All you need is a red hat! (more ploppie nonsense).

After reading some of the ploppy "this is what I do, and it works for me, I know it doesn't make sense, I know it don't agree with math, but my *personal* observation is IT WORKS FOR ME!" -- consider the following:

3 players go to to Las Vegas 4 times a year. Every three months, like clock work, they are in Vegas for a full 5 days. They play blackjack a full 8 hours a day every day they are in Vegas. So that is 5 days in Vegas x 8 hours a day = 40 hour sessions -- 4 times a year. And they do this, without fail, for 5 years.

In other words, these are "big dog" real experienced players. They have been playing for years. Putting in the long hours required to win. No recreational players, these guys. 5 long years of putting in 40 hour weeks of blackjack play. 8 hours a day, 5 days at a time, 4 times a year, for 5 years! THESE GUYS KNOW BLACKJACK -- just ask 'em.

Now consider they have been playing a good double deck game all this time, getting in about 75 hands an hour, at a -.26% edge game, stick to strict basic strategy, FLAT BET, and they only thing different is THEY ALL WEAR RED HATS!

Well, thanks to the tremendous STANDARD DEVIATION in the game of blackjack, one of these "red hat" players is going to have come out ahead after all that. 1 out of 3 will still be a winner, flat betting after 5 years!

And what will this player attribute to his winning? Well, let's ask him:

SOTSOG: After all these years, why are you ahead at blackjack, when everybody else seems to be a long time loser?

RED HAT PLOPPIE: Well, sotsoggy old boy, it's because I wear a red hat. You should have listened to me a couple of years ago when I told you wearing a red hat is what makes you a winner at blackjack.

SOTSOG: Is that it you think? Wearing a red hat is all you need to do?

RED HAT PLOPPIE: Well, no, of course not. Ya gotta know your basic strategy of course. And ya gots to know how to win. And you should leave a table when it turns cold, and only play at a hot table, and watch out for them hot dealers! But once you learn them skills, all ya gotta do is wear a red hat. I know the math boys say that ain't so, BUT IT WORKS FOR ME!

So when you hear a wild ass theory about blackjack remember:

(5 years) x (4 times a year) x (5 days) x (8 hours) x (75 hands an hour) = 60,000 hands = 29% chance of still being ahead!

In other words:

"Believe me son, I been doing this for years, and I have never lost."

translated means

"I haven't played long enough to overcome standard deviation -- give me a few more years, and there is no reason why this will work for you at all."

But I doubt any ploppie would spend the approximate 10 years learning meditation techniques to earn anything like a red hat that might work. Shudder....they might actually try to learn to keep a count system insteadf: less work!

Keep up the good work and advice.

Capt

make money in this game. So, how can you say that card counters benefit? When majority of them lose BIG $$$, it is obvious that the casinos together with the gambling book hackslers and systems cons benefit the most.

BMW 850

ordered from The Pro.

so that IF you can find the flaw you can wrap the crow in it like
a burrito. Thank you for saving me the trouble of digging out the
62 version again. That is the one that convinced me that any more than two values was throwing the baby out with bath water. The number
of PHDs that have been involved with this reminds me ofJohn Belushi's
original line-"Seven years of college shot to shit". I thought it was
funny when I first heard it; but many things in life make it more so.
The "boyz" thing was a movie tittle; and I use things that have meaning to me. The source document study of the math boyz BJ revealed
exactly what Thorp & Braun did "TO" BJ. I think that they also made
it necessary for a different approach to the game-which I am working on.

Come up with something that will work for the other 98%.

to each worthless retort from 'Freaky' would be the fate this inspired wit and wisdom deserves. I loved every word of it.

scobee

The section on basic strategy in 1962 stated that (para. there is even some variation in the red cover 62 edition that was sold as a university alternate math text): just as we can focus on the dealer's (after explaining away mimic the dealer) likely total we can focus on the dealer's likely total for each up card and the chances of busting.

This was omitted in the 66 edition for a phrase (and some other variations in the text when new plates were setup in 1986 for a new printing) we can instead focus on a strategy that is designed to give the best return for each upcard.

Now if somehow Frank got the same sort of jumbed averages and means ideas that ML has about the FA, but Frank being a ploppie rather than...., what might happen if Frank decided to focus on the dealer's total of about 18.4 non-busted total for all upcards, and decided to include some of John Pattrick's dumb ideas about not splitting 8s in case you have to resplit (no weighted probabilities for them). Now that is a real FLAW and probably what Frank is doing.

IN short Frank is the FLAW.

Such as some of the team shuffle tracking manuals from the MIT team or perhaps the printup of the colaboration between Greasy John and Frank Garcia (when Garcia died it was mentioned in his will and sent to a known author who has not released it) on a 10 count strategy in 1955? Maybe he could also steal the dip switch settings for the latency on a King or 5 CSM?

But no. The best we get is some of the Pro's progressions which have a hidden bit of counting in them.