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Someone asked me the other day if making money from blackjack was still feasible in 2010? The answer is yes but two things need to be in operation for this to happen. If you are a conventional counter then you obviously need shoe games to make the entire thing work at all otherwise you simply will not be able to count.

Electronic shufflers will also cut down your action so you simply will not be able to spread your action between several casinos over a rather small area. So the mere presence of just one single electronic shuffler impacts on the conventional card counter as it cuts down on their theatre of operations.

The second alternative involves cheating games that have electronic shufflers. These tactics or many of them are not even grey area……they are cheating plain and simple. But I am aware of people who do this and so any casino executives reading this blog need to take heed.

The games with automatic shufflers can be attacked from other areas and to doubt whether this is so then we only have to look at the house edge. At blackjack then it is around 0.5% for the house. This means that the house will win 0.5% of your action. So let us say that your average bet size is $15 and the dealer is dealing 60 hands per hour.

This means that you are placing $900 in action per hour with the casino expected to take o.5% of it per hour over the long run if you are using good basic. This equates to an hourly rate of -$4.50 per hour. But yet your average bet is nearly four times that amount at $15. You can see the potential here because a cheat or a player in even slight collusion with a dealer who was getting away with one bet per hour would not be losing -$4.50 per hour but making $10.50 per hour.

Some people have asked me in the past how casinos manage to create their edge at blackjack when the dealer is forced to draw to 17? Basically it is one of two factors and the first one is absolutely huge. This is to do with the dealer always acting last. This advantage is so huge that it is akin to having position in poker.

If you think about this for a minute then the advantage is rather obvious. Every time that you take a card and bust then the dealer wins. So if you have 13 and they have 10 then you feel compelled to take a card to better your total and this is correct play. But there will be many times where you will recieve a ten value card or a nine value card and bust immediately. But yet when the dealer plays on then the dealer may well turn a card from 2 to 6 and then bust.

But if the dealer busts after the player busts then the hand is not a push but a loss for the player. This advantage is substantial but it is not one to be over estimated. With accurate basic strategy then the house edge is only in the vicinity of 0.5% and with even adequate card counting skills then this can be at least reduced to 0% and possibly a slight edge.

The second and more subtle factor is connected to the first and this is that the player will be forced to bust their own hand in an attempt to improve their total. This is correct play and cannot be avoided and is another reason as to why the house starts with an edge and the 3/2 pay offs for blackjacks/naturals do not do enough to offset this.

Someone asked me the other day about entering into a blackjack game in mid-shoe without knowing what the count was and how this affected your edge. Firstly what you have to remember is that if you enter a game in mid-shoe then what we are dealing with here is cards unseen.

So we don’t know if the count is plus or minus and in the absence of such information then we have to take a long term view of this and this means only one thing. The number of pluses that we cannot see will equal the number of minuses and so theoretically we can now treat the count as zero.

This is great for cover plays and especially in casinos with more than one table open. No card counter moves from table to table and bets sizable bets unless they are being signalled in by non counting team members. But let us say that you have a 20/1 bet spread of $5 to $200 and you enter mid-shoe. You could enter at say $20 and then downgrade the bets if your initial count is negative.

But also, going in at $20 allows you to double up and get to $100 very quickly and thus $200. Going from $20 to $40 to $80 to $160 looks like you are merely chasing losses or letting winnings ride. This can be achieved if the count goes immediately positive after entering.

However if the count goes negative then you can merely switch tables and enter mid-shoe again which makes you look less like a counter. So as long as you understand that entering mid-shoe makes no difference because cards unseen means that you can take the count to be zero then you will do fine entering mid-shoe.

Take it from me when I say that gambling books will not necessarily make you a winner. This applies whether we are talking about blackjack, poker or gambling in general. I will leave other forms of gambling out of the equation where it is not possible to create an edge like roulette for instance.

In my opinion, books are a constant in what is an ever changing environment in so much as what is written in them has the tendency to date. Also what you have to remember is that the information that is in them also has to be deciphered and understood correctly by the individual.

