Bojack, SSR and Renzey have such vastly different signatures that one being the same as another is highly unlikely.

Most, if not all, latter counting development has been geared toward simplicity. At least two (KO and KISS) are ligit based on independent reviews. Two others (not mentioned), IMO, should be avoided, again "my opinion".......

Can you win a little extra money playing blackjack? Yes you can and here are my conclusions:

- If you have played for 20-25-30 years and are still playing on a regular basis, you are a winner or a complete fool. I don't believe a fool can learn the ins and outs of such a complex game, nor can he last for such a long period.

- Some basic strategy players, based on such a large sample, are life-time winners. They have been lucky beyond reason.

- If you get logged off during the prep of a post, submit anyway and respond to the sign-on prompt. The sys will auto submit your post. If you do the submit again, we will see duplicate post, one after the other.

Ray, along with Grifter, you have always had my respect for your knowledge and willingness to share.

Renzey...I'll back-off my statment concerning you and give you the benefit of the doubt. Peace...

SSR & Bojack, whoever you are I will give you the benefit of your comments and also applaud both of you for your input into the forum. I still have issues, but they may be premature.

Alex, you sure have made a turn in your post since mid 2003.

Peace...

countfast said:

No sense telling the truth in this or any forum because they are all run by the snake oil salesmen who publish books and software.

I have never published a book. Bojack has never published a book. SSR has never published a book. Other than Renzy, has ANYONE here ever published a book?! Has Ken Smith ever published a book (www.blackjackinfo.com)? Had Eliot Jacobson ever published a book when he was running his website (used to be www.cardcounter.com)? Who exactly are you trying to insult on this website?

There are a few other websites run by legitimate authors (and players) like Don Schlesinger (www.AdvantagePlayer.com) and Arnold Snyder (www.BlackjackForumOnline.com), but how does publishing an accurate, widely respected book (like Blackjack Attack or Blackbelt in Blackjack) destroy someone's credibility? I don’t understand your logic (if there is any).

I'll agree that there are plenty of worthless blackjack books and websites out there. The names John Patrick, Jerry Patterson, Bobby Singer, and Doug Grant seem to come up pretty frequently, but how does that discredit all of the worthwhile websites like this one?

countfast said:

I have a question for you and Bojack. Why, if card counting systems could win, are there so many new books on card counting?

That is like asking " If the first automobile was invented in 1886, why are there so many different cars today?" The game has changed and technology has changed. Both have been a big factor in creating more sophisticated counting systems. The creation of unbalanced system has opened the door for all sorts of new simplified counting methods. Even the old systems like the Dubner Hi-Low have been revised and improved several times over by many players (Braun, Wong). New rules (Multi-deck games, Surrender, Five-Card Charlie, 6:5 blackjack, 7-7-7, 6-7-8, etc.), game variations (SuperFun 21, Blackjack Switch, Spanish 21, etc.), side bets (Over/Under, Lucky Ladies, Royal Twenties, Free Ride, etc.) and equipment (CSM, ASM, Mindplay, etc.) have been introduced. All of these have been widely researched, published and beaten by smart players. Perhaps you should read a few of those books before you complain that "the game today can't be beat." Just because you don't know how to do it doesn't mean that the rest of us aren't making good money from blackjack.

countfast said:

Hell, Snyder was a mail carrier when he started selling bogus gaming systems (on the side) in California.

What bogus gaming system was he selling? His first broucure in 1980 (The Blackjack Formula) was a legitimate tenchique for estimating your win rate against various games (the predecessor to DI and SCORE) based on Peter Griffin's work. His second publication in 1981 (Blackjack Forum) was, and still is, widely recognized as a legitimate Advantage Play resource.

countfast said:

The game today can't be beat. I do believe you can break even with comps...

You can do MUCH better than break even with comps alone. Check out Max Rubin's Comp City for more information on how to beat the comp system. Being able to count cards and "comp count" can double you EV. I guess that was another one of the "new blackjack books" that you didn't read.

countfast said:

Like one poster said attempting to achieve a positive count is an 8D game is almost impossible today.

