Our guest this week is a blackjack player who calls himself Blade. After teaching computer science and playing poker part time for several years, in 2016 he supported himself almost entirely by playing blackjack, in Las Vegas and elsewhere. He’s here today to talk about those experiences.
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Internet millionaire with no sense of bankroll kind of learns how to count. Proceeds to drive around country in RV and plays few enough sessions (once in episode says “120 hours” another time “about 200 hours”) that wins could frankly be variance. Hmmmm.
You noticed that too? I thought maybe I got the professional gambling time thing wrong. Still a good interview though, questions that interested me.
I figured that most professional gamblers would not want to file with the IRS, I wouldn’t want to. Hey math geek, you don’t need a computer simulator/video game in order to practice counting cards. Stop making excuses for why you cannot practice a level 1 counting technique on a whim with a deck of cards. I love hearing card players make excuses. Munchkin asked… what is your longest losing streak in under a 200 hour session? You answered it like a politician… go ask the computer because it should be in your memory.
The guy knows enough to be convincing but is full of shit
Your comment is not useful. Other than showing your disapproval, it is too vague.
Why do you think Blade was inaccurate, not knowledgeable, or otherwise not what he pretended to be (or whatever else your “full of shit” comment meant)?
Bob.
I though he was real when I heard the podcast
His comments on cover were reasonably accurate
He sounded as if he read Anderson and understood it a bit.
Now after reading some of the comments above I am considering the possibility that he is a bit of a flake, a bit of a con man. or just exaggerating
Bob have you met him or otherwise know him to be real ?
Its funny I only found this post as I was searching for your email as I was going to offer to teach Blade some advanced cover moves.
He said he was on your show to help others as he was helped. I thought well why not help the guy out a bit.
Now I am unsure as to what I should do.
I will e-mail you tomorrow
nycpro
Should be about 200h total, about 120h in Las Vegas.
Why do you say “no sense of bankroll”? RoR was estimated before beginning… and reassessed along the way.
Definitely didn’t have that data memorized. It also depends on how you measure “longest” — time at table? Hands dealt? Discrete sessions?
I play a lot of short sessions and record each of them per the IRS rules, so longest streak will not be very long on a 200h sample. But, here ya go:
Longest losing streak by time, 4.4 hours, 7 sessions, for -94.5k.
Longest losing streak by dollars, -140.0k, 4 sessions in 3.0 hours.
I don’t know why you think I wouldn’t want to follow the rules. I’m a tax audit target with my previous returns and other investment income year over year. It doesn’t make sense to put livelihood at risk to dodge 30 or 50k in taxes on earnings, regardless of the presence of a moral compass.
I forgot to type: the winning could definitely be variance, because the sample is definitely quite small. I tried to make that point during the interview when I was talking about the challenge of assessing one’s own play even in light of a positive run.
Unfortunately, I only have my year of play to go on. You get what you pay for!
Hey. Enjoyed the podcast. Extremely jealous of the infinite bankroll and it actually helps my moral to heara about people playing properly and still losing money. I’m not alone! ( 😀 )but want to ask a question and can’t seem to find a way to e-mail (I’m not on facebook).
If you are in a situation where a double down is called for but do not have the coin so you take a hit like an 9 vs 6. Say the card you get gives you a hand that Basic calls for a hit (an 11 in this case). Do you take it? The reason I ask is that if the odds were so in your favor that taking one card (double down) was more favorable than a hit, why take the next card? I would think that the odds for the next hit are actually lower than the original.
I ask this because we know that just because you fail to get a 21 or some other pat hand on a double, doesn’t mean you’re going to lose that hand, which I assume has been taken into consideration by the models that gave BS).
Thanks and keep up the good work
The answer to this question is so obvious that if you have to ask it you are probably too dense to understand the right play and would probably want to argue about it.
Blade,
The reason I say no sense of bankroll is that you were not able to readily answer a direct question about it in the interview. Bankroll is generally a finite and known number for AP players and teams. That finite number is essential for several reasons. It dictates betting units and ramps of course, but it also is the foundational structure the “business” is predicated on. Without a recognition of that, and coupled with an ability to keep reaching into a very deep pool of money to potentially chase losses (which often works in the short-run), it creates playing environments that, again, lend themselves to variance more than true advantage play.
Is your bankroll everything you sold your prior endeavor for? Is it the RV too? Children’s college fund? These are intentionally silly questions, but they are meaningful, too. While you didn’t direct say this, I interpreted that the answer to the question of bankroll might be: if I ever got down too much, I would just bail on the endeavor, it still would have been a fun year. To me, that’s not a solid, functional concept of bankroll.
You may very well have all the requisite skills to succeed as an AP if you so choose, and obviously large sources of funding can only help. Your start, as told here, is phenomenal. But in your own industry’s parlance, it is still very much in beta mode. I don’t get the impression you think otherwise though, so you seem to have a healthy mindset about your early successes.
A simple “The math favors following BS to the letter” would have sufficed.
Thanks.
Thanks for clarifying what you were getting at, HC.
The reason I didn’t spit back a number is because there wasn’t really a single one. I started out thinking I would commit roughly 400 or 500k to the experiment, but after doing the math, the RoR even at the highest stakes that I believe are playable in Strip casinos was sufficiently small that I didn’t bother establishing a formal BR or limit. (Those stakes are roughly a top bet of 3k or 2x2k, in ideal conditions, with about a 12-1 spread at 6d s17 sr 1.5pen.)
In effect, I was table stakes/heat-limited rather than BR-limited for the time I suspected I’d be able to put in.
Considerable additional rigor with respect to BR analysis is necessary if RoR is higher or if BR comprises a greater proportion of one’s net worth. In my case, the commitment mentioned above was a small percentage of personal assets. I didn’t want it to come across poorly during the show, but now I can see how my fuzziness on the spot would lead astute listeners to wonder what I was smoking!
Thanks for volunteering this info, found it very informative and entertaining. Great way to pay for cross country excursions!