Here are all the comments posted on the site, with the most recent discussions listed first.
To participate in any of these discussions, you can reply on the article page.
Ken or some admin !! !please i really need some help here.i try to canculate the bj game that i play so PLEASE when a player can surrender against any card the dealer has except an ace and surrender can be made when no card is delt to the players is this an EARLY or a LATE surrender option.also please the penetration percent is something that changes the avantage or disavntage of the player?i know that poor penetration generates poor and more rare high counts but what about when we try to canculate the adge of the casino
The difference between early and late surrender is what happens when the dealer has blackjack. If you can avoid a dealer blackjack by surrendering, it’s early surrender. In most no-hole-card games (based on your last question I assume this applies to you), what is offered is early surrender, but no surrender is allowed against a dealer ace. But you can indeed surrender against a dealer ten even if the dealer eventually ends up with blackjack.
Penetration affects card counters, but not basic strategy players. The edge of the casino is traditionally calculated using basic strategy, so penetration doesn’t affect this calculation. To figure the edge on your game, since the Strategy Engine doesn’t have an option for ‘Early surrender, but not against Ace’, I recommend you choose ‘No Surrender’ instead. Then reduce the house edge it reports by 0.24%, which is the value of ES10.
Thanks alot ken for your time to answer to my posts abouts the surrender.
after some months now i understand that to beat the game you need to play as much hands/hours most you can because you just exchange money between u and the dealer while playing and as long as you have the small edge you keep some money (edge/profit)of this exchange.its the opossite that the casino makes to the regural player.and we need enough money/units to stay alive in this exhange during the up and downs(standard daviation) to our profit
Ken hello again !!its me your midnight fan …????????????????
You have opened my eyes for good so one more question 4 you sir !!
In a 6d s17 das bj3.2 double on any 2 cards we need the bet spreads why?
to over come the losses through the negative counts?and if i have to play under tc -1i need that bet spreads more than i would need them if i wong out at 0tc ?or the spreads are the one that creates the edge 4 the player?and if instead of spreading 1/12 at my casino i spread only 1/3 i suppose that my r.o.r its going to be alot lower but what about my e.v?i try to understand the importance of the spread and in a typical game what the affect in the same game rules with 1/12 spread and 1/3.if i wong in only at tc+2 with flat ber of 5 dollars i generate like this 0.5 edge×5 dollars =2.5 this is 0.25cents ? Is there a ror /bankroll/spread mathematic formula or i need cvcx?
Ken i have a question. I ceep track of the running count each hand and in the end i find the real count. The next hand i add my running count to the real count and than devide ??? plz anser cuzz i am lost at this part
Just carry the running count forward hand after hand. Convert it to a true count to make betting and playing decisions, but the running count just continues on. If I have two decks left and a running count of +8, I would use the true count of +4 to decide what to bet. Then as the next hand is dealt, I’m still adding or subtracting from my running count of +8.
Great forum for once again.in the top of this page i see that in 90 hours the money goes from plus 2.500 to minus 1175.
Here is my guestion ….. is it possible the bad variance to win the maths and general to loose slowly slowly your bank roll entire?or the spread the correct count are suppurior than all the bad luck of the world.i cant imagine a player loosing 4000 dollars in a 3hours sessions slowly and in the end to fight with his last 1000.
Before some times you had told me that in the cards dont have memory who r u or how much u loose !!and u also told me that in the end things general meaning doesnt have to come even so a player take back his money.
Of course all these i am thinking maybe its just voodoo fear since cardcounting its a profitball art
I know what i see ken ?? A very nice humble experience pro who has the abillity to pass his knowledge very good to us.i feel the need to thank u again for all this treasure of knowledge that u shared with us.i would suggest to make a page at the facebook believe me u will have a lot of admires.
I’m am very glad I found your article. I’ve tried many times to explain this point to players and it’s exactly like arguing religion. Once you bring facts into the debate they shut down (please don’t be offered I don’t mean to insult anyone’s faith). What this all boils down to is if you want to live by hindsight, would offs and could ofs, your going to have a very miserable life.
Ken, I have a set of your cards and have CVBJ and a copy of Wong’s Professional Blackjack and when I compare all three using the same set of rules I get different indexes, (granted only off by one true count here and there) how do I decide which index is best ?
I spent a lot of time on my index numbers, and CVBJ was the tool I used. Indexes are affected by nearly every possible detail of the game, so slightly different assumptions will yield slightly different answers. And then there’s the fact that indexes affect each other. If you use your best current indexes to run a new set of indexes, the numbers may change slightly. I used this kind of iterative approach over and over again to have my indexes converge to what I think were the best values.
The good news is that a difference of a point here or there is very insignificant. But if you wanted perfect indexes, you could use CVBJ making absolutely sure every setting mirrors the games you are playing. Then generate a new strategy from those numbers, and generate the indexes again. And again, and again.
The simple answer of which index is the best is likely the ones on my card, unless your conditions are widely different from my assumptions. I would trust those, or indexes you generate yourself over the aging Wong indexes. A lot has been learned over the years since Wong did his work.