Unless you cut the high counts to the front of the shoe every time. In that case EVERY SHOE is a positive one! And besides, why would a smart player count an 8-deck shoe in the first place? Game selection is a very important part of being an Advantage Player. Maybe that player isn't as good a player as they think they are. In that case, the person does not have an advantage because of their lack of skill, not a fault in the card counting system. Card counting only recognized a player’s advantage when one exists. If you’re playing a game where the advantage does not come up very often they you are not playing a good game and are not a winning player in the first place. You can’t expect card counting to overcome the house edge AND the player’s bad judgement.

countfast said:

Recently I was wonging at a local casino and backcounted 8 tables before I found a count worth entering.

Were you counting the whole shoe or were you abandoning the "hopeless" shoes after counting the first two decks? What is your optimal departure point? Optimal entry point? Were you counting two tables at once like most skilled counters? Were you backcounting full tables as well (to take advantage of Wong’s backline strategy)? I have a feeling you may not have been trying as hard as you could have been...but don’t try to blame your failure on the system. The system works just fine for the rest of us.

-Sonny-

Knox said:

Sonny, I think you mean well but I wonder about your comments. It is hard to pick up on the tone from this type of communication, but it seems condescending. Sorry if I am wrong.

About those rating cards and getting comps. I signed up for one at the Hilton as part of my "act". I figured a counter would never sign up for one of those, so it could be part of my cover. Also starting off the 6D show with a medium-sized bet, then letting it ride until I lost seemed to be a good cover play. Once it loses, I would go down to the $10 minimum unless the count was really good, which is doubtful that early in the deck. I would appreciate the lowdown on rating cards, I figure they are just a way to track players, and are only useful to big losers earning comps.

With regard to exit stategies, I think you need to stick it out for at least 2 decks in a 6D shoe, because the count can change quickly. Early exit does not make sense to me unless the count is just horrid. I use KO but I start at zero so I can avoid most negative counts.

Player's cards are pretty dangerous for a card counter. Here's how my fairly infrequent backoffs have come:

I played using a player's card. I always kept my sessions to an hour or less. But every now and then, something would trigger a question, and the pit would request an after-the-fact skills check using the video from the table I played at. The next time I would go back and present the player's card, they would be waiting as it would have been flagged after the skills check showed I was playing closely according to the Hi-Lo system.

I have not been run off that many times, and it has been very rare for the last 3-4 years since I stopped using my own player's card to play 21. But the majority of the times I was told to stop playing BJ, it came at the start of a session rather than at the end. Since I stopped with the player's cards, backoffs have dropped off, although now they happen during the session of course, if I forget and "camp out" too long...

Your goal is to give 'em as little to go on as possible, so that the next time you return, they won't have a "BOLO" on your player's card info...

So a man as rich and powerful as yourself should have no excuse playing in some rinky-dink Ohio casino when you can be in Vegas,playing under good conditions, in a few hours.
I missed the part of your biography where you tell about your AP experiance.

No Ohio currently does not have any casinos. A bill is coming up in November for a vote, and in addition, the Redskins are on the war path concerning opening one on tribal land. West Virginia votes in January for table games. The public is supporting it by a 2/1 majority in the polls.

My AP experience is limited to three years with extensive research concerning the effective nature of counting. As I said before I believe today that the best (99.9%) of so called AP's are breaking even with comp consideration. Maybe 1 in a thousand can make $35,000 a year, but that's it as far as I'm concerned. No question it will limit your losses to a breakeven point with comps. Renzey said himself he knows 4 or 5 players who are making a living. Dosen't seem like a lot for his connections. Fred, did you say that? If you don't say no, then you are lying. I play blackjack for the challange and enjoyment of the game. Money is not a consideration in my play. It's sort of a David and Goliath with me. I haven't achieved a break-even point todate, but I will if rules stop free falling. I keep asking myself the question of why expert players like Grifter is devoting his time today to poker rather than blackjack. I believe he thinks it will continue to decline considering corporate stockholders demands for increased profits. I also can see a softening of the rules in Vegas in the next few years because of the same games being offered throughout the country primarily by the Redskins. I guarantee you West Virginia, for example will offer 6 and 8D games with the following rules: Shoe Games...3/2, DAS, S17, RSA and the posssibility of late surrender for $10 tables. Why go to Vegas if not an AP? Look how Bogata has taken over AC with their favorable games. They are one of the only couple of casinos offering S17 for $10 games. My AP ability will improve within the next few years because I'm determined to achieve a level of play that basically lets me travel and enjoy the game with limited cost of entetainment. In closing, I don't have to lie to impress a blackjack forum made up of want to be counters (Yes, there one or two who are professionals, but that's it.) Did you read the recent article in "All In" about Wong and a few other "Hall of Famers" having a free ride for life at Borgona? What a joke. Now Rubin is attempting to get on the list...lol

