Some insight has come to me

to explain some strange things that happen when counting.

For simplicity let's assume your single of double deck consists of 3 slugs: 1 Rich in Tens = R
1 Neutral or Normal = N
1 Low on Tens = L

There are 6 ways these can be distributed: the last slug is out of play behind the cut card.

#1
LR/N -> This is ideal. For the first 1/3rd the count goes up and we raise our bet through the Rich slug winning good $'s

#2
LN/R -> This is not so good. As above we raise our bet but don't tend to win, just increase our risk.

#3
NL/R -> Not so good either. We keep our bet low and then tend to lose.

#4
NR/L -> A little better. We keep our bet low and then tend to win; but not much $'s

#5
RN/L -> Our count drops, we keep our bet low through the first 1/3rd but tend to win, but not much $'s

#6
RL/N -> Count drops then we tend to lose, but not much $'s

This may help to understand how the count can be BIG and we lose anyway - we're going through a neutral slug.

BUT WE'LL STILL WIN $'s IN THE LONG RUN.

Bruisedlee

Long run

The Long Run is BS

This is a game of sessions, build your strategy on that. Your goal is to win every session you play.

I view the "Long Run" as Voddododo:laugh:

CP

Yeah...Creeping Panther is right. You will NEVER see the "long run" in your lifetime.

Any more responses like that and I'll have to move this to the voodoo forum. :laugh:

-Sonny-

Just curious, but if you never see the long run, then this is one hundred percent gambling and the casinos would never need to kick anyone out. I know for a fact that enough hands can be played that will allow essentially no risk of losing money whatsoever. This can be done in a year actually. If there is no long run, then counting cards is a hoax!!!! It also discredits CVDATA and there is no point in purchasing software since the entire basis is on "the long run"

If this were true I would flat bet and have a 50/50 chance of winning in the long run for the next 20 years playing 8 hours a week.

However, I do agree with Creeping Panther when he says to play for each session.

I think they're joking around. N0 (typical accepted long run) is around 50k hands, maybe 500 hours of play.

Then again, there are still no guarantees..

I have NOT reached the "long run" with only 90 hours of play BUT I have reached my theoretical earning per hour ($20/hr with $10-$80 spread).

I will keep you posted.

Bruisedlee

A small time counter may never reach the long run. In fact many bust out. However, all the counters operating at one casino will have enough hands to reach the long run. The casino's long run is a reality and depends on it to make money. It if for this reason the casinos try to keep counters out, even small time small stakes grifters.

I agree 100 percent. I have played approximately 700 hours last year and I am fairly close to my expectation. I was almost one of the statistics. I dropped 1k quick and almost quit, but I kept with it and came back. I do believe the heart and soul of card counting is the long run otherwise counting cards is worthless.

Now that I konw about the swings, 1k is mearly nothing as far as swings go.

No, I was simply implying that we never see the "long run" based on sim play of billions of hands. Which you will never see in your lifetime.

It depends on what your definition of is is. :laugh:

Short run...long run...it doesn't matter because we always have an advantage every time we play a quality game.

Yeah...I would say 50k hands is more than enough to experience a positive expectation and/or double the bank.

N0 varies all over the place depending on the usual suspects lol.

Just look at the N0 column in Don's book.

It may not be apparent, but, in some back-counting scenarios there, N0 could be less than 1000 physical rounds played.

Although, in that case, it might mean seeing 7800 hands. Still, 78 hours.

There's no "general rule".

If people want to play forever thinking they can never achieve "long-run" in their lifetimes, well then, that's what they think. Believing that, will make it so in their minds.

N0 just means when EV= 1 SD. If you want to define "long-run" as EV=2 sd's or ev=3 sd's or ev=4 sd's go right ahead.

Each will have an answer in how many rounds it will take.

Then, if you never play that many rounds, however you choose to define it, of that game in your lifetime, I guess I agree, you will not have achieved "long-run" lol.

I guess it is an elusive concept lol.

Point noted. What I consider the long run is where you reach the point at which there is virtually no chance of having a loss.

You are correct, we will never see the long run if the long run is 1 billion hands.

I agree that

the "long run" is about a year of full time play.

But I have a question for the Standard Deviation experts.

In 10 1/2 hours of play; betting $10-$80 at double deck:
I won $1430! That has got to be a 100 to 1 fluke!

Do I have those odds about right?

Bruisedlee

If you want, define what "virtually no chance" may mean to you. 1 in 100 1 in 1000 1 in 10000? More?

