The Truth Behind Blackjack

[Jezza]

Well I have been asked by a couple of people on MSN about this ever popular casino game and since there are so many myths/rumours about this game and so much TOTAL PISH spouted at casino tables by 99.9% of punters I thought I would run through a guide for the informed PL gambler ;) I am sure any of you reading this know how to play or have played before be it online or for real so I will skip a beginners introduction and go into the main stuff, however if anyone wants any of the rules clarified please feel free to ask. The first, and most important by far, rule of blackjack is the rule of basic strategy. Many years ago computer intensive research was done onto the exact mathematically correct way to play blackjack. For every single rule variation and for every single set of players cards vs dealer up card. Most people play a fair approximation of this at the table but it is exceptionally rare to find someone who plays it perfectly. When you consider not following the basic strategy is just costing you money in the long run it seems stupid to not know it but many people assume they know best or that other people are the source of their losses and discount their play. The BS changes from rule variation to rule variation - one for british blackjack play can be found here http://wizardofodds.com/games/blackjack/bjeurope.html If you study it you will see there are some ones that seem initially wrong. Hitting a soft 18 v a dealer 9 upcard will always bring moans from others around you but trust me you will do better in the long run doing this than doing what everyone else is doing and standing. You will see the vast majority of the time you have to hit stiffs against good dealer upcards also. You MUST do this - it is the mathematically correct play. Sure, sometimes you would have won by standing or whatever (BS will be wrong a hefty amount of the time) but in the long run you are making the best gamble with your money by hitting and not standing - and will see the best return. Every time you go on a hunch and decide to do something different you are costing yourself money - if you are going to gamble on BJ a lot then you need to learn it. You will see on the wizards site he gives the mathematical expectations for playing perfectly under different rules. For the UK you are looking at -0.6% which certainly means you will lose in the long run but it is a lot better than a bookies overround of 7% or betfairs 5% commission charge. Remember tho you you have to take the cumulitive value of all your bets to work out your expected loss (IE taking 100 quid to the casino does not mean an expected loss of 60p....if you were to make 10,000 1 pound bets with that 100 quid then your expected loss would be 60 quid) and that like all gambling it is a game of high variance. You will lose big some nights, win big on others and break even occasionly it is just in the long run you will see your results tending towards that -0.6% of total money staked. It is possible in america to find games that have +ve expectation playing BS. Myths in blackjack Oh Dear. There are a LOT of these. By far and away the most common is seeing someone play differently from how would have and "lose" you your bet. Well I have something to say to everyone who says that to you or if you have ever said that to anyone else. SHUT THE FCUK UP :o. Yes, it is highly irritating to see someone hit their 16 V 6 at the end of the table and cause the dealer to make a hand when he would have gone over but he is JUST AS LIKELY TO HELP YOU AS TO HINDER YOU and in the long run he will have not have affected you at all. The problem is you notice it a lot more when you are hindered and naturally it makes you angry inside, when you win due to bad play you tend not to make a mental note of it. All the rest of the players are doing at your table is introducing a bit more of a headache into your play but in the long run it has absolutely no effect on your outcomes. "Taking cards to help me/you/thedealer" another myth whereby the table trys to predict the next card and leave the picture for somenes double/take the picture away from the dealers ace/fcuk knows what you might as well be a bunch of women making all decisions "by committe". This is again all rubbish, do not be persuaded it was you who caused the dealer to get a blackjack by hitting your 15 V A and drawing a 6 or lost someones double by hitting 12 v 3 and pulling a picture - just stick to BS and ignore (politely I would hope - maybe not for GETT1N) what others say. As you can see if you learn to ignore what the other players do/their whines and learn the basic strategy you can have a lot of fun playing what is not a bad gamble (and although you will lose a little it will be not nearly as much as roulette etc) - if you go to vegas you can enjoy some much better rule variations and of course all the