Professional blackjack is a business. You play thru neg counts because the long term profit expectation of playing positive counts exceeds the losses from playing negative counts.

Many businesses do not make money in the first few years as expenses outweigh profit.

In BJ, if you play a solid game, you will be theoretically making money from day 1!

Remember too, that your losses in the short term, especially the big ones will be attributable to negative variance on the positive expectation bets, (ie losing your big bets when you have the edge), not the small grind from your negative expectation on your small bets. When you do get your ass kicked on small bets at negative counts, remember only a small part of this is because of the casino's edge.

Just as you will experience negative variance on your positive expectation big bets, you will experience negative variance on your negative expectation small bets. You will experience positive variance also.

BJ is the roller coaster from hell. Your fluctuations are going to be greater than the donkey who flat bets.

Be thankful for this variance, as it's what thins out the herds of would be AP's. The variance is what allows the donkeys to often win thus providing them the incentive to return.

I have also witnessed over a number of years, people who experience, 'short term positive variance continually' as Don.

In relation to this, we must realize:

a) Don't trust your senses. This person is quite likely close to expectation, but having the majority of their winning sessions whilst you are present.

b) Somebody has to inhabit the small recesses at either side of the bell curve, ie the extremes of positive & negative variance.

c) As APs our only desire should be to be within 1, or at worst 2 standard deviations from our expectation after playing an exhaustive amount. The long term is well.......pretty long.

d) Whether our desire is more than this or not will have no effect on the eventual outcome.