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Articles - Gambling news
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Checking Out Tables |
04 Jul 2008
Scouting in a brick and mortar environment is key to finding tables that give the house the minimum possible advantage. You may visit many casinos before finding one that has reasonable rules. Scouting is also important when depending on advantage play. Unlike scouting in player-VS-player games, you are looking for weak dealers rather than weak players in blackjack.
First, let's cover table rules scouting. There is a table-points system that you can use in order to make sure that you're getting a fair or favorable game. Given a basic Atlantic City rules table of 8 decks, double after splitting, dealer stands on soft 17, split to 4 hands, double on any first two cards. Tables with these rules start with a value of 0, considered a fair game (0.4% house advantage). Then assess the following bonuses and penalties:
+23 – Blackjack pays 2 to 1
+6 – Suited Blackjack pays 2 to 1
+4 – Early Surrender on dealer Ace
+2 – Blackjack possible after split
+2 – Hit after splitting aces +1 – Six Card Charlie
+1 – Resplit aces
-1 – Only Double on nine, ten, ace
-1 – No resplits
-2 – Dealer hits on soft 17
-19 – Player loses to 17 ties +15 – Five Card Charlie
+5 – 21 wins automatically
+2 – Early Surrender on dealer ten
+2 – Double at any time
+1 – Late Surrender on dealer ten
-1 – No peek on dealer ten
-2 - Only Double on ten, ace
-14 – Blackjack pays 6 to 5
-23 – Blackjack pays 1 to 1
NEVER PLAY WITH THESE RULES: Player loses ties of (any combination of) 18, 19, 20, 21. Bust on 22 is a push.
Tables rated as a ‘0' have typical odds. A positive rating gives the player better than typical odds (though you'll never see a score of 4 or better, unless the house enjoys losing money). Stay away from tables with a negative rating.
Now, scouting dealers is a bit different. You're looking for bad habits that can work in your favor. Are they not using their mirror properly? A re they lifting their cards too high and for too long when they peek? Do they look new? Can you pick up a tell when they peek? Do they misinterpret the rules in the payers' favor?
If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes', then you want to take advantage of the dealer's potential weakness. Remember that the peek is the most pivotal dealer interaction at the blackjack table. If the dealer does anything on the peek that can increase your odds, that's the table that you want to be sitting at.
Paying attention is your most profitable skill. It will help you survive, thrive, and eventually achieve your goals!
By Bill Ricardi
- Blackjack Expert
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Online Random Number Generators |
01 Jul 2008
A lot of online blackjack players worry that a computer can’t shuffle as well as an experienced dealer. They claim that computers follow shuffle patterns, and patterns can be predicted. These poor folks are constantly looking for some way to predict the next card that is going to come off the top of the deck online. They’re probably wasting their time though.
The reason that most online computerized shufflers are better than any manual shuffle on the planet is simple: a Random Number Generator (RNG) fuels it. In the early days of computing, the Random Number Generator (hereafter referred to as ‘RNG’) was a primitive thing. It was often based on John von Neumann’s ‘middle-square method’ from the 1940’s. It had a bad reputation, and for good reasons. It took a number, squared it, and took the middle numbers of the result as the ‘random number’. Of course, if you knew where in a RNG sequence the middle square method was, you could emulate all future results! If modern online blackjack sites were using something like this, you would be justified in worrying about how random the card shuffling was.
Happily, the RNG’s of today are much more, well, random. Some use pure RNG randomization. Some use an emulated construction of order, like the Knuth shuffle or Fisher-Yates shuffle methods. Either of these involve moving through the pack from top to bottom to shuffle, swapping every card with another card from a random position within the pack that has not yet been passed through. The Knuth RNG needs to be done perfectly to prevent biases, so more people are moving towards the Fisher-Yates RNG.
A lot of RNG’s these days use random physical events in the universe to generate the ‘seed’ or base numbers of their randomness. They might use hardware to measure some sort of radioactive decay that throws off random particles. That’s how serious the RNG business has gotten in recent years.
The result that you get online is better than any hand shuffle on the planet. Shuffling by hand can result in cards clumping together, and not being fully randomized. The only way to approach the randomness of a modern Internet casino’s RNG card shuffle, within a brick and mortar casino, is to use automatic shufflers that also incorporate an RNG somehow! This is done with ‘random ejection shufflers’, which use little hammers to randomly knock cards out of order, before shuffling.
Most online casinos these days have their shuffle RNG audited by an independent commission. They run extensive tests to make sure the operations are truly random, and they often are given power to spot check systems and investigate any online issues that get reported. Industry watchdogs are very important to your safety online, because they keep casinos from getting complacent. If there are improvements in the industry that warrant the raising of shuffle standards, these are the folks who are going to press for that change.
