Question About EV

After approx 194 hrs. of play (approx. 10,000 hands), I've made about $3k playing against mostly (85% of the time) 8D shoes w/ 75-80% penetration. My average bet is about $45 and my bet spread is about 1-8. Could somebody please tell me how much, all things considered, I should have made by now under these conditions, assuming I'm counting and betting perfectly?

Thanks,
wvbjplayer

I should add that, the other 15% of the time, I played against 6D shoes.

That's a mighty low spread for 8 decks. Assuming HiLo, Sweet 16 indexes, 8 decks, S17, DAS, and optimal betting, you should have made a bit under $2,000 which makes you .16 standard deviations above the mean with a 44% chance of getting $3K or better.

wvbjplayer said:

After approx 194 hrs. of play (approx. 10,000 hands), I've made about $3k playing against mostly (85% of the time) 8D shoes w/ 75-80% penetration. My average bet is about $45 and my bet spread is about 1-8. Could somebody please tell me how much, all things considered, I should have made by now under these conditions, assuming I'm counting and betting perfectly?

Thanks,
wvbjplayer

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Are you wonging out all negative counts? Better yet only playing positive counts?
BW

QFIT said:

That's a mighty low spread for 8 decks. Assuming HiLo, Sweet 16 indexes, 8 decks, S17, DAS, and optimal betting, you should have made a bit under $2,000 which makes you .16 standard deviations above the mean with a 44% chance of getting $3K or better.

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Thanks. What do you think my spread should be? 1-10? 1-12?

Brock Windsor said:

Are you wonging out all negative counts? Better yet only playing positive counts?
BW

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No. I play through negative counts w/ minimum (or near min.) bets. Undesirable, I realize, but the place where I play has too few tables and too many players to make wonging feasible. Also, w/ 8D shoes and automatic shufflers, there are far too few good counts (say, > +5) to allow anyone other than a full-time pro the luxury of waiting around for them. I'm def not a pro; bj is a just a hobby for me, one I hope will remain relatively lucrative.

wvbjplayer

wvbjplayer said:

Thanks. What do you think my spread should be? 1-10? 1-12?

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No less than 1-15. 1-20 is better for 8 deck.

Under these circumstances, your expected value is $4,500 with an SD of $4,950. That means that your winning could have varied between ($450) and $9,450. $3,000 is in this range so it's pretty good. Keep it up.

SERO

wvbjplayer said:

After approx 194 hrs. of play (approx. 10,000 hands), I've made about $3k playing against mostly (85% of the time) 8D shoes w/ 75-80% penetration. My average bet is about $45 and my bet spread is about 1-8. Could somebody please tell me how much, all things considered, I should have made by now under these conditions, assuming I'm counting and betting perfectly?

Thanks,
wvbjplayer

Click to expand...

Sero said:

Under these circumstances, your expected value is $4,500 with an SD of $4,950. That means that your winning could have varied between ($450) and $9,450. $3,000 is in this range so it's pretty good. Keep it up.

SERO

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I don't think so. He is not playing with a %1 advantage if he is playing all at a 1-8 spread in 8deck. Probably more like 0.5% advantage or less.
BW

I wuz just gonna post the same thing...

There's no way in hell this guy had more than a half percent edge. I mean no offense. I have simulation software. When I straight-up count down a shoe game without surrender, I use Halves with perfect play from -1 to +6 and a 1-20 bet spread. My AIB is $55 and so is my Win Rate/100. My edge is like 0.98% at these games. And notice, I wong out at -1. Without surrender, you my friend, may not even have an edge.

As a consolation to you, I'll run your simulation but you have to tell me all the following factors:
8-deck?
dealt to 104 cards remaining?
dealer stands on soft 17?
bj pays 15:10?
insurance offered?
check hole card under 10,A?
on dealer bjs, player loses one bet--max?
ties break-even, except loses with 22-26?
resplit to make three hands?
resplit aces not allowed?
each ace takes one card only?
okay to split unlike tens, like J-Q?
surrender not allowed?
double any two-card hand, including after splitting?
Hi-Lo?
use counts from -10 to +10 for playing decisions?
bet $10 through all counts except 20@+1, 40@+2, 80@+3?

