How you win in blackjack?

never take insurance, its a sucker bet

house always has odds of something like 1:5 of winning your $$ but after you take insurance their odds of winning your $$$ is increased twofold

stop after you got 18+

I stop at 17+

Z

don't split if u have 20 either 2 10's or face cards , i seen it done to many times LOL

if the dealer has anything under 6 and your first card is a shitty one don't worry too much about it , most likely the dealer will bust .

Says a guy who calls himself 'skillfull'

How do you in blackjack? Be the dealer

im glad someone didnt say "dont play"

ahhhh...an excellent pre internext thread....

gotta read up on some strategy

http://www.ildado.com/blackjack_tips.html

Memorize the basic blackjack strategy. It won't insure that you'll win, but it cuts the house's odds down to almost even.

This is a good place to practice the strategy - http://www.hitorstand.net

If you want to learn to count cards get the book Million Dollar Blackjack by Ken Uston.

Basically you assign a value of +1 for high cards and -1 for low cards, then you can roughly determine the ratio of high cards to low cards remaining in the deck at anytime during play. When the deck contains more high cards and the odds are in your favor, you increase the amount you bet. When the deck isn't favorable, you bet the minimum so you lose less. The count also affects your decision on when to hit, stand, double and split.

The closest you can get to even odds playing the house is craps. It's not even, but it almost can be if you are a dice manipulator.

what ???

umm apply for a dealer position at the casino

or do u mean how to get a blackjack ? Ace + 10 / facecard

Card counting by itself is not very profitable, team play is where the money is at.

u cannot count cards around here,
they use 6-8 decks, and they cut off half a deck at the end so there is no way in hell to count them unless u have a machine that reads shuffles.

I usually win with these rules:
- hold at 17+
- bet bigger at the start of a new deck
- never play a table with more then 3 decks in a shoe
- never play with more then the dealer and yourself or just one other at most
- Double down on 11, when the deck is new
- Split 9's and up

See you at the tables

Watch that show they had on card counting.

They had like 100 people in a set that studyed the casinos and took them for over 10 million, then take the money and invest it.

Go to a few dealer schools learn the ropes..

Hey you, would you call me please?????? Think you should come party in Vegas with me for Internext....... You wouldn't want to send me in there ALONE would you????

No honey, You can be the house online. see sig and then you might learn something.

anymore? stocktrader!?

hahaha i love all this advice.

there are two steps to beating blackjack

the first is learning basic strategy. basic strategy is a list of plays that you make depending on your cards and the dealers cards. There is one and only one correect move to make for each combination, however, unlike what has been posted here, what you should do depends on what rules you are playing, ie no of decks, does the dealer have a hold card? does dealer only take original and busted bets on a blackjack ? what totals can you double on ? what does the dealer stand on ? how many hands can you split to ? can you split aces? how many cards can you have on split aces ? can you doulbe after split ?

all these things are factors in working out a basic strategy. under most circumstances, playing perfect basic strategy will reduce the house edge to somewhere around 0.5%, that is, for every $100 bet, you should loose 50c.

The second step is counting cards. This is not as dificult as casinos want you to think it is. it is simply a way to track the ratio of high and low cards in the deck, based on the premise that high cards are good for the player and low cards are good for the dealer, which is a generalised truth because, for example, 5 is the most advantageous card for the dealer, not 2.

There is no "right" way to do this. many counting systems exist, some are more suited to particular games than others, and generally the more complex it is, the better it is.

The way you use the counting information is that you change you basic strategy based on the composition of cards remaining in the deck, and more importantly, change the amount you bet, so you are betting more when the deck is in your favour, ie you are statistically expected to win.

now to address some of the previous posts:



insurance is not always a sucker bet, there is a count called the insurance count that has been made specifically for insurance bets. it has a 100% playing accuracy. Insurance is very valuable to the counter, and shouls never be ignored, however, if you are not counting, it is generally not a good diea as it is against you more that it is for you.

The odds of 1:5 are also pulled right out of your arse, in 00 roulette the odds are only 5.25% in the houses favour, i think even a very average blackjack player would not be more than 10-15% house advantage, and as stated, even without counting, this can be reduled to well less than 1%



some people seem to have some knowledge here, stop after you got 18 is a good call, although there are, believe it or not, some situations where this is wrong. very rare though

this isnt true at all, blackjack played with basic strategy is closer to even. blackjack played with counting is positive expectation, and also some video poker machines are positive expectation, although they generally arent worth your time.

card counting is extremely profiatble, but you require a bankroll. team play is more profiatble, but its harder to do and you require an even bigger bankroll, but if you can pull it off it can be really good.

to give you an idea, most professionals consider a ROR (risk of ruin) which is the probability that you will loost is all of about 2.5% to be considered safe. using australian rules, a bankroll of around $12000 is required to get a 2.5% ROR for the $10 tables (note: this means your minimum bet is $10) This is also based upon assumtions of bet spread and counting system, but it is a middle opf the road figure. If you went in with only $6000, you would have a 15% ROR.

i live in australia, all the casinos are either 6 or 8 deck, although if your local did vut half the deck it would be quite difficult to win. But conditions like that arent very common, its more likely that there is a 60-70% penetration than 50, because the more time the dealers spend shuffling, the less money they are making. But the amount that the dealer deals is very important. its called penetration, to use an extreme example, if i had one deck of cards, and i delt an ace first, how sure would you be of the next card thats dealt ? not very. but if i had two cards, and ace and a two and i deal the ace, you would be sure of the next card. this is an extreme example but it shows the general idea, the more cards that the dealer deals the more accurate your card counting information is.

anyway chowda (or anyone else), if you want more information or counting, or want me to get you a basic strategy chart for your casino's rules. ICQ me 18502614

huh? You can't manipulate casino dice..They will throw you in jail for cheating. That's one of the worst percentage games in the casino. You won't go to jail for counting cards but if they think you're doing it, they will still escort you to the door.

oh shit i forgot the third step: DON'T GET CAUGHT

its not against the rules, or illegal to count cards, but the casinos will ban you if they realise you are doing it, its just to protect their investment.