I hope that this primer has set a few minds at ease. It’s very important to be aware of the conditions that you are gambling under, so use this information to perform your due diligence and research any nagging details about your particular online and offline gaming environments.
By Bill Ricardi
- Blackjack Expert
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Taking Your Time |
29 Jun 2008
There is a tendency to rush everything when you’re playing online. Because there’s instant dealing, instant betting, and instant results, some players will make snap decision instead of thinking abut the move that they should actually be making. That sort of reaction can be costly.
Don’t be afraid of taking a moment to consider borderline decisions. If you’re confused or you forget your betting and play strategies, don’t guess. Work it out. Remember that one error an hour can be the difference between a winning session and a losing session. Two errors per hour will almost ensure a losing session. So don’t blitz out your actions when you aren’t sure what you should really be doing.
The play clock is a resource. You’re allowed to use your time in a reasonable manner. Don’t let any other player tell you otherwise. You shouldn’t ever be pressured, cajoled, or scolded into making a bad bet or action. Keep your pace calm and steady. Don’t go on tilt just because some loudmouth tells you that you have to hurry up. On the other hand, don’t run out of time, or your hand will be handled automatically, depending on the protocols of the blackjack site.
You should also remember that you have plenty of time to contemplate and calculate during other peoples’ turns. This is the perfect time to glance at your basic strategy table, track your betting, and do any kind of accounting that you need to do. If you’ve had enough time to make a reasonable decision, some sites allow you to pre-select the next action that you wish to take. That can be a great time saver. For example, if you have a 20, you know that you’re going to stand. Pre-select that action, and use that time to do your research or accounting.
Now, a word on live play: Though there’s no clock as such, your pace is expected to be reasonable. They need to deal a certain number of hands per hour, and anyone who holds up the process is frowned upon. However, let the dealer or floor-person tell you to increase your pace, not some drunken and impatient tourist. Take the amount of time that you find reasonable to take your action. However you won’t have your basic strategy table or card counting book in front of you, so make sure that you’ve memorized everything that you need to know. You can ask the dealer for basic strategy advice… but never mention card counting, for obvious reasons. After a short time, it’ll be second nature.
For any of your blackjack tournament players, there will often be an action clock. It will either be mandatory on each action, or it can be called on a slow player by anyone else at the table. Beware: If you violate the clock, your hand will be folded.
By Bill Ricardi
- Blackjack Expert
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Surrender Your Way To Victory in Blackjack |
26 Jun 2008
Too many players don’t understand that there is a correct time and place to use the Late Surrender option in blackjack. It isn’t often, I’ll grant you. But using the hundreds or thousands of dollars that you can save by adding this to your optimal blackjack strategy, you can thank me properly for pointing this out!
Most online blackjack rooms are using four or more decks, so no need to memorize multiple Late Surrender tables. Instead, you should focus on remembering the following:
Strategy for when you hold a 14 and lower, or 18 and higher: Never surrender. Use basic strategy. In 1 and 2 deck blackjack games, this changes. But you will never see 1 and 2 decks online, and almost never in a brick and mortar casino.
Strategy for when you hold a 15: Always surrender to a dealer ten. Whether or not you surrender to a dealer Ace depends on whether the rules of the table say that the dealer hits or stands on a soft 17. Surrender to the ace if the dealer hits on a soft 17. Play basic strategy if the dealer stays on the soft 17.
Strategy for when you hold a 16: This one is easy. Surrender to a dealer 9, ten, or ace. You have an awful hand, thank your lucky stars that the table allows late surrender!
Strategy for when you hold a 17: There is only one case where you want to surrender here. Surrender to a dealer ace if the dealer hits on a soft 17.
These may seem like rather specific, hard-line blackjack rules. Well they are, this is the simplified version. The more complex version takes into account specific blackjack card combinations that make up you 15 or 16. However you need to know some very exact conditions to make use of this sort of strategy, so it is often of more use in a brick and mortar situation.
For those of you interested in the 4 to 6 deck advanced system, surrender when you hold 15 against a dealer ten only if your hand contains a 9 or a ten. And when you hold 16, surrender against a dealer 9, ten, or (soft-hit-17) Ace only if your hand contains a 9 or ten. Otherwise, play basic blackjack. When you’re playing with 8 decks, always surrender when you hold 15 to dealer ten, and play the 16 as above.
If you stick to these blackjack surrender guidelines, you can save some nickels and dimes. Use them consistently, and the money you save can add up to a whole lot of money in your blackjack bankroll!
