2 Month Journey.. In Hell

[ortango]

Yep, its another sob story. I am not asking for sympathy, I just feel that it is worth telling because people like watching others suffer. Why else would horror movies and the newspaper exist, and why do we all slow down to watch an accident?

Two months ago I started on this journey. Another ploppie with too much money to spend, but found out that there may be a way to beat the casino. Card counting is for me. I always did poorly in advanced mathematics but I have always been ridiculously fast in basic arithmetic and have a great memory. I also had $10,000 to play with, which I found later was a decent bankroll for a $10-100 spread.

Of course I would not start that high. I had a lot of work to do. Thanks to the fine people on this site and others, I dug for every advantage. I live 5 mins from a casino with a great game and amazingly dim witted pit monkeys. I coudn't get enough. Most of you have been there or are there now. All that I needed... information and lots of practice. I indulged in both.

In two months time, I can now count down a deck in about 10 seconds. I spent probably 20 hours or more with a deck, counting it out with different starting counts, pulling out random cards, and one at a time or just spreading them out. I can count down 8 decks in the casino without a hiccup. I am now ridiculously fast at BS, on blackjack-bst.com my last results were 322 seconds with no mistakes for 285 hands. I know the Illustrious 18 like my own mother. No mistakes, no doubts. I have created my own charts, flash cards, and other mnemonics. In the last month I have read: Professional Blackjack, KO Blackjack, Bluebook, Big Book of BJ, Theory of BJ, Bringing down the house, Blackjack Attack and Blackbelt in BJ, all of which I got from Amazon.

.........


I am now down $6000, or 600 units. My own personal hell.

Let me give an example of my last trip... my trip bankrolls are not very big, since I make frequent short trips. I have now worked the courage to play $10-100 and take $900 for this trip.

There I am nonchalantly backcounting two tables, flirting with the waitresses, using my broken Korean to make goo goo eyes at them and making em laugh. 30 mins later I am tired of waiting for a good table, and go into a new shoe with 10 bucks betting. It never goes above +2 TC on a 8d shoe. But here is the kicker. A guy playing flat $10 the whole night goes for the kamikazee with $140. Ah, nice S17 with a dealer 6. Fred Renzey is creaming his pants somewhere. I ask the guy, "no way you will hit that more than once right?" he says "no way" and proceeds to let me drop my $140 next to his. We get 18 and the dealer 19. Barf.

Two hours and 2 unremarkable shoes later, there is finally some hope. The TC crawls up to +5 then +10. I put out my $80. Lose. About 1 deck to play and its at +11 TC. I put out $100. Lose. Stays at +11 TC. Two hands of $100. Lose. +12 TC... get a 16 v 10 and I surrender. Last hand +9. Lose.

I am neither shaken nor disappointed. I am not mad or surprised. I really have no feeling either way. All I can remember is the beginning of Theory of Blackjack, where Peter Griffin, one of the best players and experts ever, claims he is behind in the long run. $4000 left. That sure would buy a lot of Happy Meals.

[nc-tom]

Originally Posted by ortango

Yep, its another sob story. I am not asking for sympathy, I just feel that it is worth telling because people like watching others suffer. Why else would horror movies and the newspaper exist, and why do we all slow down to watch an accident?

Two months ago I started on this journey. Another ploppie with too much money to spend, but found out that there may be a way to beat the casino. Card counting is for me. I always did poorly in advanced mathematics but I have always been ridiculously fast in basic arithmetic and have a great memory. I also had $10,000 to play with, which I found later was a decent bankroll for a $10-100 spread.

Of course I would not start that high. I had a lot of work to do. Thanks to the fine people on this site and others, I dug for every advantage. I live 5 mins from a casino with a great game and amazingly dim witted pit monkeys. I coudn't get enough. Most of you have been there or are there now. All that I needed... information and lots of practice. I indulged in both.

