Playing this way will not give you any advantage. You will still lose your money back in the long run. If you are just playing for fun then this system is not any worse than just playing BS.

-Sonny-

Thanks for the advice, point taken and understood. And that being said (read actually), I know this subject has been hashed out over and over but to lay my foundation for counting , what should be my base system to start with, so I can build evreything off that? Six deck shoes 95% of the time. If that matters at all. Is the time I need to invest worth the reward? Its just that I read all these posts about good counters that get hammered. Dont misunderstand me. I understand varience. so you can get a 2%advantage mabye. I think to become profecient I'll need what a solid year of work before it will really payoff, correct? Is that 2% going to reap 2000$ a month or so playing consistintly. shytown

ihate...you sure have a way with words. Nice post.

Shytown, I was curious as to how many visits you made to casinos and left withing a half hour?

I understand your post Ray, but does it hold true for exclusive backcounting?

jimpenn said:

I understand your post Ray, but does it hold true for exclusive backcounting?

I don't understand your question. Backcounting has you jumping in when the TC reaches some threshold (+1, +2, or whatever). You don't jump in until you have an advantage, but once you are in you can (a) stay in; (b) wong out if the TC drops below 0 (or whatever threshold you establish) or (c) quit when you lose X hands.

(c) has nothing to do with backcounting or not. It is just an attempt to minimize losses. It does work, from one perspective. When you quit, you will not be playing for a bit, which keeps your money off the table (and for a non-card-counter that is a good thing since the game is always negative-expectation for such players). So even though the number of wins/losses is not affected by whether you play one session of 100 hands, or 25 sessions of 4 hands each, the time required for the latter is _much_ greater, which slows the rate at which the casino grinds your bankroll down.

Otherwise, sessions are meaningless. You really just play one lifetime-long session and you get what you get. Regardless of how you chop it up into small groups of hands or large groups of hands.

shytown said:

Im starting to work on basic counting now 23456 +1 789 0 10s -1 aces -1 Is that a good foundation to build on? shy town

That system is called the Hi-Lo count. It is a very simple and powerful system to use. It's sort of the industry standard in fact. It is a great place to start.

-Sonny-

shytown said:

hello evreybody, I want to thank evreybody for this forum . Ive been a lurker (guest) for quite a while. Very informative reading . I'm getting serious about playing lately . there is only two casinos within 40 miles of me so I usually play at harrahs or empress. they are decent, stand on soft 17 good splits and double rules. Ive have BS strategy well in hand. From the extensive post reading I've been doing , I gather in the long run without advantage play of some kind. I will be a loser. My question, what I have been doing is this When I get off to a good start , things go fine and I am not greedy or try not to be, with good money management, I ride the streak out. 10-15$ tables). when things turn I quit immedetly, and walk with profit. Usually between 20- 130 $ profit. If I loose 4 hands in a row i leave witch minamizes my down side. doing this at least in the short turn 2-3 months. 3 times weekly. I am on the plus side. To you senior members,or anybody very experienced. Does this sound like a good strategy. shy town

You either bet minimum when you don't have edge and bet much more when you do have the edge or you wouldn't win in this game. Nothing else works. To do this you need card counting to know when you have edge for betting and to know when to deviate from basic strategy. You have to play index (Insurance, 16 vs. T, 15 vs. T, 12 vs. 2,3,4,5,6 and when NOT to double down)

shytown said:

what is the meaning of playing a negative exception game. shytown

When you are a basic strategy player or worse, you can not expect to win in the long run because the rules of the game have been designed not to be even between you and the casino, but have a casino advantage built in to them. A decent blackjack game will have a house edge of half a percent or less against a perfect basic strategy player (non basic strategy players would lose at a higher rate). So all casino games including blackjack are negative expectation games but because of the nature of blackjack it can be beaten by expert play, better known as cardcounting.
The thing that makes blackjack beatable and a positive expectation game for a counter is that because they do not shuffle after each hand, the content of the remaining cards will change. If those remaining cards become heavy in aces and faces, the game will favor the player. The player will win on more of his double downs, splits, and blackjack will come more often and the player gets 3/2 on a natural while the house only gets 1/1.
So who is favored in blackjack is constantly changing and a counter has the information to know just when it is in his favor and will raise his bets and play certain hands differently because of his knowledge of the remaining cards.

In games like craps, the past rolls have no effect on the next roll. Who is favored (the house) always remains the same. Blackjack is different but for the non counter it does always remain a negative expectation game because even when the remaining cards favor him, he does not know this, so he can not take advantage of this.

ihate17