With all due respect...
> Alan Wilson wrote in 1966 that he went about lamenting the
> demise of the 21 game after the Baldwin et al article
> appeared in the September '56 issue of JASA. It took some
> four exciting decades, but ultimately the late doctor was
> proven right.
People have been saying that for decades now. When Thorp�s book came out they said the same thing, then again when Uston won his case in AC, and again with the introduction of CSMs, facial recognition software, Mindplay, 6:5 BJs, SuperFun 21, and pretty much every time something new happens.. How long as the sky been falling?
> Poker, especially Hold'em, OTOH, can, with proper game
> selection, yield far more than the one Big Bet per hour
> standard so widely quoted.
Well, so can Advantage Play at blackjack. The key element, as you mentioned, is �proper game selection.� There are both good and bad games for blackjack and poker players out there. Neither game is profitable without proper scouting.
Solo card counting is just the tip of the iceberg. Huge advantages are possible using advanced methods like shuffle tracking, sequencing, cutting/steering, and many other techniques that are not available to poker players. Poker players just don�t have the control over the cards the way blackjack players do. Less control means more variance.
> And the fluctuation is so much less that blackjack pales
> in appeal.
The variance will tend to be high in either game. A smart player can find ways to reduce it though. I would think that poker has much more variance since you are playing against other humans who are unpredictable. A blackjack dealer will always play by the house rules so you always know what to expect and how to play. Poker requires much more uncertainty and �hunch� playing (poker players call it �intuition�) which makes it more of a gamble than blackjack.
I�m sure it�s much easier to find a good poker game than a good blackjack game, but if you�re expecting to make decent sized bets I would feel much safer at a mid/high stakes blackjack table than at a mid/high stakes poker table.
> Why should you believe me? Because I played 21 for
> three decades.
I�ve only been playing for about 7 years but I�ve seen some pretty amazing blackjack games in that time. Games with 3:1 suited BJs, 2:1 on all BJs, Lucky Ladies, Royal Twenties, and other games with a 1-2% advantage off the top are still available all over the country TODAY. They require a bit if scouting, but they�re out there.
> you can check out the games as you pass by to the poker
> room. This is what I do, but I seldom see anything that
> makes me want to stop and play.
Perhaps you are not looking hard enough. It takes more than a fleeting glance to catch a front loader or to analyze a trackable shuffle. Those should be the �bread and butter� of any serious blackjack player�s income.
Although I do agree with you that game conditions are slowly deteriorating, I still don�t think the casinos will ever completely destroy the game. They�ve had the power to make it unbeatable for many years now but they have made the conscious decision to keep it alive. I see no reason why they would want to kill the game now.
As far as the blackjack vs. poker issue, I think that a successful gambler absolutely needs to know how to play both.
-Sonny-