negative progressions in relation to running count

I have consistently won using different negative progressions, in relationship to the the running and true count in six and eight deck games. Anybody have the same experience, what are your insights, and what progressions if any do you use? any and all opinions and questions and answers are appreciated(just keep the insults to minimum ) thanks
Josh

No insult indended Josh, but I'm confused. How are you going to employ a negative progression while utilizing card counting? Would you raise your bets after losing during positive counts even though the count didn't justify it?

Let's say you lose the hand but the count goes up. You can increase your bet to look like you're chasing losses. You lose again and the count goes even higher. You raise your bet again and look like you're steaming.

The casino thinks you're a negative progression player and you keep getting more money in the circle when the count is rising. I think that's the idea he was getting at.

I agree that might look like a progression, but in fact, you are just following your "ramping" schedule aren't you? In this senario, would you for the sake of cover, increase your bet in a positive count after a loss even if the count remained the same or weakened?

Betting progressions, when used with the count, can be good for cover. Just be careful! Any bet other than your optimal bet will cost you money. If you use a progression for too long or get carried away you can lose your edge very easily. Also, it will increase your variance quite a bit so it is always better to play it safe and bet exactly with the count.

-Sonny-

Not necessarily. If your optimal bet is 3 units and you bet 6 to continue your progression, it will MAKE you more money, but it will increase your ROR.

scott has part of it right mike.

Scott has it partially correct. basically. I use a conservative negative progression, that loses a little bit at the higher levels. for example,
1,2,4,4,5,10,20. this progression is good when the true count is moderately high, +1 or +1.5. you see to lose on a progression like this you have to lose 4 times in a row, a four loss losing streak is quite rare when the count is moderately high. when the cards are perfectly balanced, statistically a streak like this would only happen less then 6% of the time, assuming a 48% win rate, and if you lost four times in a row but won your fifth hand your loss would be 3 units, but remember over 90% of the time you are clocking a win, even if you lose three times in a row, and this is if the count is nuetral, your chances of losing more than four times in a row decreases exponentially as the count goes up. Now the part you have to worry about is the less than 3% of the time you will lose five or six or seven times in a row, and this will happen. But I have found that when the count is marginally positive it is less then 1.5% of the time. now if the count goes negative, I abandon the progression, drop to table minimum, and usually, get off the table.
lets analyze this. if I lose five times in a row, and win the 6th hand on this progression, my total loss is 6 units, and if I lose 6 times in a row my total loss is also 6 units, but odds on losing 6 times in a row, is just over .5% and this is if the deck is balanced. odds on losing 7 times in a row is less than half of that, that is once in several hundred hands.
let it suffice to say that the vast majority of times you will have long losing streaks is when the composition of the deck is negative, so get off the table.

Now as Scott was saying when the true count goes really positive +2.5 or better, I use the negative progression like a ramp, for example, I lose once in a row, then I would leave the bet at 2 units, then when I lose again jump it to four units, and then just leave it there whether I win or lose. and now because the count is high I am winning well over fifty percent of the hands.
It is excellent camaflouge for many reasons, first it relagates the vast majority of my losses to one long streak, which is highly visible to the casino, making me appear to be a loser. Also because of the make up of this particular sequence, when I up my bets it just appears that I am following my betting sequence, and because it is not a straight martingale technique, my bets appear to be somewhat random to the pit boss who may be watching. my bets vary frequently, and not necessarily with the count. There is no way they will spot you, trust me. I am on a first name basis with many pit bosses(I never get rated or go for comps this would be a big mistake) I never introduce myself, but they watch me and occasionally introduce themselves, when they do I am friendly, and careful not to act suspicious. Without fail, they totally misread what is going on and just assume I am a loser. They are actually happy to see me not even realizing that I am cleaning their clock! I pocket just enough chips(which I cash on a different shift) so they will never figure it out. I am very diligent about logging my sessions, and I will tell you right now, in the last 3 years of playing blackjack, I have won much more money than I have lost.
I hope this helps to clarify, Mike and Scott. let me know what you think. This is only one of many progressions I use.

If you are well known at the casino and you think you have good cover, then you should definitely be going for comps. The only reason I would think of not to get comps is to keep your identity a secret, but as you said they know you by name already.

trust me I used to go for comps, years ago.

The reason I don't any more is because when one of the casinos told me I could no longer play there,I wised up. The pit boss, who I was friendly with, was very polite about it, he said that I was winning too consistantly, in his words I "had that winning touch" , that was when I was just getting good, and boy did that give me a scare, I put every casino card I had in the trash and stayed low key for months, and by the way "first name basis", "well known" versus knowing the "identity" of, are intirely different. for example you know me on a first name basis right? you know my name is josh (or do you?).

