A few more blackjack tips?

Cutter's Log - Stardate 8002.40.80
Current Song - While My Guitar Gently Weeps (The Beatles -- George Harrison)

Toward my work-day bedtime (5:00 AM) I play a round or 24 of my Hoyle Casino CD-ROM to tweaken up my card playing skills.

Lately, I've been playing a lot of Pai Gow Poker, and I found out that you CAN'T WIN in this game! You play against the dealer. In Pai Gow you are dealt seven cards. You take out to cards in order to make the best five-card hand. But the two cards you choose to drop have to make a good two-card hand. Your two card hand also cannot beat your five-card hand.

Here's a typical Pai Gow hand:
9-3-4-K-10-A-9

You look at the cards and figure out what your have: in this case, a pair of 9's. You leave the pair of nines in your five card hand since your five-card hand has to beat your two-card hand. Now you need to determine your best two-card hand: in this case, an ace-high. You take out the ace and the next highest card, which is the king. So now you get to see if your pair of nines and your A-K beats the dealer's cards. Enough about Pai Gow.

I start all of my blackjack table appearances with $100.00. I play at the $5 table, and my chips are all $5. When I first played at a casino (my 21st birthday), I played $5 at a time either until I run out, or became a millionaire. That didn't work out too well. The second time I played, I played until I reached $100, and kept going, but wound up breaking even.

So instead of playing to $100 every night on the computer, I tried playing to $100, and then pocketing $50. When I'm over $100, I play until I hit $150 or leave with the $50 I pocketed. When I hit $150, I play until I hit $200 or leave with the $100 I just pocketed. Etc.

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My boss hasn't made out this week's schedule. As of this type-up, it is Monday morning. She knows she's coming in this morning. After that, who knows. I'm hoping for an off-day, to get my Orland Park-Palos Park-Blue Island-Chicago trip off and running. While I'm on this excursion, I am going to plan up the rest of my summer (content, site plans, etc.). If not Monday, I'm going to definately do it on Tuesday (my only guarenteed day off for now).