Advice please - is counting worth it?

Sucker said:
I have no intention in engaging in flame wars with you or anyone else, so please don't try to f*** with me.

My agenda here is to help out the beginners and other less experienced players. You made it quite clear that you think that the players' cut sets the penetration in a blackjack game. This is FAR from a "fine" detail. OK - nothing wrong with being a noob; but no one can help you without having SOME idea of your understanding of this game. Chill out, dude. :whip:
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I've spent a couple of weeks practicing counting and basic strategy. I know of other things that can affect the results you get - such as penetration and rule-sets.
This was not really what I wanted advice on though, all of this can be found in books or on websites. The main dilemna I have is whether or not playing at such low stakes could be worth it.

It seems the vast majority think it's a decision I must make on my own, except for Flash, who said I shouldn't bother.
 
Ed Thorp devoted much of his time for developing the original counting
system and putting it into practice while doing his job as a university professor.
What you are planning to do is easier by far. So why not.:)
 
WannabeCounter said:
. . . .Lol, why do you hate casinos so much?
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I don't hate them (if they never existed I'd never be able to play the occasional game of BJ), although I don't patronise them either - except to play and, hopefully, make a miniscule dent in their hold figures. I certainly don't spend non-playing time in them, pay inflated prices for drinks or look to interact with other patrons or the staff.

Although casino operators will, I'm sure, argue that they provide a service that falls somewhere between leisure/recreational/hospitality, the fact is they exist off of the back of a hard core of vulnerable, mis-informed, ignorant and/or stupid people who make up their regular clientelle. Despite all of the promotional stuff you see for gambleaware, GA etc, they will quite happily look on as "valued customers", who quite obviously should not be in a casino, lose all of their money, and more.

I remember once seeing a guy playing two boxes on a BJ table whilst covering a roulette table in chips, and running back and forth desperate to see whether he had won or not - clearly someone with issues. The staff just grinned. I'm sure there were some who would have pulled him aside for a "don't you think you should give it a rest for a while" type chat, although it would probably be more than their job's worth to do so. Excluding people like this for their own good (sorry if this sounds conceited) will never happen as it's a bit like turkeys voting to keep Christmas.

Generally, casinos don't serve any useful purpose and only exist to take advantage of kinks in the makeup of vulnerable people having compulsive personalities. Just make sure you're not, or don't become, one of them.

I should say, for balance, that I've met some charming people amongst the staff of some of the casinos I've frequented since learning to count cards - although I've always wondered why these individuals ever worked their in the first place.
 
kewljason said:
Hardly. There were several threads from myself, machinist and several others, 5 weeks ago, dealing with the influx of new players and similarities of certain traits and writing styles. :sad: Several explanations arose at that time ranging from the closing of poker sites to a 'different google search algorithm' directing people here. :confused:

I personally never bought into any of it, but what are you going to about it. :confused::sad: I am not going to speak for anyone, but it probably isn't a coincidence that many of the regulars seem to be posting a lot less frequently, not wanting to deal with this nonsence. :sad:
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BJINFO has been under a very subtle attack - some or several of the same arrogant HC-esque pros who used to blow through here and sh*t on everyone and get banned are running a new game where they pretend to be newbees. I think its just boredom, but it may be a big joke in the making. In addition many or most of the new ones with odd names that end in multiple digit## are suspicious. But what do I know, I'm just paranoid. zg
 
halibut said:
Ed Thorp devoted much of his time for developing the original counting
system and putting it into practice while doing his job as a university professor.
What you are planning to do is easier by far. So why not.:)
Click to expand...
Some, like this guy Halibut, and the multi digit## member names may be link juice spammers trying to get in good with a handful of meaningless posts so that they can lay in a few good backlinks along the way. BJIFO is an SEO high-authority site for link juice, especially since the algorithm shift 3 months ago. zg
 
Spammers

zengrifter said:
Some, like this guy Halibut, and the multi digit## member names may be link juice spammers trying to get in good with a handful of meaningless posts so that they can lay in a few good backlinks along the way. BJIFO is an SEO high-authority site for link juice, especially since the algorithm shift 3 months ago. zg
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Maybe so. The last 6-8 weeks have been terrible for all the generic type posts. But what can be done about this?
 
UK-21 said:
I don't hate them (if they never existed I'd never be able to play the occasional game of BJ), although I don't patronise them either - except to play and, hopefully, make a miniscule dent in their hold figures. I certainly don't spend non-playing time in them, pay inflated prices for drinks or look to interact with other patrons or the staff.

Although casino operators will, I'm sure, argue that they provide a service that falls somewhere between leisure/recreational/hospitality, the fact is they exist off of the back of a hard core of vulnerable, mis-informed, ignorant and/or stupid people who make up their regular clientelle. Despite all of the promotional stuff you see for gambleaware, GA etc, they will quite happily look on as "valued customers", who quite obviously should not be in a casino, lose all of their money, and more.

I remember once seeing a guy playing two boxes on a BJ table whilst covering a roulette table in chips, and running back and forth desperate to see whether he had won or not - clearly someone with issues. The staff just grinned. I'm sure there were some who would have pulled him aside for a "don't you think you should give it a rest for a while" type chat, although it would probably be more than their job's worth to do so. Excluding people like this for their own good (sorry if this sounds conceited) will never happen as it's a bit like turkeys voting to keep Christmas.

