Another good session at 6:5 single deck

#1
WTF you say??? Not really.

Now hold that nasty thought for a minute and just observe this.

I made sure to always play heads up. However this is not so easy: Requires a little knowledge of when tables open up. In order to get some quality time alone with the dealer I may have to canvass the lounge often at the nearest Indian casino to find one empty.

And when someone else steps in? Good bye sucker!

BTW it was NDAS, H17 and of course 6:5

The key seems to be getting away with a good sized spread and not much notice from the crew. So the first time I meet a lonely dealer I buy in for about six hundred and bet $100.00 on the first bet. If I win? Great. If not I shrink to $25.00 and then down to $10.00 bucks table minimum if the true count goes below negative 1. Anything over +3 I bet a hundred and at or above +5 I bet between $200.00 and $300.00

Sometimes during the lower counts I may pretend to chase losses by tripling or quadrupling my ten dollar losses but this I do fairly rarely as camouflage. Makes it easier to buy the idea that I'm just an irrational (but lucky) "gambler".

Penetration varies but usually is pretty good. One guy consistently dealt near to the last card! Usually they are pulling somewhere around thirty cards before the shuffle. And at this point I don't miss the 3:2 so much.

I only had three blackjacks at 6:5 with a total of bets equaling $300.00 (two hundreds and a couple fifty spots) and with a tidy two hour game time (took me four hours of floor time to get these two hours heads up).

So let's see 300 x 6/5 = $360.00

Had that been 3:2?

300 x 3/2 = $450.00 or an extra $110.00 bucks.

However I pulled in a profit of $1462.00 as it was in the two hours of real play time. Granted a handy one came on getting all four split eights on a hundred dollar bet! I pulled in four hundred on that one alone. But adding in the $100.00 bucks the 3:2 would have paid doesn't seem that relevant.

OK 6:5 ain't for everyone. And again, it all depends upon getting the lone dealer. Remember there are several factors involved here that make heads up play desirable even with the short natural pay. Two that i see are:

1. With a heads up situation the dealer doesn't shuffle anywhere near as often than when even one extra player sits down. With the extra player it seems to kill the whole thing. She shuffles near as often as the full table. If I'm lucky I may get three hands dealt but the second player dilutes the good cards.

2. With the dramatic fluctuation in count associated with single deck I'm more likely be in and out quickly. A slight bit of camouflage is all it took and I did it mostly to make myself feel better. Then there is the factor of some other chump sitting down at my table without notice. When this happens I leave immediately or soon after flat betting the table min on that particular deck.

Conclusion:

I haven't had that much fun (as today) since playing heads up at River Rock on a six deck shoe game at 4am a couple years back. All alone at that shoe game, the count rose into near double digits at the 2/3rd show pen and the dealer busted every time! He was pissed though and accused me of counting.

"Who me"?

In fact looking for a good heads up shoe game at 4am could be an option too except that the bet spread fluctuations seem more noticeable to an experienced dealer on a six deck shoe. Which with my luck, seems to be most of the dealers I meet.

But a few sessions at single deck heads up? Well you can't play very long before some chump sits in. And that is the time to leave. So this lessens the opportunity for the dealer or crew to analyze cards skills/play.

It's either that or back count the six deck shoes which isn't all that appealing to me. Either way it takes a bunch of canvassing: To wait for a heads up single deck 6:5 or sit through hours of shoe games waiting for the cards to get hot. Where I went (today) the shoe games have crappy penetration. In fact this is how i made my single deck 6:5 discovery: The need to find a better opportunity.

You may diss this 6:5 idea all you want but it won't change my mind at all. Don't matter to me. I'm gonna take my new girl to the theater tomorrow with a small portion of today's profit.

Crying all the way to the bank.
 
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UK-21

Well-Known Member
#2
Congrats on your win.

Although we don't have any single deck or 6/5 payoffs in the UK, I have posted about this in the past as Mrs N and I do intend to visit Sin City before we draw our final breaths. I've queried:

For low level players like myself, the loss in EV doesn't justify the cost of travelling to find a 3/2 SD game (have to put in lots of hours playing red chips to justify the cost of the cab downtown and back - my wife wants to stay on the strip).

Is a full 6 deck, 3/2, table really that much better than playing one-on-one against the house with 6/5 SD game?

At what point does good penetration cancel out the disadvantage of the lower payoffs - ie make up for the loss in EV of 1.39%. If you're getting 32 cards dealt before the shuffle instead of 25ish that's got be pretty significant for a counter.

Bearing in mind the floating advantage benefit of playing SD against 6 decks, how much will this impact on the additional neg EV for people who are able to count the cards?

