Many sources site 6deck s17 DAS as standard rules for the strip, but with the leg work I've done, i find s17 to be an utter rarity. Is the 'standard strip rules' usually referring to High Limit or what? Are these changes to h17 new?
and is there anything we can do, then, to fight against the slowly growing casino advantage?
The games get worse and more people keep coming to Vegas and play these games.
This subject has nothing to do with counting and everything to do with corporate greed and uneducated players. The beancounters who run some of these places see blackjack as a low income game compared to slots. Lower percentage win, even with bad players, and all those employees with their pay, sick days, vacations, retirement, medical the list goes on. So, it is all about making more money on the blackjack tables if the people will play and they are playing. If the people did not play I think you would then see fewer pits and more and more machines.
The only possible winner for us might be a lack of popularity for Vegas as a destination someday, forcing some casinos to think about getting some real players to return by inticing them with better games.
Sure, there should always be some decent high limit games for obvious reasons but if you want many good rule $10 games on the strip, it can only happen IMHO, if people not only are not playing bad blackjack but not playing any bad games.
A mini example might be the week before Christmas. A few of the mega joints where the S17 games are usually $50-$100 min, could be found as low as $10. Interesting note on this: the MGM's first open blackjack pit that week was H-17 and it was open but with only about a third of the seats occupied. The next pit was S-17 starting as low as $10 and was probably 75% full. This was day shift, mid week and the place was empty.
The thing I do not understand is, if these people do not know the difference, why were they playing the better game?
Victoria
I'd say that the term "Strip rules" is obsolete.
Back in the "good old days" people talked of "strip rules" and "downtown rules." The former generally meant S17, while the latter was H17.
Times, as they say, have changed. S17 is an endangered species (along with real, 3:2 BJ single deck), and I don't think any one set of rules could be referred to as "strip rules."
"The thing I do not understand is, if these people do not know the difference, why were they playing the better game?"
Many ploppies do know the difference. Blackjack is a growing sport(if you will). Thousands of virgin ploppies and newbies enter the casino's everyday,these are the ones that will plop down at any table,however, in time and experience, many ploppies will actually become a sort of educated ploppy and they quickly learn the basic concept and fundmentals of the game. I'm sure many of them remember the times they have been burned bad when the dealer hit a soft17 and would have had a nice win had the game been S17.
At many casinos I have played at,I've seen familiar faces of ploppies who used to be downright terrble BJ players and improved tremendously the next time I visited the casino.
Some ploppies are not as stupid as you think them to be.
Bye.
I may be alone in this opinion, but I don't think that the game will ever return to what it was.
The slots make more money for the casinos. Every body and his brother has learned to count cards in the last twenty to thirty years. Hundreds of books on blackjack have been published since Thorpe and Revere. Casinos have been legalized and built in many many states besides Nevada. And it's about the most simple game you can play in the casino. If all that's not enough, casinos have gone out of the way to protect and even increase their edge on the game by making single deck virtually impossible to find, offering only 6:5 payouts on blackjacks, providing no games with meaningful penetration, and backing off winners whether they are actually counting or not. Each one of these facts carry enough implications to provide enough material for yet another book on blackjack: Blackjack Is Dead: Who Killed the Best Game in Town?
Are you trying too scare me? You must be Hollywood Dave's cousin,he likes touting blackjack is dead and 6/5 will soon replace it.
> The slots make more money for the casinos.
How many whales do you know that have bet $50,000 bucks on one hand of slots?
Slot's is the easiest game to play, not blackjack as you say. That's why the slots are more popular.I could never understand what is the big kick out of sitting brain dead(no strategy decisions)in front of a machine and watch things spin round and round while throwing money away. Talk about getting dizzy...aghhh.
> Every body and his brother has learned to
> count cards in the last twenty to thirty
> years.
I taught my brother as well,nevertheless he gave up after losing $8,000. He now tells me card counting dont work and I'm just a lucky guy,but those casinos still seem to making tons of money at the regular ol' BJ tables. There are not many good competent card counters out there. If you were truly a card counter you would have figured this out long ago.
Ploppies love traditional BJ and it's here to stay,whether anyone likes it or not.
These are the good ol' days.
Bye.
The fact that there have been a ton of blackjack books written, I think has little to do with the amount of counters out there. Go to a bookstore and check them out. Most of them were written by progressionist hucksters who are in the business of selling books and running expensive seminars. If you do not know already quite a bit about blackjack and advantage play, how would you be able to choose which book to buy?
I know there are people who have read or read half of the right book, never applied themselves or just had a few bad sessions and quit. Simply, I play a lot of blackjack both in Nevada and California. Have also played in Korea, Mississippi, and Canada, and I just do not see that many counters. The casinos fear teams and all the publicity MIT has gotten. There are still places that will let non high limit counters play at will depending upon the shift and how they feel about that counter. Once you move up the corporate food chain and get to those people (generally with little or no practical gaming experience) who make the decisions, you find it is all about how much money can we make in each department. We might think, as counters, that these bad rules are all about their fear of us, but I believe that we are but a small contributing factor in their decision making and it is just corporate greed.
If they wanted to give the public a decent game they could put in excellent shoe rules and put a CSM on each table.
Victoria
I will agree that conditions right now are pretty bad, but I'd hardly go so far as to predict the demise of blackjack.
It goes in cycles. The current cycle started in the mid-80's when Steve Wynn opened the Mirage and started a wave of casino building. Conditions probably peaked in the mid-90's (MIT teams, etc.) and have been declining ever since.
They may have bottomed out. In April, Steve Wynn's new mega-resort will open. I predict there will be some good games there for those with sufficient bankroll (don't expect many $5 tables). Some are predicting that this will be the start of another building boom. If they are correct, we may soon see a rebirth of playable blackjack.
We have casino greed on our side. Sure, there are the 6:5 junk games, etc., but the casinos know that there is a significant portion of the population who are not advantage players but know enough to know a good game from a bad game. The casinos want everyone's money, so they offer some higher quality games to entice these people.
I have yet to see a casino with all 6:5 games (Casino Royale doesn't count).
According to the 2005 Edition of American Casino Guide, the number of good video poker games (those with better than 100% payoff if played right) have also declined in Vegas over the past three year.
Blackjack is a long way from being dead or dying. It is still by far the most popular table game. I've been seeing a lot fewer CSM than I was a year ago. Even the civilans don't like them.
Ok, I guess maybe I am alone in thinking that bj has seen it's best days, but I appreciate everyone's optimism. I can't say I'm ready to share it though. Casinos will always provide games that turn the most profit for them, and right now the trend seems to continue to be fewer and fewer playable 21 games, and more and more slots. I think it's time for me to concentrate on live poker until I can see a reason to return exclusively to my favorite game of these last thirty years or so. In the meantime, good cards and better games to all.
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