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Comment by URSpider94 | Hacker News Reader

This is really disturbing. For all of the sleaziness of Vegas, any time I've asked a dealer or pit boss about the house advantage in a particular game, or the correct play for a particular hand, they've told me cheerfully and correctly. They sell strategy cards in all of the gift shops -- and you can have them on the table with you while you are playing. There's no need for them to lie -- they already have the advantage, all they need to do is get you to play long enough to let the odds do their thing.

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http://wizardofodds.com/ask-the-wizard/website/

"Some casino gift shops sell basic strategy charts the size of a business card. However, these charts have at least one mistake about half the time."

A basic strategy depends on the exact rules of the game and these might be small or subtle mistakes, but they are there.

They will tell you to insure a blackjack, which is wrong. I believe that's just ignorance though.

Except that in the case of live poker, they're getting theirs via the rake.

I assume you're talking about blackjack: unless there is a CSM at the table or an absurd 6:5 blackjack payout (you shouldn't be there in either event, period) you can absolutely play to your advantage.

Well, the basic strategy for Blackjack is still slightly in favour of the house

But yeah, you might track cards (good luck doing that with 10 decks though)

Most blackjack card counting strategies are no more difficult with a higher number of decks. Instead of counting actual 'cards', one instead keeps a running total of points based on the cards that come out.

In fact a higher number of decks can improve one's advantage when counting because when the count turns in your favor it can happen with more of the deck left to come (so a longer period of advantageous play)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_counting

This is incorrect, the larger the number of decks, as a general rule, the smaller the advantage of card counting becomes.

If you're counting in a (rare) two-deck game with a full table, time between shuffles is so low that it isn't worth it from a hand/hour standpoint.

That's nonsensical. The EV of an hour would depend far more on the table limit than any other factor. If I could find a table that would let me vary the bet from $1 to $10,000 a hand on a two deck game they could have Parkinson's patients with oven mitts on shuffling with chopsticks for all I care.

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