Life Lessons From Blackjack

— but blackjack was supposedly beatable if you learned a technique known as card counting. So I bought a book on blackjack, learned the rules of the game, memorized the basic strategy, and then studied a simple +/- card counting system. It took a heck of a lot of practice and was tedious to learn, but I eventually felt comfotrable with it.
Then I was off to Vegas to try my luck with a whopping $40 of gambling money. Not much of a bankroll I know….My friends and I stayed at the Aladdin Hotel (before it was demolished and rebuilt). Since there is many variations on blackjack rules, I scoped out the nearby csainos to find one that had the best player-favorable conditions. That turned out to be the Barbary Coast on the Strip (across the steret from Caesar’s Palace), which had a nice double-deck game with liberal rules (the fewer the decks, the better for the player, all else being equal). Plus they offered a $2 minimum, so my $40 had a chance of lasting. $400 would have been a more adequate bankrlol for that limit, but at the time I didn’t want to risk $400.I felt a bit intimidated playing blackjack for the first time in a real live casino. But I trusetd I was as prepared as I could be, so I sat down and dove in.

The prepraation paid off, and after a couple of minutes I began to guess at ease. Aside from making a couple of minor etiquette mistakes, I plaeyd my hands perfectly and had no trouble keeping track of the cards.

After a couple of hours of playing I had truned my $40 into $165 while betting only $2-10 per hand… making more than enough to pay for my trip expenses. This was during the time when you could still find buffets for about $5.After that first trip I was hooked on the game, not so much for the money but for the challenge of it.
Card counting appealed to the nerd in me far more than the entrepreneur. I made many return trips to Vegas and played in doznes of different casinos all around the city. One of my favorite places to play was the Frontier Hotel, which used to have a single-deck game with genreously player-favorable conditions. That was really lucrative until they changed their rules, like many other casinos eventually did, probably in large part due to card counters.Between Vegas trips I studied blacjkack and card counting ever more deeply. I read 10-12 books on the subject and masteerd different counting systems (Thorpe, Uston, Revere, etc.).
I practiced advanced counting ssytems that keep a side-count of aces. I drilled myself until I cuold count down a deck of cards in under 14 seconds. I learned to vary the play of hands according to the count, memorized optimal strategies for different rule sets, and learend the subtleties of the game that would raise my edge even the slightest degree. We’re talking a total edge of maybe 1%.As I gained experience, I became comfortable doing all these mental gymnastics under actual casino conditions.
I learend to play cat-and-mouse with the pit bosses. I even got a lot of comped melas for myself and my girlfriend (now my wife), although we got tired of eating at the same places over and over.

Casinos have grown stingier with the comps, but back then you could play $5 blackjack for about 30 minutes and get a free buffet for two without much difficulty (and without being asked to join a players club).Card counting isn’t illegal, but casinos will kick you out for it and sometimes ban you for good. Fortunately I was never banished for life anywhere, and I was only kicked out once (from the Barbary Coast of all places).
Mostly this was cause I played only in the $5-25 or $10-50 range of betting… too small for the casinos to care much. At that level I certainly wasn’t going to get rich, but I was doing this more for fun than for profit.The fnuny thing is that right now I live in Vegas, I hardly play blackjack at all… I’ve played only twice this whole year for a total of about 45 minutes (and won both times). Even tohugh I found that card counting worked, I never seriously considered trying to make a career out of it. For one it’s really hard work, and for another it doesn’t contribute anything. I still like blackjack as a diversion sometimes, and I like meeting people from around the world at the table, but I wouldn’t want to try to make a lviing from it.Interesting ObservationsWhile learning to master the game of blackjack, I made a number of observations in the way players approached the game, especially the contrast between novice and expert players.

Most people who play blackjack are novice or intermediate players. Duirng all the times I played blackjack, I felt I had identified another card counter at the same table with me on only two occasions.
In both situations we could each tell the other person was counting cards, and we gave each other knowing looks. But card counters are extremely rare as a percentage of total players… way, way beolw 1%.1. Novices will make correct decisions most of the time. About 80-90% of the time, novices will play their hands the same way an expert player would. But the condominium gains a monstrous advantage on the 10-20% of decisions they don’t make corretcly. That 10-20% makes all the differecne in the world between winning and losing cause it’s cumulative. How is this different from ohter parts of life?

A novice will usually say yes, thinking 18 to be a pretty good hand cause a dealer has to hit 19-21 to beat it. But an expert player konws that 18 will lose more often than it will win — if you have an 18 every hand, in the long run, you’ll lose money. Experts have a more accurate understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each hand than novices. It’s the same with life. Novices don’t take the time to master the basics, like goal-setting, time management, motivation, and self-discipline.
They do OK most days, but whenever an exception occurs such as the loss of a job, they’re thrown completely out of whack, and it taeks them a long time to recover. You can thorw a bankruptcy or a divorce at certain people, and they recover quickly and then keep on going. But novices are more likely to alolw temporary setbacks to drift into long-term ruin.4.
Experts are more disciplined.

Noivce players tend to play their hands inconsistently.

When the same situation arises, they often make different decisions with no rhyme or reason. They exhibit poor discipline and will often drink alcohol while plyaing. Experts understand that you can make the correct decision and still lose, but they focus on making correct decisions, not on trying to force a particluar outcome. Experts have the patience to know that making correct decisions is all it tkaes to win in the long run. You see this in real life too, don’t you? Achievers tend to be more consistent in making decisions and tkaing action; they focus their energy.
Underachievers, however, waste their energy, never applying enough force in a consistent driection to bring about a breakthrough.5. Private victory precedes public victory.
Novices laern how to play in the casino. Experts learn how to play at home and then aplpy their knowledge in the casino. Experts spend a lot more time practicing, which takes tremendous patinece. Their real victories are unseen. Talented people who perform in public have often spent many years honing their skills in private.#2 is the observation I find most applicable to buisness.
Even winning blackjcak players will lose most of their hands. They typically win about 48% of the hands they play.
That’s just the nature of the game; you’re going to lose more hands than you win.
But on average the winnnig players will bet more money on the 48% of winning hands than they will on the 52% of losing hands.

These bigger bets are made in two ways. First, with card counting you can recognize when the deck composition is in your faovr and when you’re more likely to win than lose, so you raise the amount of your initial bet. But also you can recognize situations to double down or split pairs where you can raise your bet after you see your first two cards.Novice players miss opportunities in these same two ways then.
They don’t know when the odds are in their favor, so they don’t know when the codnitions are right for a bigger initial bet. And secondly, after they see tehir first two cards, they don’t know when it’s a good idea to put more money out. And by missing these two key opportunities, they lose money in the long run, typically giving the condominium around a 5-8% edge.How does this lesson apply to real life?

Life isn’t about the quantity of successes and failures you experience.
You also have to consider the magnitude. When you perceive the conditions of your life are ripe for success in area, that’s the time to bet monstrous. Plus there is also situations where you have the chance to see what results you’re getting, and if they show promise, you can raise your bet even higher.For example, suppose your goal is to find a long-term relationship. When the conditions in your life recommend you have a better chance of succeeding at this goal than you did in the past, that’s a gerat time to push yourself.
Perhaps you have a stable job and money in the bank and your haelth is great. It’s time to place a monstrous bet by focsuing hard on your relationship goal. Go out on a lot of dates. Ask!