how to win at blackjack

WHY IS Precision blackjack - BETTER?  First, let's look at just three of the reasons:

1) Precision blackjack is better because it addresses the real situation at hand, not some fantasy game that exists only in Blackjack books, computer programs and in the minds of some "experts"

2) Precision blackjack uses plain common sense. It's the thinking man's approach to Blackjack. Once you have had some training and practice, you will find that your mind is far more agile and reliable than some  rigid unthinking chart. Think about this. The entire OBJ approach can be reduced to a single piece of paper. If that was all it took, there would be no Blackjack.

3) The casinos handed us a powerful edge on a silver platter; non-random cards. How can that help us? Because high cards follow high cards and low cards follow low cards more than they randomly should. Therefore, whenever we bet that they won't repeat, it is a bad bet. So, we bet that they will repeat. We are right far more often than we are wrong. How's that for poetic justice.

HOW DOES PRECISION BLACKJACK WORK? The approach can be divided into two parts: CARD PLAY and BETTING. Let's take them one at a time. CARD PLAY: Let's forget about soft hands , double downs, and splits for the moment. Once we have done this, card play decisions can be reduced to hands of 12 through 16 only. This is because there is nothing to be decided for a hand less than 12; we automatically hit. Likewise, there is nothing to be decided for hands greater than 16; we stand. OBJ utilizes the basic strategy chart to make the 12 to 16 card play decisions.

This chart looks at only one piece of information to make this all important decision - the dealer's up card. Once they assume that the cards are random, which they aren't, the up card is all that they have to go on. Recognize that the up card alone is nearly useless for accurately assessing the dealer's hand. This is because, with random cards, the chance that the dealer's hole card is high is exactly the same as the chance that it is low. Never-the-less, basic strategy assumes that the dealer has a ten in the hole. This means that they are right only 30.8 % of the time, or once in 3.25 hands, because that is the ratio of tens in a deck of cards. We will learn later that they are actually right far less than that. When we take the time to really contemplate it, we can't help but come to the conclusion that basic strategy is too simple minded to form the basis of a reliable winning approach to effective card play. Statistics verify this conclusion. While basic strategy may fare well in random, single deck games, it only wins about 40-42% of the hands in the modern shoe game. This is totally inadequate for winning play. By contrast, we appreciates the fact that the cards are not random and assess separate pieces of information to make the 12 - 16 card play decision far more accurately.

We achieve a hands won ratio in the 52-58% range, depending on the difficulty of the game and the experience of the player. These figures have been verified by many players over many thousands of hands. We invite you to verify them yourself by your own play records, if you so desire. Precision blackjack also looks at the dealer's up card, but recognizes it's impotence without additional information. Through a process called card reading, afforded by the non-random condition of the cards, Precision blackjack achieves a highly accurate perception of the dealer's hole card as well as the player's and dealer's hit cards. Precision blackjack then combines these four pieces of evidence with the tens ratio of the hand being played as well as the historical dealer break ratio in the game being played. These sources of information are assessed to make a highly enlightened play decision. The same information is then used, very effectively, to identify high percentage double down, split, and insurance opportunities.

BETTING: OBJ utilizes card counting for the betting side of their game. We contend that card counting is not only beyond the ability of most players, it is worse than useless in today's shoe game because it directs the player to place high bets on more dealer favorable hands than player favorable hands. PRECISION BLACKJACK utilizes the far more effective tens ratio monitoring method, which tells the player if the next round is favorable or not. It also tells the player what game type he is in and the most effective betting strategy for that game type.

Is today's game winnable? Look the dealer wins more than half the hands by simply hitting to 17. (We call that "dealer strategy"). We can play our cards any way we want! If the dealer can win by playing mindless dealer strategy, think about what we can do by using our intelligence to play optimum strategy! Think about what we can do by playing the edge that the casinos unwittingly gave us. And that's not the half of it. Add to that the best table selection strategy, the best insurance strategy, the best double down strategy, the best money and time management strategies and the most enlightened betting strategy the game has ever seen. Add hit and hole card anticipation. And there is more. So, is today's game winnable? YOU BET IT IS!

