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Wherever you go in casinos then you will encounter the “expert”. The player who has seen it all and done it all! It is amazing to hear them because to uneducated ears, these people actually sound like they know what they are on about and they can talk a great game. They will advise everyone on the table that the end box can act as “goalkeeper” or bust the dealer and when the next card arrives that they tipped to arrive then a sort of self fulfilling prophecy can start up.

It is amazing to me how deluded these players are. They are not even aware of how much they lose at the game because they fail to keep profit and loss accounts. Deep down they would rather live in delusion about their “skill” and “expertise”. They love it when other players seek their advice. This feeds their ego even more and another trick that they perform is to scan the table and try to guess the next card.

This never ceases to amaze me but in a way, this is actually grounded in some warped logic. When an “expert” looks at the table and sees no low cards and he has a hand that can receive a ten value card, they often remark how there must be “high cards due”. There is a strange logic behind this because the cards do have memory in blackjack and high cards will come eventually. But to do this without card counting is never going to produce profits in a million years! It is amazing though how these so called “experts” are always thinking out loud. They want the entire table to know how good they are but yet what they never realise is that if they were that good then the casino would not let them continue to play.

As a card counter then you are going to have to design some strategies for escalating your bets without detection. If the casino has a $2 table minimum on a certain table and a $200 maximum then you are never going to get away with a $2-$200 bet spread which is a spread of 100-1. Ideally you would not like to play through negative counts at all as they eat into your bottom line. Betting $2 per hand and seeing 60 hands per hour would mean an hourly loss of 0.5% out of $120 which s $0.60/hour. This is acceptable for much larger profits except for just one thing; this is that to only bet with $2 for an entire hour and then massively escalate your bets is really asking for trouble.

There are several ways around this; one is to count for someone else who will be the big bettor. However I am referring to individual counters here. The second is to leave the table when the count goes really negative and start with a higher starting bet than $2. If you start with $10 then this is only a 20-1 bet spread to reach $200. But you would never want to play through all of the negatives with a $20 minimum bet as you would now be losing $6/hour and not $0.60 as before.

This is still an acceptable loss but far less so and you would ideally like to save as much of that $6/hour as possible and you can do this by leaving the table in really negative counts. This firstly gets you away from situations where you are betting in what are –EV situations and also if you come back to the table and the seats are taken then you can back count easier. So this can add to your disguise as well and make it easier to record profits. One other such tactic is not to cash out large amounts and to also buy in for large amounts of money even if you don’t need the chips. This means hiding chips on your person but you need to give the illusion that you are a losing player.

We all know that casinos do not like card counters. Well actually that statement isn’t quite accurate and needs adjusting. We all know that casinos do not like successful card counters. I have known many people who counted cards who could not make money simply because other parts of their game were lacking. But remember that in countries like the USA then card counting can even be an offence. It is far more difficult to execute counting in the States because their knowledge is very sophisticated compared to other countries on average.

So card counting inside actual casino conditions is very difficult when you know or feel that your actions are being scrutinised. This spooks an awful lot of people and it feels like you are under interrogation. So this creates pressure and anyone that says that they feel absolutely no pressure are obviously not aware of what exactly needs to be done inside casinos to avoid detection.

To be playing optimally then you need to be aware that you are under possible surveillance and act accordingly. This by sheer definition creates some sort of pressure even if only negligible. I actually got used to the pressure probably better than most people for one simple reason and this was because I had worked inside casinos for numerous years. But to go inside a casino for the first time as a counter is very difficult and I can only imagine what that must be like. Suddenly you are not reading a book anymore but are physically immersed in it.

Take it from me, shuffle tracking is a very difficult skill to execute. I should know because we tried as a team to do this for some considerable time. I already had nearly nine years of casino experience where I could count faster than any counter that I ever knew or heard about so there were no problems on that score. But it is very difficult to do this under casino conditions unless you are part of a team. Then it becomes feasible if you have several people doing different things.

Remember that I am not just talking about shuffle tracking here and pulling it off, that isn’t difficult. What I am talking about here is doing it for hour after hour, day after day and week after week against totally inconsistent dealers. This is what makes it tough. We used Shuffle Trak to help identify where the high card segments were going but the downside of this is that the software doesn’t know when a dealer has done something different.

This can only be detected by the naked eye and so you have no option but to get the skill yourself. The problem with having extra team members stems from having to split profits amongst more people. While this sounds good in theory, it opens up whole new complexities. It is often better to keep something simple when you are trying to make money and we eventually dropped trying to track shuffles. So it is not something that I would ever go back to again even if I had the option to do so. It is far better and just as productive to look for weak dealers instead.

Because I have a history of playing blackjack and also of shuffle tracking then many people down the years have asked me if they should learn how to shuffle track. I would have to say in most instances then the answer is no and this is based on the reality of the situation rather than necessity. I have always maintained that to get a meaningful edge from blackjack needs more than just conventional card counting. Also with games with automatic shuffling machines then you simply do not have the option to shuffle track anyway.

But for me personally then shuffle tracking was by far the most difficult discipline that I have ever tried to execute in a game of blackjack. The theory is pretty simple but executing this theory in actual play is really something different. As an individual counter then you are having to keep the count which is work in itself. Then you are having to do true count estimations. On top of this is the fact that you are trying to interact as much as possible and this in itself detracts from your ability to be able to do many things at once.

So then on top of this you are having to keep separate count per deck or separate count per half deck scores for the purpose of keeping track of shuffles. All of this is mentally fatiguing and in my experience then shuffle tracking not only shortens your playing sessions based on being able to be on top of your game mentally but it also makes it very difficult to execute areas of your game that should be otherwise straight forward. This is before we even get into the subject of how difficult shuffle tracking really is anyway. Nearly everyone that I have ever spoken to about this struggled with getting any sort of meaningful edge with tracking when trying to do too many things at once.

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.

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.