was $1000 and I always played green in the AM. So my first tip is KEEP GOOD NOTES and study them. My next tip is eat HEALTHY and get daily exercise. Don't get tempted by those fancy menus. I thought I did good with this but as it turned out I should have been doing a whole lot better. In the afternoon I usually played black because the high stakes rooms were just opening up. I had learned that new cards are far better because they are more consistent whether you play third or first. While I seldom overstayed my morning sessions, I often ran my afternoon session right into my night session if my table stayed good. I did this because I knew that good night tables are much harder to find. I was very stingy with my daily bank roll at the night session because I captured $2100 of my winnings that day. If I was only up $2100 after the afternoon session I didn't play that night. On the other hand if the night session took off I got very aggressive. But that 2100 stayed in my pocket. It's a very lonely life and you need to be with people just for good mental health. The best people to hang out with is the dealers. Back then the biggest dealer hangout was the huge bar/restaurant downstairs at the Madison House. So I bought a dealer shirt and blended right in. Man o man you pick up a lot of stuff hanging out with the dealers. They start their war stories about how they fleeced their players that day and the biggest fleecer that day is always the center of attention that night. That's how their hierarchy works. And there you are quietly smilling and taking it all in. If anybody asked, and they seldom did, I'd say oh I'm just fill in, I teach over at the college. I'm just here to buy the beer and get some tips from you pros. They'd go right back into their war stories and I'd buy the next pitcher. All in all it was a pretty darn good life.

I can't believe I'm wasting time arguing with some rookie who has no idea of what he's talking about. Sensible cash mgt has nothing to do with ruin. It's a given. I posted our whole cash mgt philosophy here before more than once. Look it up. We buy in at 12 units. We never take our wallet out at a table. That's a sign of a rank amateur. We might leave before 12 units if we don't like what we see but we never give a table more than 12 units. Of course we don't sit down at all untill we have thoroughly checked the table. Before we play, we know the DRB the dealer break ratio, the CR, clumping ratio. We selected first or third according to the CR. We know the dealer's first card 1O 's ratio. Is she getting more than the mathematical 4 in 13. If its Friday or Saturday night, she WILL be. Is she breaking mostly on high ups or lo ups. We always know exactly how to play her before we sit down. Now if all that fails, you made an error in your table selection. Identify your error, correct it and try again. If you make a second error you are not fit to play that day. Go home! Assume you don't error. Ok our first objective is to make 3 piles of 12, not counting our buy in pile. Once we achieve that we must check our condition to play further as well as the table condition. Particularly the last pile. Was it easy or hard. Do we feel ok? Do we want to double the stakes for the next 3 piles. And the same after the next three piles. But assume you did make the double error and went home. Now, if on your next trip you make the double error again, you don't know what you are doing. You need to either go back and study untill you find out what you are doing wrong or you need to select a different hobby, golf, sailing, because you certainly can't play BJ. You don't think in terms of gamblers ruin because you don't go anywhere's near that far. If you gave the game 48 units, that's it. You aren't prepared. Either go back and study for a couple months or quit. If 48 units breaks you then you had no business playing at those stakes. That was your first mistake. So if you don't trust yorself with money, only take 2 buy ins with you. In fact if you don't trust yourself with money either find youself another teacher or another hobby. You don't belong in a casino. Now, once you prove to yourself that you are a player and you've made yourself 20 or 30,000 by winning consistently, you can loosen up a little IF YOU MUST. But starting out, you need to follow these rules religiously. Now, once you make your first pile of 12 you CAN'T lose because you capture your buy in pile. See, if you get all the way back to your first pile either the game isn't fit to play or you aren't fit to play. That's it, that's how we play. We are extremly rigid. We do not take risks. Now, if 48 chips is anywhere near ruin for you you need to build up an adequate bank roll. Carlos roofed houses. Or we can teach you how to play no rent first base. You can build a Bank roll of 60 - 80 units pretty darn quick that way. Why so much? Because if it turns out that you are not a player we don't want you to walk away broke. But the first thing YOU have to do is get all that crasy amateur teaching out of your head and start thinking like a pro. You've got to think like a pro before you can become a pro. If you think you can do that, fine. If not, there are plenty of shiester card counting teachers out there that will tell you exactly what you want to hear. Me, I'll keep telling you the truth. There are no card counting pros. I doubt if you can find one that's even ahead for the year after expenses. I couldn't and I know hundreds of them. Now I'm not accustomed to arguing with rank amateurs or anybody else for that matter on the subject of BJ. I already proved myself in the casino. You haven't. So if you still want to argue, please, do it somewhere else. No body here has time for it. The people hear are serious players and serious students and you are taking up their teacher's time. That they paid for.