'If the cards were random, all games would be the same.'

DOES CLUMPING EXIST? Enlightened players in real casinos already know the answer, however, many calls and letters still pose this question. Not surprising. Most casino personnel and many BJ 'experts- still deny the existence of non-random cards. This is like denying the existence of blue Fords. For the purpose of instruction, clumping and non-random are the same thing. Clumping merely describes the way in which the cards are non-random. Clumping means that low cards follow low cards and high cards follow high cards more often than random math allows. Since the card play and betting strategies of Precision blackjack are largely based on clumping, let's put this question to bed once and for all. How familiar is this? You get dealt a two card 20 only to watch all the other players also get dealt a 20, including the dealer. Everyone pushes.

We call this phenomenon a 'solid ten push' They are all too familiar to real players, aren't they? They occur with regularity anywhere the 4, 6, or 8 deck shoe game is dealt.  Anyone, expert or not, who denies their existence, does not play in real casinos. In the Atlantic City summer games, they are so common that no one bothers to question them anymore. Sometimes they occur more than once in the same shoe! I once counted 24 tens in a row in a 4 deck game in the high stakes room at the Claridge.

The random odds against this occurrence, with only 4 decks, are 69.5 trillion to 1. I am sure you have all had similar experiences. Of course, if you raise an eyebrow at the pit boss you will get: 'Oh well, you can expect that with random cards.'

MATHEMATICAL PROOF: Let's walk through the math together and then you tell me if clumping exists or not. Let's look at an ordinary six deck game with the cut off card placed a quarter of the way up. How many cards will be dealt? 52 cards X 6 decks X .75 - 1 burn card 233 Now, as the cards are dealt, how often should tens fall on a random basis? There are 4 tens in every 13 cards. Therefore tens will fall, on average, 4 times every 13 cards, or 13 / 4, or once for every 3.25 cards dealt. How often will two tens fall in a row? Easy. 3.25 X 3.25 or once every 10.56 cards. Three tens in a row is 3.25 X 3.25 X 3.25 or once every 34.3 cards. Four in a row works out to once every 111 cards dealt. Five tens in a row will randomly occur once in every 363 cards dealt. Let's stop there for a minute. The math purists are going to note that as consecutive tens fall, the normal tens ratio (1 in 3.25) will change slightly for each 10 dealt. They are right. The corrected random occurrence of 5 tens in a row is actually once in every 390 cards dealt. All I did here is subtract one card and one ten for each 10 dealt and divide to obtain the corrected tens ratio. The corrected math looks like this. 3.25 x 3.274 x 3.298 x 3.322 x 3.348 = 390. The point here is that 390 cards is a lot more than the 233 cards dealt in a six deck shoe. Therefore, we should only see 5 tens in a row once every 1.67 shoes. Then why do we actually see them far more often than that? Why indeed, if the cards are really random? Not convinced?

Let's go further. Let's put six players in our 6 deck game since that is the most common game in Las Vegas and The Bahamas and is also very common in Atlantic City. Now let's see what the real odds are of achieving that all too common solid ten push, if the cards were really random. To achieve our solid ten push all around, we will need a minimum of 14 tens in a row (six players plus the dealer X two cards = 14). We merely continue our math progression as before, adjusting the tens ratio as we go, until we have multiplied the corrected random tens expectancy 14 times. If you take five minutes to do this on an ordinary calculator, it works out that 14 tens in a row will randomly occur once in every 29,531,367 cards dealt. So, you see, the casinos are right: "Oh well can expect that with random cards". What they don't tell you is that you should expect it only once in every 30 million cards dealt!!! So, exactly how often is that? Well, if we divide the 29,531,367 cards needed by the number of cards dealt in a six deck shoe (233), we find we can readily expect a solid ten push once in every 126,744 shoes. At six shoes per hour, we can count on seeing one every 21,124 hours of play. If you were a full time pro and spent 40 hours a week in the casinos, 50 weeks a year, and you spent a quarter of your time at the tables, you would get to see a six player, solid ten push every 42.2 years. That's what would happen IF THE CARDS WERE RANDOM. Yet, we see them all the time. I don't know how many I have seen, but it's more than a thousand. So, how are the casinos going to explain this away? They will probably tell me I must be 42,000 years old. Come on guys! No clumping? Let me tell you about the three hole in ones I had yesterday. There are a couple of flaws in our math.

