Oscars Grind vs Card Counting

[UncrownedKing]

That isn't the issue. The issue is OG vs flat betting. Show me the sims for that.

Flat betting to table minimums will lose less as proven by the equation provided by johndoe. Run a sim if you don't beleive the math. Flat betting the Table minimum will lose less money and lose money slower, due to the amount of money exposed to the HOUSE EDGE. The more money you expose to a negative expectation game the more money you will lose and the faster you will lose it.

PS: It should be a hint that this thread is in the voodoo betting section. Because any betting strategy that doesn't bet according to the player's advantage is a losing game.

 

[UncrownedKing]

Can you find any faults in the mathematical analysis I provided above?

The sims will both show losses, but OG will be at a steeper rate, per the equations I wrote.

Of course, I expect people will say a billion rounds is invalid because it's "too many", and "not representative of a weekend" or whatever.

I would say a billion hands isn't enough because to show that a betting system generates a profit no matter how many hands are played. Which is showed when you sim that system with as many hands as possible with the limit of infinite number of hands to show that it is a winning strategy. And betting according to player's advantage is the only betting system that wins over, n, number of hands with a limit of infinity.

 

[shadroch]

Flat betting to table minimums will lose less as proven by the equation provided by johndoe. Run a sim if you don't beleive the math. Flat betting the Table minimum will lose less money and lose money slower, due to the amount of money exposed to the HOUSE EDGE. The more money you expose to a negative expectation game the more money you will lose and the faster you will lose it.

PS: It should be a hint that this thread is in the voodoo betting section. Because any betting strategy that doesn't bet according to the player's advantage is a losing game.

Why don't you run the sim.
Simple concept. Player goes to Vegas for a weekend. Plays 4 hours a day at a full table, so figure 250 hands a day. Lets make it 1000 hands,with the sim ending when the player wins his last series. Now take the exact amount of hands and resim it flat betting.

 

[UncrownedKing]

Why don't you run the sim.
Simple concept. Player goes to Vegas for a weekend. Plays 4 hours a day at a full table, so figure 250 hands a day. Lets make it 1000 hands,with the sim ending when the player wins his last series. Now take the exact amount of hands and resim it flat betting.

Short term results have nothing to do with "expected" results. Standard Deviation will take it's course in 1000 hands. Standard deviation will not impact the results of a 1 billion hand sim NEARLY as much and you will get the EV after a bllion hands which is 0. You will have no money left.

 

[jimbob]

I've used the red 7 counting system on several occasions with below avg. results. I've lost money when the count was positive and won money when the count was negative. I believe this is called negative fluctuation. I understand that the card counter isn't going to win all the time. I also understand that in the long run the card counter should come out ahead. However, i've won far more money using oscars grind than I ever did counting cards. I do admit that i've used OG many more times than I have card counting. Currently i'm using OG but card counting as well. However, im not betting based on the count. Im using the card counting to help with my decision to leave a table before I get my butt handed to me on a silver platter.

My questions:

How does a card counter have anymore advantage over a player using oscars grind? The player can stop the grind and leave the table when things get bad just like a card counter leaving a table when the count goes big time negative.

Oscars grind can win during positive and negative counts just like card counting. Oscars grind can win even though the house wins more hands, which is a very powerful weapon. If you really look at the betting of oscars grind it kind of mimics the betting of a card counter. What I mean by that is the card counter makes his money by betting low when the count is negative and betting bigger when the count is positive. The card counter wins bigger bets which cancel out many smaller bets that lost. This is similar to oscars grind. Oscars Grind works by winning bigger bets and losing smaller bets which allows the player to win money even though he's lost more hands than the house.

Card counting does work. I personally feel that using oscars grind with win and stop loss limits is just as powerful as card counting.


I do feel that OG is the only betting system that actually works. Most of the other systems are losers. Now a player that counts cards while using OG can be a very dangerous player for the casinos.

Your biggest losses as a card counter will ALWAYS come during high counts, obviously. Obviously, because that is when you have the biggest bets out there. And the cards know when you have a big bet out. Or at least it seems like they do.

The reason that you can still win when the count is going more and more negative is also obvious. The count is going more and more negative because the big cards are coming out.

Personally, I care both about the count and the trend of the count.

 

[jimbob]

So the card counter can expect to win in the long term. So it may take him his entire life to show some kind of profit? lol

Like I have said before I will continue to use OG as long as it wins. I have stop loss limits to protect me from a long losing session. If I can't make a profit then I will stop using it but, so far ive won more money using OG than I have counting cards.

I have a suggestion about your stop loss. I saw a post where you said you were up 2 BU at one point and then were stopped out at, I think it was -12 BU. You might want to move your stop loss as you are up units, so if you are up 2 BU, then your new stop loss would be -10 BU.

Also, if you see that this is a pretty common occurrence, to be +2 BU before the loss comes, maybe decrease your win goal to +2 BU?

As to your question about when do card counters expect to show a profit if their advantage is "in the long run". Unless a card counter has a VERY large bankroll and is playing hundreds of hours a month or is playing as part of a well financed team, she should not expect to ever see a profit.

 

[jimbob]

Show me results from a sim that uses Oscar's betting system after say 1 billion hands? Then show me a sim that bets according to advantage after 1 billion hands(you find one on this site). Then tell me that using OG is a winning game.

Excuse me but I'm not going to play 1 billion hands in my life time so I could care less about a sim like this.

 

[jimbob]

Do I really need to run a sim to convince you? You know better than that.

If you are playing with a disadvantage, your bet level doesn't matter; you're going to lose, eventually. Your bet relative to advantage is ultimately all that matters. If your bet is uncorrelated with advantage (as it is with OG), having the minimum bet out will minimize losses.

