Bigmac57

Re: Splits and empirical data: Absolutely correct in my own playing experience. You'd be better off never splitting. I've lost tons of money doing it. Split Aces? I invariably get an Ace and a deuce. 8's are a poor split. Either stand or hit but doubling the money up sucks. I find my best split to be 2's. You can make a lot of good hands from them. 6's? This is a sick split and a big money-loser. I'll wind up with 2 16's/15's/stiffs the majority of the time. Hit the hand, or don't - likely hit because 12 isn't going to break except with a 10. These are just some examples of where Basic Strategy is a POS.

I've been thinking about the whole "always split Aces" play. Would you care to bet that this "Basic Strategy" play was designed when you were allowed to draw to split Aces (1965) vs. the very common rule today of 1 card per Ace? I remember playing a table once where I didn't split at all and I had 9's, 3's, didn't split Aces - none of it. It was myself and one other guy. I said I know how to play. He says, "Then you know what the correct play is." and left it at that. I was at 3rd Base. The dealer was getting 17's or just breaking hand after hand. THAT'S WINNING. That's how it's done. This was a one-off event for me years ago, before I really started thinking about the game. Even long before I bought WCB and NBJ. Long before I ever heard of BeattheCasino, card-clumping, or much else. Back when I knew Basic Strategy and the Hi-Low. But on that day, I decided to play "Conservatively" and it paid off for me well. Too bad the light bulb didn't go on back then. Usually when you split, you wind up being 4 hands out and doing some doubling after splitting. And guess what? Boom! The dealer makes a 20 or 21 after showing a "6" up. Key hands you lost. The difference between a winning and a losing session by far. What you write above is the entire heart of the matter. Computers assume random cards. Once you KNOW this is false - because you've been in the Real World of live casino play and likely got your head smashed in - everything changes. The casino almost NEVER offers you that situation. However, knowing this, and how shoes (multi-decks) are clump-prone (like 100% always due to shuffling and pick-up procedure) you can beat them through live game (table) analysis. Doubles and Splits are serious business and should be done with care. Blackjack is a Thinking Man's Game. It is NOT wrote Basic Strategy and wrote card-counting. These methods are failures today. They do not work.

Absolutely. Those 10's, about 90% of the time, somehow wind up behind the cut card. Most people cut towards the back of the deck, I'd start cutting in the middle from now on or the front. It's an experiment I haven't tried yet but I may. As you have said, and other counters as well, even when the 10's are running, you stand to be in a virtual tie with the dealer. So it seems the edge (book edge) really comes from the player receiving blackjacks. That's pathetic.. So, what do the casinos - who know this - do in the pitch games? Offer 6:5 vs: 3:2 payoffs on Blackjacks. Simple. The casinos haven't been waiting since 1965 to adjust to counters. Let's be serious. When a casino sees someone with a simple count (Hi-Lo) and Basic Strategy, they salivate today. Christ, as you say Ellis, casinos hand out Basic Strategy cards. How much of a threat do you think they feel counting or basic strategy is today?? Let's be serious. The objective truly is about winning rounds, especially low rounds, and winning doubles and splits by playing them correctly given what we know about that game at that time. Not by sticking to perfect Basic Strategy and relying on millions of hypothetical hands done by some computer program. The objective is winning that hand, that double, that split NOW. When the dealer has that 5 or 6 up, when do you hit? When you reasonably know that, although it looks favorable, lows are out and he's got a 3,4,5 in the hole. He's NOT going to break. Conversely, he shows a 7 up. And you reasonably know he's got a low card under there and highs are coming. Winning rounds, doubles, and splits is what its all about. Especially the doubles but even more so, the splits which often go out to 4 hands. These doubles and splits are key hands that make for either a winning or losing session. Playing them to win is super essential.

