new guy on the block!

[rainmanuk]

Hello Everyone!

A little info about me. I'm UK based. I used to play casino BJ quite seriously many years ago but nowhere good enough to give up my day job. I used to play the Thorpe Hi-Lo count when the game in the UK was 4 decks, DAS, no re-splits, no insurance except BJ v Dlr Ace, DD Hard 9-10-11, no soft doubles and penetration anywhere from 50% - 75%!

I'm retired now so I have time to indulge myself - and my thoughts have returned, yet again to Blackjack. I hope to be able to contribute some of my experiences to the forum whilst also tapping into the wealth of knowledge from other forum members.

Best regards,
rainmanuk

 

[BrianCP]

I must say, the avatar you chose is surprisingly fitting. Guy the movie Rainman was based on....which I assume you knew. I hope you find the site and members useful in your golden age venture!

 

[rainmanuk]

I must say, the avatar you chose is surprisingly fitting. Guy the movie Rainman was based on....which I assume you knew. I hope you find the site and members useful in your golden age venture!

Er... How about less of the 'golden', I'm more like entering into my silver years. Plenty of miles under this bonnet / hood yet even though there is 100,000KM on the clock and a bit of body damage. lol.

 

[MeWin$]

I

I hope the Pen's better there now. u dont want spend a lot of time refining when its an almost unbeatable game.

 

[FLASH1296]

The larcenous British rules have been improved.
The game, as described, has such a huge House Edge
it makes my stomach churn.I suppose that one could
beat the game with a mega-spread and an advanced
count with a raft-load of specialized playing indices.

 

[zengrifter]

I used to play the Thorpe Hi-Lo count

The Thorp HiLo had 150+ index departures from basic strategy calibrated (true-count) by dividing the running count by number of unplayed CARDS. Is that the one you played? zg

 

[UK-21]

The larcenous British rules have been improved.
The game, as described, has such a huge House Edge
it makes my stomach churn.I suppose that one could
beat the game with a mega-spread and an advanced
count with a raft-load of specialized playing indices.

Flash only likes to play games with a HE of 0.000000000000000000000001% !!

 

[Solo player]

Flash only likes to play games with a HE of 0.000000000000000000000001% !!

Thats okay if you can find those games.

 

[blackjackomaha]

Welcome to the message boards! :cool2:

 

[rainmanuk]

old time Thorpe Hi-Lo

The Thorp HiLo had 150+ index departures from basic strategy calibrated (true-count) by dividing the running count by number of unplayed CARDS. Is that the one you played? zg

Yes, that looks about right. My play / strategy was based on the 1967 edition of Thorpe's 'Beat The Dealer'. I remember learning such turn points as 15 v dlr 8 [+15] and 12 v dlr 2 [+14].

There were two of us playing this - one counted and the other fed the info about cards remaining - this determined the true count with devastating accuracy to 3 decimal places - LOL.

It is easy now to look back and see that a lot of our efforts were misplaced and misguided but we didn't have the knowledge available then like players do have nowadays.

I remember looking at the 16 v dlr 10 decision. Thorpe gave the turn-point as 00 on this decision. That's all well and fine in the US game but what about the ENHC rule with the probability of a Dlr BJ lurking in the background. There simply was no information available to us at that time.

I was so naive I knew nothing about variance, Risk of Ruin or bankroll requirements. Yet despite all of that I didn't end up losing over the many thousands of hands I played. I quit because what I was winning didn't even cover the petrol expenses - in hindsight I was playing at evens or thereabouts.

Great days - good fun - but it didn't pay the rent.