re: What is your blackjack strategy?

I like to find the hottest chick and post up next to her. If multiple hot chicks then go with the drunker one. At least when I was single that was my strategy. Now I’m not so I don’t play blackjack anymore.

What’s yours?

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I've played more hands than I can possibly count. Rarely does a bad player ever help the the other players with his horrible play. Almost always, the opposite. The math isn't hard.

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Rarely does another players play help or hurt the play of others in the long run. There are almost statistically insignificant changes in the deck based on one card being removed and it may go up or down.

It definitely impacts emotion and negative emotion runs heavy in blackjack, but it doesn’t not have a statistically significant impact on the overall outcome, either positive or negative. Even if a players “dumb move” results in a win other players still look at it negatively from an emotional standpoint. That’s the only significant change.

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Do you play by the book? Make moves on a hunch?

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You should walk into the casino knowing how you are going to play every possible hand and do not deviate from it. No hunches, no hesitations, etc. Play like a machine.

There are three things needed to beat the house in the long run:

1. You must be a skilled player with an effective card counting strategy.

You can't beat the house with your cards. You have to beat them with your money.

2. You need a big bank roll.

Even with a low table minimum you need at least a few grand to play a legitimate session and give you some cushion against early bad luck. If you're playing at a high limit table, you will need a lot more.

3. You need a favorable table.

Continuous shuffle machines, 6/5 blackjack payouts, etc., make a table unplayable.

Here's what you want in a table:

A. Good standard rules.

All the proper payouts and rules that are typical of a blackjack table.

B. As few decks as possible.

The fewer cards you have the more sensitive the count is to change, which is what you want. You want the count to fluctuate back and forth from negative to positive, positive to negative. Otherwise, you're not getting the cards you want. With multideck games the count doesn't move as much.

There are very few single deck 3/2 games with solid rules across the board but some are out there. Double deck 3/2 games are fairly common.

C. A low table minimum.

This gives you a larger betting spread. If your max bet is $100 you can spread 1/10 at a $10 table but only 1/4 at a $25 table.

All that said, casinos keep a sharp lookout for counters and they know which tables are more likely to be targeted by them. If you showed up to a $5 single deck 3/2 table (I played one at the El Cortez in Las Vegas once) and bought $100,000 worth of chips and were going to spread from the table minimum to the table maximum with a sound counting strategy you would have a clear edge over the house - and you'd also be eighty-sixed before you received your first drink.