> We've finally found something we can agree
> on. :-)

> Maybe it's simply because I play more pitch
> games than shoes, but I also find them
> easier to count.

I find it easier because it goes slower. The dealer has to go hand by hand, flipping over the face-down cards. Only time I ever have trouble is on the 10-up dealer natural where everyone throws in their hands in disgust. I'm not sure if the dealer is supposed to let the eye see all the cards or not, but in general they don't. Most of the time, they scatter enough that it is easy to scan 'em and be done with it, but on occasion a couple get obscured and there's little that can be done there. I try to play without a full table obviously...

I still think that CVBJ with dealer speed cranked up most of the way, animation cranked up all the way, is a good training device. I can't really use the neat "heads-up" special game because it won't let me play two hands at high counts (Norm!!! how about showing hand 1, letting me play, then hand 2, so you just keep one hand on table at a time, if space is at a premium...)

But back to the premise of SD/DD. I mainly like them as I hate to have big counts in shoes, and see the really wild/ugly variance that causes since the bet spread has to be so big. 1-8 in DD betting 5-40 has seen me toss $1000 into the dealer's tray pretty quickly. Of course I have vacuumed them out more than I've poured them in, but the damned swings is simply ridiculous on any game. Seems to be less pronounced on 1d/2d games. But that is opinion and not measured fact unfortunately.

I've seen new counters complain about lots of things.

(1) hard to count. The road to a winning advantage is the same road to Carnegie Hall... Practice, practice and more practice.

(2) TC conversion is hard. Practice...

(3) keeping the count is hard. Practice...

there is a theme here. Brother and his wife came over Sat night to play some hold'em with my wife and myself. He walked in as I was playing one of my light-speed heads-up practice sessions with CVBJ. He looked and said what are you doing, testing yourself on BS? I said "nope, I'm counting, playing BS, playing BS departures, varying my bet, and watching for dealer errors on payouts (CVBJ has that option.)" He said "no way you can be counting that mess..." I played 3 rounds, said RC is +5, TC is +2, then moved the mouse to the "tray" button. "I'll be a sumbi***" was the last I heard and he went to set up the chips and cards for hold'em. I've
learned that if I keep ramping up the speed so that I can't maintain 100%, that over time I can get back to 100% at that speed and ramp it up another notch. Dealers seem like they are in slow motion, even the ones that used to appear to deal at light speed. No dealer can rip cards from the shoe like CVBJ on max.

As I said, practice... My wife says I am obsessed. I say I am methodical. I'll leave it at that.

She's quit commenting, but I noticed tonight as I was playing the light-speed game, moving the mouse and continually click, click, click, she looked up, shook her head, and went back to whatever she was reading...

I sometimes feel a bit uneasy mentioning how "easy" this counting stuff seems. But if someone works at it a while, it _is_ easy...
easy to count, that is. Watching the variance in action can be painful...