comps etc that go with it. Card Counting -------------- This is the next level of blackjack - there has been book after book after book written on the subject, some good some bad. Just about every element has been explored from shuffle tracking to ace sequencing to wrap arounds on +ve counts to deckloading etc etc. I wont bother with all of that here (although feel free to ask) but I will try to give the basics of card counting. It should be noted that before we start a world class card counter works VERY hard for what is a small reward - you will do much better learning to play poker well or even working in mcdonalds probably but still it is good to turn the tables on the house once in a while ;) As you have seen when you play basic strategy to get the house edge down to a small level, easily the best gamble in the casino. Well the fact of the matter is although the house edge does level out to this quoted figure you have in the long run, it is a volatile thing changing slightly as each card leaves the shoe. Basically as there are more 10s and Aces left in the cards still to play then the house advantage goes down whereas if they are all gone and only small cards remain, the house advantage goes up. This is for a number of reasons including : with many 10s left to play the dealer is more likely to go bust drawing on a stiff hand than usual and it is more likely you will hit one on a double down. It is also more likely a blackjack will appear and although it is equally as likely they dealer will get one, when you get one you get that super 3/2 payout bonus which is a big thing for the players maths. A card counter tracks the ratio of small cards to big cards in what is left to come out and bets large when the going is good, and small when the going is bad. Essentially he is looking for the value bet and going in big style when he sees it! Card counting systems work by assigning a number value to different ranks of cards and then the counter must keep a running count in his head as the hands are dealt. So, for example - A simple system might assign a value of +1 to cards 3,4,5,6 and -1 to all ten valued cards (Ignoring the rest). The counter will start at zero and everytime he sees a 345 or 6 he adds 1 to his count and every time a ten value comes along he takes away 1. As he progresses further and further into the shoe he will find fluctuations where the count becomes exceptionally positive or negative. It is positive fluctuations he is looking for. When you get a high +ve count it means the deck is rich in 10s still to come - a good time for the player. When it becomes rich enough the house advantage has infact disappeared and the basic strategy player has an ADVANTAGE over the casino. It is at these times the counter must bet a lot larger than he usually does to take advantage of it and make his money. A big -ve count means the house advantage is a lot larger than usual and now might be a good time to take a break/go for a piss/beer or whatever. The most complex (professional) counting systems assign values to all the cards and have many grades (+1 +2 +3 and -2 and -1 for example) these game a slightly larger edge at the crucial times than the simpler system. It should be noted that even at the absolute best times for a counter you will not be getting more than about a 0.7% advantage - this is pretty crappy and not really worth all the effort however it is a true value bet and one which people have made millions in the past from. Counters must also apply a divisor to their count to reflect the number of decks left to play. A count of +6 is obviously better with only 1 deck left to come out than it is with 5. Usually this will be along the lines of dividing the count by the amount of decks left (or half decks for complex counts). This gives what is called the TRUE count. A true count of +2 or more is usually time for a big bet. (I once got a true count of +18 in a glasgow casino - placing three bets of 50 quid I was not surprised to be dealt 20 20 20 however the dealers A up left me knowing my fate was sealed :o ). Another tactic which counters can use is to deviate form basic strategy when the count is high or low. This includes things like standing 12 v 3 instead of the usual hit when there are a lot of 10s left to come out or hitting 12 v 4 instead of standing when there are less 10s and more small cards than usual. These are even more tables to learn if you are interested and exist for all good counting systems. I would not recommend anyone goes into a casino and trys card counting - you will probably find yourself losing fast as even someone who can do it perfectly loses a big proportion of the time but I hope it does help you with your online blackjack casino bonuses :) Any questions feel free to ask Jez (at 5am and tired so fcuk it my spelling and grammar will be bad but I will add to it later if there are any q's)