Ken,
I’m having trouble understanding the chart of standard deviation/ expected win. I am not sure if I’m getting this right. So after 3 hours of play, 68% of the time you will be either making $191 or losing $147, and 95% of the time making $360 and losing $316. I am not sure if this means that during the game, your net result can vary from 360 to -316, 95% of the time (ending with a profit of 22.5$) OR that after you finish a game you could either be at +360 or -316. So if you play 150 hands (3 hours with 50 hands each) and that there is a chance you could either be at +360 or -316, then there would not be a point in card counting since the advantage by counting cards is negligible as shown by this chart. Would you please help me understand what I’m missing or getting wrong ?
As the lesson describes, these numbers are the range of expected outcomes. 68% of the time, your result after 3 hours will lie somewhere between a loss of $147 and a win of $191. Let’s look at the 2-standard-deviation 95% range: somewhere between losing $316 and winning $360. In other words, if you played 20 three-hour sessions, then in 19 out of 20 of those sessions you would expect to fall somewhere in that range for that individual session. Even then, one time in the twenty sessions, you could expect to have more extreme luck, either good or bad. For that sessions, you would either lose MORE than $316, or win MORE than $360.
Of course, I must point out that even here, you can’t think in terms of exact outcomes. These are long-term averages. If you actually played 20 sessions, you may have no sessions that fall outside the 95% range, or you could have two or three sessions that do so.
As for the usefulness of counting, yes, the edge is small. In this case, the expected win is $22.50 for the three hour session. If you play a LOT of three-hour sessions with these criteria, your average win will be $22.50. But as the standard deviation numbers show, it won’t be a smooth ride. Sometimes you’ll win $300, sometimes you’ll lose $300. But notice that the ranges are shifted a bit, so that the highest expected wins are slightly bigger than the worst expected losses. Card counting is a long and bumpy ride, and the profits take time to overcome the luck factor.
Ken, Lets say I made a betting schedule for a particular game and rule set that I want to play. During the game the count goes high and stays high, I am losing big bet after big bet, variance is killing me, should I back off my high bets? stay and stick to my betting ramp? or just leave and start over at a new table?
Visit https://www.blackjacktournaments.com/tournaments/ and click “Edit Search Settings”.
Put “MS,LA” in for state, to restrict listings to just Mississippi and Louisiana. Set the dates as you would like, and click Search.
Ken or some admin !! !please i really need some help here.i try to canculate the bj game that i play so PLEASE when a player can surrender against any card the dealer has except an ace and surrender can be made when no card is delt to the players is this an EARLY or a LATE surrender option.also please the penetration percent is something that changes the avantage or disavntage of the player?i know that poor penetration generates poor and more rare high counts but what about when we try to canculate the adge of the casino
The difference between early and late surrender is what happens when the dealer has blackjack. If you can avoid a dealer blackjack by surrendering, it’s early surrender. In most no-hole-card games (based on your last question I assume this applies to you), what is offered is early surrender, but no surrender is allowed against a dealer ace. But you can indeed surrender against a dealer ten even if the dealer eventually ends up with blackjack.
Penetration affects card counters, but not basic strategy players. The edge of the casino is traditionally calculated using basic strategy, so penetration doesn’t affect this calculation. To figure the edge on your game, since the Strategy Engine doesn’t have an option for ‘Early surrender, but not against Ace’, I recommend you choose ‘No Surrender’ instead. Then reduce the house edge it reports by 0.24%, which is the value of ES10.
Read Stanford Wong’d book on Casino Tournaments.
Thanks alot ken for your time to answer to my posts abouts the surrender.
after some months now i understand that to beat the game you need to play as much hands/hours most you can because you just exchange money between u and the dealer while playing and as long as you have the small edge you keep some money (edge/profit)of this exchange.its the opossite that the casino makes to the regural player.and we need enough money/units to stay alive in this exhange during the up and downs(standard daviation) to our profit
Ken hello again !!its me your midnight fan …????????????????
You have opened my eyes for good so one more question 4 you sir !!
In a 6d s17 das bj3.2 double on any 2 cards we need the bet spreads why?
to over come the losses through the negative counts?and if i have to play under tc -1i need that bet spreads more than i would need them if i wong out at 0tc ?or the spreads are the one that creates the edge 4 the player?and if instead of spreading 1/12 at my casino i spread only 1/3 i suppose that my r.o.r its going to be alot lower but what about my e.v?i try to understand the importance of the spread and in a typical game what the affect in the same game rules with 1/12 spread and 1/3.if i wong in only at tc+2 with flat ber of 5 dollars i generate like this 0.5 edge×5 dollars =2.5 this is 0.25cents ? Is there a ror /bankroll/spread mathematic formula or i need cvcx?
Ken i have a question. I ceep track of the running count each hand and in the end i find the real count. The next hand i add my running count to the real count and than devide ??? plz anser cuzz i am lost at this part
Just carry the running count forward hand after hand. Convert it to a true count to make betting and playing decisions, but the running count just continues on. If I have two decks left and a running count of +8, I would use the true count of +4 to decide what to bet. Then as the next hand is dealt, I’m still adding or subtracting from my running count of +8.
