See the top rated post in this thread. Click here

Page 1 of 4 123 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 13 of 44

Thread: I quit

  1. #1


    0 out of 1 members found this post helpful. Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No

    I quit

    Many of you probably won't care about my story, but I will share it anyway.

    I started learning to count around age 22 during my last year in college. I studied up as much as I could. The first 3 years i barely played and when i did it was only low stakes and i believe i lost about 2-3k, give or take as I didnt have a log at the time. I studied up as much as I could during those years and was basically a sponge, reading book after book and absorbing everything I could from the pros on this site as well as other forums and what they had to say. The year after that, I started to finally save up from two minimum wage jobs and so i played more but still not that many hours only about 150 or so that year and was only red chipping it. The result was only a couple thousand or so profit. Unfortunately it was enough to get me backed off at a sweaty joint for my first ever backoff as that's where the couple of thousand came from.

    Around that time that year I also begain getting into the markets and slowly started putting money into a stock that I held for 3 years. I managed to save up 30k over those 3 years by grinding it out in the jobs that I worked at as well as playing part time blackjack whenever I could. I was up 95% of the time on the stock during those 3 years to the tune of 20-30k profit, but sadly I never cashed out and ended up losing 5k from my initial 30k investment. Also towards the end of the last year of holding the stock, before I cashed it out, I then started to take it really serious with blackjack. With a lot of money coming in by finally getting a somewhat decent job giving me 600 a week, I continued to save as much as I could and started to play more and was able to bet bigger stakes and with bigger stakes came attention from casinos.

    I got up to about 25k profit within 300 hours give or take. Not sure of the exact hours because the way I track my hours is from when I get to the casino to the time i leave and not the actual time i count down shoes. So it was roughly 300 hours playing mid green low black and got to about 25k profit, but the last 50 hours or so have been brutal and gave back about 18k. During this downswing I lost my favorite casino to play at as I got backed off from there and left me limited casinos to play at, mainly the ones that I have always struggled at. This now leaves me at about 10k profit overall and in the green for the last two years of which I played part time starting at red chips to mid green-low black at about 500-550 hours or so and well below EV. If you count the first 3 years where I didnt keep a log an estimate is I lost about 2-3k so that puts me at only 8k in the green since I started this adventure and to me that's horrible.

    This hasnt been worth it at all to me and I feel like I wasted so much time in my youth with blackjack that could've been put towards my bachelors degree that I earned when I was 23. I guess blackjack just isnt worth it if you have to constantly travel 1-1.5 hours to casinos because these 500 hours felt like an eternity and it's not even 1/2 of what blackjack pros play each year. I guess if one wants to make money at this, he needs to move to an area with a huge amount of games in close proximity, ie. Vegas, which was my plan but after my stock didnt work out, and the huge downswing, i now forgot about that. These last 3 months have been brutal.

    Good luck to me, im gonna need it as im now 27 living at home with no job, no girl, not many friends anymore and with a degree that I haven't even used with also no real work experience that can help me with my degree. I guess the good thing is I have no debt, a car paid off, 35k in savings, and of course the worthless business degree that I might never use, but nonetheless I'm at a real crossroads in my life right now and not sure what to do. And yes, for the ones that can connect the dots, you can now see why I have been out of control on the forums the past 3 months.

    #PrayForTheWolf
    Last edited by LoneWoLF; 08-13-2016 at 04:48 PM.

  2. #2


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    If I were you, I would go back to school to get a master degree in computer science. I would also choose a Blackjack topic as the master thesis. In some schools, they replace master programming project with the thesis. That would also be great for you to choose writing a simulation program for BJ.

  3. #3
    Banned or Suspended
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Posts
    1,570


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    Let's see. When I was 27. I'd been married for 3 months. Just moved to Cal. Had saved from 0 to $100k in mutual funds. I'd already bought and sold a house. 13.5% interest. Can you believe that? Paid cash for a New Camaro and drove it off the showroom floor. We drove to Cal with everything we owned in that car which included two tv's and a cocker spaniel. I worked two jobs.