[Sir Puntalot]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Holy shit, that's some post! :eek Think I'll read this tommorrow. :)

[jeffers]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Superb post Jez, very informative :clap

[GETT1NLOTS]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Hi Jez, Nice to see you with your mod status in Casino and Poker at last. I'll be around a lot more to help you, Billy and Norfolk out in here now work has quietened down. As for Black Jack my advice to people would be to stay well away from it. Whilst it would be true to say that it is the ONLY game against the House that you can get a small mathematical advantage, the return really isn't worth it for the edge involved. All Casino's have cameras and Pit Bosses on the look out for Card Counters nowadays, so simply put - the better you are at it the quicker you will be banned from the Casino. It doesn't take long until you are banned from all over the place. The worse you are at it the more you will lose and then the Casino's will let you play for ever! Either way you are a loser in the long run. Apart from Card Counting there is no other way to make a consistent profit on Black Jack. So, like any other game against the House - only play it for fun and not as a serious money making proposition. As Jez suggests, if you want to make money out of card games you need to play games against other players such as Poker. You would be advised to put all your efforts into learning these games inside out if you really want to make money. Great post and good reading for those that like Black Jack though Jezza.:ok

[AJ]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Excellent post Jezza. Here's my thoughts. Firstly, your correct about basic strategy, you need to have it nailed on perfect or your wasting your time and money. Before I go a casino trip, I'll work on refreshing my BS for a few hours. When I'm in the car, I'll go through every permutation outloud as I drive to work. Looks wierd, but it works for me. Eariler this year I was playing in Vegas with some jap women at the table, they were burning huge ammounts of cash, making stupid calls. The casino will sell you a BS guide for $1.95, you can even use it at the table, best money you'll ever spend. I've been playing Bj for about 4 years now. I've played in various places, and differeing rules can make a huge difference. Sadly the golden age of Casino blackjack in Las Vegas is gone. The reason for this is simple, many strip casinos now pay 6/5 for blackjack instead of 3/2. The impact of this is staggering, you can reasonably expect 5 - 6 blackjacks a hour. This will leave you down 3 units an hour. If you get teh choice of a table paying 3/2 you need to take it. Never take insurance when offered, it's a mug bet. I was in Portugal playing in October. and they were offering early surender, this is very much in the players favour. If you see it, take advantage.

[GETT1NLOTS]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Just a question Foolsgold? Why do you play Black Jack? You obviously take it seriously enough to put some thought into it so you will realise that in the long term you will lose playing the game unless you count cards (very well) which will get you spotted and banned anyway. If you play for the pleasure then i understand it, but to be honest all games against the House are always going to see you lose unless you find a way to cheat. That's why I play Poker and bet on Sports - because I think the punter can find a real edge in these games. I'm not critisising I'm just interested. :ok

[AJ]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack With perfect basic strategy, with 3/2 on BJ, the game is almost even. The house edge can be reduced to 0.5%. With a good staking plan (this is a big post in it's own right), you can play pretty forever without losing much, sure you'll have choppy games but in general it'll be pretty even over the long term. I enjoy the buss and the free drinks while I play. In Vegas, the comp rate at most strip hotels is around 2 - 3% of stakes. If you lose less than that you're in profit. I finished a trip to vegas earlier this year, just a few dollars up, but I'd got drunk for free 4 nights, and got some meals on comps as well. I figure if you can finish with a loss smaller than what you get in drinks and food / room rebates then your ahead of the deal. If you're anything near even in cash terms then that's ahead in my book. Portugal on the other hand is the best place ever to play, total candystore. You can make money playing BS there.

[aliensyndm]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack

Apart from Card Counting there is no other way to make a consistent profit on Black Jack.

There are other ways it can be done, although it usually done along side card counting. Firstly you need american style blackjack where the dealer takes a hole card. These are taken from million dollar blackjack by Ken Uston(Great name there notice) Front Loading - Observing the value of the dealer's hole card as it is inadvertently exposed during the process of dealing by a careless dealer. Spooking - Spotting the dealer's hole card from the rear, when the dealer checs to see if he has a blackjack, and siginalling that information to a player at the the dealers table. Shuffle tracking - Self explantory really. Lazy dealers hardly shuffle multiple decks at all sometimes and having just counted the deck down you would know where all the good cards are and cut them to come out first a bet large off the top etc. That's a few anyway, there are others around of course. Gotta remember about blackjack is it's alot of effort and is by no means easy money. If you think about poker where you A10 loses to QK and how often you lose that and that's around a 20% advantage you can see how frustrating trying to grind out a 1% ish advnatage could be !