Mr. Davis, Gambler's Ruin is very real. If you have too short a br for the bets you make then "GR" will surely get you. If you have $100 and make $20 bets the GR will get ya. It's very real. You should have some idea of how many units one would need to survive the ups and downs of real play. I find it hard to believe you're unwilling to discuss br at all. It does come into play. If you can win 100% of your hands it doesn't matter but i'm sure you don't. BR considerations are important and not just to card counters. You're right. Card counting is eassy, UNTIL you get into casino live play. Then it's very difficult. At least that was my experience. I haven't played BJ in yrs because of the way they were afraid if card counters and started all this "fancy" shuffling and now the machines makeit impossible to count cards. So your method may be the last resort ofthose that want to win. Chuck, you completely miss my whole point. What I'm trying to tell you is that if you plan to lose, you will. I'm not unwilling to discuss anything. It's more the opposite. You know many NBJ players are x card counters. They are always the hardest to teach because first I have to unbrainwash them. That, for some, is an overwhelming hurdle. I'm hoping you aren't in that category. Of course gambler's ruin is real. That is why we avoid it at all costs. Avoiding it altogether is far better than planning for it. They didn't teach you how to do that. We do. You are taught that it doesn't matter what day of the week you play, what time of day you play, what table you pick, what table position you play or what the table stakes are as long as you have the money, lot's of it. All of that is wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. Each of those things are CRITICAL criteria for a pro. If you continue to play like that you'd better plan for gambler's ruin because you are headed straight for it, do not pass Go. That is pure amateur crap. When you sit down to a table you have no earthly idea of whether you are going to win or lose. We do! We don't sit down at a table we haven't checked out thoroughly. If we don't see favorable winning conditions we leave. It's not worth playing an unknown situation or, more likely, a known bad situation. We leave those for the card counters. They don't know any better because they weren't taught any better. It's not their fault. It's their instructors fault. I don't blame you, I blame your instructor. He made my job 10 times harder. Example; pick your table, any table you want in the whole casino. Use ALL of your card counting talents to pick the table. Let's say its 7PM on a Friday night at a big casino. Ok let me ask you a few questions about the table you just picked. Is it a nickel table? If yes, you lose. Is it a dime table? If yes, you lose. But, you say I can't afford higher stakes. That's funny because I can't afford nickel or dime tables on a Friday night at a major casino. And neither can you because they are unbeatable. Nobody can beat them and nobody can afford to play a table they have no chance of beating. Why can't they be beat? It's in your manual. They didn't teach you that in card counting school? Geez it must have slipped their mind. Or maybe they plain and simple just don't know what every NBJ player and every dealer in the world knows. Stay away from low stakes in a crowded casino! NEVER! Next question: What is the dealer break ratio at the table you picked? Don't know? Every hand in basic strategy is based on a 28% dealer break ratio. If she is breaking at 15% or less which is highly likely on a Friday night, you can't beat her because every hand you play is computed WRONG! I maybe could but I wouldn't be fool enough to try. I only play games I KNOW I can beat. They didn't teach you that? Gee, it must have slipped their mind, AGAIN. Next question: What is the clumping ratio. What's that? What is the frequency of tens following tens? Don't know? Then you don't know whether you want to play First or Third. If you knew just that alone, you would increase your odds of winning at least 10 fold. And that is just the beginning of what you need to know to have any assurance of winning. Are you catching my drift? Here I am teaching you point by point one of the top secrets in BJ, how to win big time and every time at insurance and all you want to do is totally ignore that and talk about gambler's ruin. Where is your head at? You are fixated on losing. They did that to you. Look I played BJ full time pro in AC for 3 years at the very same time Kenny Houston played there full time. I NEVER had a losing day. Kenny never had a winning day. He quit the game, moved to Asia and drank himself to death. He's the best player card counting ever produced. He needed your sermon on gambler's ruin. I don't. I know how to avoid it. He didn't. Now, do you want to talk about stupid stuff or do you want to learn how to beat this game with NO risk of ruin? The first thing you have to do is clear your mind of everything you have ever been taught about BJ. It is ALL wrong. Start with a clean slate. Open your mind and we'll teach you the secrets of how to beat this game. We'll teach you how to give the casino no chance at all. We'll teach you exactly how they cheat and how to use their own cheating against them. Deal?

