Does anyone run as bad as me?

[Gamblor]

OP I would suggest if you have an AP friend, have them tag along with you and analyze your game.

 

[BJLFS]

Throwaway,

I've had those streaks too. Got to the point where I was afraid to DD an 11 against a dealer's 6! It's not happening as much anymore but it could just be positive variance; but I think my game is getting better to. Anyways it looks like I am going to LV next Saturday to attend a BJ seminar. A couple of pros are giving it they are also going to evaluate the attendies game to. Most likely they will find something in my game to correct.

 

[cents_20]

Today is a terrible day to also

I am prasticing BJ on compuer game because i am new
with BS,HiLo,Fab4 and I18,1-15 speards,-0.4 house edge
I started this game last week with 5000 bankroll
and yesterday i made it up to 9500,i changed the speard in 8000
from12 speaeds to 15 speards

Today I start playing on 9200 and I keep losing
I keep playing in 7 hours and it went to 4900
I am so confused one day will lose all your profit
I checked the stats is not usual,I was avernge on a 45% winning
but today the avenge is 38%
I cant remember I got a BJ while I bet more then TC+2
I am pretty sure I doing it alright(not advanced I know)
because I thought my TC counting got problems but I turn on the cheat
which tells me decks remaining,and double make the betting speard,iam still keep losing
I doubth the game cheated but whats the point of doing that to me,thts not a money gambling!!!!!

Things happened today make me confuse about card counting,if someday I thought I am good enough to try real stuff,and this day come again,what can I do with it?would I spening all my entire life time keep chasing the original BR ,like the things happened in the stock market to me????:sad:

I liked BJ in long time ago even I dunno what is BS ,I want to spend time on it and keep this hobby,but I am sad and confused:sad::sad::sad:

 

[paddywhack]

...I am sad and confused:sad::sad::sad:

Reading this, I am too

 

[21gunsalute]

Reading this, I am too

I believe that is a drunken, Pig-Latin dialect.

 

[Gamblor]

I believe that is a drunken, Pig-Latin dialect.

I am thinking true. I am confused and sad this

 

[aslan]

Like the rest of you, the only things I could think of were mistakes, variance and cheating. My gut is that mistakes and cheating are not it.

Mistakes would have to be so systemic that the counter is frequently thinking he is in positive counts when he is really in negative counts. Throwaway does not strike me as that careless or novice.

Cheating is something I know existed in yesteryear, but I believe it is rarely seen today. If major casinos were cheating, you would think that at least one story would come to light. Whoever asked, "Do you always play the same casino," and "Do you play at an Indian casino," was on the right track to eliminating cheating as the cause. Also, a small casino might be more tempted to cheat than a major enterprise.

What I really think is that it is extreme variance. It's rare, but not impossible. I know that my own losses in positive counts tend to be larger than my wins in positive counts. I don't think it is anything I am doing wrong, it just has happened that way.

Since we have the advantage in plus counts, I would think that our wins should be larger than our losses, and I am always hoping to see that first monster win in a positive count. But I am not sure about this. Maybe Fred or someone can answer it. I have two questions: In positive counts only: (1) should our winning sessions on average be larger that our losing sessions; and/or (2) should we have more winning sessions on average than losing sessions. Intuition says, "Both", but I know better than to trust intuition. I personally have experienced a greater "number" of winning sessions than "larger" winning sessions; as I said before, my losing sessions tend to be larger than my winning sessions.

 

[The Chaperone]

It's definitely possible to lose that much even when you are playing fine. FWIW 400 hours is kind of the range where the worst runs seem to bottom out. Once you get into the thousands of hours, you start to approach the long run. Even though you may still be way below EV, you at least are very unlikely to be down after thousands of hours as your EV simply begins to outweigh the variance. All this being said, you should definitely have your game evaluated. If you won a lot for years prior to this, maybe I wouldn't worry so much, but I'm guessing you wouldn't have started this thread if that was the case. Let's put it this way, if I had a run like this, I wouldn't worry about it. But if some random poster says they have a run like this, the probability of them just not being any good vs. being very unlucky is a very real possibility. The difference with me is I have played for a long time and won a lot over the years.