Its a shame someone so rich and powerful is so full of vile and hate.

countfast said:

Look how Bogata has taken over AC with their favorable games. They are one of the only couple of casinos offering S17 for $10 games.

As far as I know, all AC casinos are S17 no matter what the minimum.

countfast said:

Sonny, you're no Grifter, SSR or Bojack...you just think you are. You get your rocks off in a forum, not on the green.

That's awful funny coming from a guy who counts 8-deck shoes. You can't get your "rocks off" in either place!

-Sonny-

P.S. - I may not be the Grifter, but I learned quite a bit from playing with him.

AlexD30 said:

First, I find it amazing that someone like yourself that would resort to libel, malicious libel, false allegations, nonsensical
references calls himself intelligent and capable playing BJ for profit.

I think you accidentally inserted the wrong post above. It sounds like you meant to insert a quote from countfast instead of Andee. Countfast is the one who has been spreading libel about the game of blackjack, many of its legendary authors, and some of the players on this site. Andee simply called him on it.

AlexD30 said:

My God man, read your post! You sound like a raving lunatic!

Andee sounds perfectly sane to me. He's not the one who went on a convoluted rant about "Duquesne Light, Three Mile Island (GPU), New Jersey Electric & Gas, Virginia Power, Carolina Power and Light, South Carolina Electric and Gas and Georgia Power...and god forbid if I see our corporate name on this web site...This is not a rehearsal."

-Sonny-

Max Rubins Comp City is a great place to get started on comp counting.Not the end-all of it but a great place to start. Jean Scotts Frugal Gambling series is also a must read,as are the members only boards on the Las Vegas Advisor forum.Those guys know the ins and outs of every players club better than any public forum I've come across.
Plenty of posts here on cutting,steering ect,ect.
But its hard work,on many different levels
With all the new players being drawn into poker rooms thru-out the country,I can easily understand why some APs might be attracted to playing poker.
One of the hardest things of being an advantage player is staying one step ahead of the house,something poker players don't need to worry about.

Thanks Sonny. I appreciate you taking the time to do that!

I'll try to be more patient with some of the novice questions I see on here. I may even be able to answer a few!

Knox said:

Sonny: that is a lot of info. What order would you recommend adding these additional "modules" to my arsenal? I can play error-free KO now, but I am not quite ready to bankroll $100 bets. I want to slowly build a bankroll with $50 max bets. I clobbered the LV Hilton for several hunderd $ last week but I had a bad 8-deck session over at the Venetian that ruined it. I lost two $100 bets with the count in the +30s (I start KO at zero). On the last one, I had an 11 but no more $ to double! So the guy next to me pulls out $100, an obvious scavenge attempt. We both lost, but I guess I was lucky I didn't have the extra $100!! LOL.

If you have an 11 and can't double up on your own,DO NOT allow any else to put up the money.You have nothing to gain and everything to lose.Suppose you draw an Ace.Your stuck with 12. But if you had just bet the hand you could hit again.In the situation you described,you are limiting yourself to one card,with no reward.
While jumping in on a hand in this situation is a great move,the reverse isn't. IMHO.

Sonny, that was great information you gave Knox concerning the fellow who purchased his double. Is there any hand interactions that wouldn't hurt the player who run out of money?

