First use of Hi-Opt in casino.

[AnIrishmannot2brite]

Just got back from short road trip. Long ride but fairly quick session. The plan was to try Hi-Opt out at a double deck game well north of here for the first time.

However upon getting into my car and rummaging through the small collection of chips I noticed about 230 bucks in nickels and greens. All mostly for another for casino I hadn't planned on visiting. This particular joint wasn't exactly along the way but what with all these chips it seemed worthwhile to detour. If only just to cash out. More than pay for the gas anyway.

Not a great casino as it only offers a six deck shoe with usually unacceptable pen and a single deck 6:5. However since I've done well at the later game heads up thought I should at least browse the tables. They've let me do some huge bet spreads there in the past so why not? Maybe I'll back count if the dealer changes the shoe game cut card to something decent like 75% (she didn't). If not will just cash out and go north.

Instead one of the dealers seems to faintly recognize me and asks that i join her. We play single deck, 6:5 heads up. She's put the cut card way back like maybe 80% or so. A fast dealer, nothing much happens the first two or three decks dealt. Regardless I'm varying my bets from 10 bucks to sixty inn neutral counts. Trying to resemble some kind of fool's martingale but never quite totally going overboard. Also am I starting the first of every three deals with a hundred dollar camouflage bet. Good fortune for me as two of the first three initial camo bets win and the third shows a push. I leave the hundred in on the second hand. Both because the count goes up and because i don't want to be seen pulling back and reducing my bet. Win that one too. Nice to have a little positive variance.

Then bingo! The deck gets charged with aces about 1/3 the way through. Then at the half point the T/C is running plus 8-ish. Still no ace. Place my max bet of 200 and get a pair of aces. Receive one natural and one twenty.

Count is STILL high (wish i could have played two spots but that's not allowed in mid shoe). Win two more two hundred dollar bets before the shuffle with no losses.

Next deck? Same thing. My lucky day as the first half of deck shows no aces and the count AGAIN climbs to something above +5. I place the two hundred, split the two aces she deals and get two naturals. Dealer holds a seventeen.

In response to my winnings I change my minimum bet size to a variance of $25 to $100 (instead of 10 to 60 bucks). Deck stays cold for a couple shuffles but then rises right straight back up. I win three of four games, lose one and push another.

Dealer leaves and a male one comes in. I ramp up to 50 to 200 average bets at neutral counts. Second deck goes to +9 with no aces played. Another split pair of aces on a $300.00 bet and dealer busts. A couple sits down at table and I would no longer be playing alone.

So is time to leave. I find the first (female dealer) dealer at shuffling a shoe game and drop her a couple nickels thanking her for my "luck". She smiles. Then i hit the trail. Decided not to go up to the other casino so that will have to wait until the next time.

Gotta eventually hit that casino with the double deck 3:2 pay out. The pen is good. Early hours allow the increased likelihood of being able to play heads up.

Conclusion: Clearly good fortune helped. But observing the great penetration and heads up condition was at least half my "luck". Maybe more than half. With the Hi-opt system I seemed to know when the aces were coming better than compared to counting my usual Hi-lo.

 

[MAZ]

Just got back from short road trip. Long ride but fairly quick session. The plan was to try Hi-Opt out at a double deck game well north of here for the first time.

However upon getting into my car and rummaging through the small collection of chips I noticed about 230 bucks in nickels and greens. All mostly for another for casino I hadn't planned on visiting. This particular joint wasn't exactly along the way but what with all these chips it seemed worthwhile to detour. If only just to cash out. More than pay for the gas anyway.

Not a great casino as it only offers a six deck shoe with usually unacceptable pen and a single deck 6:5. However since I've done well at the later game heads up thought I should at least browse the tables. They've let me do some huge bet spreads there in the past so why not? Maybe I'll back count if the dealer changes the shoe game cut card to something decent like 75% (she didn't). If not will just cash out and go north.

Instead one of the dealers seems to faintly recognize me and asks that i join her. We play single deck, 6:5 heads up. She's put the cut card way back like maybe 80% or so. A fast dealer, nothing much happens the first two or three decks dealt. Regardless I'm varying my bets from 10 bucks to sixty inn neutral counts. Trying to resemble some kind of fool's martingale but never quite totally going overboard. Also am I starting the first of every three deals with a hundred dollar camouflage bet. Good fortune for me as two of the first three initial camo bets win and the third shows a push. I leave the hundred in on the second hand. Both because the count goes up and because i don't want to be seen pulling back and reducing my bet. Win that one too. Nice to have a little positive variance.

Then bingo! The deck gets charged with aces about 1/3 the way through. Then at the half point the T/C is running plus 8-ish. Still no ace. Place my max bet of 200 and get a pair of aces. Receive one natural and one twenty.

