Why does hi-lo out perform in double decks?

21gunsalute · Jul 30, 2011

tthree said:

Here are sim results based on play all and wonging for the purpose of system comparisons. You all hate anecdotal evidence so here is the real deal.

PLAY ALL:
There are 16 different ranks for play all. I will list the ones I hear mentioned most on the forum and the top ranks.
6 deck, 75% pen, 1 to 16 spread($5 to $80), S17, DAS, DOA, no RSA, no late surrender.
......................................SCORE.................
COUNT/SYSTEM..N0(rank) WIN/100 ..STD DEV
HIOPT II(A-side) 32762(1) $30.52(1) $552.48
Brh-I/Brh-II(tru) 32952(2) $30.35(2) $550.88
AO-II/Halves..... 33088(3) $30.22(3) $549.75
HIOPT II........... 33397(4) $29.94(4) $547.20
Zen................ 35526(10) $28.15(11) $530.55
Halves(x2)...... 35632(11) $28.06(11) $529.76
TKO(true)....... 37939(12) $26.36(12) $513.40
High low......... 40095(15) $24.94(15) $499.41
KO(run).......... 40561(16) $24.65(16) $496.53

BACK COUNTING:
There are 22 different ranks for back counting since it spreads out the counts to have fewer shared ranks. Enter at equivalent of HILO TC +1. Spread 1 to 8. Plays about 27% of the time. Same rules as play all above.

.....................................SCORE..............................
COUNT SYSTEM .N0(Rank) WIN/100 .STD DEV. % played
HIOPT II(A side) 20524(1) $48.72(1) $698.02 24.83%
AO II/Halves..... 20667(2) $48.39(2) $695.60 27.41%
Brh I/Brh II(tru) 20706(3) $48.29(3) $694.94 27.29%
HIOPT II.......... 20945(5) $47.74(5) $690.97 26.25%
Halves(x2)....... 21763(9) $45.95(9) $677.86 27.41%
Zen.............. 21815(11) $45.84(11) $677.05 24.88%
TKO(true)..... 22786(16) $43.89(15) $662.48 27.32%
High low....... 23842(21) $41.94(21) $647.63 26.66%
KO(run)........ 24465(22) $40.88(22) $639.34 26.02%

HILO has it's strengths. It's easy enough for everyone to do. May make multiple tactics easier. And all the other practical arguments may have some validity depending upon your strengths and weaknesses. But I get tired of hearing the lies about it outperforming anything. Running count KO is the only thing it outperforms.

But that's just for 1 set of conditions. Throw in surrender and a higher spread and how do these numbers change? For sake of argument, let's say H17 with surrender and a 1-30 spread. Also, you didn't touch on double deck.

21gunsalute · Jul 30, 2011

kewljason said:

I started side counting Aces too, but I'm not sure what to do with that info. Could someone help me out here? I mean sometimes you have a high positive count but no or few aces left and sometimes there will be a lot of aces left but a negative count. I'm not quite sure how to bet in these situations.

tthree · Jul 30, 2011

21gunsalute said:

I don't believe in spreading much more than 1 to 16. I think it is foolish unless you are playing a crappy game. I don't believe in playing crappy games. H17 changes things when the dealer hits a soft 17. Do you really think counting aces as a high card would be advantageous? It is a 1 giving the dealer 18! The advantage from surrender is PE related. I don't see how that would fall to HILO's advantage. You have to correctly determine the chance of losing the hand. The higher your count correlates to this the more advantage you can pull out from it. HILO loses out at double deck. It is too dependent on PE for HILO to improve. It will probably be a whole lot worse than these sims.It definitely will be worse than these sims. Are so many people here so sim dependent for their understanding of blackjack that they don't know this. All you need is the hand match ups EOR tables and the hand frequency charts and you are pretty well set. Simulations never seem to bring surprises if you do your studying in these 2 sources.

I hope you understand HILO's strength and weaknesses. It's strength is it has a high BC. It's weaknesses are it gives the same weight to all the small cards and it includes aces as a high card in the count but aces have an EOR for various hands that it should be counted with the low card. All player 11, insurance, most soft doubles, all dealer stiffs and splitting AA v A and splitting 22, 33, 44 or 66 v stiff. That is a lot of EOR correlation to give up on these hand match ups. Get your hands dirty in the math of the game and you will see. It is easier to factor aces into an ace neutral count to get high BC than it is to factor aces out of an ace reckoned count to get a higher PE. Zen manages a respectable PE while including aces in the primary count.

Read post 11 in this thread. Understand that correlation is referring to how strongly your count tags correlate to the EOR table for that hand match up. The fewer the decks left to be played the more important this correlation becomes for increase in gain. You play 100 hands with the same difference between TC and index for the index play, the count with the high correlation will show a lot more profit especially as the number of decks to be played gets smaller.

*Here is one for you sim guys. At what bet spread would HILO catch up to Zen. I had to find one with a lower BC to give it a chance to catch up.

21gunsalute · Jul 30, 2011

tthree said:

Sorry I brought it up. It's obvious you have some kind of bias against Hi-lo, especially when you say things like :"It will probably be a whole lot worse than these sims.It definitely will be worse than these sims." Why, because you said so?

And then you didn't sim the conditions I asked about, instead stating: "I don't believe in spreading much more than 1 to 16. I think it is foolish unless you are playing a crappy game." Well I can spread 1-40 at a certain store and it's not a "crappy" game. It doesn't really matter if you believe in spreading more than 1-16 because a lot of us do and it works well for us.

And as far as double deck goes, I've done very well using Hi-Lo, and I believe I've played it enough that it cannot just be a luck factor. So maybe instead of being "a whole lot worse than these sims" it's actually a whole lot better than these sims.

