Blackjack Update
Rather than a lengthy discussion of the math involved, I will just give an update of my prowess. (Gee I hope this doesn’t come across as arrogant) After prepping myself for about a month in card counting and achieving a target deck countdown of 15 seconds, I have now moved on to actual play. Based on statistics, I would have to say that I am in the positive part of the curve right now cause I am ahead. I am not too suprised that I am ahead though since I am being overly cautious in my play.
I am wonging out of single deck games which I am sure will garner some attention from the eye in the sky. I am also using an unbalanced count since I am have not praticed deck estimation. Easier to have hard numbers rather than deal with fractions but with time and practice, I am sure the difficulty will fade and will just become a memory. In fact, thinking about it, I laugh at how long it took me to count down a single deck without mistakes the first time. It was a probably about 1:45 to 2:00 minutes. I remember in the beginning that I had to recount a deck 3 times cause I made so many mistakes. Nowadays I can countdown a 6 deck shoe in the same time with no errors. Also, when I first tried to count cards and play, what a disaster. Of course nowadays I am counting, playing, sizing bets and watching TV all at the same time. The next obvious step will be to do that and hold a conversation and drink hard liquor as well. That will be a challenge too but, like all the challenges before me, I am sure the difficulty will fade and accuracy will prevail. Anyways, on to the numbers…
So I have been playing seriously while counting for only 2 days. I gave myself a bankroll of $500 and have been playing red chips ($5) as my unit. The max bet I have been making is 4 units though I have not hesitated to make that 8 units when I need to double or split as strategy dictates. Quite a hairy thing to have $40 out on the table but I only make such bets in those situations that dictate and even if I lose, I know that it’s just caught up in the statistical variance. That’s really the hard part about counting cards, learning to detach yourself from your money. Don’t let emotions and money mix when your doing this or you’ll be afraid to put that $40 out and not have the potential win from it. Or perhaps that one $20 bet became a $30 win on a blackjack (as has happened to me several times already). If you just put out $5 cause you lost the last hand you would only have won $7.50. Anyway, enough rant..
In 2 days at this level of action I have made $300. Big deal, right? Well, let’s break that down. $150 a day. If I break that down, my hourly rate for a single 8hr day is $18.75. Not too bad. Especially considering my total play time for both days was about 3 hours. If we break that down we see that I am really making about $100 an hour. So let me break it down once more in detail…
The first day I was playing for a short time when all of a sudden, the count rises a lot. So I bet big into the next hand and pull a blackjack against a dealer stiff. The count is still pretty high after that and I bet big into the next hand and pull a 20 to another deal stiff. At this point it’s shuffle time (I am assuming a 55%-65% penetration) and I am up. The next deal plays out well and I am up even more. Since it happened so quickly I am ecstatic and quit at $75 ahead for the day. That was $75 in about 25 minutes. So today when I started, Variance reared it’s ugly head and my $75 ahead became almost $100 behind. Ouch! And again, it happened so quickly. But being determined to ride it out (ignoring the emotion of losing $100 in 20 minutes) I muscle on and after another 1.5 hours of steady climbing I am about where I was yesterday. I was getting ready to throw in the towel when the count raises REALLY HIGH again (like +12) and so I bet big into the next few hands including a double of a max bet and a split of a max bet and all of a sudden, I am WAY ahead to the tune of $300 of my original bankroll. $800 from an original $500 and never dipping below $400. Pretty good if you ask me, but I am wary to know that variance will rear her ugly head again, and at this low of a bankroll, could potentially wipe me out. Trusting the math is hard, but to consistently make money, you’ve got to do it.
I will post more on this as time goes on and who knows, maybe the next time I post I will be able to be drunk and play at the same time.