Casino Gambling

   Many of you who are involved in casino games must have faced the problem of finding best rules let me tell you the guideline for selecting the best rule.

     The guideline is to always seek out the best rules. Options such as surrender double any two cards, or double down after a split always favor the players. Any restrictions or negative changes to the "normal" standard rules hurt the player and help the house, such l,lS hitting on soft 17 or not being able to double down on any two cards The third principle is penetration, or how deeply the cards are dealt before shuffling. In my mind, this is the most important of the three main criteria. Stanford Wong was one of the earliest authors to point out how critical this factor was to card counting. Good rules usually don't make up for mediocre penetration. For example, if a casino offers a six-deck game with all the bells and whistles (surrender, double down on anything, resplit aces) but only deals out half the shoe (three decks) before shuffling, it would be a waste of time for any serious player.

    On the flip side, even a game with lousy rules can become a magnet for card counters if they deal deeply enough. Reno is a great example of this. Many clubs commonly allow doubling down on only 10 or 11 and then make it even worse by hitting on soft 17. Both of these restrictions hurt the players, yet the combination of single deck blackjack with deep penetration can potentially become a very strong game, despite the bad rules.

   So with those three principles (number of decks, rules, and penetration) in mind, let me explain how I decide where to play. I typically go wherever I can achieve the highest return per hour of blackjack play. The best rules normally are found wherever a glut of casinos provides plenty of competition. This forces owners to offer more favorable options in order to grab their share of the gaming market, because many gamblers are surprisingly astute about what they want in a blackjack game and will vote with their feet if a casino has bad rules.

    Historically, Las Vegas and Atlantic City have been good picks for basic-strategy players who are looking for the clubs with the thinnest house edge. They normally stand on soft 17 and allow players to double on any two cards.

    Other clubs around the world also imitate these big boys, but there are many variations. In less-frequented Nevada border towns like Laughlin or Jean, they usually hit on soft 17. Mississippi is split into two sectors much the same way as Nevada, with the Gulf Coast typically using Strip rules like Las Vegas and the northern part of the state hitting on soft 17 like Reno. While it is true that many small-town casinos are a waste of time, occasionally a gem arises out of the desert sand. Wend over (on the Utah border) is a challenge to get to, but has rewarded its adventuresome explorers with one of the strongest single-deck games on the planet over the last two decades.

    Common sense would assume that pros only visit the clubs with the very best rules, as the difference can be half a percent or more. That axiom would be accurate for basic-strategy players. Yet as stated earlier, there are other factors besides good rules for card counters. The trick comes in learning how to juggle all three variables (penetration, number of decks, and rules) to size up the best opportunity for your blackjack buck. With experience comes better judgment and discernment on this issue. I feel one of the biggest reasons novice card counters fail to win any serious money is because they play inferior games. You absolutely have to be ruthless in this category if you want to succeed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

   Blackjack tournament has emerged as an option for all the gamblers across the planet. If anyone has a desire to achieve big in quick time then they must try their hand in blackjack tournament.

 THE BIG HAND

    Allan Brown discovered early on that tournaments were all about betting. His team would often try to bury the competition early rather than leave it to chance or luck on the final hand. They developed a very aggressive style, which often meant they ended up first or last. This can be embarrassing, as it is only human nature to want to look good in front of other people. But the gains from going for the jugular are huge.

     Allan's most memorable win came at the Frontier كازينو. He entered the last hand down $800 to the chip leader. Since the max bet was $500, he knew his only chance was to get a hand he could double down or split. Allan's hopes rose when the dealer dealt him two face cards. Normally, this is a strong winning hand, but here Allan had no choice if he wanted to win. Spurning the sure thing, which would have locked up second place for him, he calmly slipped out another $500 and split the face cards.

     His first ten received an ace for a total of 21. Then, unbelievably, his second ten caught another ace. Both hands won and the place exploded. Allan walked away with the $50,000 first-place prize and provided the crowd with one of the most dazzling finishes in the history of blackjack tournaments.

 BEYOND BLACKJACK

     Allan believes that those who can think quickly on their feet during the heat of battle have a big advantage in tournament play. One of the members of Allan's team who personified this trait was a sharp poker player named Russ Hamilton (Russ would later win the $1 million first prize in the 1994 World Series of Poker). Although the initial plan was for the team to attack only blackjack (its area of expertise), Russ Hamilton believed other tournament games like craps offered an even bigger edge. He observed a group of Caltech alumni, tagged "the Engineers," dominate several craps tournaments, including winning $500,000 for first place at the Tropicana in Las Vegas. Russ noticed that the Engineers and Stanford Wong's team did extremely well at these dice tournaments, so Russ learned• their strategy and taught the rest of his team. Soon Allan Brown's group branched out into winning craps, keno, and baccarat tournaments.

      His team excelled at these games because few players under- stood the correct strategy for petting, especially near the end. The important thing in most tournaments is to go for the win (depending on how the prize money is split). But getting to the final table doesn't mean you should start dreaming about that new condo on Maul Allan once had three guys from his team at the final table of a baccarat tournament. First place paid a cool million dollars. Yet despite their high hopes and obvious edge over the other players, not one of the three snagged degrade prize.

