Is wonging really worth it?

Wonging out is a hassle if you're playing great games and I reserve it for extreme situations

In CVCX when I check off the backcounting option I instantly see a ~%33 increase in SCORE, and the higher the wonging point set, the better.

I've also observed that my pitch game sims in first base always perform better than the same ones run from third base, again completely opposite of what I've read before.

Here are my sim results:
Wong out below 0: Won 12.5 units/hr, 90.3 Std dev, 193 SCORE, played 57.0% of hands
Wong out below -4: Won 12.7 units/hr, 91.5 Std dev, 193 SCORE, played 77.2% of hands
Wong out below -10: Won 12.7 units/hr, 92.9 Std dev, 185 SCORE, played 92.7% of hands
Play all: Won 12.5 units/hr, 93.4 Std dev, 180 SCORE, played 100% of hands

In CVCX when I check off the backcounting option I instantly see a ~%33 increase in SCORE, and the higher the wonging point set, the better. But from my experiences, when playing around in CVData, backcounting/wonging makes a much smaller difference in reality, and the improvements aren't exactly intuitive at first. I know the results can be skewed in CVCX because of its post-sim calculating anomalies, but I was puzzled at first about the changes in SCORE at various wonging points in CVData. I found that even though one may think that wonging out or backcounting at higher numbers is better, interestingly enough there's a sweet-spot for wonging out at -5 (hi opt II) for the conditions I was running. Wonging out at 0 or higher actually did worse. Wonging out at -10 was almost the same as wonging out at 0. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the number of hands you go through per hour vs. advantage of various wong-out points, because only when enabling results to be based off of "hands played" did a logical improvement in backcounting/wonging at increasing numbers present itself. I guess it makes sense but it goes against a lot of what I've read promoting the value of wonging.

I've also observed that my pitch game sims in first base always perform better than the same ones run from third base, again completely opposite of what I've read before.

I haven't traveled much yet but I can imagine the conditions I'm using are much better than average, and in worse conditions wonging out may be significantly better. Won't put up the exact conditions here but it's double deck using Hi-Opt II and just the illustrious indices higher than -2, with a rather large spread that I certainly wouldn't get away with at higher stakes or other locations.

Here are my sim results:
Wong out below 0: Won 12.5 units/hr, 90.3 Std dev, 193 SCORE, played 57.0% of hands
Wong out below -4: Won 12.7 units/hr, 91.5 Std dev, 193 SCORE, played 77.2% of hands
Wong out below -10: Won 12.7 units/hr, 92.9 Std dev, 185 SCORE, played 92.7% of hands
Play all: Won 12.5 units/hr, 93.4 Std dev, 180 SCORE, played 100% of hands

So what was most interesting to me was the relatively small effect of wonging out and the fact that wonging out at higher (less negative) counts is not necessarily better. So lately I've really been questioning the value of wonging out for the added heat it has. Bailing out of even 10% of hands gets old fast and can really bring extra attention to you, especially if you're with those players that get infuriated for the flow of cards being changed and then proceed to angrily play multiple hands to keep the flow the same (had a pretty big incident with this last week, lol)

... with a rather large spread that I certainly wouldn't get away with at higher stakes or other locations.

Here are my sim results:
Wong out below 0: Won 12.5 units/hr, 90.3 Std dev, 193 SCORE, played 57.0% of hands
Wong out below -4: Won 12.7 units/hr, 91.5 Std dev, 193 SCORE, played 77.2% of hands
Wong out below -10: Won 12.7 units/hr, 92.9 Std dev, 185 SCORE, played 92.7% of hands
Play all: Won 12.5 units/hr, 93.4 Std dev, 180 SCORE, played 100% of hands

So what was most interesting to me was the relatively small effect of wonging out and the fact that wonging out at higher (less negative) counts is not necessarily better. So lately I've really been questioning the value of wonging out for the added heat it has. Bailing out of even 10% of hands gets old fast and can really bring extra attention to you, especially if you're with those players that get infuriated for the flow of cards being changed and then proceed to angrily play multiple hands to keep the flow the same (had a pretty big incident with this last week, lol)

In CVCX when I check off the backcounting option I instantly see a ~%33 increase in SCORE, and the higher the wonging point set, the better. But from my experiences, when playing around in CVData, backcounting/wonging makes a much smaller difference in reality, and the improvements aren't exactly intuitive at first. I know the results can be skewed in CVCX because of its post-sim calculating anomalies, but I was puzzled at first about the changes in SCORE at various wonging points in CVData. I found that even though one may think that wonging out or backcounting at higher numbers is better, interestingly enough there's a sweet-spot for wonging out at -5 (hi opt II) for the conditions I was running. Wonging out at 0 or higher actually did worse. Wonging out at -10 was almost the same as wonging out at 0. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the number of hands you go through per hour vs. advantage of various wong-out points, because only when enabling results to be based off of "hands played" did a logical improvement in backcounting/wonging at increasing numbers present itself. I guess it makes sense but it goes against a lot of what I've read promoting the value of wonging.

