Blackjack Articles
Your New
Years Resolution - Discipline
by Andrew W Scott
December 31st 2004
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2………1
Happy New Year!!!
Hey, it's New Years Eve! As I write this it is around
12 noon. Yes, twelve hours from now at the stroke
of midnight I'll be cradling a glass of champagne
and looking for the nearest pretty girl to kiss. But
I can assure you by 1 or 2 am I'll be tucked up in
bed sound asleep.
Why? Because I have a plan. A big plan. My 2005 plan
of action.
It's a 365 day plan that starts on January 1. So
I want to be up bright and early on Saturday January
1st to get cracking.
Sorry readers, I'm not at liberty to reveal what
the plan is yet, but as the year unfolds I'll be able
to reveal it to you all. And rest assured, although
there will be twists and turns along the way, the
plan will come to fruition. How do I
know that I'll be successful in my plan? Because I'm
disciplined. I know I'm disciplined, because I've
witnessed myself be disciplined in the past. I know
I'm disciplined, simply because I believe it deep
down in my heart. I define myself to
be disciplined, and by that very act of definition,
I am. And that's what I'd like to chat with you about
today. Plans and discipline.
Almost all of us make New Year resolutions, but almost
all of us have broken them by the end of January.
Why? Because most people lack the discipline to carry
their new plans through. I'd like to try to help you
with that. The purpose of this column today is to
try, in some small way, to help you become more disciplined.
Why is discipline important? Well, in my 18 years
of experience being a pro gamer and 11 years of experience
teaching pro gaming, it has emerged that the one single
personality characteristic that is most correlated
with success in this field is discipline. Not intelligence.
Not wealth. Not computer skills. It's discipline.
I suspect that discipline is a character trait that
strongly correlates with success not just in the gaming
world, but in the wider community as well. I've seen
literally thousands of students and other "operatives"
in the professional gaming world come and go, and
the ones that seem to be able to succeed in this often
misunderstood world are the "rocks". Nothing fazes
these guys. They have a plan, and they stick to it.
Nothing and nobody is going to get in their way.
Why would I want to become a rock?
Because they win. At gaming, and at life. Being
a rock is all about having the discipline to stick
to the plan, no matter how things are going right
now. It's often said that for every hour you spend
planning something, that's ten hours saved actually
"doing" it. Trial and error is not a good way to work
out how to tackle something. Whenever someone wants
to achieve something, like building a house, beating
casino BlackJack, having a great overseas trip, or
conducting brain surgery, it's important to sit down
and make a solid plan based on good information. You're
more likely to make good decisions in the cold light
of day planning quietly at a desk than if you are
dealing with a high pressure situation in the heat
of the moment.
Say I'm playing BlackJack and have a massive bet
out there, and then receive a hand of 12 against the
dealer's 3 upcard, I don't want to have to make a
decision about whether to hit or stand in the heat
of the moment with everyone watching me. I don't want
to have to make complicated calculations in my head
right then! I simply stick to my plan (which in that
case is to hit unless the proportion of ten cards
in the shoe is above a pre-determined number). I don't
want to have to "think" at that moment, I have the
discipline to robotically stick to my plan and be
indifferent about whether I win or lose. Have pre-determined
plans, and then have the discipline to stick to them
irrespective of extraneous factors. The ability to
do this sorts out the men from the boys, the winners
from the losers.
But that's so boring!
Ah yes, it is. Unless you are like me, and take a
sort of perverse pleasure at being so rock-like when
gaming. Anyway, why are you playing again? Are you
playing to have fun or playing to make money? If you're
playing to have fun, then please go ahead and make
your ad-hoc decisions, your whim-of-the-moment guesses.
Just don't come complaining to me when you're broke!
Me? I'm playing to win. Personally, I don't find losing
fun. In fact, I've never met anyone who found losing
fun. My attitude is that if I want fun, I go to a
movie, a show, a bar, a nightclub. Casinos and gambling
are a serious business with serious money involved.
OK, you convinced me. So how do I become a rock?
