Bad Basic Strategy

Hi everybody this is Joshua. I had been counting cards for many years, like 7.

My question is can bad basic strategy from others people (obviously in the same table) affect your winning percentage??

The thing is I had been noticing different winnings, all of them with the same high true count.

1) Me playing alone; I generally end up winning like 90% of the times.
2) Me playing with people doing Good Basic Strategy; I end up winning like 90% of the times too.
3) Me playing with people doing Bad Basic Strategy; I end up winning like 40% of the times and like 40% end up with the same money and the other 20% even losing.

It certainly seems like bad players hurt us more than they help us, but that is not the case. If you think about it, would we win every shoe if everyone at the table played perfect basic strategy? No. How about index plays? Also, players get mad when I sit out a hand or two because the count is negative. My answer, if I say anything at all, is that, so if we stayed at X number of players for the whole show, we would all win? I do try to stay away from bad players because of the psychic damage it does to me, but that's just my quirk.

It has been established mathematically that the bust rate of the dealer cannot be altered by hitting or standing, it will always stay the same. So a bad player will only harm himself by busting prematurely or staying on bad totals.
Furthermore, it's better to be surrounded by highrolling ploppies than by good players, acceptance-wise.

Francis Salmon

While it's already been said that this is mathematically impossible, I'm not entirely sure.

IF the house is using a weak shuffle, it's vaguely conceivable that the second or third time through, things just don't seem to work out. Obviously, the order of cards in the discard tray has some role in what order the cards are in after the shuffle - this is what makes shuffle tracking and ace locating somewhat effective. If you're really convinced this is happening, adding a hand or dropping a hand might help (this should change how things go into the discard tray). (This is pretty firmly into "superstition" instead of "science".)

If you are keeping records and your records show a consistent trend that playing with people who don't follow basic strategy, or don't follow the correct basic strategy, or people who wear pink shirts cuts into your results, then I see no reason to continue doing something that isn't working for you.

It could all be coincidence, of course, that the cruel and fickle Lady Luck wanted to show her bad side when people weren't playing the way you expected, or it could be that their play annoyed you enough so that your play slipped in quality.

Is going to give you more rounds per hr. Thus, any advantage you are playing with is maximized. Perhaps that's why your results are best. I usually try to play from 4am-8am so tables are most uncrowded and I have the added benefit of a shift change thrown in.

better to avoid playing through a shift change if u can, don't want the pit bosses talking about u

I really hope this really isen't your 7th year of card counting.