I hate traffic. I will do almost anything to avoid driving in traffic. If I HAVE to drive during rush hour, I try to bring my infant son with me so I can use the HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lane bypass getting stuck in the slow lanes. I just can’t understand spending an hour getting somewhere when I can be strategic about what time I drive, or finding a legal way to use the HOV lane, so I can get to the same place in half an hour. It’s just a way to get double the return on my time. It’s the same thing as picking a checkout line with no one in it at the grocery store, or looking for the gas station pump with the fewest cars lined up for it.  I view everything this way. And I believe what has made me obsessed with this idea is card counting. I see advantage card counters pay no attention to the choices they make concerning playing conditions, and it drives me nuts. When I walk into a casino, I’m not there for social interaction; I’m there to make money. Every decision I make is based on that concept. If I walk into a casino and have an option between a table with 4 people playing at it and another table that has no one playing at it, I know I can play twice as many hands in an hour with just me and the dealer. If there’s two identical tables, one with a fast dealer and the other with a slow dealer, I’ll pick the fast dealer (because odds are I’m waiting on the dealer much more than they are waiting on me). If I have the option between a game with 8 decks and average rules, or 6 decks with better rules, it’s a no-brainer. I’m not going to work twice as hard to make the same amount of money. I’m going to be strategic about the conditions I chose.  A lot of newbie card counters think the best way to make more money at it is to learn an incredibly complex card counting system. But consider this: if you can play a complex system that generates an extra 20% higher $/hr, but I can play a simpler system for 50% more hands/hr, I’m going to make much more money than you. But I better go. I have to run some errands before the afternoon rush hour.

This ad for the movie has Jim Sturgess talk about card counting as the cardinal sin of vegas because you are beating the house. It is comical how casinos suggest that you should come and beat them at their game to lure you in the doors but if they find that you are actually doing it they kick you out.

Fellow Iphone users:
Follow these easy directions to turn your iphone into a blackjack
super computer:
1. Create an iphoto album called “bj” or “charts” or whatever
2. Drag the Basic Strategy chart into the album. If you don’t have it already download it here. You can drag the deviation chart in there too if you have a premium membership.
3. Plug in your iphone and under “info” command your iphone to sync
all of the pictures in the “bj” pics folder from iphoto
4. The charts will be under photos
5. For higher resolution images I recommend emailing the whole pdf file to
yourself. The two problems with this is that sometimes it takes a
while to download and these are also inaccessible if you do not have
edge network access.

You hear every single type of superstition at the blackjack table. Lots of people like to think they understand the “flow of the cards”. I’ve sat next to a guy who was trying to teach me how to think the value of the dealer’s undercard into existence, stating quantum theories and abstract philosophies as proof that such powers do exist. Fellow gamblers don’t want you jumping in and out of shoes or changing the number of hands your playing because you will somehow screw up the cards. “Third base” often feels the pressure to stand on hands he or she should hit so to not steal the dealer’s bust card. Some people get mad at the dealer thinking he or she is somehow responsible for the cards that come out.

In order to be a successful blackjack player you have to realize that this is all nonsense. The cards are shuffled and everything is completely random. The cards have no mind of their own. I can’t think cards into existence, and just because you’ve noticed some sort of pattern or “flow of the cards” does not mean that the same pattern or flow will continue on the next hand. It is all random.

There is an near infinite sequence of cards that can come out of a six deck shoe and the only thing that you can be sure of is that mathematically the more you play blackjack the more you are going to loose because the casino has the edge. The only weapon a blackjack player has at his or her disposal is to use a system of counting to know which cards have come out of the shoe, and thus, which cards have a higher probabiliy of coming out next. If the shoe is saturated with high cards the advantage shifts to the player. So if you play basic strategy blackjack when there is a disproportionate amount of high cards left then you will win in the end.

Don’t try and pretend like you have a read on the cards, or a system, or an eye for patterns. These are just excuses to justify gambling. Learn a simple counting system like Hi-Lo and know when you have the advantage.