Let's say deep down you know that currently you're
not a rock. Maybe you've got a little bit of rock
in you but not enough. More like a pebble, maybe.
So how do you graduate from pebble (or worse) to rock?
Good question. Answer - practice. Practice and training.
Simply make the decision to become a rock and stick
to it. As some big sandshoe company seems
to be so fond of telling us - JUST DO IT! This is
an example of what I've heard called "fake it 'til
you make it". Basically, you start off by pretending
to be a rock for a while, even though you're not.
But you act like one, think like one. Whenever you
are confronted by a situation requiring a decision,
you say to yourself, "what would a rock do?" Eventually
you graduate to "what would I do, because I am a rock!"
Don't beat yourself up if sometimes you slip, just
get back on the wagon. Practice makes perfect.
To transfer this thinking to pro gaming advice -
don't make undisciplined bets. Don't make decisions
on the spur of the moment. Most of all, don't
get angry when you lose! (The flipside of
this is don't get too happy when you win.) Just have
your plan, and then implement it. Try to be so that
at the end of the day those around you couldn't tell
whether you won or lost by your demeanour.
As you most likely know, winning at BlackJack is
my particular area of expertise. Most people are surprised
to discover that learning the correct strategies to
beat BlackJack is a relatively simple matter. However,
having the discipline to implement those strategies
robotically without question using real money is
quite a separate issue. If you start to over-think,
accept your feelings, become emotional, or worst of
all, want to use your so-called "common sense" on
the fly then you'll lose that discipline and start
to compromise your play. Pros call this "cracking",
much like Jana Novotna did in that famous Wimbledon
women's final all those years ago.
Visualise it!
"Fake it 'til you make it" is all about visualisation.
Visualisation is imagining yourself to be something
that you're not, so that when you are in the relevant
situation, you become the thing which you imagined.
The trick is to practise, practise, practise. It's
basically a form of meditation.
Years ago I learned of a dramatic example of the
power of visualisation relating to a golfer who usually
shot in the nineties. Circumstances kept him from
playing golf for seven years, but the first time he
actually played on the course after that long seven-year
break, he shot 74! During those seven years, he did
not take any golf lessons and his physical ability
actually deteriorated, as he was actually in a small
cage as a prisoner of war! So how on earth did he
improve his game? He chose to survive those horrible
years by mentally playing golf while in his cage.
He played eighteen holes every single day of his imprisonment.
He visualised every tiny detail that he could imagine:
the course, weather, clothes, trees and pin placement.
He then imagined every single detail of holding each
club, keeping his eye on the ball, his back swing
and follow through, the flight of the ball and where
it landed. He even visualised the long walks from
shot to shot and hole to hole. The eighteen holes
he played mentally and visually took the same time
as when he actually played which was about 4 hours!!
After not playing for seven years, and under these
horrible conditions, he cut an amazing 20 strokes
off his game.
31 December 2005.
Here endeth my little sermon about discipline. Altogether
now, let's visualise us sitting around, having a beer
or perhaps a glass of bubbly on Saturday 31 December
2005. What will we all be doing? Celebrating our successful
year of profitable, disciplined pro gaming, of course.
And looking for that pretty girl to kiss at midnight!
Thanks for your support and your positive feedback
on my first columns published earlier this month.
I intend writing these columns for a long time to
come and encourage you to send in any pro gaming questions
you might happen to have, especially those relating
to casino gaming and BlackJack. Your question may
well form the subject matter of a future column.
Until next time, if it's worth doing, it's worth
mastering.
Andrew W Scott
If you have any specific BlackJack or casino questions,
please email them to management_at_ozmium_dot_com_dot_au
I don't promise to answer them all, but I'll certainly
use some of them for inspiration for upcoming columns.
Until next time…if it's worth doing, it's worth mastering!
Andrew W Scott
Andrew W Scott is founder and CEO of blackJack-mAsters.com
Professional BlackJack School, a school established
in 1993 to further the education of players of casino
BlackJack in Australia. You can visit the school at
www.blackjack-masters.com
© Andrew W Scott 2004
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