Absolutely Char and thanks for the great post! You know, These guys see so much crap on the internet these days, they just don't know which way to turn. We were doing this before the internet was invented. Back then I could simply say "Ask any dealer". NBJ was required reading for every dealer back then and many dealers played NBJ. We were all marked players. But today just when NBJ conditions have improved to an all time high the casinos have taken their eye off of us. Who could ask for a better situation? I don't blame you for considering going pro. I wish I was 20 years younger. I'd do it again!

Chuck, Mad Dog, if I could butt in here for a second. First, stop talking in terms of gambler's ruin. That and "lifetime bankroll" are loser terminology. Card counting instructors use that terminology all the time and for very good reason. For us, losing is not an option. We don't go there to lose! Get that out of your head. You remind me of the 3rd base player. His wife comes up behind him and says "are you ready to go eat" He replys "right after I lose these chips." Now that's going to become his self fullfilling prophecy. Works every time. NEVER give yourself an excuse to lose. You will. Card counting is easy to learn. I could teach a baboon to count 8 decks. +1-1 that's all there is to it. I learned to count down a deck in 13 seconds flat by simply keeping a deck of cards in the bathroom. But, it's tougher at the table than NBJ. Plus while you concentrate on keeping the count you miss the truly important stuff that's going on. For example: You're at third. Your second card is a ten. The dealer has an Ace up. You insure. Why would you insure when every BJ book in the world tells you never insure because your odds of winning are only 4 in 13? You insure because OUR book tells you how to win on insurance. Since you are an NBJ Player trained by me you noted the frequency of tens following tens out of the dealer shoe. It was 50% of the time. Now that's a count that's worth while. And 50% or more is an extremely common occurrence esp in AC 8 deck. With me so far? Your second card is the card just before the dealer's hole card. It's a ten. The odds are 50 50 that the dealer has a ten in the hole. Insurance pays 2 to 1. Sometimes tens are following tens as much as 80%. What do you do in that case when your second card is a ten against a dealer Ace up. Simple, you insure the whole damn table! Your odds are 80%! It pays 2 to 1. Nobody else is going to insure. Why? Because they read the wrong damn book. That's NBJ baby! Am I telling you too much? Hell no! We've got a million tricks just like that one. Some of them will blow your mind just like that one did. How do you know when to raise or lower your bet? At third base it is automatic. We play third in random cards. The third base players cards are most like the dealer's of any seat at the table because you got both your cards just before the dealer got hers. You bet a 3 bet progression. Why because YOUR odds of losing 3 in a row against like cards is less than anyone else at the table. Or you could go by your card counting book that tells you it doesn't matter where you sit. Their book is right. It DOESN'T matter where THEY sit because they can't PLAY. WE CAN! And it matters a whole hell of a lot where WE sit. At first base we simply have two bets Hi and Low. We play first when the cards are clumped. Why? Because we bet High in High tens ratio and Low in Low tens ratio. How do we know if we didn't count? BECAUSE we just watched the last 5 cards out of the shoe before our card is dealt. They were the last 5 cards in the prior round. Was it high or low? 100 times more accurate than card counting because you are using CURRENT information. Is it cheating? No! It just seems like it. Sometimes we get to laughing like a blithering idiot over there at first. Nobody can figure out what we're laughing at. They call us things like Mad Dog! Is it hard? No. It's all common sense math. Real math, not ignorant card counting math that teaches you stupid things like never insure. Clowns! Does it take time? Yes, and the more the better. Because you get out of it exactly what you put into it. Got any more excuses? How's that Mad Dog, Carlos, Charlie? Am I telling him like it is, or what?

