BlackJack Tips for Newbies

So those who know me know I play BlackJack and, yes, I pay my bills with it. I've read a lot of online and offline material as to get a handle on the game so that I minimize my losses and increase (not maximize) my earnings. I have been to a lot of places and there are things that I see people doing things that really the equivalent of putting your money in a pile and setting it alight. So this post is for those folks who are playing Blackjack for more than "the fun".

Now first I'm not going to tell you how to count cards. If you want to do that, there are places to go to read that and books you can buy to learn that. If you are playing one of those video Blackjack games, particularly those with continuous shuffles, card counting will be of limited value. I'm going to tell you what you need to do to come out ahead 80% of the time.

1) Do not be emotional! Emotional play will inevitably make you lose your session bank or worse. It will make you chase losses to extremely high amounts.

2)Stop over-betting your bank! I often see people treat a Blackjack table as if it was a lottery ticket. Blackjack is about statistics and statistical variance. You win in the long run. The short run is very much stacked against you. Just yesterday evening I watched a man lose $400 in 5 minutes better $100 hands because he expected to get BlackJack. I can tell you from experience and my records that the odds of you winning your first 4 hands in a row are virtually zero (has not happened to me since I've been keeping records). The most likely event is a win, loss, win, loss, loss. You can see that this means you will likely end up $100 in the hole if you flat bet $100 per hand.

3)Corollary to over-betting bank. Stop bringing 20 bucks to a $10/minimum table. I made this mistake early on and began my $600 losing streak as negative variance took it's toll on my small wagers. One of the biggest problems with too little bank, particularly the $20 banks is that you cannot take advantage of oppopportunities to double down. And if you learn Basic Strategy you know that there are fare more opportunities to double down that you though and this is where you make your real money. Since you can't double down you have limited opportunities to overcome negative variances. For example as show in item two say you have win, loss,win, loss, loss and say that win2 came off a double. guess what? you're not down anymore and if you win the next hand you're up 20 rather than even. That's a rather large swing.

4) Learn Basic Strategy: Again, if you're only playing for fun, don't worry about it. If you're trying to make money you need to learn basic strategy. And yes you need to learn the entire chart. knowing only most of it will still make you bust when you shouldn't (and if you bust you're out) and miss opportunities to double and split meaning you are leaving money on the table that you need to overcome negative variance.

5) You make money off of neutral and positive variance. You lose money on negative variance: What is variance? Basically it's statistical talk for how far off average a set of data is. For example if you use a coin toss. In a coin toss you have a 50-50 chance for heads or tails. However if you flip a coin 100 times it is unlikely you are going to get an exact 50 50 count. You'll get more heads or more tails. This is variance. In Blackjack you expect to win 43% of your hands outright. Another 8% will be pushes (even money because you and the dealer have the same number). The dealer will win 48% of the time. You will win doubles at a rate of 60%, Splits about 50%. from this you understand that you will LOSE most hands. Thus understanding when to split and double is essential in increasing your winnings to overcome the losses. Understand that just because you *should* win 60% of doubles does not mean that each time you play you will win 60% of doubles OR that you will get many opportunities to double in the first place.

6) Beware losing Streaks. This goes along with the advice to not be emotional. You should understand that you will LOSE at some point. You need to limit your losses. I hear people talk about how they are $1400 down and still playing. Me, with my self imposed betting limits, if I'm down $150 i'm leaving. The time and math or risk required to get that money back is too much for me. If you have small bank and are down that amount of cash, you will be spending a lot of time trying to get that back. So if you find yourself in a hole STOP DIGGING and go home. Now the danger with losing streaks is that depending on your bank and betting strategy you can lose a significant amount of money in a short period of time.

