Why you will never profit from card-counting...

Let's say you're one cuthroat, green visor, no-f***kin'-around hustler of a counter. You own at least 6 personal practice decks of cards that are all well-worn from your nights at the kitchen table practicing your drills. Or maybe you've gone electronic and spent the $90-150 bucks on high-end blackjack training software. Maybe you went to school for it. Or maybe you just sacked up and have stacks of oldschool flashcards that you've flashed through every day for so many goddamned days that, holy shit: you DO know your stuff:

Here is what you will win:
for every 100 hands at a $5 table (assuming you are the absolute REAL DEAL) you will avg. maybe a 2% edge over the house. Which makes:

$10 profit...(the house is really screwed now!!)

$10 profit for every HUNDRED hands. If you make the occasional "look Mr. Suspicious Pitboss, I'm really just a dipshit" play, you make less.

Some of you 'experts', I know, are thinking, "I don't just COUNT! No no NO! I count using the Dalai Lama Hi-Opt Zen Triple-Zero Unbalance count and I do it PERFECTLY!!" Well I don't care if you push your edge to 3% or even 4%. The kinds of mental gymnastics required to maintain an edge like that would induce to me to blow my brains out at the end of a losing night.

If you're truly enlightened, you would spend 30 minutes studying basic strategy and easily learn it cold. You never have to practice. Say you just make a trip to Vegas to gamble once a year, you can warm up in the cab on your way to the casino. Or if you really love the Gaming Experience, you could go every week to your local indian money factory or riverboat casino. Either way, using simple basic strategy you can drink like a fish, smoke all the cigarettes and drugs you want, talk to friends at the table, and just generally fuck around since it takes about 30 IQ points to play basic strategy blackjack. You've invested 30 min. of study time, bought no books, software, or classes, and can still interact with people in everyday social settings and occasionally even get laid...

For every 1,00 hands, my friend, with a house edge of .06%, you will loose:

$6

I consider $6 a fair price for NOT having to sit at a table, ignore everyone around you, drink O'douls, refrain from smoking, and just basically look like the seedy guy who spends every week's paycheck at the local casino.

With just mild ambition, you will drink and enjoy enough free, real alcohol-containing drinks over the course of 1,000 hands to justify the $6.00 loss.

I'll take this one step further and say, BET PROGRESSIVELY (some of you are really boiling at this point, and you've got stacks of statistics and simulations with which you're just foaming to rebut me). But I say bet progressively because betting $5 all night SUCKS! It's mind-numbing! The people at your table will either fall asleep because there's no action, get pissed off because they're losing, or piss you off because they're winning money by some miracle of standard deviation and, at the same time, explaining to you why you should always take even money on a blackjack and split 9's against a 7). Because to them you probably look like a loser. To a gorgeous little blonde, 20-something first-timer sweetheart in Vegas, a guy who stares at a table with rapt attention betting mostly $5 and $10 all night bouncing from table to table is about as interesting as a janitor. That is a fact of casino life.

When you bet progressively, you add EXCITEMENT! With easy basic strategy you will be up more often than most people around you and they will be IMPRESSED. When you're up, you can shoot blatant glances at the discard tray, dart your eyes at all the cards, and act like the Rain Man. Girls will be intrigued, the pit bosses will go crazy, and you can get drunk and have a good time. You don't have to go to the casino every week to 'maximize playing time.' You can save up for a trip to vegas, wear a tuxedo, play high-roller, and get comp'd like your last name is Kennedy.

Real card-counters are not glamourous (as most seem to freely admit). There is absolutely nothing impressive about going to a casino and profiting 52% of the time at a small-stakes table.

Good economists would say learning and practicing cardcounting carries with it too great an 'opportunity cost.' There are much more profitable or even just life-affirming ways spend your time.

Take my advice: Go less. Bet more. Bet fast. Play basic strategy. You'll get much better comps, have more fun, and for chrissake, just get lucky!

and I'm at a $100 avg instead of a $5 average I make...whoops... $200 every 100 hands. My average bet is higher than that thank you!

I'll take the $200 and you can have your fun progression. :-)

we dont have a 2% edge.1% is about all.RM,i agree with you about playing an avg of 5 bucks.thats why most players graduate to green once the novelty of being a beginning counter wears off.playing red is good for practice.

that "holy shit: you DO NOT know your stuff"

Your calculation is based on an average bet of $5. Why would a counter waste his time flat betting??

