Playing professionally

Hi there,

I've learned to count a deck in 25 seconds, and memorized all the strategy numbers -10 to 10 for S17 and H17, both with and without doubling down after splits, and successfully employed these skills to earn about $10 an hour playing red chips for 25 hours at local casinos so far. I love this thing, what a great life. So anyway, by what I can figure, if I can get together 30k in cash and maybe have 20k in credit available just in case of disaster, I could generate 100k a year consistently or better with very low likelihood of ever losing the whole original 30k bankroll. Is this naive? I seemed to achieve about what I would have expected by decent counting in my short 25 hours of play so far, so I don't think it is. But if not, then I think I'm going to try to do this professionally. If I can make it to black chips eventually, it would be a great career, and with absolutely no responsibility whatsoever, totally free from obligations to a boss, just the burden of how to spend the cash once you earned it. Is this out of reality? I know Wong said in Professional Blackjack that you have to be emotionless, but is that really true? Don't you just have to be emotionless about the 30k bankroll you've accumulated, be prepared in advance for losing it and bank on that, and then when the expected returns come in, its all gravy, but being down 10k wouldn't bother you too much, because you always remain prepared to lose it and have to start anew and come up with another 30k the next time, no big deal. I don't know, I think I could do it, even though I do have emotions from time to time, well, even frequently. Appreciate any thoughts, and sorry for long post, I have a hard time not being verbose when I type, and am too lazy to edit afterward to much extent.

Oh, also, if anyone is still reading at this point, can you tell me what backrooming refers to? Do they actually beat counters up?! I just can't believe it could be true, seems so medieval, and frankly, like it could be bad for business. Has it happened to anyone here? I honestly just thought that was in movies. I'd think if they asked you to leave and you were polite, they would just note your face and name, whatnot, and then see you to the door, right? If anyone here has been assaulted by casino staff, in honesty, were you belligerent at all, or please tell the details of the incident (I couldn't find any direct account in the posts I skimmed so far, but maybe I missed one too, if so, sorry).

One last question, if I may... In reality, for professional players, how often do you end up having to visit the same houses you've already played and beaten before? Are there sufficient supplies of good games around the world that one may play full time for a full year without having to visit the same casino more than a few days and still get decent games most days? Are most of these games in Vegas, or can it actually be profitable to go to Europe or Asia to play too?

Thanks for any feedback, and please feel free to reply offline or in the forum!

Jon B.

>I could generate 100k a year consistently or better

How do you plan to make 100k a year if the casinos won't let you play?

>I know Wong said in Professional Blackjack that you have to be emotionless, but is that really true?

See how emotionless you'll be if you hit a "negative standard deviation" (as they call it) and lose 10k or so. It's so easy for book sellers to tell people to put their emotions in a box and quite another to actually be the player doing it in the middle of the Shoe from Hell.

>Do they actually beat counters up?!

You'll find out when you move up to black chip play, won't you?

>I just can't believe it could be true, seems so medieval, and frankly, like it could be bad for business.

Sure... discouraging winning players from winning money from your casino is bad for the bottom line.

>Are there sufficient supplies of good games around the world that one may play full time for a full year without having to visit the same casino more than a few days and still get decent games most days?

You'll be lucky to find a good game anywhere nowadays, unless you think that an 8 deck shoe with 2-3 decks cut off is good.

>Are most of these games in Vegas, or can it actually be profitable to go to Europe or Asia to play too?

If you think back-rooming is bad in Vegas, wait till you have it happen in some 3rd world shit hole that doesn't follow the US Constitution (or basic civilized behavior).

Even a dumbass could still be winning after 25 hours. Blackjack is not a gravy game for card counters,well at least not for me. You should probaly get a few years of experience under the belt to understand this. Then you can evaluate your play and recognize how emotional and devasting this game can be. After that, you'll have a sense of how difficult it is to make good money or how easy it is to lose good money.

My opinion is learn to crawl before you walk. You'll have a better chance of at least being a winner.

Rocky is right when he states that 25 hours of play is nothing. And Red Bored is also right when he says that there really isn't any decent games around either. However, if you are dedicated and have the right mental attitude you can be successful and "dance between the rain drops". (Ian Anderson)

I'm no professional quite yet but this is what I recommend you do.

1) If you haven't read the online school here on this website you should. It touches on Standard Deviation and you will understand how 25 hours of play really isn't anything.

2) I haven't gotten any experience on the software Casino Verite but it seems to be highly recommended by everyone I've talked to that has it. (I've ordered it but it hasn't arrived) After checking out the program on the website it really does seem like a wonderful training aid. www.qfit.com

3) Since you mentioned about possibly becoming a high roller I think you should invest more time in reading. I think Ian Anderson's new book titled "Burning the Tables in Las Vegas" is one of the best for whales. He shows you how he is able to cover his skillful play and also get better penetration making the games very profitable.

