Most are 6-5 games.
Did see a billboard advertising Cromwell offers 3-2 double deck but I'm sure the table minimum is $25 like you mentioned

Downtown

Two posts for me that were good and stood out.

Yeah I learned this the hard way. Not emphasizing the "getting a good act down" part enough is probably way too common. It is so important and not necessarily that easy FWIW.

Tracking multiple tables while playing is something I hadn't thought of but I am little slow. The fact that you have made a living for 14 years from BJ should be duly noted.

To both, how important are cover plays that of course don't cost you too much?

Casinos here in Macao use continuous shuffling machines 6-8 decks so there is no point to counting cards. Inquire about what the setup at your local place of play is.

I wouldn't bother these days and I love to play BJ, I still play semi-recreationally although I count with a small spread. There are a still a lot of good games worth playing out there if you can play 50/100 mins, which requires at the very minimum 50-100k if you want to go pro, maybe 1/3 that just to go on a trip. But it is just not worth it. The variance is awful and only very few places will let you play long sessions at that level; you will get backed off very quickly almost everywhere. I don't care what your act is, that almost never matters anyway as most high stakes reasonably competent players are going to be checked by software. You then will have to start using assumed names to stay in action which has its own set of problems. In the end you have to travel a huge amount to find games and believe it or not, there actually is a limit to the number of casinos out there especially those offering high stakes beatable shoe BJ games.

That said the $ you can make per hour at a good game is really great and there are still guys that make big money just counting. They do it not with sophisticated systems or cover acts but by finding the very few places that will let them play. There actually are a few casinos that just don't care anymore about counting. But honestly there are more people making money hole carding shoe games, another incredible grind for other reasons, than there are counters at this stage.

The other big problem with counting is that it requires a huge amount of cash to be carried around. You will need over $10k to play high stakes. Have fun getting that through customs, even filling out the proper forms they will take your money anyway nowadays.

An old school blackjack card counting backroom video at the Frontier Casino in 2003 on the Las Vegas Strip. Back then, it was a thought crime to bet with your head, not over it.