Please understand, I hold Ken Uston in the highest regard. Everything subsequent teams have done was only an imitation - and a BAD one - of what he and his teams did in Vegas. Ken would, and I think rightly, consider the MIT Team as playing in the "kiddie pool". If you look at the Hi-Low count, it does indeed count 7s, 8s, and 9's as neutral. Wrong. It makes another mistake counting the Ace as -1. Wrong again. The Uston APC clearly counts the 9's as highs and uses an Ace side count. Much superior. http://www.lolblackjack.com/blackjack/card-counting/systems/uston-apc/ Here's an article I found about Strategic Investments (The first MIT Team): http://www.blackjackinfo.com/MIT-Mike-Aponte.php RS: How accurate was the Television Show "Breaking Vegas"? Mike: It was a bit dramatized, which was to be expected. One thing that struck me was that "Breaking Vegas" was based on Strategic Investments and the show made it seem as if everything was great on SI. They glossed over the fact that in the end Strategic Investments failed, and didn't make much money. The show made it seem as if Strategic Investments dissolved because the team decided to move on to other things, but the reason it broke up was because SI didn't do very well. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And yes Ellis. You are 110% right about even single deck clumping. The local dump here uses double deck, no DAS, less than 50% penetration. Pitch game. Short story long: No one wins. Maybe ONE time in 20 years (I'm there since the place opened..) have I seen a big winner at that game. I'll tell you what I do see regularly: Saturday night. Dude swaggers in with $2-3 grand. Dealer shuffles up. First hand. Ace up. Dealer Blackjack. Second hand. Dealer 20, player 19. Third hand. Player stiff, hit, bust. Dealer had 20. And so on, short shoe(deck) after deck. Half hour later, dude walks out. Not so much swagger. House chalks up another easy kill. This is repeated every Saturday night, every week. To infinity. WHY?? I've watched them shuffle. They have their BEST dealers in that pit. Perfect strips, riffles, etc. They KNOW how to bias the game. Its obvious. I don't want their crappy double deck game anyway.. I'm beating them and they don't even know how I'm doing it. And its not by playing "perfect" Basic, playing for hours, or any of that crap. I look for certain things. Once I find what I need, I win, and I'm gone, like a ghost. And they never get that money back.

Re: The MIT Teams. Speaking of "question-mark" moments, be very careful of what you read and watch on TV regarding this. Great entertainment for shows like "Breaking Vegas" and selling books, but if you dig a little deeper under the surface, you'll find that the Team, in its various incarnations, went broke on several occasions. Ken Uston, the GREATEST of Counters alluded to this in his book. He mentions (forget exactly where at the moment) that "We weren't playing with the EDGE we THOUGHT we had." And Ken used the APC, a 2-Level count, against SINGLE DECKS. Are you telling me that the "Best and Brightest" at MIT could only master the Hi-Lo, a system from 1963!!! when Systems like Uston's APC were IN EXISTENCE amd AVAILABLE. http://wizardofodds.com/blackjack/count/highlow1.html 1963 Vegas. And CLEARLY designed, including any Indices, for Single-Deck play. My conclusion: The MIT Teams weren't playing with the edge THEY THOUGHT they HAD. As acknowledged by Ken Uston, he later realized that they were maybe getting 1% under LT play AT THAT TIME. Hi-Low??? Coin flipping or even a disadvantage for the MIT Teams, which employed HUGE bet spreads and OPM (Other People's Money) for a MASSIVE Bankroll. That's what was likely happening. At such a small advantage, MAYBE 1/2 of a percent, old system, or even a playing a slight disadvantage (my guess..) variance got them. Yeah, you're telling me that these schlubs couldn't master something like the Uston APC (HIGH betting accuracy + Ace Side Count) and betting accuracy IS what we want... but they go to MIT and I'm supposed to hire these clowns to design circuit boards, whatever.. Another example of mislabeling the Product. They're lucky they had the MIT pedigree to get them jobs because underneath the degree hype and Credentials power - no engine. I wouldn't hire any of them to mow my lawn.. Let me give you an example of a technique that does work which the casinos easily thwarted: Card Steering. That is, let's say you have a deck and you see the Ace of Spades is on the bottom, you cut the deck and estimate how many cards to that Ace of Spades. You then spread the table when the count is close, hoping for a BJ and getting that Ace of Spades in one of the hands. Does it work? Yup. Problems: - Waiting game. Waiting for Aces at the bottom of a deck (either single/multi) - Variance (dealer might catch it) - Inexact count Etc. How'd the casinos adapt? Easy. You know how they used to have one little yellow cut card? Now they use 2. One of them is put on the bottom when the deck is cut after the shuffle. That cost the casinos all of a $0.03 cents per cut card. And of course if they use a continuous shuffler, this no longer applies anyway..