By Bill Ricardi
- Blackjack Expert
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Testing a New Blackjack System |
23 Jun 2008
If you have a new blackjack system that you need to try out, there’s a right way and a wrong way to test it. An incorrect testing method can have a disastrous impact on your blackjack bankroll. A badly tested betting system, counting method, or strategy table can, instead of leading to more winning, have long term negative effects ranging from bad habits to bankroll ruination.
With that in mind, I’ve compiled a few tips that should help you test new blackjack systems in an accurate way, with minimal risk, and hopefully maximized winning.
Test Player-VS-House Systems at Micro Limits: There is no functional difference between nickel limits and hundred dollar limits when you’re talking about Player-VS-House blackjack. So why test at high limits when you can test at low limits for a fraction of the cost? As you can imagine, a system that ends up costing you 35 percent or more of your testing bankroll isn’t unrealistic. Risk the pennies in blackjack, not the dollars.
Duplicate Realistic Conditions: Don’t make rules or conditions assumptions that are wildly in the favor of the blackjack player. Instead, assume that the actual field implementation of your new system will be under normal, average conditions and seek a test environment that emulates the norm. A lot of casinos are willing to run small stakes blackjack tables with much more favorable player odds, in order to get people in the door. Don’t use these for testing, because the results will be skewed, no matter how much you are winning!
Test Long Term: Never field test over the course of a couple of days of blackjack play and accept those results as gospel. You need to test new blackjack systems over the course of weeks or months before you collect enough data to make rough conclusions. Relying on short term data is one of the biggest mistakes that people make in the world of gaming, and can lead to not only ruination of the bankroll, but can also lead to dangerous, incorrect assumptions about the way odds work in general. Short term winning streaks do not make a perfect system.
Record Your Results: This should go without saying, but people who ‘memorize’ or ‘estimate’ their online blackjack system results constantly amaze me. This horrible practice often turns good data into useless garbage. Record everything! Write down the time of the session, the number of hands played, bankroll before and after, and any interesting notes that you may have.
Compare Your Results to Other Experiments: When you’ve compiled a large body of data for your online blackjack system, figure out if the initial results are better or worse than other systems. If they seem wildly out of line, you may need more extensive testing. Either way, if another online blackjack system yields better results, then you may need to consider adopting aspects of that system, or revising your thinking all together.
It’s only through dedicated experimentation that we learn what is viable under real world conditions. Simulators are all well and good for basic statistical data, but if you can’t realistically perform to the systems specifications, what good is automated data? Happy testing!
By Bill Ricardi
- Poker Expert
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Online Texas Holdem Skills |
20 Jun 2008
What skills are most important when you play online casino Texas Holdem? There are definitely many skills but we want to look at some today that will definitely help you the next time you are playing at an online casino.
The number one skill to winning at online Texas Holdem is hardly every discussed by poker experts and that is really too bad because it is critical to your success. What is number one you ask? It is table selection. You can play great online poker, but if excellent players are at your table you are going to win less or perhaps even lose money. If inexperienced players surround you, your chances of making money are better.
You might even get away with playing less than your best and still make money. Picking the easiest table full of bad players doesn't sound like the most courageous thing to do, but it sure is the smartest. The goal is to win money, not to massage your ego. Table selection is the number one Texas Holdem poker skill that many people don't even think of.
Even today at online casinos the biggest mistake most players make when playing poker is playing too many hands. This happens all over the world at every online casino site you see. People just can't wait for good hands. They have to play everything under the sun and they lose money doing it. Pick you spots and stick with strong starting hands and it is a virtual guarantee you will make more money than you do now.
Those first two really are head and shoulders above anything else on the list but we will look at a few other online Texas Holdem skills you should possess. It is always important to try and put your opponent on a hand. Every action a player takes gives you information about the hand they hold and if you can put them on a hand your chances of success are going to be better. It is also a good idea to understand pot odds and how they relate to the overall game you are playing.
You don't have to be exact, just have a decent idea of whether if calling is a positive play. We also briefly want to mention bluffing. It is an overrated poker skill. In today's online world bluffing doesn't work very well. As you increase your limits then bluffing might be important, but at lower limits it is a skill you really don't need.
The other skill worth mentioning, that is also overrated in today's game, is the check raise. This is when you check and hope for a bet and then re-raise. It doesn't have the effect it used to have in today's game and doesn't get more money in the pot as often as you would expect. It also doesn't have the scare effect it used to have. Overall it is another overrated skill.
The two Texas Holdem skills worth remembering are table selection and hand selection. Pick the easy tables where you can make money and stop playing every single hand.
