For many years too long, I foolishly believed I could win at Blackjack by playing perfect BS, interspersed with a few voodoo progressions here and there, some occasional doubling and splitting departures from BS, and the occasional max bet out of a hunch, when a dealer bust was "due." As you may have guessed, playing like that, I was mostly a loser. Until one day/night session in Canberra early in 2000. I took 4 grand and settled down at the table I liked; $50 min $2000 max. It had 8-decks hand-shuffled shoes, with ENHC, DAT, split Aces once only, no surrender.
To this point I had scored a few nice wins over the years, but far, far more losses, and I was down, uh, heaps on heaps. So imagine my surprise to find this day/night all my planets must have been aligned and The Force was with me, bigtime brother. Practically everything I did turned out a winner, even hunches and voodoo splits and doubles all over the place. The Force was with me to such a degree that about 9 hours later, I was UP $28 Grand, with one hour to go before the joint closed. I headed for the door. But the gambler inside stopped me from walking out. It said: "This is your special day mate. It don't happen like this much, as you well know. Go back and sock it to em, one more time, for the last hour. Turn your 28 into 50. You can do it."
Back I went. To my utter shock and amazement, I struck some consecutive shoes from hell, that kept wiping out all my 7 boxes, each with at least a min of $100. Within the hour, my 28G had shrunk to 14G. Instead of a feeling of celebration that I had still finished UP ten grand, I had a feeling of despair that I could be so dumb as to give them back 14G in less than one hour, so foolishly. This was the session that changed my life.
I wanted to find out how this kind of thing could happen like that. I enrolled in a card counting course and that was the best $990 I ever spent. The new information I learned almost immediately stopped my losing patterns and the consistent, regular loser went away, never to return. (I did not immediately become the regular winner, but it was just great to no longer be the regular loser.)
Now, I see others doing exactly as I did for so long, and I understand... Now I know
why they cannot win, beyond the odd session here and there when lady luck smiles on them; just enough to keep them interested. Sometimes a ploppy emerges from his ignorance and delusions, and becomes no longer a ploppy. Amazing what a little of the correct information can do.