 GO BIG OR GO HOME

    Blair Rodman was a key member on two of the most famous tournament teams (Stanford Wong's, then Allan Brown's). More recently, he was the best-known pro to survive all the grueling qualifying rounds at the inaugural Million Dollar Blackjack Tournament and make it to the final table. When the seat assignments at that tournament were determined, one of the first things Blair did was to mentally calculate his probable betting position for the very last hand. After deducing he would be in a bad spot at the end, he decided to bet aggressively and try to capture an early lead. The Travel Channel had arranged to televise the entire event, so Blair expected the other players to wager conservatively, since it was unlikely anyone wanted to make an early exit on national TV. He theorized that a big lead might unsettle his opponents and cause them to bet too aggressively and make mistakes while trying to catch him. In the earlier qualifying rounds, Blair had already witnessed a number of people crack under pressure, including one player who had the win locked up but incorrectly surrendered on the last hand and lost.

 

 

 

     Casino games had always been preferred by most of the gamblers as they had a good chance of making a massive amount of wealth in real quick time.

      Technically, we are simply applying standard true count theory in a unique way to calculate the increased advantage when the running count rises above the pivot. The advantages calculated with this method are as precise as the standard balanced true-count methods used by most pros. From the examples above, you can see why professional players have  always steered away from the running count systems. If you were to always bet according to your running count, then depending on the level of penetration, you will often over or under-bet your true advantage. The true edge method solves the problem.

      I have used simple examples, which resulted in simple fractions. With very little practice, however, you should have no difficulty estimating your raise in advantage, even when the numbers are not so convenient.

     For instance, if you are in an eight-deck game, with a running count of +4, and 3 1/2 decks are remaining to be dealt, you'll know that since 3 1/2 x 2 = 7, your fraction becomes 4/7.

     This may be a more complicated calculation, but you should be able to determine in an instant that it's just slightly more than 1/2%. Likewise, with fractions like 5/7 or 6/7, just knowing that your advantage has risen more than 1/2% but less than 1% is all you need for purposes of bet sizing.

    In using this method, always round up to the nearest half-deck when you estimate the remaining decks for your denominator. For instance, if slightly less than five decks have been dealt, and you estimate that about 3 1/4 decks remain, round up to 3 1/2, and your denominator becomes 3 1/2 x 2 = 7. This way, your denominator will always be a whole number, which is very convenient. This method also assures that you are being conservative in estimating your advantage, and therefore, safer in bet sizing. If you have any difficulty whatsoever calculating your denominator when 1!2-deck increments are involved, then simply look at the following chart:

   I think most people with an average command of math can do this with little difficulty, but if you have trouble, then simply learn the chart.

   Also, let me reemphasize that you should not be intimidated by "weird" fractions. If you come up with fractions like 5/13, 2/5, 5/11, or  4/9, so long as you know that these fractions are all less than 1/2-or even somewhere around 1/2- you have all the information you need to estimate your advantage. Most pros estimate their advantage to the nearest 1/2%, and it's impractical to attempt to size your bets with more accuracy than that. Likewise, 12/10, 11/8,9/7, and 5/4 are all slightly more than 1. Knowing that your advantage is slightly more than 1 % above your pivot advantage is all you need to know. You do not need to consider 9/7 as anything different from 12/10. For your betting purposes, just know that all of these fractions indicate a 1 % raise above your pivot advantage.

    If you use the true edge method in single-deck games, in the first half of the deck, you simply divide your running count by 2 (since your denominator is lx2). So, a running count of +3 indicates about a 1 1/2% raise from your pivot advantage. At the half-deck level, your raise in advantage is your running count, since 1/2 x 2 = 1, and if you divide any number by 1, the answer is the same number. I.e., with a +5 running count and a half-deck dealt, your advantage has risen 5%. So, in single-deck games, don't even bother to make a fraction-in the top half of the deck, divide by 2. In the bottom half, just use the running count. Should you ever play in a really deeply dealt one-deck game, in the last quarter of the deck, you can actually multiply your running count by 2, as a +3 count means a 6% raise in advantage. Low stakes players may occasionally find games like this.

    One convenient feature of the Advanced Red Seven Count is that all strategy decisions, which must be made very quickly, are still made by running count. The betting decisions, which are less rushed, can be made with all the accuracy of a true count system, simply by using the true edge method of directly converting your running count to your raise in advantage.

    A mathematician and longtime correspondent, Conrad Membrino, who has written definitively about true count conversions with unbalanced counts, believes that estimating your true advantage with an unbalanced system tends to introduce less error into the calculated advantage than the traditional true count methods with balanced counting systems.

    If you use the true edge method of estimating your advantage, you should also employ the same proportional betting techniques that professional players use, based on the "Kelly Criterion." You will want to read the following chapter on bankroll requirements, as well as the chapters that follow on true count and betting strategies, in order to develop the best betting strategies for your bankroll, the games you attack, and your style of play.

 

 

 

 

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