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FRONT PAGE - Back to THE ADVISOR PAGE GameMaster, Hi!
But let me ask you this: Have you ever considered using the "Ace-5" count?
It has enough power to get you about even with the house in a multi-deck
game and, since you're only tracking two cards - the Aces and the 5s - it's
as easy to use as the count you're working on, yet it can be kept much more
accurately. I wrote an article on this called "I Am Not a Blackjack
Fanatic" and you can find it in the archives of the "Blackjack Page" of my
site. In it you'll find a complete explanation of how to use it, including
a betting schedule.
Yours for winning,
Dear GameMaster,
During my first trip to Vegas last week, I applied all of your advice and
came out ahead!!! Not much, but at least I didn't lose. My wife and I also
had a great time. She ended up playing the $10 tables at the Flamingo. My
wife is not a big gambler, yet.
While there, I met my brother-in-law who is a roulette player. He watched
me at
the BJ table one night after he ran out of money playing roulette. Next day
we went to the Sahara (they have several $1 tables) and I taught him how to
play basic strategy. He is now hooked on BJ. In fact, he didn't play
roulette
for the rest of the trip. When I left to catch my plane, I left him at the
Flamingo on the $10 table!!!
While I was playing, I met a dealer who was pretty helpful and interesting.
He'd been dealing for over 30 years and had many good stories to tell.
I have questions on the following advice he gave me:
1. Double against an ace? He said this is something new even though it goes
against basic strategy.
2. Don't split 8's against a 10 or ace? Same reason as above.
This dealer was at the Imperial Palace; 4 deck shoe; dealer hits on soft 17,
re-splitting (except aces) and doubling is allowed. (several $3 minimum
tables).
I found two good casinos (as far as rules are concerned) on the strip:
Flamingo and Monte Carlo. They both offered surrender, 4 deck, 70 to 80
percent penetration, re-splitting (except aces) and doubling. They both also
had a two deck pitch table but did not offer surrender. Lowest table was $5.
I think the surrender option offers a better advantage than the disadvantage
of the dealer hitting on soft 17. Correct??
I also found a single deck pitch game at Binion's Horseshoe (lowest table
was
$5). No surrender but the dealer stays on soft 17. According to my calcs
(thanks to you) the advantage for this game was the same as the 4 deck game
at Flamingo and Monte Carlo; however, I had a blast. This was a serious
place. Dealers did not kibitz; players did not talk a lot, most of them knew
how to play and I won $200 in two hours playing $5 and $10 bets: Not bad for
a novice like me.
One more piece of advice I got from the dealer at the Imperial Place. When
you win one hand increase your bet and keep increasing until you lose a
hand. Then start over. I tried it and it worked. I just hate losing that
last big hand.
Is this good betting strategy??? What is your strategy for betting?
Lastly, the one thing I noticed was that most players lacked knowledge of
Basic Strategy. Even on the $10 tables. I found this amazing! No wonder the
casinos are making money. Lot of suckers out there. I guess that's good for
us. If it weren't for them the rules would bet tighter and that would be bad
for us.
Again, thanks for you excellent web site and good advice. I am now ready to
advance my skills. Looking forward to my next trip to Vegas. My
appreciation for the
game has increased immensely thanks to you. Keep up the good work.
Yours for the winning,
Hello, Tony. Thanks for the feedback. It's always good to hear that we've been able to
help one of our faithful readers have a successful trip.
The dealer you met was correct only in part of what he advises. He's right
in recommending a double of an 11 against a dealer's Ace in his game,
because they hit soft 17, but that applies only to 11. He's wrong on
everything else. It's always proper to split 8s against a dealer's 10 or
Ace in the that game because, even though you'll still lose, you lose less
by doing so, in the long run.. As for raising your bet until you lose a
hand, that's worthless advice. I raise my bet ONLY when the count
indicates I have an advantage. There is no correlation between winning a
hand and what your success will be on the next hand, unless you're counting
cards.
Yours for winning, GameMaster, The casino's edge on this game is about 0.65% if the player uses the proper
basic strategy. It is necessary to count cards in order to overcome that
edge and, even then, it would be very difficult to make a profit. Just how
far the casino deals into the shoe has a lot to do with that, but if they
deal out 75% of the cards and you use a 1-12 betting spread, you'd still
have only about a 0.75% average advantage. Better to "backcount" the game
(don't bet until the count shows you have an edge and leave when the count
goes minus) and use a 1-8 betting spread. That way, you could get an
average edge of about 1.25%.
Yours for winning, Hi GameMaster,
Your student, Kelly.
Hello, Kelly.
Playing perfect Basic Strategy alone will not give you an advantage over
the casino. Depending upon the rules which the casino offers, their edge
may range from 0.00% to 0.85% or more and , in the long run, you would
expect to lose that percentage of all the $$$ you bet. For example, if a
casino's edge is 0.50% and you were betting an average of $10 per hand,
your expected loss over 2000 hands of play would be $10 X 2000 = $20,000 X
.005 = $100. It's not very likely that the result would be exactly -$100;
you could easily show a profit of $200 or a loss of $300, but the reality
is that you'll lose in the long run.
