KO or Red 7 count

How does the KO and red 7 count work? I currently use hilo, but some friends have suggested that I try KO red 7 instead.

If you're comfortable with HiLo stick with it. You would have to play for a lifetime or two to notice any difference in EV.

What about a casual player going from primarily shoe games to DD? Is Zen, etc. worth the effort then?

(1) As everyone else noted, don't go chasing new systems just because they offer some marginal theoretical benefit. An easy system played well is better than a difficult system played poorly.

(2) KO and Red 7 are distinct from Hi-Lo in that they are unbalanced systems - there are more "low" cards than "high" cards, so the count tends to drift upwards. At a certain count, known as the pivot, the RC equals the Hi-Lo TC (there exists mathematical proof for this). Most importantly, at the pivot, the number of decks does not matter. That is, the main advantage of unbalanced counts over balanced counts is that you don't need to do deck estimation or true count conversion. You play with a running count ONLY.

The drawback to unbalanced counts is that as the RC moves away from the pivot, the correlation between RC and TC diverges. This drawback can be minimized by picking a pivot which is close to the major decisions you'll be making - if you're flat betting below TC +3 and jumping to 100 units at TC +4, choose KO (whose pivot is TC +4); if you're flat betting below TC +1 and jumping to 100 units at TC +2, choose Red 7 (whose pivot is TC +2).

In terms of performance, KO and Red7 and Hi-Lo are essentially equal, so if unbalanced counts don't make sense to you, go with Hi-Lo. Likewise, if you can't tell a 6D shoe from an 8D shoe, go with KO or Red 7.

(3) FAQ about unbalanced counts: What should my IRC be? The answer is anything you want it to be. It's completely arbitrary, so long as you adjust all your betting decisions and strategy change indices accordingly.

- I like to start with an IRC such that the RC at the pivot equals the TC at the pivot. So for a 6D game with KO counting, I'd start at -20 so my pivot is +4.
- Some people like to start the count at 0. This means that the pivot is RC +24 on the same game.
- Other people don't like counting negative numbers, so they'll start with an IRC of 100. This means that the pivot is RC +124.

The general rule is:
PivotRC - InitialRC = NumberOfDecks * Imbalance

So if you're playing a Red 7 count with an IRC of -5,809 on a 13-deck shoe, your pivot is ... (highlight between the arrows) -->-5,785<--

I agree with Flash that KO is weak against pitch games. However, you can true count it and add more indices to make it stronger. Now you have a simple level 1 system that is able to exploit any game.

I don't put in a lot of hours, I practice 3-5 hours a week at home, have for a few years. I don't put in that much time other than the occasional trip, mainly to Vegas which we typically go for 10-14 days where I hit it hard. So no, not a lot of hours.

Nor a high stakes player. When I find a good, good, good game, I'm a green chipper. Typically around my home, red.

I will stick with HiLO. I was just curious as to how the other two counts worked.

Hey Flash, I was wondering if you had some links to a site or two showing the math that proves KO/REd7/level one counts weak against pitch games?

Not doubting you here, just curious as to how much of a disadvantage it is.

It really depends on the game. In a good single deck game, HiOpt2 is going to be about 10-15% better. Not monstrous, but signficant if you're playing a lot of hours.

20% +

I will refer you to:

Blackjack Attack, 3rd ed.

page # 171

Comparing Hi-Opt II with Hi-Lo S17 / H17 and three bet

spreads we see that there is a significant 20% difference.

If offered a 20% raise in salary you would pay attention.

It's not so much that level one counts are weak against pitch games, as that unbalanced counts are comparatively weak against pitch games. I believe that's primarily because of the almost non-existent PE (playing efficiency) of unbalanced counts in negative situations since you're essentially "playing all" -- and with a lower betting spread. Also, unbalanced counts really should have a separate set of indices for pitch play, and I think most players don't go to that extent.

Page 194 of Bluebook II has a chart showing how the EV of unbalanced counts (used-out-of-the-box) fall off a bit when compared with similarly card-tagged balanced systems. Admittedly, the sims were run for only a few hundred million hands each, but the standard error was 0.01%.

Its penetration dependent as well. The deeper the pen, the bigger the difference.

Hi FLASH1296,

I agree with this.
A simple question: If we double the tags of Red 7 (2-A) we graduate from

RED 7
1,1,1,1,1,0.5,0,0,-1,-1 to

RED 7 (doubled)
2,2,2,2,2,1,0,0,-2,-2

The RED 7 DOUBLED is a level-2 count and the same as

BRH-0
2,2,2,2,2,1,0,0,-2,-2

It must be stronger than the RED 7 "simple" and is still pretty easy. What do you think: does it pay to generate full index numbers for this "new" RED 7? Perhaps this RED 7 DOUBLED outperforms KO FULL.

Thanks for any comments

hhrb

The actual RED 7 "simple" is:
...2....3....4....5....6....7....8....9...10....A
...1....1....1....1....1...0/1..0....0...-1...-1
It counts only half the 7's, and carries a BC of 97.2% and a PE of 53.1%.

Going to the RED 7 "double" would produce:
...2....3....4....5....6....7....8....9...10....A
...2....2....2....2....2....1....0....0...-1...-1
with a BC of 98.4% and a PE of 54.2%

It would be a bit stronger that the RED 7 "simple". However, you could achieve exactly the same thing by modifying the RED 7 "simple" to count all the 7's as plus a half point.
It's not as tough as it might seem if you simply substitute the letter "H" for "and-a-half". Thus, if the cards came out.............

...6....10...4....7....3....9....10...5....7....6; your R/C would run;
...7.....6....7...7H..8H..8H...7H..8H...9...10 etc.

You'll have an "H" in your R/C roughly half the time, but no cards are counted as 2 points. You can do the same with the deuces when using KISS III (to produce 97.5% BC and 56.2% PE), and I believe you'd use the same basic table of index numbers for all four systems -- except that the true level 2 versions would double all the indices.

if you're going to go to an unbalanced level 2 then you should use UBZ as defined by the illustrious members of this board in a sticky above.

simply doubling all the values really doesn't do anything to differentiate the value to the player (and the house) the different cards.

A,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,T
-1,1,2,2,2,2,1,0,0,-2


now you have a count that is almost as effective as Zen & Mentor, not a little more effective than KO Full.

Casual player NO - but perhaps stay with HL and add more +indices. zg

Mimosine,

The books teach us: the power of unbalanced counts in shoe games is essentially determined by BC, not so much by PE and IC. So why choose UBZ2 with BC=0.966? Sorry Mimo, of course I know the impressive work of the illustrious members of this board in the sticky UBZ2. I just want to understand the power of BC and the BC of UBZ2 is pretty low.

BC Unbalanced Counts (2-A)
0.995: Uston SS (2,2,2,3,2,1,0,-1,-2,-2)
0.989: Brh-1 (1,2,2,3,2,1,0,0,-2,-2)
0.984: Brh-0 (2,2,2,2,2,1,0,0,-2,-2)
0.984: Red 7 ( all 7’s 0.5) (1,1,1,1,1,0.5,0,0,-1,-1)
0.975: KO (1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,-1,-1)
0.975: Kiss 3 (all 2’s 0.5) (0.5,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,-1,-1)
0.966: UBZ2 (1,2,2,2,2,1,0,0,-2,-1)

Thanks for any comments

hhrb