NUMBER OF DECKS

A one-deck game, while offering the best statistical chance of winning, may not be the best game for you if you hope to gener-ate substantial profits through heavy betting. Single-deck table dealers and pit bosses are extremely alert for systems players and will shuffle the advantage away at the slightest suspicion of card tracking.

Since these games are available most often in smaller casinos needing to attract bettors, the typical betting levels are too small to generate enough profits for the high roller. But if you want to play for fun or to win a little loose change, a single-deck game is your best shot.

I recommend you stay away from six-deck games because they are extremely difficult to beat. Julian Braun estimated that to get a worthwhile advantage in a six-deck game with any powerful system the casino must deal out at least 41/z of the decks, and your bet range must be at least 1 to 20 units per hand, a real eye-catcher with the pit bosses.

The only possible approach to the six-deck game is to use team play and a very high-level professional system like the Hi-Opt II. When there are so many other places to play, the extra effort is not worth it.

For a time, the Castaways casino had an interesting nine-deck game with several advantageous rules. Braun calculated for me that a player would have a flat advantage of about .5 per cent using the Basic Strategy outlined in Chapter Six according to the last rules in effect. The player could grind out a small profit in the game with a flat bet. Alas, the increased traffic evidently didn't justify the liberal rules, so the Castaways discontinued the game.

Overall, the best type of game is one using the fewest number of decks when properly dealt.