Playing Break-Even

[SleightOfHand]

Lets say that you want to play a break even game. If I am correct, this means a RoR of 100%. How do you decide what your betting units will be?

[UncrownedKing]

Originally Posted by SleightOfHand

Lets say that you want to play a break even game. If I am correct, this means a RoR of 100%. How do you decide what your betting units will be?

A break even game has a 0% HE. Its like betting on coin flips. If you flat bet, half the time you will win, half the time you won't. But after 100 million plays, you will wind up exactly where you started.

The highest RoR you would have would be if you bet everything on one flip, which gives you 50% RoR. Which is equivalent to a 1 unit BR.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but you should be able to apply the following formula for break even RoR(for the coin flipping example, I don't think it would be accurate for break even BJ spread):

(.5)^BR in units

[sagefr0g]

Originally Posted by SleightOfHand

Lets say that you want to play a break even game. If I am correct, this means a RoR of 100%. How do you decide what your betting units will be?

i don't know the answer to this question but it is exactly what i've been trying to figure out, of late.
what i'm finding from looking at cvcx sims for play all and changing bet spreads for a given bankroll is that it appears your limited to how close you can get to break even by the table minimum allowed and lowest denomination chips, i guess. but yeah the ROR goes way up there as you try and adjust the spread down towards playing a break even game.
like the sim below i got the dollars per hour down to zero in the custom column and the ROR is only 99.3% lol.
not sure if this sort of stuff is what your getting at though.
edit: if you can raise your bankroll way up there (in this case from six grand to nineteen grand) with this spread and game you can get the ROR down to around 26.4% but your gonna make around 35 cents per hour then. lol.

[SleightOfHand]

Originally Posted by sagefr0g

i don't know the answer to this question but it is exactly what i've been trying to figure out, of late.
what i'm finding from looking at cvcx sims for play all and changing bet spreads for a given bankroll is that it appears your limited to how close you can get to break even by the table minimum allowed and lowest denomination chips, i guess. but yeah the ROR goes way up there as you try and adjust the spread down towards playing a break even game.
like the sim below i got the dollars per hour down to zero in the custom column and the ROR is only 99.3% lol.
not sure if this sort of stuff is what your getting at though.
edit: if you can raise your bankroll way up there (in this case from six grand to nineteen grand) with this spread and game you can get the ROR down to around 26.4% but your gonna make around 35 cents per hour then. lol.

I would think that the decrease in RoR is from the change in advantage from .001% to .0046%. My question is: since a break-even game is 100% RoR, what kind of betting units/ramp would one choose? Perhaps one that generates a low trip RoR? And if that is the case, what kind of parameters (hours played/trip BR) would be recommended?

[non-self-weighter]

Hi SleightOfHand,

This is pretty easy. If you insist on playing, you should bet and play as little as possible. I recommend betting $0 and playing 0 hands, unless your objective is something other than winning money.

[jimbiggs]

Originally Posted by SleightOfHand

Lets say that you want to play a break even game. If I am correct, this means a RoR of 100%. How do you decide what your betting units will be?

I don't know what the answer is for a break even game, but if I wanted to reduce heat and play a slightly better than break even game, then I would just take my normal bet size and reduce the spread. For example, instead of spreading 1-8 on a DD game, I would only spread 1-4.

[KOLAN]

Oscar's Grind Betting System

[DonR]

Originally Posted by non-self-weighter

Hi SleightOfHand,

This is pretty easy. If you insist on playing, you should bet and play as little as possible. I recommend betting $0 and playing 0 hands, unless your objective is something other than winning money.

While I agree that the objective should be winning money, you can still get a few comps along the road while playing the break even game that SleightOfHand is talking about. You are still a winner, in a way. I know it's not much, but it is certainly better than just playing BS and losing. If you are limited to a few casinos only, where everybody knows you, this may be a good way of avoiding heat and having a few freebies, while still having fun.

[SleightOfHand]

Originally Posted by non-self-weighter

Hi SleightOfHand,

This is pretty easy. If you insist on playing, you should bet and play as little as possible. I recommend betting $0 and playing 0 hands, unless your objective is something other than winning money.

Well, obviously the objective is something other to win money as I am playing a break-even game. Perhaps have a unit/ramp that will make my standard deviation a bit less than that of a standard ramp?

[sagefr0g]

Originally Posted by SleightOfHand

I would think that the decrease in RoR is from the change in advantage from .001% to .0046%. My question is: since a break-even game is 100% RoR, what kind of betting units/ramp would one choose? Perhaps one that generates a low trip RoR? And if that is the case, what kind of parameters (hours played/trip BR) would be recommended?

yeah, i screwed that up letting the program change the ramp to get the .0046% . sorry i didn't notice that. well anyway below is that ramp giving the .0046% in the custom bets for a six grand roll and shows a higher ROR than for the nineteen grand roll. 65.7% ror for the six grand roll and 26.4% for the nineteen grand roll.

whatever, i'm not even sure we're talkin about the same thing. like when you say break even game i'm not sure what you mean. and as far as a 100% ror for a break even game, well that just doesn't sound right to me. might be right but to me if you say i'm playing a break even game then your not losing money, not winning any either, so to me that shouldn't end up being a 100% ror.

i mean usually if your just playing basic strategy (excepting for some good single deck game) then your not playing a break even game, it's a losing game, sort of a slow bleed, with a 100% ror, lol.
but to me, it would seem theoretically at least that a counter could play a break even game to where he doesn't lose or doesn't win money, just stays even. but i think table min's and chip denomination size is a good bit of what gets in the way of a counter being able to bet size and ramp so as he can just play a break even survival sort of game.

anyway that's the sort of thing i'm currently curious about. remember the chat last evening, where i was asking about me and the wife sitting at the same table just hoping to play a break even game? you told me about BJFB.

like me playing alone, i can play a near break even game or better with my measly six grand roll. thing is when my wife and i sit and play together then it's like me playing two hands all the time. and if it's play all then it's like having to bet two units at zero and negative counts instead of one unit like i'd be doing if i was playing solo. turns out to be very costly betting those two units in zero and negative counts instead of just one unit.

i guess the only really solution for us is to have a much larger bankroll in order to get that ror down if we are going to play like that.