The poker craze has come and gone but the haze of confusion remains – was poker the best card game or was blackjack? Many blackjack players made it over to the poker table in the wake of the poker boom that quickly went bust…or at least quieted down as many who were not cut out for the game grew disappointed with the results.
The poker rooms are not the hotbeds of activity they once were. But the blackjack tables haven’t fully recovered either from the migration out to poker.
What is my perspective on all of this?
I knew the poker boom would fizzle out, like all crazes. Too many people sought riches at a game that’s a lot tougher to make a living at than some think. At least, a big killing.
I should point out to those who haven’t yet read my books, though, that I’m an expert at blackjack, having done more than 10 years of cutting edge research into every aspect of the game, including card behavior (which no one’s done before, to my knowledge). I play poker successfully too, but I would never characterize myself as a poker expert because I feel that moniker requires that you’ve done some poker research. My shuffling studies have helped me beat both games, however.
That being said, I’ve played professionally for enough decades to give some general comments in comparing both games and in suggesting who is cut out to play each.
You see, to me, poker makes a great secondary card game. I am admittedly biased because my first love was blackjack. But objectively speaking, I believe poker to have a lower yield.
That is, to me, for many mathematical reasons and reasons based upon card behavior, poker offers less dependability when it comes to profits and a lower expected take at the end of the day – if you play both games conservatively.
If you’re a reckless gambler then both games afford the opportunity to play stupidly and make the same amount of money if your recklessly large bet luckily comes in on any one hand – in other words if you try to make a profit off a big roulette-style hail Mary bet, based on no rationale. But that’s not the way to play if you want to have some money at the end of the year.
Speaking of which, I was startled to find, upon reading every poker book I could get my hands on, how many of the poker people had gone absolutely broke playing the game – and many of them admitted going broke multiple times.
That, right off the bat, speaks to a game that’s more risky and less profitable than blackjack. I never once came close to being in the red playing blackjack, much less went broke. And I would never devote my life to playing a game where that was the risk.
I want a game that can produce dependable profits over time and one that doesn’t require going “all in,” risking everything over one hand. And a game I can realistically build up profits on a continual basis. That’s blackjack.
While I play no-limit and limit poker, I play conservatively because even the best-looking poker hands can be busted at a 10- or 11-player table, which is so typical of casino poker these days. And there’s something in me that objects to working hard for hours only to lose my entire stake in one fell swoop to some idiot who hangs on to an 8-2 in Texas Hold’em to the bitter end, drawing a full house with the turn and river.
That kind of thing never happens in blackjack. You’re not required to go all-in to defend your hand. Nor is the size of your bet dependent upon how many players decided to join the fray, pushing the pot to a size that makes huge bets seem reasonable when they’re not necessarily worth the risk.
Another thing: I’ve played at poker tables where I’ve gotten not one single hand in several hours of play. If that happened at a blackjack table, I would have been gone long before an hour is through. Blackjack, at a table with good cards, offers a high percentage of dependably winning hands – and rounds that my cutting edge system can identify in advance of the deal as winners. In contrast, you cannot identify a winning hand in poker before the cards are dealt. Ever. That’s a huge difference too.
Don’t get me wrong – I love poker. But not as much as blackjack. And I win much more than not at poker, but my take always seems to be much less than what I would have made at blackjack. So I enjoy it as a secondary game.
And, as Phil Helmuth has pointed out, poker is a game of people that just happens to involve cards. If you cannot read players to tell when they’re bluffing or tell what hand they’re likely holding, don’t even consider poker. If you cannot put on a poker face no one can read, don’t play poker.
And that’s another thing – a few players who are playing in concert at a poker table can provide treacherous opposition. They can make it tough to win.
That kind of thing would never happen at a blackjack table – if you’ve chosen your casino and table wisely and carefully.
With patience, a conservative player can make a good deal of money at blackjack using my system, whatever level methods you’re using. But even the best poker players admittedly go broke from time to time.
Since I’m a conservative guy, I don’t like that part of the picture. And since I play poker conservatively (as I do blackjack), I guess I’ll always be complaining that I could have won more had I played blackjack. But pokers sometimes a fun diversion, even if the take is modest when played conservatively.
(To give you a clue: I play poker much more like Dan Harrington than one of the aggressive young Turks.)
– Have blackjack questions? Send them to rharvey2121@netscape.net. For more info see http://www.blackjacktoday.com.
