What blackjack tables are best to play at if you are a card counter?
Thursday, January 26th, 2012 at
7:06 pm
I know its hard to believe, but I am 13 and have mastered card counting, basic strategy, and everything there is to know about the game of Blackjack. I can count through an entire deck in an average of 32 seconds. I know its better to play at games with less decks, but which tables are better? The ones that payoff 3-2 or 6-5? or is their another one?
Tagged with: Blackjack • decks • game • Games
Filed under: Blackjack
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Work hard and keep to your studies. Making money in blackjack is not likely going to be in your future.
First of all, if you don’t know whether 3-2 or 6-5 is better, then you are not smart enough to count cards profitably. 3-2 compared to 6-5 is the difference between being able to successfully profit and NOT being able to profit at all.
Figure it out. Seriously. Would you rather be paid $3 for every $2 you wager, or would you rather be paid $6 for every $5 you wager? It’s not even close.
So what tables are best? The ones with the most favorable rules to the player. Favorable rules include being able to surrender, being able to double down after splits, the dealer standing on soft 17, being able to split aces, being able to split multiple times, amongst a few other things.
Truly, though – the most important thing anyone can tell you is this: Life is harder and harder for people to make a living. Yes – YOU will need to make a living someday. You are deluded if you actually think you’ll make it by counting cards. This is NOT a life-plan. If you don’t work hard at your studies now, you’ll be in for a very hard life.
So what? So does that mean you should never bother counting cards? No. Someday when you’re old enough to play in a casino, if you actually get good enough to make it a worthwhile hobby. It will never be much more than that, and it’s not even likely to be that. MOST people who try to make money this way fail miserably.
pick one……
You don’t know how to count cards. You know how to keep the running count of a single deck of cards. That’s like 1/20th of the information you need to make money counting cards in a casino. If you want to really learn to do it right, you need to read a real book on card counting.
I could tell you which tables are the best in Vegas to count cards on, but what’s the point? 8 years from now, those games will likely be gone. Counting cards might by totally out the window anyway. As soon as casinos decide to start pointing cameras at the tables that can keep the count (which is very close BTW), counting will be 100% obsolete.
Seriously, find a new hobby. When you turn 20, if counting is still viable, you’ll have a whole year to master counting. That’s plenty of time if you’re reasonably intelligent. There are much better things you could be learning right now though.
If you try to cheat the casino they will take you to jail.
I find it hard to believe that you can count cards if you don’t know whether a 3:2 or a 6:5 Blackjack table is better.
Simply from a heuristic point of view, if you have a $100 bet and get a blackjack, would you rather get paid $150 or $120? Even a 13-year-old who doesn’t know anything about gambling or counting cards can tell you that $150 is more money than $120. Clearly, you don’t know "everything there is to know about the game of Blackjack."
From a more mathematically rigorous point of view, paying off blackjacks at 6:5 rather than 3:2 increases the house edge by 1.35%. This difference alone is enough to offset a true hi-lo count of +3.
A dealer that’s allowed to hit on soft 17 increases the house edge by 0.2%.
Being able to double down after a split is worth 0.14%.
Being able to double down on any two cards (as opposed to 9, 10, or 11) is worth 0.1%.
Resplitting aces gives you 0.07%.
Being able to hit split aces gives you almost 0.20%.
Being able to surrender gives you 0.08%.
My question is where at 13 are you going to be playing blackjack! Btw, 6-5 on a blackjack is almost even money!! That’s a pretty easy concept to figure out.