quote:

Originally posted by egregore:

Using any kind of mathematical strategy to win in a casino will, at the very least, get you kicked out of it. In other words, you are penalized for playing the games too well.

The last time I was in Las Vegas, I settled in to a comfortable seat at a blackjack table. I was making a decent profit and a supervisor came over and watched me for a while. He started a conversation with me and told me that it was clear to him that I was counting cards.

I asked him if he wanted me to leave and he told me that I was welcome to stay, as I was making money for them. People who did not know how to play, saw me winning and decided that it was a lucky table, they sat down and donated money to the casino. The supervisor just suggested that it would be a good idea if I did not get greedy, and I should keep my bets at a moderate level.

After a while, he said that if I was getting hungry, he would give me a meal chit for my wife and me, and would save my seat.

^^^ I wish my brain worked well enough to count cards in a four deck stack.

So, V-Tail, were you counting cards?

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
So, V-Tail, were you counting cards?

Yup. I do that and bet conservatively, and I do make money at blackjack. It's been a while since I have been to a casino to play, but I sometimes stay sharp by amusing myself, playing in an online casino, where U.S. residents are restricted to "pretend" money.

In the late 1960s, I was working as a design engineer for ITT (International Telephone & Telegraph). I had done much of the design work for the various types of trunk circuits for a new telephone system. The first actual Central Office was being installed in the Las Vegas area and ITT had some engineers standing by during the installation, to resolve any problems that might crop up.

I was one of these engineers, and I spent three and a half months living in the Mint hotel on Fremont. I played blackjack for several hours every day. My paycheck and expense check went straight to a savings account, my "take" at the blackjack tables covered everything, so my income from ITT was pure profit. I accumulated enough to buy a new car, paying cash for it.

My textbook for this was Edwin Thorpe's 1966 book, "Beat The Dealer." The book was based on his PhD (mathematics) dissertation, and it is still the basic text for serious blackjack players.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
^^^ I wish my brain worked well enough to count cards in a four deck stack.

It's not really that difficult. One of Thorpe's basic counting techniques is to divide the deck into three groups:

• low cards consisting of two, three, four, five, and six,
  
  
• high cards consisting of ten, jack, queen, king, and ace, and
  
  
• a middle group consisting of seven, eight, and nine.

The middle group is ignored for this counting technique, as the cards in this group do not affect the outcome significantly.

The theory is, a partial deck (one that has had several hands already dealt) is favorable to the player if it is "rich" in cards from the high group. This is based on two-fold reasoning: the player is more likely to have a good hand on the first two cards, if the partial deck being dealt from has a higher than average portion of cards with ten values and aces, and the dealer, who must hit his/her hand if it is sixteen or less, is more likely to bust when the pool of cards to be dealt is richer with high value cards.

Conversely, if many cards from the low group remain to be dealt, the odds favor the dealer, especially when the dealer has a hand with a value of fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen, and must hit his/her hand.

With the above in mind, the player does not track or count individual cards, it is only necessary to know whether the cards that have been dealt, leave the remainder of the deck biased with low cards or high cards.

In blackjack, every card that is dealt becomes visible before the next hand is dealt, so with the exception of the one "burn" card, a player who counts cards has seen every card that has been dealt. With this in mind, keep a running count of low cards vs. high cards, ignoring the middle group. Start with a value of zero for a newly shuffled shoe, whether it contains a single deck (great!) or multiple decks. Every time a low card is seen, add "one" to the running count. Subtract one for each high card that is seen. Since there are as many cards in the low group as there are in the high group, the running count will be zero at the end of the deck, but as hands are dealt and played, the count will swing up and down. A positive count is favorable to the player, a negative count is favorable to the dealer. With this in mind, the player should vary the size of the bets, wagering a higher amount when the count is favorable, and a lower amount when the count is negative.

The above is a bit over-simplified, but it illustrates the basic idea of counting. The goal is to place a larger bet when you are more likely to win the hand, a smaller bet when the odds favor the dealer. In the long run, the math says that you will make a profit. There are some "gotchas," one of them being that the size of your bets compared to your available bankroll should be small enough so that you don't go broke on a losing streak. Other considerations include not aggravating the casino staff to the point where they ban you from playing.

Blackjack is one of the two casino games where the odds actually favor a player who uses a statistically sound approach.