Blackjack Strategy - 21

Blackjack 21 Can You Really Beat the Casinos and Win?

By Jerry Patterson

Card Counting Books, Card Counting Courses, Blackjack Websites, Blackjack DVDs and even a best selling popular blackjack book, Bringing Down the House, all answer yes to this question.

The movie "21" is based on Bringing Down the House released in March 2008, is increasing the gaming public’s awareness of blackjack as the only game where the players can develop a skill (card counting) to overturn the house odds. My answer, as the author of the best selling Blackjack: A Winner’s Handbook, in print since 1977 and now in its 6th edition, is a qualified yes.

But if you’re thinking of attacking the casinos and making a $million or two like the MIT Card Counting Team did in the movie “21,” here are the major issues for your consideration before you go to Vegas to make your fortune.

Issue 1: Long-term versus Short-term Play

The theoretical advantage that a skilled blackjack player can achieve at casino blackjack is no more than 1%. To achieve this advantage, you must play to the long term and, even then, it is not guaranteed.

The MIT Blackjack Team players in the movie “21” had an advantage that you and I don’t have – their numbers and their large blackjack team bankroll, shared by all, made it possible for them to play to the long term.

But, for a solo blackjack player, thousands of hands must be played to reach the long term.

One example of long-term blackjack play can be found in Stuart Perry’s book, Las Vegas Blackjack Diary, reviewed in my book, Blackjack: A Winner’s Handbook. Perry spent months developing and honing his blackjack skills leading to a three-month period of intense card counting play in Las Vegas.

The winnings his $20,000 bankroll generated, he complained at the end, did not reach expected value and his conclusion was that he had not played to the long term. If this 3-month intense play isn’t long term, then what is?

Most blackjack players simply do not play to the long term.

Short-term Strategies are required to win in today’s blackjack games. A number of short-term strategies are described in my book, Casino Gambling: A Winner’s Guide to Blackjack, Craps, Roulette, Baccarat and Casino Poker.

For example, see “Blackjack’s Winning Factors” in Chapter 7.

Issue 2: Size of Blackjack Bankroll

There is another problem, however, that all but nullifies any potential theoretical advantage the short-term counter expects to realize: bankroll swings versus small advantage.

Consider the short-term card counter in his or her attempt to grind out profits using a card counting system. First, the counter must contend with boredom because betting with the count is a waiting game.

It has been shown in many card counting books that high bets make up fewer than 5 to 10% of the hands dealt. So when those high bet opportunities present themselves, the adrenalin starts flowing as the big bet is pushed out. On a loss, another big bet as the count increases into a low-card clump, and more adrenalin.

If the counter is using a betting spread of 12 to 1, which many traditional blackjack books recommend for the multi-deck shoe game, it is quite easy to lose 40 units or more in a clumped shoe. This ratio between high bet and low bet is necessary to overcome the house edge and give the counter his 1% theoretical advantage.

But these swings in the counter’s bankroll are devastating and, in some instances, catastrophic to a player with the standard bankroll of 200 units. Many blackjack card counting authors recommend bankrolls of 200 units, and, in my opinion, even a 200-unit roll is not safe in a heavily clumped shoe game.

Issue 3: Skill Level Required to Achieve an Edge With Card Counting

The 1% theoretical edge requires that the card counter play perfect or close to perfect blackjack in sizing his bet and playing the hands.

To accomplish this level of skill requires using a Factor called the “True Count” or “Count per Deck.” Here’s what you have to do to achieve this necessary skill level:

• Estimate the number of decks remaining to be played (usually to the quarter deck accuracy);

• Divide the Running Count by this number;

• Use the resulting “count per deck” to determine your bet size;

• Continue to keep a running count until it’s your turn to play your hand;

• Then recompute the count per deck to determine your hand play decision.

This last requires memorizing a matrix of blackjack decisions (hit, stand, double, split, insurance) and comparing your count per deck with the count per deck in the matrix to decide your play in this hand.

Can you do this? Kenny Uston’s Blackjack Teams and the MIT Blackjack Teams practiced for months to achieve this skill level.

As little as one mistake per hour of play could wipe out much of your theoretical edge.

Issue 4: Casino Heat

Even if the count would always work against today’s game, the pit bosses have become very adept at spotting card counters by their betting patterns.

In Atlantic City, where state regulations prohibit the casinos from barring gamblers, pit bosses can either restrict a player’s betting spread (the ratio between a big bet when the count is high and a small bet when the count is low) or shuffle up on a player (moved from after parenthesis (shuffle and restore the cards to a new deck or new shoe to effectively remove the player’s advantage) if his or her betting spread becomes too high.

In Nevada a person detected as a card counter or thought to be a card counter may be barred from play.

Issue 5: Card Clumping

To understand the effect of card clumping in casino blackjack, you must understand the fact that, in the casinos, shuffles are not random. In a major study conducted at Harvard in the early 1990s, it was proven that 12 shuffles are required to randomly shuffle 6 decks of cards. Rarely, if ever, do the casinos invest this amount of “down time” to effectuate a random shuffle.

The nonrandom shuffle produces clumped cards in many games. Low-card clumps can hurt the player. Low-card clumps produce high counts (2 through 6 count as +1 in the popular High/Low Point Count Method while high cards count as -1).

Clumped low cards lure the player into a dangerous trap. Thinking that he is playing into an advantage on the next hand because of the high count with many favorable tens and aces remaining in the shoe, the player raises his bet.

However, if you’re playing into a low-card clump, the dealer has the edge because he hits his hand last and has a better chance of making the hand, hitting from the low-card clump, wiping out the stiff hands many players have stood on anticipating a dealer break.

Clumped high cards can also hurt the player because they are dealt and used up too quickly, therefore not always available to the player doubling down on 9, 10 or 11, for example.

Clumped high cards also produce minus counts fooling the player into assuming he is playing into a dealer advantage hand and making a small bet when he should be betting up.

There are solutions to the problems created by card clumping.

One example is in Chapter 16 of my book, Blackjack: A Winner’s Handbook - "Count Profiles, How to Use Card Counting to Exploit Likecard Clumping".

The Solution

Blackjack: A Winner’s Handbook (6th Edition) - (New York: Penguin Putnam, © 2001 by Jerry Patterson),

Chapter 13: TAKEDOWN – A 4-Phased Non-count Strategy For Today’s Player

Chapter 14: A Winning Strategy for Automatic Shuffling Machines

Chapter 15: A Handbook of Card Counting Drills

Chapter 16: How to Use Card Counting to Exploit Like-card Clumping

Chapter 17: High-Low Plus – A Winning Strategy for the Handheld Games

Casino Gambling – A Winner’s Guide to Blackjack, Craps, Roulette, Baccarat and Casino Poker (New York: Penguin Putnam, © 2000 by Jerry Patterson)

Chapter 4: State-of-the-art Advantage Blackjack Systems

Chapter 5: Definition of Biases and Card Clumping

Chapter 6: Dealer-breaking and Player-favorable Games

Chapter 7: Advantage Blackjack for Multi-deck Shoe Games

Chapter 8: Advantage Blackjack for Single- and Double-deck games

For additional information on blackjack books and courses feel free to email me via my Nevada Office for any questions you have: jpe21@aol.com or:

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1-800-257-7130