[MicroBob]

nice post. you know your stuff.


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Most folks do NOT play to anything like 10% disadvantage at blackjack. It's hard to hit -10% without intentionally trying to lose.

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100% correct.
If you were hitting your hard-17 against a dealer-6 or something then you could pass 10%.
Otherwise, it would be very hard to get there.
I suspect that 5% disadvantage is pretty much the max for most of the pretty bad BJ players (and this would include the stuff like standing on a soft-16 and not doubling on an 11 vs. a 6, etc).



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On people knowing better: years ago, I deal with a major published author of a book on blackjack who was convinced that he was reading tells from blackjack dealers who were checking for blackjacks using a hole-card reader system at casinos in Atlantic City.

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How any BJ author can't know how the hole-card readers work is pretty pathetic imo.
Was this guy just a total idiot?
Even most 'ploppies' (BJ slang for 'fish') understand that the dealer only sees an Ace or Ten (depending on which way they slide the card in).


However, the idea of dealer 'tells' is valid at the few places that actually phycially look UNDER the card (they don't use the card-reader thingee).
And if you develop a rapport with the dealer they can even help you out (by passing over your hard-16 vs. T or Ace before you even have a chance to signal).
The very first time I played blackjack I stuck around for a marathon session at $2/hand and was friendly (ummmm....flirting) with some of the dealers. I wasn't even tipping that much either. Good times.


story from that same first-ever BJ session, the casino was running a promotion where you got a token for every BJ with at least a $5 bet out there.
25 tokens and you got a free hotel-room that night.
I didn't want to play $5 on every hand (I was pretty poor at the time)...so I started to count in my head how many aces had come out and decided to increase my bet to $5 when I thought there was an abudance of aces remaining.
Kind of funny that it was the casino's OWN promotion that provoked me into a very rudimentary form of card-counting (I got the free room on back to back nights btw).