I have done the math and discovered that the most likely number of losing streaks is between 1-5. If you are in an extreme negative variance you will see losing streaks of 6-8. If you are EXTREMELY unlucky (by statistical means) in that losing streak will be lost doubles. If you find yourself in such a streak and your bank is being hit, it is likely a sign for you to cash out and go home. If your bank can survive that kind of loss then keep going. Just understand that you've just doubled or tripled the time you need to make any goal you had because you have to make up that bank. And here's the kicker, the longer you play the more likely it is that you will hit negative variance. I've had situations where I was between 100-200 down and even 3 or 4 times and walked away after 3 hours with $10 (ten dollars up from original outlay).

This is the danger of the Martingale system. In short in the martingale system you double your bet after each loss. Yes I tried this and I have had spectacular wins and near total losses. But lets look at the math, most times you won't go past 4 losses in a row so based on a $10 bet you have losses of, 10, 30,70, 150, recovery back to original +10. Now so long as you don't have any mishaps this system can work. Particularly if you have a modest win goal and get out when you make it. But what happens if one of your 40% losses in doubles hits? Back to the math:

10, double loss and double that bet, 50, 100, 300 Oh now in 4 hands you've lost 300. And if you are a low max table (typically $500) you've also hit the betting limit which means you've now lost 200 assuming you win the next hand. All for $10. Now it doesn't look to good.

Say you really get unlucky with a 7-8 hand losing streak. Compare a flat bet:

10,20,30,40,50, 60, 70, 80 lost 80 bucks is not nice but far easier to recover from than -$300. Now martingale:
10,30,70, 150, 310, 630, 1270... Get the point?

So how do you moderate these losses? Again without counting cards and throwing out large bets when the odds are in your favor you should do the following (do not blame me for your losses!). Pick your minimum bet. most places do not go below $5. There are places where you can bet less than that but I consider that a waste of valuable time. so you should bring back that is 100x minimum bet. that's $500 for a $5 minimum.

. Next, do not bet more than 4x minimum. that's $20. Do not violate this rule unless you are willing to lose more money.

At each loss, add $5 until you hit $20 and follow basic strategy.

If you hit $20 and still lose (that's 4 losses in a row, which is on the further side of average) you go back to your minus bet and consider those losses gone. Accept it and move along. I cannot stress this enough. ACCEPT your losses as statistically inevitable. Don't get upset. Don't hit the table, cuss and all that. Stay level headed. Start the sequence over again. it is UNLIKELY that you'll go 8 losses straight but it COULD happen. Accept that and consider leaving for the day.

The one thing that will hurt you is losses on splits and doubles. If you lose streak with those on your higher amounts (15-20) you should seriously consider going home.

7) Lastly, Set a win goal. Personally I like the 40% rule. That is don't plan on winning more than 40% of your session bank. I actually go for less than that (I have my own goals). Once met, cash out and go home. If you are taking a trip where you will be at a casino all day, then this is a good time to do something else for at least an hour. put your earnings in a pocket called "do not spend" and return back to your original bank. bet your bank, not your winnings. You only leverage your winnings DURING a session.

Now I'm sure there are experts that will dispute what I have written here. I'm not going to disagree with them. I'm only writing what is working for me. What works for you and other people may be different. No problem. If it works for you then do it!

End Of Apple Man...But Where's Dr Dre?

BuzzFeed:

But the effervescent demo of Apple Music by the charismatic Bozoma Saint John — a black woman who looked and acted nothing like the typical Apple Men onstage before her and who in her opening remarks mentioned being a mother — felt like a breath of fresh air signaling that perhaps the winds are changing. There were other signals too. In the video segment cheering on developers using Apple’s Swift programming language, the video ended with a black woman joyfully expounding how awesome coding was — certainly not the stereotype of a coder, and not totally reflective of the crowd there watching the video. At another Apple event in March, another black female Apple executive, Lisa Jackson, took the stage to talk about Apple’s environmental efforts.

I'm not going to shit on the Black women I'm just going to point out that among the Apple Men, Dr. Dre, who's company was swallowed up by Apple hasn't been seen. Don't worry though, we all know about The Rape Over:

Yet Another Gran Coup from BMW

So it looks like the 2 series is going Gran Coupe on us. Seen on rt. 17 North in Bergen County, likely on the way to BMWNA headquarters. Plate is from Georgia. How do I know it's a Gran Coupe, 4 doors when I passed.