[GETT1NLOTS]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Fools,

I was in Portugal playing in October. and they were offering early surender

Portugal on the other hand is the best place ever to play, total candystore. You can make money playing BS there.

What's this early surrender thing then? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien, So the only way to make money is to count cards unless you cheat or find a crap dealer then. Thanks for clearing that up. :lol :tongue2

[topnotchbloke]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Fantastic post Jez, you covered everything very well. I bought a book on Blackjack and fought it a lot to read at once, I also got a Blackjack school cd from ebay which teaches you how to card count in the way explained above. You watch and play the hands keeping count in your head and you can reveal the actual count at any time to see how it compares to yours. Jez, I noticed in one of your other post that you'll be going back to Aberdeen. I'm from Aberdeen too, which casino do yuo go to. I go to The Gala but looking forward to the one being built at the beach. I might've sat next to you if you're a regular at the Gala.

[GETT1NLOTS]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Here's the weirdo TopNotch If you have sat next to this man on a poker table you will know it due to his excellent play, hard to read, composed manner. And the fact he has googly eyes and a funny smell.

[Jezza]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Aye and if you've ever been sat next to GETT1N at the poker table you will know as he is the big drunken guy telling everyone within earshot how big his cock is :rollin I dont go to the gala I got banned there many years ago and they refuse to lift it :o Used to go to the international to play in their poker tournament twice a week regular as clockwork (mon and wed) - you ever been? Gave it a bit of a miss towards the end of this year tho to concentrate on getting my online bankroll back - I have that again now so could well start up again in the new year Surrender in blackjack is where you can choose not to play your hand but get half your bet back instead (after seeing your first two cards and the dealer up card). There are two types, Late is the usual offered (You can only surrender against a dealer A up after he has checked his hole(american rules) card for a picture) with Early you can surrender before he peeks. There is a basic strategy of course for when to surrender its not very often and I think it is only 2 or 3 really shitty hands like 16 v 10 you do it on. It is rare to find late surrender as obv it is good for the player, Early surrender is exceptionally rare and a superb bonus for the player. Someone mentioned 6/5 Blackjacks elsewhere. This is becoming a vegas casino scam where they offer exceptionally good rules apart from giving blackjacks at 6/5 instead of 3/2. NEVER play in this game - the 3/2 blackjack is exceptionally important in getting a fair game and 6/5 must be avoided at all costs (if you value your bucks that is) Jez

[GETT1NLOTS]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack So I told a table that I had a big cock. What's the big deal? It's not as if I shuffled my chips with it was it? :lol

[Jezza]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Lets just say I would worry if you said you wanted to make a large raise :o

[GETT1NLOTS]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack You would be excited you mean. I tell you chaps Jezza, often admits he can't wait to get his hands on my big stack....

[aliensyndm]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Well gett1n I suppose it depends what you consider cheating. Spooking would seem to me to be cheating but front loading is just making use of all the available information, I mean would you purposely not look ? Would card counting by entering the values in a concealed computer and letting it do the calculations be cheating ? It all depends on your "ethics" I suppose. One thing is certain though as far as casinos are concerned any decent card counters are "cheaters" and are not welcomed.

[AJ]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Early surrender is when you look at your cards, and the dealers 1 card that is showing, before you play out your hand. With this rule in place, if you think you have very little chance of winning you can say "I surrender", at this point your hand is not played out, but the ddealer only takes away half your bet. There are many circumstances where the chance of you winning is under 50%, in these cases early surrender reduces the house edge. With it in place, and perfect BS on a 6 deck shoe, the player can expect a 0.2% edge over the house in the long term. This compares to a .5% house edge in normal circumstances. Early surrender has never been offered in Vegas, it was in place in Atlantic city in the late 70's and early 80's. If you find it offered, it's the best circumstances for playing BJ. When I saw it in Portugal, I was stunned At it's worst BJ can be a even game, and you'll get comps and drinks for free while you play, these will put you way ahead. Why do Casinos still offer it? Simple 95% of people playing it have no idea of BS and play dreadfully and lose tons of cash. It is the only casino game worth playing