Aren't you overlooking the presence of the cut card when you say this? If you are counting, and this just happened to me, and the count is high because the remaining deck is very rich in Aces, BUT those Aces are behind the cut card, you THINK you are playing at an advantage, but you are not because you will never see those good cards, but you don't know that.

This just happened to me. 2 decks, deep penetration, using Hi-Opt II with a side count of Aces, count is in orbit because no Aces have been seen after 1 1/2 decks. All the Aces are behind the cut card, but I don't know this. I got hammered. Until I tracked the clump of Aces through the shuffle and cut the cards so that the Aces were dealt off the top and played table maximum off the top.

The cut card changes your "KNOWING" you have an advantage to "THINKING" you have an advantage. Big difference.

 

[shadroch]

Short term results have nothing to do with "expected" results. Standard Deviation will take it's course in 1000 hands. Standard deviation will not impact the results of a 1 billion hand sim NEARLY as much and you will get the EV after a bllion hands which is 0. You will have no money left.

If one was to play a billion hands in the course of a weekend. I'd agree. But they won't,so what the results of a billion hands will be is meaningless in this case.

 

[UncrownedKing]

If one was to play a billion hands in the course of a weekend. I'd agree. But they won't,so what the results of a billion hands will be is meaningless in this case.

A sim of 1 billion hands will tell us what happens after 100 million 10 hour sessions or 50 million 20 hour sessions. This shows what we can expect for x number of y hour sessions.

PS Administrators, I think this thread along with the other OG thread has gotten out of hand. The people backing the Progression system are not accepting math and logic based conclusions. They are simply relying on faith and claims.

 

[johndoe]

Aren't you overlooking the presence of the cut card when you say this? If you are counting, and this just happened to me, and the count is high because the remaining deck is very rich in Aces, BUT those Aces are behind the cut card, you THINK you are playing at an advantage, but you are not because you will never see those good cards, but you don't know that.
.

This is completely, utterly incorrect. If the remaining cards are rich in tens, you are absolutely 'expected' to have an advantage. Without other information, you must assume that the cards are evenly distributed. Think more carefully about this.

 

[sagefr0g]

.....
As to your question about when do card counters expect to show a profit if their advantage is "in the long run". Unless a card counter has a VERY large bankroll and is playing hundreds of hours a month or is playing as part of a well financed team, she should not expect to ever see a profit.

as a rule that is definitely not correct.
heck, take your normal run of the mill crap six deck game and you could expect a profit (albeit a small one) in as little as a shoe or less.

 

[johndoe]

Excuse me but I'm not going to play 1 billion hands in my life time so I could care less about a sim like this.

If you run a sim of only 1000 hands, you'll get very different results each time. The only way to accurately simulate a strategy is over enough hands to suppress this error.

 

[shadroch]

If you run a sim of only 1000 hands, you'll get very different results each time. The only way to accurately simulate a strategy is over enough hands to suppress this error.

So how does one sim a strategy that only calls for playing approx. 1000 hands?

 

[UncrownedKing]

So how does one sim a strategy that only calls for playing approx. 1000 hands?

By simulating 1 billion hands you get 1 million 1000 hand sessions. This is enough sessions to make standard deviation insignificant.

It will show that any progression is a failing system.

 

[itrack]

If you were only planning on playing 1000 hands in your total BJ career, then you are GAMBLING no matter what system you use. The NO for most 6 deck games is usually upwards of 10,000 rounds I believe, so to expect to win in only 1000 hands using ANY system is wishful thinking. Honestly if I thought I was only going to play 1000 hands in my whole life, I would probably use some sort of progression system too, and take the risk of hitting that reallllly bad losing streak before my 1000 hands are up. BUT, since I play 1000 hands a day multiple times per week, I count cards and use other advantageous strategies.

On a 1000 hand weekend, using a progession system may possibly lose more, less, or the exact same amount of money as flatbetting. You really will not have the amount of hands necessary to justify if it's a "powerful system" or not, and you are doing nothing but gambling.

 

[shadroch]

On a 1000 hand weekend, using a progession system may possibly lose more, less, or the exact same amount of money as flatbetting. You really will not have the amount of hands necessary to justify if it's a "powerful system" or not, and you are doing nothing but gambling.[/QUOTE]



My point ,exactly. So why are these guys insisting that you will lose less by flat betting. They can't possibly know this,because it's simply not true. It may be that way, but it may not.Yet they have it inbred into their head that anything except their way is a surefire losing proposition. They immediatly lump anything thats not counting into the same trash can.
I've never called OG a powerful system. I have,however ,used it to great success on a BJ game that you couldn't possibly count cards on. One that reshuffles after every hand.

 

[QFIT]

My point ,exactly. So why are these guys insisting that you will lose less by flat betting. They can't possibly know this,because it's simply not true. It may be that way, but it may not.Yet they have it inbred into their head that anything except their way is a surefire losing proposition. They immediatly lump anything thats not counting into the same trash can.
I've never called OG a powerful system. I have,however ,used it to great success on a BJ game that you couldn't possibly count cards on. One that reshuffles after every hand.

No one said nothing but counting works and no one said not counting is a surefire loser in 1,000 hands. Please don't put words in our mouths.

With 1,000 hands, on average you will lose with a progression and win with counting. Flat-betting the table min will, on average, lose less than a progression system since you will be betting less. This is true with ALL progression systems. That's what we are saying. Progressions do not shift the advantage. Counting does.

 

[shadroch]

I'd suggest you go back to the beginning of this thread where posters make just that claim.

 

[QFIT]

I'd suggest you go back to the beginning of this thread where posters make just that claim.

What claim?