Stick to basic strategy for now. They sell a cheat card in damn near every casino in the world. Some of the advice in here is amazingly retarded.

yep basic strategy

and hi low

good fun

Dead wrong, Ani was right, if you properly play the few smart bets in craps it is said to have the least house advantage of any casino game.

stay on 21.

luck

When you count cards in blackjack you know when YOU have the edge. I would say a positive beats any house edge regardless of how small it is. I haven't studied craps but what I have read on it is that it is one of the worst games for odds. Dunno what funky betting people are doing but cheers to them.

get to 21...


stay on 16 and up...everything else HIT...


that's about it...

WRONG, craps is always negative expectation, balckjack and some video poker machines can be positive expectation, so you are statistically expected to win rather than loose. and if you wanted to you could play blackjack so that it was perfecty even.

Blackjack is different to every other casino game because what has happened previously affects what happens i the future, craps is a static game, the odds are always the same.

I find the best way to win is to play the fewest hands possible...last time I played, I came out $1 up...I bet $1 on 1 hand and left.

I watched everyone else slowly lose everything the came with, so on the whole, I did way better.

My vote is they put video games in all the casinos. I could spend $5 in Wonderboy and last all night

i cant believe all the ignorance here, stay on 16 and up??? even in basic strategy with my local rules you hit 18s sometimes:

soft 18 vs dealers 10 or ace = hit


stocktrader you know what you're talking about

why the hell would you hit an 18 with a dealers ace? the only low cards left to help you are the ones u want the dealer to pull.

5555 i OWN U ALL

where did you find a casino with $1 tables ?

Bring the book "bringing down the house" about the kids from MIT who beat Vegas for millions.

He said soft sucka!

I bet the felt has cigarette burns in it and the pitboss is wearing jeans.

there are a few problems with your post.

1. if you are playing 8 decks, 416 cards and you take a few out, there are not only low cards left.

2. If there were only low cards left, it would be candy to pull a 2 or 3

3. You dont want the dealer to pull low cards, low cards are good for the dealer.

And to answer your question, the reason i would want to hit a soft 18 against the dealers ace is that the statistical odds say that i will loose less money if i do so. for me thats a pretty good reason.

Not all decisions are there to make you win, a lot of the time it is like if i stand i will loose 42% of the time, but if i hiot i will only loose 17% of the time. The decisions are about minimising your losses as much as maximising yoiur wins.

If you play professionally, for each 20 casino outings you have, you8 are expected to come home in front 11 times, in addition, your wins are expeected to be about 205 bigger than your losses

lol missed that thanks for pointing it out DAD,

but really the only time i would bother to count cards in Calgary is if i took up a table with 1 other person,

other than that the casinos are real bitchy, they are usually 8 deck shoots, the casino i go to has 6 deck shoots. im not sure where to even find a casino in Alberta with a lower than 6 deck shoot.

i missed the entire point of your post, i thought u meant hard 18, i was thinking to myself that sounds crazy, but i agree with u, i sometimes hit soft 18, all depends on who i am playing with.

i bought the ebook out of interest. it was a good semi fictional read but it does not teach you to play blackjack or count cards. It is usefull to the card counter however, as an introdultion to the mechanics of team play. The book explains their team play concepts pretty well, i personally liked the part where they used keywords to signal the decks running count to the big players joining a table, i would never have thought of that.


If you read the book dont take it to seriously though, its for entertainment purposes. Card counting isnt all about glamour and action, its about sitting on your arse and being a robot. playing out hands with decisions that have been determined before you even sit down.

oh by the way, you should probably ignore those links above, as the information may not relate to the rules you play. to get a basic stratey chart for your rules go here:

http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bjbse.php

are you coming to the goldcoast webmaster meet in january? A few of us are heading to jupiters lol.

Any one who good in numbers knows you can't win at any casino game. That's why you gotta be the house.

Learn from the man who has been banned from all the vegas casino's since the 70's ...

http://bj21.com

Excellent site and I'm biased on that since my company designed it for them.

I learned a lot about cards and tables working for that crew

yeah, i talked about it in the other thread, i might head into treasury though because it has higher numbers of low bet tables, (19 compared to 1) so its easier to blend in. Im staying till the following thursday, so if you want me to give you a quick blackjack lesson while were there, id be more than happy to

yes thats an informative site, i used to be a member, for those who dont know, the guy is Stanford Wong, i think hes the only guy in card counting to have a move named after him.

An idea he came up with was standing and watching the tables until they became favourable, then sit down, when the tables went bad, hed stand back up and look for a new table, this became known as Wonging In/Wonging Out. You cant get away with it nowdays though, well, not without some creativity

why do casinos ban people for counting cards?

how do thousands of people make a living of playing blackjack?

could you please answer these questions