I just got back from a great extended weekend trip in Las Vegas. I had a chance to play at a bunch of casinos. The most fun I had was playing alongside a couple of my friends, who are both non-counters. In fact, they don't even make all perfect basic strategy plays. I'm not sure if this helped disguise my counting or not, but I tried my best to look like a novice too.
At one point, with a very positive count, I was dealt a 15 against the dealer 10. Using KO preferred, any running count over the pivot point (+4) says you stand instead of hit in this case. So I stand. She busted. When she flips over my cards, she chastized me for standing and making the "wrong" play. I pouted that I had busted the last 10 times I hit a 15 against a 10, and this way I at least had a chance to win. She told me I should always hit a 15 vs. a ten, but 16 vs. a ten could go either way. She advised me to pick a rule and always stick to it. So I tell her in my best ploppy impression, "Well if I always did the same thing, it wouldn't be gambling, now would it?" ;o)
I left the table after about 1 hour, and my friends stuck around. When I rejoined them later, they were laughing because after I left, she told them that I was a bad blackjack player. She said I just got lucky. I never really thought about it, but to the untrained eye, a good AP player with some decent cover would look like a bad basic strategy player (doesn't always adhere to BS) that lucks out and just happens to win most big bets.
