Starting Up

[SiMi]

1+1=3

Howdy!

You say you don't want to make it a career but you want to have a "slight advantage" over the casino "when I go." Having an advantage in BJ over the casino with counting doesn't depend on whether you are a "professional/career" counter. It depends on betting more when you have a statistical advantage, betting as little as possible when you don't AND doing this over the fabled LONG HAUL. You should get CV and run some sims with 5,000-10,000 hands and see how useless that small sample size is for predicting an outcome. Then, realize it will take you a LONG time to even get to 10,000 hands (at least 100 hours and probably a lot more realistically). That's what you're up against with the concept of "LONG HAUL."

If you're NOT planning to do it for the long haul (whether full time or part time), you might as well just learn BS, learn how to spot good games and settle for about 1/2% DISadvantage and have some fun.

If you are planning to do this for the long haul (whether full time or part time), you will need to know your stuff and do some research, including buying CV and reading LOTS of books. If you're in it for the long haul:

Reading your OP carefully, it looks to me as if you actually have $1,000 as a "research fund" that will enable you to try some ideas before committing a large bankroll. If that's the case, I'd suggest you find the lowest table minima you can and practice counting, betting, camo, etc. until you find an approach that works for you that is realistic. $1,000 might be adequate (but is low) for RESEARCH at a $3 table in a local Indian joint where your top bet is $25 and the table conditions are favorable and slow enough for you to keep up.

You'll get a lot of practice if you PLAY (almost) ALL in shoe games for 20-30 hours using a smallish spread of 8:1 or so while you work out the bugs in your approach. Dealer errors and careful money management can help you make your small Research Fund last longer. You can then test the waters with pitch games to see how it goes. You need A LOT OF PRACTICE and you could easily lose your Research Fund. You might get lucky and actually grow your Research Fund but I wouldn't count on it.

There's a helluva lot to learn and you said you're new to the BJ community. I assume you mean counting. You need to be able to quickly spot good games vs. crap and heat vs. marketing and deal with the emotions of losing when the TC is +12 and learning how to rathole and chat while playing, etc., etc. You'll need many months of practice before you're even close to ready for starting with a real BR.

If you're new to this, starting at $15 a hand with $1,000 is, frankly, insane. Best of luck!