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Hall of Famers |
17 Jun 2008
There are currently 12 members of Blackjack's Hall of Fame. Each of them has something to teach us, and they've all had a huge impact on our community. Today, I would like to introduce them to you:
Al Francesco: Al introduced an important, some might say the most important, aspect to the concept of blackjack teams. He created the “Big Player” concept, and thus the ability to combine a team's counting efforts for maximum profit, and minimum chance of getting caught. He also taught the legendary Ken Uston how to count cards.
Stanford Wong: ‘Stanford' (aka John Ferguson), a former finance teacher, wrote the book “Professional Blackjack”. With the help of his amazing analytical math skills, and excellent game theory, he became a pioneer of electronic blackjack hand modeling. His computer program "Blackjack Analyzer" was one of the first commercial blackjack programs on the market.
Peter Griffin: Peter was a Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at California State University, Sacramento. He was known for using mathematical shortcuts that were developed by statisticians to compare card counting systems in blackjack. He was also the author of “Theory of Blackjack”, a book that is considered the bible of blackjack mathematics.
Ken Uston: Ken (aka Kenneth Senzo Usui) was a high stakes professional blackjack player. His toolbox was huge. He was able to proficiently count cards, detect and destroy weak dealers, play with the biggest teams, and utilize technology to his advantage. He wrote “The Big Player”, sharing his winning secrets as they applied to team play. Later he authored “Million Dollar Blackjack”, revealing his non-team play secrets.
Edward O. Thorp: A math professor who wrote one of the greatest blackjack books of all time: “Beat the Dealer”. He used an IBM computer while developing his blackjack game theory, based on the Kelly criterion. Oddly, though he made a fortune in both the stock market and gambling, he considered the whole experiment an academic exercise!
Tommy Hyland: Tommy has been running the most successful blackjack teams in the world for over 25 years now. It was the judge of his court case in Ontario, Canada, with the help of expert testimony from Arnold Snyder, which first ruled that advantage play was not cheating, but merely the use of intelligent strategy.
Arnold Snyder: An amazing author, Arnold wrote “The Blackjack Formula”, “Blackbelt in Blackjack”, and “The Blackjack Shuffle Tracker's Cookbook” and more, covering damn near every aspect of professional blackjack play. He has been the editor of Blackjack Forum, a quarterly trade journal for professional gamblers, for over 25 years.
Keith Taft: Keith built some of the first high-tech blackjack counting and analysis devices. He also created some amazing miniature hole card cameras and audio-visual devices to aid blackjack teams in their quest to beat the house.
Max Rubin: In 1994, Max's book “Comp City: A Guide to Free Gambling Vacations” introduced the world to the wonder of casino comps. The book shows gamblers how to maximize casino perks while doing very little actual wagering. Max has also appeared as a gambling analyst for various television programs.
Julian Braun: Julian was the father of the Hi-Lo Count system, a more accurate and much simpler version of Thorp's first counting systems. He also refined basic blackjack strategy to a razor's edge. His book, “How to Play Winning Blackjack”, is a must read.
Lawrence Revere: Lew (aka Griffith K. Owens, Leonard "Specs" Parsons, and Paul Mann) wrote “Playing Blackjack as a Business”, and developed the Revere counting methods, some of the most intricate and accurate systems to ever be published.
James Grosjean: James wrote “Beyond Counting : Exploiting Casino Games from Blackjack to Video Poker”. He is also known for winning lawsuits against casinos on the grounds of civil rights violations, and bankrupting the (some might say ‘evil') Griffin Detective Agency.
By Bill Ricardi
- Blackjack Expert
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The Player, Not the Cards |
14 Jun 2008
The rapid increase in television coverage of Texas Holdem, and especially No-Limit Texas Holdem, has continually shown that top players routinely play the ‘player’ and not the cards. In reality, it’s a little bit of both. Playing Texas Holdem in online poker does take away some traditional methods of picking up “tells” of opposing players. Analyzing opponents movements, such as nervously fingering chips or tapping their fingers, which are important “tells” to skilled players, are obviously non-existent in an online Texas Holdem poker room.
Most players, however, are creatures of habit. An experienced online Texas Holdem player can still ‘play the player’ in addition to playing the cards themselves. An attentive poker player can begin to see patterns in the style of play of their opponents. Such patterns include a player who consistently overbets their hand, a player who may play very aggressively on the button but meekly when in early position, or one who often folds when raised. Additionally, does your opponent prefer drawing hands, or does he stick to overcards?
