I hope all of you are doing well. It's been years since I posted here but after doing a search on the internet, this site popped up and thought maybe I should check in. Had a recent experience that left me laughing. See I found a game where one of the dealers was clueless and was giving me early surrender. This in addition to 1 deck cut off in a 6 deck S17 game. The dealer told me from the start, nobody was winning at his table and I should get up and leave right away. I smiled and said "we'll see what happens." Well at first, I was getting killed. 10 hand losing streaks were the norm. The high counts just put me in a bigger hole as I'd get 17, 18 when not getting stiff hands and the dealer would pull a higher hand and so on and so forth. We've all been there. Well after getting pulverized, I finally got the shoe that we all dream of. Heads up, maximum bet out, winning every hand. This made up for all of my losses and then some. I of course left right away after that but apparently the damage was done. Next trip, I invited my good friend to come with me thinking that in addition to the company, I'd have some personal heat deflection. Well that didn't work. The very second I sat down, I was half shoed and to add insult to injury was shuffled up on when I decided to have fun with their half shoe and bet more 3 hands into the shoe. Even worse, now my friend fully believes that I'm for real and wants me to teach them everything about blackjack. I had to calm her ambitions a bit, telling her it's a ton of learning and practice and even then, she may not be good enough.

Welcome to the life of a card counter. I've now made tens of thousands of dollars now over my career playing blackjack maybe once a month and have also been prevented from playing in many casinos. I played a lot more earlier in my career but now the game has become a complete bore. Don't let anyone kid you. Counting is one major, major grind. You can play for hours before having a winning shoe. For those of you who are still determined to beat this silly game and are starting out as I once did, this board and its predecessor blackjackinfo.com is a great resource. The best thing you can do for yourself is learn all that you can and stick only to games that are beatable. This means staying away from 8 deck behemoths as a rule. Find casinos with lots of tables as wonging out will save you a lot of money and a lot of time. I only play 6 decks, 75% pen with late surrender or better. Know yourself and your limits. If you're tired or angry, do not play. If the thought of losing $2000 in a session scares you, you're not ready to play this game for real. It will happen to you if you're using a proper spread even on a $10 table. This all presumes that you know basic strategy as well as 2x2=4. Make sure you have a full-time job when first going into this. This should only be your hobby until you have accumulated at least 1000 hours of experience and show a profit that is inline with expectations.

That said, the coronavirus has brought some of us real opportunities. Lots of people have left the industry and so turnover has been high, meaning less experienced dealers/security staff. Casinos aren't packed like they used to be so it's easier to find empty tables in some cases. Just make sure you wear a mask at all times and are playing at a casino that has plexiglass barriers at its tables and takes coronavirus precautions seriously. You have every foul, disease-ridden, low life lurking in casinos. Best of luck!