Insulting Idris

I am not one of those persons that think that simply because a black person is present that they should get an award or even be nominated for one. Heck I don't even think that just because a black person makes a movie that it should be lauded. I think the bar for any movie being nominated for any award should be is it well done. Same goes for the actors work. Did they "do their thing" or not. In keeping with that, the fact that Idris or anybody else in Beasts of No Nation was nominated for best anything is a huge problem to me.

I've said before that I didn't think that Idris should have been in Thor. Matter of fact I think any non-white characters tossed into a Norse mythos is an insult that wouldn't fly if it were done in the reverse. There is nothing wrong with white ethnic mythos' not having black (or any other race) characters just as there is nothing wrong with Chinese mythos' not having non-Chinese characters. And yes, I'm kinda bothered that Mike Tyson is in the latest Ip Man movie. No offense to Tyson but reaaallllly?

I'm not even joining the "Straight Outta Compton" crowd. I saw it. I wasn't much interested in NWA when they first hit the scene and I'm STILL not particularly interested in NWA. But if Cadillac Records couldn't land a nomination, then "Straight" wasn't either. "Beasts" was no "Straight". It was better than straight and tackled a serious problem. Heck, I think it would make for a good lesson on the pitfalls of charismatic leadership and poor governance. Idris played the rebel leader to the hilt. Agu performed excellently as well. In fact when I realized "Beasts" had no nomination, I seriously wondered if it was even watched by anyone on the committee. I haven't seen The Revenant. But from the previews I've seen it is a winter Beasts, in a different country, with a different (read: white) cast. You have people in the wilderness, fighting others and the elements. Yet "Revenant" has nominations and "Beasts" does not.

But this is nothing strange to many of us. We do the work, others get the raises, promotions and recognition.

Star Wars: The Feminists F**K Up

So I had high hopes for the new Star Wars movie. I avoided any reviews of the movie in order to avoid spoilers. I thought that with the impressive gains in CGI I would be in for epic scenes. I got that. But that was all I got. The rest had me leaving the theatre highly annoyed and glad I paid matinee money.

I knew that there would be some propagandizing when JJ Abrams gave that interview talking about all the white men in the movie and how he purposely went to diversify the Star Wars universe. I have no problem with diversifying a cast so long as it does not detract from the primary business at hand: Telling a coherent and believable story with due exceptions needed for a work of fiction. What happened in Star Wars was that it turned a great epic from the 70's into a propaganda film straight out the feminist re-education camps called "women's studies" and that is on top of EPIC and I mean EPIC fails in concepts. Lets begin.

Finn:

We meet Finn at the beginning of the movie where his fellow trooper (and by his emotional response possibly lover) is killed by the rebel ace pilot. THEN we find out near the climatic battle that Fin was an ex-sanitation worker (who somehow knows about the defense systems...) So when did the Empire/First Order promote sanitation workers to Storm Trooper? Perhaps this explains why Storm Troopers are such poor shots. And am I the only one wondering why and where all the clones went? They paid a whole lot for the clones of Jango Fett. Are we to believe that they all died between episode 3 and 4?

Finn is also in the JJ world where the women are just as bad-ass, well actually MORE badass (we'll get to that) than the men. I mean this guy reported to an Amazon type, special silver uniform female officer. Yet when he gets to Jaku his first instinct is to try and protect Rey and has a look of surprise when she kicks ass? Maybe it's only First Order women who can fend for themselves. This is the real first clue that you've entered the Feminism zone. There will be no "female in need of rescuing" here. Never mind that such rescuing was the major story ark of the original. Nope, the robot needs rescuing.

