First time I have used NBJ to play, it worked !!

[Zenwin]

There is a bad weather warning today, that people should stay home if they don't need to drive their cars around. It didn't register until I was 3/4 way to our casino. With today's weather you can't even see the casino until you get near. But I had my mind set on watching them to start the table. Well, they had started some. But they weren't 100% full so they were not going to start more. This is the first time I see our casino like this- "under the weather". I mean, it is the opposite of full. Since I couldn't watch any wash, so I just watched card play. I saw one table that they had lowered their min. to $10 and only with 4 players. ( It would be 5, if included myself.) I immediately rushed over to watch their cards. There was a significant pattern, such as HHHLLLNN.. 1st base was taken but I didn't see him catching any 1st ten. Since I am not thorough with NBJ and haven't started my home practice, I was a little skeptical. On the other hand, I've been watching our games long enough to notice small clumps like these. I decided that I'd grab the 3rd base chair and watch one more hand before I started to play. I lost 2 hands (in fact 2 hands was left in that shoe) but I gathered that was because I entered into play. So this 'red' shoe ended and the next 'blue' shoe came. I held on to my '3 lost in a row and I'll be out' principle to play this shoe. I did very well with the NBJ concept (I say concept only because I haven't started my home practice). I ended up recovered my first lost plus winning 6 units over (by flat betting, because I was not yet familiar with prog.) I left the table with 4 because I lost 2 class B hands before quitting.

There were, however, I won 2 decision hands which I think it was worthwhile mentioning.

1) I got 7 and 4, vs. dealer's 8 up. I think her hold card was a random but wasn't a 10. Everyone hit and I perceived that High runs was finished (they ran only 4 times max.) The 2 persons on my right got Low cards, and when my turn came up, I wasn't going to double like everyone suggested in this table. I got an Ace, I know I'd have to hit again, came another Ace. Somehow I felt this Low runs was finished so I Stand. (In our casino, no one is going to yell at me not hitting as most of the time 10 follows an Ace are common). And dealer turned her card over it was a 7 (made her hand 15), she flipped a hit card, it was a 10 which broke her.

Will NBJ players double on this hand ?? The outcome wouldn't change as she will break 15+A+10 anyway if I doubled.

2) I think this has to be the best hand I've ever played, with the NBJ I've learnt. I got 5 and 4 vs. dealer's 6 up. Everyone was standing on their stiffs except 2 pat hands. So I was the only one needed to hit (or double. But no way, since I didn't have any clue on her hold card and no other hit card was in sight. The 2 persons on my right had Lows for their 2nd cards that made her hold card more unknown.) In any case I needed to hit because of this 5+4=9, and I got a 3, which made me 12. You should see my hand was up in mid air, wanting to hit and then I fold all my fingers. Then I contemplated a little second and did it once more. I looked over the table where I only saw the facial expression on the 1st base player. He seemed agitated, liked why did I need even to think, 'stand on all 12s vs. 6' !! But I was sure that Low was still on the run, I was afraid only is to hit against the table's way of playing. (The BS everyone plays). But I immediately thought of, it was best for me to get another Low instead of her. I could only break on 9 & 10 and these were not the cards which I'd hit. So I hit, it was a 6 which made me 18. The whole table was relieved and they were more so to see her hold card was a 7 (+6=13). She hit and got a bust card 9 then everyone was really happy. Even the dealer was applauded, said 'What a good decision'.

If its not the NBJ manual, I would not have played my hand this way. Although I have doubt about the old Basic Strategy which doesn't always work, but that was the only book that we counted on, until the NBJ manual shows me new light. I still need to know how to set up my deck for home practice (please refer to NBJ private forum). And yes, Carlos, you have explained to me quite detailedly of how to hand shuffle but where I am, we don't hand shuffle cards, we just use the shuffle machines.

Thanks again in reading this and offer your helps.

[ECD]

No Zenwin, NBJ players would NOT have doubled. You did the right thing. While we sometimes double where no body else would like 8 against 7 with highs running, overall we double significantly less. We are much safer because we ALWAYS go by what's running.

If you went to a casino and simply recorded the outcomes of players' double downs as we have, even if you only recorded book double dows (basic strategy double downs), you would find that overall, players lose on double downs. Splits too for that matter. Yep, it's true, street players would be better off to NEVER doule or split (or insure or surrender for that matter). Yep, the very plays that are supposed to work to the players advantage actually add to his destruction.

We KNOW this for an absolute fact because we have recorded tens of thousands of actual casino outcomes.

But, if you record an NBJ player's outcomes you will quickly see that we win a very impressive percentage of our doubles, splits, insurance, and surrender outcomes. That's the name of the game.

How often you doubledown is not important. What is important is how often you WIN your doubles. (or splits)

Our record on insurance is even more impressive. While most players lose overall on insurance, we win the vast majority of our insurance bets. In fact it is not uncommon for us to decide EVERY insurace bet correctly in a given game. I was once ejected from the Claridge in A.C. solely for making EVERY insurance decision correct for 4.5 hours straight.

BTW, we don't call it correct when you play by some book's version of correct. We call it correct when you WIN.