Generally, casinos don't serve any useful purpose and only exist to take advantage of kinks in the makeup of vulnerable people having compulsive personalities. Just make sure you're not, or don't become, one of them.

I should say, for balance, that I've met some charming people amongst the staff of some of the casinos I've frequented since learning to count cards - although I've always wondered why these individuals ever worked their in the first place.
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I know where you're coming from.
When I was first old enough to gamble I developed a bit of a habit of going on the roulette machine in Coral. It was the thrill of ocasionally winning easy money that got me, but if I was to keep going and trying to win back my losses all the time then no doubt there the real problems would start.

The Gala casino (so probably all of them) where I go is always putting on promo offers and stuff that bait people into these games. Funny thing is, the deals aren't even good. And don't get me started on the rubbish comp system, lol.

Oh and all of this stuff about new members attacking the forum...
No, I just misunderstood that Sucker guy.
If you look at my join date, I'm not actually a "new" member.
 
zengrifter said:
Some, like this guy Halibut, and the multi digit## member names may be link juice spammers trying to get in good with a handful of meaningless posts so that they can lay in a few good backlinks along the way. BJIFO is an SEO high-authority site for link juice, especially since the algorithm shift 3 months ago. zg
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My apologies if my last post looked like a spam, but I can assure you that
I'm not a spammer. Please check my previous posts.:)
 
I'll post you some numbers shortly, that you can use to build your own spreadsheet (easy way) or crunch on the back of a fag packet (more difficult way). Either way, by doing the sums you'll learn and understand how the financial dynamics work, how an advantage is gained and just how small the longer term advantage actually is (and consequently why it's not a guarantee).

You can of course obtain a copy of Casino Verite (which I'm told is very good), although doing the sums yourself will be a good learning curve.
 
1. Here is a (rounded and simplifed) list of distribution of true counts for a six deck game that I pulled off of the web somewhere - it's based on a several million hand sample. It's simplified in that I've taken all of the counts above +6 and below -6 and addeded them into the +6/-6 totals. All of the frequencies add up to 100%.

TC Frequency

-6 . . . 1.73%
-5 . . . 2.04%
-4 . . . 3.69%
-3 . . . 6.61%
-2 . . . 12.19%
-1 . . . 18.17%
0 . . . . 29.43%
1 . . . . 11.82%
2 . . . . 6.43%
3 . . . . 3.55%
4 . . . . 2.03%
5 . . . . 1.09%
6 . . . . 1.22%

2. Here's a betting ramp to use:

All hands with a count at +1 or lower bet 1 unit.
At +2 bet 4 units.
At +3 bet 8 units.
At +4 and higher bet 16 units.

For the sake of the calculations, let's assume a betting unit is £5, and use 100 hands to simplify the sums - so over 100 hands, when the true count was zero, you'd bet £5 x 100 hands x 29.43% (= £147.15). If you apply this to all of the true count distribution, the total of all of the bets should come back to £500.

3. If you refer to the basic strategy engine on this site, and tap in the correct parameters, you should get that ENHC rules with a six deck shoe has an off the top house edge of 0.55%. For the sake of simplifying this exercise we'll assume that the OTT HE is -0.50%.

4. Assume that each increase/decrease in the true count represents a 0.5% movement, so at true count +1, the HE would be zero (OTT at -0.5 plus +0.5), at TC+2 it will be +0.5% (OTT at -0.5 plus 2 x +0.5) etc etc. So at each TC you can estimate the disadvantage/advantage you're playing at.

5. So, knowing the true count distribution, the number of hands, the amount bet and advantage and disadvantage at each count, you can calculate the expected win/loss at each count level - negative expectation counts (zero and below) should show a loss, positive ones (TC+2 and above) a profit, and of course TC+1 which has a neutral/zero expectation should be just that and return zero as a win/loss.

So you have everything here to calculate the net win/loss for 100 hands when applying the betting ramp and £5 a unit. See how you get on. It's really a cup of coffee job when building a spreadsheet. The figures that fall out aren't going to be accurate to the nth decimal place, but there'll be good enough as a fair indication of the longer term EV for applying a particular betting ramp to a particular ruleset. It does assume, of course, playing perfect basic strategy, perfect counting, perfect application of indices and no deviations for cover - errors in any of these will affect the result.

Let us know how you get on.
 
Your TC table should be symmetrical around zero. The positive TC frequencies should be the same as the same absolute value negative TC indices.

ie. TC+1 frequency = TC -1 frequency
 
tthree said:
Your TC table should be symmetrical around zero. The positive TC frequencies should be the same as the same absolute value negative TC indices.

ie. TC+1 frequency = TC -1 frequency
Click to expand...

:confused: Thinking the same thing.....

Also; this whole chart will be COMPLETELY dependent upon penetration.
 
tthree said:
Your TC table should be symmetrical around zero. The positive TC frequencies should be the same as the same absolute value negative TC indices.

ie. TC+1 frequency = TC -1 frequency
Click to expand...

Only if you round when you do your true count calculation. If you truncate, then everything from +1 to +2 will truncate to +1, while everything from -1 to -2 will truncate to -2. You see that the frequencies listed for +1 and -2 are similar. Likewise for +2 and -3, etc. The minor differences are going to be partly due to sample size. There may be some other minor effects at play causing a tendency towards a negative count due to a big card being more likely to end the hand vs. a small card being more likely to result in another draw, but I don't know much about that side of it. The truncation explains almost all of why the distribution falls the way it does.
 
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