AC blackjack

Living an hour from AC, I play most of my blackjack there. 8 decks, DOA, DAS, stand 17. Casino edge .43% off the top. Most books I have read say you need a 12-1 or even 20-1 spread to beat these games. At $15 min tables, 25$ on weekends, I can't afford these spreads. I am hoping they are talking play all situation. I figure If I wong out at counts of -1, making it an almost even game, I can have a decent win rate with only a 4-1 or 5-1 spread. Is my thinking incorrect?

Living an hour from AC, I play most of my blackjack there. 8 decks, DOA, DAS, stand 17. Casino edge .43% off the top. Most books I have read say you need a 12-1 or even 20-1 spread to beat these games. At $15 min tables, 25$ on weekends, I can't afford these spreads. I am hoping they are talking play all situation. I figure If I wong out at counts of -1, making it an almost even game, I can have a decent win rate with only a 4-1 or 5-1 spread. Is my thinking incorrect?

Playing on only positive counts with a small spread is better than playing all with a large spread.

You can verify this using: http://www.qfit.com/cvcxonlineviewer.htm. Look at the c-SCORE result for an apples to apples comparison.

"it is no contest". If you wong in/out, your can get down an "infinite spread" since your min bet will be zero.

All you need to do is run the sim and use your proposed betting spread (1-4 in units of X) and see what this turns into. You can get an advantage by just betting one unit at +2 (or whatever wong-in point you care to pick) but your hourly win rate is going to be very small unless you are playing with really big units...

I'd suggest CVCX which will sim this perfectly and help you decide exactly when to jump in/out, how to ramp your bet after jumping in, etc. All without the guesswork, which is the biggest danger of all. The edge is pretty small with counting cards, you can't screw around with poor betting and give too much away...

Note that if you wong out at -1, but play along at 0, you are going to lose a bit of your winning edge due to the house edge off the top at TC=0. Develop an act with a helper, or a cell phone, so that you can come and go and look natural doing it... That's about as good as it is going to get with 8d shoes..