Is 1-2% advantage all you can get??

Heya folks, another annoying question from me.

I constantly read that card counting gives that long term advantage but something like the Hi-Lo with 1:10 spread only gives the player 1 to 2 percent advantage.

I know there are tons of variables like shoe size and rules, but when people say approximately, 51% through counting, are they including slightly more advanced strategies such as Wonging in-out, Illustrious 18 index and hand interaction? Or do you get a much bigger advantage from those three example strategies, percentage wise? Or is that 1-2% advantage taking those kinds of strategies into account.

I'm not capable of shuffle-track, hole card etc, but I would hate to think that adding stuff like the strategies above only nets me 1% advantage.

Sorry, it does. It is very rare to get 2% advantage in a BJ game; it will only happen on the best single deck games. This is not easy!

Failing to use Wonging and index plays will usually keep your advantage below 1% and make the game not worthwhile. However, you can still make plenty of money with a 1-2% advantage. It takes time and willingness to accept huge swings.

In the case of Knockout (KO), the .5% to 1.5% applies to playing all hands according to count with bet ramping of 1:10 on 6-deck shoes. Adding in Wonging will make a relatively good sized increase...maybe as much as 5%. I'm not your mathematical whiz though, so don't use my statement as Biblical.

That’s true. In many shoe games it might even be less than 1%.

Usually they are including Wonging and indices.

Both techniques will increase your win rate slightly, but their main benefit is reducing variance. That means that your win rate will be about the same but your bets can be larger so you will win more money. The reason most players are happy with a measly 2% win rate is because it amounts to a nice chuck of change $$$.

For example, let’s say that you Wong in/out and have an average EV of 2%. With a $2,000 bankroll you can flat bet $40 whenever you have the advantage (no spread at all!). A great Wonger in a big casino might be able to get 40 hands per hour for a total of:

$40 * 40 * 0.02 = $32/hour

That’s pretty darn good for such a small bankroll!

Tricks like shuffle tracking and hole carding can add another 3-10% to your overall advantage. Things like ace cutting or sequencing might add 10-30%, depending on how accurate you are. Again, these larger advantages will allow you to make much larger bets. Suddenly a red-chipper might turn into a black chip bettor!

-Sonny-

Thanks for your posts guys, I respect all three of you and will take it into account, but I did notice that there are some differences in your opinions. Man, I wish I could Ace cut but even shuffle seems impossible. I play a 8 deck, and the thing is, at each shuffle they shove it into a machine and pulls another stack out. I don't see shuffle track or ace cutting or even key card, being possible with this.

Sonny, I think I need a vocabulary lesson In KO, I think that the authors are saying about the same thing you are saying:

"The proper use of an exit strategy will nearly double your win-rate per hand. Not surprisingly, this is because you avoid situations with unfavorable conditions. The combination of a higher expectation coupled with a larger average bet size yields a tremendous gain in the win rate."

Win-Rate is the term in question. Are we talking about number of hands won versus number of hands lost? Or are we talking about the money won versus money lost?

Also, with variance, I've heard of (and experienced) tremendous variance with Wonging. Coming in with high counts and losing more of those hands than I've won. That is contrary to what I would expect, but I've experienced it quite often. I understand that Wonging out on low counts gets you out of hands when you would expect to lose the lion's share.

I'm just not sure how that all figures into calculations of "house edge".

Wonging does increase your variance in terms of dollars per hand because you are playing more high counts, thus putting more money on the table. You are also seeing a lot more of the high variance plays like splitting 10's and DD 10 vs.10, etc.

Wonging in (backcounting) decreases the total amount you bet because you spend a lot of time watching and waiting, and when you finally start betting, these are high counts where you would be betting big anyway even if you were playing all hands. So if you were to just stand at one table watching and backcounting, your edge would go up (because you are only playing the positive counts) and your total variance and RoR will go down, because you are not exposing yourself to any risk on the negative counts. What makes your variance go up is Wonging around- when you see a shoe is going to hell to the point where you will probably never be able to bet until the shuffle, so you walk over to a new shoe and start counting. This causes you to see more positive counts per session and thus you put more total money on the table.

In a nutshell then:

Variance has to do with hands won versus hands lost, or "Luck of the Draw." That would make sense.

However, variance is not only "negative". That positive side of variance is "expected" to come when the count is high so it offsets the negative to theoretically bring it to ZERO.

Now, speaking in terms only of money won and money lost, would that be the EV factor? I can see where EV would be enhanced by positive counts and hurt by negative ones.

So, if you are exiting on bad counts and entering on good counts, your variance should be positive and your EV should increase.

From experience and reading, I understand all of this but I am not certain about the vocabulary to discuss it.

Maybe we should have a discussion thread with a definitive list of terms that we are using so often here. Or maybe I'm the only one that has not been certain about all of this :laugh:

I think the terms "win rate" and EV are pretty much the same even though I use them for different purposes.

In my mind, the term "win rate" denotes the amount of money won over a given time whereas EV expresses the player's advantage (usually in percent). For example, a player might have an EV of 1% per hand. If he makes a $100 bet he would expect to earn $1 of EV (expected value), but playing 100 hands would give him a a $100 win rate per 100 hands. You can either say "His hourly win rate is $100" or "His hourly EV is $100." I think most people think of EV as the percent advantage they expect for an hour's worth of play while win rate means cold hard cash. Just to make sure that everyone is completely confused, the term IBA (initial bet advantage) means the same thing as well.

Now there's another thing that always gets confusing: The "Per Hour" vs. "Per 100 hands" numbers. Since many players play 100 hands per hour it is not an issue, but Wongers are a different story. An aggressive Wonger may only play 25 hands per hour and refuse to play the other 75 negative hands. His hourly win rate is now per 25 hands instead of 100. His Win Rate (and variance) per 100 hands will be enourmous but it will take him 4 hours to play that much. You may have doubled your win rate per hand, but your hourly win rate may suffer. You also have to calculate your hourly SD and trip ROR based on 25 hands per hour instead of 100.

-Sonny-

Right. You expect to win 1% per hour (or whatever your EV is). Anything above or below that is variance.

Well, we don't really expect positive variance (we only pray for it!). We only expect our EV. The blessed long run is when the positive and negative variance cancel each other out and we are left with our EV.

The variance will swing both ways no matter what. Sometimes you will get positive variance in a negative shoe or negative variance in a positive shoe. Even at high counts you will still lose more hands than you win. The reason they are profitable (increased EV) is because you will make more from doubles and the dealer will bust more often (they HAVE to hit to 17, you don't).

-Sonny-

AHMEN, BROTHER! we really do need something like that. well i do for sure.

for example see link:

http://www.bjrnet.com/RG/bj.html#B1

best regards,
mr fr0g