I've also observed that my pitch game sims in first base always perform better than the same ones run from third base, again completely opposite of what I've read before.

I haven't traveled much yet but I can imagine the conditions I'm using are much better than average, and in worse conditions wonging out may be significantly better. Won't put up the exact conditions here but it's double deck using Hi-Opt II and just the illustrious indices higher than -2, with a rather large spread that I certainly wouldn't get away with at higher stakes or other locations.

Here are my sim results:
Wong out below 0: Won 12.5 units/hr, 90.3 Std dev, 193 SCORE, played 57.0% of hands
Wong out below -4: Won 12.7 units/hr, 91.5 Std dev, 193 SCORE, played 77.2% of hands
Wong out below -10: Won 12.7 units/hr, 92.9 Std dev, 185 SCORE, played 92.7% of hands
Play all: Won 12.5 units/hr, 93.4 Std dev, 180 SCORE, played 100% of hands

So what was most interesting to me was the relatively small effect of wonging out and the fact that wonging out at higher (less negative) counts is not necessarily better. So lately I've really been questioning the value of wonging out for the added heat it has. Bailing out of even 10% of hands gets old fast and can really bring extra attention to you, especially if you're with those players that get infuriated for the flow of cards being changed and then proceed to angrily play multiple hands to keep the flow the same (had a pretty big incident with this last week, lol)

It is not a good idea to let other players bully you into changing your plan of attacking the game. I know it can be hard at times but you must come back at them the same way they come at you, or you can be mister nice guy and just keep smiling and apologizing...just don't change your play.

CP

The one thing you fail to mention in your sims is the bet spread, i highly suspect the bet spreads you are using for the wonging and play all sims to be the different, making this comparison somewhat invalid. The other problem that you might is not using an optimized bet spread.

One aspect that is being overlooked in your sim results is optimal use of time.
For ease of numbers, lets say you are playing 100 hands per hour. In the play all sim, you play 100 hands and win 12.5 units in that hour. In the wong out sim you only played 57 hands and won 12.5 units. What happened to the time that those 43 hands were played that you did not play?? If you stood there and watched, then yes the hands played and amounts won are correct. But if you were able to move to a new table and play some additional hands during this "down time", both your hands played and units won would increase for that hour.

The bet spreads are identical and optimized with CVCX. Actually I believe optimal spreads change at different wong out points, so it would probably be ideal to use different optimized spreads to get an accurate analysis.

That is what i am trying to say, if a bet spread is optimized for play-all, you cant use that same bet spread for wonging, also your base unit will be different.

Who says you can't? You can change a play-all spread to a Wong-out spread just by betting zero in as many -EV hands as possible. You both decrease RoR and increase win rate by Wonging that way. Some players do not have stores big enough to Wong any other way and have to simply avoid betting in bad counts.

Sure you can, but that is not the purpose of my post if you read the original post, i was trying to explain why FWB sims shows very little increase in SCORE goign from play-all to wonging, which probably is due to the fact that the bet spread he is using for wongin is not optimized.

In order to get a big increase in SCORE calculated by win rate per hour you have to use your Wongouts to find a new shoe. There is no need to adjust your spread. In fact it's probably a bad idea to. Your bet at each count is a function of the advantage at that count, your bankroll, and a variance factor that can be approximated as 1.3 for a single hand of blackjack.

So if a TC of +4 calls for a $200 bet with your bankroll, you bet $200. It doesn't matter how you got to see that +4 TC, your bet should always be proportional to your advantage for maximum effectiveness.

Now if your purpose in Wonging out is to maximize your win rate while keeping your RoR constant, sure, Wonging out alone produces a small decrease in RoR which can be balanced by a small increase in betting.

So if a TC of +4 calls for a $200 bet with your bankroll, you bet $200. It doesn't matter how you got to see that +4 TC, your bet should always be proportional to your advantage for maximum effectiveness..

When you talk about an optimal bet at a certain TC, that would depend on your betting strategy (play-all or wonging), the risk of ruin you accept to play with and on the size of the spread (1-6, 1-8, 1-12...) you chose to play with or get away with.

for instance for 1-12 spread on a 6D S17 DAS 1D cutout and $10000 bankroll

Backcouting

TC Units Dollars
1 1.00 38
2 1.82 69
3 2.88 110
4 3.97 151
5 5.06 192
6 6.17 234
7 7.39 281
8 8.51 323
9 9.58 364
10 10.78 410
11 12.00 456
12+ 12.00 456

Play-all

TC Units Dollars
0- 1.00 13
1 2.10 27
2 5.16 67
3 8.20 107
4 11.29 147
5+ 12.00 156

While this statement is true in theory, it is not true for high counts in practice due to spread size/heat issues as is shown in the columns above.