[Jezza]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Someone mentioned staking back in this thread I think? The only staking plan that can work is one a card counter uses where his bets are increased as the count increases - someone playing basic strategy just stands to lose more as he bets more Jez

[ray]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Hi Guys; Just came across this thread and found it very interesting especially since I`m going out on Hogmanay to the casino with wife and some friends. ((Glasgow Merchant City Casino) Knowledge preetty basic and could not understand what a soft 17 for example was. Also how many points would I need as when I`ve played blackjack carried 40 units.. Is this enough or basically is it just how the cards flow? I see with card counting can give you an edge and to bet more when there has been a lot of low cards flying about as high cards help the player. How many points do you play per hand at that time. Appreciate any input.

[AJ]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack

Knowledge preetty basic and could not understand what a soft 17 for example was. Also how many points would I need as when I`ve played blackjack carried 40 units.. Is this enough or basically is it just how the cards flow? I see with card counting can give you an edge and to bet more when there has been a lot of low cards flying about as high cards help the player. How many points do you play per hand at that time.

Hi Ray, A "soft" hand is one that contains an ace and can be valued differently because of it. For example Ace/6 is a soft 17. If you hit a soft hand you can't bust, because you value the ace as one, not a ten. A soft hand therefore gives more leeway to take more cards. A hard 17, would be something like 10/7. It's always going to be 17, and you can burst from it. I'm not totally sure what you mean with the rest of the questions, but I bet with stakes of 5% of bank roll, this is quite aggreessive, but still gives scope to spilt and double when required. If you play with a higher percentage this get hard, sometimes you'll have 4+ bets on the table from one hand. I've done some very simple card counting, all you do is assign cards a value and spilt them into 3 groups, low, neturl and high. low cards get a value of 1, netural cards 0 and high cards -1. How you value cards is pretty subjective, I do it 2-6, 7-9, 10+ when you get a high positive value, it tells you that more low cards have been dealt than high ones, therefore the edge is moving with you. divide the numbers of cards (roughly) in the shoe still to be dealt, with the count you have to obtain the "true count". When this is above 5 raise your stakes. If the casino has an auto shuffle machine, counting is basically dead. Hope this helps, let me know if you need more

[ray]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Thanks for the prompt explanation Foolsgold. I now understand the difference between soft and hard although my wife says "What`s hard". No idea what she means.:\ Re-staking you bet with 20 points/units I see(5% of bankroll) which I`m happy to adopt. Also strategy on card counting. Sorry if not explained my last question very well & I`ll try again to ensure it is clear in my head. I understand you increase your percentage of bankroll when your count reaches +5 and take into consideration the number of packs used in the shoe. Also when it reaches that point how much does your staking become as percentage of bankroll.? Hopefully this will help and appreciate input.

[ray]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Hi Foolsgold; Came across an article on blackjack strategy . It advocated the same card counting strategy but gave this staking plan. 1 unit stake for +1 or less true count 2 unit stake for +2 or +3 true count 3 unit stake for +4 or +5 true count 4 unit stake for +6 or +7 true count 5 unit stake for +8 or more true count It appears to me given the unit stakes that probably a higher number of units would be required for this strategy and of course thereis also the possibility of splits and double downs. Value thoughts. Cheers.