Best of Luck

Your post was most encouraging Kyle. I never imagined counting would be an easy proposition, or else I know everyone would be doing it. But what better way to live than doing one of the things which brings pleasure in and of itself, and pay yourself for doing it?!

Dance between those raindrops I will, and I promise (to myself, and rhetorically to you) not to overbet, to play conservatively, and and know my game well before I ever consider jumping off and trying to whale around the bright city!

Thanks again for the enlightened response! :)

Jon B.

Surely with your attitude you can't be a serious player.

I have read many of your posts, to the point of being a bit 'bored'. I can't recall a post that was positive in tone, about the game or the poster you whom you are replying or commenting upon their present or previous posts.

Whether approaching a task at your work or approaching a table at your play I have always found it extremely helpful to be in a positive frame of mind.

Your comment about there not being any good games actually makes me feel pretty good. The games aren't what they were 30 years ago when I started playing a serious game but I am still winning today after 30 years of play so there must be a good game somewhere in town. An awful lot about the games today, and 30 years ago, have to do with how you play and bet them. In blackjack, as in most pursuits, not everything you learn in a book should be taken as gospel. Table experience is an excellent teacher, assuming you are paying attention.

Seems to me if you think the game is crap and the people on this board are crap you must get a real thrill out of playing in crap!

A $30,000 bankroll is relatively small and not enough to sustain a solo blackjack player with no other means of support. Remember, you still have to pay the rent, buy groceries, have transportation, and get health care. If you hit a bad patch, which you will, you could wind up sleeping in your car before it is repossessed. There are plenty of horror stories out there about card counters who were underbankrolled and struck out to be solo professionals who wound up working at the nearest fast food joint or its equivalent.

You also must consider the fact that no casino is just going to let you sit down at their tables and hammer away forever. Every single professional player I know understands that barrings are a fact of life and one that is unavoidable. You have to be willing to travel to the various casino locales around the country and beyond, and that isn't done for free.

You also have to be very careful about game selection. You can't just walk into any casino and sit down at the nearest table, and start firing away. You must spend a lot of time scouting out games, and you might be surprised at the times you will just not find a game that will meet what must be your high professional standards. When you consider travel time, scouting time, and time spent away from the tables due to being barred or backed-off, you have to realize that you can't be a card counter forty hours a week, fifty-two weeks a year. 500 to 800 hours of actual table play is about all you will be able to manage in a good year.

There are still a few solo pros, but they are a dying breed. Most of the professional gamblers making a living today are doing it through team play and other forms of advantage play that include sports betting or looking for unique opportunities that may present themselves from time to time in a variety of casino games.

I would suggest that you get a good job and use your $30,000 bankroll to get in as many hours as you can at acceptable levels of risk for you. Study the game as much as you can. Get some good software, such as Wattenberger's CV series, and use it to analyze various approaches to the myriad of games that exist. Do some traveling and visit the different casino locales around the country. Find out what is going on in the blackjack community and establish contacts with other players. If you do this, and build your bankroll up to 80K or more, then at that point consider whether or not this is really what you want to do for a living.

If you need flesh & blood examples of underbankrolled players going broke, take a taxi ride in Vegas. More than one driver has told me about taking early retirement from a steady job to come out to Vegas & make it big. Vegas has one of the fastest growing populations of all the cities around the US -- they *need* more taxi drivers :)

I played professionally for over 10 years and still am doing it. I play with a partner which make the trips more pleasant and play alone for long time is tiring. I play mostly abroad of US. I can't say much about US games. There are many good games at abroad. You will need skills more than counting at abroad though such as tracking. You need to play at small casinos long time vs. hit and run at US. You have to track to survive as everybody knows card counters jump bets. Good rules help a lot as you need small spread for the game. I played ES, ES10 on 2/3/4 cards, and 1% rebate on chips rolling this year, for example. You have to travel frequently which is not bad but you have to account for travelling expenses. The good news is I did make over $100k on average but it counts not solely on capital.

Haven't read all your posts but have read enough to know you are one of the most educated members on this forum. Also, will probably buy your book when it comes out. Moreover, in the post above you talked about things to consider and how a solo pros are a dying breed. I guess my question is are you a full time pro? How much time a year do you spend at the table and how much on other games?

Thanks for the kind words.

I am not a professional player and I have never had the desire to become one. My playing time is often limited by my job, which is very demanding on my time, but I try to get in around 200 or so hours at the tables annually. If I can get more, that is a good thing. I concentrate on blackjack, although I also play video poker if the right game is available.

