Given its been 6+ months my guess is that his friend has a great excuse for why he doesn't play anymore.

I'd be super surprised if his friend is still running hot.

any update?

When the house only has a 0.5% or so edge, the long run is a looong fricking time, and players can and do get lucky for years.

Unless you play massive volume, playing perfect basic strategy is basically a coin flip game.

There's a good chance your friend is doing some subconscious or casual counting to improve his results too. It's pretty easy to "know" if the shoe has a lot of high cards left without really counting carefully.

I'm sure this does not completely address what is going on here, but most people confuse what they need to consciously process vs. what comes naturally/intuitively.

For example, if one practices long enough at division then it is possible to compute at amazing speed even for very large numbers. This is because one has been trained and can actually perform the necessary analysis without much (if any) conscious effort. Same with playing a musical instrument. Even talking. Try this experiment: when conversing with someone, try to determine what word you will speak 3 seconds from now. You probably can't. Yet your mind knows exactly what word you will speak, otherwise you would not be able to speak coherently.

I term it "auto pilot". When I am counting, I don't need to put much effort into remembering the previous count, because I have acquired that skill through practice. I don't need to think about how to play a hand; it is basically a reaction and not a conscious effort in recalling tables, indices, etc.

Sorry for the lack of an update. This guy is my former girlfriend's brother in-law. Her and I are no longer together so I don't talk to him as much any more. I called him a couple of time but he hasn't called back yet.

Before ppl chime in with choruses of "obv busto and sucking @#$! on the street for crack" let me say that I really don't know his situation but he has a successful business so gimme a minute.