5 tips to beat blackjack

If I may toot my own horn, I made the Las Vegas Sun today. The article is titled 5 tips to beat blackjack in Vegas from a gambler’s mathematician. I'd pleased with the Sun's treatment of it. Usually journalists don't understand mathematical concepts well and end up over-simplifying what I actually said to the point where it completely wrong. I may have worded things a bit differently here and there but overall I'm quite pleased.

The question for the poll is what did you think of it? Multiple votes allowed.

Why play a game that pays 3, when you can play one that pays 6.

I liked the article; might be a little misleading for the title to say it's how to "beat" blackjack, but you didn't make that claim, and what you said was solid. Fwiw, someone else started a thread about the article as well; not sure if you want to close one or the other or let them both run.

It also appears perhaps the Sun read the comments and changed the illustration. Good they're responsive.

I'll grab my post from the other thread (that probably needs to be closed):

Good article and good read. It's tough because there's infinite things to educate ploppys on when it comes to backjack, but when you only get a few paragraphs you just have to pick a few things and go with it.

One thing I wish the article did differently is point out just how bad 6:5 is... Sure it says it's 1.4% worse! But no one knows the base percentage (or any percentages really) to gauge just how bad that is. I wish the article said "6:5 blackjack is FOUR TIMES worse than regular 3:2 blackjack!" Then, hopefully some ploppies would realize just how bad it really is... in my opinion.

Quote: beachbumbabs

I liked the article; might be a little misleading for the title to say it's how to "beat" blackjack, but you didn't make that claim, and what you said was solid.

I definitely didn't say following those tips would "beat" blackjack. However, if you have a liberal interpretation of the word "beat," I think the player will come out ahead if:

1. He plays a 3-2, stand on soft 17, double after split game.
2. Plays perfect basic strategy.
3. Factor in the value of comps.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Fwiw, someone else started a thread about the article as well;

Thanks. Since that one appears to be first, I'll close this one. Thanks for the replies.

The other thread is WIZ IN LV SUN TODAY.