dzgroundhog
New Member
Tl;dr. I’m at work and bored so I wrote a novel.
I’ve been intrigued by card counting ever since I read Bringing Down the House a few years ago. Last winter, I took a week-long trip to Vegas. Leading up to the trip, I got some really basic counting info and spent a little bit of time practicing counting down decks. I didn’t really know anything about how to increase or decrease bet sizes, but it didn’t matter much because I ended up having high negative counts almost every time I played (which wasn’t very much because I was playing a lot of poker, maybe 15 6-deck shoes for the whole trip).
I’m going again this winter, so I decided I’d really give counting a shot and picked up KO. I spent a good three weeks counting down decks and dealing hands to myself until I was comfortable enough to try to count at my local casino last weekend during my weekly trip to play poker.
The main problem I have is that I really can’t set aside more than $500 right now. I already decided that any fantasy football winnings are going straight into my Vegas gambling bankroll, so I could be adding to it just before my trip. But that still won’t leave me with more than 200 units ($5 units obv.) in essentially a best-case scenario.
Anyways…I get to the casino and head to the blackjack pit and since it’s a Saturday night, there’s nothing but $15 minimum tables and they’re all 8-deck. At least they stand on soft 17 and the rules are pretty good about re-splitting pairs and doubling down. So I figure I have no choice but to wong in to a table when the count gets good enough to bet at least 3 units.
I finally find a dealer who’s shuffling and start counting and the count gets fairly high real quick. And of course since it’s getting high, the table is getting destroyed by the dealer so plenty of seats are open. I wong in after about 3 decks played with a RC of -2 so I put out a $20 bet and get a stiff hand vs. a 4 and end up losing. At least the count stayed at -2 and I get dealt a 20 and win to get even while everybody else was dealt babies, driving the count up to +6. $50 bet so I’m a little nervous (which is the most I’ve ever bet at a table game because I’m a low-roller, yet winning or losing a $500 pot in poker doesn’t phase me) and I get an 11 vs. a 5. I DD and draw some paint and the dealer has whatever and I’m up $100 and the count is still high enough to warrant a $50 bet. I get a stiff hand and bust while other people get blackjacks and the dealer gets a 20. This goes on for three more hands until the count goes sour and I’m down $30. That got ugly quick, especially when I’m used to betting $5/hand and getting drunk instead of paying close attention and betting relatively big.
I find another table where the dealer is shuffling and the same thing happens. The count gets good real quick and I wong in and lose three hands real fast and I’m out $100. At this point, I decided to just go play some poker and maybe I’d give counting another shot if I did alright at the poker table.
While I was playing poker, I started wondering if I had been making mistakes when I was counting since I only counted two tables and they both went positive less than halfway through the shoe. Three hours later I got even on the night, so I headed back to the blackjack pit hoping to back-count some shoes that stayed negative all the way to the cut card to prove to myself that I hadn’t screwed up.
I got my wish and it took three shuffles before I found a good count. Wonged in and nailed a blackjack on my first hand, then pretty much alternated wins and losses for about six hands while the count slowly rose. I was down $30 when the count made a huge jump on one hand and it got up to +9. I stick my $50 bet out there and watch the entire table get dealt 20’s while one guy gets a couple aces. The dealer also has a face card and…yep, and ace underneath. That pushed the count all the way down to a 2 unit bet which I couldn’t make at a $15 minimum table, so I wonged out and headed home since I wasn’t feeling that great and I lost almost 40% of my card-counting.bankroll in about 15 hands.
At least I found out that I’m able to count while still maintaining some sort of conversation; I bumped into a co-worker while I was back-counting a table and was able to talk to him without losing the count. So that made me happy. All that second-hand smoke made me unhappy and gave me a headache. And I thought I the variance wouldn’t bother me much since I played a lot of limit hold’em in the past few months and that game is super swingy, but this is unreal. I’m a little hesitant to try it again at my local joint because I’d hate to drop $500 on stupid 8-deck games when I can use it on double-deck games in Vegas in 2½ months.