    I'd say you are doing okay. Make hay while the sun shines and you are young. Keep working a regular job that puts your degree to good use. Then work out all the bugs on Verite with your Wong Halves ten count on DD.

    Fly to Vegas 3 or 4 times a year. Kick some DD butt straight up and bang some beaver. Lol
    Last edited by moses; 08-13-2016 at 04:48 PM.

  4. #4


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    Quote Originally Posted by moses View Post
    Let's see. When I was 27. I'd been married for 3 months. Just moved to Cal. Had saved from 0 to $100k in mutual funds. I'd already bought and sold a house. 13.5% interest. Can you believe that? Paid cash for a New Camaro and drove it off the showroom floor. We drove to Cal with everything we owned in that car which included two tv's and a cocker spaniel. I worked two jobs.

    I'd say you are doing okay. Make hay while the sun shines and you are young. Keep working a regular job that puts your degree to good use. Then work out all the bugs on Verite with your Wong Halves ten count on DD.

    Fly to Vegas 3 or 4 times a year. Kick some DD butt straight up and bang some beaver. Lol
    You just made me feel even worse. Congrats to you, you've put me to shame really.

    Also, a bachelors in Business Management is pretty much worthless so it's hard to put it to good use especially when every job asks for work related experience and I have none. It's either sales or sit at home and pray. And im choosing the latter.

  5. #5
    Banned or Suspended
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Posts
    1,570


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    My kids say the same thing. I was always tough on them because I knew the real world wouldn't be easy.

    But I'd say you are in the upper echelon. You've got a degree, a car, and no debt. I can't name 10 others that have this distinction. I know several as that's my kids age bracket. I get these same type of diatribe emails often from the youngest.

    Give yourself a pat on the back. Then put on your big boy pants and face the world.

  6. #6


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    Quote Originally Posted by moses View Post
    My kids say the same thing. I was always tough on them because I knew the real world wouldn't be easy.

    But I'd say you are in the upper echelon. You've got a degree, a car, and no debt. I can't name 10 others that have this distinction. I know several as that's my kids age bracket. I get these same type of diatribe emails often from the youngest.

    Give yourself a pat on the back. Then put on your big boy pants and face the world.
    I also got 35k in cash. But the big thing is I dont know what to do. No job entices me, the ones that do want work related experience. How the hell can i get work experience if no job ever hires me? It's a catch 22. And now with a 4 year gap since college finished, jobs are going to wonder what the hell I was doing in those 4 years cause the jobs I worked were for the most part under the table.

  7. #7


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    Quote Originally Posted by LoneWoLF View Post
    But the big thing is I dont know what to do. No job entices me, the ones that do want work related experience. How the hell can i get work experience if no job ever hires me? It's a catch 22. And now with a 4 year gap since college finished, jobs are going to wonder what the hell I was doing in those 4 years cause the jobs I worked were for the most part under the table.
    Go back to school for a couple years and get the accounting courses you need to qualify to sit for the CPA exam. Then pass the exam and get hired by a CPA firm. Sounds like you have the analytical skills to succeed in this profession. The market for young incoming CPAs is very hot and will stay that way for the next several years. Nobody will care about the gap in your work experience - just tell them that the light bulb went on when you found out that your business degree wasn't worth the dust to blow it to hell with.

    You'll be a good CPA - maybe a great one! And when you get to travel to that CPE conference in Las Vegas (or any major city), you'll know what to do in your spare time while your buddies are all losing money at the craps table.

  8. #8
    Banned or Suspended
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Posts
    1,570


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    Quote Originally Posted by LoneWoLF View Post
    I also got 35k in cash. But the big thing is I dont know what to do. No job entices me, the ones that do want work related experience. How the hell can i get work experience if no job ever hires me? It's a catch 22. And now with a 4 year gap since college finished, jobs are going to wonder what the hell I was doing in those 4 years cause the jobs I worked were for the most part under the table.
    There is something "in" you. Once you discover that you will launch. You are not alone. Lots of kids are on the same boat. My motivation came from a girl.

