New Player seeking feedback/advice

[MaaK]

Hello all,

First of all i would like to introduce myself. I am a CS student based in the UK. I played poker for almost two years and made roughly 5k quid but lost interest in the game. My friend introduced me to blackjack and card counting two weeks ago and i have been hooked since.

I did my research and found a casino that offers 6 decks, S17, DAS, No Surrender games with 75%-80% penetration . ( Wasnt easy, these CSM's seem to be everywhere here in the UK)

In a month from now im planning on taking my paly to the casino. Now im trying to get the maximum possible edge over the casino and would be happy if you have any feedback on my play or are aware of any strategies im missing.

-I will be using the Hi/Lo count as it seems to be efficient and easy at the same time. I am currently counting down decks at just over 20 seconds

-I have learned the BS for the game my casino is offering

-I am currently working on learning all of the BS variations as provided in the "blackjackschool"

-I purchased a whole shoe and playing chips to simulate the game at my home. I play 5-6 shoes on an average day with my friend to learn to keep accurate track of the RC, TC and learn to apply the BS variations

-I read everything i found about Standard Deviation and fully understand the concept.

-As for betting i will be using the following formula:
(TC-offset/error factor)*unit

-i started reading a book about shuffle tracking but i decided not to bother with that until i have mastered everything else.

The tables i will be playing at are 1/2 pound min tables. I am wondering if units of 3 pounds will be sufficient to beat 6D games. If not how much should i raise my unit assuming i have the BR for it

If you have any advice, feedback shoot

Thanks

 

[BJgenius007]

The tables i will be playing at are 1/2 pound min tables. I am wondering if units of 3 pounds will be sufficient to beat 6D games. If not how much should i raise my unit assuming i have the BR for it

If you have any advice, feedback shoot

Thanks

You can't beat the 6 deck game with 6 to 1 spread. Look for the thread that someone wants to beat the 6 deck with 10 to 1 spread.

http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?t=21313

 

[moo321]

Get some books about blackjack, and keep practicing before you hit an actual casino.

 

[MaaK]

Looks like i ll be switching to 2 pound units and a 1-20 spread.

moo321:

I am not planning on hitting any casinos before im sure of my myself.
I hope that i ll be ready in a month from now since i dont have much going on in my life right now and can spend a lot of time studying BJ. Then again its just an estimate.

 

[moo321]

Looks like i ll be switching to 2 pound units and a 1-20 spread.

moo321:

I am not planning on hitting any casinos before im sure of my myself.
I hope that i ll be ready in a month from now since i dont have much going on in my life right now and can spend a lot of time studying BJ. Then again its just an estimate.

Also, do you have about 4-5 thousand pounds? Because that would be a good bankroll to play that spread.

 

[MangoJ]

He has 5k from poker.

 

[Ferretnparrot]

About the spreading, try to look at it this way, peopel talk about spreading with a min unit being the table min, and a max unit being your big bet and the ratio between them, but theres plenty more ways to bet.

Firstly, if you play all the hands and only rais your bet by a factor of 6x, you wont make a lot of money.

Try to think of it like this, you have the house advantage of the game, and its offset by a change in the house advantage according to the TC, anytime its -EV, all your bets will lose you money, and when its positive EV all your bets will make you money.

Short story is you dont actually want to put money on the losing bets, so if you elleminate them altogether, you can bet WHATEVER AMOUNT YOU WANT on the winning bets at +ev true counts

If you choose to play all the hands, you will find that +EV hands are less common than -ev hands and you will need to raise your bet to compensate, depending on penetration, the frequency that +ev hands occur will be different so you will have to spread more or less.

Instead of spreading howvere, you could also simply reduce the number of _ev hands you play by betting nothign and sitting out a hand.

If you spread 1-10 which isnt very good, but sddenly you only play every other hand at -ev counts, now you are effectively spreading 20-1

since the avereage of hands value at 1,0,1,0 etc is 0.5 units per hands you are now spreadong 0.5-10 or 1 to 20 if you sit out more hands like 1,0,0,1,0,0 now you are spreading 30:1, if you spread to two hands at high counts, your spreading even more and so forth, the limit will come when you sit out too many hands that the table complains and you become a item of attention for how you bet.