I'LL RUN THIS NOW. TELL ME IF I SHOULD HAVE CHANGED ANYTHING.

EyeHeartHalves said:

There's no way in hell this guy had more than a half percent edge. I mean no offense. I have simulation software. When I straight-up count down a shoe game without surrender, I use Halves with perfect play from -1 to +6 and a 1-20 bet spread. My AIB is $55 and so is my Win Rate/100. My edge is like 0.98% at these games. And notice, I wong out at -1. Without surrender, you my friend, may not even have an edge.

As a consolation to you, I'll run your simulation but you have to tell me all the following factors:
8-deck?
dealt to 104 cards remaining?
dealer stands on soft 17?
bj pays 15:10?
insurance offered?
check hole card under 10,A?
on dealer bjs, player loses one bet--max?
ties break-even, except loses with 22-26?
resplit to make three hands?
resplit aces not allowed?
each ace takes one card only?
okay to split unlike tens, like J-Q?
surrender not allowed?
double any two-card hand, including after splitting?
Hi-Lo?
use counts from -10 to +10 for playing decisions?
bet $10 through all counts except 20@+1, 40@+2, 80@+3?

I'LL RUN THIS NOW. TELL ME IF I SHOULD HAVE CHANGED ANYTHING.

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All correct, except I bet $15 at <0, $20 at 0, $25 at 1, $35 at 2-3, $45 at 4, $60 at 5, $80 at 6, $100 at 7-8, $120 at 9, and $160 at 10+. Also, I'll occasionally bet $200 at a count of greater than 15.

wvbjplayer

Well, first off...

It (George) is saying that your avg. initial bet (AIB) would be $17.50 if you play through all counts at "Double-Red-Chip." If you were betting from 25 to $200, your AIB would indeed be about $45.

Okay, I have to re-start the sim.

Plus, the wife is coming home soon so I may be quite a few minutes.

It says...

Your AIB is $21
There was a 12.5% chance of being up $3,000 after 10,000 hands.
After about 5 million hands, George is saying that you reduced the House edge to about 0.2% against you. It says you were expected to lose about $4 per 100 hands or approximately $400 (negative) overall.

Also of note, your "risk-of-ruin" equals 100%.

I'm sorry for the bad news buddy but dems-da-facts!

Here's a perscription for...

Professional Blackjack by Stanford Wong and you also have perscription to use a bet spread that more closely resembles the one that I suggested as opposed to the one that you were using.

EyeHeartHalves said:

Your AIB is $21
There was a 12.5% chance of being up $3,000 after 10,000 hands.
After about 5 million hands, George is saying that you reduced the House edge to about 0.2% against you. It says you were expected to lose about $4 per 100 hands or approximately $400 (negative) overall.

Also of note, your "risk-of-ruin" equals 100%.

I'm sorry for the bad news buddy but dems-da-facts!

Click to expand...

How could you know what my AIB is w/out knowing how many of each type of count I've played in over the past 194 hrs.? I keep careful track of these things, and I'm telling you my AIB is approx $45 (or, at least, certainly much higher than $21).


Also, how could an ROR ever be fully 100%? And ROR relative to what benchmark? $5k? $10k? It's always relative to some amount you're trying to win.

Thanks for running those numbers, though.

wvbjplayer

wvbjplayer said:

How could you know what my AIB is w/out knowing how many of each type of count I've played in over the past 194 hrs.? I keep careful track of these things, and I'm telling you my AIB is approx $45 (or, at least, certainly much higher than $21).

Also, how could an ROR ever be fully 100%? And ROR relative to what benchmark? $5k? $10k? It's always relative to some amount you're trying to win.

Thanks for running those numbers, though.

wvbjplayer

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Hey welcome back wvbjplayer. Glad you're winning some money.

Drop in again when you've wagered another $450,000 or so, maybe only $210,000, well still maybe somewhere in that range, playing 2 different games, each to 2 different pens (75%-80%) spreading 1-8 or sometimes 1-13ish in those pesky TC+15 counts, likely playing to a lifetime 100% ROR and ask what your EV is. Don't even give a single thought to actually knowing or maybe having a somewhat reasonable idea of it, all by your lonesome.

