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