ETF

If you consider losing $6 per hour to be the price to be paid for �excitement� in the casino you�ve got a loose screw in your head.
I for example am playing at $100 average and let�s say in 20 hours per week play I will put in action 20*100*100 = 200,000 *the edge of 1.5% = $3,000 and probably a little more if I bump into a winning streak on positive counts where I progress heavily.

Now, if you play with $5 unit you will lose 20*100*5=10,000 *-0.6%=$60 probably in two or three days. AND! if you dare to play $100 units you will lose 20 times more that is -$1,200 for having fun.

Progression alone it does not work but Progression with card counting IT DOES WORK!

Puiu

People count cards for different reasons. I do it for fun - the same reason I play chess. But I discovered a long time ago that gambling is a LOT more fun for me when I win than when I lose - even if I don't win much. It is a whole lot more fun to walk out with a $2.50 win than to walk out with a loss, large or small. I can make about $100 an hour at my regular job. Yet I go to the casino every week and spend a couple of hours making about $10 an hour. (I like to play at the low limit tables.) I do it because it is fun, and it is fun to watch my meager bankroll grow. Others do it for other reasons, including making money I'm sure (but not at the $5 min. tables) but we all do it because we love it.

As for you, Renaissance Man, I think you should follow your own advice and play basic strategy for fun. Or you might just want to stick with the slot machines. We do need people like you so the casinos can make their money and pay us our meager winnings. But I think your posts would be more appropriate for the Beginner Forum, or better yet, maybe you should just lurk.

If you're counting $100/hand blackjack with the proper size bankroll, you've got about $50,000 on the line. I have never met anyone who can afford to regularly throw $50,000 on the line and, at the same time, be happy with an avg. return of $200. Winning $6 in 100 hands at a $5 table is just as bland as winning $200 in 100 hands at a $100 table. After all, you're tossing out $100 EVERY SINGLE TIME! 100 hands later, winning one extra 'chip' (assuming you find yourself right smack in the middle of that unforgiving bell curve) isn't going to make my night!

As I said in my original post, a counter playing $5 blackjack will roughly bet, on avg, $5 per hand. Sure the true count may occasionally go through the roof, and you'll get that rare chance to throw out a $40, $50, or $60 bet out there. But let's face it, most of the time your count will be dancing around zero, and when it does dip to far into negative territory you'll have to get up, move to another table, and pray for a better shoe so you can keep your 1% edge.

How can I be "absolutely out" on this subject when you're using the exact same math as I am. The only difference, is that you, like a few others I see, are claiming to play $100/hand blackjack. That's fine, but don't forget the $50,000 bankroll you need to play that kind of game. Are the winnings still that exciting?

You should probably not be counting cards or even stepping foot inside a casino if you think that winning $150 on 100 hands at a $100 table is somehow better or different than winning $7.50 in 100 hands at a $5 table. A 1.5% edge is still just a 1.5% edge whether you're at a $5 table or a $1000 table.

Just don't slip up on your true count if you find yourself throwing the last $10,000 of your $50,000 bankroll out on the table because standard deviation is playing a nasty trick on you one day.

Even to someone with a $50 K BR. A $50K BR with a $100 average bet implies an extremely low ROR, as you should know. If the base bet was $50, this would give you a bankroll of about 1,000 units, which should be enough to get ROR down to 0.5% or so for a decent game. That being said, with an average of 10 hours play per week, $200 per hour gives an annual income of $104,000, with extremely minimal ROR. I would consider being able to triple your bankroll in a year to be significant, even with a $50 K BR, but that may just be me.

Personally, I have a much smaller BR (about $5 K), play to a larger ror (10%), and have an EV of around $25 - $30 per hour at my available games. My actual results are tracking at an average of $37 per hour. I attribute the excess to positive variance. I consider this return to be adequate to compensate for the time and risk of loss.

"Just don't slip up on your true count if you find yourself throwing the last $10,000 of your $50,000 bankroll out on the table because standard deviation is playing a nasty trick on you one day."

Since your win rates were calculated using a $100 avg bet, and you are saying that this person might bet $10,000 on one hand (I will assume an initial bet of $2,000 X 5 for splits and doubles), the minimum would have to be really low, maybe $25. OK, so in your example, the player is using a 1-80 spread. This would give a decent counter a much higher EV than 1.5%. Of course, the ROR would be REALLY high as well. Your numbers make no sense. Be consistent in your argument if you want to show your point.