  9. #9


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    Quote Originally Posted by Bigdaddy View Post
    Go back to school for a couple years and get the accounting courses you need to qualify to sit for the CPA exam. Then pass the exam and get hired by a CPA firm. Sounds like you have the analytical skills to succeed in this profession. The market for young incoming CPAs is very hot and will stay that way for the next several years. Nobody will care about the gap in your work experience - just tell them that the light bulb went on when you found out that your business degree wasn't worth the dust to blow it to hell with.

    You'll be a good CPA - maybe a great one! And when you get to travel to that CPE conference in Las Vegas (or any major city), you'll know what to do in your spare time while your buddies are all losing money at the craps table.
    The thought of school and forking over more money after the 4 year bachelors hasnt worked out is not something im thinking about or looking forward to. Last thing I need is losing all the cash I have and going into debt with uncertainty ill even get hired after passing the CPA exam. Im just sick of school and all the promises they give you. To me it's just one big scam. The only time it's not a scam is if you go to a top tier school and major in something 'specific', otherwise you will never stand out. The market is saturated with people with degrees, let alone 'business' degrees. Luckily my parents helped pay for my business degree, if they didnt, I think I would've been smart enough to not go straight in right away at the premature age of 19 and probably take a couple years off. You got to love how high school and the media put so much pressure on kids at 19 and expect them to know what they want to do with their lives and if you dont go to school, you're a loser. It's one big scam and pathetic at the same time. First two years are everything you learned in high school and depending on tuition you're already deep in the hole just learning things you learned in high school.

  10. #10
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    3rd rock from Sol, Milky Way Galaxy
    Posts
    14,158


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    When I was 27 I was living at the beach catching waves, rays and a buzz. I was a commercial fisherman and shell fisherman. If I wasn't swimming, relaxing or fishing I was hunting. No money saved up and not a care in the world. If I needed money I either went to a casino and played craps and/or BJ, or canoe to a swamp where I would pull mussels. Either way I was in for some decent cash. It was easier and more certain to row for 20 minutes each way and spend an hour puling mussels, and maybe 1/2 hour delivering bushels of mussels to some of the best restaurants in the resort town. It took less than 2.5 hours to make a couple hundred bucks or so when the price of gas was 90 cents/gallon. The restaurants would all call me because my mussels were the perfect size. It would take 3 years to go from 1 end of the swamp to the other. At the end of the 3 years the ones I left at the other end of the swamp would have grown to the perfect size so I would just repeat the cycle. The only overhead was the gas for my 4WD truck to deliver the mussels. The restaurants provided the bushel baskets and anything else I asked for.

    Then I would catch the money fish when they ran with hook and line (rod and reel) commercial fishing. We almost sank the boat a couple of times with the weight of the fish we had a few times. That took around 1/2 ton of fish. Usually sea trout, rockfish or flounder were our target species. We hit a run of huge croaker in the 4 to 4.5 pound class and almost sank the boat as well. Overhead was minimal for the fishing as well. The fish market would shoot our coolers full of ice for free with their ice shooter. It ensured the fish would be freshest when we returned. We throw netted bait from our house which sat on stilts in the sound. There was just gas to pay for. My 4WD truck and marine engine maintenance was for paid for in trade by taking the mechanic hunting when he wanted to go. I knew all the best spots to go. His brother owned the only 4WD tow truck so the only time I needed assistance it was free as well. On the days the boat would almost sink the trick was to cast without catching one and we were throwing the back at the end. We hardly visited a super-market as we had a garden on the roof. Crabs off the dock in the day. Hit the lights and catch rockfish, sea trout and squid under the lights at night. Man that simpler time sure was relaxing and fun. It sure kept you busy but there was no stress.

    Oh yeah. For some reason when we would go out to eat my food never made it on the bill. It took a long time to realize it wasn't by accident. The servers just wanted to be nice to me. The opposite sex was the only stress in my life. I suffered through it though.

