A Blackjack Story

by admin on 23/12/08 at 8:41 pm

A Blackjack Story

Time to introduce myself to you all. For obvious identity purposes, you can refer to me as Jack. The reason for this blog’s existence is to share my experiences and stories in Blackjack from the very beginning. I will learn how to count cards and take the house, and I’ll share everything with you. Even if there’s nothing you need to learn, the story should at least be entertaining. Now about me…

Full Story

Blackjack Bluebook II by Renzey

I was at the BJI Forums when I asked what the best book was for beginning counters. I wanted something to give me the basics on the fundamentals of the game and counting. They suggested getting Blackjack Bluebook by Fred Renzey, so I got it.
 
I just started it today and got about halfway through the book, and it’s been a pretty good read. I’ve learned a few myths on basic blackjack that I fell victim too, and learned some new things.
 
I learned that basic strategy could be “transformed” a bit (if that’s all you’re playing) to cut down the casino’s edge even more. There are a few plays that go against what the charts say, but are dependent on the cards played. Makes perfect sense.
 
I just finished the chapter on the A/10 count, which is almost like a very primitive way of establishing a count to base bets off. Instead of assigning values to each card, you only count how many 10’s-Aces occur in the first two decks of the shoe dealt. If there’s a lower number than there should be, that means they’re in the remaining shoe - increasing your odds.
 
These sorts of things seem almost only handy if you’re planning on just playing basic strategy for the rest of your life, but they’re good to know nonetheless because of how they’ll help you understand the plays you’re making.
 
The only problem I’m seeing is that the book mainly talks about 6-deck shoes being the most the average player will encounter, when the casinos near me all use 8-deck shoes, which are just going to hurt my odds.

First Counting “Experience”

So I think I had my first counting experience the other night, and if I did…it was great! Here’s the story…
 
I go to the casino with my friend (his first time playing), and we’re walking around looking for tables with a shoe deck. There’s one $15/min but it’s jam packed, so my friend tells me he’ll man up and play a $25 table. We find one with 1 guy sitting in the middle, shoe game, so we sit down. He’s got a glass of wine next to him and says “Hey boys mind letting me finish the shoe? I’ve been lucky.” We say alright and wish him luck. The dealer deals the next few hands out, almost all 10s, the deck was smoking.
 
We’re letting him finish it when some other guy sits down and just cashes in and doesn’t let the guy finish alone. The guy then says to us that we can hop in. So I buy in for $300 and my friend for $200. We won EVERY hand in that shoe, with 20’s or blackjacks almost every hand. It probably was about 8 hands. The Russian guy I suspected of counting was acting drunk and we were all high-fiving eachother and screaming after every hand, enough so to attract the attention of a pit-boss.
 
Dealer reshuffles the shoe and we start from fresh, played a few hands and it wasn’t so hot and got out. Ended up leaving with $500, so $200 profit. I went earlier that evening and walked away with $125 profit, so all-in-all I mad $325 that night.
 
Do you guys think he was really just drunk and lucky, or that he was counting? I didn’t see him take a sip of his wine, and asking my friend and I to say out of the shoe kind of seemed like a giveaway. Either way, was a super fun night and hopefully tonight is just as good :).

My First Few Casino Trips

I learned basic strategy in a couple days and then wanted to just get some experience at a casino. My goal wasn’t to make any money - I was happy with breaking even since the odds weren’t in my favor anyways. I just wanted to get comfortable chatting with the dealer, the players, and having basic strategy just be instinct. Didn’t play with a lot of money here for obvious reasons, I’m not in this to just gamble. Here’s briefly how my first five trips went :
 
Trip 1: Overall a good trip. Was my first time ever playing blackjack at a casino, so I was a bit nervous just because of that fact. Went in with $100, I think I made 1 basic strategy mistake the whole time. $10 mins, got as low as $10 I think and as high as $150. Eventually got back down to $100 and called it a day.
 
Trip 2: Became quite a bit more social at the tables, went in with $115 and ended up leaving with $230. I was on a hot streak (aka lucky) and wanted to get out while I was ahead. Even though it wasn’t overly satisfying because I got lucky, it felt good to make money.
 
Trip 3: My first rude awakening in the world of gambling (I can’t wait to count). Went in with $100. Quickly built that up to over $200 in 10 minutes, but I loved playing so much I didn’t want to leave. That was the mistake, I quickly lost ALL of the money in a series of horrible losses. Emptied the rest of my wallet and bought $130 more in chips…and I kept on losing. Wasn’t long before I lost all of that too, and almost every hand I lost with a 18-20. Every 20 I got pushed, and every 18-19 was beaten by a 20. All in all, horrible feeling, got way in over my head and gambled way too much.
 
Trip 4: Actually took this one on Christmas night (addicted already) after family stuff was over. It was PACKED at the casino, and the lowest tables were $25 min. In Canada they use almost all CSMs, the only tables with shoes that night were $75 min. So I waited and got in one of the $25 tables. Played for about 25 minutes and got nowhere. I had decided that if I won this hand for $25, then won the next for $50, I’d be up over $100 and be happy. Won the first hand, then put in 50. Dealer gives me 6’s and is showing a 6…I don’t want to but I have to split. She deals me two queens for dual 16’s, I have to stand. She flips her card over, shows a 3…deals a king…19. End up losing $100, I have $150 left. I lost the last 4 out of 5 hands, so I just went on the hope that I was going to get this one and pushed it all in. She deals me a 13 and shows a 10. I hit…it’s a 7. She flips her card and shows a 3 for a 13…deals a 5 to make 18. I won $150 and ended up with $100 in profit and called it a night on that one.
 
Trip 5: This trip was today, the day after Christmas. Not much to report here, went in with $200. After about 25 minutes I was up $100 and called it quits. I hate playing for so little because I love being there, but $100 profit has been my cutoff so far when playing basic strategy alone.
 
I might go tonight again, not sure though. I’m going to look into which book I should get in regards to counting and start hammering that out. I want to hit those $75 tables for hours!

Learning Basic Strategy

So I’ve started this blog about a week “late”. I’ve studied basic strategy for about a week now and have gone to the casino 5 times this week to gain some experience. What is basic strategy?
 
Basic strategy, is almost self-explanatory. It’s the fundamental blackjack strategy that tells you what move to make for every hand. Most blackjack players that don’t know any better and just go out to gamble give the casino about a 5% edge (from what I’ve read). Using perfect basic strategy, we can lower the casino’s edge to around 0.5%. Still no beans for beating them, but it’s a hefty start.
 
I learned BS in 2 ways, by memorizing a chart, and playing a game to put it to practice. I had everything down in around 3 days and I didn’t really study that much, it’s pretty much common sense and statistics at work. Here is the chart I memorized :
 

 
I haven’t studied too much into actual counting yet, but I believe you keep to the same basic strategy, there’s just a couple of tweaks in certain situations (eg when the deck is really hot and the count is high, you’d split 10s when the BS chart says never to split them).
 
Once I had a good portion of that memorized, I played this free blackjack game from hitorstand.net. If you make the right move, good job. If you make the wrong move, a window pops up and tells you why it was the wrong move. I probably played it for 2-3 hours in total and it really did help my learning of basic strategy a lot.
 
That’s pretty much all there is to basic strategy…it’s pretty basic.