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How do you play Blackjack?
Reservoir Angel
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Okay so on the 8th of October my Uni is holding some charity casino night thing. Of course the object of the night is to give money to charity, but I do intend to actually hang onto my own cash. And since I've proven abysmally, disgustingly, shockingly shit at other casino games (namely roullette and poker) I've set my sights on the Blackjack table.
Trouble is the only thing I know about Blackjack is that you cannot exceed 21. So I need some schoolin' on the subject.
Help me Penny Arcade, you're my only hope! Alright now what do I click?...
Trouble is the only thing I know about Blackjack is that you cannot exceed 21. So I need some schoolin' on the subject.
Help me Penny Arcade, you're my only hope! Alright now what do I click?...
Reservoir Angel on
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Simply: You get two cards to start and up to three more, one at a time. Your total can not exceed 21, but you want to get the highest total out of everyone at the table.
Number cards are worth their number in points, Face cards are ten points, Aces can be one or eleven points, your choice.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
But you'll still lose.
with the dealer.
Wiki's got some pretty good info on Blackjack though, with just a little strategy as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackjack
Card counting without the assistance of an outside device is perfectly legal. There is no way they can monitor or police what you do in your own head. They will hate you and try to fuck with you or just kick you out, though.
Key to gambling is bring a set amount, and leave with that amount if possible. If you bring $10, keep $10 in chips on the side if you win more than that and try not to bet it. If you end up with $30, place $15 aside, soon and so forth.
That way, by the end, you walk away with what your brought, or, at worst, just down $10 bucks. Scale it as appropriate for your game.
Edit: Slagmire beat me to it.
I would say bring a wad of cash that you would be just as happy setting on fire, and leave any debit cards or check books at home.
Instead of playing each spin, you play over a series of spins. You can either play the Outside bets(1-18, Even, Red, Black, Odd, 19-36) or picking out a pie slice of the wheel. I play the Outside Bets as thats easier to remember whats going on when your getting tipsy, and will be easier to write an example out.
The outside bets statistically will hit sometime within 7 spins. What you do is just pick a bet, and continue to bet on it. When you lose your next bet will be double what your previous was. Here is the example
Choice Bet amount Result Winnings Total Winnings
Red $5 Black $-5 $-5
Red $10 Black $-10 $-15
Red $20 Black $-20 $-35
Red $40 Green $-40 $-75
Red $80 Black $-80 $-155
Red $160 Red $160 $5
Woo, you won $5 after betting $315. It gets scary quickly as you see. I have gotten up to that scary 160 bet a couple time, and the $320 bet once. I have also seen 10 spins in a row without a hit(making me lose a shit ton of money cause I didn't have enough to cover that many spins). Basicly we increase your win% chance from 17/38 to something much much better.
It's not illegal unless you use a machine of some kind, they can't stop you doing math in your head. But if they think you're doing it you can get kicked out of casinos.
You realize that from a statistical standpoint, what other people at the table are doing is pretty much irrelevant to your success, right? People can't "steal" your card. Random cards are random. Getting annoyed at how other people are playing at your table, unless they are needlessly wasting time, is the sign of an amateur. In the same vein, it is a huge mistake to alter how your play your hand based on cards everyone else is pulling.
Doing well at blackjack is 100% dependent on you knowing what to do in every situation. For any given hand there is a correct and an incorrect play. It's not like roulette or craps where you have multiple options for bets that all give you roughly the same odds of winning. Knowing the right plays to make in blackjack is the difference between having close to (but not quite) even odds and quickly losing your money. There's not really any way to do it besides memorize the correct plays to make for each situation. It's not terribly complicated and follows a certain amount of logic once you understand what you're doing.
The number one tip I could give to a new blackjack player is to learn when a "surrender" is appropriate, find out what casinos allow surrenders, and avoid the ones that don't at all costs. A surrender is when you give half your bet to the dealer and sit out the rest of the hand. Inexperienced players don't like this because you're loosing a chance to win. But consider this situation. You have 16. The dealer is showing a 10. It is highly likely that you will lose this hand whether you stand or hit. It's basically the worst hand you can have. Would you rather lose 100% of your bet, almost 100% of the time, or lose 50% of your bet 100% of the time? Over the long term, the surrender can be one of the easiest ways to minimize your losses.