Count is STILL high (wish i could have played two spots but that's not allowed in mid shoe). Win two more two hundred dollar bets before the shuffle with no losses.

Next deck? Same thing. My lucky day as the first half of deck shows no aces and the count AGAIN climbs to something above +5. I place the two hundred, split the two aces she deals and get two naturals. Dealer holds a seventeen.

In response to my winnings I change my minimum bet size to a variance of $25 to $100 (instead of 10 to 60 bucks). Deck stays cold for a couple shuffles but then rises right straight back up. I win three of four games, lose one and push another.

Dealer leaves and a male one comes in. I ramp up to 50 to 200 average bets at neutral counts. Second deck goes to +9 with no aces played. Another split pair of aces on a $300.00 bet and dealer busts. A couple sits down at table and I would no longer be playing alone.

So is time to leave. I find the first (female dealer) dealer at shuffling a shoe game and drop her a couple nickels thanking her for my "luck". She smiles. Then i hit the trail. Decided not to go up to the other casino so that will have to wait until the next time.

Gotta eventually hit that casino with the double deck 3:2 pay out. The pen is good. Early hours allow the increased likelihood of being able to play heads up.

Conclusion: Clearly good fortune helped. But observing the great penetration and heads up condition was at least half my "luck". Maybe more than half. With the Hi-opt system I seemed to know when the aces were coming better than compared to counting my usual Hi-lo.

Man this is just plain stupid play. Its either a case of dumb luck, which can happen to gamblers like you, or its just a flat out lie. Either way, its just a bad way to play. You are ramping up in neutral counts, to the point where you have a max size bet out but yet have no advantage. You are killing your betspread, which while sitting at a 6:5 game is.... well, not too bright irishman. Not to mention you are way overbetting if your max bet is wavering between 200 and 300, while you you are betting up to 200 with no advantage. From the sounds of it you ramped up non advantageous hands just because you got a new dealer. C'mon dude, are you for real? The fact you were counting aces is nice but you failed to show any examples of where that actually was a factor. Not saying there has to be an instance where there will be in a short session, it just seemed that you were implying your play was influenced by your knowledge of aces remaining. If this story is even remotely true, you got lucky, good for you. But you did not play to your advantage, you did everything in your power to negate it. I know you get pissy when someone tells you you are playing stupid, but you see I don't care. I call it as I see it. And what you posted is not a lesson for anyone to follow if its advantage play they are intent on learning. I hope either your luck lasts, or your creative writing does, thats the only way you come out a winner playing this way son.

 

[AnIrishmannot2brite]

Its just a mild and thin opportunity in a heads up game. Don't see why anyone gets so wigged out by it. Only get a short time in these games before someone else joins in.

Hardly much difference (to me) than when camouflaging a bet spread in a six deck shoe. Although in those games I usually start with the minimum of 5 bucks and triple/double or so to 45 or 60 bucks every once in a while in the neutral counts. Allows smaller size units. In my case i acknowledge that the winning large bets at the top of deck were lucky. Just sort of a "cost of sales" expense to see if the deck would quickly go to significant plus figures quickly which it did. I had no real way of knowing it would but it happened. I was just there and bet accordingly. And by varying my best a lot prior it seemed to give me cover for the bigger spread later on when it got hot.

"Found money' or something like that.

You didn't read the part where I said "No aces were dealt for the first half of the deck"? I mean this is a clear case of you not reading my post. What else have you selectively glossed over and refused to look at?

At any rate the idea of playing max bets at high + counts was valid. You may question my decision to play the game in the first place but I've always done well there. Have never exceeded my original betting allotment nor suffered any seriously negative sessions. Not so long as I played heads up which is all i allow myself in those games.

 

[kewljason]

You exhibit a couple of traits that seem very anti-AP. The first being, rummaging through you car and finding $230 in various chips. Seriously questions your organizational skills. How do you keep acurate records, when you have chips stashed like this?

The second, would be seeking out a dealer that you were not currently playing with and tipping her because you has been, what you yourself discribed as "lucky" with her. As AP's most of us are admittedly very stingy with tipping. Tipping cuts into our already very slim profit margin. Although it sounds like your trip was very sucessful, and I wish you continued good trips, I wonder what the actual EV was for what you discribed as a short trip. You may have given away a significant portion of your EV.

 

[AnIrishmannot2brite]

The cover bets were at a definite disadvantage. I knew that walking in the joint. Was hoping for some good fortune, like breaking even on them or winning.

Either way I wanted to establish the tendency to ramp my bets up and down as much as possible. Also forgot to mention that I would delay hitting all my stiffs as if contemplating in prayer or such. Trying my best to look like my name...

There usually isn't much time available to play heads up. Even in early hours the place can fill up. So my good fortune lay in the lone play and that the decks went + several times early on.