Lastly, I think kewljason's advice in this thread is poor. I don't think he's ever had a truly bad losing streak. But once he does, I'm sure we will all hear about it

 

[BJgenius007]

Like the rest of you, the only things I could think of were mistakes, variance and cheating. My gut is that mistakes and cheating are not it.

It is almost statistically impossible. So that leads to

1. The poster is a troll.
2. Unenclosed serious play flaw.
3. Divine intervention. The big guy just want you to learn a lesson unknown to us.

 

[tthree]

It is almost statistically impossible. So that leads to

1. The poster is a troll.
2. Unenclosed serious play flaw.
3. Divine intervention. The big guy just want you to learn a lesson unknown to us.

As for option 3 it doesnt necessarily have to be you that the lesson is intended for. I have faith in the master plan. Most of the time it is fairly clear why things happen. Sometimes it takes looking back retrospectively several years down the road to see why something happened the way it did. Sometimes your misfortune was necessary to reach a sheep that has strayed and light the way back to the fold or add a new sheep to the flock. Read the book of Job(the oldest book of the bible and kind of humorous), who are we to fathom the complexity of Gods plan. Kind of went on an aside there. Back to the thread topic.

 

[aslan]

As for option 3 it doesnt necessarily have to be you that the lesson is intended for. I have faith in the master plan. Most of the time it is fairly clear why things happen. Sometimes it takes looking back retrospectively several years down the road to see why something happened the way it did. Sometimes your misfortune was necessary to reach a sheep that has strayed and light the way back to the fold or add a new sheep to the flock. Read the book of Job(the oldest book of the bible and kind of humorous), who are we to fathom the complexity of Gods plan. Kind of went on an aside there. Back to the thread topic.

Option #3 seems to reinstate the discarded statistical long shot. If #3 is true, that would likely be accomplished by the Intelligent One seeing to it that the OP was in the right place at the right time to receive the right er--- ummm-- instruction. Seems perfectly consistent with most religious doctrines to me, and without upsetting the "laws" of statistics. Hmmmmm! Uh.. back to the thread topic!

 

[aslan]

It is almost statistically impossible. So that leads to

1. The poster is a troll.
2. Unenclosed serious play flaw.
3. Divine intervention. The big guy just want you to learn a lesson unknown to us.

Trollship denied. He knows too much about a certain game. Plus, read all his other posts. Trolls are never this much fun.

Undisclosed serious play flaw-- a systemic error in counting would be about the only thing-- so we are to believe that this experienced player always loses the count-- no-- or that his methodology for determining TC is so botched up that he only thinks he is in positive territory-- hard to imagine-- either of these have escaped his own careful scrutiny. But I guess anything is possible.

Divine intervention-- probably off limits for any scientific discussion, but I highly doubt that the Almighty would suspend the laws of nature for the sole purpose of guiding a blackjack player toward a higher road of endeavor. Besides, wouldn't it be easier for Him with His ability to see the future to arrange that said pupil be in the right place at the right time when that unlikely natural event was to take place? Hence, variance, although a near impossibility, seems to be the likely culprit here, perhaps augmented by a little (or a lot of) steamboat behavior (I know he denied it-- who wants to admit it?) to exacerbate the dollar swing (no accusations, just offering the possibility without impugning anyone's anonymous reputation, at least, for anything more than being a normal human being).

 

[Gamblor]

Personally I don't think the long run is as long as some think. I don't wait around excitedly waiting to win the lottery, or worry too much about getting hit by lightning. If they do happen, one usually cancels out the other.

 

[Renzey]

Personally I don't think the long run is as long as some think.

Run a sim and stop it every 100,000 hands (1000 assumed hours of play) to check its progress. You will see some startling variances.
I've often wondered whether simulators actually do generate their hands one independent hand at a time, rather than in some large number bunches for speed purposes.

 

[Gamblor]

Run a sim and stop it every 100,000 hands (1000 assumed hours of play) to check its progress. You will see some startling variances.
I've often wondered whether simulators actually do generate their hands one independent hand at a time, rather than in some large number bunches for speed purposes.

