Round TC up/down?

#1
Do you round the TC up or down?

IE:

RC=14
Decks Left=3

TC=4.666

Playing conservatively you would probably round down or truncate it, right? or should you be more aggressive and round up?
 

Sonny

Well-Known Member
#2
dark_hatchling said:
Playing conservatively you would probably round down or truncate it, right? or should you be more aggressive and round up?
I don't think it matters much. I believe most published indices and bet spreads are calculated by flooring the TC, but a few might round. For indices it won't make much difference and if you have a good simulator you can create a bet spread for any method you use.

-Sonny-
 
#4
Floor is the most conservative and the most recommended and is as follows:

4.9 = 4 TC
4.5 = 4 TC
4.1 = 4 TC

-4.1 = -5 TC
-4.5 = -5 TC
-4.9 = -5 TC

I use the truncate method. Under this method, you always round toward zero. This yields the same result as the Floor in positive counts, but not in negative counts. Truncating would be:

4.9 = 4 TC
4.5 = 4 TC
4.1 = 4 TC

-4.1 = -4 TC
-4.5 = -4 TC
-4.9 = -4 TC

The risk of rounding is that you could overbet in certain situations.

The reason I truncate is because I am not good at fractions in my head. I play Double Deck games, so all I have to do is memorize the True Count for every Running Count between 1 - 25 in both positive and negative counts at 1.75 decks remaining, 1.5 remaining, and .75 decks remaining. In the case of 2, 1, and .5 decks remaining the calculation is easy.

Situations where the running count is greater than 25 are rare, and in these instances I will have max bet out on the positive counts anyway. I also don't use/haven't learned the indices for really high TCs as they are less profitable.

I find that not having to do any additional mathwork in your head to calculate the TC allows you to worry about more important things. By memorizing, the respective TC becomes instantaneous for each RC. And by using the truncate method, you only have to have one set of TC's memorized for both positive and negative counts.

Now...if you are playing with more than 2 decks...say 6 or 8...and would like to memorize the TC for each, you are probably better off getting pretty quick on the math in your head. However, in these cases, you can get away with half deck estimates rather than the quarter deck estimates which are much more valuable at the bottomo of the shoe.
 
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