Risk of Ruin is a love story between two misfits: One of the things that happen when you take up card counting is that you start running into blackjack players everywhere. My optometrist, for example, has played the Hi-Lo count for several years. He knew exactly what I meant when I asked for a pair of contact lenses that would provide optimal vision at the distance of from 3rd base to 1st base.

And there are a couple of people at the office who claim to count cards, as well as a multitude of basic strategy players of varying skills. My neighbor, Gordito, is a newer member of the card counter culture. He was stopped for speeding one night on his way back to southern California from Las Vegas. He told the lady CHP officer that he was in a rush to get home to tell his wife about a sizable win at blackjack.

The next thing he knew the officer was asking him questions like whether or not you should split 2s when double after split is allowed. He claims that he got out a deck of cards and, while she held the flashlight, played a few hands on the hood of his car. On the graveyard shift at the Golden Nugget or Frontier in Las Vegas you may find a card counter at every table. You begin to speculate about which curve of what fluctuation you were born on.

This definition does not serve for the ups and downs of single-deck blackjack. Single-deck is too often like a sweaty calamitous trip through heaven and hell that ends with your wallet being on fire. But a good part of the time the cards and the casinos will give you an average chance to win, and that should be all you need.

Our blackjack literature is filled with amazing techniques, statistics and formulas, but most of it comes from professional players who bet black chips, or from the blackjack scientists. What is it like for the average player?

Since many Blackjack Forum readers are part-time players or blackjack hobbyists, I thought it might be interesting to review the playing records and experiences of a serious nonprofessional card counter.

My neighbor Gordito, mentioned above, has complete records of his first year in the pits as a part-time card counter. He knew that this win was due to good fortune rather than skill, but he began to wonder… could an expert player beat the house in the 90s?

Could a man approaching middle age with a stressful job, three kids, two dogs and two mortgages make blackjack into a profitable hobby? He claims that he took a green chip and placed it on the pillow beside each of his sleeping children and asked for help from above. Did he have the discipline?

Did he have the time? Did he have the money? He picked up a couple of the newer blackjack books especially Arnold Snyder's Blackbelt in Blackjack , bought a few decks of cards, and spent the next three months playing 11, hands of double-deck blackjack on the breakfast bar.

He played four hands against the dealer, naming three of the players after his children and the fourth after one of his dogs. He kept meticulous records. A little over a year later Gordito owned 30 books on blackjack and related subjects, six blackjack software programs and had spent at least hours programming a blackjack database. He had made 22 trips to Las Vegas and Laughlin. Gordito would never be the same. Following are some of the results of his first year as a card counter. His expenses were modest.

For most of the year he had a company car with free gas, and he got a few free rooms at the Frontier. He did not make enough to cover the blackjack books, subscriptions and software, or the gifts for his children they got tired of slot cups after a while. Gordito defines a "session" as a period of play at the same game in the same casino without serious break--meaning you can change tables or use the rest room, but you can't change the number of decks you're playing or take time out to eat.

Statistics on hands per hour, average bet, and win rate are by necessity approximations. Hands per hour is based on many hours of stopwatch work. The hands per hour for single-deck, as shown below, include playing two hands per round about half the time. Average bets are based on the results of computer simulations Blackjack PowerSim simulator is available free at Blackjack Forum Online , with adjustments made at the end of each session based on an estimate of actual bet spread.

If records had been kept for consecutive losses that spanned sessions, Gordito thinks that they would show that he lost at least 10 hands in a row somewhere along the line. It should be noted that the above statistics, although they may be typical for a first year of part-time blackjack, are not statistically relevant due to the small sampling.

So far blackjack has been a positive experience for Gordito, although the game has become something of an obsession. He practices every day and, no matter how dreary things may be at work or in life in general, he always has the next trip to prepare for and look forward to. He has increased his efficiency at day-to-day chores.

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He gets them done quickly so that he can find time for blackjack. He still never misses a little league game or a school program, but he attends these events with his pockets full of flash cards and charts he can often be seen standing in some lighted area passing pieces of paper between his hands and mumbling to himself. His family is also generally enjoying his experience. The children argue about whether the buffet is better at Palace Station or the Mirage.

Be in Barstow at about seven and home by 9: The family plays blackjack together with Gordito as dealer. He tries to analyze the personalities of his children by how they handle doubling and splitting. He has a kitchen cupboard full of stacks of cards glued together at different thickness with the correct number of cards in each stack written on the bottom. On the other hand, he endures considerable flack from his family for spending too much time with blackjack.

Being a blackjack player has its ups and downs. Gordito started out his career by winning the first three trips. There is a kind of nausea and paranoia that can afflict even experienced players when an uncommon losing streak happens. In the morning he felt a little better. He made some instant coffee from the hot water tap and reviewed the grievous session of the previous night. He quickly realized a couple of his mistakes.

For one, the game at the Nugget that night had been lousy.

He had played with half a dozen dealers and none of them were offering decent penetration. He should have abandoned the Nugget after a few minutes instead of playing for two hours. Secondly, he had allowed a hot dealer to irritate him. The dealer was a wimpy guy with a bald head and an insubstantial mustache.

In addition, the dealer would suddenly shuffle after only a round or two though there were only two players at the table. The longer Gordito played, the madder he got, and the madder he got, the more he lost. Having had these insights in the fresh light of morning, Gordito decided to not give up blackjack forever, but rather to get better at it and to never let a dealer get to him again.

He thought he might add a few dollars to his winnings. The dealer was the friendly, talkative sort. He was a tall man and dealt very quickly from the high position with the cards floating down onto the spots. A card would just be settling down on one spot as the next card left his hand, so there was a nice effect of cards being continuously in the air.

How I got barred from casinos for counting cards at blackjack

Gordito was tired so he decided to just bet the count and not worry much about camouflage. Sometimes in these types of casinos you can get away with almost anything if you bet nickels.

If it looked like they were getting on to him, he would simply get up and leave—he was already going to be late in getting home. As it turned out, he had one of those miraculous runs of luck where everything worked.

The other players were caught up in his win streak and applauded when he split tens on one of his hands and doubled down on a soft total on the other, and won all three. He kept checking for pit boss eyes but, during the entire session, despite the exclamations and applause, a boss never approached the table.

When he cashed out he was disappointed to discover that instead of a good win, he was down a few dollars.

Playing Blackjack For a Living - Blackjack Apprenticeship

He had apparently lost more big bets toward the end than he had thought. In any case, it had been exciting to take over a blackjack table for a while and not get any heat. Gordito initially marked this session up as the lesson: Gordito keeps detailed playing records and follows a basic rule of waiting three months between sessions at the same casino on the same shift.

As he walked between the blackjack pits the lady boss in the pit to his left took one look at him and picked up the phone. Gordito looked to the right and observed the boss on that side answer his phone and then look directly at him.

Two pair of eyes watched as Gordito suddenly looked at his watch, muttered something about being late, and attempted to look casual as he turned around and exited the casino. He spotted a nearby blackjack table with an empty stool and walked directly to it, counting down the cards on the table as he approached. At this point he noticed a red dress pressed up to the table next to the dealer. He looked up into the unfriendly eyes of the lady pit boss.

Her name tag said Carol. He suddenly looked at his watch, muttered something about being late, and once again tried to look casual as he exited the casino. It required a full year of play for him to get the ace count and true count adjustments down to where they were almost automatic.

He is now halfway into his second year of card counting and is feeling comfortable playing the Omega II. I asked him what advice he would give an aspiring counter and he said: Another good introduction to card counting is Nathaniel Tilton's The Blackjack Life , about a guy who took a class in card-counting and set out to beat the casinos.

For more information on getting started at winning at blackjack, see Intro to Winning Blackjack. For detail information on professional gambling techniques, go to the Blackjack Forum Professional Gambling Library. HOW TO WIN AT BLACKJACK: A Year of Card Counting: Learn Blackjack Basic Strategy.

The Easy Red 7 Count. The Even Easier OPP Count. Do You Have What It Takes To Win? A New Novel By Arnold Snyder: The Red 7 Card Counting System. A First Year In The Blackjack Pits By G. Schroeder From Blackjack Forum, Vol. One Year of Blackjack Card Counting Results No.