Are there any other successful NBJ players that would be willing to say how they are doing with the NBJ techniques?

You know, I just can't tell you how much I appreciate this thread. The whole thing is music to my ears. Chuck is asking the hard questions. He's got the gloves off. He wants to know! He's a great questioneer if you let me invent a word. But Mad Dog is a great player! Both are up to the task. Chuck, you can represent the doubting Thomases. Mad Dog can represent the NBJ players. It does my heart good to hear BJ discussed, even argued, at this level. Listen to yourselves. Where else is BJ argued at such a high level of understanding of the real game. I must confess. I did not teach Mad Dog personally. Wish I could take credit. I taught the infamous Ed Goldstein. Ed taught Mad Dog. But Mad Dog is one of those cases where the student surpasses the teacher. I'm 67. I've got no one to carry the torch. Except, students! Keep it up guys. You're doing great! Don't let this slide. Please! Give my life meaning! Let's kill those bastards. But, be nice about it. Gentlemen, deal the cards. Let's see who's really right! I know who my money will be on!

To your first question: NBJ is usually played against shuffle machines and we have been beating them for years. Some players even prefer machines because they have better consistency as opposed to hand shuffle. This is because hand shuffle gets a slightly different shuffle every time they change dealers while machine shuffle makes no difference from dealer to dealer. As for your second question: The delayed hole card (we call that European rules) does effect your hole card read because there is no hole card at the time of your decision. It also effects insurance bets for the same reason. On the plus side, it gives the third base player more control over the dealer's hand and dealer breaking. It simplifies the First Base player's bet decision because the last card dealt is ALWAYS to the dealer. I would play First Base against this arrangement if you see sufficient clumping. But if the cards are mostly random I would play third. In random cards you don't get a hole card read anyway so the delayed hole card makes little difference. Another advantage is that this arrangement reduces dealer biases. Check her first card tens and I think you will find her closer to 4 out of 13. I did very well against this arrangement in the Canery Islands. There was very little dealer bias. The Third base players cards are still most like the dealers so a 3 bet neg. prog. was very successful. Check and see if morning cards are mostly random. Player number is a little less important in this arrangement but I would still tend to avoid 5 or more. Recognize that head to head play is ALMOST the same and when you don't hit it is exactly the same. That might be your best bet. Have any other NBJ players played this arrangement?

