Need an advise about progression

the effect of doubling and splitting on a positive progression

In progression betting you trade a larger average loss per hand for a greater amount of expected deviation from this higher loss amount. The amount of increase in your bet size relative to the frequency you make each bet determines how much the increase in your expected loss per hand is.

The nature of blackjack is that the expected return varies from hand to hand depending on deck composition. In most games higher betting levels only hurts you rate of return and cannt be mathematically justified. In blackjack this is not true, if you bet higher when you have an advantage the increase in bet size is mathematically demanded.

But random bet fluctuations tend to hurt you even more in blackjack because by basing your bet size by whether you won or lost the last hand, no matter which has just happened, has you betting your highest bets in the worst conditions on the average. Good conditions are rare with shorter winning and losing streaks!!!!! These events dont have a high enough correlation with playing conditions to be of any help.

Positive progressions(bet more after a win) you trade off a quicker short term losses rate to be occasionally supplemented by larger wins. The sum of the trade off is of course negative as is the case with all progression systems, UNLESS YOUR HIGHER BETS HAVE A BETTER EXPECTED RETURN THAN YOUR LOWER SIZE BETS. IF THEY HAVE A POSITIVE EXPECTED RETURN YOU MAY EVEN MOVE INTO AN ADVANTAGE SITUATION.

With a positive progression in blackjack the affect of doubling your bet on a double down or split must be considered. Lets assume you have won 5 hands in a row and you are about to reap a rare large return on your trade off. The next hand you double and/or split and the dealer hits out to a 21(it happens a lot as the count gets more negative but could happen anytime) and you lose enough to give back that rare gain and more. Not a good trade.

On a positive count the dealer has just as good a chance as you do to get the good hands so streaks are generally shorter. He has to hit his stiffs, you can choose to deviate from basic strategy knowing the increased likelihood of busting makes it no longer the correct decision.

The nature of blackjack doesnt lend itself well to progression betting unless the bet variations and decisions made playing correlates to the the deck composition. Trying to ensure this correlation should be the ONLY concern as you ponder your questions. If you can do this without blowing your progression bettor cover you are in the catbirds seat.

If you tried to gear your higher bet doubles, splits and surrenders to maximum advantage beyond basic strategy only by using a strong strategy correlation count that is simple like HIOPT I (+1 for 3,4,5,6; -1 for 10,J,Q,K) there would be a large positive impact on your per hand win or loss rate.

Not doubling,splitting or surrendering the hands you would with basic strategy but not with AP play, and when AP strategy has you doubling, splitting and surrendering when BS doesnt should have a large impact on your per hand rate.

The most gain in blackjack is in betting efficiency. If you feel tied to a betting structure your biggest gain is in a count that is strong in strategic efficiency. HIOPT I is one of the strongest and easiest counting system out there.

Thanks for posts.., makes sense that a mere betting system, even one with some intuitive appeal as a positive progression, is just a mirage on its own right. Having seen more than just a few successes with it though, I guess I am wondering if some players are very intuitive of the count, meaning while they maintain their positive progression, they ALSO scale it in accordance with their intuitive count, so maybe a 1-2-3-4-5 might be supplanted by a 1.5-3-4.5, etc when count is optimal. I get the math and why many of you get perturbed when you see posts that want to believe that a pos progression, or other betting strategies are the answers per se. BUT I have to also use my eye balls and I have seen what I described above work well many times and w/o the use of a fully conscious count... Interesting....

intuition?

I was wondering if you may have unknowingly modified your ramp based on the deck composition subconsciously.

Yea, I was calling it intuition but you better stated it as just not in conscious awareness. While obviously imperfect, I think this is the case based on what is now a fairly substantial body of evidence..

I've never seen a ploppy intuitively "know" what the count is. Can spot other counters right away, often in less than half a shoe. Or at least I've never seen a ploppy who correlates their bet enough with the count to win over an extended period of time. Heck its challenging enough for counters to win with our extreme spreads. No chance in hell an intuitive ploppy with a minor modification in their spread can do it.

I had it happen at TC +6 for most of the bets. Shoe quickly went REAL positive and stayed that way for a long time as the number of decks dwindled. The TC went through the roof. Dealer kept getting 20 or 21 with no stiffs. I had to hit a bad total almost every hand!! I won 1 hand right before the shuffle after the TC went back down.

It was 8 deck cut off 2 with the dealer and 3 players (including me). Maybe had a push in there somewhere. Im not sure how many hands that makes but 2 less than the number of hands in the 4 of us would play. I bet someone here knows enough blackjack statistics to come up with a ballpark figure.

JUSTME, Pogo has been poo pood several time on this board. I just laugh & go with it ,but you will get some expert advise here. I am going to get slammed for telling how I bet before I started counting. I used the 1 & 3 method , if you win go to 3 units ,lose go to 1 unit . Your average bet will be 2 units. Your progression system will get you murdered. Learn to count, this site will teach all you need to know. Practice is the key & may I suggest using the red seven since most casinos deal 6 decks. I sometime use the one & 3 method on appx the first deck out of the shoe in case the front is loaded with high cards. Waiting for the ass kicking :joker::joker::joker::laugh: