hit and run strategy

Sometimes I'll do this strategy when I feel like needing an adrenaline rush. I'll play at a table until I win 1.5-2 betting units and then I'll leave to go to another table and do the same thing. I always start at that table when it's a new shoe or the true count is 0 or higher. Assuming the TC is always 0 and I use perfect basic strategy, what are the odds that I will win 10 betting units vs losing 20 betting units?

not sure about the odds but the way i look at this is you got to figure you are about a 0.5% under dog going in. also say for a six deck shoe game your going to have only about one out of five favorable shoes. but if your not betting up as a result of the count that one out of five won't even help you. even so i'd expect to take a pounding for those four shoes that either stay tc=0 or head into negative true count territory. when those shoes do go negative the house edge is even worse over you than the starting 0.5% .

This will sound obvious, but if you're keeping a true count, I'd recommend placing those bets when it's positive, instead.

If you want the experience of playing with a fresh shuffle, just play online, where the shuffle is every round.

That said, Ian Anderson wrote about one high-roller who would go into a casino, sit down at a freshly shuffled shoe, and play two spots of $10,000. If the TC ever reached -1, he'd leave. If it went higher, he'd stay at the table, and leave the bets in place

This could be an effective technique, but I would guess that the "average count" that guy was playing at was fairly small, so his advantage would be fairly small, which means his fluctuations would be horrible (even if he wasn't betting so damn much).

Where do you get the figure of having only one in five favorable shoes?? I'd think it would be closer to 2.5/5 shoes since the house edge is barely over .5% Keep in mind it's the variation that matters the most as I can take up to 9 losses just as long as I eventually reach just 1.5 wins. Personally I'd think the odds of me achieving my goal of getting 1.5 wins-2 wins at each table would be close to 80%

Yeah, I'd probably leave too if the count ever went negative before I reached my goal but that has yet to happen. I figure this way it would take you less time to reach my goal vs. sitting at a table all day counting since many times your banroll will yo yo back and forth without having one long winning streak.

If you are only playing at freshly shuffled tables, and you're generally leaving early, this means that you will semi-ensure that you're playing at games with a disadvantage of .5% all the time.

Thus, any effort to try to turn a small profit will yield the same results as any other "money management" technique. You're going to see lots of small session wins, and a few large losses. The large losses will be worth .5% more than the small wins.

All it takes is backcounting until the TC is +1 or +2, then leaving either when the count drops to 0 or -1, or when you win a few bucks, and then you're suddenly playing with an advantage (albeit a small one, and not for very long sessions).

yea i'm letting my prejudice show some here. for a six deck shoe i might play the first two decks worth and then if the count is zero or negative i'll usually leave the table. sometimes i wont even wait that long. playing in this manner your only going to see an advantage situation about 20% of the time hence my figure one out of five favorable shoes. if you stay and play when two decks have been dealt out and the true count is negative you might run into a favorable true count in the latter part of the pack but then you are likely to only have a few opportunities to get some money on the table and you will have been playing through some negative true counts to get there.
to my way of thinking that is like sitting down to play a game that has a worse house edge than 0.5% from the get go. what we want to do is play the most favorable games possible. for card counters that means avoiding negative true counts or employing very large bet spreads to over come the affects of negative counts. i'd rather avoid the negative counts than employ the bigger bet spread.

Assuming your flat betting $1, and have a large bankroll to make your ROR close to zero, in 200 hands you'll probably finish at 10 units or better 25% of the time while you'll finish more than 20 units down 13% of the time.

Not sure of being at least 10 units ahead at some point during the 200 hands.

Of course if u always leave 1 unit up, I guess the odds are 100%

At 2000 hands they'd change to 36% and 41%.

So, yes, I'd say you have a pretty good chance.

Appropriately you are spouting this claptrap in the VOODOO forum. zg

Indeed it can. In fact by delaying your entry point from +1 with a 1-12 spread to +2 and FLAT-BETTING you can still get almost 75% of the same winnings keeping the same risk. Double your bankroll and your making more than u would with the 1-12 spread. But you're FLAT-BETTING! Think of the camouflage!

In fairness he seemed to me be only asking what are the chances of being ahead x units before losing y units.

If I were to do a 10 step martingale just ONCE, what odds would you demand that I win my 1 unit within the next 10 hands not counting ties?

Perhaps I misunderstood his post to be a soft-pedaled personal strategy endorsement.

I don't know the math, but you win better than 99/100, I think. zg

I don't know the math either but the point is one can design a betting strategy to have a higher percentage chance of reaching a goal compared to another betting strategy.

After all, you could flat-bet 100hds/hour for 500 hours and still be ahead 1 out of 5 times.

But, if u ask me, flat-betting is as much a "voodoo" strategy as a martingdale.
Just a matter of when you will lose all your money.