Things I've Discovered While Playing Blackjack

Blackjack is certainly a popular game for good reason:

You can get an advantage as a player. And it was the first  game of chance that I  took seriously. The lawyer for the firm I worked with told me he was the one counting the cards a  week before he left for a trip to Louisiana.

I asked him if  I could learn  to count cards,  he said yes. I asked him to recommend a book and he suggested I start with Lance Humble's The World's Best Blackjack. Since then, I have read at least a dozen books about blackjack and have since  played blackjack at casinos across the United States.

Here are seven things I learned from my flirtations with blackjack. 토지노솔루션

Successful Blackjack starts with basic strategy

The first time I  played blackjack, I told myself that if I knew when to hit and when to stand, everything would be fine.

But  real money blackjack offers much more than that. You also need to know when to double  and split, choices I didn't learn when my mother taught me to play blackjack at the kitchen table. Sometimes you will be dealt a hand where in the long run you will lose more money than you win. Your goal is to lose the least amount of money over time.

And some hands are great and they will win more money than they lose over time. Your goal with these hands is to play them in a way that maximizes the amount you will win.

Basic strategy alone will not make you a winner

Don't be that person who downloads a basic strategy chart, plays blackjack for a few hours on his first visit to the casino, wins some money, and thinks he's got it all figured out. Having a winning session is great and having a house edge of less than 1% is normal.

After all, the average player only plays 500 hands of blackjack over the course of a weekend at the casino. That's a lot of hands, but it still doesn't compare to the number of hands you need to play to feel like you're in it for the long haul.

In fact, if you take advantage of the casino's rewards program, in the long run you may even be slightly ahead of the casino  by adding the value of the rewards you receive to your total profit.

But to win consistently over the long term when playing blackjack, you need more than just basic strategy. You need to know how to count cards at a high level.

And that means more than just being able to  count. You will also need to know how to convert  running counts into actual counts, manage bankrolls, and deviate from basic count-based blackjack strategies.

Don't cheat when playing Blackjack

Contrary to what  casinos would have you believe, card counting  in blackjack is not cheating. Think about it. How can thinking about the game you're playing be considered cheating?

The only time card counting in blackjack is considered cheating is if you use a device or computer to help you keep track of the count.

On the other hand, using an accomplice to stack the cards or someone who will allow you to over-bet is cheating. It may even be profitable for a while.

However, cheating in blackjack actually has a big problem:

It is illegal. You can go to jail. And in Nevada, it's a felony.  I think casinos make enough money from ignorant people to be worth what they get for cheating. But I don't think it's a risk worth taking, especially when there are so many other ways to make money from casinos.

Luck has more to do with your results

When you play a game with a house edge less than 1%, you are playing a game that is almost even. If you have a reasonable amount of capital, this means that after a weekend of playing you are almost as likely to have a winning record as you are to have a losing weekend.

One time I went to Kansas City  and played blackjack at Harrah's. I don't count cards and  just use the best basic strategy  I can with the amount of whiskey I have. To be honest, it's not much whiskey anyway. At that time,  Kansas City casinos limited their offerings as well as how much you bet and how many times per hour.

I don't know if that's still the case there, but here's what I saw on my blackjack results this weekend: 토토솔루션

I brought about $1,000  to play. And when we left, I won $400 playing blackjack. I play for $10 per hand, although I  also increase and decrease my bets  to convince the dealer and casino boss to give me more rewards. So I bet between $10 and $100 per hand.

I played  three or four hours this weekend and  I guess I played about 100 games per hour. The table wasn't crowded but I wasn't alone.

If you assume a 1% house edge then the expected loss is $70.  I just continued to have good luck this weekend. This is how short term variance works in the game.

Since then, I've  had weekends that defy expected results in the other direction. It's also not uncommon for me to lose $300 or $400 on this type of action in a weekend.

How long is “long term”?

People always want to know what “long” in blackjack really means. How many hands before rolling into the long run? How many hours before embarking on a long-term journey?

Here's what it is:

There is no predetermined number to define “long term.”

That's a relative thing.

The closer we get to countless experiments, the closer we get to the long term. Five hands is not a long-term solution, neither are 50 and 500.  But 500 is closer to the long term than 50 or 5.

The final example of  short  is a game of blackjack. It is impossible to lose 1% of your bet in a single hand of blackjack. You will either lose 100% of your bet or you will win 100% of your bet. You can win 150% of your bet if you roll a natural, and you can see a different result if you double  or split.  But none of these results will reach 1%.

If you place 10 bets at $5 each, you can lose $20 like any other. However, you will almost never lose just 50 cents in 10 hands,  which is the expected loss.

Even if you've got 1,000 hands, you're still in it for the short term. You don't really start to see predictable results when playing at the casino until you reach 100,000 hands territory.

In principle, quitting while you're ahead sounds good

One of the truisms you often hear from old blackjack players is that the key to winning at blackjack is to quit when you are ahead. This is true at first glance, but it's more complicated than that.

Of course, you will win if you give up while you are ahead.

The problem is that there is no way to guarantee that you will arrive early. You can play a hand, but the probability of winning a blackjack hand  is only 42% - 46% without counting the tie.

In theory, you could do stupid things like double your bet until you hit the inevitable win, but don't get me started on how poorly that works out. Castle. If you do this every blackjack session, you can have a few small winning sessions where you can walk away with just one bet.

But  eventually you will have a session where you lose so many times that you wipe out your previous profit and then some.

This is how the negative expectations game works.

Casinos sometimes make mistakes

Most people don't think much about it, but  table games (including blackjack) in casinos are organized and operated by humans. So casinos will sometimes make mistakes. Sometimes they will make mistakes that benefit you. Other times, they will make mistakes that benefit them.

Here is my suggestion:

If the casino makes a mistake in your favor, keep quiet. The casino already offers math games. It's not like they're giving you a  fair game mathematically. If the casino makes a mistake in their favor, speak up. They will determine if you are right or wrong and if you are right you will get your money back.

In a game with a low enough house edge, such as blackjack, under the right conditions this can be enough to tip the balance slightly in your favor.

You can't make a living this way, but  in the long run you can play for almost free if you follow the basic strategy perfectly.

Conclusion

I have learned a lot about blackjack over the past two decades. This article is only cursory, but I think it covers the most important blackjack lessons  you need to be successful. 카지노솔루션