Friday the 13th Disaster

[Mimosine]

We are losing the meaning of the original post. She said she lost on friday the 13th. She had been counting for three weeks and did not make a mistake. The dealer would get 20 or 21, most of the time.

Confession time: I played for two hours on friday the 13th and lost 12.00 playing at a $3 to $10 table. ( limited gambling in Colorado ).

Once again here are some of the reasons this could happen:

1. Variance in bj.

2. Three weeks of practices is not enough at counting. The MIT bj team picked some of the brightest of the bright, yet it took most of the members 720 hr of practice to pass the "check-out". It took me over 1000 hrs of practice with modern software to become good at counting.

3. If it was 1D or 2D delt out of the hand she could have been going against a cheating dealer. ( a card mechanic ). Slight of hand is no proof in court unless it was photographed and submitted in court which in not likely.

reason #1 is highly probable.

high counts are not a guarantee that you will win.

just a few days ago in vegas, i played heads up 3-4 2D shoes and lost about 80% of my hands - even through ++ counts. while this is outside our "expectation" it is not outside ~1-2 Stadard deviations.

if the dealer was pulling tons of 20s and 21s, thems the breaks. i was in several +5 TC situations, where i was getting 12s, 14s, 16s and the dealer was pulling 20s - AS EXPECTED. at high counts everyone including the dealer will be getting more 20s and 21s. one of the main reasons counting works is that we get paid 3:2 on BJ, the dealer does not, we can double our bets, the dealer can not, we can hit or stand at will, the dealer can not. all of these "features" of BJ work to our advantage at high counts - over the long run.

 

[MEDITANK]

reason #1 is highly probable.

high counts are not a guarantee that you will win.

just a few days ago in vegas, i played heads up 3-4 2D shoes and lost about 80% of my hands - even through ++ counts. while this is outside our "expectation" it is not outside ~1-2 Stadard deviations.

if the dealer was pulling tons of 20s and 21s, thems the breaks. i was in several +5 TC situations, where i was getting 12s, 14s, 16s and the dealer was pulling 20s - AS EXPECTED. at high counts everyone including the dealer will be getting more 20s and 21s. one of the main reasons counting works is that we get paid 3:2 on BJ, the dealer does not, we can double our bets, the dealer can not, we can hit or stand at will, the dealer can not. all of these "features" of BJ work to our advantage at high counts - over the long run.

Ohhhhh, this sounded like what I went thru last night. I HATE NEGATIVE VARIANCE WITH A PASSION. But, in this business, S happens sometimes. Most of the time we win. If it weren't for neg var popping it's ugly head up, counters would not need such large BR's. What upsets me the most, is when you cannot capitalize on +4TC shoes and then another +5TC shoe and walk away almost breakeven. It took 7 hours of play just to play those two shoes. Strangely enough, again, the majority of my 20's and 21's were in -3 to -4 TC's. Having I18 memorized finally helped me out greatly during those negative shoes. Again, I won 1-2 units during those negative counts. Twilight zone stuff.

 

[forwhat77]

Yes very old thread, but an interesting one. When is the last time YOU ran across a mechanic? I have,, very recently too. Can you recognize when it is happening?

 

[Dyepaintball12]

I was down $4,000 during a shoe once and made it all back on the last 3 hands.

 

[BJgenius007]

I am pretty new to the board, and I just started counting cards three weeks ago. I just had my first horrible night counting cards. I live in Las Vegas, and so far I have only tapped the local casinos because they offer more nickel tables than the higher end casinos. I had an amazing three weeks winning fifteen hundred, which may not sound like much to you pros out there, but it was a huge boost for me.

When Friday the 13th came, I questioned my decision to go hit the tables. I'm not a supersticious man by any means, but I thought that of all nights to run out of luck, this would probably be the one.

I sat down at a $5 DD game at Boulder Station and let the fun begin. After three weeks of counting, I had grown proficient at it, as I have always been very good with numbers. I use the reKO method with indexes all starting at a +2 count. I don't know how many multiple card 21s the deal pulled that night, but it was downright gutwrenching. My counting was flawless and dead on, but it always seemed like the dealer could pull that magical 5 or 6 out of his/her ass to bail themselves out. It also seemed like I was beat almost EVERY time I maxed my bet (40 using a 1-8 unit spread). I lost 600 last night, which again, may not sound like much to you pros, but its more than I've ever lost gambling in my entire life.

I've never been the type to bitch and whine or to give up easily. I'm gonna man up and get right back in the ring. The positive thing that happened last night is that I learned that the index deviations WORK. I purchased insurance 4 times at +2 and higher counts and it paid off 3 out of four times. I also stood on 16v 10 twice and 15v 10 once and won all three times.

My question to you all is, how do you motivate yourselves after taking such a beating?

In my experience, true count changes dramatically when it is a full table playing double deck. Sometimes when the dealer gets his card, the count has already drop from very high to negative. Your max bet will not be so great in such a situation. I will cap the max bet to half when there are 5 or more players in the table (DD only). When there are three or less players, resume your usual max bet. This is usually I do about spread in DD:

TC bet size (less than 3 players or has won the last big bet)
N 1
0 1
+1 3
+2 5
+3 8
+4 10

TC bet size (more than 4 players and lost the last big bet)
N 1
0 1
+1 3
+2 5
+3 5
+4 5

When I play in a crowded DD table, I lower my expectation because I know my bet size can't correlate correctly with the actual cards. I play in hope that someone will leave soon then I can make a killing. I will increase spread and play multiple hands to make up the earlier loss of time or money.

 

[BJgenius007]

I used to live by Nevada Palace, one of the few casinos left that still has dollar blackjack. I'll have to keep them in mind in case I'm short on funds in the future. I'm sure that using a 1-10 spread on a unit = $1 won't even raise a single eyebrow from the pit, but who knows.

Your winning expectation is two units, about $2 per hour. You will make more money flipping burgers.