Much of what I have learned has come from other posters here, and from being around professional players from time to time. I owe much to many for any knowledge I have gained about the game of blackjack.

Hey all:

This is my first post, and like Jon, new to counting. I do have a few more hours than Jon, (been at it a couple of months now). How about this...what I would really like to accomplish in the short term is to have blackjack replace my part time job. I go to Tunica a couple of weekend trips per month, and wagering red 1-8 at mostly DD games. What kind of bankroll and betting spread would I need to realize say $1000 monthly, playing maybe 30-40hrs per month? I'm currently using KO, and Tunica rules DAS, H17...by the way I've played mostly at Hollywood and Fitz...any suggestions for Tunica?
Thanks.

I really appreciate what is obviously advice from some experienced players in here, and I think it might be worth it now to try out the Green Chip rooms, if this quality of information can be gleaned from my short foray into the free room.

I had estimated I could manage around 1000 hours of play per year, so I was conservative, but I'm glad to know your advice that I sould plan on between 500 and 800 hours instead. I do currently have a very good job, and will not leave it for at least 18 months, at which time I anticipate having a much greater knowledge of the game.

I was a little disheartened that you feel only team play can be profitable. The number 1 reason I was so attracted to counting is that it is a method of making cash that relies on nobody except my own skill. I have this thing called Asperger's Syndrome, sort of like a mild version of Autism, and because of that, I have never been very well liked by superiors at my workplaces, even though the quality of what I produce has been sufficient to maintain good standing and high income levels. But I have longed for a career where I am free from the bounds of having to be liked by people, where my skill and skill alone is the source of my income. I hope that I will not find myself someday in an untennable position where I would have no choice but to depend on the seemingly uncontrollable whims of other people again. But hopefully that is only a reccomendation on your part, not something which is absolutely required for profitable play. I do have a spouse, who will travel with me, and is open to the idea, so I won't be alone, but my spouse does not count, and I despair of the hope that this skill could be forced upon someone without the motivation to acquire it themselves, so I haven't even pushed that point.

I wonder, when I said a bankroll of $30k, I meant $30k set aside exclusively for blackjack play, which I mentally earmark as being completely acceptable (if a little bit of a bummer) if I do lose, so I won't be devastated if I go broke. But I didn't mean to have ONLY $30k, but also would still keep my home (probably rent it out since I'd be on the road most of the time), and a couple of rental properties as well, a good consumer credit line (>$20k) which will be entirely paid up before I make the switch, and also still posessing the skills which I currently use to make a living. So, in your view, if I am well prepared as such, is $30k still too small a bankroll? If so, then I may well put off my planned "departure date" from 18 months to 24 or even 30 months, because I don't want to find myself unprepared in advance.

I do very much appreciate the response! Thank you for your obviously well informed and knowledgable advice.

Jon

Hi there, and thank you very much for this encouraging post. My question is, what is tracking to which you refered? I haven't encountered it in reading 3 books so far (Professional Blackjack, Blackjack Secrets, and The World's Greatest Blackjack Book). Also, what are your thoughts on my initially proposed $30k bankroll, if you would be so kind to provide them. Is that enough in your view, having played professionally, or do you agree with the poster who just before you stated I should plan on at least $80k before I could expect to make >$100k per year steadily?

Thanks for the great discussion and direction, again. I didn't imagine I'd be able to have this great advantage of speaking with real live pros just a few days ago, so I consider myself very lucky to have stumbled on this forum!

Jon

I've played blackjack seriously and made quite a bit of money doing it. My playing partner still does. Aside from an occasional trip to Biloxi to play for entertainment, it ain't worth doing it any more. I can't even play red-green action without the pit bosses and security treating me like cancer and anyone who says otherwise is lying. There are so many more lucrative ways of making money, like internet poker rooms. If someone wants to "count cards" for the fun and challenge of doing so, more power to them. But doing so "professionally" with the current conditions is a pipe dream.

Hi John,

Thanks for your explanation of tracking, and yes, I do realize now I've heard of it, but just didn't make the connection from the previous post. So I have tried just doing it informally in my practice sessions a little bit, but found it quite unreliable and difficult to pull off. Maybe that comes with time, use of tachistometer (sp?) to improve speed of recognition, more practice with cards... I'm sure in time as counting becomes like breathing, those other skills will start to come with more ease too.

As for your reccomendations about bankroll use, you suggested almost exactly what I have in mind for that level of play - betting a spread of $50-250, which I don't think is enough to arouse casino suspicions from my limited experience playing the same spread with 1/10th the bankroll. I also usually play two hands at 1.5 times my base bet when the count hits somewhere about 1.2, which seems to really help (and in some simulations I ran using this program I got called Blackjack Audit - saw it reviewd on this site actually - also helped), and then again if the count hits 5 or more, play 2 hands at the 75% of what I'd bet playing only 1 hand, like the rule says (although in my limited playing time, I only had a few chances to do this ever, and in one of those, was down and didn't feel like risking more than I had to).

