If you are able to answer this single question you will never belong to the 95%. I am not saying that every time you go to theJay Moore is the author of The Most Powerful Blackjack Manual: A Complete Guide for Both Beginners and Experienced Players. In the manual, Jay demonstrates how to become a part of the less than 5% of players who leave the casino as winners, and have fun doing it. Jay is an accomplished math teacher and architect, who has played winning blackjack for over 25 years. Jay's website is www.blackjackmanual.com casino you’ll be a winner, but what I’m saying is that you’ll be a winner most of the time.
Occasional losses are unavoidable even for the best players.
The knowledge of the basic strategy (a set of rules that helps determine when and what decision to make) itself is not enough to belong to the group of winners.
Without a doubt you have experienced that anybody can pick up some sort of basic strategy chart in each and every casino. Some of them are available for free, while some of them are sold for a few dollars. The point is that knowing them is required, but it’s far from enough to allow you to leave the casino battlefield as a winner. I purposely stated ‘battlefield’ as I think that making money in the casino is a battle between the casino and the player, and the reward is always well deserved cash.
The basic strategy charts are more or less the same with some minor variations. Many, many years ago when I was a novice/rookie player I studied a lot of books and I had a lot of charts. I then went to the casino and was a little bit surprised because I followed all the instructions and lost money. If it would be enough to only follow the basic strategy in order to make money, then:
You have to know that the basic strategy works in the very long term. It does not turn a losing hand into a winning one. It only increases your chances of winning. As I used to joke at the tables that if you are lucky enough to be alive for 200 years, then the Basic Strategy will work for you. I am not telling you that I reject Basic Strategy; I’m just saying that it prevails only in the long term. In the short term – on any given day anything can happen – even the world’s worst player can win if he is lucky enough.
Do not chase dreams, since the rules of the game are “invented” in the favor of the casino. In the long term the casino will be the winner. But, most of the time losses do not happen in such a way that when you begin to play, you are heading straight south (of course, this will sometimes happen). Most of the cases it’s up and down, up and down and these ups and downs show a downward trend in the long term. At a certain point almost everybody is ahead.
You could have an easy answer if the nature of the game is up and down – just quit when you are up and you will be a winner. I know very well that this is much easier said than done. I will discuss this at another point in time, when I’ll analyze why more than 95% of the players lose.
Blackjack is a very emotional game, big ups and downs. If you are not able to tolerate this roller coaster of emotion (and stress yourself out after every lost hand) you will never belong to the proud 5% of winners.
When I was a rookie I used to buy book after book since I learned something from each of them, got good ideas, and I was in a hurry to get to the casino to try them out. Then somehow, none of them worked. It didn’t take long to realize that the Basic Strategy itself was not enough and thus there had to be something else which was necessary-knowledge to belong to the 5% (the winners). Many long years passed, when I discovered why the majority of the books do not present a complete picture. The reason is because they only deal with the technical aspect of the game and they do not analyze the other part of the game (which I call the emotional aspect) which can also be interpreted as why 95 % of players are losers.
Anybody can win, but just a really good skilled player with tremendous self-control is able to make money.
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