Question on the Oscar betting system

[blackjacktim]

As I understand it, the point of the Oscar system is that you are covering your losses with your wins. So if a unit is $5, and I am down five units, I increase my bet by one unit after every win until I get to +$5 over the beginning of the series, or the original $5 bet that I lost.

What I dont understand is, if I go way down, like 8 units, and then have three wins I am now betting $20. If I lose that hand, if I understand the system correctly, I should continue betting at $20 until I win again, at which point I raise it to $25. If that is right, doesnt it make more sense that after a loss on a $20 bet, I should drop down at least one unit?

Any and all advice is helpful, thanks.

[Norm]

As I understand it, the point of the Oscar system....

There is no point to the Oscar betting system. Stop using it.

[RS]

What's the point in using a betting system? Do you not like $$ or something?

[blackjacktim]

I am brand new to blackjack, and I thought that it made sense to have some kind of strategy to how I place my bets. I have been playing with the Oscar system on free games. Is this wrong? Shouldnt I have some sort of strategy to how I place bets?

[blackjacktim]

Do you have any advice for how I might go about developing a strategy? Are you talking about betting strategy or card counting? Both?

[blackjacktim]

I am not sure how many decks the casino I play at uses. It is either 6 or 8. I am not looking to be a professional black jack player, I just had a lot of fun playing recently and if I am going to continue playing I would like to gain some kind of edge so Im not just throwing money away (even though I might be doing that anyway). I have practiced HiLo before, but never really tried to use it at the casino. My original plan was to double my bet after a loss, but I realized pretty quick that that was a bad idea. So I have been reading online articles to try to find a better way to place bets. I will look into REKO and Verite, thanks alot for the advice.

[jbuck]

I've been practicing my azz off at HiLo and am finally able to use it playing at a store (I bought CVBJ which is a huge help with this). I use a betting strategy based upon the TC, so on a 1-4 spread, I'll never exceed the highest level. So, calculating TC and then subtracting one will give me my betting units. It seems to be working fairly well and tends to keep you from getting wild with bets.

[Three]

Oscar's Grind is a method of comp whoring. The idea is to play a long time and barely make money but collect the comps. BJ doesn't generate much comps if you play well so it is not a good game to target with Oscars Grind. You want a game that generates good comps.

To answer your question you flat bet until you win and then you bet enough to have a progression win 1 unit or add 1 unit to your previous bet , whichever is less.

[Norm]

Well put Tthree. I did not throw this into the Disadvantage Forum on the hope that someone would provide a good response.

[blackjacktim]

When you talk about using Casino Verite, do you mean a specific kind of software that I should get, or is any online free blackjack comparable?

[jbuck]

go to www.qift.com . I'm sure you can order or download it from that location. If I'm wrong, perhaps Norm or tthree will see your post and advice correctly.

It's the only software I've encountered that has actually expedited my counting progress and I've now been able to look at a full table of cards and derive an accurate RC.

[HPeezy]

I'm also brand new to blackjack. I have played poker for many years but a few friends of mine have planned a trip to a casino resort that has no poker room, so, I figured...blackjack.

I have played a ton online (for free) and done a considerable amount of studying about basic blackjack strategy. I started using Oscar's Grind, following it to the 'T', but admittedly using it on online servers. I probably put in 3-4 hours today playing nothing but Oscar's Grind. My results were as follows:

I "bought in" for $200 at a table playing $5 bets, these were my unit of measurement for OG. I won consistently, extremely consistently. I got my bank roll up from $200 to $1680 after a few hours of non-stop play. I would get the $200 to around $350 and cash out, then back in with $200. I would take that $200 to around $700 and repeat the process.

But, as I type this, the last hour has been horrible. I have changed absolutely nothing. I have played Oscar's Grind BJ to the letter and lost $200, then another $200, then another $200 for a total of $600 in the last hour alone. I guess now I see why so many BJ players that seem to be well educated scoff at this system (or any betting system for that matter) - but, it's a real bummer, because for the 4 hours I was raking it in, I thought it really worked.

I do have a question, though, if anyone would like to bother to answer it. I feel like the flaw in the OG system that really cost me most of my money was surrendering. I would find myself -8 units behind, then I would win enough to increase my bets to, say, $50 each bet (while trying to catch back up and making at LEAST $50 bets each time I lost) but then would come a hand where I needed to surrender and I was continually throwing away $25.

Even still, I would run into hands which required a double-down (again, while my bets were monstrous in comparison to the $5 unit) and lose on massive double downs.

With that being said, for the sake of argument, while using Oscar's Grind system, would it benefit that system more if the user did not surrender...or did not double down? I'm too much of a layman to know.

Anywho, we will be off to the casino tomorrow for my first ever time to sit at a Blackjack table....and, while I feel extremely confident in my basic blackjack strategy skills (insofar as what to do with a hand in any given situation) I still feel like it's going to take God to help me.

[Norm]

Oscar's Grind and all other progression systems are useless.