Third - Not taking advantage of doubling on certain soft hands.

Forth - Splitting all pairs no matter what the dealers’ up card.

Fifth - Drinking alcohol (back in the day, this is the one that cost me the most.)

Costliest mistake I see all the time is when someone has been losing consistantly and they try to make it back by making one large bet.They lose 7 out of 9 betting $5,and suddenly jump their bet to $30-40. Its uncanny how often these bets result in a split/DD situation,which they can't cover.You just can't sit dowqn at a table,buy in for 4-5 units and expect to win on a steady basis,with nothing to back you up.

Taking even money on a blackjack all the time is a big mistake!!! As well as betting the side bets such as Royal Match!

:?: okay,im learning to be a dealer for a big casino.........ive just!!! started.......anyone have any advice to me,the school is 5 weeks,im just nevouse as i can be,ive not played much just online....so if someone has any good advice id be grateful,thanks soonerborn

In fact most casinos don't want you to play if you are a dealer. They won't let you play at the casino you work at. The would prefer you to limit your play at other casinos to.

people increasing their bet after a blackjack! People feel good after they just hit a blackjack and usually increase their bets. This is mistake because after a blackjack with nothing else considered you are less likely to win the next hand and there for should decrease your bet to the minimum allowed!

the idea is that an ace and 10 have been taken out of play. Your chance to draw a 21 on the next hand is reduced by some amount except in very odd cases (12 cards left, game dealt to bottom, 6 aces and 6 10's left. getting a 21 doesn't change much for the next round...

but in general, the idea is wrong, because that is what card counting is about, keeping up with remaining deck composition and knowing whether you have an edge or not on the next round, regardless of snappers in this round. For example, in a SD game, A gets a 21, B gets a 6 card 20 (no aces). I'd be happy to bet big the next round, not the table min...

Some years ago I read about a simulation that someone ran about your chances of winning a hand after winning the one previous. After running millions of hands they came up with a tremendously insignificant number that did show your chance was less and might cost you about a cent or two a YEAR. It was not based on composition of the remaining cards. Clearly it showed that just because you won, it really means nothing concerning the next hand. Just bet the count!

ihate17

learningtocount,
That does not make any sense to me. Does anyone on this board have any comments? Stainless Steel Rat?
Go back two posts and read ihate17's comments.

my advice is to forget the "see a few small cards, bet bigger, see a few big cards (or a snapper) and bet smaller."

Why not just simply learn to count. Then you know whether to bet big or small, and you have much better information, as you know about the _actual_ composition of the remaining (undealt) cards, rather than just about what happened in the last round. The whole concept of counting cards is to get away from that "whatever happened in the last hand can be used to guide me in the next hand." For example, you could have a RC of -20, and if 6 small cards come out, betting big would be a mistake.

Learn to count, practice, get ready for reality as counters do _not_ win nearly every session regardless of what you hear. You can play with s thin advantage, but high variance on top of that means bankroll swings can be violently up or down. The hard part is remembering that even to play at a nickel shoe game, you need a couple of thousand bucks to avoid a quick and early exit form the game. A couple of spreads to $100 and losing can drain money quickly. And it is definitely going to happen.

Try CV blackjack, and play it _honestly_ to get a feel. Playing heads-up in a SD game dealt to 10 cards left will make you feel invincible. But if, in reality, you are going to play 6 deck shoes dealt to 75 cards left, your results will change drastically... Once you get a feel for how the swings _will_ happen, you can be prepared for them. You can determine your RoR for a specific bankroll and game/betting ramp, rather than relying on guesswork.

Your computer is your friend, if you use it properly.