What can I say? Sure it's a schitty game but playable at large spreads in a heads up situation. Heads up ONLY. Reminds me of some late night hours i spent a couple years back playing heads up six deck shoes. Only in those games my point spread was way more obvious compared to low and high counts. And I got called out on it once. Wished I'd learned some camo plays back then.

But at single deck, heads up, and dealt deep before the cut card? It has won for me fairly consistently. Problem is the unpredictability of other players joining. Then the large spread. Might be OK in some of the "sawdust floor joints" I go to. But in Nevada they probably would be hip to it.

 

[itrack]

:whip::whip:I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say that an ace side count is practically worthless in a 6:5 game. Maybe if you weren't side counting, you could focus on a half decent bet spread. I can't even laughing at your post, because to me it is plain insanity. You do know that at a neutral count, you are at ~ a 1.45% disadvantage. This disadvantage is probably larger than the positive advantage that you experience at high positive TC's.
I think you should SERIOUSLY re-evaluate your game, or quit. It would be a lot easier.:whip:

 

[AnIrishmannot2brite]

:whip::whip:I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say that an ace side count is practically worthless in a 6:5 game. Maybe if you weren't side counting, you could focus on a half decent bet spread. I can't even laughing at your post, because to me it is plain insanity. You do know that at a neutral count, you are at ~ a 1.45% disadvantage. This disadvantage is probably larger than the positive advantage that you experience at high positive TC's.
I think you should SERIOUSLY re-evaluate your game, or quit. It would be a lot easier.:whip:

I suppose if one was looking for more naturals then a 6:5 game wouldn't be a particularly good place to be looking for aces. But the extra aces did allow me to split them.

Figure I'm somewhere at the break even point at +3. Wherever the advantage is I'm not really ramping things up until + 7 through +12. When I'm really fortunate to get a positive swing. In those cases I'm nearly shootin fish in the barrel.

My real "luck" is that the deck will warm up soon after starting play and that no one else joins the table. Some of this requires doing some spy work. When the table first opens and the dealer is all alone.

Maybe I'll buy something really bad smelling to keep the others away from my solo table. Can someone tell me the EV of fart spray?

 

[Blue Efficacy]

Don't be so hard on this guy. Sure, he is no AP, but he is a gambler who is at least smart enough to cut down his disadvantage a decent amount, which many players fail to do.

His extreme overuse of "cover" is just how he justifies gambling to himself.

Also, if he is really getting 80% pen and is waiting until +8 or higher to seriously ramp up his bets, might he be playing at an advantage, after all? When you throw out the ridiculous bets at neutral counts of course.

 

[Sharky]

PLeeeeeeeezzzz.

haven't we heard enough from this cat???

he is no AP, rather an AC - Ass Clown

 

[elias001]

I think what everyone is saying, from myself who have read the mathematical theory behind blackjack is that your action is not the best one that you could have taken from a mathematical point of view. Hence in practice what occurred was simply a statistical variance. Or in common parlance, you got lucky.

 

[Blue Efficacy]

But may i diverge from what others are saying and say since irish man seems to keep winning, even if it may not sound mathematically sound to us, he should keep on doing what he is doing. As long as he keeps being lucky, why stop?

I am a big lifetime winner at VP despite the fact most quarter VP here pays 97.xx%. But I play $20 or less per trip, and often end up with stuff like a Royal, 4 of a kind, or my last two sessions I have gotten 4 deuces at Deuces Wild
If I was superstitious I would think these machines are most likely to hit at 6am, that is when I get a lot of my big hits give or take an hour.

Do not rely on luck, but do not underestimate it. Irish man is a prime example of how sometimes it is in fact better to be lucky than good!

 

[AnIrishmannot2brite]

I think what everyone is saying, from myself who have read the mathematical theory behind blackjack is that your action is not the best one that you could have taken from a mathematical point of view. Hence in practice what occurred was simply a statistical variance. Or in common parlance, you got lucky.

The gallery please note: This is a legitimate reply. More on this later.

But first lets take a look at the perfect azzholes:

1. he is no AP, rather an AC - Ass Clown

A real help to the forum. Fine example of the kind of member who really encourages the addition of new members.

2. I know you get pissy when someone tells you you are playing stupid, but you see I don't care.

Great! Just what we're looking for. A concerned, well tempered, thoughtful person speaking only from the generosity of his heart.



In short a pair of F'ing jerks taking YOUR forum down the tubes with them.



Some here are improving their habits of decorum. They learned from the bad press they got after being the genuine prix that they can be. In order to keep a forum civil it is important to take these azzholes to task for their bad manners. Consider them tried, convicted, roped and hung for first degree azzholism.