Most stuff that I've read about SD 6/5 game focuses on the OTT HE - all valid if you play BS, but if you can count the cards a lot of other factors kick in which can negate the disadvantage, and it isn't as straight forward as relative to other BJ games the HE sucks.

Enjoy your night out.
 
#4
newb99 said:
...Is a full 6 deck, 3/2, table really that much better than playing one-on-one against the house with 6/5 SD game?
YES! It is very difficult to beat a 6:5 game with counting. There is a system I use to do it. It requires an unorthodox level 3 count with 40 indices in order to get a similar advantage to one of the good 6D games on the Strip using High-Low and normal tactics.


newb99 said:
At what point does good penetration cancel out the disadvantage of the lower payoffs - ie make up for the loss in EV of 1.39%. If you're getting 32 cards dealt before the shuffle instead of 25ish that's got be pretty significant for a counter.

Bearing in mind the floating advantage benefit of playing SD against 6 decks, how much will this impact on the additional neg EV for people who are able to count the cards?

Most stuff that I've read about SD 6/5 game focuses on the OTT HE - all valid if you play BS, but if you can count the cards a lot of other factors kick in which can negate the disadvantage, and it isn't as straight forward as relative to other BJ games the HE sucks.

Enjoy your night out.
The problem with 6:5 is the advantage does not increase with the count the same way it does with regular blackjack. You may think you are playing with an advantage when you are not, because you are not only playing against the high initial house edge, but the degraded effects of removal of the cards. The Las Vegas Strip is full of playable games with $5 and $10 minimums, that you can play with a $100 max bet.
 

kewljason

Well-Known Member
#5
zengrifter said:
Did the Irishman have the edge, or is he just living up to his handle? zg
I don't see an edge here. Hard to figure what his bet spread is. Certainly not $10 to $300 as he is hinting. Betting some neutral hands @ $100, some @ $25, some @ $10 and still others at $40 (for camo reasons to appear that he is chasing...:confused: ) I am guessing his average waiting bet or neutral bet $35-$40 making his spread 8-1 ish. Definately not enough to beat this game by counting, even playing heads up.

I also like the way he figures what playing 6-5 cost him as he only received 3 blackjacks during that time. Not sure how many hands we are talking here, but playing heads up for 2 hours as he suggusted should be several hundred hands. Lets conservatively say 300 hands. That should yeild more like 15 blackjacks on average, so the actual cost of playing this game is like 5 times greater than he figured.

Bottom line. It was a very small sampling, that resulted in a high positive fluctuation. Longterm prognosis.....not good.
 
#6
Sounds like some of us are re-inventing the wheel here. 40 indices Monkey?

Come on!

In a single deck dealt down near or past the last third of cards there are typically consistently huge fluctuations in the true count. A +5 running count with half a deck left?

Might take me four hours to find that in a six deck shoe. All the while with a table full of ploppies pulling in all the good cards.

Let's keep it simple: See an open table of single deck 6:5? Sit down and see what I mean. See what happens. However leave as soon as anyone else joins the table. It's mostly the early shuffle that kills the advantage, not the 6:5.

In heads up I may get five or more hands in before the shuffle. Where I play anyway. Soon as the next chump arrives that goes down to two hands. or maybe three if I'm lucky but then the cards get diluted.
 

johndoe

Well-Known Member
#7
Not..

I'm sure SD is beatable, but from the OP's comments I find it highly unlikely that he's playing with an advantage.
 
#8
AnIrishmannot2brite said:
WTF you say??? Not really.

Now hold that nasty thought for a minute and just observe this.

I made sure to always play heads up. However this is not so easy: Requires a little knowledge of when tables open up. In order to get some quality time alone with the dealer I may have to canvass the lounge often at the nearest Indian casino to find one empty.

And when someone else steps in? Good bye sucker!

BTW it was NDAS, H17 and of course 6:5

The key seems to be getting away with a good sized spread and not much notice from the crew. So the first time I meet a lonely dealer I buy in for about six hundred and bet $100.00 on the first bet. If I win? Great. If not I shrink to $25.00 and then down to $10.00 bucks table minimum if the true count goes below negative 1. Anything over +3 I bet a hundred and at or above +5 I bet between $200.00 and $300.00

Sometimes during the lower counts I may pretend to chase losses by tripling or quadrupling my ten dollar losses but this I do fairly rarely as camouflage. Makes it easier to buy the idea that I'm just an irrational (but lucky) "gambler".

