 |
FRONT PAGE - Back to THE ADVISOR PAGE
Dear Gamemaster: Thanks,
Dear 'Big',
Yours for winning,
GameMaster,
Thanks,
Dear Matt,
So that answers your first question. The pivot point is the running count
at which you begin to raise your bet. Remember that it's a pivot point per
deck, so if you're at a single-deck game it's +2, at a double-deck game, the
pivot point is a count of +4, etc.
As for a betting strategy, it all depends upon your starting bankroll. A
rule which has served me well is to set a maximum bet of 1/50th of your
total bankroll. Thus, a $3000 bankroll would call for a $60 top bet. If
you were playing the $5 table, you could go to $10 at the pivot point and
add $10 for each count of +2 (again, per deck) by which the count rises.
For example, at a six-deck game, at a count of +12, bet $10, +14, bet $20,
etc. up to a maximum of $60.
I hope this rather lengthy explanation helps you.
Report on Kenny Rogers: I have spent over $200. on the craps game and can tell you that the computer will generate results to make you lose every time. Definitely NOT recommended for craps game. Report on RiverBelle: seems quite fair to me and very much like the real thing even though results are computer-generated. I HIGHLY recommend the Riverbelle's craps game.
These are honest opinions based on my experience
and given without prejudice. Dear Sylvie, I'm not surprised over your reaction to the Riverbelle; in my experience they run a 'clean ship'. Yours for winning,The GameMaster 8/18/98 Dear Gamemaster, I've been playing BJ on online casinos (riverbelle and gaming club) for a solid week (40hrs) for funny money. I'm slowly comming to the conclusion that it is impossible to beat their game even a little bit. No penetration and double on 9, 10 and 11 is not much fun. Too much of a house edged. I do much better with land based casinos. I realize that you cannot comment, but do you know of a "chat room" where I can talk to other cyber BJ players.
Keep up the good work on your web site.
Almost giving up on cybercasinos. You're right; you cannot beat cybercasinos. As for Blackjack 'chat', check out The Blackjack Page at www.bj21.com/
Yours for winning, GameMaster, Just got back from Biloxi; the Blackjack at the President Casino is great! Am working on a story of my trip there.
Yours for winning,
Dear GameMaster, I am starting to get into the internet casino scene and appreciate your reviews. What would be helpful to me (and maybe others) would be to include their rules and payouts in their advertisements or in your reviews. Many of the online casinos are reluctant to give them out until after you download or sign up a cash account; lot of time wasted! I have been avoiding these.
Best rules I've seen so far is at Acropolis Casino. If they allowed a $1 or $2
minimum I would play more often. Thanks for the idea, Tony. Perhaps we can start a page where the rules for various casinos are posted. Readers, it's up to you. If you'll send us the rules, we'll post them.
Yours for winning, GameMaster,
Dear Ray,
Yours for winning, Hi! Just wanted to let you know that I found your Blackjack Classic Series a great teaching aid for us novices. It sure made a believer out of me that BJ is beatable. Unfortunately, I live in the Philippines and the number of casinos here is very small and all controlled by just one company, the Philippine Amusement and Games Corporation (PAGCOR). I am interested in trying out my luck in the ONLINE gambling sites that proliferate in the Internet. So far, I've encountered a lot of sites where the counting system could not be used because the online casinos shuffle the deck AFTER EACH HAND!! Although there were a few sites which offered six deck games, they also shuffled after only a 33.3% penetration or two decks into play. Still, this is no good as per your lessons. I was wondering if you knew of any casino sites that would offer us a chance to use the counting method or if you could refer me to people who might be able to help me out. I'm really looking forward to hearing from you and hopefully, with some good references so that I can join you guys as serious BJ players. Dear Gilbert, I am not aware of any online casino where counting is effective.
Yours for winning, Went to Harrahs yesterday and did good thanks to your suggestions.
Really appreciate it.