You have some very good points Carlos. Here's some more: I suspect that folks would like to hear how we get our hands won rate up so high. Or the reverse, why, after all that training and practice, is the basic strategy/card counter's hands won rate so low? Carlos is right. Some of the difference in hand's won rate does come from the few plays we play differently from basic strategy. But you can't get from 38% to 52% hands won rate by changing a few plays. In fact, card play alone will get you up to about 43 - 45 %. Good, but not good enough. Card counters are taught that there is no difference from one BJ game to another. That where you sit at the table makes no difference. That the number of players in the game makes no difference. That the dealer breaks at 28% in all games. That insurance is virtually always a bad bet. That splitting is good. That it is best to always assume that the dealer has a ten in the hole. That it doesn't matter when you play as long as you avoid playing new cards. That the stakes make no difference. They are taught, and I quote word for word, that it doesn't matter whether you win or lose as long as you make the correct play. And many, many other myths we could fill pages with. None of these basic beliefs of the card counter are true. None of the above has any basis in fact in today's BJ game. The major reason card counters can't get their hand's won rate above 38% is that they aren't taught a thing about game types. To them, all games are the same. When they walk into a casino their only question is what are the stakes? Then they sit down and bet according to the count which is close to meaningless. The object isn't to bet high when the count is high as they do. The object is to bet high when the tens are coming out, regardless of the count, like we do. For instance, take a game where the tens start coming out right at the top of the shoe. This is not uncommon. This happens half the time. It's purely a function of where the cut card was placed by a player who happened to have the biggest bet out. Just as many games start with a negative count as start with a positive count. What does our great card counter do? He just sits there and bets minimum. He is taught to WAIT FOR A POSITIVE COUNT. Meanwhile the NBJ player is RAKING IN THE DOUGH! The tens are falling now! BET! You have the advantage right now! You will likely not get it again this shoe. Does this give you some idea of how Mad Dog is shooting for and making $10,000 a day? Card Counters can't do that! They just sit there making minimum bets and the whole game goes right over their heads. Another missed opportunity. Rare? NO! Again, this happens half the time. Look, there are FIRST BASE games and there are THIRD BASE games and there are games you should not play at all under any circumstances. Those are basically the three game types. The NBJ player gets from 43% to 52% hands won rate by knowing the difference. He KNOWS when to play first and he KNOWS when to play third and he KNOWS when not to play at all. He picks the cream of the crop! Or he doesn't play. Yep, Carlos is up $170,000 in 3 trips. But here's what you don't know. It wasn't 3 trips, it was really 6 trips. Carlos doesn't tell you about the 3 trips where he didn't play at all. Yep, ten grand burning a hole in his pocket but he didn't play. Why? Because he didn't see the NBJ conditions we absolutely require before we bet our hard earned money. That's why! Or, you could be like the card counter. Play anyway! And LOSE! That is why the card counter is condemned to 38%. He doesn't know how to pick and choose the right games and play the right system from the right seat. We DO! This is why thousands of card counters have swiched to NBJ but no NBJ Player has ever switched to card counting. Now comes what I think is the most important thing Carlos left out: CURRENT NBJ CONDITIONS! Current NBJ conditions are the best by a mile of any conditions I've seen in 25 years. Mad Dog, how many times have you gone to the casino lately and NOT PLAYED. I'll bet good money here and now that you play virtually EVERY TIME YOU GO. Why, because right now is the best and most consistent NBJ conditions we've ever seen. By a mile! When I played full time, I actually played less than half the times I went. NOW, NBJ players can play virtually every time they go including Saturday nights. I learned to NEVER play on Friday or Saturday nights. NOW, we find great NBJ conditions even then! NBJ has never been stronger. NOW is the best time to play NBJ of any time in history. I'm personally going back to playing full time myself. I don't want to miss this best opportunity of all time. Who knows how long it will last?