6 deck shoes are pretty short, you can watch the first couple ahnds and have a good idea if your going to be sitting down or not, so dont play the first couple hands, always scope it out before you sit down, if the count goes to like -6 on the first hand, and theres a fresh shoe right next to it, start counting that table instead.

About shuffle tracking, get the basis of the change in house advantage as a result of TC and get very comfortable with counting in your subconscious thinking beause you will be doing a lot more thinking when you track shuffles. Also index plays woudl be kinda important when tracking shuffles I would think, so you shoudl get those down also before you start workign shuffles.

Those are my thoughts, remember to have fun with it or it will ruin your day when you lose, your still playing 60:40 to win:lose so your goign to lose fairly often, just remember it happens regularly and if you keep a positive mental attitude your day will be much more enjoyable and you will sleep better at night.

Keep records of wins and loss for every trip so when you do lose you can see that in fact you are actually still winning, this will help you mentally avoid the stress off the game.

 

[MaaK]

Thank you Ferretnparrot your reply was really helpful

 

[ycming]

Have you looked into the ROR ? And how many units you are expecting to make / hour ?

You may soon find you will may only make around 3-5 units / hour.

I agree with wonging and spreading more agressively, but this is often hard in to UK due to the low number of BJ tables / casino.

Also rememeber, you are playnig with ENHC, which has a higher HE compared to the American's game, aim to have your max bet out at around TC +5.

This gala by any chance?

Ming

 

[moo321]

It's good that you have the humility to realize this is hard work, and are willing to practice a lot before you hit the casino. You're halfway down the road to success.

 

[MaaK]

Thanks Moo,

From my point of view there is no point in going to the casino if your play isn't close to excellent. I think that the small edge you get from card counting is eliminated by making little mistakes and therefore want to get it right before risking my BR.

I started reading Blackjack Science and Professional Blackjack yesterday and all the answers to my questions seem to be in there. Wong is a genius

 

[Waterrat]

MaaK,

I'm a new counter too and found the Casino Verite software to be very usefull for practice. You can get through A LOT of hands fairly quickly. I also don't have a friend to practice with daily as you do so this was a necessity (IMO) for me.

Also about a month and a half after starting and feeling I had solid, though not exceptional skills, I took a short trip to the casino as a real life practice session. Obviously it was real money so not really practice but I did this to assess my play to determine where I was still deficient and where I needed to focus my training. It was quite an informative experience.

WRat

 

[moo321]

Make sure you're practicing keeping the count with actual cards, chips, felt, betting circles, etc.

Especially if you count shoes, you need to have a lot more mental toughness than people initially think. To make decent money, you need to be playing 8+ hours a day, and that's a lot harder than playing 45 minutes at the kitchen table with a single deck.

 

[ycming]

I feel new again moving from hi-lo to Zen........

I'll got to say, level 2 count is so fooking hard when you have spent most of your time using hi-lo!!!!

Any advice/hints to make to move over easier?

Ming

 

[BrianCP]

Make sure you're practicing keeping the count with actual cards, chips, felt, betting circles, etc.

Especially if you count shoes, you need to have a lot more mental toughness than people initially think. To make decent money, you need to be playing 8+ hours a day, and that's a lot harder than playing 45 minutes at the kitchen table with a single deck.

I'm glad I have my imitation table then (just a towel covering a folding table) that I practice the game I'll probably be playing, a 6 deck shoe. I even have other hands playing basic strategy at the table and use chips to bet with. The only problem is that when I'm the dealer, I have to check the hole card on any 10 or ace. I've wanted to hit a 17 so many times, but I had to remind myself that I didn't know what the hole card was, the dealer did and I'm not the dealer anymore.

Theater classes really helped me in that area it turns out. Gotta get in CHARACTER!

 

[MaaK]

I am actually practicing with 6decks... betting through 80% of the shoe and counting down the rest to make sure my RC is accurate.

I have been playing about 15 shoes a day the past days and my RC is off by 1 every 2-3 shoes. Doesn't seem to be too hard but then again i have a good memory and im obviously into mathematics as a computer science student which makes it slightly easier.