To gain an edge over the casino, you must either find a game with rules
that are so favorable that they give the Basic Strategy player an edge
(rare in the 'real' world, but there are quite a few to be found at
Internet casinos) or you need to count cards.
All of my various Blackjack lessons will teach you how to do this, so just
work through them and contact me if you need help.
Yours for winning, Hello. Hello, Barry.
Yours for winning, GameMaster, Hi, Terry.
Yours for winning, Hi GameMaster,
Hello, Kevin.
Yours for winning, The following is Global-Player's prompt response to the email of Mr. T., addressed to the GameMaster dated May 4th, 2000. The GameMaster answered the email (also see below) and forwarded the original to Global-Player for comments. -the editor Dear Mr. T. (name removed)
I am sorry to hear that you have had some difficulties with Global Player
and I would like to take this opportunity to clear up some of the problems
that you experienced.
Our bonus policy is restricted to a $30 Welcome bonus to all new users.
Naturally, this bonus can only be given once, as it is only intended for
first time users to test our casino for content, comfort and security.
From our records you have opened two accounts, one with user name
"********" and the other with user name "*********". On the first account you
deposited $1 and received the Welcome bonus of $30. On the second, no bonus
was granted for the reasons explained above.
On this second account, you attempted to deposit $20 using a MasterCard
which was declined by the Credit Card clearing company. The reasons for
rejecting a Credit Card is never divulged to us, so we are unable to give
you any further details of why your transactions were refused.
You then used a VisaCard and deposited $20 with another deposit of $20 three
minutes later. The second deposit could only have been made by going back
into the Cashier window and re-entering your password and other required
details. It is impossible to inadvertently 'double' click or duplicate a
transaction by mistake.
These deposits were made on the 3rd of May, and you played several Blackjack
games with the original $40 deposit. On the 4th of May you again continued
playing on both single and multi-player Blackjack and eventually stopped
playing with $0.50 left on your account.
With regard to the speed of the multi player games, our server logs show
that your Internet connection at that time was extremely slow, and
consequently, the bad connection caused the problem of slow cards. However,
if your connection had been any slower you would have been moved onto a
single player game where Internet round-trip times are not so critical. Mr. T, all of the above could and would have been cleared up in an
amicable manner, if you had brought it to our attention. However, I am
unable to find any correspondence whatsoever regarding the 3 e-mails you
mention in your message to GameMasterOnline. Your statement that none of
your messages were responded to, is extremely serious to us, and I would be
very grateful if you could help to identify these messages by copying to me
the originals, together with the 'headers' indicating date and time, and I
will investigate further.
I hope I have managed to alleviate some of the frustration you feel towards
Global Player, but in our business it does not pay to have unhappy users, as
we rely on good customer relations and customer satisfaction to promote our
Casino and to make sure that everyone is as comfortable as possible.
To enable you to give us another try, I will be only too happy to add
another $30 bonus onto your account so that you can sample and appreciate
the uniqueness of Global Player once again.
Looking forward to your reply.
Ted Hayat Hello, You should really try this site out for money before recommending it. I
realize you cannot play for money in your state'; however, if you are going
to recommend a site, perhaps you can ask some of your fans (who play for
money) for their opinion. I have played some other sites that where much better than this.
Any comments?
Hello, Tony.
Regarding my reviews, I try to point out the limitations under which I'm
operating, so my scores are based solely upon what my experience was at
that casino in the play-money mode as well as the types of games offered,
the indicated payouts, etc. It's a flawed system, I realize, but is it any
worse than those "reviews" done by what I call "banner farms" where they
receive a portion of your losses? I'm sure you've seen them and their
comments like, "the graphics are cool" and other meaningless drivel like
that which do absolutely nothing to help the player. You had a bad
experience here and I wish it hadn't happened, but all I can do is try to
sort out the good from the bad and then let the players make up their own
minds about how right or wrong I was. This entire site is dedicated to
helping the player, but it has its limitations and in your particular case,
I obviously wasn't of any help.
Not answering your e-mail is, in my opinion, inexcusable but there may be a
reason for them failing to do so. I've got your side of the story and now
I'd like to hear theirs. We'll post this, I'll write them and then we'll
see what happens.
Yours for winning, GameMaster, Keep up the good work. Hi, Tony
Good luck and let us know how you make out.
Yours for winning, Hello Gamemaster,
My question: Hi, Chris.
As for practicing the Basic Strategy sims, I always coached my students to
do one every 4 seconds. So for 300 of them, it should take you no longer
than 20 minutes or so. Speed is important because if you know something
really well, you can do it quickly.
I hope this helps.
Yours for winning, Hi GameMaster,
You know, GalaxiWorld had an even BETTER game when they first opened...their
Deuces Wild game was a wacky paytable that had paid 102%! I was actually
relieved when they dropped it down to a more sustainable level, because it
confirmed for me that they're probably dealing truly random cards, without
bias. Anybody can put out an absurdly loose paytable and then stack the
deck. The fact that they adjust the paytable strongly suggests everything
else is on the level. Hello, Jon. I wish I had found that Deuces game earlier; what a pay schedule! You're
right when you say that it indicates that they play "fair", but it's a
shame that they had to cut the payback so much. Not much reason to go
there now.
Yours for winning, |