Thanks, jp

P.S. I really never gave it much thought until you mentioned letting the guy participate in the double until you explained it. Of course, the player (Knox) would have to have run out of money or he would have player the double himself. I probably would also have left the player kick in the $100 for the double. Not any more.

the casino would never kick anybody out that played blackjack that wasn't cheating.

Surely only a moron would fund half of an 8-split against a 10?

Sonny said:

If you’re going to play shoe games, the next step will be to learn about cutoff tracking which is a simplified version of shuffle tracking. The two links I gave are articles that I wrote that will give you a basic understanding of how it works as well as some of the math behind it. There is also a link in the Shuffle Tracking section to an article I wrote about recognizing trackable shuffles. Those will give you most of what you need to know to start scouting actual casinos.

-Sonny-

The shuffle-tracking stuff was a bit much to digest but I read a lot of it. Put simply, it looks like the goal is to cut an unfavorable slug to the bottom of the deck and a favorable one to the top. I think I will take an incremental approach with it. First I will watch for trackable shuffles and see if I can influence slug placement. I'll worry about count conversions later. I still think I can eke out a small profit regardless if I am conservative.

At one casino I frequent, there's a player whom I nearly always see there. He sits at the table and never takes a hand of his own. He simply makes friendly small talk with the other players, then gets in on their doubles and splits. This might be his entire M.O. I have however, sold him half of 6/6 vs 3 and 7/7 vs 2. The bad news is, we scooped both times.

Jim -- I have been to my nearest local casino 600 times. I see a fair amount of hand interaction by other players at all of them -- not much, but a fair amount. It's probably important that lots of your hand interaction plays look like bad moves. I try to get somebody to split 9/9 vs 7 by offering to go partners. That'll win 59% of the time. I encourage them to double with 11 vs Ace and with 9 vs 7 in the same way, which both win 53%. Then I try to reciprocate by giving them half of my 6/6 vs 4 and 7/7 vs 3. In all cases, I'm making non-basic strategy doubles or splits and giving away basic strategy splits. Couple that with doubling down for an extra one tenth of the bet on 12 vs 2, 3 or 4, taking Insurance for $2.50 or $5 the first three times the dealer's got an Ace up, splitting 2/2 or 3/3 vs 8 and doubling A/7 vs 2 -- and how does it look?

Don't get me wrong. I have been backed off from probably a dozen places. But it's a learning curve. Fifteen years ago, I was a straightforward, no-nonsense, bet-and-play-by-the-count player. I was terrified to deviate from optimum because I didn't know what it would cost me. But necessity bred the incentive to change. With today's analytical software and some working probability, you can come up with a fairly strong camouflage package that will decrease your earning power by only around 5%. And it's even fun.


I think the biggest requirement once you have these things under your belt is to make sure your player's card looks like a loser and to behave in a "devil-may-care" fashion. You need to pocket chips equal to double your EV every time you play if you want to keep coming back to houses that know you on a first name basis.

That's my take on things at the present. Two years from now I might be humming a totally different tune. I'm sure a big key is to have a helter-skelter looking, somewhat undecipherable style of play. Someday, somewhere, somebody will probably see thru it, I suppose.

Ponder the loiterer mentioned previously who never gets dealt a hand of his own, but just scavenges other peoples' double and splits. He schmoozes all the female dealers /floorpeople and I've never seen anybody bother him. Yet, he has the edge on every bet he makes except for when he buys some bad splits. Note that the average double down which many people are leary of making carries around a 6% or 7% player edge. If that's all you ever do, that's your EV. Downside is, you'll get in maybe only 6 ot 8 plays an hour.

What'ya say we give the "knowing who I am" thing a rest. Actually, I do not know CVBJ, but the random chances of the dealer having a 10 up fifteen times with never an Ace in the hole are 30%. It'll happen plenty.

What's more interesting is -- twelve 8 deck shoes and only 15 Ten-ups?? How many players were at the CVBJ table? If you were heads up with a two deck cutoff, you should've gotten in about 650 hands and 200 Ten-ups!

