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How can you gain an advantage against the house in blackjack?
By developing your card counting skills.
A basic fact can give you as a card counter that advantage. When there are not so many cards between 2 and 8 left in the deck, you have the advantage; the dealer gains the advantage when there are not so many 9s, 10s and Ace-value cards.
Ideally you would have a photographic memory; failing that, there are many card counting systems you might master. One model system assigns a value of one (1) to cards 2 - 6, zero (0) to cards 7 - 9, and negative 1 (-1) to 10 and Ace-value cards. A certain mental agility is required to continue playing while keeping track of whether the table presents an advantage to you or to the dealer; those who master this skill are more likely to win money than those who do not.
Casinos take action against especially successful card counters. Private casinos actually have the law on their side to ban somebody from their premises at any time for any reason; and they do ban very successful counters with regularity. However, they also recognize the difference between those who can count and those who think they can count; in other words, casino owners' greedy hearts recoil and skip beats at the thought of all would-be card counters being banned from their facilities. So make sure to hone your counting skills before putting them into practice in a casino. And once you've honed your card counting skills, do not go to a casino which uses automatic card shufflers, which make every hand utterly random.
What might be a good model for your card counting strategy?
In the 1990s, a particularly talented group of MIT students made blackjack history by functioning as a spectacularly money-making blackjack card counting group. You can read at length about their exploits and methods in the book "Bringing Down The House," by Ben Mezrich. For all that it is tough to duplicate their successes, reading about it presents you with a colorful chapter of blackjack history.
At the heart of the MIT Group's strategy was the deployment of a four member team.
1) THE BACKSPOTTER - This chap stood and counted cards but did not play a hand.
2) THE SPOTTER - This team member made modest bets at the table and relayed messages to:
3) THE GORILLA - Who took his cues from the backspotter and the spotter as to which table would give him the best advantage; and he made consistently enormous bets.
4) BIG PLAYER - Who counted cards and played large hands.
The skills and coordination of the MIT team did not allow them to always win, but did allow them to win big overall.
As a result of their triumphs, they had some exceedingly colorful experiences, quite apart from winning fortunes. One of them was physically beaten in a Jamaican casino. Two others had $70,000 robbed from their apartment by what turned out to be casino hires. And finally, somebody from within the group sold their names to a Las Vegas agency. So maybe to keep your circle of friends from turning into a nest of vipers, you should concentrate on developing your individual card counting skills, and share all your winnings with yourself.
Not that the MIT gang had to run from the gaming tables with their tails between their legs. Original team member "MIT Mike," who rests from blackjack by working as Project Director for the Making a Difference Foundation in Washington, D.C., won a $110,000 grand prize on GSN's "World Series of Blackjack." That tournament made for some suspenseful viewing; the grand prize was won on a last-card decision.
GSN, the Game Show Network, will be offering viewers more tournaments in 2005, including another "World Series of Blackjack." It is rumored that MIT Mike will be playing again this year. More information on GSN programming can be found at www.gsn.com.
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