Take a game where N0=1SD as a definition of "long-run".

Multiply those hands by 9 to get a definition of N0=3sd.

At 3SD, you have to be looking at that from that point forward that "playing forever" is a pretty good bet - you have a pretty small chance of ever losing your entire original roll.

And we're not just talking about a chance at that point of "having a loss", maybe having a few dollars less than original roll and calling that a "loss", we're talking about losing entire roll.



Sims just do billions of hands so one may reasonably know when that point will occur.

One never has to actually play billions of hands.

Really?

Well, just to give you an idea, here's a sheet based on tables from Don's book for an S17 DAS game assuming Hi-lo and I18 indexes.

In row 80 I plugged in 1050 hands, assuming 100/hds/hr.

As you can see, a gain of $1430 is always less than a 1 Stan dev event whether a 52/104, 62/104, 70/104, or 78/104 pen level game.

But I don't know your counting system, whether you use indexes, whether you bet the same spread as in the attached even if you do use Hi-Lo with indexes.

I don't know whether you played all 10.5 hours in the same way, more or less, or over several different games. Or whether, every once in a while, maybe you bet $300 instead of $80.

I don't know whether you actually averaged 100/rounds/hr/ even if you did use Hi-Lo with indexes or whether you bet the same amounts at the same TC's, etc.

And I don't even know if you played a DD S17 DAS game.

It's just an example - in this example such a gain is completely to be expected lol.

The big picture is, if you tell a sim the rules and pen and counting system, indexes or not, specific points of when you bet how much and when, how many rounds you played in that way, etc., it'll tell you the answer to your question.

If you do happen to use Hi-Lo with inmdexes in an S17 DAS game, you could probably use the sheet to fool around with and change what you want.

Why not?

It just depends on how many rounds one plays, not how long it takes one to play that many rounds?

I'm not sure what you think - is it "reaching the long-run is impossible in one's lifetime anyway"?

If I thought that, I would never play anyway.

I don't even think that and don't play anyway :grin:

Thank you all for your replies.

I've got a lot to learn.

I have purchased WinSim21 and am trying to get the time to go through the tutorials and learn how to use it.

Thanks again, Bruisedlee

As I stated in an earlier post I think we as AP's have an advantage everytime we play a quality game.

I agree with Creeping Panther that this is a game of "sessions".

I just think the "long run" is a BS concept. And...to package it in a time frame is dangerous. However, I believe that if you have not doubled your bank after 50k hands then either you are playing with an inferior system, playing inferior games or your skills may not be as sharp as you believed them to be.

Again, the "long run"i s an elusive concept and I suppose everyone has a deifferent definition of what that may be.

Well, I agree with you "Long-run" is very elusive, all the more so since, usually the "lifetime" RoR" really is assuming one plays forever lol.

I don't know what's "dangerous" about putting time frames on it. What else can one do? Goals, rolls, and time is all we have lol.

Maybe putting the same time frame as some general "rule-of-thumb" on all games could become somewhat misleading though.

Like, if you like that 50K hands doubling your roll as a general thing, say you are playing with $10K and a full-kelly fixed spread. So your ROR is that 13.53% stuff.

Say, it happens that 50,000 rounds is what it takes to double that $10K roll.
N0, the point at which EV=1 SD, will also happen to be about the same 50,000 rounds.

But, say, maybe you don't like that 13.53% risk because it's too high, so you choose to quadruple your roll to make your risk almost zero. Now it will take you 200,000 rounds to double your $40K roll even though your skill factor is the same, the quality of the game is the same, and your playing system is the same.

However N0 will still occur at 50,000 rounds since your EV/round and SD/round haven't changed just because you have more $roll.

Which is why I'd prefer to use N0 in some shape or form to decide how close I may or may not be to "long-run" however I may choose to define it.

Personally, choosing "long-run" as meaning EV overcoming 1SD and, therefore, apparently, one's results must be attributed to skill rather than "luck" at that point in time, is too conservative for me since, what the heck, that result can just be explained by "luck" anyway, it seems to me lol.

So, maybe by that definition, as depressing as it may be, I could finish those 50,000 rounds and be 1 SD ahead of EV yet, even doubling roll at that point in time, maybe possibly, playing a crappy game with a crappy system with crappy skill and really just be "lucky" but not know it and still think I have proof positive I'm some kind of AP player :grin:

So, yeah, maybe "One never knows, do one" as Fats Waller has on some album cover I have lol.