random questions about team play

[andrew999]

Hey me and several friends have been practicing counting a great deal in the past few months. We have it down pretty solid and would like to try it in a casino. We want to set up team play. I was thinking of having several spotters and then as in Bringing Down the House, either a gorilla or BP. I would have the spotter betting the minimum. My total bankroll would be about $2000, maybe as high as $5000.

My questions are as follows:

Can someone explain the difference between a gorilla and BP and which one should I use?

With that bankroll, how much should the big better bet?

I am using a hi-lo count from Stanford Wongs book. How high should the true count be before the spotter calls in the bigger player? And how low should the count go before the big players leaves the table?

How much should the big player bet considering we are white males in our early 20s and dont want to draw attention?

According to Stanford Wongs book each positive value in the count gives you a +.5% advantage. Using the offset of .5% house advantage. You could consider generally the best you could do would be get about a 4% advantage. Say I was betting big at $100 per hand. If the count stayed at +8 giving me this advantage of 4%, does that mean i should win $400 in 100 hands?

Once I call in my big better should he start keeping track of the count so he knows when to split double, bet more etc. or should the spotter?



thanks and i hope you guys can answer all of these questions
Andrew

[Sonny]

Originally Posted by andrew999

Can someone explain the difference between a gorilla and BP and which one should I use?

A BP is a player that enters the game when you signal him, gets the count from the spotter and bets/plays according to the count. A gorilla is a BP who relies on the spotter to tell him how to bet/play. The gorilla doesn’t even need to know how to count because he is getting all the info from the spotter.

Read anything by Ken Uston to learn more about team play. After all, his teams were doing this back in 1975. They invented the terms BP and Gorilla!

Originally Posted by andrew999

My total bankroll would be about $2000, maybe as high as $5000...With that bankroll, how much should the big better bet?

With a $2k bankroll your top bet should be no more than around $30, and even betting that high is pretty risky for such a small bankroll. It looks like you won’t be needing those Big Players after all!

Originally Posted by andrew999

How high should the true count be before the spotter calls in the bigger player? And how low should the count go before the big players leaves the table?

That will depend entirely on you counting system, your bankroll, and your chosen risk of ruin. You will need to learn all about EV, SD, RoR, optimal bet sizing, and Backcounting techniques before you are ready to get this team up and running.

Originally Posted by andrew999

How much should the big player bet considering we are white males in our early 20s and dont want to draw attention?

Don’t let your appearance dictate your betting levels, it should be the other way around. Once you have your betting strategy set up then you work on your act so that your bets and behavior look natural.

Originally Posted by andrew999

Say I was betting big at $100 per hand. If the count stayed at +8 giving me this advantage of 4%, does that mean i should win $400 in 100 hands?

Yes. After betting 100 hands of $100 you will have played $10,000 in total action. Winning 4% of that will earn you $400.

Originally Posted by andrew999

Once I call in my big better should he start keeping track of the count so he knows when to split double, bet more etc. or should the spotter?

Again, that completely depends on your style of play. There are benefits and drawbacks from each style.

-Sonny-

[zengrifter]

For a 2k-5k BR its more efficient for multiple counters to play seperate tables solo to the joint amount. zg

[Automatic Monkey]

Hi Andrew, in my opinion you have gotten excellent advice from Sonny and ZG. $2K-$5K is not the kind of BR where BP tactics pay off. The purpose of the BP is to allow the team to get down very large action without drawing too much suspicion, and if you only have $5K, you will definitely not be getting down very large action.

Sounds like your team might be well suited to backcounting. Groups of young males look totally natural standing around goofing off, and that's what you're going to be doing. But you are going to be counting too. You can backcount at least two tables and probably more at the same time. When the count hits your trigger point, one or several of you sit down and start playing. As the count increases, you start daring each other to bet more, call each other pussies, etc. At the end of the good count, get distracted by a girl, go to the bar, anything to leave the table. You can figure out the kind of look you'll be going for: kind of a mix of Spring Break and the Duke lacrosse team.

The biggest issue you are going to have is accounting. How you share risk, profit, loss, and labor is very important. All you need is one guy to get screwed or even think he's getting screwed to make everything fly apart. You also don't know how these guys are going to react to a big win or a big loss. You could end up on the giving or receiving end of a physical beating involving one of your friends. Please map all of this out before sharing bankroll!