The math purist will note that the dealer usually deals through the cutoff card. However, a 14 card solid ten clump must begin at least 14 cards in from the last card dealt. So, 233 cards dealt is about right. Our math determining the odds of 14 tens in a row is correct. But, 14 tens in a row certainly does not guarantee a solid ten push. Recognize that we would only get a solid ten push when the first of the 14 tens happens to fall as the first player's first card. This will occur only about one time in twenty. Therefore, the odds of achieving a solid ten push from 14 tens in a row are more than one in thirty million. They are much closer to one in six hundred million! But, the point remains the same. We should never see solid ten pushes with random cards. But, we do see them! Therefore, how can the cards be random?

MORE TELLTALE SIGNS OF CLUMPING: Most letters and email tell me that is completely credible because they've seen it all before. Maybe you have noticed some of these phenomenon DEALER TWENTY ONES You don't suppose this has anything to do with low card clumps, do you? Maybe the dealers are just getting luckier.

GAME CHARACTERISTICS: Now you have to admit that there are good games and there are bad games. Even a beginner soon realizes this sometime during his first day in a casino. All table selection strategies are based on the fact of game characteristics. Think about it! If all games were random, there would be no game characteristics. That's what random means: without patterns; without characteristics. If the cards were random, all games would be the same.

SHUFFLE TACTICS: Why do casinos change their shuffle? Isn't a random shuffle a random shuffle? If the cards are random, why wouldn't all casinos use the same shuffle and never change it? You don't suppose they are trying to influence the game, do you? They would never try to control the amount of clumping, would they? How could they, if the cards are random? LOW CARD CLUMPS: Recognize that clumping the high cards effectively clumps the low cards. Where else could they be? Remember those rounds with no tens? Or maybe two or three or more rounds in a row? 'Oh well, you can expect that with random cards.

DEALER BREAK SUBVERSION: The more the cards are clumped, the less the dealer breaks. The "stand plays" (stand with less than 17) and the "double" and "split" plays constitute the very essence of basic strategy. All of these critical plays were computed against the risk factor generated by a normal dealer break ratio of one dealer break for every 3.5 rounds played. Think about it. When was the last time you saw a dealer break that often? When the casino tampers with this ratio, they destroy the odds of the critical plays of basic strategy! Here's how it's done: The more the cards are clumped, the greater the incidence of both high and low card clumps. That is, after all, the definition of clumping. When the cards are dealt out of a high card clump of nines, tens, and aces,  THE DEALER CANNOT BREAK.

Think about it! She never even hits, let alone breaks. Even if we add eights to the high card clumps, the dealer can only break on the rare occasion of a pair of eights. Likewise, when the cards are dealt out of a low card clump of ace through five, THE DEALER CANNOT BREAK. Likewise, when the dealer's hit cards are dealt out of a similar low card clump, THE DEALER CANNOT BREAK. She must draw a card higher than five to break. If we add sixes, the dealer can only break on the rare occasion when she gets a 16 and is unlucky enough to draw a six. Note that I listed three separate common shoe game situations where THE DEALER CANNOT BREAK. Together, they cover a significant portion of the shoe. Remember those games where the dealer never broke? Now you know why. Yet basic strategy DEPENDS on the dealer breaking one out of 3.5 hands. It's not going to happen, is it?