The benefits of knowing your opponent are especially important in the late stages of an online Texas Holdem tournament. Consider the following possibility. You are playing heads-up in an online Texas Holdem tournament and are dealt a 5-3 suited in the big blind. The flop comes with a 9-7-2, all off-suit, and your opponent bets directly into you. Having watched your opponent, you know him to be a tight, aggressive player. Does this mean that you are up against a high pocket pair, or perhaps even a set? One sure way to find out is to call.
If the turn card isn’t a face card or an ace, you can be certain that your tight, aggressive opponent doesn’t have that great of a hand if it is checked to you. Most importantly, a bet here will almost certainly win the hand. Tight, aggressive players are likely to fire out a bluff once, but if they don’t hit their overcards on the turn, they are not likely to fire out a second bluff. Clearly, calling with a 5-3 suited is not always smart, but in heads-up Texas Holdem poker, knowing your opponent can be much more important than simply playing your hand.
Very often in Texas Holdem you will win more money playing the player, not the cards.
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Blackjack Profits |
11 Jun 2008
In order to calculate the profits made by a blackjack system or traditional card counting against the house, we have to talk about your gambling wins in terms of advantage and disadvantage.
Your average card counter will play basic strategy, and modify their actions based on the running count. They spend time researching the best local casino, with weakest dealers that they can find. They also only play tables with the most favorable blackjack rules that can be expected. When you add up all of their advantages, blackjack card counters are usually looking for at least a 0.5% advantage over the long term.
Let us use an example of someone who yields a 0.6% advantage over the house, when all advantages are tallied. If this player has regular 8-hour sessions over the course of a month, and they have a $3000 blackjack bankroll, they should make just about $25 an hour on average, depending on how consistently weak the dealers were that month. If you want to subtract travel expenses, travel time, and time spent scouting for good table conditions and bad dealers, and profits might go down to $20 an hour.
Now, money spent on expenses might not be totally lost. If your blackjack play is a significant enough gain to report on your taxes, and you’re treating your blackjack play as a business, you might be able to write off those expenses as a tax deduction. You’ll want to record the costs, save all your receipts, and present them to your tax person or CPA when tax time comes.
To continue the above example, a steady average gain of $20 yields about $40,000 a year if played as a full time job. This isn’t bad in certain parts of the world, and is downright great in other parts of the world. Remember though, that this isn’t free and clear. You still owe taxes and need to spring for any benefits that a company might normally provide. That means insurance, retirement fund, and the like.
I suggest that you add at least 10 percent of your winnings to your permanent bankroll, even if you’re living off of the rest of your winnings. As your bankroll grows, so will the level of play that you can afford. But be careful not to move up too quickly, as violating your bankroll limits by overextending your count-to-bankroll ratios is a sure way to go bust. Take your time, track your results, and remember to re-invest some of your winnings into your permanent bankroll.
Finally, I suggest dedicating at least a small amount of your winnings towards further education. New blackjack books, regular gaming industry magazines, and the like are all good investments that will keep you abreast of developments in your chosen field.
Bill Ricardi
– Blackjack Expert
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Tight and Aggressive |
08 Jun 2008
It may sound contradictory or confusing but the ultimate strategy and best way to be effective at online poker is to be both tight and aggressive. An aggressive online poker player is one that implements aggression with intelligence and based upon his reads.
These reads would indicate favorability with such factors as poker hands, the board reads/community cards, flop, draw, and fold percentages of the Texas Holdem opponents at the poker table, pot odds, “outs”, chip stacks and so on down the line.
When the reads are favorable, an online poker player will pick up on his aggression and when they are not he will retreat and preserve his poker chips for when they are right. One of the biggest mistakes made at the online poker table is by Texas Holdem players that are too aggressive with poker hands that may be the best before the flop, but have the potential of being outdrawn on or after the flop.
Examples of such hands would be top pair. Often times, top pair poker hands get beaten out on the showdown on Fifth Street/The River. It is also important for a Texas Holdem player to keep in mind that one of the most certain poker rules of thumb is that with so many online poker players having high draw percentages, many top pair hands are more likely to be outdrawn than in the less aggressive games of the past.
Another advantage and feature of an online poker player being aggressive/tight is that it is easier for him to change gears and to not be so easily read by his Texas Holdem opponents. Online poker players that are always aggressive are just as easy to read and play against, as are the ultra tight and conservative Texas Holdem players. Online poker players at either extreme of the aggression equation in poker games are easy marks and not the players to be worried about.
The online poker players that command the real fear and respect of their opponents are the ones that cannot be read, the ones that are unpredictable and constantly changing gears with their poker hands. This element of surprise and unpredictability of the aggressive/tight Texas Holdem players gives them an advantage and respect that online poker players on the two extremes simply cannot command. Aggressive/tight is the most intelligent and logical way to approach an online poker table.
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