These are excellent questions Chuck and an indication of how derelict in my duties I've been on this channel. I should have covered money required up front because that is the first concern of any new player. The answers the guys gave are good but let me get into it a little deeper. First, Mad Dog is correct, NBJ MUST be first. WCB is pretty much a sequal to NBJ and should be considered after mastering NBJ by those who have that passion to become the best that they can be. Even if you were to buy both books at the same time to take advantage of some discount we might be offering, I would still recommend that you thoroughly read NBJ 5 or 6 times before you crack WCB. The more you have studied BJ prior to NBJ the rougher your first reading will be. This is because NBJ, must Unteach you before it can begin to teach you. Actually BJ beginners with no prior "knowledge" usually learn quicker. But either way, the more you read it, the more light bulbs turn on in your head. Eventually you realize that NBJ is not difficult at all. It's pure common sense. But any prior teachings you might have undergone, you will soon recognize, defy common sense. NBJ is the thinking man's approach to BJ. Basic Strategy/ Card Counting is playing by rote W/O thought, following mindless tables with a mindless betting strategy that is more wishful thinking than thoughtful strategy. Any trained Card Counter reading Mad Dog's tales or Carlos's or mine will surely say to himself, "that's impossible". And, he's right! Such feats are totally out of the realm of feasibility with card counting training. And the better the card counter is trained the more impossible these feats are... for HIM. Card counters attempt to achieve a 0.5% player advantage and almost never actually achieve even that small goal in the long run. We would consider a +0.5% day a really bad day. Yet that is exactly what they are striving for. And, they get a headache doing it. They are so involved keeping an exact count that they totally miss the truly significant happenings in the game that are screaming at them how to best play their hands and how to best bet their hands. It all goes right over their heads. And, I say this being a top card counter myself! I can still count down a deck of cards in 13 seconds flat and tell you whether the card you removed was hi lo or neutral. There isn't one card counter in a thousand that can do that. I am far better at their strategy than they are but I don't do it in a casino. I use it as a neat parlor thick and I use it to check my own alacrity BEFORE playing. But I wouldn't ever play that way. I want a 15% advantage not a 0.5% advantage. To me, a 0.5% player is a failure! Yet, they're making a movie about them. I think that's mostly because they don't know about US. O.K., enough about that. Let's talk money! In the NBJ THIRD BASE Strategy, which, BTW, Mad Dog Plays exclusively (at least for now) our buy in is ALWAYS 12 units. We call that a pile. Our first goal is to make 3 piles not counting our buy in pile. BTW, we've already, at that point, left the best card counter completely in the dust. He can't even do that. We do it routinely just for starters. Then we raise our unit and go for 3 piles at the increased unit value. Then we raise the stakes again, and again every 3 piles. Mad Dog uses the Fibonachi progression to raise his stakes. After his first 3 piles, he multiplies his unit by 3, then 5, then 8, then 13. Recognize that we are in a can't lose situation after making the first 3 piles because we ALWAYS "capture" the buy in pile. Optionally, we also capture a pile at every bet level. Now, we don't use a true Fibonaci which would be a 1 1 2 3 5 8 13.(each number the total of the last two). We use our own truncated version of 1 3 5 8 13 because the whole idea is to get the money before the game goes sour. BTW, good 8 deck games stay good longer than good 6 deck games. Mad Dog plays the tougher 6 deck, I think, because I don't think they have 8 deck where he plays. He can correct or confirm. So your real question becomes: "How many buy ins can you lose before you win". Personally, my worst night was 5 buy ins at Caesars in A.C. on a Friday night. BTW, I walked out that night with $7000 in winnings, $6,000 from BJ plus $1000 from a side bet with the casino Mgr. who had suggested I go home after losing the 5th buy in. But I learned never to play on Fri or Sat night. Too tough because the more the cards are played at full tables, the worse they become and the more they favor the dealer. All of that is in NBJ but that unforgettable Fri night was before I wrote NBJ. It was back in my wise guy days. NBJ teaches you when to play and how to select the table where you are least likely to lose your buy in. At least when you first start, I strongly suggest you strictly adhere to those reccomendations. Back then, I used to bring six buy ins because of what happened that night. Much later, I wrote "In Search Of" which turns table selection into an art form. Today I bring 3 buy ins for a safty net but I NEVER get passed the second buy in. Now, I assume that Mad Dog brings more than that since he is far less concerned about losing buy ins than YOU need to be. Let that be one of your first goals - to lose your concern about buy ins. BUT DON'T START THAT WAY! Just one other point to help get you started; I noted back there that Mad Dog said that betting is more important than card play. I can see why he would say that. For him that is likely true but only because he first learned how to get his hands won rate up to 52%. Once you are at 52% hands won rate, card play then becomes less important than betting strategy. BUT, when you first start out, getting your hands won rate up to 52% is your first priority. That takes study and practice but it is attainable with our methods. You can't BET our way until you learn to play your cards our way. A 43% basic strategy hands won rate will NOT support our aggressive betting strategies. There are no short cuts, study and practice practice practice.

To the general public from Ellis. The private BJ forum was established and is alive and well just like the private Bac members forum. Both are extremely active. Of course, for security reasons, these forums appear to be empty. Far from it.

When you're playing at better than $10,000 a day and not switching casinos, THE most important thing for you Mad Dog is don't get barred. Losing a buy in, for you, is a good thing! You need to be making the most of it. I always say: Gee I can't beat you today, you're too good for me. I'm gonna try my luck somewhere else." Make sure the pit boss hear's you. Make a big thing out of how often you lose like "I don't know why I do this. I lose most of the tables I play." Or, like I told the casino owner in Colorado when I was ready to leave, "The only reason I won was I could see the hole card reflection in the dealer's fingernail polish." Then watch them go bonkers! I thought they were gonna cut her fingers off! On the other hand, to Carlos, losing a buy in is a mortal sin. I think he goes to confession when he loses a buy in. Carlos actually doesn't play more often than he plays. That guy wants to win every hand, let alone every table he plays. That's funny, he doesn't look Jewish.