See, when you go for comps, not only do they take your driver liscence # address etc, but they track your bets, well it wouldn't take them long to figure out that that occasional spectacular, series of losses, is a small pittance compared to what I take off the tables on a regular basis. Hell they could tell me my take to the nickel or peanut, If I was rated. ever notice how the dealer tips the stack before he pays you; that is for the benifit of the eye in the sky, the camera is watching.
I don't look for their attention trust me.... In fact, I refer to it as heat. Sometimes the best way to remain innocuos is to be somewhat brazen, and this couldn't be more true than in a casino.
When your bets vary the way mine do, they will come over and take a look, when they tell me their name, I tell them mine, shake hands like a gentleman. When they come over to the table occasionally and make cynical little jokes I laugh if I think its funny or make a little joke of my own, its all part of the game, and when dealing with the pit boss is like a loss, make it water off of a ducks back. I treat them like a cross between an opponent in a friendly game of golf, and a servant, like if the waitress is scarce I will ask them to get me a scotch. When they get too friendly, on occasion I have to leave that casino alone for a while, or at least not on their shift for a few months. Some pit bosses are nosy, some aren't, a friendly nosy pit boss is a recipe for disaster. Coming over to the table when the stacks get high and monitering it for two or three minutes, or shooting the bull, is a world away from being rated for comps and having every bet tracked, in fact its the difference between getting away with it and not. Luckily since that first time I have never been caught. I don't act suspicious, I act like I belong, because after all, I do.
I joke about "a few more wins like that will cover thursdays loss..." etc, or when they inevetibly ask me if I want to get rated, "oh well I used to go for comps but, I wind up spending way to much time on the tables. I don't even mess with them, I don't want to get carried away again. I'm still paying off my card from vegas when I was trying to get my room comped, thanks though." "yeah well I'm trying to stay low key, I promised my wife I wouldn't come here", etc.. watch them lick their chops and leave you alone.

They could just as easily track your play whether your rated for comps or not. That's why I always played for comps. But like you are implying, they probably won't track your results as good if you aren't rated.

tracking

if you are rated they will track you, so they know what kind of comp to give you, if you make them suspicious they will track you. If they aren't suspicious they won't bother. They generally aren't suspicious of me, because I never stick around long enough to take more than 20- 30 units off the table, and I do it very discreetly, I always use the appropriate color for the appropriate table(ie, no green chips at a 5 dollar table) hence, aside from my occasional martingale style binges, my bets are commonly no more than 1to 3 units, so I am rarely the biggest average bettor at my table.

You play for comps? have you ever had any serious heat?:flame:
what do you do to avoid detection?
thanks
Josh

+ progression

Josh

could a person use a modest + progression for cover ? Say 1-2-3-4-1 ? Same idea, only in neutral or slightly pos situations, which would lead into some big bets with a very pos shoe. Obviously some type of cover would be needed if you jumped up to a 6, 8 or 10 unit bet, but, I dont think it would be that difficult.
Problem is you could lose your trip br before you see some ap. Just a thought.
You mentioned you have won alot more than you lost in the past year. Do you keep a log, & if so, what is your unit, hrs played, and, how much would you say your up with this type of system. I like the idea of raising your bet to throw off the pb's, but, the math says it will sky rocket your ror. Some experienced players here frown on it. Lastly, you should read Snyders article on his site about the 'up-down-up' strategy for cover play. Interesting...

best of luck

In slightly negative counts to slightly positive counts you can change your bets randomly and it won't affect your EV much, but it will increase your variance. It is good for cover though since it appears that you are making bets without any particular reason.

1,2,3,4,1 won't work

Thanks, you too, yeah well, that won't work. it's that... it loses to much and wins to little.
think about it, if you lose one win one you are fine with a one unit gain, but if you lose 2 win 1 you break even, if you lose three win one you lose two units, and if you lose four win one, you lose a whopping 9 units, and the cycle is over and you begin again, so it won't work, you have to go all in with a negative progression, in order to get out to the 7th or 8th loss, even with moderate loss, because generally you only see a string of losses of this magnitude once in every few hundred hands, and even more rarely when the count is high neutral or high. I see a four in a row loss pattern at least once, often several times an hour. 1,2,3,4,1 would devestate me financially, as it would anyone who tried it. I would use a pattern more like 1,1,1,4,8,16,18,20

If you don't want to go all out, one way I could recomend would be to vary your bet using the only positive progression that works well in my opinion. 1,2,1,2,1,2 for consecutive wins only.
for example every time you win, stack that one on top, and then if you win that one take the two you won + one off your bet stack making a profit of 3 and dropping your bet back to one continue this cycle, always drop bet to one chip after any loss. you will be amazed how much more quickly your stack will build in the majority of typical card patterns. simplicity my friend... that is the key. some people like + progression pattern 1,2,3,2,3,1, I wouldn't recomend it unless the count is really high, I tend to use positive progressions when the count goes really high true count of +3 and higher the one I use is simple 2,3,4,5,3,4,5,6,4etc, or 4,5,6,7,5,6,7,8,6etc these work with great success, especially the latter. Also, in very high count situations, like +3 through +5 and higher, I use the no bust rule, which is stand on twelve and higher with great success, especially when going head on against the dealer.
also I will not use any negative progression when the true count falls below -1.


between -1 and -2 I use the 1,2,1,2, + progrssion in a low neutral card setting depending on how the cards are breaking. if it dips below that. I am off the table. usually even before minus one, unless the cards are breaking in my favor, that is the only reason I would stay at a table with even that low of a count.