  11. #11


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    I had a young man come for therapy, who also completed a degree but he got the travel bug and travelled the wold. He hiked across India, went to China, Japan, Korea and through Europe for 5 years, waiting on tables or teaching English when he needed money. He had a lot of fun but upon returning, he found himself in a similar situation as you. All his high school friends were in stable jobs or married or whatever. He was extremely embarrassed and depressed. It took several sessions for him to look at what he had learned and perhaps you will also figure out that while you did not get $$$, that it was not totally wasted. You have learned about yourself and about life. Moreover, you are not addicted, still running yo a casino every time you had a $100 to spare.

    My advice would be to just give up BJ for a few years. Get any job to start (not look at the per hour pay), pretend you are getting paid a lot, work your butt off. The guy in the story above, worked as a waiter, after about 3 weeks he got the prized evening hours over Friday-Sunday, prized section of the Italian restaurant, started averaging $30 plus an hour in tips plus his $7 per hour salary. He landed a job at Best Buy, and within a month was getting more responsibilities and a supervising position. It's only been a year and he is feeling quite good now, should land better jobs with the sales and marketing experience he has gained.

    i cringe when I see a post from another young guy wanting to be a full time AP. The odds are very against you.its like a kid who goes to college to get into the NBA. He ends up with a useless degree (or never finishes one) before he realizes that he is not going to be in the 435 plus people making a living in the pros.

    Get off this forum, get into other stuff and know that all things will pass. You will find contentment in time.

  12. #12


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    Quote Originally Posted by ZeeBabar View Post
    I had a young man come for therapy, who also completed a degree but he got the travel bug and travelled the wold. He hiked across India, went to China, Japan, Korea and through Europe for 5 years, waiting on tables or teaching English when he needed money. He had a lot of fun but upon returning, he found himself in a similar situation as you. All his high school friends were in stable jobs or married or whatever. He was extremely embarrassed and depressed. It took several sessions for him to look at what he had learned and perhaps you will also figure out that while you did not get $$$, that it was not totally wasted. You have learned about yourself and about life. Moreover, you are not addicted, still running yo a casino every time you had a $100 to spare.

    My advice would be to just give up BJ for a few years. Get any job to start (not look at the per hour pay), pretend you are getting paid a lot, work your butt off. The guy in the story above, worked as a waiter, after about 3 weeks he got the prized evening hours over Friday-Sunday, prized section of the Italian restaurant, started averaging $30 plus an hour in tips plus his $7 per hour salary. He landed a job at Best Buy, and within a month was getting more responsibilities and a supervising position. It's only been a year and he is feeling quite good now, should land better jobs with the sales and marketing experience he has gained.

    i cringe when I see a post from another young guy wanting to be a full time AP. The odds are very against you.its like a kid who goes to college to get into the NBA. He ends up with a useless degree (or never finishes one) before he realizes that he is not going to be in the 435 plus people making a living in the pros.

    Get off this forum, get into other stuff and know that all things will pass. You will find contentment in time.
    Appreciate the advice. Im thinking of possibly the air force as they pay for all the training etc. I was thinking of becoming a pilot, but the costs with getting certified and the flight schoolingis over 50k and you start off making about 30k so that to me is not worth it. The military on the other hand pays for everything. I have always been interested in flying. I dont know, but im gonna have to do some soul searching very soon. Thanks for the advice everyone. It's been fun.

  13. #13


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    Quote Originally Posted by LoneWoLF View Post
    Many of you probably won't care about my story, but I will share it anyway.

    I started learning to count around age 22 during my last year in college. I studied up as much as I could. The first 3 years i barely played and when i did it was only low stakes and i believe i lost about 2-3k, give or take as I didnt have a log at the time. I studied up as much as I could during those years and was basically a sponge, reading book after book and absorbing everything I could from the pros on this site as well as other forums and what they had to say. The year after that, I started to finally save up from two minimum wage jobs and so i played more but still not that many hours only about 150 or so that year and was only red chipping it. The result was only a couple thousand or so profit. Unfortunately it was enough to get me backed off at a sweaty joint for my first ever backoff as that's where the couple of thousand came from.

