Blackjack Myths & Losing Strategies

The Blackjack Player's Guide to Betting and Bankroll Strategy

Whole schools of thought have been created to try to use a players financial decisions to maximize the overall winnings while minimizing both fluctuations and loses. But while many of these methods have been complicated, creative or downright crazy few of them actually help and in fact most wind up actually hurting the final outcome.

What can you do to play smart and avoid these traps? First we will look at some of the well known myths, novice mistakes and historical money management methods to avoid. It should be noted that all of these assume that a player is playing blackjack for real money.

Myths, Mistakes and Losing Strategies to Avoid:

D'alembert

What is it? D'alembert may sound sophisticated but really it is an unproven and complicated money management system where a player raises the bet one unit after a win and lowers it one unit after a loss. Like most theories that are difficult to clearly articulate it suffers not only because it confounds most players, who are better off concentrating on the game, but because it has numerous possible variations and cannot win in any game with a negative expectation.

Flat Betting:

No one is really sure who the genius is who came up with this one. Flat betting is the simple tactic of betting the same amount of money for every hand without variation. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see where this will take you and your bankroll.

Labouchere:

Labouchere is an old (think old west saloons) money management system that should be remembered as a historical knee slapper and the downfall of more than one foolish gambler. The technique can at best be described as a betting progression. It is also referred to as the cancellation system. Possibly the most complex and most inane money management system, it involves semi-randomly choosing two or more numbers. The numbers represent the total amount of money the gambler would ideally like to win. The player then modifies the bets based on adding and subtracting amounts won or lost according to these two chosen numbers.

Betting Progression Methods:

No matter what the name, any betting progression does nothing to improve the odds of your cards or to maintain or maximize your bankroll. The only way to accurately understand if you should raise a bet (outside of a tournament) is to keep track of cards.

(Grand) Martingale:

Like scientists and great explorers, gambling has had it's fair share of visionaries and charlatans. One of the first money management systems - the Martingale - requires players to double their bets after each loss. Possibly this was a stroke of supreme, if misguided, optimism. The idea is that it will be made up by the next win. While not a practical system, it has also come to mean any increase after a losing bet.

Paroli Betting:

Considered the opposite approach from the martingale system, the Paroli money management system is a positive betting progression. Essentially the player starts with a single unit and if the hand is favorable the next bet is increased incrementally. Because it does not require a large bankroll and has somewhat fewer fluctuations it is considered a more stable option than the martingale system.

1-3-2-6 Betting System:

A positive progression betting system based on the idea behind the Paroli system. The idea behind it is quite simple: a player creates a unit of value and then bets 1, then 3, then 2 and finally 6 units consecutively while in play. The idea is to use small amounts of money to win proportionately larger amounts of money, another very optimistic idea...However for the system to work at all a player is required to win all four hands. For this reason it can only be used for recreational amusement. Serious players looking to make a profit over the long run won't find this a useful tool.