Yes certainly this is true.

But on the other hand we get a little too caught up with extreme variance. Most of the times large numbers are quite boring. Look at a roulette display, most of the time its just randomly distributed black and red numbers. Or the columns indicate Column 1 came up around 33%, column 2 another 33%, column 3 around 33% time (and the sample size on this is usually only 100).

Pollsters of course sample only hundreds of people at most to estimate the opinions of millions, and they do a reasonably good job at predicting elections (rarely are they off by, lets say 30%).

Heck if we take concerns about extreme variance too far, we would have to say Babe Ruth was not a great hitter. Lets say he had 500 ABs for 12 years (only 6000 ABs) and he hit about 10% higher than an average baseball player (just rough numbers). Certainly well within variance! We as APs should form a mob carrying torches and pitchforks down to Cooperstown and demand they remove Babe Ruth from the Hall of Fame, because he hit well within statistical variance! He could have just been lucky!

Guess what I'm saying is we ain't that special... usually

 

[Sucker]

I've often wondered whether simulators actually do generate their hands one independent hand at a time, rather than in some large number bunches for speed purposes.

Some simulators DO do their computations using large number bunches; but they supposedly use other variance reduction techniques, which I've been told makes up for this.

MY simulator doesn't do this, but only because my programing skills are limited. When I wrote it (almost 20 years ago), I had no clue that there were other variance reduction techniques that even existed. Thank God for today's superfast computers! My program now runs about as fast as I need it to be.

 

[The Chaperone]

Yes certainly this is true.

But on the other hand we get a little too caught up with extreme variance. Most of the times large numbers are quite boring. Look at a roulette display, most of the time its just randomly distributed black and red numbers. Or the columns indicate Column 1 came up around 33%, column 2 another 33%, column 3 around 33% time (and the sample size on this is usually only 100).

Pollsters of course sample only hundreds of people at most to estimate the opinions of millions, and they do a reasonably good job at predicting elections (rarely are they off by, lets say 30%).

Heck if we take concerns about extreme variance too far, we would have to say Babe Ruth was not a great hitter. Lets say he had 500 ABs for 12 years (only 6000 ABs) and he hit about 10% higher than an average baseball player (just rough numbers). Certainly well within variance! We as APs should form a mob carrying torches and pitchforks down to Cooperstown and demand they remove Babe Ruth from the Hall of Fame, because he hit well within statistical variance! He could have just been lucky!

Guess what I'm saying is we ain't that special... usually

First, your Babe Ruth example sucks. He was way more than 10% better than the average player and he played longer than 12 years.

Second, you don't need to be 30% off to have a really bad run. The edge from counting is around 1%. If you win 1% less hands than expected, you will lose 1% over that period (It's a 2 unit and thus 2% swing as 1% of your wins are turned into losses). If you lose 1% over the span of 1,000 hours, you will get crushed and may lose your bankroll (assuming you are playing a high Kelly percentage and don't downsize your bets).

 

[Gamblor]

First, your Babe Ruth example sucks. He was way more than 10% better than the average player and he played longer than 12 years.

LMAO what part of "just rough numbers" don't you understand.

OK my bad, he had 8000 hits over his career, not 6000. Was I way off!

 

[Gamblor]

The edge from counting is around 1%. If you win 1% less hands than expected, you will lose 1% over that period (It's a 2 unit and thus 2% swing as 1% of your wins are turned into losses). If you lose 1% over the span of 1,000 hours, you will get crushed and may lose your bankroll (assuming you are playing a high Kelly percentage and don't downsize your bets).

What are you trying to say here? If you win less than1% in a 1% advantage game, you should expect to be even (1-1 = 0).

So I'm guessing your saying if you give up 2% (1-2 = -1)? Well, could happen. But thats like playing BJ with a Spanish 21 deck. Lets just put it this way, I don't expect to play such a game over 1000 hours and expect to be ahead.

 

[tthree]

LMAO what part of "just rough numbers" don't you understand.

OK my bad, he had 8000 hits over his career, not 6000. Was I way off!

When you are talking about 10% difference and you are 33% off I would have to say yes.