Money

From Flash

A game where a Card Counter will average perhaps 1% advantage over the long run. An advantage like that is the same as randomly picking a red bean out of a jar with 1000 red beans and 999 black beans.

My response:

Actually the correct example would be 101 red beans and 99 black ones. The red beans would represent your wins and after 200 games your expected win rate would be 2 units which is 1%. It is all of those negative standard deviations that drive one around the bend at times.

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Aside from the above minor nit-picking on my part, I am impressed by your messages. Your extensive knowledge of the card counting profession convinces me that you have indeed lived such a life. I believe that you have decided to reduce your playing time considerably for a variety of reasons including boredom and the rapid disappearance of favorable playing conditions. As many of us do, you like writing and talking about blackjack and in my not so humble opinion, your comments are more than welcomed on this site.

Steve

Are you saying you don't record your session wins and losses? Just because the casino is not required to do it for normal table game play doesn't relieve you of the responsibility. For example, your winning sessions during a year may total $200,000, but your losing sessions total $160,000. You have a net win of $40,000, less expenses if you file as a professional gambler. How do you avoid reporting that $40,000? If not filing as a professional, how do you avoid reporting the $200,000 and taking the $160,000 as a gambling loss deduction, thereby inflating your Adjusted Gross Income, which will result in the loss of other deductions?

I'm not a lawyer or an accountant, but if you are implying you just don't report any of it, that sounds like tax evasion or criminal tax fraud to me. I hope I'm misunderstanding something, and that's not what you are advocating that people do. Please clarify.

How much does Green Chip cost and what does it offer that will be worth the price.

Green Chip costs $14.75 per quarter. It has posts from a number of knowledgeable players, including some who are professionals. It also has an archive that is filled with informative posts from the past. The archives alone make it worth the money. Green Chip membership is a way to network with players and to gain information about casino conditions. It is a good way to pick up tips about all things related to blackjack, not to mention some other casino games as well. I would strongly recommend it for those who want to get serious about counting cards and playing blackjack.

And no, I didn't get paid for this. :-)

Thanx Muchly ... for the correction of my typo re: the jar of beans.

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HERE is the single most important fact about Blackjack that you may not know.
Very few new players KNOW that, on average, if playing perfect Basic Strategy, the player:

Wins 42.9% of the hands
Pushes 8.9% of the hands
Loses 48.2% of the hands.

Round these numbers off to 43% -- 9% -- 48%
Memorize them. Commit them to memory.
If you are unable to memorize 3 simple numbers
you are not about to beat the game of BJ.

Even at the "high True Counts" where we bet extra money, these figures change only a little.

However we get more Blackjacks than normal, more 2 card 20's than normal, and our splits and double downs "work" better.

That is the actual NUCLEUS of Card Counting. All else is "window dressing".

(ever hear of her?) sang: Attitude. Money motivation is good. But I think you've learned a lot about the game since your original posts. Good luck.

He indicated his disagreement with the tax code, citing an example that if you have a losing year followed by a winning year, you are responsible to pay full taxes on the winning year, rather than carry the losses over and just pay the difference in the two. Concerning the "tax-free" comment, I think we can all figure out the meaning of that, and its probably no different than most. It's just for some strange reason, which he probably regrets at this point, he came out and posted it.

To begin with, I wish I was 19 again. That being said let me offer you a few tidbits of advice.

I have mentioned this several times on these boards. It is a direct quote from Stanford Wong that you won't find in any books. "Counting cards is easy. MAKING MONEY, counting cards is the difficult part."
Not to dissuade you, but this is the ultimate truth about card counting. It is not just difficult, it is very difficult. You are not only dealing with the mechanics of counting, that's the easy part, but you have to cope with the advesarial position of those whose game you are playing, the casinos, on their turf and under the rules they set. If you think it is a walk in the park you are in for a rude awaking.

Secondly, in one of your earlier postings you made the statement "Again, I do understand that I will hit some losing streaks but I plan to limit how big these losses are by simply walking away after I have lost x amount." This one remark alone tells me that you don't really have a complete understanding of how card counting works. Let me refer you to a good, non-technical, discussion of stop limits in Kevin Blackwood's book "Play Blackjack Like the Pros", Chapter 9, Money Management.

Next, and as important as knowing how to keep a count, is the subject of bankroll, which is where most would be counters screw-up. If you want to play a $5 game, even only spreading to $25 max and you think your $1,500 is enough, forget it. Chances are, given enough play, you will end up tapioca. There are good discussions of this subject in most card counting books, and all the experts agree 100% on the subject of being properly bankrolled.

If you want to really learn what it is all about, join Green Chip for a few bucks a month, read everything you can about the game and advantage play and finally, don't let it become an obsession. There are too many other things in life at your age to enjoy.

Good luck,
Cobbson

I took the post to mean he is suggesting tax evasion, and was kind of taken aback at the suggestion to commit a serious crime as part of advantage play. Tax crimes do not seem compatible with legal advantage play. Maybe I misunderstood the meaning of "tax free," but I won't beat this dead horse any more.

I think there is a key distinction to be made here between the concept of money being "the MOTIVATION" for playing vs. being emotionally ATTACHED to money.

You can have one and not the other; you can have neither; or you can have both.

IMHO, the only one of these two that would ruin you if you had it is the emotional ATTACHMENT to money.

Example: You've just moved up from red-chip minimum tables to green-chip ($25) minimum tables, so you will be betting quite a bit more. Your bankroll at this point is 1,000 - 1,400 units at least, so $25,000 at the minimum. You're playing through a few shoes and you're in the middle of a negative fluctuation for the trip and have lost a few thousand but you have confidence that you are playing correctly and you need to ride it out. Suddenly the true count jumps into a super favorable place and it's time to lay out an 8- or 12- or 16-unit bet (not saying the heat situation is likely to allow you to do the latter, but this is a hypothetical example).

Someone emotionally ATTACHED to money, after having lost a few thousand over the past few hours of play, would hesitate -- sweat just a bit -- before putting those $400 in chips up on the betting circle, knowing that he might have to split and double down one or more times on the hand and could have over $1k on the table at the end of the hand.

If that's you -- if you even THINK it MIGHT be you, then you simply will not be able to become a pro, unless you think there is some way to fundamentally change your emotional makeup with intensive therapy, or shock treatments, or something.

Someone unattached to money (who thinks -- correctly -- that money is simply another tool to maintain his advantage over the casino in this game) would put the $400 up without even thinking about it, beyond ensuring that it's the correct play for the situation.

I believe one can be unattached to money while still being motivated to play the game BY money.

That's just my 1/50 of a dollar -- again, I echo tripsix's commentary about the value of the pro responses on this board to brooklyn, and I am definitely most certainly not a pro; I do not wish to become one either, at least not at this point.

Best of luck!
-bb