But back to the pertinent reply. The best one we've seen so far on this thread:

I think what everyone is saying, from myself who have read the mathematical theory behind blackjack is that your action is not the best one that you could have taken from a mathematical point of view. Hence in practice what occurred was simply a statistical variance. Or in common parlance, you got lucky.

I think somewhere in my post I mentioned that I was hoping that the decks would go positive soon after first sitting down. Perhaps this counts as "gambling" as opposed to advantage play. Now I could have waited around four hours back counting the 60 to 70% penetration six deck shoes. But again there wasn't much guarantee they would warm up at all during this time. Or that there would even be any seats at shoe game when the time came. By that time I could have made it to the other Indian casino and back again.

So maybe I should have driven north another 120 miles to the double deck pitched game that paid 3:2 for a natural. Probably the better choice. But there I was with 230 bucks of pretty much found money and a game before me that i have a track record of winning at in specific conditions: heads up play. I call it a scavenger play because its one of those positive moments happening infrequently but which if played carefully does work.

As for toking the lady? I felt like it. Small small percentage of the take (somewhere around 900 bucks).

So I think we should all congratulate Elias for his CIVIL post. Give credit where due.


But at the same time it is very important to kick those A-holes (and they know who they are) in the butt when they appear. Carrot and the stick.

 

[Sharky]

But first lets take a look at the perfect azzholes:

oh, sorry, perhaps "a fool and his money are soon to part" was better suited.

 

[AnIrishmannot2brite]

oh, sorry, perhaps "a fool and his money are soon to part" was better suited.

Tell ya what, meet me at the casino to scare off other players and allow me to play heads up. With you around i won't need to invest in the fart spray!

(Dead link: http://www.zymetrical.com/product.asp?dc=b&3=29)

 

[Sharky]

to scare off other players ... allow me to ...invest in the fart spray!

save your money, your play is scary enough!

 

[kewljason]

The gallery please note: This is a legitimate reply. More on this later.
But first lets take a look at the perfect azzholes:
[/B]
A real help to the forum. Fine example of the kind of member who really encourages the addition of new members.

Great! Just what we're looking for. A concerned, well tempered, thoughtful person speaking only from the generosity of his heart.

In short a pair of F'ing jerks taking YOUR forum down the tubes with them.

Some here are improving their habits of decorum. They learned from the bad press they got after being the genuine prix that they can be. In order to keep a forum civil it is important to take these azzholes to task for their bad manners. Consider them tried, convicted, roped and hung for first degree azzholism.
But back to the pertinent reply. The best one we've seen so far on this thread:
I think somewhere in my post I mentioned that I was hoping that the decks would go positive soon after first sitting down. Perhaps this counts as "gambling" as opposed to advantage play. Now I could have waited around four hours back counting the 60 to 70% penetration six deck shoes. But again there wasn't much guarantee they would warm up at all during this time. Or that there would even be any seats at shoe game when the time came. By that time I could have made it to the other Indian casino and back again.
So maybe I should have driven north another 120 miles to the double deck pitched game that paid 3:2 for a natural. Probably the better choice. But there I was with 230 bucks of pretty much found money and a game before me that i have a track record of winning at in specific conditions: heads up play. I call it a scavenger play because its one of those positive moments happening infrequently but which if played carefully does work.
As for toking the lady? I felt like it. Small small percentage of the take (somewhere around 900 bucks).
So I think we should all congratulate Elias for his CIVIL post. Give credit where due.
But at the same time it is very important to kick those A-holes (and they know who they are) in the butt when they appear. Carrot and the stick.

You are without a doubt the most obnoxious and unpleasant current poster on this site, gravely lacking any civility. Each and every one of your threads ends in a display of foul and vulgar namecalling of other members, who are only attempting to help you. I have no doubt my post will be met with similar. I am surprised your privilege of posting here hasn't been revoked.

 

[Deathclutch]

Irishman, if you're going to be spreading 10-60 (leaning closer to 10) in neutral counts I'd recommend you start spreading 300-1800 (leaning closer to 1800) in high counts.

If you don't vary so much in neutral counts you could lower this max bet. Let's say you parlay your way around 10-30 in neutral counts and then 300-900 in high counts.

Either way you need to spread your bets more if you plan on profiting off this game continually.

Also, playing heads up is definitely optimal, it in no way reduces the house edge against you and the fact that when you don't spread enough, or put out too much money in negative counts you'll still be losing money. That 100 bet may look nice and seem like you win, but you need to realize that in the long run you'll lose that 100 bet enough times to not only cover the times you win, but also more so that you'll lose even more!

 

[itrack]

You might be playing with an advantage, if you didnt use any cover at all. Believe me, the casino know that 6:5 is a sucker game (thats why they have it). They aren't gonna give you the boot playin that. I suggest you invest in a sim program so you actually understand that what your doing is wrong, and possibly find ways to improve your game such as optimal spreads.