How to tell if you have the nerves to card count

[Thunder]

You've been on a horrible losing streak this night. You have 20 in a 6 deck game and the dealer has an ace showing and she asks if you want insurance. The TC=+2.5 and you have out your biggest bet of the night at $200. You've got $75 left to play with Do you insure for less?

Just how many of you would deviate from strategy and take insurance. Honestly

[1357111317]

Depends on your aversion to varience. If you insure then 95% of the time the most you will lose is 100$ if you take insurance and you will most likely win your 200 dollar bet. When the TC is 2.5 the difference between taking insurance and not taking insurance is probably very small in the long run. If you think about it this way at a TC of 0 the dealer will have blackjack 30.8 percent of the time. For insurance to be worth it you need the dealer to have blackjack 33.3% of the time. The indice for taking insurance is +3 so just splitting the 2.5% difference with a TC of 2.5 the odds of the dealer having a blackjack is probably around 32.5%-33%. That means you are losing .3-.8% of your 100 dollar bet which is 30 to 80 cents. You would have to ask yourself, is risk aversion worth that much?

[bj bob]

Originally Posted by Thunder

You've been on a horrible losing streak this night. You have 20 in a 6 deck game and the dealer has an ace showing and she asks if you want insurance. The TC=+2.5 and you have out your biggest bet of the night at $200. You've got $75 left to play with Do you insure for less?

Just how many of you would deviate from strategy and take insurance. Honestly

In this case it would depend on the composition of the 20. If it were A,9 I would take it, if it were X,X I wouldn't, especially if this occurred well into the shoe.

[bjcount]

Originally Posted by Thunder

You've been on a horrible losing streak this night. You have 20 in a 6 deck game and the dealer has an ace showing and she asks if you want insurance. The TC=+2.5 and you have out your biggest bet of the night at $200. You've got $75 left to play with Do you insure for less?

Just how many of you would deviate from strategy and take insurance. Honestly

First of all counter's don't play or worry about streaks, gamblers do.

I wouldn't take insurance if your Index Play is at TC+3.
If the dealer shows a BJ you still have $75 to continue in a + advantage situation.
If the dealer doesn't have BJ you have a better chance of winning or pushing w/20.
If you insure and lose both the insurance and the hand your out completely.
As Bjbob said, there is some minor difference to the %'s in the hand composition, but I do not see a large enough difference to change the way you play.

BJC

Edit: Per Cacarulo for Expected Value and Hand Probabilities for(6D, S17, DOA, DAS, RSA=0, RSP=4) is:
A,9 v A is 0.659607 and T,T v A is 0.654582

[21forme]

Originally Posted by Thunder

Just how many of you would deviate from strategy and take insurance. Honestly

Never!

However, once when I was getting killed in a high count, and was also concerned about the PC watching me, I asked if I could have even money on a BJ when the dealer had a 10 showing, because the way things were going, I was sure he had an Ace underneath. Fortunately, he said no (and stopped watching the table, too.)

[creeping panther]

Originally Posted by Thunder

You've been on a horrible losing streak this night. You have 20 in a 6 deck game and the dealer has an ace showing and she asks if you want insurance. The TC=+2.5 and you have out your biggest bet of the night at $200. You've got $75 left to play with Do you insure for less?

Just how many of you would deviate from strategy and take insurance. Honestly

The truth is....I would not ever play serious BJ in a 6d game.

Thankfully I have plenty of other options. 6d is a gamble and not at all what the early advantage players, book writers, ever had in mind. There are many here who feel 8 D games are beatable

As to the question, my indice for that game is TC+3, so no...and it is totally your fault for taking an As* kickin, which was avoidable.

CP

[Ferretnparrot]

Its a 200 dollar bet, in order to best your ods of making that very situation profitable you dont take insurance.

You may run out of money tonight, by not taking insurance, but yoru more liekly to run out tonight if you do take insurance.

Even if you run out of money tonight, its only in the sum of tonight, and the many nights to come that you will win money, you **WILL** lose money on many of your trips to play blackjack.

your remaining 200 shoudl be replacable at some time in the future, even if you ahve to work a few months to save it up again, in the future you will play more, and in the future your wins wil negate that tiny loss.

If the 200 is THAT important to you, you shouldnt have been gambling with ti to begin with.

No, would not have taken any insurance.

[Bojack1]

Originally Posted by Thunder

You've been on a horrible losing streak this night. You have 20 in a 6 deck game and the dealer has an ace showing and she asks if you want insurance. The TC=+2.5 and you have out your biggest bet of the night at $200. You've got $75 left to play with Do you insure for less?

Just how many of you would deviate from strategy and take insurance. Honestly

Not to be nitpicky here but this scenario sounds like a typical new counters problem. First thing I see wrong is a bankroll problem. Maybe a spread problem, and no confidence in the plan that needed to be addressed before even one hand was dealt. Yes you take insurance if the count calls for it, at least I would. If a $200 bet is your biggest of the night at a TC of 2.5, then you either are overbetting as you should have a big enough trip bankroll to handle a night full of small to to mid size bets seeing that this $200 bet should not even be close to max bet based on a realistic bet spread. This is even if the cards were not falling your way. Or you are overbetting on low counts and your risk is too high for your bankroll. My point is the right play is a no brainer if you put the rest of the gameplan together correctly. If I was losing a lot of minimum to low end spread bets, I would not be tapped out at the end of one night. But still to the point, if you learn your count and indices, stick with them and do not deviate because you're afraid to lose. If thats the case, stop playing now is the better move.

[Thunder]

I love it. You guys are so bright, you're always try to read between the lines even if there is nothing there. :-P

This isn't something that happened to me fyi but rather just a scenario I thought up. (I don't bet $200/hand in BJ in a +2.5 count and have been counting for almost 3 years now so I know better than to take insurance)

[Dyepaintball12]

Originally Posted by creeping panther

The truth is....I would not ever play serious BJ in a 6d game.

Thankfully I have plenty of other options. 6d is a gamble and not at all what the early advantage players, book writers, ever had in mind. There are many here who feel 8 D games are beatable

CP

CP,

6 deck and 8 deck are both beatable games. Often better than the lower # of decks because of the poor pen. that often comes with it