When I use to play Blackjack, I had a system. I played by the same rules as the house. I hit up to 16, stayed on all 17s, never (at least tried not to) double down or split. The only true deviation of this was if the dealer was showing a 4, 5 or 6. Those hands seem to allow the dealer to bust more often than other cards. So in that case I would stay below 16. It seemed to work. I could remember times I played for 2-3 hours at a Casino and made over $100 and I don’t remember ever losing a significant amount of money at Blackjack. I think this only works because you are playing against a dealer, and not other players. So the question is, since Poker has odds, just like Blackjack, is there anyway to set a system or set of rules?
If you forget other player’s cards exist for the purpose of calculating odds, can you forget that you are playing against other people in order to decide to get involved in a pot? Can you figure out what hold cards have a certain percentage chance of becoming a made hand? Obviously, AA are pretty good hold cards. Going back to Tom’s post about pocket 3s, I don’t think pocket 3s are good hold cards. So let’s say I decide to only call (pre-flop) if I have suited connectors over a certain threshold or pocket pair over a certain threshold. Can you do that without consideration of others and how they act at the table? Does such a system you set up make you become more predictable to other players? The only real problem I see is that in Blackjack you control how much you bet to stay active, unlike Poker.
