New Blackjack Players

Archive for December, 2009

I just returned from a couple days in Palm Springs, where I played at The Spa the entire time, mostly because I was winning most the time and I was too lazy to drive somewhere else.

This was not a fun-filled, carefree couple of days. It started out really good – I got into town, had a glass of wine with a friend, she “saged” me – then I dropped my bags off at her place and went to the casino. The next day, I was having server problems, one of my biggest web sites got shut down for resource abuse, and I’d forgotten my laptop power supply, so I couldn’t spend a lot of time online dealing with this.

Consequently, because I (a) arrived in the afternoon on the first day and (b) dealt with problems the morning of the second day, it wasn’t until (c) the third day that I played in the morning, which is actually one of my favorite times to go to the casino. As a result, it wasn’t until my last day of play that I ran into one of the regulars who fancies herself an expert.

For all you new blackjack players: beware the “expert” at your table!

This woman was full of advice (most of it wrong) for everyone she thought was making a bonehead move. This included: you never split 9s, you never split 2s or 3s, you never ever double down a soft hand (A+ another card) except when the dealer is showing a 5 or a 6, you never hit soft 18 (A,7) – and so on and so forth. If you’ve done your homework and learned basic strategy, you know that this advice is wrong wrong wrong. I try my best to ignore this kind of behavior but it has required nearly biting my tongue in half at times. Counting my chips helps. Tracking the amount of hands the “expert” loses versus the amount of hands I win also makes me feel better.

I used to give advice at the table. I used to ask for advice. One usually isn’t welcome and the other isn’t smart. Don’t ask others at the table for advice. Go to the Blackjack Basic Strategy engine, print yourself off the basic strategy for the various rules – then memorize them. Carry them in your pocket or your purse, if you need to – the casino doesn’t care if you pull them out and look at them. You can even buy the cards at the same site as the Basic Strategy engine.

Don’t tell other people how to play their hand unless they ask for help – and even then, only tell them how you would play that hand and always say “but it’s your money so do what you want.” If you don’t like how someone is playing their hand, either sit out a couple hands or change tables. (I know – this isn’t always an option when tables are limited.) And for gawd’s sake – make sure YOU aren’t giving bad advice! If you aren’t solid about having memorized the basic strategy, just tell them you really aren’t sure. You are under no obligation to teach others to play, especially if you’re still kind of shaky yourself. Sometimes, the person making bonehead moves knows better – and doesn’t care. There was one fellow at my table who was regularly splitting 10s. If you know what you’re doing (i.e., you count cards), you may sometimes split 10s because it’s to your advantage to do so. However – I am 99% certain this guy was no card counter. He was hitting stiff hands against a dealer bust card and splitting 10s and he simply didn’t give a flying <whatever> if nobody liked it. The little voice inside of me cheered every time he lost big when he did this.

In summary, get the basic strategy cards or print them out and memorize them and then you don’t need to qualify some stranger as being an “expert.”