So here we are again

[JohnCrover]

I just took a loss today of about $4,000. I have been on a bad run of cards. I haven't shown a substantial profit for about 300 hours.
I was on my way home in pain and I thought to myself "So here we are again." This familiar pain that I have felt so many times before. A chronic, seemingly never endless pain.

 

[KewlJ]

I, and I am sure most others have a hard time putting into context what you are describing. I can't remember what everyone's different situation is, so I don't know if a $4000 loss is extreme (red chip player), or nothing. I have $4000 swings and losing days frequently. I am not going to say daily, but numerous times a week. Variance is just part of the game.

I have no problem with you or anyone venting publicly when frustration overcomes you. I have done some of that myself. At times this game can become frustrating. But describing that frustration as "pain" seems like a very big red flag to me. If the game is really causing you the "pain" that you describe, perhaps you aren't cut out for whatever it is you are attempting to do, with your blackjack play.

 

[JohnCrover]

4k comes out to a bit shy of 10% of the bankroll.

 

[KewlJ]

4k comes out to a bit shy of 10% of the bankroll.

Then you KNOW that isn't REALLY that unusual right? You are just venting a bit of frustration right?

 

[JohnCrover]

It's over 25% of BR Downswing right now.

 

[BoSox]

It's over 25% of BR Downswing right now.

How are you going to react? What does this do to your ROR? Do you need to downsize?

 

[JohnCrover]

Nope, was and have been playing way below what I can take. RoR is still well below 5%

 

[BoSox]

Nope, was and have been playing way below what I can take. RoR is still well below 5%

Very good! Just take it as a learning experience and do a re-evaluation of your play and then carry on.

 

[KewlJ]

4k comes out to a bit shy of 10% of the bankroll.

It's over 25% of BR Downswing right now.

I don't understand. Sunday night you posted that the $4000 you were down represented 10% of your bankroll. 12 hours later you posted that you were down 25% of your bankroll. Did you lose another 15% ($6000) in that 12 hour period? I don't want to make assumptions but if so that would sound like there must be some sort of undisciplined "chasing" type thing going on. If I am missing something please clarify.

In the meantime, as BoSox alluded to, the loss of 25% of bankroll is about the time to start considering whether a downsize is needed. I would say 25-33% would be the time to consider that.

I personally have never had to downsize. I hate the thought of that....of trying to win back losses at lower limits. yuk! The closest I came was 2013. I started the year with 100k bankroll, as I start every year. Over the first 3 months into April, I lost about 32 or 34k (can't remember without looking it up). It was the worst start to a year I have had. Plus it was one of those periods that really wears on you. Seems every time you get a good count and throw out Max bet, you lose. Every DD and split with max bet, the dealer pulls a 20 or 21. One of those periods.

At 30k down, playing to a 100k bankroll, I should have resized downward. I have a little leeway because my bankroll is really bigger that the 100k I start each year with. I have the ability to re-plenish. I decided to hold off. I told myself I would at 40k. And that 40k down never came. Things turned around right about there and turned in a big way. To date, 2013 remains my best blackjack year in terms of win. It really is a streaky game.

I am not suggesting you (John Crover) or anyone else do anything. I am just sharing my experiences. These are really things each player needs to figure out for himself and figure out just what he/she is and isn't comfortable with.

 

[Raven]

I haven't shown a substantial profit for about 300 hours.

That's it? I been breakin' even for 6 years locally

 

[JohnCrover]

I'm down 25% from my all-time high in total and I'm break even after 300 hours.

 

[KewlJ]

I'm down 25% from my all-time high in total and I'm break even after 300 hours.

Ok, so if I remember correctly, you started over with a new bankroll right? Or am I thinking of someone else? Then with this new bankroll, you got out of the gate very quickly, running way above expectation, probably several S.D.'s above expectation. Is this correct? And now you are down 25% from that ATH (which was way above expectation) and have gone 300 hours at break even. Is this correct?