Since I've had almost every single question I put out there so far get great answers from people who seem to know the game quite well, I'll ask this one too. What about cheating in your experiences? Have many people calculated expected wins after thousands of hands and then compared them statistically to see if the margin of error is significant? In my view, this is the one thing that could ruin counting. I think decent games will continue to exist, although they'll never be as easy as the counting community would obviously like, but its just because of market forces, one thing to which the gambling world seems very atuned (btw, I just can't believe the Red Bore's statements about the casino's being evil, and hating them. I think they are actually very altruistic enterprises in the truest sense of the word, but then again, I love Ayn Rand and Rush Limbaugh, so I'm sure the commie Red would consider me a nazi freak.. hehehe). But if cheating is at all widespread, or if they just automatically start cheating you if you start betting big (like I will have to if I go pro someday), then it would ruin the idea of a career once and for all. But from what I understand, using shoes, it is very difficult for a dealer to cheat, and I've seen the shuffles that seem standard, and frankly, it seems as though one would have to be extremely experienced to be able to cheat using that method. But the day I had my biggest loss yet, almost a full negative standard deviation, even though I knew it was in the range of perfect normalcy, the thought I could have been cheated just kept coming back. But with reflection, even though it was at an Indian Casino in Washington, not a Vegas casino with a gaming commision, I really don't think I was cheated most likely, I just had a negative standard deviation day. Especially when the total for my first foray turned out to be almost exactly what my expected win would be (actually slightly above it) based on the models we use to calculate them. So anyway, my gut tells me cheating is not a major thing to worry about, but only to be watched carefully for, but not paranoically or obsessively. And the books also seem to confirm that (except World's Greatest Blackjack Book, which got me a little worried). But any real world live feedback on the subject will be greatly appreciated also! :)

Jon

and look for an archived post by Mathboy having to do with Long Term Risk of Ruin. There is much more risk inherent in solo blackjack play than traditional formulas account for. Most risk of ruin formulas assume that you are putting 100% of your winnings back into your bankroll. Everytime you pull out some of your winnings for living expenses (or just for normal dividends) you increase your risk beyond what the traditional ROR formulas determine.

Team players aren't as much at the mercy of this phenemenon because they usually play to a very small kelly fraction and multiply their bankroll over and over again fairly quickly. The investors accumulate cash to the point that should the team have a seriously bad downturn they can usually recover/replinish the bankroll as needed (or bring on an additional investor).

The moral of the story is...unless you are willing to play to a very small kelly fraction (1/3 to 1/4 kelly) and when doing so still accomplish the needed spread with a minimum bet of at least $25 you don't have the bank needed to go fulltime solo pro as a BJ player. If you still have a fulltime or parttime job that covers living expenses then you can play blackjack in the off hour and put 100% of your winnings into your bankroll until it reaches a point where you can survive longterm risk. I would say you will need at least double your current bankroll to give it a shot. With a $60K bankroll you can bet up to 2x$200 with relative safety and this betting level should enable you to pull down enough money to cover your living expenses and still add a bit to your bankroll annually. You should not be satisfied with your bankroll level until your bet to bank ratio and risk of ruin is so small that it is virtually zero. Your bankroll should be big enough to withstand at least two downsizings. So, if you have a $120,000 bank and lose 1/2 you can downsize to bets based on 60k, then 30K. If you only have 30K you are basically one losing streak away from being virtually knocked out of the game.

It is late and I have to get up quite early in the morning and I will be away from the keyboard for awhile. Take a serious look at Big Player's post and give it some thought.

Great advice from all, I really appreciate it. I have 18 months between now and when I had hoped to be able to go pro, so I will do my best to get up to at least $60k between now and then. I had planned in the long run to accumulate at least a couple hundred thousand I could keep in "liquid" storage to be considered part of my bankroll, because at that level, like you said, the risk of ruin will be negligible. I was also thinking when I leave work in 18 months, instead of outright quitting, I'd take sabattical for 6 months so I keep my options open to return if the blackjack turns sour for any reason, but then after 6 months, I should be well established to make a wise decision about whether I really want to just leave work permanently. Anyway, long road from here to there, so I'll focus on enjoying it day by day. What a great game though! :)

Thanks again for all the great posts. I'm saving the emails I get so I don't lose the references to the good books that have been suggested, and I'm sure I'll read them all in the coming months!

Hope to see some of you guys out on the casino floor someday! :)

Jon