[AJ]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Hi Ray, The staking plan you've got there is in theory the best out there. However a couple of caveats. It's written for the long term player, with a bank roll of 500 units. For the casual player it offers two major risks, 1. Even with a true count of 8, you can split, then double down etc, have 20 units or so on the table and lose to a dealer blackjack. Long term player accepts this as part of the game, the casual players bankroll is destroyed. 2. If you aggresively raise your bet the deeper into the shoe you are, you will quickly be flagged as a counter and banned from the casino (and every other in the chain). It's not right, and it's not fair. But it's what happens. Casinos hate counters and will ban people on suspiscion alnone. I'm not sure how much BJ you've played Ray, but if it's not a lot here's my advice. Casinos can be intimedating places, set yourself realistic goals. If you can maintain the count (see below) I double stakes at +5, it's conservative but not blantent to the pit boss Firstly have your basic strategy perfect, not just very good but perfect. Get a BJ trainer program from the web, and play it for hours until you are flawless in your BS and you don't even need to think about what play to make. Then have a few beers and try it, to replicate real casino conditions. This is your first and most important weapon, if you can do this you're in the top 1% of BJ players in the world. You're playing an almost even game. Only after that should you think about counting, again with the trainer practise keeping the count, It's not easy you've got to count not only your cards, the dealers and everyone else at the table. And you've got to be cute doing it, if you blatently look at everyone elses hands, or move your lips at all as you add and subtract. You're nicked and banned. If you do want to try it, it's a whole other post (book ??) about techinque, faking drunkness etc. The worlds best counters are young "drunk" women. No one suspects or expects anything from them. I've been playing for about 5 years now, firstly in the UK, but I've been to Vegas several times, and also played in Portugal and Sweden. I now live in NZ and play a bit at the casinos in Auckland and Roto-Vegas. How's Glasgow this time of year, I lived there for a few years and remember bloody cold winters.

[ray]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack

Hi Ray, The staking plan you've got there is in theory the best out there. However a couple of caveats. It's written for the long term player, with a bank roll of 500 units. For the casual player it offers two major risks, 1. Even with a true count of 8, you can split, then double down etc, have 20 units or so on the table and lose to a dealer blackjack. Long term player accepts this as part of the game, the casual players bankroll is destroyed. 2. If you aggresively raise your bet the deeper into the shoe you are, you will quickly be flagged as a counter and banned from the casino (and every other in the chain). It's not right, and it's not fair. But it's what happens. Casinos hate counters and will ban people on suspiscion alnone. I'm not sure how much BJ you've played Ray, but if it's not a lot here's my advice. Casinos can be intimedating places, set yourself realistic goals. If you can maintain the count (see below) I double stakes at +5, it's conservative but not blantent to the pit boss Firstly have your basic strategy perfect, not just very good but perfect. Get a BJ trainer program from the web, and play it for hours until you are flawless in your BS and you don't even need to think about what play to make. Then have a few beers and try it, to replicate real casino conditions. This is your first and most important weapon, if you can do this you're in the top 1% of BJ players in the world. You're playing an almost even game. Only after that should you think about counting, again with the trainer practise keeping the count, It's not easy you've got to count not only your cards, the dealers and everyone else at the table. And you've got to be cute doing it, if you blatently look at everyone elses hands, or move your lips at all as you add and subtract. You're nicked and banned. If you do want to try it, it's a whole other post (book ??) about techinque, faking drunkness etc. The worlds best counters are young "drunk" women. No one suspects or expects anything from them. I've been playing for about 5 years now, firstly in the UK, but I've been to Vegas several times, and also played in Portugal and Sweden. I now live in NZ and play a bit at the casinos in Auckland and Roto-Vegas. How's Glasgow this time of year, I lived there for a few years and remember bloody cold winters.

Lots of interesting stuff Foolsgood. Think I`ll give it my best shot and see how I get on. I doubt I`ll be sussed as a counter because I`m sure I`ll ge some elementary stuff wrong as not played for years and then not seriously. I`ve played BJ 3 times in the last weeks though as I read an article funnily enough in a magazine sent by VC bet and just follwed the principle which was a shortened version of what I now know as basic strategy. I did Ok and came out on top but I now realise if I bet more seriously I would have done much better with a proper staking policy and perfect use of basic strategy. The other thing I noticed about the Casino I visit is that the vast majority of people are drunk and much of the time of staff is spend dealing with them as they drop drinks everywhere and use industrial language which requires staff intervention. As I`m going on New Years Eve it will be worse. Also I`m on medication I really cannot drink too much anyway. It`s been absolutely freezing over the last few days and as I type the snow is falling thickly on the ground. Thanks for your help.

