Counting vs. Progressions. Put up or shut up...

Lots of counters jumping on system players on this board. I've been playing for over 25 years and counting makes no sense to me.

If you're down to the last 100 cards in a 6 deck shoe the only thing that matters is the next 20 cards as that's all you're going to see. You can have a sky high count and those 20 cards may still be all 4's, 5's, 6's and 7's.

And knowing that over the next 10,000 hands such-and-such should happen won't keep me from losing my bankroll. So what good is it? I go broke and you tell me it's OK because I made the right bet. And if I just stick with it another 5 years I'll be proved correct.

Trouble is I'm going home after 2 more shoes. I need something that'll do the job now. And that's where progressions have it all over card counting.

Progressions react to clumps of high and low cards shoe by shoe. A positive progression protects you by keeping your bets low when the cards are running against you. And it directs you to bet more when they're runnng more in your favor.

Progression react rather than try to predict, which nothing can do. And they can work for diciplined players.

I've been playing blackjack regularly for over 25 years. I've been tracking my play for the past 14 years. Over those 14 years, in a typical session, I play at $5 tables ($5 min, $200 max) for 150 - 200 dealt hands ( I play 2 hands). I average a net profit (wins - losses) of just under $3 per dealt hand, or just over $500 per session.

I've never met a counter who could match that.

You could overcome your problem by learning shuffle tracking. Then you will know for sure when the high cards are coming.

If you average $500 per session then why don't you just do that full-time? Is it because you know it is a losing system?

Been doing it full time since 1990.

Wow, 500 dollars per session for 25 years! You must be a millionaire by now, am I right?

All you had to do over those last 25 years is play 2 sessions per week and you would have earned 900,000. But with results like that, why not play everyday!

OK, I will assume full-time play to be 1 session per day. You have been playing full-time for 16 years * 365 days * 500 dollars per session. That means you have made almost 3 million dollars since 1990? Can you confirm that?

So if you havn't made the 3M, either you're not making 500 dollars per session as claimed, or you play less than one session per day, which really wouldn't be considered full-time.

How much have you made from blackjack?

All I'll say is if you play blackjack every day you're a far better man than me (or psychotic).

As for my income, I'll tell you I report one every year and I'm definately not rich. Other than that, I don't discuss it with anyone but my wife.

Well, if your "averaging 500 dollar per session" idea is true, then just playing 2 sessions per week you would make 52,000 per year. That is pretty good for only working 2 days per week. But I don't know if that would be considered "full-time".

Just curious-where do you play that allows you to play two hands at the table minimum? Almost every casino I've played in makes you bet double the minimum if you play two hands.

Never said anything about bet size. Doesn't really matter as long as they fit the table rules and your bankroll.

I play at $5 tables ($5 min, $200 max) for 150 - 200 dealt hands ( I play 2 hands). I average a net profit (wins - losses) of just under $3 per dealt hand, or just


Explain this,please,as you never posted the size ofyour bets?

Sorry. I'm not used to counter's jargon. The max and min I was talking about are the table max and min, not my bet variance. Of course, my bets are all within those limits.

i think what you have to say is interesting and great food for thought.
problem is progressions lose in the long run.
i have to disagree where you say nothing can predict. well i don't totally disagree but there is a degree of prediction that happens with counting. the predictability comes to fruition in the long term not the short term.

You say "progressions lose in the long run", and predictability with counting comes to fruition in the long term not the short term.

That's where I think you guys have it wrong. It's like apples and oranges. You're using an orange to figure out if the apple is good or not.

Or which is faster, a man or a horse. You guys are looking at a mile and a quarter race track and saying the horse is best in the long run. I say blackjack is like a series of 10 yard sprints and the man will win 10 times out of 10. In spite of all the statistics.

I don't doubt the statistics. I only doubt they're usable here.

Look at the extreme 6 deck example I gave you. 20 cards left to be played and a sky-high count. Using all your math and computerized runs of millions of hands, can you tell me whether or not you're going to win the next hand? You cannot.

But look at the longer term you say...

OK, let's be practical and say that extreme situation comes up 10 more times. Using all your math and computerized runs of millions of hands, can you tell me how many times of the 10 you'll come out a winner? You cannot. Can you predict you'll win even one of the 10? Nope.

So what good is it? What can card counting do for you in the real world where people don't sit down and play millions of hands?

Card counting reacts to clumps of high and low cards, shoe by shoe. A negative count protects you by keeping your bets low when the cards are running against you. And a positive one directs you to bet more when they're runnng more in your favor.

And that's it. No absolutes. Nothing magical and no voodoo. Just a sound betting strategy for diciplined players. Exactly like a well designed progression.

You seem to have a lot of negative opinions and misconceptions about card counting. We could argue forever about that, but why bother? I'd rather know why you think that a progression system will work. What proof do you have? How can you refute all of the proof that they don't work? I think the title of this thread should apply to you as well.