About the only thing Finn is good for in this film is to get Ace Pilot off the First Order ship. He's next to useless in combat. He can't fly a ship. He is a poor medic, knows nothing about tools or anything mechanical. Was there anyone in the original Star Wars that was that useless? Finn apparently exists to:

1) Be black.
2) White Knight for Rey who can clearly "take care of herself".
3) Rescue Ace Fighter.
Should Finn not reappear in later installments, I will not be sad.

Before I get to Rey, let me get to the Death Planet.

In the original we could imagine a death star. It was a novel concept but at least it was self-powered. I'll admit that the idea that it had enough fire power to destroy an entire planet was far fetched but it worked. In this movie we get the Death Planet. OK. How does this planet get it's power? It sucks up suns.

Really.

On this basis alone you'd think that every planet in the known universe would be against the First Order. In order to power the Death Planet a sun must be destroyed and therefore every living thing on an inhabitable planet in that solar system and the alteration of the orbits of various stellar entities. At least the death star only destroyed a single planet. And these guys are calling for "order"!

Not only that, but the Death Planet apparently just floats up close to a sun with absolutely no impact on the environment and sucks up what seems to be solar flares it causes.

Smh

And does this is in about 15-20 minutes.

Smh

I suppose solar panels were too much to ask for. Hey at least it was green energy!

Rey:

Rey is the badass with the Samori hairdo. She is apparently very nice with a Bo (staff). She's SO bad ass that unlike Luke and Anakin, she's been on her own on Tatooine..I mean Jaku all by herself! Not only do girls not need rescuing, they DONT NEED PARENTS or ANY FAMILY OR FRIENDS!

After rescuing Finn the ex-sanitation worker turned storm trooper, she gets onto the Millennium Falcon which she has not only never flown before and apparently hasn't flown anything other than her land speeder, but not only flies this thing first try but is doing aerial acrobatics! On her first go! Mind you we never saw how Luke Skywalker learned to fly an X-Wing so we could forgive this but this is the first hour of the film! At least Anakin had years of flying and in his space flight debut he was basically lucky when he destroyed the ship.

Not only that though, Rey knows the ins and outs of the Falcon. A ship she's never been on. No really. Diagrams? Rey don't need no stinking diagrams! She's been crawling inside of downed imperial ships!

But the worst part was her fight with Kylo. Lets get this straight. Kylo is no Darth Vader but he has been trained for many years in lightsaber use and in the force. He knows force grip (which according to lore comes after mastery of push and pull) and what appears to be level 3 mind control (in video game parlance). Level one would be the ability to distract.

Remember that Luke and Anakin, both very strong in the Force didn't master any of these powers until way into the trilogies. Rey however can manipulate minds immediately! How? Why? Because vagina apparently.

Back to this fight though. Rey beats Kylo in her very first time using a light saber! Lets understand how much of an epic fail this is:

At the beginning of the movie. Kylo stops blaster fire in mid flight while simultaneously holding Ace Fighter still. He continues to keep blaster shot still while having conversations and giving orders. Only when he leaves does he stop holding the blast. And let us recall that Kylo trained with Luke Skywalker and his new dark master. Yet he cannot defeat Rey who has no knowledge of Force usage (other than "you will release me") and has never used a blade before. I can tell you that one who has mastered the Bo (staff) does not know how to use a blade. Two different types of weapons.

It took almost everything I had in me to not yell out "bullshit" when this scene ended. That's how bad this was. Was it shot well? Yes. But the story was shit. Total shit. At least the original Star Wars had luke learn to use the Force and to develop his skills. He was constantly told by Yoda and Kenobi that he was not prepared to take on Vader. Anakin lost limb to Dooku.

Here's the worst part though. This film made millions and will likely make billions. This is going to be used to "prove" that the story is "good" and therefore we will get more of this nonsense. I suppose the good thing is that now that Rey has met Luke and can get trained, the unbelievable fights will make more sense. I guess the good thing is that we don't have Jar-Jar and Mitochondria, I mean Midichlorians to deal with.