Here i am again ken!!! ?
Great forum for once again.in the top of this page i see that in 90 hours the money goes from plus 2.500 to minus 1175.
Here is my guestion ….. is it possible the bad variance to win the maths and general to loose slowly slowly your bank roll entire?or the spread the correct count are suppurior than all the bad luck of the world.i cant imagine a player loosing 4000 dollars in a 3hours sessions slowly and in the end to fight with his last 1000.
Before some times you had told me that in the cards dont have memory who r u or how much u loose !!and u also told me that in the end things general meaning doesnt have to come even so a player take back his money.
Of course all these i am thinking maybe its just voodoo fear since cardcounting its a profitball art
I know what i see ken ?? A very nice humble experience pro who has the abillity to pass his knowledge very good to us.i feel the need to thank u again for all this treasure of knowledge that u shared with us.i would suggest to make a page at the facebook believe me u will have a lot of admires.
I’m am very glad I found your article. I’ve tried many times to explain this point to players and it’s exactly like arguing religion. Once you bring facts into the debate they shut down (please don’t be offered I don’t mean to insult anyone’s faith). What this all boils down to is if you want to live by hindsight, would offs and could ofs, your going to have a very miserable life.
Ken, I have a set of your cards and have CVBJ and a copy of Wong’s Professional Blackjack and when I compare all three using the same set of rules I get different indexes, (granted only off by one true count here and there) how do I decide which index is best ?
I spent a lot of time on my index numbers, and CVBJ was the tool I used. Indexes are affected by nearly every possible detail of the game, so slightly different assumptions will yield slightly different answers. And then there’s the fact that indexes affect each other. If you use your best current indexes to run a new set of indexes, the numbers may change slightly. I used this kind of iterative approach over and over again to have my indexes converge to what I think were the best values.
The good news is that a difference of a point here or there is very insignificant. But if you wanted perfect indexes, you could use CVBJ making absolutely sure every setting mirrors the games you are playing. Then generate a new strategy from those numbers, and generate the indexes again. And again, and again.
The simple answer of which index is the best is likely the ones on my card, unless your conditions are widely different from my assumptions. I would trust those, or indexes you generate yourself over the aging Wong indexes. A lot has been learned over the years since Wong did his work.
Thanks, great answer, I am now very comfortable to continuing memorizing and using the indexes from you cards.
Ken,
I’m having trouble understanding the chart of standard deviation/ expected win. I am not sure if I’m getting this right. So after 3 hours of play, 68% of the time you will be either making $191 or losing $147, and 95% of the time making $360 and losing $316. I am not sure if this means that during the game, your net result can vary from 360 to -316, 95% of the time (ending with a profit of 22.5$) OR that after you finish a game you could either be at +360 or -316. So if you play 150 hands (3 hours with 50 hands each) and that there is a chance you could either be at +360 or -316, then there would not be a point in card counting since the advantage by counting cards is negligible as shown by this chart. Would you please help me understand what I’m missing or getting wrong ?
-Regards.
As the lesson describes, these numbers are the range of expected outcomes. 68% of the time, your result after 3 hours will lie somewhere between a loss of $147 and a win of $191. Let’s look at the 2-standard-deviation 95% range: somewhere between losing $316 and winning $360. In other words, if you played 20 three-hour sessions, then in 19 out of 20 of those sessions you would expect to fall somewhere in that range for that individual session. Even then, one time in the twenty sessions, you could expect to have more extreme luck, either good or bad. For that sessions, you would either lose MORE than $316, or win MORE than $360.
Of course, I must point out that even here, you can’t think in terms of exact outcomes. These are long-term averages. If you actually played 20 sessions, you may have no sessions that fall outside the 95% range, or you could have two or three sessions that do so.
As for the usefulness of counting, yes, the edge is small. In this case, the expected win is $22.50 for the three hour session. If you play a LOT of three-hour sessions with these criteria, your average win will be $22.50. But as the standard deviation numbers show, it won’t be a smooth ride. Sometimes you’ll win $300, sometimes you’ll lose $300. But notice that the ranges are shifted a bit, so that the highest expected wins are slightly bigger than the worst expected losses. Card counting is a long and bumpy ride, and the profits take time to overcome the luck factor.
Ken, Lets say I made a betting schedule for a particular game and rule set that I want to play. During the game the count goes high and stays high, I am losing big bet after big bet, variance is killing me, should I back off my high bets? stay and stick to my betting ramp? or just leave and start over at a new table?
Visit https://www.blackjacktournaments.com/tournaments/ and click “Edit Search Settings”.
Put “MS,LA” in for state, to restrict listings to just Mississippi and Louisiana. Set the dates as you would like, and click Search.
Where can I find a listing of blackjack tournament on the gulf coast
Thanks 4 your answer !!!
Excelent answer thanks alot