Flashing, Royal Flusher Style or How to learn Blackjack the Royal Flusher Way Part 2

YOU could be playing blackjack at this table, employing perfect basic strategy! So could I!

As someone who pretty much makes his own rules in life, I think the secret to me learning Blackjack is to get a set of rules and learn them, so that I'll know which ones to break. Since the strategy card is too ridiculous to memorize, I've been working on another way to learn Blackjack basic strategy to perfection.

My first stop - a favorite Vegas board, cryptically called VegasMessageBoard. On that board can be found a thread on a simplified blackjack strategy, which in turn refers to the original Blackjack Insider article

When you are a savvy, hard-nosed gambler like The Flusher, you need a simplified strategy because only a very savvy gambler would be able to take a complex strategy and distill it down into its key concepts. So the simpler, the smarter, and the more in keeping with the Royal Flusher Way.

I had access to this terrific simplified Blackjack strategy thanks to VMB and BJ insider and it presents the basic strategy in the form of text rules. I did what any mature student of wagering would do.
I made Kindergarten style flash cards.

First, I put the rules into Word document in a grid that matched some Avery labels I bought. I made a label for each scenario, and a second one with the correct BJ decision - stand, hold, beg for mercy, squat, complain, or double down. And then I took a deck of genuine issue Golden Gate casino-used and later reconstituted 21 Black Jack Pontoon Playing Cards. And I applied the stickers to 'em.

They're the perfect size to slip into my tuxedo (or cargo shorts, as the case may be) pocket, it's easy to flip through them just like a deck of cards would be (which makes sense since they are a deck of cards, albeit a small deck).

I can sit and go through the rules at my leisure, committing them to my gray matter, squeezing out no longer used information such as my home address, car make and model, and blood type.

I think its working!

For example, I know that for any count less than 8 - always hit. And for any count 17 or higher, stand (notwithstanding soft counts). Yes even flash cards have legal beagle type exceptions.

Now, committing the rules to memory is one thing, and learning to use them is another.

For that, I'm playing with Casino Verite software which simulates a casino experience in the comfort of your own home Video Poker WinSimulator 3000 with new added Blackjack. So I get to play games and reinforce the Blackjack Kindergarten Simplified Strategy rules I've been drilling myself on.

I think there may be hope, and for the next trip which is a scant 2 weeks away, I plan to play a LOT more BJ.

Some of it correctly!

May your BlackJacks be Royal Flusher Royal Black-EZ-Jacks!

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Update - this quest for a simpler, but effective strategy, and a simpler way to either learn it or refer to it continued on. I finally wrestled it to the felt, and a three part article ensued.

See the complete, updated articles on Learning Blackjack Basic Strategy on Royal Flusher World.

Is Blackjack Dead?

Blackjack Basic Strategy Card Mysteries Revealed

Learn Blackjack Basic Strategy the Royal Flusher Way