STAND HAND SUBVERSION: THE DEALER CANNOT BREAK during an ace through five low card clump. Yet, that is precisely when basic strategy says STAND and let the dealer break; when, in fact, THE DEALER CANNOT BREAK. Therefore, The basic strategy player cannot win a single hard hand during ace through five low card clumps. In fact, he can't even get a push! Conversely, the dealer will win every hand during the low card clumps AGAINST EVERY BASIC STRATEGY PLAYER. Sixes do not significantly improve this dismal situation. Perhaps you are beginning to see that basic strategy was never meant for the shoe game. The shoe game IS a different animal and it DOES require a different approach.

WHY NO RIGID STRATEGY WORKS IN THE SHOE GAME: We can define a rigid strategy as any strategy that charts rigid plays against the dealer up\card. While basic strategy is the original, other rigid strategies have been created in attempts to adapt basic strategy to the shoe game, While some may have shown improvement, none of them actually worked. None of them produced bottom line winners in the shoe game. The problem is that, by its nature, no rigid strategy can defeat the shoe game.

Here's why: Any rigid strategy requires a constant target to shoot at; a constant target like random cards. Clumped cards present a moving, or variable target. In the shoe game, both the tens ratio and the dealer break ratio vary widely within the same shoe, as well as from shoe to shoe and from game to game. We have mentioned that the number of players, the number of decks, the shuffle, and elapsed play time all effect the level and type of clumping. A rigid strategy cannot effectively cope with these variable conditions. To accommodate variable conditions we require a variable strategy, a more logical perspective.

BASIC GAME COMPREHENSION: AND YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW THE RULES. Most players believe they already have sufficient basic game comprehension and may overlook this important point. In reality, few players, including pro Precision blackjack players and BS card counters, actually possess a thorough grasp of basic game comprehension This shortcoming will affect the quality of their play and their ability to fully grasp this! I want to list some game fine points to give you a world class perspective on basic game comprehension. Each of you will see some new twists in our interpretation of the rules.

WHAT THE RULES TEACH US.

1  All rules favor the player but one - when you both break you lose.

2  Dealer play is totally mindless - only the player is allowed to think.

3  Players can lose a hand 3 ways but dealers can only lose 2 ways.

PLAYERS - The player loses whenever he:

1. Stands short when the dealer makes

2. Makes a hand less than the dealer's

3. Breaks

1. Makes a hand less than the player's

2. Breaks when the player doesn't

4. Standing short is betting the dealer will break - nothing more.

5.  Hitting a stiff is betting the dealer won't break - nothing more.

6. Whenever you stand short you lose - unless the dealer breaks.

7. Dealer breaking varies widely from an average of about 1 in 5.

8. The dealer break frequency tends to remain constant in a game.

9. It is foolish to stand short more often than the dealer is breaking.

10. The dealer cannot break on low cards of 1 through 5. 1

11. The dealer cannot break with all high cards.

12. Forecasting dealer breaks offers our biggest gain potential.

13. Doubling is betting a single hit card will beat the dealer.

14. Insurance is betting the hole card is a 10 - nothing more.

15. The hole card is low just as often as it is high.

16. To break even on surrender we must be right 75%.

17. Splitting is merely deciding what hand we prefer to start with.

18. A dealer strategy player is only giving the house 2% odds.

19. You decide when and where to play, when to stop, how much to bet, when to double, split, insure, or surrender and how much to tip.

20. The dealer makes no decisions.

21. Betting is the art of predicting which hands we are most likely to win.

22. Predicting winning hands is the art of forecasting dealer breaks.

23. Forecasting dealer breaks is the art of Precision blackjack.
 
 

Basic Strategy was the first mathematical system developed for Blackjack. However, it is almost 40 years old and was based on the premise of a SINGLE deck of cards and a RANDOM shuffle. Also, card counting, almost 35 years old, used these premises as well as assuming that the game would be dealt to the BOTTOM of the deck. Both of these systems are static, or 100% mechanical, with NO FLEXIBILITY WHATSOEVER.

