BLACKJACK PROBLEM!!!!

[Pkrbt]

No casino will ever ban a customer losing loads of cash to them. It won't happen, ever, only cause u asked for. It's bad for their business doh.

[chimpanzepoopdic]

OP,
Get better at BJ. Be more methodical in your approach. You probably don't make a move in poker without good reason. Develop your skills. Try the "Golden Touch Count" system. It is not as effective as a true plus minus count with all of the indexes and memorization. However This system does give an advantage to the player and is much easier to learn and play. I am an action player I thrive on the swings good and bad that we experience in gambling. This system is very conservative when the count is low and can be very aggressive during good counts. I studied and played BJ for 2.5 years seriously before I discovered poker. Now I only play BJ for thrill and poker for profit. But Ive been turning a steady profit from the BJ tables. For a while now. Its a cheap book and worth a shot. Have your cake and eat it to.

MHO

[iggymcfly]

I disagree with almost everything Alex said. There's this idea in part of the psychological community that once you get addicted to something, you have to quit completely and remove yourself completely from it. This may be true with physically addictive substances like alcohol and drugs, but I don't believe it is true with gambling.

All you have to do is make yourself stop. It can be extremely difficult at times, and you can have lapses, but you can still just decide not to do it if you really don't want to. "Staying out of the casino environment" is good advice for the average person since they have no reason to be there if they're not giving their money away on blackjack, but it's stupid for you to give up a lucrative poker career just for this reason.

Your problem as is, isn't enough to make poker unrewarding for you compared to a different job, so why should you give up that job altogether, when if you just worked on your problem a little bit, you could be in an even better situation?

I think what you need to do is decide between these three options and really commit to one:

1) Give up blackjack altogether and never ever play another hand.
This one's certainly doable, although it will be the most difficult. You just have to promise yourself you won't do it seriously, and follow through. Maybe tell other people that as of this date, you'll never play again, and even bet $100 that you won't play for the next 6 months or something as an incentive. I was losing money semi-regularly on online BJ for a while, and I finally just promised myself I wasn't going to do it and did something similar telling some people. I think I relapsed one time after about three months but haven't done it since then. After you don't do it for long enough, you stop seriously considering it.

2. Learn to count and play profitably.
Also not that hard. Do some reading, practice with a deck at home, and you'll be able to count at least marginally profitably in no time. As you learn to "do things the right way", you'll become interested in the process and will be much less likely to fall into your old ways of making lots of large losing bets. Since you already gamble for a living, I don't see what the issue would be in taking blackjack into the fold.

3. Keep your BJ reasonable and under control.
This is the easiest step to take to start with, but possibly the hardest to stick to. Basically, just set a maximum loss you'll be OK with before you go to the casino, only play when you're waiting for a seat, and make sure you stay under the threshhold. A max bet threshhold might be good as well. If you lose and can't play, just take your medicine and quit for the night. As a bonus, playing at a lower level might get boring and cause you to quit altogether.

I'd recommend 1 or 2 here, but all three options are betting than giving up your poker career.

[omaha]

Just a quick note.

Jorge is NOT interested in learning how to play blackjack profitably, he is more interested in stopping.