Correct seating in professional blackjack

Many people may think that there is no such thing as a good seat when casino gambling in blackjack but they would be wrong. Much depends on what you are trying to do of course and also what you have done in the past. There are numerous dynamics at work with regards choosing your seat at a blackjack table.

For instance if your card counting speed isn’t up to scratch then sitting at first base (first box) will be a problem as you will have to count even faster in order to make correct strategy decisions. Although in many ways this isn’t a problem as most of the strategy deviations offer no meaningful advantage to the player. So this isn’t really a problem and sitting at first base does give the player a great opportunity to “spook” the dealer by being able to glimpse the first card out of the shoe.

Sitting at third base (final box) is the classic card counters seat and this is why this seat can be dangerous. But there are also classic cheating moves available from this position as well for the simple reason being that this seat tends to be out of the dealers line of vision as they play out the other boxes first.

Many card counters believe that the middle boxes are the best boxes to be as they allow more counting time and are not known as being “card counter seats”. Once again this depends on the overall strategy and also the level of knowledge with regards to the casino personnel as well.

Quite often in small casinos then these factors will be academic anyway as most of the time the small number of tables will mean that seat selection may be limited. In fact if you are playing at night then you may even have to play behind someone and even let them have control of the box.

Although if you have to do this then make sure that it is someone who has a fair grasp of basic strategy and doesn’t make silly playing decisions. If this is the case then you either find yourself another box or you the table until a seat becomes available.

It is impossible for me to determine what an optimal blackjack seat is as this is dependent on so many different factors. In this aspect it is similar to poker in that you cannot tell someone what the optimal poker seat is. You can however give people guidelines so that they can locate profitable situations for themselves.

During the process of shuffle tracking, in my opinion all seats are about on an even keel with each other in terms of effectiveness. All you need to know in these instances is how the dealer is shuffling and if they are correctly replicating that shuffle.

Quite often busy games can create all sorts of opportunities for alert players. The number of hands per hour may fall and that is bad for a card counter as they depend on a good solid level of action to produce an earn rate. But quite frequently, the dealers will also make mistakes in your favour and pay hands that they shouldn’t have paid.

For example if your are sitting on a box and you have already bust then by simply putting your next bet out again for the next hand, you are creating the opportunity for the dealer to pay you and this is an easy mistake to make. If the dealers are inexperienced or tired then this error can be made once or twice a night and out of all the casino games available, blackjack often proves the most profitable in more ways than one.

This article was written by Carl “The Dean” Sampson