Next thing I have to learn is how to walk away with more of my winnings. I
managed to walk away with some. Difficult to do when you're winning and start
losing. I hung in too long on some play. Glad to help.
Yours for winning,
Hi there, Lots & lots of great info. I will be a keen supporter. Two points. 1. On the Hot tips page you have the following tips. A Video Blackjack Hot Tip says... More good video Blackjack is available in St. Louis. The Admiral casino has added 10 machines where the basic strategy player can get a small edge over the house. The minimum bet is a mere 25 cents and the max is $2.50. For more details, go to the Video Poker Message Board. Sorry, we used to have a video poker message board which was recently taken down to make room for the Casino Survival Guide. Further info on All American video poker on the Admiral can be found on the Best of St. Louis page. A Video Blackjack Hot Tips says... Good video Blackjack has always been an oxymoron to me, until now. I've found a quarter video Blackjack game where you can get an edge just playing proper basic strategy. The full story is on the Video Poker Board. Just click the tab up top. Again, that's gone. The Blackjack can be found on a game called Williams Multi-Play on the Admiral Casino and Harrah's 'Mardi Gras' here in St. Louis and many other casinos nationwide. 2. I tried to get to the page http//www.flash.net/~vista/ so as to download Graeme's flashcards. No go. The page is unaccessable. Have addresses been changed here by any chance? Graeme moved back to Australia and his site is no longer working. We are going to set up a transfer point on our site to make this excellent program available to all our readers. Once again all strength to you for your great page. I have joined flash reports under the address sd@eudoramail.com and look forward to reading many reports etc etc.
Thanks for all the kind words; sorry for the inconvenience.
Go well,
Your welcome. GameMaster, If you have any time, I would greatly appreciate it if you would answer my question. Like I said, I have read your articles on blackjack and already knowing basic stratergy and the basics of card counting I was very interested in your articles. However, after the shuffle, the dealer(where I play) cuts the cards, usually putting a third away and leaving only two thirds of the shuffled cards in the shoe to be dealt. I was just wondering, is this normal and does counting cards give you much of an advantage (if all)? How should I go about counting cards if one third of the deck is already gone? Do I just begin counting from the first hand dealt out? I'm sorry for pestering you with these questions but if anyone can help them with them, it is you. And once again, congradulations and thank you for the articles that you have written to try and help "us" beat the casino for a change.
Regards
Dear Bella, Regarding the very unusual technique of taking a third of the shoe and removing it from play, if the dealer then proceeds to use all the cards in the shoe, you have a game which offers 66% penetration. If, however, the dealer puts away a third and does not deal all the cards in the shoe, you have a game with less than 66% penetration. In my lessons I state that it is not worth your time to play at a game with less than 65% penetration. In other words, at a six-deck game you must see at least 203 cards out of a 312 (6 X 52) card shoe to even begin to think that the game is beatable. The technique you use here is to just begin counting as the first hand is played; those 'missing' cards are treated as though they're behind the shuffle card.
Yours for winning, GameMaster 1. What is your opinion of BJ on these internet casinos? It seems that all of them (at least the ones that I've seen) shuffle the shoe after every hand; this takes away the advantage of card counting (I am learning to count). Is this an advantage for the house or the player. By shuffling the deck after every hand, card-counting is rendered useless. This is to the casino's advantage in that the edge they enjoy because of their rules cannot be overcome. But, on many sites, the rules are pretty good, so the casino's edge is probably no more than .5%. While you cannot expect to win in the long run, you can have good winning sessions. Just don't over-bet. 2. How do you know wether or not the casino (online) is rigging the cards? The soft ware can be made to do anything. Is there a gaming comission that oversees these online casinos? You have no way of knowing whether or not a casino is 'rigging' the cards. I play at several and feel comfortable at them, since I've never seen anything at them which I haven't seen at a 'real' casino. There is no gaming commission which oversees the online casinos, but a lot of them try to run 'clean' operations since word of cheating travals quickly on the 'Net. That said, be aware that there are cheaters out there. 3. In my state, South Carolina, we have video poker machines. What is your opinion ot these? Can they be rigged to vary the cards depending on the success of the player? Video poker machines can be fixed to give a specified percentage return, just like a slot machine, in spite of the pay schedule. I don't know about the games in South Carolina, but it seems to me that they have little to gain by rigging the machines if, as I've heard, the pay schedules offer a low return. See my series called 'Pick a Game' on the Video Poker page for the pay schedules of 'good' games. Compare those with the games at your favorite casino and you'll likely have the answer.
