There are a total of 10 cards of 7 through to a 9 (we have two eights) and a further 15 ten value cards (the dealer already has a ten) and 4 aces. This means that the dealer will beat our total straight away 29 times out of 49. But they will also pull a combination of smaller cards to make 17 or more as well and so the chance of our standing and winning is small. If we take a card then any card will bust us unless it is an ace through to a five. Whichever way we go then our chances are slim.

But if standing has a certain value, taking a card has a certain value and so does splitting then we take the play with the best value. Quite often this involves placing more money onto the table. If you stand to lose 10% in EV on a $10 bet then you are losing $1 in expected value. However if by splitting your EV becomes -2% then although you now have $20 on the table your EV is only -$0.40 and not $2.

It is unlikely that any team would do that after so short a playing session. Variance is huge in blackjack and it would be easy to hand out $50,000 in profits to your team members only then to lose an amount of money that took you back down to where you started. Except as the backer then you would be down the money what you had already paid to your team if you put up 100% of the money which I assume that in the film he did because the students all seemed short of their own money.

What I also found strange was that it would be difficult teaching blackjack and evasion techniques to new players let alone shuffle tracking which is highly complex. From someone who has tried and used shuffle tracking and not to mention studied this art for a long time then I can vouch for how difficult it is. This would be made even worse by trying to teach novices this art that had never set foot inside a casino before in their life. The term “shuffle tracking” was used once in the movie but that never came across in what they did at the tables.

Card combinations work well in blackjack because of the high-low count. Basically this means that hands that consist of high cards and low cards simply cancel. For example a hand with 10-3 is zero and if they pull a 2 and then another ten then the count is still zero for that hand. Likewise if the high-low count shows neutral cards clumped together like 7,8,9 for example. These three value cards are counted as zero and so seeing a box with 8,7 and the dealer holding a four then you know that this hand is zero also.

Reducing this to counting individual boxes makes it easier to card count than looking at the entire table which can seem somewhat daunting. Quite often you will see entire groups of cards that simply cancel each other out and once you become adept at doing this then counting 20 cards can be done in no more than 3-4 seconds. The only time needed is the time needed to verify that this particular sequence cancels and once you verify that then you can move on. It then becomes the case that counting an entire deck in 20 seconds is easy.

However there is a downside to playing $25 at the start and this is that you are going to be playing an awful lot of hands in negative counts at $25 per time. This is where two key strategies come into play. When the count goes neutral which means that neither you nor the casino have the edge then you need to be increasing your bet sizing. Now this will clearly increase the variance considerably but this is the price that you pay for longevity and high earnings in blackjack.

So you start to double up like a gambler in neutral counts and it only takes two double ups to reach $100 from $25. Two more double ups and you are at $400 and only $100 less than the maximum bet providing of course that the count goes in your favour. So in this instance then the really big money only goes on during positive counts while if the count goes the other way then you switch tables. This brings me onto strategy number two which is to play in casinos with two active tables. You can drift between the two so that you are not playing negative counts as often.

There is a depth to blackjack that is unknown amongst nearly everyone who plays poker. In fact even poker has advanced alarmingly so in terms of the technical side over the past few years and this has revealed a side to the game that poker players never really knew existed. This exact same process happened in blackjack some years ago but many poker players think that blackjack is just about knowing basic strategy and a simple card counting system.

If you want to make it that simple then fine but trust me when I say that blackjack and the attaining of money in blackjack is a tougher proposition than what you first think. Let us look at a clear example here of what I am talking about. In blackjack then the dealer has position on the player on every single hand that gets played. Imagine how more difficult this makes the game when a mediocre player (which is what the house is) can beat all but the very best opponents simply by acting second. I do not think that there is any definitive answer to this argument to be quite frank.

Well it is clear that they are very important in both games but the most important thing to remember here is in how the best mathematicians who have gone into both games with their maths knowledge and little else have fared badly. In blackjack then these players were bounced out of Las Vegas in the 70’s and 80’s with alarming frequency.

To be a skilled poker player or a blackjack player for that matter involves many different things. Now this isn’t a discussion about tells or anything like that as that is too broad a subject. In blackjack and poker then there are many different skills that are required to make progress or a living from the game. It is skills like evading detection, understanding casino psychology, bankroll management and attitude to risk that dictate how well you will do.

But also it is the ability to be able to adapt to a changing environment as well that ultimately defines your chances of survival in the long term. I think that the two biggest metrics far and above all others are dollars won and time played. Each on their own is largely insignificant.

He was the blackjack equivalent of Stu “The Kid” Ungar in poker……he was a maverick but an out and out genius. He was also someone that the casinos in Las Vegas hated because he took them to court and won over the fact that they didn’t have the right to bar card counters. Advertising a game as a game of skill and then preventing players who have that skill from exercising it is always a sore point with blackjack players.

This was why casinos started employing counter measures against card counters. They devised tactics like no mid shoe entry……forbidding back counting……shallow penetration and training dealers to count. They knew that they couldn’t risk taking extreme measures like barring players again as this would risk court action just like in the Uston case. It is difficult to take this sort of counter measure when all a player is doing is exhibiting skill. So from that day forward then casinos knew that they had to approach the situation in a far different way…….and they did. The arrival of the automatic shuffling machines was a dagger to the heart of nearly all professional blackjack players.

I once worked at a casino where they actually barred a blackjack player who was doing no more than use basic strategy coupled with a progressive staking system. He was risking around $5000 but the frequency in which he was walking away with $300-$400 was alarming them. They claimed that his large cash drop messed with their cash flow but that wasn’t the real reason. The real reason was that he was going long periods without losing. I think the casino still realised that he was –EV but they also realised that he was going through long periods where they were simply not getting access to his money.

Clearly there are many other skills like being able to shuffle track, keeping side counts, avoiding detection, bankroll management, longevity and probably the adaptive skills required to try new techniques that can beat the house. I also think that in order to maintain an edge then a modern player simply has to move into other areas as well that almost become gamesmanship.

Also the ability to befriend casino staff and management as these are not the people who you want for enemies……trust me. So blackjack players come in all shapes and sizes and so trying to decipher which is the best or who is the best is very difficult. For me though then the real test of a blackjack player comes in two areas……the amount of money that they won and over what period that amount was taken over. You can have all the skill in the world but if you get caught then it is game over.

This is no different to the world of poker and many poker players have also switched to cheating in that environment as well. Sometimes if you have been dependent on blackjack or poker as a living or as a serious second income source then you will in some cases do whatever you need to do to keep that going. It is for this reason why there have been some very big high profile cheating scandals in poker.

If the money that was being made in poker was both abundant and easy then there would be no need to cheat. But this has happened in live poker games where the older pro’s who were making money in some instances and then were no longer doing so due to tougher opposition switched to cheating in some cases. It is for this reason why many casinos do not like card counters. Casinos know that card counters can be combatted by simply using certain techniques that reduce their edge but they also know that many turn to cheating to try and overcome that.