In two months time, I can now count down a deck in about 10 seconds. I spent probably 20 hours or more with a deck, counting it out with different starting counts, pulling out random cards, and one at a time or just spreading them out. I can count down 8 decks in the casino without a hiccup. I am now ridiculously fast at BS, on blackjack-bst.com my last results were 322 seconds with no mistakes for 285 hands. I know the Illustrious 18 like my own mother. No mistakes, no doubts. I have created my own charts, flash cards, and other mnemonics. In the last month I have read: Professional Blackjack, KO Blackjack, Bluebook, Big Book of BJ, Theory of BJ, Bringing down the house, Blackjack Attack and Blackbelt in BJ, all of which I got from Amazon.

.........


I am now down $6000, or 600 units. My own personal hell.

Let me give an example of my last trip... my trip bankrolls are not very big, since I make frequent short trips. I have now worked the courage to play $10-100 and take $900 for this trip.

There I am nonchalantly backcounting two tables, flirting with the waitresses, using my broken Korean to make goo goo eyes at them and making em laugh. 30 mins later I am tired of waiting for a good table, and go into a new shoe with 10 bucks betting. It never goes above +2 TC on a 8d shoe. But here is the kicker. A guy playing flat $10 the whole night goes for the kamikazee with $140. Ah, nice S17 with a dealer 6. Fred Renzey is creaming his pants somewhere. I ask the guy, "no way you will hit that more than once right?" he says "no way" and proceeds to let me drop my $140 next to his. We get 18 and the dealer 19. Barf.

Two hours and 2 unremarkable shoes later, there is finally some hope. The TC crawls up to +5 then +10. I put out my $80. Lose. About 1 deck to play and its at +11 TC. I put out $100. Lose. Stays at +11 TC. Two hands of $100. Lose. +12 TC... get a 16 v 10 and I surrender. Last hand +9. Lose.

I am neither shaken nor disappointed. I am not mad or surprised. I really have no feeling either way. All I can remember is the beginning of Theory of Blackjack, where Peter Griffin, one of the best players and experts ever, claims he is behind in the long run. $4000 left. That sure would buy a lot of Happy Meals.

Know how you feel my last 5 visits to casinoland have been just as you decribied, Barf.Makes you realize that there is a big difference between reading about neg flux and experiencing it.But tomorrow is a new day so back to studying and working on our game.Hang in there.

[mgcasinos]

You are really Illustrious after I read your post.

Some advices for you:

1, You'd better not play $10-100 with only $900 for this trip. The decent bankroll for a $10-100 spread is $10000 as you play before.

2,"I coudn't get enough." No! You get enough----All the time.

3, Nobody here like watching others suffer, It's just your thought. Feel here warmly...



.

[sagefr0g]

Originally Posted by ortango

Yep, its another sob story. I am not asking for sympathy, .................................................. ..................................... I also had $10,000 to play with, which I found later was a decent bankroll for a $10-100 spread.

.......................

Let me give an example of my last trip... my trip bankrolls are not very big, since I make frequent short trips. I have now worked the courage to play $10-100 and take $900 for this trip.

.................................................. .......

30 mins later I am tired of waiting for a good table, and go into a new shoe with 10 bucks betting. It never goes above +2 TC on a 8d shoe. But here is the kicker. A guy playing flat $10 the whole night goes for the kamikazee with $140. Ah, nice S17 with a dealer 6. Fred Renzey is creaming his pants somewhere. I ask the guy, "no way you will hit that more than once right?" he says "no way" and proceeds to let me drop my $140 next to his. We get 18 and the dealer 19. Barf.

Two hours and 2 unremarkable shoes later, there is finally some hope. The TC crawls up to +5 then +10. I put out my $80. Lose. About 1 deck to play and its at +11 TC. I put out $100. Lose. Stays at +11 TC. Two hands of $100. Lose. +12 TC... get a 16 v 10 and I surrender. Last hand +9. Lose.

