Strategies

[Blagger]

From my own experience (not much) and from what I have read there are three basic elements to playing blackjack:
game-play management (basic strategy);
betting management (card counting, progressive systems, etc);
money management (setting stop losses, quitting while ahead, etc).

Playing the optimal basic strategy is obviously essential at all times except in tournaments or when using negative progressions.

Card counting only works in real casinos and then only on single decks or up to four decks with high penetrations. Even then its difficult because the casinos consider it as cheating and are watching for it. All other betting strategies including progressive betting systems do not improve the edge and can be a fast and sure route to ruin.

It seems to me that money management seems to be under-estimated as an advantage. For example the freedom to quit while ahead is not enjoyed by the dealer. This then is surely a very real advantage even if it cannot be easily expressed mathematically and could help when playing blackjack at internet casinos. In 50% of sessions you will be up on the first hand. In most sessions you can expect to be ahead at some point, especially early on. Even when it goes against you from the start you should be able to grind your way back to an ahead position if you play long enough with a big enough pot. Using $10 bets and quitting when just $10 ahead and moving to another casino site you could hit many casinos each day for just $10 each. 10 casinos a day 7/52 would pay over $36,000 per annum.

Obviously my inexperience is getting the better of me and I am missing something fundamental. Please tell me before I blow my life savings.

[LeonShuffle]

Well, the fact is that moving on to another casino is the exact same as staying at the same one if you think about it. You win $10 at casino A, then move on to casino B for another random hand. Why not just stay at A and try to win another $10. It's all the same and it WILL grind you down eventually due to the half percent disadvantage (using correct BS) that all on-line casinos enjoy.

And card-counting in real casinos isn't quite as hopeless as you think. At least I don't think.

[Blagger]

Leonshuffle,

Thanks for your reply. Yes I can see that logically, assuming hands are randomised, it should make no difference whether I stay at one casino playing the same session or move on. Yet when I practice on free games using perfect BS I usually am able to get ahead at some point quite quickly if only briefly. If I keep playing I more often than not give it back and start losing. The house edge only becomes significant over many hands. The edge per hand is practically nothing so at the start of a session the dealer should have very little advantage in the first few hands.

Don't worry. I know this is flawed logic. Restricting winnings without setting a stop-loss cannot be wise. It would be great if there was a way to take just a very small sum from each of several different internet casinos each day without attracting attention. Aside from bonus "abuse".

[Canceler]

Blagger: You might find this thread interesting, if you haven't seen it already. http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?t=511

choongie went off to seek his fortune with much the same plan you have, and hasn't been heard from since!

[Blagger]

Canceler - Thanks for replying. Actually I was posting tongue in cheek .

I wouldn't use on-line casinos for anything except fun and a bit of bonus 'abuse'.

Using Aspinall's "play for fun" games I have detected that their software is reactive which I find alarming. For instance if you play the outer bets on roulette and try Martingaling it will consistently take you on a negative sequential run. This happens most of the time and much more frequently than could happen by chance.

[Liquid Chips]

Originally Posted by Blagger

Using Aspinall's "play for fun" games I have detected that their software is reactive which I find alarming. For instance if you play the outer bets on roulette and try Martingaling it will consistently take you on a negative sequential run. This happens most of the time and much more frequently than could happen by chance.

Bingo!! Yes, this is what I think happens. I believe that online casinos react to your betting strategy and/or the amount of your bet. The desired win/lose outcome is determined first THEN the cards/numbers are randomly selected to generate the determined win/lose outcome, imo.

It would be a fairer game if the win/lose outcome is TOTALLY determined by a true random selection of the cards in the case of blackjack. Then the online experience would match land-based casino outcomes, more or less.

Online blackjack can have some very questionable losing streaks. How often in land-based casinos do you have 12 losing hands in a row, then 1 win, then another 11 losing hands in a row?? How about, for example, 5 losses, 1 win, 7 losses, 1 win, 5 losses in every session of around 50 hands? Land-based blackjack has losing streaks too but not to the extent that I experience online.