There is really no such thing as a modest negative betting pattern that is why casinos tend to love them. and I would recomend using a negative progression only when the count is high nuetral(true count between+1 and +2 or higher) and if you chicken out your gonna lose, and be prepared to lose 40 units in five minutes, because when you are playing a negative expectation game...it happens. It is what I call the big bust or one step back, your winnings must outpace this inevitable 60 unit loss.

In summary 1,2,1,2,1, is the best + progression, and there is no modest negative progression, you have to go out at least to the 7th preferably 8th loss or not at all.

as for my winnings, yes I log them and yes they consistantly out wiegh my losses, over a period of years.

winnings go in a two step forward one step back pattern, if you are utilizing proper money management.

so if you use these techniques, you should generally get off the table if you have accumulated a win of between 10-30 units.
my advice is if you sit right down at a table and then expierience a 4 loss streak or more wait till the recovery ie you win once, and get off of the table quickly. If you are on a table you can expect a loss like that once every 30-50 hands, so realistically if you hit one within 10 hands you may have found a seat with a bad breaking pattern of cards, so don't risk it, just get off the table while you can. I usually start out with a sequence like 1,1,1,4,8,16,18,20, but if I start losing right off the bat I might go,1,1,1,1,1, and then leave the table. but I always combine this strategy with the neutral positive progression 1,2,1,2

always watch a table for five or ten hands before sitting down, look for a dealer bust ratio of 1 out of every three times, and watch out for a dealer who seems to be mostly 20s and 21s even if he is busting, also is he busting showing a low card or a high card? look for what I call player favorable card breaking patterns which is primarily dealer bust patterns. this is especially important when playing a negative expectation game.
Good luck.
get six decks and some chips,
and deal your self a couple hundred hands using these progressions, before you try them at the casino, cause if you don't do it right you can lose a lot of money fast. I wouldn't recomend trying them with a single or double deck either, cause you don't get enough rounds of play to finish a long losing cycle.



Well I hope this helps
Josh

you do not lose 3, win 1, lose 4, win 1,because you would have won 2 before the 3, and would have won 3 before the 4. Also, what if their is a bj or dd or split in amongst these streaks(yes, I realize this could also be a loss on the 3rd/4th win on a dd/split) ? It is interesting, but, Im not so sure that one should put forth this much practice into it as a person should proper counting.
I currently use KO preffered. It would be strictly a cover play as the running count climbs close to the key count, and then proper betting according to count takes over. But, how does one justify a 10 unit bet, when a progression of 1-4 and back was used for most of or even part of the shoe ?
I know, proper cover. This newbie has a long way to go...

thnx so much & best of luck

ok i see, you mean a positive progression

your welcome, and you too. ok I understand now that makes more sense
1,2,3,4,1 as a positive progession works... marginally, that is a famous one generally referred to as "playing with the houses money". It is commonly used by a certain type of advantage player... personally I don't recomend it. not for cover or for any other reason. Why play with the houses money when you can "take the houses money".
see the problem with 1,2,3,4,1 is that about 5 out of six times you will lose bet number 4, and this is still basically true when the count is high. what a waste. my advice would be to play 1,2,1,2,1,1,1 this is safer, or if the count is high 2,4,2,4,2,2,2 this is much safer and will earn you more money. I have actually tested 1,2,3,4,1 against 1,2,1,2,1,1,1 and have found that generally, over a period of about 1000 hands in a six deck shoe, 1,2,3,4,1 loses. that is because in an attempt to "play with the houses money" you generally wind up giving most of your profits back to the house, these profits which would ordinarilly cover your losses, are gone, and so you wind up a loser, except in rare cases involving long winning streaks.
try it yourself. 1,2,1,2,1 is the best positive progression, it is very simple, and in the majority of positive composition(count) games it will dramatically increase your win rate. try it and let me know.
thanks
Josh
PS negative progressions are something else entirely, it takes a lot of balls to use them, and they provide great cover. because most card counters and advantage players cringe at the idea, rightly so. but if you are up to a 10 or 20 unit bet it is because you have lost a long series of bets(which you need to cover the losses of) and statistically the odds are getting increasingly slim that you will lose the next round... of course the odds don't necasarily save you every time. And you will eventually give a big long loss back to the house, and this will definately make you look like a loser. But I have found using these types of progressions when the count is high positive, results in more wins then losses, while simultaneously making you look like a negative expectation player to the house, and negative expectation players are the bread and butter of the casinos. they would never ban you, in fact once you have one those inevitable losses they will actually be happy to see you, not realizing that your small profits far outwiegh your big loss. I am regular at my favorite casinos, and some of the pit bosses even know me by my "nickname" they are happy to see me because they don't understand what I am doing, and they occasionally see me have one of my losing streaks where I give back as much as $1000 dollars in as little as five minutes playing with green chips. but if I took the casino for between $250 and $400, 10 or fifteen times before that, I still am way on top... but whatever you do don't go for comps, cause if you do they will track your bets and probably figure out that you are beating them regularly, this has happenned to me before, and now I don't ever go for comps and I haven't had a problem since, and I win.. quite a bit. Good Luck