Why don't we just trash BS and start *FRESH*
- Thread starter JStarZid1
- Start date
no offence taken and i wouldn't expect anyone who is proficient and able to perform counting with ease to subscribe to fuzzy counting. but i could never be offended by guys such as yourself and all the others on this forum as it was because of so many here that i've learned so much about blackjack that i wouldn't have come to understand if i'd only read books. :1st:
but anyway in my case the reason for wanting to move over to the fuzzy count approach from the orthodox card counting method stems i believe from age and personality. as you probably already know there have been attempts to make counting more amenable for seniors. some examples:
http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/seniors_card_counting_system_for_weak_vision.htm
http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/more_card_counting_for_vision_impaired_players.htm
well my eyesight isn't the best, but those methods don't really fit my needs either. i can see all of the cards just fine and estimation of the number of decks in the discard tray seems to come naturally to me. infact estimating just about anything seems to be a knack i have. not to brag, just a fact... lol . but my greatest stumbling block when it comes to card counting as a senior citizen is stress. for me the act of counting the RC, keeping the RC in memory is stressful. the more hours i do it, the more it bothers me. it kind of reminds me of stress that i endured at work. calculating the TC doesn't bother me. maintaining the RC does. but what really jerks my chain is after having endured the stress of maintaining the RC for say some ludicrous number of shoes only to not have a decent count present and then finally a decent count does present and then you bet properly and get hit by negative fluctuation. talk about rubbing salt in a wound.... lol.
the fuzzy count approach takes the stress of maintaining the RC off of me.
estimating and guesstimating just comes natural for me. as you say it does seem to open up the amplification of errors. there is certainly at this point in my experimentation with the fuzzy approach much to be desired as to how it is applied. it's for me a work in progress. the best i can do now is just apply as much skill as i can muster as far as my estimations are concerned. i need a better way to recognize when the RC accumulation has breached the interface that marks an increasse in TC. thats a problem no doubt and what i'm doing for now is just trying to use intelligent judgement. one thing that is good though is i've found a way to remmember what TC level that i think i'm at ... lol. and that is just by knowing what bet size i have out. thats very easy for me to remmember ... lol.
with respect to your concerns about the amplification of errors and just errors in general, well i can't disagree with your point. i would point out however that errors that counters make are not necessarily so agrevious as one would naturally tend to expect. the Blackjack Zone by Elliot Jacobson has some interesting comments on that subject.
but anyway in my case the reason for wanting to move over to the fuzzy count approach from the orthodox card counting method stems i believe from age and personality. as you probably already know there have been attempts to make counting more amenable for seniors. some examples:
http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/seniors_card_counting_system_for_weak_vision.htm
http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/more_card_counting_for_vision_impaired_players.htm
well my eyesight isn't the best, but those methods don't really fit my needs either. i can see all of the cards just fine and estimation of the number of decks in the discard tray seems to come naturally to me. infact estimating just about anything seems to be a knack i have. not to brag, just a fact... lol . but my greatest stumbling block when it comes to card counting as a senior citizen is stress. for me the act of counting the RC, keeping the RC in memory is stressful. the more hours i do it, the more it bothers me. it kind of reminds me of stress that i endured at work. calculating the TC doesn't bother me. maintaining the RC does. but what really jerks my chain is after having endured the stress of maintaining the RC for say some ludicrous number of shoes only to not have a decent count present and then finally a decent count does present and then you bet properly and get hit by negative fluctuation. talk about rubbing salt in a wound.... lol.
the fuzzy count approach takes the stress of maintaining the RC off of me.
estimating and guesstimating just comes natural for me. as you say it does seem to open up the amplification of errors. there is certainly at this point in my experimentation with the fuzzy approach much to be desired as to how it is applied. it's for me a work in progress. the best i can do now is just apply as much skill as i can muster as far as my estimations are concerned. i need a better way to recognize when the RC accumulation has breached the interface that marks an increasse in TC. thats a problem no doubt and what i'm doing for now is just trying to use intelligent judgement. one thing that is good though is i've found a way to remmember what TC level that i think i'm at ... lol. and that is just by knowing what bet size i have out. thats very easy for me to remmember ... lol.
with respect to your concerns about the amplification of errors and just errors in general, well i can't disagree with your point. i would point out however that errors that counters make are not necessarily so agrevious as one would naturally tend to expect. the Blackjack Zone by Elliot Jacobson has some interesting comments on that subject.
ill actually read the thread and comment more on it later, but for now let me tell you that this exact thing bothered me for quite some time, despite that fact that i trust it, and it still bothers me a little to this day.. i feel that i want everything proven to me, not just assumed, because we all know that there are books and other such things out there that can be bias, exaggerated, or flat out wrong, so if 5% are wrong, how do you know your reading/learning the 95%?
for instance, the knockout book, where people have proven the sims to be bias, yet when i read the book, it sounded dead on with how they explained how they set up the sims so as not to be bias, so who do i trust? the knockout book, which claims ko is the same as red 7 and hi-lo, and slightly worse than omega 2? or the person(s) who ran new sims that were not bias, and showed omega 2 "knocking out" ko, and showing hi-lo beating ko by a decent amount in single/dd -OR- shoes (i cant remember which)
the reason i used the above example is to prove my next point, which is that sometimes math (or sims that are assumed to be set up and run correctly) can prove wrong things to be right if they are worded or set up correctly (or wrongly?).. in exaggerated terms, think of how easy it would be to convince a ploppy that something worked or didnt work; you could make up so much random math that they would eventually say "ok ok, i believe you", which despite my troubles with math, is something i dont want to do.. so to side with you, i agree, dont be intimidated by math and just "believe", but if you really worked hard and figured it all out yourself, you would come up with the same exact basic strategy.. also, remember this is BASIC strategy, not john johnson's alternative strategy.. put another way, if basic strategy were ever proven wrong, it would turn the world of blackjack upside down (this is ignoring the fact that math itself would be turned upside down)..
you are not the first person to say "wait a minute", but if this bothers you to just "trust it" as it sometimes bothers me, i suggest you ask others how to go about calculating a few basic strategy moves to prove they are right
for instance, the knockout book, where people have proven the sims to be bias, yet when i read the book, it sounded dead on with how they explained how they set up the sims so as not to be bias, so who do i trust? the knockout book, which claims ko is the same as red 7 and hi-lo, and slightly worse than omega 2? or the person(s) who ran new sims that were not bias, and showed omega 2 "knocking out" ko, and showing hi-lo beating ko by a decent amount in single/dd -OR- shoes (i cant remember which)
the reason i used the above example is to prove my next point, which is that sometimes math (or sims that are assumed to be set up and run correctly) can prove wrong things to be right if they are worded or set up correctly (or wrongly?).. in exaggerated terms, think of how easy it would be to convince a ploppy that something worked or didnt work; you could make up so much random math that they would eventually say "ok ok, i believe you", which despite my troubles with math, is something i dont want to do.. so to side with you, i agree, dont be intimidated by math and just "believe", but if you really worked hard and figured it all out yourself, you would come up with the same exact basic strategy.. also, remember this is BASIC strategy, not john johnson's alternative strategy.. put another way, if basic strategy were ever proven wrong, it would turn the world of blackjack upside down (this is ignoring the fact that math itself would be turned upside down)..
you are not the first person to say "wait a minute", but if this bothers you to just "trust it" as it sometimes bothers me, i suggest you ask others how to go about calculating a few basic strategy moves to prove they are right