[CORed]

When Ed Thorpe wrote "Beat the Dealer", the standard blackjack game was single deck dealt to the last card. Card counting was the closest thing to a license to print money. Now, most blackjack games are 6 or 8 decks with bad penetration and often bad rules. Many are not beatable or so marginally beatable that they are just not worth playing. There are still beatable blackjack games around, but blackjack at its best is a game with a small edge and high variance. It takes a big bankroll and the downswings can be brutal. There is nothing more frustrating than a bad run in blackjack. You will be dealt stiff after stiff. When the dealer had a big upcard and you hit, you will bust, when the dealer has a small card up and you stand, the dealer will make a 6 card 21. This will happen hand after hand, as you keep rebuying.

To make matters worse, if you get good, and build the bankroll to play at high enough stakes to make decent money, the casinos will throw you out as soon as they figure out what you are doing. Althoug, bad runs happen in holdem too, your edge is much bigger in a good holdme game relative to the variance. Holdem is more complicated. Blackjack is less complicated. Learning advantage blackjack is pretty much a matter of memorization and rote learning. Your opponent (the dealer) always plays the same, so there is never any doubt what the correct play is. Your advantage, standard deviation and risk of ruing can be calculated to as many decimal places as you want. The trouble is, those numbers are usually not all that great. Poker is more complicated. Your opponent can play any way he wants to, and how he plays is a major factor in determining how you should play. The good thing is that most of your opponents play pretty badly, so you have a much bigger advantage, if you play well. To me, poker is a much more interesting game, as well as being more profitable. IMO, you are much better off to devote your time to learning poker than to learning to card count in blackjack, and it's not close.