I've had a few good hits at Harrahs in Cherokee and on the Acropolis Casino
(online); the rush feels good.
Thanks in advance, You're welcome.
Yours for winning,
Hi Awesome 1, Thanks Edi
Yours for winning,
Dear Gamemaster,
Dear Tammie,
Yours for winning,
GameMaster,
Dear Ray,
Yours for winning,
Dear GameMaster,
Dear Big,
Yours for winning, GameMaster, Thank you Thanks for the compliments. As a matter of fact, we are in the process of creating a new addition to our site called "The GameMaster's Guide to Casino Survival" (or something like that) and slots, keno, roulette and all the other games will be carefully examined and explained. Now understand, all these games have a built-in casino edge, so you can't beat them in the long run, but we'll show you how to get the best bang for your buck. Stay tuned.
Yours for winning, Hi Gamemaster, There are two laws which, independently, I feel quite comfortable with; but which I can't seem to reconcile with each other. (1) Law of large numbers (allow me to paraphrase) which states that after a million spins of a roulette wheel, the final results should be very close to 500,000 blacks and 500,000 reds (assuming for simplicity that there are no greens). This is true. (2) Law of independent events which states that the past has no effect on the future when you're dealing with independent events like dice rolling, roulette wheels, and, if I might add, blackjack games where the cards are shuffled after each hand. Also true. But I have great difficulty when I imagine a scenario where after 500,000 spins, black is ahead 275,000 to 225,000 (quite possible, wouldn't you agree?) Not likely in that large a sample, assuming the wheel is in balance. Wouldn't the odds on the next 500,000 spins be skewed towards red for the first rule to be correct? But obviously, this can't be right. Sample size isn't large enough, you might say. Okay, so let's make it 100,000,000 spins. After 50,000,000 spins isn't is possible for black to be ahead 27,500,000 to 22,500,000? Again, not likely. Remember that as the sample size gets larger, the percentage of each event will get closer and closer to the expectation. If we were flipping a coin, the expectation is 50% 'heads' and 50% 'tails'. In a sample of 10 tosses, we'd expect 5 heads and 5 tails, but may well have 7 heads and 3 tails. However, as our sample size grows, we'll get closer and closer to 50%, BUT the actual number which one side leads the other will increase. For example, at 100,000 tosses we may be at 49.5% heads and 50.5% tails, thus tails lead heads by 1% or an actual number of 1000. At 1,000,000 tosses, we may be at 49.75% heads and 50.25% tails, but tails has actually come up 50,000 more times than heads!! At what point does it even up? That's the question you're asking and the answer is: It may never hit exactly 50-50. So, in a practical sense, you could spend a lifetime betting on the 'catch up' and never see it. Remember that my example is a 'fair' game and the house has a huge edge in roulette, so it's even more difficult to capitalize on this. I'm not trying to be confrontational. But this is something I can't quite reconcile in my mind.
Thanks. I hope this helps. Just got a chance to finally download and unzip the program for the BJ Flashcards, and wanted to profusely thank you for posting it to the net. I really like it, and hope to use it now that I am changing over from Hi/Low to KO blackjack. Once again, thank you very much, for putting up a very useful program to the net.
Warm regards,
Dear Mike,
Yours for winning, [Back to the top] |