I would like someone to explain to me why counting "red-anything" in a blackjack game should even be considered as remotely valid. Last I checked, the suit of a card wasn't really an issue in winning or losing. Yet, when I Google "red 7 count", there are actually threads treating it as a serious, genuine system. Same goes for KO Blackjack. I tried that at the local casino and got murdered. Unbalanced count, yes. And useless AND it doesn't work!! I can see Snyder doesn't actually play. As for his 1993 article, no doubt these wonderful simulations of his were run on a then state-of-the-art P-II PC. Not that it matters. Computers assume random cards and so each shuffle is independent, using their pseudo RNG. Like I wrote, that's just not real-world Blackjack. Doesn't anyone else think that this Red 7 bullshit is just insane?? http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/How%20toCount.htm So it gets 80% of the power of the Hi-Lo count. COME ON!! This isn't brain surgery! We're talking Level-I Hi-Lo. If you can't master a SIMPLE system like that, you probably shouldn't be playing Blackjack, be anywhere near a casino, maybe driving and talking at the same time, etc. This is just his BS attempt to cheaply knock off an imbalanced count system and sell some books. But in my opinion, this is the WORST way to do it. count red 7's and ignore black ones. Again, WHY!?! And yes, 9's are highs. They should be accounted for while the Aces should be at 0 (hi/low dual nature). But again, these count gurus only know 25% of the story. Counting without looking at clumping will not work. They would have you believe that all BJ games are equal, i.e. if I count down every BJ game and bet when the count is high (waiting game) I'll win. WRONG!! They also really gloss over the fact that a 1-20 bet spread (needed to make their BS systems work) is a little scary... It's called "variance". 1-20??? What bankroll do I need for that, again? Like I said, I tried all the Old School BS. It DOES NOT WORK. It worked in 1965 with heads-up play 1-1000 spread tables, single deck, dealt to the end old Las Vegas. That's what you're being sold when you buy any of these old-school books. I loved reading "Blackjack Your Way to Riches" by Richard Canfield. Wonderful book. But let's face it: Those playing conditions NO LONGER EXIST. What's the difference between his system - a good one at the time - and any other counting system, say the Hi-Low?? Those conditions DO NOT EXIST ANYMORE. These guys are just selling books and seminars. Try any of it, like me, at your peril. May as well take a lighter to your money. It would be quicker and save you the frustration and time of actually getting creamed at the tables.

Now I remember! This is the same idiot who came up with the "Red 7's" count: http://www.gamesblackjack.org/strategy/card-counting/red-7-count.php Are you KIDDING ME!?!?! I wouldn't listen to this guy if he told me rain was wet..

When I started playing, I wong'd, I counted, I did everything "by the book". I also lost my shirt. Who got that 20 while I got a 10 and a stray 5 or 6 in a high count? Why the dealer, of course. Or she'd just straight-out Blackjack me and end the hand right there. All these counting books. Show me your winnings. NONE of them can do that. Because none of them actually win. There was nothing wrong with my play, according to the Experts. Nothing except I was getting killed and not winning. Once you understand how the cards are clumped and have determined there is no strong dealer bias, you can kill a table. You play the clumps. All Basic and card counting will get you is -- BROKE. Millions of hands in a computer mean nothing. Winning a hand in the short-term in real life means a lot. Winning double-downs means a lot. Winning key hands means a lot. Snyder just pisses me off. No computer will ever simulate real-life playing conditions, which are not static, and that's the whole issue in a nutshell. The simulations assume random cards which almost NEVER exist in a live casino environment. I lost my shirt playing under these assumptions instead of using the theories (FACTS) of card clumping, non-randomness, and game (table) conditions.

Whenever I see this article by Arnold Snyder - in fact whenever I hear his name - I cringe. You know when someone claims to be able to beat internet casinos how FOS they are. Snyder HAS to push his card-counting shtick because that's what he sells, along with all the rest of the "Old-schoolers" who claim a 1950's system and millions of computer-generated blackjack hands can win in the long-run. Basic Strategy is a losing system and card counting today is futile. 8 decks and card counting is essentially an unbeatable game. If the casino uses a continuous shuffler, the whole ball of wax is worthless anyway right off the bat. Saturday night in any casino - 99-100% of all the BJ games are unbeatable. Only an idiot would play at that time. Clumping, knowing when to sit down, and when to leave (game control, essentially) can nail a casino to the wall for a player. Phony computer gin-generated BJ? Worthless.. Gaming conditions are not static. Nor are cards random. Learn these 2 things and you can make a lot of money. Snyder is just ridiculous pushing his crap. Real play will quickly show anyone who has a brain that the cards are non-random.