Some beginners confusion

Hi all!

I'm new to this forum and I'm very exited to find such an active group of like minded people!

Iusing casino vérité his flashcard drills I'v been able to learn bs and counting to a beginners level. Now I'd like to start with the bs variations. The course that I've been following is probably well know to you all and can be found on the gamemaster. Its this part that is getting me confused. Do I mermorise Stanford Wong's index number or Joel Friedman's nrs? Or Would any of you recomend me even other inex nrs? The game I'll be playing is 6-deck das s17 or h17 (it would allsow be nice to know if the index changes from s17 to h17)

My second question is wether it is profitable to play two hands at a time.
My practice sessions have indicated that even with a high count playing two hands loses my money..?

Well I'm looking forward to your answers hope you understand my english.

greets

As a very-basic response to your questions (hopefully some more knowledgeable posters will chime in also):

- The indices are generated using different methods (rounding, truncating, flooring), so there will be differences depending on who did the generating and how. For what it's worth, Arnold Snyder has run simulations that show that simplifying indices by rounding to just a few numbers has very little effect on your overall results, so I would at least assume that it's not worth worrying too much about. I personally use James Grosjean's indices, but I can't see any reason not to use Wong's. I'm not sure how the Gamemaster ones are generated.

- There are a few changes from S17 to H17, and you'll find them only in print, to my knowledge. I haven't seen a list online. Again, I use Grosjean's, but Professional Blackjack has the H17 indices, and if you're using Wong's numbers, you might as well get a copy.

- Generally, playing two hands is useful in positive counts not because you win more but because you play more hands when you have an advantage and because this decreases variance. Playing two hands each at 75% of your one-spot bet (eg. 2x$200 instead of 1x$300) essentially has the affect of lowering variance while producing a higher win-rate (due to playing more hands with an edge).

Thx for the fast reply's

Sinc I ius 1-16 betting spread my betting should looks like this right?
TC BET(1h) BET(2h)
0 5 5
1 10 10
2 20 15
3 40 30
4 80 60

What I'v got so far for the indices is that I shoud only learn the ones where the variation occurs when the count is above -1 since I leave the table when it drops down. Since I'm currently learning and practicing I would love to hear wich ones are the most important and wich ones work best in real live play. So I can change the indices in cvbj and start drilling with the flashcards without getting an error all the time.

Grts

A more realistic spread would be something like 5, 2x10, 2x25, 2x50, 2x75 (2x = 2 hands at this amount each). As for indices, start with the Illustrious 18 and add more as you go along. Surrender indices are very valuable, so if your game offers that, make sure you have a few of those (16v8; 15v9,T; 14vT,A; etc.). I also like some of the hard double hands, like 8v6,5, and 4. Be careful though, the CVBJ indices are for S17 only, to my knowledge. I had to create a new playing strategy to use my indices. Again, I would look to Wong's book for this info. Good luck!

Thank you, just got one more question about flooring. When I ius the floring setting in cvbj it will for example with rc12 and exactly 4.5 decks remaining give me just a tc of 1. This seems a litle to carfull? Since the tc will allmost never reach 3. If you where to make the calculations at a live table, just how much would you round down?

T.C. = 2, Not 1

" … rc12 and exactly 4.5 decks remaining give me just a tc of 1"

12 / 4.5 = 2.66

• Floored T.C. = +2
• Rounded T.C. = +3
• Truncated T.C. = +2

That's the whole point of flooring: to bet conservatively. Obviously, it would be more optimal to ramp your bet accordingly, and in live play, I'll usually round when the TC is > .75 above. You could also ramp per .5 TC, and CVCX gives you an option to do this for running sims. When you floor, a TC of 2.99 is in effect a TC of 2, but obviously you would make the more aggressive play and put out your TC 3 bet here. I'm sure you can adjust this in CVBJ, but I'm not exactly sure how.

I'm under the impression that cvbj when iusing flooring rounds down more (sometimes with full tc) according to the number of decks remaining. Does that make scense? anywhay I just make the calcs my self now and bett accordenly.