Penetration varies but usually is pretty good. One guy consistently dealt near to the last card! Usually they are pulling somewhere around thirty cards before the shuffle. And at this point I don't miss the 3:2 so much.

I only had three blackjacks at 6:5 with a total of bets equaling $300.00 (two hundreds and a couple fifty spots) and with a tidy two hour game time (took me four hours of floor time to get these two hours heads up).

So let's see 300 x 6/5 = $360.00

Had that been 3:2?

300 x 3/2 = $450.00 or an extra $110.00 bucks.

However I pulled in a profit of $1462.00 as it was in the two hours of real play time. Granted a handy one came on getting all four split eights on a hundred dollar bet! I pulled in four hundred on that one alone. But adding in the $100.00 bucks the 3:2 would have paid doesn't seem that relevant.

OK 6:5 ain't for everyone. And again, it all depends upon getting the lone dealer. Remember there are several factors involved here that make heads up play desirable even with the short natural pay. Two that i see are:

1. With a heads up situation the dealer doesn't shuffle anywhere near as often than when even one extra player sits down. With the extra player it seems to kill the whole thing. She shuffles near as often as the full table. If I'm lucky I may get three hands dealt but the second player dilutes the good cards.

2. With the dramatic fluctuation in count associated with single deck I'm more likely be in and out quickly. A slight bit of camouflage is all it took and I did it mostly to make myself feel better. Then there is the factor of some other chump sitting down at my table without notice. When this happens I leave immediately or soon after flat betting the table min on that particular deck.

Conclusion:

I haven't had that much fun (as today) since playing heads up at River Rock on a six deck shoe game at 4am a couple years back. All alone at that shoe game, the count rose into near double digits at the 2/3rd show pen and the dealer busted every time! He was pissed though and accused me of counting.

"Who me"?

In fact looking for a good heads up shoe game at 4am could be an option too except that the bet spread fluctuations seem more noticeable to an experienced dealer on a six deck shoe. Which with my luck, seems to be most of the dealers I meet.

But a few sessions at single deck heads up? Well you can't play very long before some chump sits in. And that is the time to leave. So this lessens the opportunity for the dealer or crew to analyze cards skills/play.

It's either that or back count the six deck shoes which isn't all that appealing to me. Either way it takes a bunch of canvassing: To wait for a heads up single deck 6:5 or sit through hours of shoe games waiting for the cards to get hot. Where I went (today) the shoe games have crappy penetration. In fact this is how i made my single deck 6:5 discovery: The need to find a better opportunity.

You may diss this 6:5 idea all you want but it won't change my mind at all. Don't matter to me. I'm gonna take my new girl to the theater tomorrow with a small portion of today's profit.

Crying all the way to the bank.
Did you say, "goodbye sucker".......

I can't believe you are playing this game.

CP
 

bjcount

Well-Known Member
#12
AnIrishmannot2brite said:
BTW it was NDAS, H17 and of course 6:5


Penetration varies but usually is pretty good. One guy consistently dealt near to the last card! Usually they are pulling somewhere around thirty cards before the shuffle. And at this point I don't miss the 3:2 so much.
SD, NDAS, H17, 6:5, played out 8 rounds heads up, and getting away with a 1-10 spread and better.....

I haven't had the opportunity to play SD or DD, but one things clear after I ran the sims.....

If I had this game to play, I would only play it heads up and I would not be talking about it.

If your playing against the dealers going to only 5 rounds then you've just gotten lucky. I would keep looking....

BJC
 

Billy C1

Well-Known Member
#13
Consider the source

Initial post by not2brite was not2surprising. This is the same person that would like us to believe that EVERYTHING of the liberal ilk is fantastic and EVERYTHING of the conservative ilk is absolutely stupid and terrible.
Never stops validating his "handle" choice but we don't need to be reminded this often!

BillyC1
 
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ihate17

Well-Known Member
#14
What the Irishman neglects

AnIrishmannot2brite said:
Sounds like some of us are re-inventing the wheel here. 40 indices Monkey?

Come on!

In a single deck dealt down near or past the last third of cards there are typically consistently huge fluctuations in the true count. A +5 running count with half a deck left?

Might take me four hours to find that in a six deck shoe. All the while with a table full of ploppies pulling in all the good cards.

Let's keep it simple: See an open table of single deck 6:5? Sit down and see what I mean. See what happens. However leave as soon as anyone else joins the table. It's mostly the early shuffle that kills the advantage, not the 6:5.

In heads up I may get five or more hands in before the shuffle. Where I play anyway. Soon as the next chump arrives that goes down to two hands. or maybe three if I'm lucky but then the cards get diluted.

