chumash casino blackjack conditions card counting

“But card counting is on its way out the door. But does that mean card counting is dead? “It’s not dead,” says Colon. “I believe there are only 100 to 125 professional level card counters in all of North America,” Zender wrote.Ĭlearly, the ranks have thinned. According to an email exchange between the astute professional gambler Nicholas Colon (himself a former member of the seminal MIT blackjack team) and casino consultant Bill Zender, the number is low enough to make counting sound like a horse and buggy in the age of Henry Ford. They bet sports, beat poker, devise strategies for extracting money from various machine games. Most professional gamblers who made their bones as card counters have moved on to bigger and better things. James Grosjean is not alone in thinking this way. The habit Grosjean referred to, of course, was card counting. Underscoring it all, not long after our conversation, I heard a story about him paying off a professional gambler who had helped him out with a high-level play.Īs he handed her the money, he cheekily said, “I hope this supports your gambling habit for a while.” “It’s why you hear counters talking about having losing years.” His point being that he does not play games where you can plug away for 365 days and wind up in the red. “A lot of bad things can happen when you have such a small edge,” Grosjean told me. Worst of all, perhaps, the card counter’s advantage is no more than two percent. Happy to be doing things that are more profitable and less obvious, he crowed, “You’re more heated up than I am!” While counting cards remain legal, it is frowned upon by the house and you will be booted from the table if it becomes clear that you’re employing it with proficiency. It requires lots of hours at the gaming table and is easy for casino personnel to detect. Argue as I might for the craft that I had proudly learned to excel at, James Grosjean had a point. In other words, anyone who wastes time card counting resides at the bottom of blackjack’s evolutionary chain. “Card counters are salamanders crawling out of the water,” one of the most brilliant, most lauded advantage players in history told me. He told me that he thinks of casino advantage players - that is, sharp people who deploy strategies to beat the games - as evolutionary.

Still, several years ago, when I bragged to him about having strong card counting skills, I couldn’t help but be taken aback by his response. James Grosjean has never been one for mincing words or suffering fools.

Chumash casino blackjack conditions card counting