Mathematics and sims are fine, but I think a few of you get way too caught up in them and you may end up winning the battle but losing the war. Just one mans opinion.

Gamblor · Jul 30, 2011

21gunsalute said:

Take these #'s for what its worth, its actually just mostly conjecture, back of envelope calculations and pulling #'s out of my a$$, but I would estimate each Ace adds approximately +1.25% EV and each 10 adds approximately +0.3% EV (could be around 0.4%)

So for example, lets say in a SD game, half the deck is dealt, and the TC is 0. However there are 4 aces remaining, which means there are essentially 4 excess aces per deck. Thus the EV is:

-0.5% (approx. EV of some BJ games, depending on rules of course - I know, single deck EV is usually not this low, but just makes math easier)
-1.2% (0.3% x 4, "4" 10's are out of the deck since TC is 0 and we have "4" excess Aces)
+6.0% (1.25% x 4)
---------
+4.3% (EV of the deck)

Again, just wild speculation on my part

Also these #'s probably do not hold at extreme situations (lets say a bunch of 10's are gone, and a lot of excess aces, EV would probably not be that high since there is less chance to match the Ace with a 10 for a BJ).

tthree · Jul 30, 2011

21gunsalute said:

I never said you couldn't make money using HILO. I simply know At the same BC a higher correlation to EOR for a hand matchup will bring higher returns. It is like the math against progressionists. There is no getting around it. If you have a reason not to put a little more into preparation to win more that is your decision. I just get tired of hearing people say hilo out preforms without the sims to back it up. At what bet spread does HILO outperform ZEN or advanced omega 2? All the others ahead of it have comparable or higher BCs than HILO so these are the ones it has a shot at overcoming with a larger spread.

tthree · Jul 30, 2011

I guess the reason I don't believe in spreading beyond 1 to 16 is a strong counting system will make so much money it will have you banned in no time. It would be foolish for me to do so. The fact that they let you do it should tell you something. The art is to have just big enough of a spread to win within their tolerance level within a short session. When you do that staying off the radar screen is easy.

21gunsalute · Jul 30, 2011

tthree said:

Read Snorky's fist 2 posts. They contradict what you are saying. One person says the sims say one thing and another person says another, apparently because the conditions were different. So I say go with what's easier and more reliable. There's no need to learn a different system for every type of game and condition you're going to be playing on. Side counting aces is something that can be easily managed and employed, but learning several different counting systems for different games is ridiculous, especially when the one size fits all approach works well.

21gunsalute · Jul 30, 2011

tthree said:

Are you saying if you could spread 2x1-40 for hours on end and receive no heat whatsoever you wouldn't do it?

tthree · Jul 30, 2011

21gunsalute said:

Psyduck had similarly confusing issues with CVCX comparing HILO to ZEN and mentor. He finally figured out the indices for these 2 counts in the canned CVCX sims are wrong. He generated his own and put them in and HILO underperformed Zen as should be expected. So for my challenge do not use CVCX sims they don't have the correct indices for Zen.

tthree · Jul 30, 2011

21gunsalute said:

For me the RoR concerns would have me betting a lower spread. Unfortunately my bankroll keeps getting eaten up by cancer treatment and follow up screenings. As well as my latest surgery and the 2 months I will be out of work recovering from surgery. It grows slowly through all this but the profits are substantially used up for all these real life concerns.

21gunsalute · Jul 30, 2011

tthree said:

Sounds like a big time cop out.

But I'm not interested in your challenge anyway. First of all I don't have any software to generate sims with (and as you just pointed out the results may not be reliable, and who is to say which sims are reliable and which are not?). And secondly I'm just not interested in learning a new counting system at this point. This is working well for me, so why cloud my mind with a new system that would no doubt have a rather steep learning curve when the old reliable is working so well?

tthree · Jul 30, 2011

21gunsalute said:

If you have the bankroll for that kind of spread and a casino that will tolerate it who could blame you. The learning curve is not so steep once you burn the spread tolerance out.

tthree · Jul 30, 2011

ASK Psyduck

Psyduck can tell you better than I can but he corrected me as to why his sim results were puzzling. He said it was that the canned CVCX indices for zen and mentor are wrong. When he put in the correct indices it fixed the problem and he got results he didn't find confusing.

psyduck · Jul 30, 2011

tthree said:

I never said I use CVCX.

I did generate my own indices for systems I wanted to compare because some indices included were not accurate. It was clear that level 2 systems showed higher PE (under flat betting) than HILO. The amount of gain depends on the game rules. There is no question about the gain, but it is up to the individual HILO player to decide if it is worth learning a new system (different tag values and indices).

tthree · Jul 30, 2011

psyduck said:

Before I posted this I searched your posts to be sure. In the thread "An engineer who uses HILO" post 48 your sim says call CVCX at the bottom. OH crap that is a quote that you are quoting from Fwb. What simulator did you use that has the wrong indices?

psyduck · Jul 30, 2011

tthree said:

I like to keep that to myself to avoid the impression that I either discredit or promote anything.

tthree · Jul 30, 2011

Fair enough but now we have to be suspiscious of all Zen and mentor sims except maybe CVCX which you were quoting in post 48 of previously mentioned thread.

zengrifter · Jul 30, 2011

tthree said:

Some apparent confusion here - a larger spread = lower RoR, not higher.
The common confusion is that spread is properly calc'd from the topBet down.

Example -

6D 5 -100
2D 10 - 100
1D 25 - 100

tthree · Jul 31, 2011

zengrifter said:

No confusion. Small bankroll means you can only spread up to increase spread.

Why does hi-lo out perform in double decks?

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