    Around that time that year I also begain getting into the markets and slowly started putting money into a stock that I held for 3 years. I managed to save up 30k over those 3 years by grinding it out in the jobs that I worked at as well as playing part time blackjack whenever I could. I was up 95% of the time on the stock during those 3 years to the tune of 20-30k profit, but sadly I never cashed out and ended up losing 5k from my initial 30k investment. Also towards the end of the last year of holding the stock, before I cashed it out, I then started to take it really serious with blackjack. With a lot of money coming in by finally getting a somewhat decent job giving me 600 a week, I continued to save as much as I could and started to play more and was able to bet bigger stakes and with bigger stakes came attention from casinos.

    I got up to about 25k profit within 300 hours give or take. Not sure of the exact hours because the way I track my hours is from when I get to the casino to the time i leave and not the actual time i count down shoes. So it was roughly 300 hours playing mid green low black and got to about 25k profit, but the last 50 hours or so have been brutal and gave back about 18k. During this downswing I lost my favorite casino to play at as I got backed off from there and left me limited casinos to play at, mainly the ones that I have always struggled at. This now leaves me at about 10k profit overall and in the green for the last two years of which I played part time starting at red chips to mid green-low black at about 500-550 hours or so and well below EV. If you count the first 3 years where I didnt keep a log an estimate is I lost about 2-3k so that puts me at only 8k in the green since I started this adventure and to me that's horrible.

    This hasnt been worth it at all to me and I feel like I wasted so much time in my youth with blackjack that could've been put towards my bachelors degree that I earned when I was 23. I guess blackjack just isnt worth it if you have to constantly travel 1-1.5 hours to casinos because these 500 hours felt like an eternity and it's not even 1/2 of what blackjack pros play each year. I guess if one wants to make money at this, he needs to move to an area with a huge amount of games in close proximity, ie. Vegas, which was my plan but after my stock didnt work out, and the huge downswing, i now forgot about that. These last 3 months have been brutal.

    Good luck to me, im gonna need it as im now 27 living at home with no job, no girl, not many friends anymore and with a degree that I haven't even used with also no real work experience that can help me with my degree. I guess the good thing is I have no debt, a car paid off, 35k in savings, and of course the worthless business degree that I might never use, but nonetheless I'm at a real crossroads in my life right now and not sure what to do. And yes, for the ones that can connect the dots, you can now see why I have been out of control on the forums the past 3 months.

    #PrayForTheWolf
    You seem to be in a better situation that most people at age 27. I been through downswings as well but those downswings motivates, encourages and forces me to improve my game and my life.
    Last edited by seriousplayer; 08-13-2016 at 05:51 PM.

Page 1 of 4 123 ... LastLast

Similar Threads

  1. Losing streak thread PART SIX: time to quit?
    By mickeymouse in forum General Blackjack Forum
    Replies: 52
    Last Post: 05-28-2015, 07:34 PM
  2. zoomie: When should a non-AP know when to quit?
    By zoomie in forum Blackjack Main
    Replies: 5
    Last Post: 12-01-2009, 01:12 AM
  3. Bonnie Jameson: Want to quit lotto
    By Bonnie Jameson in forum Heartland 21
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 08-16-2005, 06:31 AM
  4. newby: Quit points strategy???
    By newby in forum Blackjack Beginners
    Replies: 5
    Last Post: 03-10-2003, 02:41 PM
  5. Joe Bloe: I Quit!
    By Joe Bloe in forum Blackjack Main
    Replies: 15
    Last Post: 02-24-2003, 08:54 AM

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  

About Blackjack: The Forum

BJTF is an advantage player site based on the principles of comity. That is, civil and considerate behavior for the mutual benefit of all involved. The goal of advantage play is the legal extraction of funds from gaming establishments by gaining a mathematic advantage and developing the skills required to use that advantage. To maximize our success, it is important to understand that we are all on the same side. Personal conflicts simply get in the way of our goals.