Ultimate Blackjack Strategy: Procedural Knowledge or Declarative Knowledge
I decided to learn blackjack in preparation for my weekend in Las Vegas. I picked blackjack because I understood the basic premise and because I heard the house advantage is relatively small compared to other games.
Due to a pretty busy week leading up to my Friday flight, I wasn’t able to study the game in any depth. But I did have time to download and print out this strategy chart (thanks to wizard of odds):
For the duration of the flight to Vegas – about 90 minutes – I stared at this chart and committed to memory all the appropriate actions under various scenarios.
I was confident. I felt like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, when he downloads all of those fighting skills to his brain and utters, “Whoa. I know kung-fu.”
Later that night I would sit down at a 10 dollar table at the Bellagio next to a grumpy businessman from Guadalajara, put down 100 dollars, and proceed to lose all of my chips in approximately 25 minutes.
Whoa. I don’t know blackjack.
By memorizing the chart in the spirit of The Matrix learning paradigm, I had actually made things harder than they needed to be.
Blackjack requires “know-that” or declarative knowledge — I know that I should always split Aces and 8s. In contrast, kung-fu requires “know-how” or procedural knowledge — Keanu Reeves knows how to do a triple-kick in the air.
One of the key differences between the two is that while procedural knowledge needs to be wired in the brain, you can essentially “outsource” declarative knowledge to your computer, your hard drive, or a little blackjack card. This is a good thing, because it means that your brain can devote more energy to the important stuff (like finding the waitress and ordering another free drink).
So while downloading a .zip file to your brain works for procedural tasks like kung-fu, it’s unnecessary and potentially cumbersome for essentially declarative tasks like blackjack.
You can get a small blackjack strategy card that fits in your wallet for about $2. It’s totally legal to refer to it at the blackjack table, so long as you don’t slow the game down. Buy this card.
The next night I found the excellent casino O’Sheas and sat down at their $5 dollar table — apparently the only one you’ll find on the strip after about 7pm. Thanks to the card, I was relieved of computationally expensive memory recall on every hand.
I relaxed, enjoyed myself, and eventually won back the money I’d lost the previous night. Of course I got lucky, but I was able to put myself in a position to get lucky — and enjoy that luck — because I ditched the Matrix learning paradigm and outsourced my knowledge to a little card.
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great article