Trump Is Wrong On Carson's "Anger"

So Trump is on the campaign trail trying his best to take down Carson who has passed him in the polls. Rather than stick to the issue that put him out front from the beginning, he has decided to play psychologist and tell us how people with anger issues never get over it. Trump is wrong and I'm going to tell you why.

When I was a kid, I had a hair trigger, nasty temper. I understand this may have been inherited from my late grandfather on my mother's side. I can't say for sure, but I had it. I got into a lot of fights in elementary school and spent a lot of alone time trying avoid other "angry moments". If I could turn green and grow a few feet, I would have. At times I had to be physically restrained from beating the shit out of other students. I was fortunate to have been attending a school at a time where zero tolerance rules were not in effect and an administration that did not assume that because I was angry that I was stupid. I had, like many black boys, impulse control issues. In the 6th grade that came to a end when something in my brain "clicked" and I stopped with the hair trigger part of my temper and became "slow burning fuse" temper.

Slow burning fuse temper has it's own drawbacks. Instead of releasing the beast on the spot, one tends to internalize incidents until one explodes. In essence you keep a mental ledger of every incident a person does to you and then on the last incident, which may or may not be anything large, they hit the magic number of incidents and then it's on!

In my case, when a person on the block who I had a conflict with decided to throw his bike pump at me, he hit his "it's on" moment and I experienced, for the first time in my life, killing rage. Those who have experienced killing rage know the feeling. The best I can explain it is that you want your target dead and there is nothing else in consideration. So I went into my house and picked up a solid aluminum bar and proceeded to return to the scene and bludgeon this person to death.

So why am I not in jail or just getting out on a 25 to life bid? Because the day I would have become a murderer a man was painting the house and saw me rush by ranting on how I was going to kill someone and then he saw me re-emerge with the aluminum bar and he knew I saw serious and stopped me from making a huge mistake. Like Carson, an intervention of fate kept me from doing something very, very bad. Unlike Carson I didn't attribute this to divine intervention or took it as a reason to dedicate my life to God. What it did do is make me very aware of killing rage and that I never wanted to experience that again. You see, unlike what Trump thinks, those of us who have experience killing rage can and most often do get that under control. Does that mean that we cannot get there again? No! It does mean that because we know what it feels like when we are headed in that direction that we know to "get off the road" before we get to killing rage.

Some people get that control from religion. Some get it through athletic endeavors. Some do meditation. But one thing we all have in common is that we know to remove ourselves from situations and people before we get to the point where we want to kill. In fact I would say that those of us who met our inner killer are far better prepared than those who have not. Why? Because we are no longer in denial about the human capacity to kill. You won't catch us saying things like "I would never kill..." because we know that everybody has a breaking point. Everybody. We happened to have found ours and we don't want to revisit that.

So although I have my issues with Carson, the fact that he tried to gut a kid when he was a youth is not one of them. As for Trump, it's looks desperate, really to be going on and on about this particular issue. There are plenty of policy issues that Trump can take Carson to task for and he should spend his time on those.

"Emergency Situations"

From a Road and Track article on a Nissan concept vehicle:

, but it's what it does when you put it in Piloted Drive that's amazing.​ The steering wheel ​retracts into the instrument panel​ and is replaced by a big flat screen . . . like something out of ​Transformers​, just without the guns...

But what if you need the steering wheel in an emergency situation? Maybe I've seen too many movies, but I'm quite certain that there will be at least one situation on the road you encounter that requires some kind of snap-decision making.

I think it hasn't yet dawned on the author that the almost point of these vehicles is that humans are "bad" at emergency situations and therefore will be replaced by the AI. In other words, the human IS the problem to be solved. This is why Google's car has nothing for the "driver". Everyone in Google's car is a passenger. The future as the industry (both the auto and insurance) is no human driver on public roads. EVER. The automakers and/or tech companies will make the technology available and the insurance companies will bankrupt any but the richest owner who wants to actually drive. That is if the government doesn't pronounce human driving a public health hazard and has it banned first.