If they were pulling cards from a truly random pool, that would be the case, but the order of the cards are set after the shuffle. If the next card in the shoe is a 10, and the dingleberry with 16 hits it, and you had 11, you just got screwed by someone else's bad play.
In a real casino, you're required to use hand signals for your play because the cameras don't pick up audio, and they want to avoid disagreements. Pointing to or tapping the table means "Hit me," holding your hand flat means "stand," holding two fingers up or two index fingers together then pulling apart, plus putting an equal bet next to your original bet means "split" and putting an equal or lower bet directly behind your original bet and making the hit sign means "double down." If you want to surrender, just say "surrender" and don't make any hand signal that might be misinterpreted.
Also, unless you are playing single deck blackjack, never ever touch your cards. And never touch your bet once you put it on the table.
And if they have 14 and dealer is showing a 5 and they hit and pull a 6 and the dealer flips 15 and pulls a 10, are you complaining then?
Or a dingleberry hits when he shouldn't, pulls a card that would have bust you, and you get a 21. It works either way, and unless you have some sort of prescience as to what order the cards are in there's no way to know if someone's bad play will hurt or help you until after the fact.
edit: what steamy said
yep. and i know this is anecdotal, but from playing every night for 4+ hours for damn near a week I noticed I won a significant amount of money when the players at the table were competent and played correctly, but when they were idiots about playing everyone tended to lose.
Resevoir: The tapping the table is the nonverbal sign for 'Hit me' or that you want another card. Waving your hand horizontally over your hand is the signal for staying with the cards you have at that point.
Additional Rules I havent seen mentioned: Doubledown (double your bet and place it vertically in line with your standing bet) means that you are betting double on the chance that your next card will place you in a winning position. Many people doubledown when they have 11 to start off since the odds of landing a 8-9-10-face are pretty high and you will have 21. Doing it on anything but 11 and maybe 10 if youre adventerous is foolish however
People tapping the table means "hit me" (deal another card).
People holding their hand flat over the table (palm-down) means "stand" (wait for the dealer's cards to see if you won).
Other than that, use your words.
Of course it can work both ways, but people can "steal" your card and they can inadvertently save you.
That assumes that you have knowledge of the predetermined order of the cards. For a 5 or 6 deck shoe or an autoshuffler, the next card is essentially random no matter what the previous card was. While it's true that there is a finite number of cards, and therefore previous results are a prediction if future results, the size of the shoe makes the previous card's effect on the next card's value virtually negligible.
While this is true, pissing people off at the table is much less fun than having a table where everyone's not pissed at you.
In that same train of thought, I don't believe there's any rules against asking other players for advice, too.
There's also no rule against me giving you shitty advice and making you bust or stand on a shitty hand in order to line my own pockets either.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
Except as already mentioned, in casino blackjack you're not playing against each other, you each play against the dealer. So you, as another player, giving me bad advice does nothing to help line your pockets.
There is, however, a rule about giving long, inspirational speeches, as Christ Tucker would be happy to tell you.
You don't win money from other players, you win money from the dealer.
Plus this would just make you a titanic prick.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler's_fallacy
but they're listening to every word I say
Yes ... and I'm the kind of person who thinks that THAT CARD IS MINE HOW DARE YOU STEAL IT - ie a titanic prick - then I will give you bad advice to make you leave the table, ergo "increasing my chances" to line my pockets.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
First, IANAS.
But I'm pretty sure that's not exactly relevant. I mean, yeah, you shouldn't get to -$315 and go "I'm definitely gonna win this time" because your odds of winning at that moment are still 17/38. But your overall odds of winning $5 over the course of seven spins are pretty damn good.
'course, an hour of doing that will be rendered null-and-void by one loss at $320. You're still better off getting a damn job.
Gambling betting systems rely on that fallacy. You are just as well off betting the same thing over and over. I suppose increasing the bet every time saves you some time in the casino, if that is your goal. You would be just as well off betting it all on one spin.
but they're listening to every word I say