........................
$4000 left. That sure would buy a lot of Happy Meals.

you want no sympathey but you have it Orto.

i took the liberty to cut your post down and abstract as above.

you have been overbetting for your bankroll.
ten thousand dollars is a lot of money. it is not a lot of money when your trying to beat the dealer. you should have been betting much more conservatively. no way should you have put $140 on the line if the count was plus two. your still overbetting your bankroll for those really high counts of plus five and plus ten ect. as you describe above.
you are playing eight deck games. those are games are monsters. they need to be attacked conservatively if you don't have the bankroll to back up your attack. if you are going to overbet your bankroll you need to at least monitor the affect it is having on the overall roll and make some adjustments to your betting strategy and examine your actions to see if there is a problem in your play. granted it is true that you can play perfectly and according to your bankroll and these kind of hellish situations can arise but you still need to stop think and react accordingly when the house is falling down on you like it has done. there seems to be an attitude among some advantage players that they should just play like robots, just as their computer simulators do. such thinking is an error, doing so is not taking advantage of the one thing we have over computers and that is wisdom and genuine intelligence. use it!
you have four grand left. you need to adjust your betting strategy to fit that bankroll. you need examine how you have been playing and see if there is a problem with your game plan. example betting as high as you were in a plus two situation.
i know i sound like a jerk here and i'm sorry. you need to hear it.

very best regards,
mr fr0g :D

[Automatic Monkey]

Originally Posted by sagefr0g

you want no sympathey but you have it Orto.

i took the liberty to cut your post down and abstract as above.

you have been overbetting for your bankroll.
ten thousand dollars is a lot of money. it is not a lot of money when your trying to beat the dealer. you should have been betting much more conservatively. no way should you have put $140 on the line if the count was plus two....

Wait I don't think he said that. I think he partnered with another player for $140 on a DD A6 vs. 6. That's a huge advantage, worth more than $140 with a $10K bankroll.

[ortango]

Ack! I ask for no sympathy and that is what you guys are giving. You're the best. Well, tom, mg, sage... you guys are right. It is a bad streak, I have been overbetting, and I need to tweak my strategy. Its probably because I know my BR is replenishable, but it still sucks. But you have given me a little hope.. since I did think about tossing in the gloves and considering the $6000 "tuition".

First I need to read up on bet sizing more. Second, like sage says, my "robotical" behavior may need some relaxing (no I will not use intuition ) Possibly seek out a good partner or two? Sorry for the suck fest guys, I'm sure you have all been there. I will keep up the good fight.

[ortango]

Originally Posted by Automatic Monkey

Wait I don't think he said that. I think he partnered with another player for $140 on a DD A6 vs. 6. That's a huge advantage, worth more than $140 with a $10K bankroll.

Even though I dont know the math offhand, my "internal math" told me I could not pass that up. The count was basically even, but to me it seemed like a gold mine.

[sagefr0g]

Originally Posted by ortango

Second, like sage says, my "robotical" behavior may need some relaxing (no I will not use intuition )

i know you know this. i just want to say it for other readers.
don't give up your intuiton either. i know your point was that your not going to play ploppy type of logic and that is correct.

best regards,
mr fr0g :D

[sagefr0g]

Originally Posted by Automatic Monkey

Wait I don't think he said that. I think he partnered with another player for $140 on a DD A6 vs. 6. That's a huge advantage, worth more than $140 with a $10K bankroll.

it's just my opinion (how i view ROR & the nature of the subjective term overbetting). regardless of the advantage with only ten grand i don't think he should be betting that high at any count.
i don't think he should bet over $65 max in any case unless doubling or splitting on that max.
now that he's just got four grand his max shouldn't be over $30 and thats a bit high.
i'm basing this on how Stanford Wong states he figures his max bets in Professional Blackjack. according to him he makes his max bet 1/150 th of what he is willing to lose total (paraphrasing here).

best regards,
mr fr0g :D

[ihate17]

As they say in the old country, mi ahn hum neda, or sorry about that.

That stuff has happened to everyone who plays this game and on an 8 deck shoe it can happen perhaps a little more often. By the way, what is the penetration on the game?

ihate17