Did you think you were going to run way above expectation forever? That is not the way this game works. While you are never "due" to lose (or win for that matter) because past results are independent of future results, the math does have a way or working itself out as you get into the long run.

Usual this works one of two ways. If you are running way ahead, you will either have a losing period bringing results back down towards expectation, or you will have a long break even period, in which you aren't winning or aren't winning much, but accumulating EV. This sort of allows expectation to catch up to results. You just don't keep winning way above expectation forever.

Look, blackjack results (from card counting) are like the stock market. They are going to go up and down and periods of flatness. You can not concern yourself with these short swings. And yes 300 hours still qualifies as a short swing, small sample size.

I went through a period early on of always measuring everything against the ATH. A player is at his ATH something like 1.5% of the time. This means he is off his last ATH something like 98.5% of the time. And often significantly off that ATH. Don't measure by that or you always feel like you are chasing. I found it helpful to measure against expectation or what I call accumulated EV. That is really the measure of where you are and how you are doing.

 

[Raven]

and I'm break even after 300 hours.

You wouldn't happen to be in South FLA would you? Lol

 

[JohnCrover]

New BR was pretty crap at the beginning.
Actually was down a little over 1 SD after 130 ish hours but after that went on an amazing run and was up 1 SD at one point.

 

[Raven]

Usual this works one of two ways. If you are running way ahead, you will either have a losing period bringing results back down towards expectation, or you will have a long break even period, in which you aren't winning or aren't winning much, but accumulating EV. This sort of allows expectation to catch up to results. You just don't keep winning way above expectation forever.

This is a good explanation of what can occur. But how do inanimate objects (such as cards, shoes, or shufflers) know where you're supposed to be? Or that you even exist? Or that they exist? Different casinos, in different cities all somehow aware of past results and self correct to match a theoretical outcome based on a non existent number that you keep in your head in the form of a thought, which is an electrical chemical impulse in your brain somewhere? I think I just blew my own mind

 

[gronbog]

The universe and the objects in it are not aware of your past results.There will always be ups and downs in your results, but they are not predictable and, when you run above or below EV, you are not due a correction to bring your results back in line. In fact, there is no "correction" required at all for this to happen. What actually happens is that your anomolous result becomes insignificant over time.

Suppose you flip a fair coin 100 times and get 60 heads. Your rate of heads is 60%, although we all know that the expected rate is 50%. Now suppose that you flip the coin 1000 more times and get 520 heads. Your rate of heads is still higher than it should be. Your overall rate of heads is now 580 / 1100 = 52.72%. Your results are now closer to EV even though there has been no "correction". This is because your initial 10 head anomoly out of 100 flips is now less significant after 1100 flips.

 

[Raven]

The universe and the objects in it are not aware of your past results.There will always be ups and downs in your results, but they are not predictable and, when you run above or below EV, you are not due a correction to bring your results back in line. In fact, there is no "correction" required at all for this to happen. What actually happens is that your anomolous result becomes insignificant over time.

Suppose you flip a fair coin 100 times and get 60 heads. Your rate of heads is 60%, although we all know that the expected rate is 50%. Now suppose that you flip the coin 1000 more times and get 520 heads. Your rate of heads is still higher than it should be. Your overall rate of heads is now 580 / 1100 = 52.72%. Your results are now closer to EV even though there has been no "correction". This is because your initial 10 head anomoly out of 100 flips is now less significant after 1100 flips.

I understand it. That is a coin. One coin I imagine. Being flipped consecutively. Which is where Blackjack is different because we change tables, shoes, entire casinos even. Each shoe (or shuffle rather) it's own event. It's own 'long run' I guess you could say. That has absolutely nothing to do with any other shoe you've ever played or will play. Only the tallied results at the moment, kept on a hard drive somewhere on a computer in your closet can say where you stand. That is what I mean. "The results are the results" as AP Daniel says, a dear friend and colleague of mine. "You can only play the hands and make the bets based on that number in your head. Whether that number is a good indicator of what's about to happen with that shoe is anybody's guess."