Knox-11 vs A is not a good double for a basic player in a 6 deck game, true. The same would be true for Fred if the cards were in his hand. The skinny here is the fact that you win more by hitting in the long run, even when you are a 53% favorite if you double.

When you buy in to an 11 vs A, it is nothing more than a side bet and not a part of your normal playing MO. Just a few of these can reduce the HA to zip or less. Think of it as a counter to 16 v10, 16 v A, 16 vs 9 and 15 vs 10, all are losers in the 70%+ range.

Knox -- Ray tried to explain it. But sometimes hearing a thing two different ways can turn the light bulb on.

If you have 11 against an Ace in a typical shoe game with a neutral count, you have two alternatives. You can double down and win 53% of the time, or you can just hit and win 57% of the time. That's why hitting is the better play when you can do either one.

Now if you're sitting at the table and you see somebody else double down for less with that same hand, you have two different alternatives. You can either take the rest of his double and win that bet 53% of the time -- or you can do nothing! Filling in his double is a 6% edge! You can't make any money by just watching other people play a winning hand.

There are lots of incorrect doubles that still win more often than they lose.
8 vs 5; 8 vs 6; 9 vs 2; 9 vs 7; 11 vs A; A/2 vs 4; A/3 vs 4; A/7 vs 2 to name a bunch. If somebody doubles for less with any of these -- or if they are even visibly thinking about it and you convince them by offering to go partners, you'll have usually around a 7% edge going in. How big a count do you need to to have a 7% edge on your next blind hand? These plays are valuable if you make them a regular part of your strategy. Especially if you're one of the smaller bettors at the table.

If you play blackjack with a payout of 6-5 it is not a profitable game no matter how good the rest of the rules are!!

Knox said:

I don't care for the 6:5 game either. However, I think the "cost" of a 6:5 game is 60% * the penalty for even money of 2.32%, or about 1.4%. You can construct a basic strategy game that will advantage the player .15% fairly easily. Sometimes the rules may be even more favorable, such as double on any number of cards. Either way, you can gain about 2% expectation using KO preferred and a 1-10 spread. So as you can see 2%-1.4%+0.15%=0.75% advantage. I figure anything between 0.50% and 1% is playable.

That assumes 65% penetration and no wonging. Each card less than 65% pen costs you $, so that is a critical variable. When there are a lot of players at a single-deck game, the dealer is likely to deal a preset number of hands, regardless of the number of cards dealt. This number will probably be conservative, so the resulting pen often may barely exceed 50%.

If you can get some head-up play, you are more likely to get the 65% pen and the game becomes playable. It may even be more fun because you can use more index plays to deviate from basic strat. But you will not be able to wong in and out.

It's pretty easy to find a six-deck game with 0.50% expected return using only a 1-5 spread. Then you can wong out to the bathroom 2-3 decks into an unfavorable count and have them hold your spot, timing it to return at the start of the next shoe. I have had pretty good luck using this tactic, but it is a slow process that still has ups and downs.

I'd like to see a game where a 1:5 spread (6 deck) gets you a 1/2 percent EV. If you can give me the rules you are talking about and I can run a CVCX sim. But I really doubt that 1:5 will cut it in a shoe assuming reasonable penetration (1.5 decks cut off, 1 deck in a _really_ good game). General wisdom suggests at least a 1:12 spread for 6 deck, with a 1:20 being better...

Knox said:

How about 6-deck, 75% penetration, S17, rsa, lsr, DAS, double any two cards? You are about 0.36% disadvantage without counting. With KO, the 1-5 spread would yield 80-90 basis points gain in play.

I am all for huge spreads, if you can get away with them and your bankroll supports it.

Here's what I get. Rules as above, 60 rounds per hour. KO preferred system with the playing indices as defined by Fuchs, etc... $25.00 unit, spreading $25-$125 (1-5). Hourly win rate is $9, average bet is $40. Pretty much sucks when you factor in the variance.

I risk $40 * 60 or $2400 bucks in an hour, to make $9. EV appears to be 0.375% if I didn't mangle the math. I don't think I mangled the sim, which was run for two billion rounds...