You won, congrats but why did you win?
Playing 6/5 with NDAS, I would guess that the only way that you won is by winning significantly more hands than you would in an average session.
You are neglecting the fact that even in the best of counts, dealers win more hands than players and counters make their money because blackjacks happen more often in high counts and you win more of your splits and doubles in these counts.
Trouble is you are playing a game that takes most of the bonus away from those blackjacks and cuts a few of your possible doubles with NDAS. So if you just win the usual 43% of your hands, over a period of time you will lose money doing this no matter how empty the table is and what kind of pen you get.
Just like the novice who can not understand why we bet more money on high counts when we know the dealer has just as good of a chance of getting a winning hand as we do, The Irishman seems to not understand this either.

You got lucky.

ihate17
 
#15
Do yourself a favor: Set this web site's strategy trainer to single deck, NDAS, H17. Use quick play and dump the part that tells you when you screwed up a hit/stand/split/double etc.

Every time you get a blackjack count the bet you just made. Not the payment, just the initial wager. Then, when your session is over convert the pay out to 6:5 and deduct accordingly. This is exactly the game (and results) I've seen at the tables.

In the long run i have always won doing this. Should this change? You'll be the first to know.
 

bj bob

Well-Known Member
#16
Come on?

AnIrishmannot2brite said:
Sounds like some of us are re-inventing the wheel here. 40 indices Monkey?

Come on!
40 indices is not that unusual for pitch games, in fact I'm a little surprised that Monkey has figured a way to beat that game with so few. I myself use 60 with RAPM and some others here, e.g.Zg, use up to 90. As AM pointed out, the value of the TC and EoR in a 6:5 game are a different animal and it takes a revised approach to accurately tackle this menace. BTW, I wouldn't even waste my time with 5 rounds in a 3:2 SD game. Take the extra couple of hours, head up the hill to Exit#4, pull into Boomtown and go make some money.
 

johndoe

Well-Known Member
#17
AnIrishmannot2brite said:
Do yourself a favor: Set this web site's strategy trainer to single deck, NDAS, H17. Use quick play and dump the part that tells you when you screwed up a hit/stand/split/double etc.

Every time you get a blackjack count the bet you just made. Not the payment, just the initial wager. Then, when your session is over convert the pay out to 6:5 and deduct accordingly. This is exactly the game (and results) I've seen at the tables.

In the long run i have always won doing this. Should this change? You'll be the first to know.
Do yourself a favor and run a billion-hand simulation of your strategy, first using a 3:2 payout, then 6:5, and see how they compare. I'll bet one is (maybe) positive, and the other negative!
 
#18
Singledeck 6:5 nightmares

I am somewhat astonished to see anyone advocating 6:5 blackjack in any (positive) way on here... are you a casino employee, Irishman? I talked once before about a discussion I had with another player, who purported himself to be a novice counter that has "won big" and was bragging it up as to his amazing abilities, etc. He went on to talk of his exploits and talked of enjoying "Superfun21", "Singledeck6:5" and remarked about his playing various other games. The whole conversation started upon overhearing him while taking a break from the tables talking about "the count" with his ladyfriend that he was with and me asking innocently,"Oh, are you a card-counter?". I found myself playing along with commentary like,"Oh crap! You are an expert 3 card poker player ALSO??? Wow!" as he went on and on.

After the lengthy conversation I had with this guy (with him doing all the talking) a few days later I posted on here about that conversation in a post I entitled,"Lambs to the slaughter". The added problems with singledeck 6:5, which were pointed out were the rules of no doubling after splits, H17. Why bother against such ridiculous playing conditions?

I have watched people play this to include one guy that was DEFINATELY a counter trying to tackle the game. I have often stopped and watched when I see players at the AC 6:5 singledeck games (for entertainment's sake) and have never seen anyone do anything but take a beating at this game. I saw one guy way back a long time ago that definately WAS a counter as I was also tracking from the start of the deal just for humor's sake (it's not like I was going to jump in on this action!) and his bets corresponded to being much higher in quality counts. He got clobbered 18 different ways to Sunday! If he didn't get whacked with one rule he got it from another... if the H17 didn't catch up to him, the 6:5 and no doubles after splits DID in the course of several shuffles, hurting him. I guess some people like a REAL challenge?
 
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bjcount

Well-Known Member
#19
The sims prove there's no way to beat the AC SD 6:5 game by counting, especially since from what I remember they use 2 different decks with an ASM and cut off half a deck.

Of the two dealer dependent scenarios the OP presented, one provides opportunity if the info he provided is correct based on the various sims I ran......... but why harp on the details.


BJC
 
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