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Blackjack Insider Newsletter, July 2004, #54

JPB has been playing blackjack and counting cards part-time since 1996. He plays throughout the country but primarily in Missouri. He has been a Green Chip member of BJ21.com for four years and one-time winner of the Post-of-the-Month. JPB is a professional engineer with three engineering degrees and works as a consulting engineer.

Blackjack cover is generally described as disguising one’s blackjack skills by play (bet size and decisions) rather than appearance (which is generally described as act). Much has been written about cover strategies, including entire chapters and even entire books.

Cover is easy and it works-at disguising your blackjack skills. The problem is that cover is not cheap because it reduces your advantage over the house. In this day and age, with penetration deteriorating and more and more casinos switching to "Dealer Hits Soft 17", the games are getting more difficult to beat. Use too much cover, and you will not need it because you will be playing at a disadvantage (and the casino will be happy to let you play). For the vast majority of players, cover strategy is not cost-effective.

In my early years of blackjack, I refused to even consider using cover. As I played more hours, I started getting "made" as a counter quickly and got backed off more and more frequently. As I have started to find it more and more difficult to find decent blackjack games (due to being backed off and countermeasures being taken), I have been reevaluating the pros and cons of cover.

The value of cover depends primarily on two factors: your style of play and the blackjack game being evaluated.

In order to provide meaningful guidance, I made the following three classifications of players (note: these are just classifications I made for the purposes of this article).

• Never bets more than about $100 on a single hand
• Plays less than 100 hours/yr
• Cannot afford to lose more than $10,000 (note if your maximum bet is much over $100 but say you cannot afford to lose $10,000, you are over-betting.)
• Has a full-time job and/or activities to consume time other than blackjack.
• Has been backed off by fewer than 2 real casinos (Barbary Coast does not count as a real casino)

• Plays less than 250 hours/yr
• Would not be discouraged at a $10,000 or more negative fluctuation in bankroll
• Have a full-time job but have won money at blackjack for several or more years.

• Plays more than 500 hours/yr
• Makes a living playing or derives a large percentage of annual income from playing blackjack.
• Average getting backed-off or have countermeasures taken at least once per every 50 hours of blackjack play.

The other factor is the blackjack game. Cover is most necessary at single deck and double deck. It is substantially less important at the 6 and 8 deck games because it is so much easier at a single and double deck for a pit boss to notice a few low cards come out, an increase in bet size, and conclude you are counting cards. It takes more patience and ability than most pit bosses have to count through a 6 or 8 decker.

The importance of cover also depends on the quality of the game. If it is a mediocre game (say H17 double deck with 50% penetration) why worry about cover? It is not worth the cost. If you get asked to leave, play somewhere else.

I have listed the five most common cover strategies that I am aware of.

1. Making Bad Plays – Some of the top bad plays are: taking insurance on 20, taking even money on blackjack, standing on the soft doubles (such as A7) vs. 6, standing on the 12 vs. 2 and 3 (when the count warrants hitting). The theory is that the pit will evaluate your play and determine you must not be counting cards because of the bad play and, therefore, gives you the long-term free pass.

With all due respect to Don Schlesinger, who devotes a whole chapter on evaluating the cost of these cover plays, this is one of my least favorite cover strategies. For the cover play to work, it requires a pit person to: 1) be watching closely, 2) know basic strategy, 3) know what the running count is (to evaluate some plays like insurance), 4) know what the correct index number is to vary the play, and 5) think the plays were significant enough to conclude you are not an advantage player and then record the evaluation on your players card. That is just too much happenstance for me. This is a bad idea.

2. Schmoozing with the pit/tipping. The theory is that if you are big better and establish a good rapport with the pit crew, that they will not suspect you of counting or give you the benefit of the doubt. Do you think that schmoozing is going to do any good when surveillance calls and says they have confirmed you are an advantage player? Do not count it. Worse yet, you will be much less memorable than if you play and make no attempt to be buddies with the dealers and pit crews. Not only is schmoozing not effective, but it will make it harder for you to go back to the scene of the crime 6-12 months after being backed off the first time. This is a bad idea, actually a terrible idea.
3. Playing slot machines, craps or other games that an advantage player would not play. This may help your longevity. The problem is how much this cover play costs you in expected value. Say you plan a 3 day trip to Vegas and plan 25 hours of blackjack with an expected value of $50.00/hour. Your expected win is $1,500. On the other hand, say you log in 24 hours of blackjack but also put in 6 hours of slot machine play (that would be torture to me), craps, or other game with a house advantage as cover. Assuming your expected loss rate on the non-BJ game is a modest $50/hour, your expected win rate has been reduced to $900. The cover cuts the win rate almost in half.

What do you get in return for this cover? In my opinion, not much. When they replay the tapes and verify your bet sizing coincided with the count, do you really think they are going to let you keep playing? Sure, they will let you keep playing - slots and craps - but do not expect any leniency on the blackjack game. This strategy is not cost-effective.

4. Losing - Losing is good cover. This is particularly true at the less sophisticated casinos. You are perceived as much less a threat when you are losing than winning. The more sophisticated casinos like Mirage are the ones that have computers to evaluate blackjack skill.

The problem with losing is that it is the opposite of winning. So losing as trying to establish cover is a bad idea. If you do inadvertently lose big, take full advantage of it. There is one casino in Vegas that no matter what spread I use, they seem to shrug their shoulders. I also seem to lose big nearly every session, and the session losses are recorded on my player profile. I would suspect the profile says something like: "Must be counting cards but making big mistakes, big lifetime loser. Let him play until he proves otherwise".

Losing is good cover, but it is not something you can intentionally take advantage of. If you are in this unfortunate position at a particular casino, take advantage.

5. Bet Sizing Cover

• Using a tighter bet spread than one’s bankroll would normally allow
• Only increasing bets after wins and increasing by no more than twice the previous bet.
• Not reducing bets after a push even after the count plummets.
• Random betting off the top of the shoe.

Cover strategies work great at disguising your skills from casino personnel. The problem is that they come with a great cost- reduced theoretical win rate. Use enough cover and you do not have to worry about heat, because your advantage will be negligible.

Whether it is cost-effective use cover strategies will depend on your playing style (how many hours a year, bet spread, maximum bet, and the quality of the game being played). For the mast majority of players, cover should be used sparingly if at all, and the cover should be restricted to bet sizing. Play to win- worry about cover later. For the small number of professional and semi-professional players that play high stakes and find high quality blackjack games, cover strategies can be warranted. These recommendations are summarized below.