How come you don't know what your AIB is since you know how much you bet at each type of count at each type of game over the last 194 hours since you keep such careful track of such things? Was your AIB the same in the 6D game as the 8D game? What did you win in each?

You should thank him for running those numbers for you. He defined everything for a particular game betting in a particular way for you in detail. If you bet that way in that game, believe it or not, that's it.

What makes you think your AIB is $45? I mean, approximately $45? I mean certainly higher than $21?

Even a flat-betting BS player, playing at a neg EV, while having a lifetime ROR of 100%, has a chance of winning whatever in a finite number of hands that's less than 100% of losing his entire roll over those hands.

Is this your way of letting us know you've won $3000 and u da bomb? U think we're gonna just say just keep doing what you're doing and your recreational hobby is gonna win you $15/hr whenever you have an hour or two to spare?

Simply put, consider investing in even a free sim, doesn't really cost that much, and see for yourself what to expect from a game and ramp. Heck, go crazy, and waste 2, that's two, AIB's before your next 10,000 hands and 194 hours go by. Maybe you'll find it's worth knowing exactly what's going on after 19,998 hands and 398 hours compared to knowing jack after 20,000 hands.

Doesn't sound like it, I know, but luv ya buddy PM me if u feel like it and we'll work on this stuff so you can see where EyeHeartHalves is coming from.

I don't mean to be mean.

But I also don't want you to think that you had a long-term edge. Ken Uston equated the long-term with 10K hands but he mostly played single and DD so he wasn't too far off.

Your AIB was the "simulated" AIB. It was the first number that George spit at me. It always is because it only takes about 1M hands for a reliable statistic. That said, your AIB could have indeed been exactly $45 after only 10K hands. BY THE WAY, THIS ALL ASSUMES HI-LO COUNTING SYSTEM AS ONE OF THE VERY IMPORTANT PARAMETERS OF THIS EXPERIMENT. IF YOU WERE REALLY QUOTING ME NUMBERS FOR A UNBALANCED SYSTEM LIKE A LOT OF THE GUYS ON THIS SITE USE, YOU MAY HAVE BEEN PLAYING AT POSITIVE EV.

I will apologize about my impatience with the experiment. I only quoted you statistics after 5M hands. The sim actually ran all the way through my Battlestar Galactica episode to 120M hands. At 5M, the "standard error" was 50 cents. This is information I left out because I was very confident that the final result would not be more than 8 SE's off in either direction. After 120M hands, George said your Win Rate/100 hands was -$2.69 with an SE (+/-) of $0.04. Therefore, I stand corrected. You were only expected to lose between $250 and $300 with those exact parameters. (Not $400).

However, your RoR would not have changed. A loose definition of RoR for this experiment is, "The likelihood of losing a stated amount of units (bankroll) if this game was played for eternity." Well, as long as the expectation was negative, which it was, the size of any finite BR would not matter. The RoR would always be 100% according to that definition. A kind of just meant that as a joke.

-sorry

wvbjplayer said:

No. I play through negative counts w/ minimum (or near min.) bets. Undesirable, I realize, but the place where I play has too few tables and too many players to make wonging feasible.

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Wonging OUT is always feasible - a pretend cell call, bathroom breaks, etc.

Wonging out makes a 1-10 spread feasible. With no wong-out you need 20-1 or more, and its still not as good as the 1-10 wong-out.

If you use a basic 1-12 spread and you can bet only every other hand In neg-counts, your effective spread is 1-24. But even with that tactic its always better to bet ZERO in neg counts.

There are ABANDONMENT counts where there is no use to play the rest of the shoe. For example, if 4D remain and the TC is -3, you can either move to a freshly shuffled table -or- go to a cell or restroom and return at the end. zg

QFIT said:

That's a mighty low spread for 8 decks. Assuming HiLo, Sweet 16 indexes, 8 decks, S17, DAS, and optimal betting, you should have made a bit under $2,000 which makes you .16 standard deviations above the mean with a 44% chance of getting $3K or better.

Click to expand...

These figures were based on a two billion round sim with four players.