Finally, someone has something else to say other than, "But RM, I bet $1,000,000 a week at the casino at that leaves me with a weekly profit of $15,000!!"

I respect your reasoning, Don. Some people study, as you might, the game of chess. The practice for hours, play in tournaments, play with friends and enjoy themselves while making no money at all for the efforts. It's called a hobby, and thank god for those, because if we didn't have them, life would one dull trip.

I'm not trying to ruffle anyone's feathers with my posts, but I think many aspiring card counters are living under a major illusion. By fully devoting yourself to the study of card counting, practicing daily, developing your skills, and putting them to work in a casino while blocking out all distractions by refraining from both converstation and drink, you will move your edge from -.06% to +1.5%. For evey $100 invested, you will earn $1.50 as opposed to losing $0.60. That is it. There is nothing more to it. You can play with the actual numbers all you want, but percentages are percentages.

Play slot machines? Give me more credit than that! As a chess player, I suggest you devote more time to poker. I'll take a hold'em game any day over a blackjack table. To someone who fully understands either basic strategy or even card counting, blackjack is really nothing more than a complicated slot machine. You interact with no one, the game never changes, you play the game as you've memorized how to play the game, and you take your 1.5% earnings.

In poker, you have different players every time you're at the table. You think winning big money is a double down is exciting? Try sitting at a hold'em table and realizing that every time the guy across the table touches his face, he's holding a big hand. You spot a tell on another poker player, and you'll want to shit your pants you'll be having so much fun. Only at a hold'em game could a beginner (as I once did) walk away from a table after losing $50 after 8 hours of play in his first trip to Vegas and feel good about himself. You lost money and gave up 8 hours, but at least you know you can hang with everyone else.

Maybe it's just a matter of personal preference, but I'm trying to show you all my perspective so that I can hopefully elicit yours. If just simply don't like reading what I have to say, maybe you should reexamine your own personal motivations for playing this game.

I meant having to cash in for $10,000 more chips because your first $40,000 in chips is gone (and to make it worse, you may have even been in positive territory just an hour ago). So were we at 0 or +1? Or was it -1? Better not screw that up now!

Of course you wouldn't bet $10,000 on a single hand in a $100 game. I'm no expert card counter, but I understand that mathematics and the principles, and besides, you don't have to be an expert to see my point.

With a $100 avg bet, you're playing with a $100 base bet. If your base bet was $50, you would not be averaging bets of $100 since the true count is only 2 or greater about 25% of the time. So you are really betting with only 500 units, which increases your ROR significantly.

This $200/hr. nonsense is based on a 100 hand/hr. model. If you are playing 100 hands per hour than you, the dealer, and everyone at the table would have to be bumping methamphetamine. They would not be drinking, thinking about whether or not to split their 8's, or chatting with the dealer and each other like most casino goers. In other words, you will not likely play 100 hands/hr. Try 50-70 if you're lucky.

Now that we're all approaching planet earth again (even though we're still talking about 10 hours of weekly play with a $50,000 bankroll) I will concede that you can make $100/hr. But that's only one chip in this fantasy game we're talking about. And if the pitbosses are even remotely competent they'll be completely onto you. At that point, they're the ones that decide when you quit playing, and I don't think that works to anyone's advantage.

But that's fine. What is worthwhile to me may not be to you. We each have to decide whether the EV of our play justifies the time spent learning and playing and the risk of loss involved.

Card counting is a proposition where you invest a certain number of hours up front learning (and additional hours of ongoing learning), and then risk X dollars at a risk of Y% of losing it all and an expected value of gaining Z$ per hour. These variables are different for each person, although the risk / reward ratio is similar.

We would probably all have different takes on the overall value of this endeavor, and it probably is not right for everyone. It sounds like the overall proposition is not worthwhile to you and that is your choice. I am just saying that it is worthwhile to me.

My other point is that it is necessary to be consistent and use realistic examples to prove your argument.

if you make $200/hour you could double your bankroll every two months...I don't know of many other investment plans that can earn at that rate with as little risk....using your numbers.

players 100h/hr is about the norm...heads up at a shoe game you can get well over 150, often 200 hands per hour. You've an obvious weakness in your knowledge base. I suggest reading a few of our Webmasters books and comming back in a few months Renaissance Man.