Has anyone sucessfully used refering to a BJ reference card as a cover for counting? I'm about to graduate from needing the card to counting but am thinking it may classify me as a novice to the casino and may be beneficial to fumble with looking things up from time to time. Any thoughts?
1. What happens when you need to make an index play?
2. It slows down the game. This is great if you're hustling comps. However, if you're counting you want to play as many hands as fast as possible.
what johnny bravo says is true but still the card is a pretty decent cover tactic i think.
I'm about to graduate from needing the card to counting ...
This implies that the poster is a beginner, probably playing at low stakes. Low stakes players usually do not need any cover, and cannot afford any cover. Just play the game; worry about cover after your stakes have become high enough that you've been kicked out of a few casinos.
There are exceptions, such as a person who plays only at a couple of local casinos for reasonable stakes, doesn't want to travel, and wants to remain welcome indefinitely at the local stores. But beware that it is easy to turn a winning game into a losing game by using too much cover. Pretending to need the BS card does not fall into this category, but it does slow the game down, as Mr. Bravo noted.
There are counters who haven�t memorized BS. I have heard of counters using BS cards. I heard of one such guy who got backed off. The Boss said to him �If you going to count, count like a Man and don�t use a strategy card.�
By using a card, you are announcing that you know that there is such a thing as Basic Strategy, and you believe that is it the way to play. This puts you ahead of 90% of the ploppies.
Very few players come with BS cards. By using it, you stand out. My own opinion is that you should avoid standing out.
When you play for high stakes, you may stand out anyway simply because of the size of the bets. But until then, I think the best strategy is not to be noticed.
Yes, I am a beginner and playing low stakes. I haven't gotten 100% with basic strategy yet so I like the card. It also gives me something to talk about with the people at the table and if it's okay with the casino I'll answer someone's question about what it says about their situation. At this point I like the fact that I may bring some awareness to people who don't have ANY clue and it makes me feel good helping them. I do realize that if everyone became educated then all the counters would suffer as the casinos would have to change the rules so I may "cool it" for that reason.
Just watched "The Hot Shoe" and am getting nervous because I'm so far ahead in two serious trips that I'm due for a correction. I've only had $400 bankroll for $5-10 play and have brought home $650 and $450 profit.
Do people suceed in quiting on the upswing consistently? In each case on the final day (of 2 ) I dropped $200 down and then just decided to quit while I was still up.
Yes, you can do it "consistently". If you start off with $X, as soon as you win a hand and have more than $X, you can quit. Of course, there will be sessions where you never get back to $X and you lose your session bankroll.
The problem is that you are falling into a gambler's fallacy that is old and makes the casinos a fortune. How can you be sure that if you quit ahead today, that the first round tomorrow won't be a loss? You can't. You have to realize that the game of 21 is not a bunch of sessions, it is one long life-time session. You can win more sessions than you lose, if that is your goal. Personally my goal is to win more _money_ than I lose, which is a _different_ goal.
When you understand the difference between the two, you are ready to start thinking about winning for real, rather than just on paper by counting sessions...
Well, the odds caught up with me and I lost this "session" but I am still ahead in my career on money so that seems to be the way it goes with this game and the swings! Still had fun, I do enjoy meeting all the different people as there is such a wide variety out there. Even playing all night and hopping tables I've only felt I came across one person that I felt was a counter. He did fit the serious focused stereotype. Virtually everyone else was really struggling with their decisions and were very convincing when they were making regular mistakes so I think at least this casino was free of them. Actually they may have been at the high dollar stakes tables so forget everthing I just said!
One guy told me he lived 11 blocks from the casino and had been playing 46 years. When I surrendered he asked me what it was that I did!
that "most" counters would not be noticed by you, based on demeanor at the table. The primary way I pick up on a "fellow counter" is bet correlation. If we are both going up and down almost together, I usually leave the table so that it isn't as obvious. I can't recall seeing someone that made me think "jeez, he's an obvious counter, serious, watches the cards like a hawk, moving his lips to count, having to think about his bet or playing strategy.
I played one game in Laughlin this past summer, where I got a _very_ fast dealer and asked "want to see if we can set a world record on hands played in 15 minutes?" She said "sure" and called the pit boss over to count hands. After about 2 minutes, as everyone was chatting, he dropped the "this is a good example of a good player that can't possibly be counting cards, I don't even see how he can decide whether to hit or stand so quickly, much less keep up with the count, the true count, and so forth." :)
Of course, if you play enough, you can decide "hit" or "stand" without even having to add up your hand, there are just not that many different combinations of cards. BTW we did just over 60, and the only thing that slowed the game down was the dealer completing her own hand and then paying off or raking chips. Sometimes took her longer to add up my hand to decide whether I had won or lost than it did for me to calculate my bet, get the chips out, and signal hit/stand/double/split and complete my hand(s). :)
BTW, during all this, I carried on a conversation while the dealer was "doing her thing" ignoring her cards until the last second, etc. You don't have to look stupid to not look like a counter. :)
1) Otherwise the shuffle would have slowed down the game.
2) And Laughlin is pretty paranoid on their SD games.
I question whether playing fast can really serve as cover.
The conversation and the appearing to ignore cards can.