-Sonny-

Progressions don't work bud, despite whatever results you may have personally have had. Casinos welcome progressions players, and kick out counters. Hmmm could there be a reason for that? Especially since casinos are in the business of making money, and are very good at it for that matter.

Playing basic strategy, no matter what sized bet, only 3 out of 1000 people will be above their starting bankroll after 640 hours of play. That is because the advantage is built into the game. I guess you are one in a million that came out ahead after 25 years, IF what you are saying is true. Or I should say one in a billion that wins 500 every session. Or lets say it this way, if progression is so easy (a monkey can be trained to raise bets after wins or losses) and you are guaranteed $500 every session, casinos wouldn't exist because they wouldn't make money. Im not trying to be crude or mean, just using common sense. No offense but let's come back to planet earth. :cow:

yes and in either case one might come out winner or loser. both cases involve a gamble, risk. the risk is less for the counter and greater for the progressionist. mathematically it can be proven that overbetting leads to ruin. thats what happens to progressionists eventually. betting a progression is essentially overbetting.
i think your correct here to some degree. the process for counters starts with an understanding that is qualitative rather than quantitative. that being it is just understood that the player has an advantage when the pack remaining to be dealt is richer in high weighted cards to low weighted cards. but that scenerio can be quantified and has a normal distribution which in the end gives a statistical quantified advantage. so yes the counter experiences a lot of oranges while looking for apples but still finds the apples at an acceptable level of satisfaction.

here you are comparing apples and oranges. it simply doesn't work out that way for a series of blackjack sessions. as stated above there is a normal distribution involved.
allow me to digress here. i can't tell you how often it's been that i find my self at a table with a progressionist. dude will be winning hand over fist just piling up the chips. there i am doggedly betting nickles and losing hand over fist.
but what do you think the results are at the end of the day. progressionist is normally broke and i've piled up about as many chips above my trip bankroll as dude won on a few of his winning streaks. just a story of many stories darkstat.... kind of the tortuse and the hare race story.

exactly rignt. short term that is. no for the short term one can't tell is the result going to be winner or loser for counter or progressionist.
long term we know profit wise the counter comes out winner.
long term the progressionist comes out loser.
permitt an inexact analogy here....
are you familiar with fractals? if you took a session that contained an advantage and that session yielded a winner for a card counter as a fractal that session would mirror the long term. that being so the long term is made up of a lot of winning sessions for the card counter to enjoy.

not sure on this. but i believe it could be computed as to how many out of ten can be expected to produce a profit. just can't say when. kind of llike the coin flipping situation. you know it's fifty fifty for heads or tails but you don't know when each occurence will happen.

well each reasonably timed session you play you can expect to exact approximately a one or two percent advantage over the house. but one can not know if that advantage for a given session will be realized as a profit.
after all we are both progressionist and counter still gambling here. one with an advantage the other with out.

yeah thats pretty much true. just better design that progression very, very astutely and don't forget to tag it to some intel about your advantage such as the count.

Card counting doesn't tell you if you will win the next hand, but it DOES tell you what your advantage will be for the next hand. Progressions don't.

Note from the start that I'm speaking to this with my tail tucked firmly between my legs and my head bowed and am scuffing the the ground with the toes of my shoes....

I think I've heard this and certainly HAVE experienced it: High counts do not necessairly mean you are going to win more hands but it does mean that you can win more money in those situations if you ramp your bets properly. In fact, you'll most likely push a lot more 20's with the dealer in high count situations. High counts give the dealer just as high a chance of drawing the pair of Faces as you have. However, you will win MORE on the doubles, splits and Blackjacks at high counts than you will with low counts. That's where the money is and you are getting it out on the table when it is most advantageous to do so. Add to that the more frequent "busts" by the dealer when he does get those stiff hands and has to hit them with high cards likely to fall.

It isn't a lot of advantage, but it's there and can be proven mathematically.

It seems that we all agree that over the short term ("short" may mean up to a year) that luck/variance has the dramatically largest impact on how an individual gambler fares.

It seems to me that the big difference, in theory, between a count and a progression is what they look at.

All progressions (as far as I know?) are based on win/loss/push. That's basically a "binary" data source for your decision making. If you won the previous hand, you take action X, if you lost, take action Y.

Problem is, the progression doesn't know why you won or lost the previous hand. It may have been because of a run of low cards, or it may have been bad luck. With a progression, you're basing your bets on outcomes, not on causes.

Now, let's contrast this with a count. The changes in odds due to the count are really quite slim. Even if you see six sixes fall on the table on the previous hand, you're only dealing with like a 1% extra edge (shoe game). However, as we all know, a game with a 51% advantage can still have tremendous variation.

Also, you won this theoretical hand with all the sixes, then your progression might assume that you need to drop the bet on next hand, when actually you just gained a small advantage.

It just seems to me like a win/loss record is a crappy data source to base your play.

yep even with studies such as the link below one wont find much of an edge::
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/greenbaize21/prog.htm (Archive copy)