I have created a name for this and it is the “understanding gap”. What this means is the difference between what is being written and what is being interpreted. This isn’t always clear cut as well as often the reader can deliberately interpret data in a way which is favourable to them. Adding and subtracting data is a common theme amongst book readers and so the reader rarely reads what is intended.

In blackjack of course then this problem isn’t as severe due to the somewhat mechanical nature of the game. But even here then care has to be taken. Merely having blackjack knowledge connected to card counting does you little good if you get caught and are then prevented from playing. So what I say on this subject is that by all means read books as this is a very important part of your education.

But you have to read them objectively and almost begin the process of disputing what you read even though you could and often will be incorrectly disputing issues with the author. Then and only then will your thinking start to evolve.

If you go into any casino or play any form of gambling then a progressive betting system can work very well in the short term. As long as you do not use systems like the Martingale for instance which double up after every loss. The bankroll requirements are very severe and especially on casino games where the table minimum is well below the table maximum in terms of the number of potential double ups that you can make to get your money back.

But systems like the Reverse Labouchere for instance can use progression in an entirely different way. However it needs to be pointed out that in no way can a progression system turn you from a long term loser into a long term winner although on blackjack then it has the potential to do so if you are using good solid basic and card counting methods.

But even here, it is the card counting strategy that is providing the profit and not the progression system. In this environment then the progression system can serve a very good strategic purpose as it can allow the player to look like an everyday player when betting in this way. So even though the progression systems cannot and will not provide long term profits in their own right, everything has its place at some stage.

Even though we never used progression systems when we played blackjack, the strategic use of them as cover cannot be under estimated. But if you were to go into any casino for a day or an evening and use a progression system then your chances of success and walking out in front would be very good indeed as that isn’t an amount of time that is long enough for the house edge to take effect.

Last time I touched on the fact that actual casino experience is vital. Theory is all well and good but in some instances then theory is difficult to replicate in a live environment. Poker is one such example and despite reading hundreds of poker books, they never quite replicate what you face both live and online.

Even though you may think that blackjack is straight forward and that winning should be straight forward if you can follow basic and implement a counting strategy……life isn’t that simple. Using poker once again as an analogy then it is a bit like knowing good solid poker principles like position, hand values, bankroll management and such. These are all good things to know but yet will not make you an automatic winner in a poker game.

You will need other “skills” that can only be derived from playing. Casino blackjack is the same and it will seem strange to you to be card counting in a real game with casino staff watching you. When the time comes to increase your bet and the croupier is watching you and maybe an Inspector as well then it isn’t easy to do something that you know that if it was to be detected that you would be prevented from playing.

And also, if wagering money is something new to you then nothing can really prepare you for the times when you have substantial bets at risk. It is all too easy to watch what happens on these hands instead of doing what you should be doing and that is to keep the count at all times. You will need to be able to interact with casino staff so that you do not look like a counter and this isn’t easy at first. I was fortunate in that I never had to overcome this obstacle because I had practiced counting for years as a croupier on the inside.

Someone asked me the other day how a player starts out down the road to be a card counter and how long that training actually takes. Well firstly the training does not take as long as you think but unfortunately there are many obstacles and problems in your way. Automated shuffling machines wipe out any chance of card counting but a self imposed training program could see you being good enough in about three months.

Firstly though you must learn basic strategy and you need to know this very well. Luckily it is simply a case of learning a few tables but most of the playing decisions are obvious anyway. You would never take a card on 19 vs 4 for instance so you know much of basic anyway and so learning the rest isn’t hard. Once you know these tables then you will be able to play against the house with the house only having a 0.5% edge against you.

A good book to learn basic from is Stanford Wong’s Professional Blackjack with clearly laid out charts and tables. Once basic strategy is fully learned then you need to learn a simple counting system and I advise the high/low at first. You will need to practice your counting speed and be so quick that fast dealers do not intimidate you. During this learning process then I would advise going to a casino and playing basic strategy and practicing counting in real conditions.