I was sitting next to a guy at a double deck table last week who was on a streak. He was payed out 1000 dollars for his recent win doubling down on an 11 and drawing a 10. He grabbed the chips and held them up, “Thanks for the temporary money,” he said to the dealer.”Temporary money?” I asked.”Well, when I win big I just keep playing until I give it all back.”This guy understood that playing blackjack in a casino is a losing proposition. He knew that if he bet money at the table, it would be smart to think of it as ‘temporary money.’ It helps take the edge off the losing streaks.You know as well as anyone else that blackjack, in the long run, is a negative valuation game. The casino will beat you in the long run because they have the advantage (that is how they can afford those nice buildings). Even if you just went on a streak plan on giving that money back later or stop playing all together.A lot of people come up with a whole bunch of psychological mind tricks to ignore this fact. One of those mind tricks is “I know how to count cards.” But you don’t really know how to do it. You just know enough to think you know how to do it. Maybe you read a book or watched a video online showing you the plus-minus system.Most of the time, when I’m talking to someone who uses this mind trick to help them justify playing a game they can’t win, I find out they don’t even use basic strategy. They are playing with the odds against them and just hoping to get lucky and stay lucky. This is just mindless gambling.I urge you, if you find yourself playing blackjack consistently, learn how to beat the game. We have all of the training you will need at our site for free. You can learn the skills and take the edge away from the house. Don’t learn halfway. Don’t pretend like you know enough. Make this happen for yourself right now.

To beat the game of Blackjack you have to know Basic Strategy and play it perfectly. A lot of people think they know Basic Strategy but really only know some of it.

Basic Strategy is an incredible aid to your Blackjack game and can bring you up to a .05% disadvantage to the house if used correctly. People who do not play Basic Strategy can easily have a 4-5% disadvantage.

The Basic Strategy Chart shows every hand possibilities between you and the dealer and the correct action for each hand. Actions include hitting, standing, splitting, doubling down. Below are a bunch of examples of Basic Strategy Charts. As you can see they all look different but give you the same information. I didn’t look these over to make sure there wasn’t any mistakes so don’t use them. Download ours here.

There are certain things Basic Strategy tells you to do that a lot of people don’t do, such as Hit a 16 verses a 10. When you have a 16 and the dealer is showing a 10 you know you have a bad hand, and it feels like the chances of busting are so high that you would rather chance it to just see if the Dealer has a bad under-card and busts instead of you. This is why a lot of people don’t hit their 16’s when they don’t “feel it”.

I was playing at a casino and hitting my 16’s and busting almost everytime. I chuckled to the dealer, “Well, you got to play Basic Strategy, right?”

The dealer disagreed. “Basic Strategy is based on a computer playing millions of hands. I know I’m not playing millions of hands so I have to adjust.”

The dealer was right about where Basic Strategy came from. During the advent of computers, we were able to find out statistically what the best action for any given hand was. To find this out the computer would simulate millions of hands and see which actions were best in the long run.

But the dealer was wrong in advocating to change Basic Strategy based on one session.

It is like if you had a ten sided dice and six sides were red and the remaining four were blue. Assuming the pay out was 1:1 on whether you bet on red or blue what would you bet on? You should always choose red. Even if the dice are on a “blue streak.” If you keep playing, and most people who go to a casino go back and play more, you will win in the end. This is the same for a 100 sided dice, where 51 sides are red and 49 sides are blue. It might seem like there is a very long blue streak but every time you make a bet you should bet red. This is how casinos operate and make their millions. This is how you should operate too.

You might find some discrepancies in Basic Strategy charts. This is due to the fact that some blackjack games have different rules and people change actions that are very, very close to begin with. Or it is due to the fact that someone recreated the chart and was sloppy. You can use our Basic Strategy chart, which is accurate and good for all H17 and S17 games. Download here.

People will make the craziest decisions playing blackjack and deviate from Basic Strategy left and right. Sometimes they get lucky and win their hand. But in the long run, those kind of deviations will loose you money. In order to be a successful blackjack player you have to think about the long term.

There are times to deviate from Basic Strategy, but to know precisely when those are you have to be counting cards. To go back to the 16 vs 10 example - if you are counting cards you will deviate from this action often since it is very close. As soon as the remaining decks becomes even a little “10″ heavy (anything over a running 0) you will stop hitting 16’s vs 10.

Don’t do this on a hunch or because you just saw a bunch of little cards. You need to be counting accurately to know when the deviation really occurs. With the example we have been using (a 16 vs a 10) the cost of making the wrong decision in the long run is only pennies even with a large bet. But other actions will be worth much more and every penny saved is a penny earned.