So I believe the cards are indeed selected randomly but not until AFTER the casino's desired win/loss outcome is determined from player history and bet amount. I think this applies to roulette too.

[tedloc]

I believe you are correct about money management. It is the biggest reason good BJ players continue to lose. Most do set a stop loss (usually all their days bankroll) but they do not set a realistic win goal. EX. Joe thinks if he wins $1000 he will either quit or put some in his pocket to go home with. But...Joe plays on a $10 table and makes a flat bet, waiting until he get double down cards or splits. In my opinion, Joe will never achieve his $ 1000, so he will stay until he loses it all. If your win amount is a high number, you must bet accordingly. In the example, I think Joe needs to be betting at least $50-$75 per hand.

[Blagger]

Liquid Chips - There is definitely something very fishy about the duration and frequency of losing streaks on internet blackjack games. I know some sites tell you that the 'so called' random number generator on real money games is different to the ones used for fun games. The number sequences generated are said to be audited to check they are unbiased but I have a suspicion that, even if they average out in the very long term, they are deliberately generated in a way that produces severe runs of losing hands in the short term. Enough to trigger most players' stop losses and force them to suffer the loss.

I spreadbet the stock markets and know that this tactic of deliberately forcing temporary negative swings to fish for stop losses is done every day by market makers. It generates enormous wealth for them.

Tedloc - I would never set a target of $1000. With a $500 roll and $10 bets I wouldn't target more than $50 as a point to quit. 10% profit in a few hours is huge. Most financial fund managers don't manage that in a year.

[Mikeaber]

You must have a casino within a relatively short distance of where you live. I mean when I go to a casino, it is a 3 hour drive and we normally get a room. If I stopped at $50 target in wins, what would I do the rest of the time I was there? Of course, I do not look at BJ as a profession.

Originally Posted by Blagger

Liquid Chips - There is definitely something very fishy about the duration and frequency of losing streaks on internet blackjack games. I know some sites tell you that the 'so called' random number generator on real money games is different to the ones used for fun games. The number sequences generated are said to be audited to check they are unbiased but I have a suspicion that, even if they average out in the very long term, they are deliberately generated in a way that produces severe runs of losing hands in the short term. Enough to trigger most players' stop losses and force them to suffer the loss.

I spreadbet the stock markets and know that this tactic of deliberately forcing temporary negative swings to fish for stop losses is done every day by market makers. It generates enormous wealth for them.

Tedloc - I would never set a target of $1000. With a $500 roll and $10 bets I wouldn't target more than $50 as a point to quit. 10% profit in a few hours is huge. Most financial fund managers don't manage that in a year.

[Liquid Chips]

Originally Posted by Blagger

Liquid Chips -
I spreadbet the stock markets and know that this tactic of deliberately forcing temporary negative swings to fish for stop losses is done every day by market makers. It generates enormous wealth for them.

Having been a commodities speculator previously, I know what you mean. One vivid example was when I, by my lonesome, moved the world's soybean oil market with my lonely little 1 contract order. I put in a sell order some ten units below the trading range that soybean oil was in almost all day. TWO minutes later, the market moved down lock-step one unit at a time until my order was hit, then it turned straight around right back into the trading range! How in the f***ing world did they suddenly *find* ten straight sell orders to hit MINE then ten straight buy orders to move back up to the trading range? The intra-day trading charts for the three days around my order showed no other movement like this. Of course, it eventually moved above the trading range and I had to get out at a big loss. I know now to get out with a smaller loss if the market doesn't confirm your analysis.

I always read that the markets are too big for the average joe to be concerned about stop-loss running. I know now that market movement it is just as "random" as online gambling.

I believe in "fun" mode of play, most casinos use the random number generator on your computer that comes with most operating systems. In real money mode, to ensure that the player isn't manipulating his own rng, the casinos use the rng on their own servers, away from potential manipulation. If you play at a casino long enough, the overall win/loss percentages would fall within the expected ranges. BUT manipulating the HOW those win/losses line up in a given session is what I believe the casinos are doing. The cards can be randomly selected but the win/loss outcome likely isn't dependent on it.