Remember that you don’t want to be staring at the cards, you need to be fast enough so that you can count with just the merest glance. Also this will allow the casino staff to get to know you and they may then not take you for a counter when you start to up your bets at a later stage. But you also need to spot good games as well and not doing so will be another serious obstacle to you making money.

I had another casino trip last night and after I had watched the Spain vs Paraguay game in the bar, decided to play a little blackjack. I had been counting for a while but my maximum bets were only very small and about £30 or so. Everything had been going very well on the table even though I was down about £100. I had been having friendly banter with the staff and everyone had been talking about football and England being so bad.

Then the dealer went to pull a card to her own hand when she already had seventeen. She quickly placed the card under the shoe to be the next card out and I had seen that the next card was an ace. So I quickly asked for £200 to be placed on first box and the dealer went to place the chips when the Inspector stopped her.

When I asked why, he said that it was because I had seen the ace. I then said to him that this was academic because it was their mistake and not mine and that there was no law saying that I couldn’t bet the maximum on any box I chose. Suddenly the mood on the table shifted but the Inspector was adamant that if I placed this bet that the box would receive no cards.

So my next line was to say that I hadn’t seen the ace to which he then replied that I wouldn’t have jumped from £30 to £200 if I didn’t know that the next card was ace…….fair point and difficult to argue and the only thing that I could think of at the time was to say that it was going to be my last hand anyway and that I was having one big blow out. This was semi-believable seeing as I had over £200 in £5 chips on the table. The Inspector thought for a second or two and then allowed the bet to stand…… I did get my ace but only a total of 19…….the dealer had a nine which made…….you guessed it…….19!

I am going to be starting a new section shortly which will go into my experiences with my first blackjack team. But a few people have asked me down the years how I first got into blackjack. Well it sort of happened in stages and not all at once. I guess that the first stage was based on me working as a croupier and then as an Inspector for nearly nine years.

This gave me the interest in the game from the very outset. The second step came by chance when I accidentally picked up a book inside a library and that book was “Beat The Dealer” by Ed Thorp. It also helped me to identify and then befriend a card counter who was active inside the casino where I worked and we are still good friends to this very day.

But even then my interest would have remained at nothing more than merely theoretical had it not been for me leaving gaming in July 1998 and then accidentally meeting what would be my financial backer down in Bournemouth when I was on a financial consultant induction course. So my entire operation was basically based on fluke events and pure chance.

I think that this is how many people start out to be honest and this was also how I started out playing online poker. This was something that happened simply because the blackjack operation had reached its shelf life. But starting soon, I will be telling my own story which I will call “The Dean’s Blackjack Story“.

I really do think that it is a very interesting story in so much as that it highlights just how something can be achieved out of nothing with little more than knowledge and determination. So look out for that coming soon.

I had a casino trip last night and played several hours of blackjack while my partner and her friend enjoyed a meal and a few drinks at the bar. In between that we all grouped in the lounge area to watch the England vs Algeria game…….after that I needed some good luck.

Fortunately my card counting session in the six deck shoe game proved profitable. The dealers were cutting about a deck to a deck and a half from the back so penetration was good. The first two shoes were dull and nothing happened and I was planning on placing £50 maximum bets when the proper situations arose.

Into the third shoe and I had a massive true count and six consecutive maximum bets won for me making £300 in profit. I lost about £50 back as I was trying not to make my spread too wide. I then had a break for the England game and the entire pit area went quiet as more people were watching the game than playing in the pit.

After the game, I found that my counting was off which was probably due to the poor performance of our national football team and my mind was definitely more on the football than the blackjack. But my luck really turned on the final shoe that I played. My profit was already at £325 for the evening when another large true count arrived. On three consecutive hands, my £50 bet was the only blackjack on the table which made me feel a little awkward but that made £225 in the space of about three minutes.

The total win for the evening was £705 and my best casino trip for a long time and probably dating back to my team days. I think that just about made up for the football.