Honestly? Six figure income? This is a pretty interesting idea, although I wonder how worth it it is considering all the extra hours he has to spend selling the things at pawn shops and online.

Just to get a better idea of what he's doing,

1. How high are the high limits he's playing?

2. What is his br to be able to do this?

3. How many hours a year does he put in?

Ah so that was you, KJ, that I ran into at PH....

Best book for beating today's BJ games?

If you only have one book I think it's still Snyder's Blackbelt in Blackjack. There are other good ones but this book covers most everything you need to know to go from zero to profitable.

There is a whole slew of books from the 70's to the 90's by authors such as Snyder, Wong, Revere and a few others that all cover the same basic concepts of card counting. All a little outdated, but still relevant. Any one of these will do as far as the basics of card counting.

But the book that any serious card counter must have in his library is Blackjack Attack 3, by Don Schlesinger. This is a little more comprehensive and covers topics in greater detail. It is more a reference book that you will return to time and time again, to answer questions as they pop up.

The second book that I recommend is Modern Blackjack by Norm Wattenberg, who is also the author of the top software that most professional and serious players rely on. What makes Modern Blackjack special is that just as the title indicates it is written with Today's current less favorable conditions in mind (as opposed to the many books from the 70's thru 90's), and just what is needed in terms of bet spread, ramp bankroll and playing strategies to beat these less favorable games.

+1

It's the only one I've saved from my blackjack days. The others have gone to Paperbackswap or the used bookstore.

These books are the ones I would recommend as well once you have a basic system down (and I recommend high low to almost anyone). BJA changed the way I think about shoe games.

laughing my ****ing ass off

Why, because you don't have the necessary faculties to understand card counting and other AP plays? No need to make a show of your ignorance, you know.

It's ok he's probably a loser in poker too. Oh sorry, "rakeback pro."

General question. What is the best free stat/session tracking for blackjack?

Excel.

Haha ya thats when I've been using. Took me awhile to put together a format I liked though.

I've never seen anything professional or pre-made. I have used Excel for years and it works well. I use google docs while playing to enter data, and put it into Excel later because I don't like Google docs as much.

If you need help on it PM me. Happy to take a look.

GL.

Hey 2p2 BJ connoisseurs, I was thinking of getting started in learning AP as of recently and have been nothing but optimistic that it will turn out to be very +EV for me but then I read this and reconsidered because I would be presumably playing the lowest levels(red chip) for the first couple years.

I was recently recommended KO Blackjack and have started it, also Color of Blackjack. Would it be better to forgo reading KO and COB in favor of the ones u mentioned or even
because they're up-to-date/more relevant and cover AP/counting better? Also the question is assuming for a player who knows the most obvious of the basic strategy but would have to study a chart for a little to have it down pat.

1. Don't count if you don't know basic strategy instantly. You're going to spend your brainpower doing more complex things, so a millisecond thinking about whether to stand, hit, or double soft 18 vs. dealer 2 is a millisecond lost doing more important things.

Frankly, you want to learn a whole bunch of basic strategies. The example above is a trick question: the answer depends on whether your game is H17 or not!

2. Blackbelt on Blackjack is best because it explains things well and has distinct steps for breaking down AP into digestable chunks. Once you learn the fundamentals of counting, you can switch systems pretty easily.

3. Blackbelt advocates the Red7 count, an unbalanced count. KO is an unbalanced count with a different pivot. Wong's books advocate Hi-Lo and other balanced counts. You should choose a system designed to give you maximum information when you most need it, e.g., if you intend to play all and have a big bet jump around TC+4, you want your pivot at +4. But if you were going to shuffle track, you want a balanced count.

Ofc, but correct me if I'm wrong, this is something that can be practiced(w/o wagering 1$) until its a part of ones unconscious competency

The game at my locale is stand on all 17s(S17 is how you guys refer to this?) DAS, insurance.. not sure what other info is really pertinent to determine whether or not the game is beatable/optimal strategy or strategies
I got the gist of what your trying to say in your last(3.) point but as far as the specific technical aspects... Not to say I won't/can't learn it but just saying I know theres a ton of work to be done and dont think that this will be easily done nor impossible.

The name of this forum is: Other Gambling Games.

Posting should be a good way to learn for both the poster and many of the readers, as well as provide some entertainment.

I look forward to reading the posts.

basic strategy doesn't really change much, except for single deck given the intense changes in deck combination effected by the removal of even a few cards. to wit the bs changes between S17 and H17 are :

11 v A hit instead of double
A8 v 6 stay instead of double
A7 v 2 stay instead of double.

Incidentally these would all be doubled at a TC of +1 in a S17 game.

For double deck you do split 6,6 v 7 and 7,7 v 8 since the EOR of the 6's and 7's significantly impacts the hit / split decision. You need a 6 to complete your hand in the first case and a seven in the second, ergo it becomes better to split. 7,7 v 8 is also an index play for shoe games at +5, counter intuitive though it may be.

A good tool for learning basic strategy is the basic strategy trainer @ blackjackinfo.com

The nice thing about www.blackjackinfo.com is that they give a specific basic strategy for the rules at your card room.

In addition to Dealer's Hit/Stand on soft 17, the strategy considers number of decks dealt, which pairs can be split, can you resplit pairs, can you take insurance, is surrender available, etc ... and with these choices you get a strategy for that particular casino.

I have my casino's specific rules included on flashcards and always review them before I play black jack ( I primarily play poker but occasionally play blackjack.)

If you have a wide choice of casinos you can probably find one with basic rules giving the house not much more than .4% of an advantage.
If you play $10 per hand at 60 hands/ hour, of your $600+ wagered your expected loss is $2.40 ... less than one bet ... variance enters the picture.

So knowing the basic strategy absolutely cold AND counting cards you can have a positive EV. And then you can learn the specific situations where you deviate from basic based on the card count to increase your edge.

Make up some flash cards for every situation and play accordingly.

Your typical long term edge is going to be about 1-2% depending on conditions (pen and rules mostly) if you count cards well.

Deviating from basic according to the count IS card counting.

He's not really wrong that you can have a positive rate without strategy deviations. Depends on the game/conditions.

There's no "can" to it. Most of the counting advantage comes entirely from bet scaling, and index plays are just icing on the cake. Hourly rates when counting go up less than 15% using indexes vs not using them. So if you can make $20/hour using full indexes, then you would still make about $17/hour not using any indexes at all. And the difference is entirely in positive true counts of about +4 and above. Below that indexes make no significant difference in earnings.

Wattenberger has done lots of analysis on this.

Depends on the game. Some are very beatable with unbeatable without. Some are as you say.