But things have (and are) changing. Played Tunica for most of this week. Looks like H17 is everywhere. Did not look at hi-limit rooms, but did not see any S17 games anywhere. Also didn't find any surrender games although I did not personally play every shoe game in every casino. So rules are eroding, penetration is down, I watched a counter get chased from one casino on a dead run, shuffle-tracking is far more difficult as most casinos I played at (shoe games particularly) had untrackable (at least for me) shuffles that were very good in fact at mixing the cards wildly. Half the games had no mid-deck entry (no wonging), the rest had a 100 max bet on mid-deck entry. So it is getting tougher and tougher, but if you persevere, the game can be beaten still. But it takes iron will, for starters. It isn't for the faint at heart...

Even if the true count is at plus 10 and you have a high likely hood of busting you still gain more by hitting 16 than a 7! A plus ten count is highly unusual especially if you divid the number of decks by the count! The less the count is the more you gain by hitting a 16 vs a 7. In fact it is one of those things where always should apply. Please don't think of the one in a million hands where the count get higher than 10!

17 is a losing hand if you have a non bustable seventeen or soft 17 you hit you gain a minimum of 12% on average by doing this sometimes you even gain a lot more than that on average! It is huge mistake to stay on it even though you will make your hand worse most of the time off of the first hit. The times that you make your hand better will more than make up for it. The only way you can win on 17 is if the dealer bust. It is a little better than 16 because you can push with 17.

hi all-
I think it's important for blackjack players to know what Fred Renzey said about the insurance bet in Blackjack Bluebook II.
The two bets (your current hand and the insurance bet) have NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER! That seemingly tiny piece of information is worth TONS to any serious or even half way serious blackjack player!
Best of luck to all-
Prog

Insurance is the most missed played bet in all of blackjack. I see people insure two tens twenty's this is horrible bet and carries an average edge for the house of 14%.
I good time to take insurance is when you are on a single deck game and you see 2 or more hands without seeing a ten.

Most people 99 out of a 100 think that you take insurance to protect a good hand and not necesarily to win the insurance bet. 1 out of a 100 people take insurance because there are a lack of tens on the table in the single deck game.
Insurance on a shoe game is almost never a good bet,

That is a very common mistake that I see another common mistake is staying on soft 17. Both of these moves cost the player a minimum of 12& of their bet on average.

On my blacjack stragedy I said that it was not a good thing to raise your bet after a blackjack!!! I said this with nothing else considered, I'm not considering the count. In this secenairo the average count would be -2 notice I said average so it could be higher or lower.

Grifter said:

This is what you said to do after a blackjack, and it is total nonsense.

Grifter

And how would that be much different from most of his "advice"?

I agree that soft doubling is probably the most often misplayed situation. Also, people like to split even when it is not called for. Not the obvious ones like 5-5, 8-8, 0r 10-10, but some of the others that are more difficult to remember or they never bothered to learn.

I can't talk too much though. Once recent mistake I made was playing the no DAS BS instead of the DAS one. I am not sure how much that cost me, but the KO book says that playing the wrong BS in that type of situation has a minimal impact. But I need every edge I can get and will do better next time. As I posted on another thread, I also used the S17 surrender rules rather than the H17. Still, I won consistently.

One very common mistake I see is using too many exclamation points!!!!!!

What we have here is a rookie dealer attempting to impose basic strategy universally with rigid statements. Also, to some extent, he is making an attempt to apply card removal concepts that may apply, in some cases, to single deck play.

learningtocount does not qualify his remarks. He does not put his remarks in some understandable/distinguishable context.

For example: In 1-2 or 6 decks we all know that an observant basic strategy player should hit 10,2 vs 4, but stand in 8 deck games. This is what I mean by context (skill level and situation).

There is nothing we can do that will further his understanding until he is willing to grasp this concept.

Ray, if Learntocount can't help you out, 'Cardcounter' will.

learningtocount said:

To the man above me you are right you can hit 12 against a 4 if the count is negative enough and gain a lot by doing it!!!

You do not "gain a lot by doing it." If you are counting cards, and the count is negative, you will have a minimum bet out. That will have almost no effect on your win rate when you use this BS departure index. It doesn't happen very often, and the ev improvement is even smaller.