Excellent posts guys and you are both right! Daytrader, You will probably not be overly surprised to learn that over the years I have had hundreds of calls from traders who had just read NBJ asking if I was a trader because I so frequently use Stock trader math in NBJ. The answer is no, I have no training in trading but A lot of training in math. It is more than coincidence that the math often parallels. Trading has had a lot of opportunity for a long time to work out the most effective gambling math. So have I. It is little wonder that we often came to the same conclusions when you allow for a moment that trading is really another form of educated gambling. Mad Dog is also right. 50/50 seldom occurs in BJ. On any hand, the odds either favor you or they favor the dealer. The trick is to know which is which. In a player facorable section of the shoe you seldom need your alloted 3 bets but in a dealer favorable section of the shoe, you are glad that you only have 3 bets. The trick here is to find games where dealer favorable sections are shorter than three hands long. We teach how to do that. Ideally, you find a game where you strongly tend to win every other hand. When we are very successful at that feat, we often drop the 6 from the 1-4-6. Why make a big bet out of sinc? That situation makes for a really great day as Mad Dog knows. Mad Dog, you could probably reduce your total of lost buy ins, even though they are somewhat superfluous for you, by studying the In Search Of manual. It is a short but lucrative manual designed to do just that, reduce your lost buy ins. When it saves you your first lost buy in, it has already more than paid for itself! Keith has it on here somewhere. It's cheap.

In fact yes Chuck. We are thinking about Nov. and Mad Dog will be there to help us and relate his story. In fact I just got off the phone with Bernadette. She is suggesting a Bac seminar during the day to teach this new Twister method and A BJ seminar at night. Might be a good idea. I'll see if there is enough interest with the Bac members. There is ALWAYS enough interest with the BJ players. We have done many seminars in Vegas and it was always most successful when we did both seminars.

God no Chuck, nothing so amateurish or unstable. It is a purely mathematical tell that tells the first base player, who gets the first card in the next round, the precise odds in that game of whether that first card will be a ten or not and, therefore, whether to bet high or low. If the tell says 10 and he gets that 10 his odds of winning at that point go to 74%. It is the most telling tell and the most important tell in the casino and it is available every single hand he bets. It is taught only in NBJ FIRST BASE, a copyrighted system. It has been completely proven by 100s of players in 100s of casinos over 20 years. Even Jerry Patterson is quick to admit that it works extremely well. But, you must also know how to identify FIRST BASE games and THIRD BASE games as well as how to get your hands won rate up to 52%. But NBJ conditions are at an all time high right now due to the popularity of Poker. It is impossible for casinos to crowd up the BJ tables these days. We are seeing better NBJ conditions than we've ever seen before. That is why we've decided to do a seminar.