[ray]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Well guys thought I would let people know how I got on. Firstly,the information on this thread is awsome and ideal reading material for anybody who purports or wants to be a blackjack player. I had carefully rehearsed basic strategy and the rules for counting and thought to myself this casino ain`t gonna know what`s hit it!! As some of you may be aware the purpose of the casino visit from my wife`s perspective was to have a nice meal with friends a few drinks & see in the New Year. My motives were perhaps not so straightforward as the gambling side was quite prominent. Things started to go wrong as before I left the house I had picked up a virus and felt like shit!! Never mind determined to shake this off got a lift to my friend`s house and started off with a beer and cashews (I love them). Felt O.K as driven to town parked and stopped in the lounge for a drink. I had a pint but halfway through suddenly felt queasy. At this time we were called to our table for our meal where I sat down sweating profusely. Someone ordered me a pint but gave it away as felt rotten. Could not even enjoy my meal which I attempted to force down my throat and left some which for me is a cardinal sin. We then trooped down stairs and sat at the lounge next to the tables. Drinks were ordered but I decided not to partake. Someone suggested having a quick game before midnight and I went to a Blackjack table armed I thought with my superior knowledge. Trouble was there were only 3 players including myself and you try to count with cards whizzing round like a cyclone. I was saved when an announcement came that tables were closing for 20 minutes as it was nearing midnight. I crawled away down 5 points . When the tables re-opened decided to go for a busier table to buy myself some time. My thought process was disturbed when I felt a burning at my arse. Yup a drunk behind had lit a fag and carelessly burned my trousers. Ya F**kin ****** I shouted at him and got back a what`s up mate. The croupier is also trying to shut me up. When this calmed down I tried to concentrate on card counting but I was useless and eventually left 6.5 points down . In truth it was too early for me to be a card counter so lesson learnt . I was still feeling lousy so went to find my wife and her friend playing rouletteon the computer machine. They were whooping it up as had won a hundred quid each. Seems they put a fiver on a colour and ten minimum bets on a number. Inadvertently,they had contrived to have the fivers on a number and cover which had come up after cursing each other for being so stupid. We then left the casino with me sufficiently chastened and my wife never even gave me the tenner back I had given her to play roulette. The life of a so called pro is not easy but I`ll be back.

[Big Andy]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack Great post ray !!:rollin , sorry to laugh mate but your trip seemed doomed to failure from the start despite being so well prepared. Pure tragi-comedy that was mate. I doubt you`ll be put off, that`s the main thing. Just make sure they don`t know what`s hit `em next time :ok :hope

[ray]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack

Great post ray !!:rollin , sorry to laugh mate but your trip seemed doomed to failure from the start despite being so well prepared. Pure tragi-comedy that was mate. I doubt you`ll be put off, that`s the main thing. Just make sure they don`t know what`s hit `em next time :ok :hope

Glad you liked it BA. Quite amusing and true and I`ll be back. I was only using minimum stakes so no damage done.

[AJ]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack :rollin :rollin :rollin Very funny Ray, don't let it put you off. Next time go without the wife, and try a quieter night

My thought process was disturbed when I felt a burning at my arse. Yup a drunk behind had lit a fag and carelessly burned my trousers.

Were you able to play your BS properly in the casino conditions ? Classy folks the weegies eh?

[ray]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack

:rollin :rollin :rollin Very funny Ray, don't let it put you off. Next time go without the wife, and try a quieter night Were you able to play your BS properly in the casino conditions ? Classy folks the weegies eh?

The BS was not such a problem as my burning arse but yup managed BS but a different matter counting & BS. Regarding weegies the ironic thing was the arse burner was a drunken Asian weegie!! His girlfriends were playing the next box to me but he kept bumping into me while attempting to put chips in their box or any other box + his f**kin mobile kept ringing and he would talk shit through it. Not condusive to a serious game but ironically fairly amusing after the event.

[kotsba]

Re: The Truth Behind Blackjack talking about blackjack...wanna ask you something..a little bit off topic but still close enough i play a lot of online casino games,including blackjack i wanna know if there is a software that can help me improve my game thanks