Any comments or tips or anything?
DZ
I’ve been intrigued by card counting ever since I read Bringing Down the House a few years ago. Last winter, I took a week-long trip to Vegas. Leading up to the trip, I got some really basic counting info and spent a little bit of time practicing counting down decks. I didn’t really know anything about how to increase or decrease bet sizes, but it didn’t matter much because I ended up having high negative counts almost every time I played (which wasn’t very much because I was playing a lot of poker, maybe 15 6-deck shoes for the whole trip).
I’m going again this winter, so I decided I’d really give counting a shot and picked up KO. I spent a good three weeks counting down decks and dealing hands to myself until I was comfortable enough to try to count at my local casino last weekend during my weekly trip to play poker.
The main problem I have is that I really can’t set aside more than $500 right now. I already decided that any fantasy football winnings are going straight into my Vegas gambling bankroll, so I could be adding to it just before my trip. But that still won’t leave me with more than 200 units ($5 units obv.) in essentially a best-case scenario.
Anyways…I get to the casino and head to the blackjack pit and since it’s a Saturday night, there’s nothing but $15 minimum tables and they’re all 8-deck. At least they stand on soft 17 and the rules are pretty good about re-splitting pairs and doubling down. So I figure I have no choice but to wong in to a table when the count gets good enough to bet at least 3 units.
I finally find a dealer who’s shuffling and start counting and the count gets fairly high real quick. And of course since it’s getting high, the table is getting destroyed by the dealer so plenty of seats are open. I wong in after about 3 decks played with a RC of -2 so I put out a $20 bet and get a stiff hand vs. a 4 and end up losing. At least the count stayed at -2 and I get dealt a 20 and win to get even while everybody else was dealt babies, driving the count up to +6. $50 bet so I’m a little nervous (which is the most I’ve ever bet at a table game because I’m a low-roller, yet winning or losing a $500 pot in poker doesn’t phase me) and I get an 11 vs. a 5. I DD and draw some paint and the dealer has whatever and I’m up $100 and the count is still high enough to warrant a $50 bet. I get a stiff hand and bust while other people get blackjacks and the dealer gets a 20. This goes on for three more hands until the count goes sour and I’m down $30. That got ugly quick, especially when I’m used to betting $5/hand and getting drunk instead of paying close attention and betting relatively big.
I find another table where the dealer is shuffling and the same thing happens. The count gets good real quick and I wong in and lose three hands real fast and I’m out $100. At this point, I decided to just go play some poker and maybe I’d give counting another shot if I did alright at the poker table.
While I was playing poker, I started wondering if I had been making mistakes when I was counting since I only counted two tables and they both went positive less than halfway through the shoe. Three hours later I got even on the night, so I headed back to the blackjack pit hoping to back-count some shoes that stayed negative all the way to the cut card to prove to myself that I hadn’t screwed up.
I got my wish and it took three shuffles before I found a good count. Wonged in and nailed a blackjack on my first hand, then pretty much alternated wins and losses for about six hands while the count slowly rose. I was down $30 when the count made a huge jump on one hand and it got up to +9. I stick my $50 bet out there and watch the entire table get dealt 20’s while one guy gets a couple aces. The dealer also has a face card and…yep, and ace underneath. That pushed the count all the way down to a 2 unit bet which I couldn’t make at a $15 minimum table, so I wonged out and headed home since I wasn’t feeling that great and I lost almost 40% of my card-counting.bankroll in about 15 hands.
At least I found out that I’m able to count while still maintaining some sort of conversation; I bumped into a co-worker while I was back-counting a table and was able to talk to him without losing the count. So that made me happy. All that second-hand smoke made me unhappy and gave me a headache. And I thought I the variance wouldn’t bother me much since I played a lot of limit hold’em in the past few months and that game is super swingy, but this is unreal. I’m a little hesitant to try it again at my local joint because I’d hate to drop $500 on stupid 8-deck games when I can use it on double-deck games in Vegas in 2½ months.
Any comments or tips or anything?
DZ
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