Well said Mad Dog! For those of you who don't already know, Mad Dog is another extremely successful NBJ player and has quickly become a notorious Vegas player. $10,000 wins are very common to Mad Dog and often, much, much higher. NBJ has been a life changing event for him. I call him an NBJ player because Mad Dog has only just recently graduated to WCB and has not yet had full opportunity to put this stronger version of NBJ into practice. His outstanding play record stands on NBJ alone. So far! NBJ is basically two very distinct strategies, The FIRST BASE Strategy and the THIRD BASE Strategy. The FIRST BASE Strategy utilizes "Advantage Betting", simply a high bet and a low bet. The FIRST BASE Strategy utilizes a very obvious "TELL" in the game to signal when to bet low and when to bet high. This tell is available for exploitation on EVERY BJ hand played. Strangely no one else teaches you about this highly accurate tell. This tell is available ONLY to the first base player, hence, The FIRST BASE Strategy. Mad Dog is correct when he says that the practiced NBJ player attains a 52% hands won rate while top basic strategy players can only hope for 43% on a very good night. What he doesn't say is that the NBJ player at first base usually wins less than 52% of his low bet hands and greater than 52% of his high bet hands. You do the math! For instance, when I performed the infamous Taj 1 and Taj 2 BJ exhibitions in Atlantic City, in the high stakes room at the Taj, I strictly played the NBJ FIRST BASE Strategy. I used a single black chip for my low bet and only 2 black chips for my high bet. That is more than enough torque to win but you are free to use more, or less. My goal in both exhibitions was $10,000 in winnings. In Taj 1, I never bet more than $200 to win $10,000 in less than a half hour. In Taj 2 also attended by Jerry Patterson's entire sales crew, I found mysef at $9,700 in winnings after 20 minutes of play. The tell screamed at me to bet the high bet so I bet $300 that one time to get it over with. It worked! Jerry and his wife Nancy were in complete shock because such a feat, theretofore, had been considered completely impossible by leading BJ experts. Such is the power of the NBJ FIRST BASE Strategy. When Mad Dog refers to the 1,4,6 negative progression, he is referring to the NBJ THIRD BASE Strategy. We fully teach you when to use which strategy. I had conducted exhaustive research to determine what progression is the absolute best to use in the NBJ Third Base Strategy. The 146 was the decisive winner. Let me give you just one of many examples why this is true. It's all about recouping a lost progression the quickest. Let's say that you are playing the far more common 1,2,3 negative progression (up as you lose). A lot more consrvative, right? Maybe not! Suppose you lose 3 bets. OK you are 6 units down. You would have to lose the 1 and win the 2 six times just to work your way back to even. In fact, with a 43% hands won rate, you have pretty much lost the day. But suppose the NBJ player loses the entire 146. BTW my record is 17 hours in a game W/O ever losing the 146. But suppose I did. I would only have to lose the 1 and win the 4 four times to be ahead of where I was before the prog loss. That's a 50% hands won rate. Fine, I'm winning at 52%. See? The loss of a 123 is a day ending event for you but the loss of a 146 is a momentary inconvenience for me. Right Mad Dog? I'll bet that you have lost the 146 and still made it to $10,000 or more plenty of times, right? Now I have been severely criticized on the ridiculosly jealous card counting sites for teaching negative progressions (a term I coined, BTW, back in the 80's, now used universally). But, you know what? I thoroughly agree with them. A Basic Strategy Card Counter should never use a 146 negative progression. He simply does not have the hands won rate to support it. We definitely do! But negative progressions in general? How ridiculous. What do they think betting up as the count increases is? Yep, a negative progression! What are they going to say to that? That they didn't do it on purpose? At least we know enough to limit our negative progs to 3 bets. Theirs is virtually unlimited. The count can keep going up play after play. They don't win when the count is going up. They don't have any advantage when the count is going up. They win when the count is going down. Maybe. But what if the cut off card comes first. See, that's why you have to know how to win up count hands. (predominately low cards). That's why we teach you how. You can't give up on your low card rounds and bet the dealer will break like basic strategy teaches you. The dealer CAN'T break on low cards! How dumb is that??? But, that's what they teach! It's no wonder that casinos love both Basic Strategy and Card Counting. You need to be playing something THE PLAYERS love! If you're going to play this game, you need to be playing a WINNING strategy. You need to be playing NBJ and WCB! BTW, there's an NBJ seminar coming up Oct 16th in PA at the Holiday Inn right where they are building that new mega casino. It's at 7:30P I think. I'll post the address and time as soon as I know. Meanwhile you can Email keith@beatthecasino.com for the details. If you can, GO. It just might be the biggest favor you ever did for yourself. The seminar is free for NBJ members and $20 for non members. ROCK ON Mad Dog!

Welcome both of you. Glad you find it interesting.

Most players lose overall on their splits. Splits are never a good hand, even Aces. Aces I go by what's running. Aces give you 2 free hits except if you get 2 tens. There's no big future in splitting 8s against a 9, 10 or A. Hit if lows are running or stand if tens are running. 2s. 3s, and 4s, against a hi card. You've got a terrible hand. Why bet more money on it. I thing the best split is 8s against a 7. In fact, I OFTEN double an 8 total against a 7 with highs running. Same with 9s against 8 or 7 but 8 is better because you can draw an A 2 3 and still have a winning hand maybe even a double.

Tipping is a tool that NBJ players use to their advantage. If done right it more than pays for itself. The best time to tip is at color up right when the pit boss is there to check the chip count. It's also his job to record how much you won. Always make sure the pit boss sees you tip. One of the flashier tricks I use is to save some chips at the color up. Always know exactly the dollor value of the total chips you are coloring. Give them an even value in thousands or hundreds if you are a smaller player. This leaves you some chips left over. I play a hand for the dealer on every players spot at the table. The pit boss ALWAYS stays to watch what happens. If she breaks she wins at every hand and it only cost you half of that total tip. THIS, they remember! That's the BEST time to ask for your room comp.