One of the best pieces of advice that I have ever been given regarding risking money and being able to mentally absorb the actual risk was when I read about a financial day trader who said that you need to almost step outside of yourself as if you were watching someone else do it. There is a lot of stress involved in the risking of money and especially if that risk involves substantial amounts of money like it does if you play poker or bet on sports for a living.
Blackjack is no different and in many ways is far worse because the variance in blackjack is very severe and is akin to limit hold’em in severity. Although what can be far worse in limit is that you can end up having played many escalated pots to only then find out that your opponent was better than you and that you were getting outplayed. This can never happen of course in blackjack as you can never be outplayed by the dealer. The most that the dealer can do to thwart a card counter is to maybe only cut half the shoe but that is about all.
They could maybe count along to see if the counter is upping their bets during high counts but that is about it. They cannot alter the rules of the game and so cannot stand or take cards differently to 17. But sitting back and acting as if you are merely observing someone else commit the process of risking money is a good way to proceed. This all assumes of course that you have a good winning game plan to begin with.
