Hello Ellis. After your reply, I decided to play. I recently visited my local casino and played 1st base, no hole card - 6 decks - 4 players my self included - one2six suffle machine. The tens ratio was sutisfying (more than 4 out of 13). Started playing with new cards at about 13:00 p.m. What I noticed is: - Eventhough I followed the stop loss method (1-1-2 and then jumped to 1-2-4) - I played satisfyingly well the 1st base Basic Strategy, I eventualy lost even my bankroll. - The way the dealer picked up the cards was the way you teach. There were many pushes of tens and rarely clear clumps. - Splits did not work out and my 21 was not paid twice because of dealer's 21 as well. Weird ha...? - Many times it seemed as if cards were random or zippers. - A few times there was bad 1st card predictability. I wanted to ask you what did I do wrong? Should I play or protect my bankroll? Also I couldn't find Mad Dog in memberships list in order to inform me about the one2six suffle machine. Is he still a member? Regards! VIOLATOR77 P.S. While I was reading one of your 10 tips I want to ask you why you said not to split easily, could you give some more information for the reason why?