First off, let me thank all the members here who have taught me so much through their postings. This place is better than 20 books!! And since I have sponged so much knowledge off all you, I thought Id try to make a little contribution posting my experiences thus far.

Background:
I first became interested in card counting years ago, when I was but a wee lad of 20 . My brother-in-law, who was quite a bit older, and a math whiz, had a bunch of Ken Uston's books and "Playing Blackjack as a Business" lying around, so in a down moment, I started reading "Million Dollar Blackjack". Soon after, he came in and saw me reading it, and asked what I thought about it. I said it sounded interesting, but really difficult and probably above my meager abilities. Not so, he said. During the course of the loooong conversation that followed, I found out he had played on several of Uston's Atlantic City teams, taken lessons from Lawrence Revere, and been barred from several LV casinos. As an interesting aside, the "Tony" character from South Philly in Uston's "Ken Uston on Blackjack" was based on my brother in law. Yes, his name was Tony, but the rest of the story about the wife and kids was BS. He really just lived with his mother, had no kids, and certainly wasnt taking the last dime out of their bank account to play BJ! He did, however, have the same sort of rude awakening to the Vegas style of dealing (face down, instead of face-up), but according to him, lost nowhere near what the fictional Tony lost. During that time, he managed to take around $100k out of the casinos, using the Revere APC. So of course, he became my go-to guy for any BJ questons as I worked my way through Uston, Revere, Wong, and the rest (he had quite the BJ library, so thankfully my BJ education was cost-free). I was still intrigued, but from my reading knew I had nowhere near the bankroll to attempt anything like this.
Fast forward a few years, and I have a little disposable income and decide to try to learn this stuff. Needless to say, my first few trips to AC I got my clock cleaned and vowed to not return until I had this stuff down cold! So there you have it...my initial tale of woe. Im sure there are LOTS out there with the same tale, having been plucked clean by the casinos after attempting counting plays without enough practice.

Sooooo....now Ive been studying, practicing, etc, for about a year. Ive run counting drills in CVBJ until I couldnt see straight. Played about 10000 hands in the casino simulator with no BS errors, so I figure Im ready to give it a shot.

Thankfully, Pennsylvania has great BJ rules, and Harrah's Chester has $5 games during the day, so off we go!

Sit down at the $5 table, hand over my card and $200 (yeah, I know, there's a great debate about using player cards, but at this point I figure what I know is gonna help the casino more than me, so I might as well get a free buffet out of it).
Cards start coming out, and HOLY SH*T!! This guy is so much faster than the CV dealer!! Im trying to keep the RC, but its no use. Im hopelessly lost by the 2nd round of the shoe, so I get up from the table, down $5.
Wander through the casino a bit, then sit down at a different table. Only 1 other player, so this might work better for me. NOT! Again, I lose the count quickly and leave.
So far Im 0-for-2. Nice. I decide to try a $15 table and get some one-on-one play. This makes keeping the RC a little easier, but I still end up dropping $100. OK, so I can handle it if there's no one else at the table, and if I can engage the dealer with enough bullsh*t talk to slow him down a little bit, and if I keep using my chips to help keep track, etc etc. Of course, to keep up play at those levels, I need about $20000, so this isnt going to work either.

Conclusion:
I am nowhere near ready for a real casino!! My little $2000 bankroll has been decimated, and I didnt even get a free buffet. Aspiring counters take heed...you will get your a$$ kicked the first few times. Learn from it as I did. It wasnt a super-expensive lesson, but it certainly validated what Ive read here.

now Im off to practice more so that by sometime in 2014 or so, I might be ready to try again!!