Dealing With The Novice Opponent

When you're sitting at a blackjack table, you will often encounter other players who simply don't know what they're doing. They will hit a 17, double on a 12, or hit a pair of aces when they should split. If you're losing at that table, you might have a tendency to blame the novice who has taken the card that might have helped you, or caused those cards to be dealt in what may be considered an "unnatural sequence."

Excuses for losing are always going to be used in a casino, no matter how ridiculous they may be. But the general assumption that bad players at the blackjack table are bad for one's game is foolhardy. How in the world would a truly unskilled player know that he or she is taking a card that is bad for you or good for the dealer?

Since no one really knows in what sequence the cards are going to be dealt, inexperienced players should have no real effect, unless they become such a distraction that the psychological makeup of the player allows them to. At the poker table, it's quite a different story, because of the fact that you actually have to play AGAINST these people. And unless you're careful, they can foul you up - big-time.

To use a boxing analogy, sometimes the more skilled fighter, who usually competes at the highest level, will have what is called a "tuneup" fight, and he can have trouble against those opponents who are somewhat unorthodox because they do not possess anything close to that skill level. The guy with the skill simply isn't used to seeing opponents like that.

At the poker table, if you know your opponent is thinking at a high level, you're going to prime yourself to compete with the expectation that certain moves would be made in certain situations. In a strange way, both of you are sharing a certain symbiosis.

That doesn't often happen with lower-level players. They have less sophistication about what they're doing, and with that comes less in the way of predictability. And when you can't utilize a particular standard in measuring up the opponent and what he/she can or should do in a specific situation, you're naturally going to operating with less information when it comes to playing your own hand.

So the more skilled player might need to make an adjustment to deal with these kinds of foes.