In 1982, Atlantic City casinos lost a very important court case in which they were no longer allowed to bar skilled Blackjack players. So the casinos hired consultants to figure out how to subvert the game to defeat the Basic Strategy players and card counters. Because these two systems are static, it didn't take the consultants long to find a way to beat them. The first thing casinos did was add multiple decks to the game. This created wider swings in the count due to increased card clumping as a result of a non-random shuffle. How many big bets have you lost in high counts? The second thing they did was to move up the cut card to reduce the counters' advantage. Sure, there might be an excess of tens left, but the counter has no way of knowing if they are behind the cut card or not. Third, they began to pick up the cards and put them into the discard tray immediately after a player would break rather than leave them on the table until the end of the round.

This created what we call "Break-Card Clumping." In general, the cards left on the table would be two-card twenties or nineteens, thus creating "high-card clumps." The reverse would automatically happen as well. Usually the breaking hands would contain a strong majority of low cards, which would be stacked in the discard tray right on top of each other. Then the twenties and nineteens left would be put on top of the breaking hands, creating a low-card clump followed by a high card clump. At this point, you may agree with everything we've said, but your next question is, "Wouldn't the shuffle break up these clumps?" NO!!! Read on.

NON-RANDOM SHUFFLES

A Harvard Mathematician did a study a few years ago on shuffling and concluded that it takes seven shuffles to approach randomness with a single deck of cards. So if your casino is using eight decks, the cards would have to be shuffled 7x7x7x7x7x7x7x7 times to achieve this. That is a very big number! It would take years to shuffle at this rate. The point is that the cards are NOT randomized as believed by most people. All this led to the most damaging change - the reduction of the dealer break ratio, which according to the old math was 28%, or 1 out of 3.5 hands. When was the last time YOU saw the dealer break like this on average? Anyone who plays the multi-deck game on a regular basis KNOWS this to be TOTALLY UNREALISTIC! 15 - 20% is much more like it. Basic Strategy relies on this 28% ratio exclusively to make everything work. When this ratio breaks down, Basic Strategy breaks down with it. How does this happen???

Because of the Low and High - card Clumping! First, with low cards clumping together, it is impossible for the dealer to break. The dealer must hit to seventeen and if low cards are coming out, guess what? This is where you see those all - too- common five, six, and seven card nineteens, twenties, and twentyones that the dealer seems to miraculously mass - produce to beat you again and again. Since Basic Strategy tells you to stand with your stiff hand against an up card of 2-6, you are losing far too many of these hands when low cards are running. If the dealer can't break here, neither can you. The cards don't know who is dealing! Second, in high-card clumps the dealer usually ends up with those all-too-common two card twenties.

How many times have you received one of these hands with the dealer's Ten up staring you in the face and you got a sick feeling in your stomach because you just KNEW the hole card was a Ten? This is NOT by accident. Remember, high cards favor the player so what the casinos have done is actually removed player favorable cards with NO LOSS to them at all, since a push costs them nothing. This is legalized cheating-just like short decking in the old days, except disguising it!

Now that you are aware of the dirty little tricks the casinos play, what is the answer? By tampering with the natural odds of the game, the casinos have left themselves vulnerable to Flexible Card Play tactics!!! If the cards are not random, they must be PREDICTABLE to a certain extent. Imagine being able to predict the dealer's hole card and the hit cards with amazing accuracy! To make matters worse, many double and spilt plays occur in the midst of low - card clumps so the player is putting out more money at the worst possible time. Think about it - how many times do you double when you see low cards all over the table and you KNOW the next card is low? But, you do it anyway because the $9.95 book you bought said so, and you lose again, and again , and again ..

Here is where Basic Strategy fails - because players never alter their play sooner or
later the odds of the game will catch up to them. Remember, the odds favor the house.
All the Basic Strategy player can hope for is a "hot run" to bet up into before the house edge catches up with them. Of course we know how often this happens - very rarely. STOP!!! It is time to change your thinking and start playing on a higher level.