How much should I be betting using Zen

[BUZZARD]

Greetings. I have been practicing a lot and deem myself worthy to hit the felt again using balanced Zen count. I concerned about my betting ramp. What is the procedure for determining the optimal ramp for my game? I have not run any sim before and only only purchased the counting software so far. Please tell me if there are any major problems with what I am using.

I will be betting one hand (just preference) nearly all of the time unless the cut card is immanent and I spread to 2 or hopefully 3.
I am stuck playing a mediocre game for now but I am encouraged by the decent penetration I have seen while scouting.
I will be playing 8 deck as well as 6 deck and I was pondering whether my ramp is the same for both? My primary concern is the 8 deck Ramp- as initially this is what is available.
They offer DAS LS S17and they are cutting only 1.6 deck i would guess, average, so 80% i guess but prolly more like 78% .
My bankroll is replenishable and I would hope to assume a standard amount of risk (would that be 5%?) . If I lost 15 grand or so I would probably stop and assume I cannot beat the game because I suck. At the moment however, casino Verite has enabled me to see that I am acceptably accurate.

Covid has made it more difficult (impossible) to backcount and table hop as much for me so I will unfortunately be weathering some negative counts. There are ample tables and I will get my Wong on at -2? I was hoping to get away with a 1-12 spread here, at least initially.

1 15
2 25
3 40
4 55
5 75
6 100
7 125
8 150
9+ 175

I will use the illustrious 18 and surrender indices for 14 Vs. 9 10 A and 15 Vs. 9, A as well as a few more. I WILL be splitting tens because its so much godamned fun.
I saw in Blackjack Attack the score for this game play all is 28.77. That is for 100 hand played I believe? How many hands can I expect at a 3-4 handed table per hour? 50 even? $14.38 an hour seems to be where I am headed but I am hoping that better penetration than 6.5 and also Wonging out and a bit of back-counting might bring my hourly up to a meager $20. Yes! that is significant money to me-lulz.

Some may scoff as a waste of time but I am going to sit at my house playing on casino verite if I'm not at the casino, so why not go and play?

please let me know if I left out any important info for consideration and I thank you for any help.

The Buzzard

 

[KewlJ]

Ok, let me try this again. My first response completely overlooked that you are playing Zen and not Hi-Lo, despite that you said so right in the title.

So the max bet @ +9 (zen) looks about right. As has been recently discussed, you gotta get your max bet out early in 8 deck games. If you wait much longer, that max bet becomes almost useless as it rarely hits the felt.

If you can wong out of some of the negative counts, as you mentioned, that helps a great deal. Even a few carefully timed bathroom and phone call breaks coordinating with negative counts helps significantly. So you are good there.

One thing I would consider, if I was you, would be to reduce the different bet amounts to 4 or 5, instead of 9. The more different amounts or jumps, the more it draws attention. I like to work backwards and I will credit Zengrifter with this. Figure your max bet and where you want to place it. Figure your minimum or waiting bet and just have maybe 3 intermediate jumps in between. You want to stay close to optimal bet guidelines, but round off and make everything smooth as far as jumping bets, won't cost much and will speed up the game, minimizing odd amounts.

Good luck, Buzzard. (are you the Buzzard from WoV forum for many years?)

kj

 

[BoSox]

I am stuck playing a mediocre game for now but I am encouraged by the decent penetration I have seen while scouting.
I will be playing 8 deck as well as 6 deck and I was pondering whether my ramp is the same for both? My primary concern is the 8 deck Ramp- as initially this is what is available.
They offer DAS LS S17and they are cutting only 1.6 deck i would guess, average, so 80% i guess but prolly more like 78% .

I am curious as to why you consider it a mediocre game? Also, why limit yourself from spreading to two hands?

 

[BUZZARD]

This observation by Don Schlesinger in chapter 9 of BJ Attack made my eyeballs bugout and I gulped hard at the prospect of grinding for the next year unrewarded, after what i know will be a herculean effort.
It came on the very next page from the charts that had riled me initially, scores so high dreams of an endless Blackjack session swirled in my head.
"needless to say, playing all, at the 8-deck game, is an utter waste of time and effort unless, once again, you are lucky enough to find an extraordinary cut with extremely liberal rules".
I had not thought it was needless to say, I was glad he HAD said it, but did not like what was said. Cruel words like "utter" and "extraordinary" sobered me a bit.
I am not knowledgeable yet to call the game mediocre and should not even have done so. Any hint that the game is probably 'utter' and not 'extraordinary' stem from anticipation that conditions will be less favorable than hoped.
It could be my deck estimation is off and dealers will end up cutting closer to 1.75 decks off on average. I only watched 4-5 cuts. From what I gather, nothing else even really matters, if you don't have the penetration part of the equation right.
That being said there is a perfectly good chance i will find dealers cutting deeper.
Also, the charts are $/100 hands so i was just cutting them in half. One dealer was very slow; possibly I could get less than 50 hands an hour? With the restrictions the tables are always "full".
The author also benchmarked 50$/100 hands as "acceptable" - My benchmark is lower, almost shamefully so.
Thanks for the replies

 

[BoSox]

With the restrictions the tables are always "full".

Not necessarily as it is periodic you will find much better conditions at off-hours, it is not like a regular job. When you are playing at full tables do not be afraid to sit out hands and then re-enter after the count changes.

 

[BUZZARD]

What I meant to ask but forgot or kinda worded terribly-
is it ok to just make up my own bet ramp like this? I mean, I don't know what the hell I am doing when it comes to this- I just created the amounts because they felt right. Is this costing me? Is it imperative to generate optimal bets with CVCX ? Should I also be generating index plays for my particular game from this software ? Can I not just use the ones I found from Arnold Snyder? Upon closer inspection, it says CVCX for optimal betting and CVData for index numbers. Do I need both?
Thx

 

[Waytohonest]

What is the count and is their a side ace count?