 

[KewlJ]

Gronbog gave a great clinical analogy with the coin flip example. Let me re-share my real life example from early in my career. Apologies to those who have heard it. I think it was my 3rd year of playing for a living, playing very low stakes still trying to build a very small bankroll. I spent my first 2 years playing $5 tables, so my minimum wager was naturally $5. My bankroll had grown just a little bit by this third year, so I was moving up. I was able to play a $10 minimum wager with a small spread. (Que the Jefferson's "Moving on up" theme).

So I start the year very, very positive. Best possible scenario when moving up in stakes. After about 6 weeks, I was way ahead of expectation. This would be the equivalent of gronbog's first 60 heads out of 100 flips scenario....except in my case the start was so good it was probably 70-75 heads out of 100 flips.

So I was sure a "correction" must be coming. You know like a 30 heads out of the next 100 flips type thing. Had to be....right?

So I cut my minimum wager, spread and ramp, in half, back to what I had been playing for those first two years, figuring I would only lose half as much during this correction that surely was due.

No such correction ever came. I continued winning for the remainder of the year. Not at the crazy rate I had those first 6 weeks. Much closer to expectation, but I continued winning, with no "correction". By the end of the year, all I had managed to do was win half as much over those final 10 months as I should have. This was basically a wasted year (except for the learning experience) for someone that was where I was trying to grow and build a bankroll.

So I am not a math guy, and I don't know all the formulas and math. But I do know that you are never due to win or lose based on past results. Don't go looking for a correction, but yet, somehow, given enough trials and a large enough sample size, the math will work out to just about where it should be (expectation). Math is magical like that.

 

[Raven]

Gronbog gave a great clinical analogy with the coin flip example. Let me re-share my real life example from early in my career. Apologies to those who have heard it. I think it was my 3rd year of playing for a living, playing very low stakes still trying to build a very small bankroll. I spent my first 2 years playing $5 tables, so my minimum wager was naturally $5. My bankroll had grown just a little bit by this third year, so I was moving up. I was able to play a $10 minimum wager with a small spread. (Que the Jefferson's "Moving on up" theme).

So I start the year very, very positive. Best possible scenario when moving up in stakes. After about 6 weeks, I was way ahead of expectation. This would be the equivalent of gronbog's first 60 heads out of 100 flips scenario....except in my case the start was so good it was probably 70-75 heads out of 100 flips.

So I was sure a "correction" must be coming. You know like a 30 heads out of the next 100 flips type thing. Had to be....right?

So I cut my minimum wager, spread and ramp, in half, back to what I had been playing for those first two years, figuring I would only lose half as much during this correction that surely was due.

No such correction ever came. I continued winning for the remainder of the year. Not at the crazy rate I had those first 6 weeks. Much closer to expectation, but I continued winning, with no "correction". By the end of the year, all I had managed to do was win half as much over those final 10 months as I should have. This was basically a wasted year (except for the learning experience) for someone that was where I was trying to grow and build a bankroll.

So I am not a math guy, and I don't know all the formulas and math. But I do know that you are never due to win or lose based on past results. Don't go looking for a correction, but yet, somehow, given enough trials and a large enough sample size, the math will work out to just about where it should be (expectation). Math is magical like that.

I used to do that resizing thing too in the beginning to maintain my ROR. So for me it was AFTER the "correction". Even on the same night if I lost a number of units, I would resize downward to maintain the same ROR I walked in with. Not realizing I was hurting EV. My logic was (and still is to a degree) "I'm not going to an atm to get more money. I walked in here with under a 2% ROR for 4 hours. If the math gets turned on it's head, so be it." Live to fight another day.. The casinos will be there. Except now I never resize. Either I have the edge or I don't. I'm not fighting for it.

In other news, what happen to ZenKing? It's like his profile is always under maintenance or something

 

[JohnCrover]

ZenKinG said something about "going to a better place" and "going out in a blaze of glory."Then he mentioning the strip and Hollywood/Caeser properties.
I think he's going to go burn the strip then hit the road to play some better games.