Man, this "counting" stuff is hard.

[bj bob]

Bankroll is over $40k again.

Boy, did you try to sneak that one by us! But I'm not buyin'. You've got my brain going into overdrive and here are some preliminary conclusions I've come up with:

1) Since your last post in this thread was exactly 60 days ago, I could not help but conclude that the new target figure of 40K was achieved via the investment route i.e. T-Bills, money market etc.
2) You made a quicky 3 day trip to Vegas over the 4th of July, proceeded to the nearest Coast property, immediately sat down and played BJ with a 1:50 spread, got backroomed, beaten, escaped and later was found wandering aimlessly in the desert, spotted by a NHP copter, treated and released and subsequently retained a high-powered attorney who, after his 95% fee, left you with funds sufficient reach your current status.
3) You furtively snuck onto one of those Injun reservations, access to which has recently been declared verboten to you and proceeded to :a) Run into a gorgeous Injun maiden. b) Immediately grap her by the scalp, pulling her off back to your fortress, charming her with shiny mesmerizing trinkets while performing card tricks, c) Discover that she's the Chief's only daughter, d) Convince her into blissful and fruitful marriage,and finally e) return with her to the reservation while dodging arrows and tomahawks (in that order). After having convinced the Chief to bestow his blessings upon this inter-racial nuptual and, after several weeks of required preparatory isolation and a battery of grueling physical challanges to your maculinity (e.g. playing 6-D BJ for 40 straight hrs. with all aces removed and no potty breaks.) Mr. and Mrs.Sitting Rhino were now of one blood.
The next step was now obvious. Having loaded up her entire dowry in the back of your pick-em-up, you then made haste downtown to the nearest pawn shop to cash in. Hence your current bankroll status.
The moral of this post is very simple. When you make such a cryptic entry you leave yourself vulnerable to those of us nut jobs here to fill in our own blanks, and that we certainly will!! We need all the nitty-gritty, bro!

 

[Automatic Monkey]

....I've been working on the compulsive masochistic gambler thing. (Losing streaks are handy for that). I get excited when I have bad hands, and let down when I actually win them. I think it's starting to spook the dealers a little bit. I'm kind of like the weird old man hanging out by the casino playground (... we have plenty of those guys too). I can't push it too far, or the dealers won't want to deal to me.

That's a winner! None of us like losing or are fully exempt from having negative feelings from it. We just don't act on those feelings... that is... not in the way we bet or play. When you lose, it's OK to curse, bang your fist, declare yourself a compulsive gambler. Express the feelings that way. As long as you keep spreading. I've inquired about banning myself after losing sessions (without actually signing the forms, of course!)

The dealers will deal to you. Just don't make a violent or aggressive move, talk about weapons, or personally insult anyone. Also avoid talk of suicide because that gets their security (as opposed to surveillance) people too interested and we don't want to really cause any psychic harm to the innocents around us.

One time I was deep in act and I was thinking about taking out my pocket knife, holding it against my wrist and asking for a hit. I figured that might get me arrested and possibly committed so I skipped it. But maybe I'll save that one for when I have a huge bet out and get 16 vs. 7. They'll be afraid to give me a hit and they can't pass me, they might just push my bet back and escort me out. I'll take it, if I'm not planning on playing there again.

 

[EasyRhino]

Bob, those are some very insightful theories. All wrong... but insightful.

I didn't play much in the month of July. Real life interened pretty seriously. Had a few wining and one losing session early in the month that had me gain a bit. Late in the month, had a BJ session that was almost a $1k loss, which was a bummer because I was so incredibly close to the artificial $40k milestone.

And that brings me to what is basically just a "gambling story", but it was fairly different for me. I ended up with a local place where I had my once-in-a-year opportunity to play video poker. Basically, combine the need to revive my player rating, a video poker machine with a 99.9% payout, a 0.25% cashback rate, a double-points promotion, and another small promo... and I needed to play me some VP. I'm not a serious VP pro by any stretch. I know I make strategy mistakes, even using a strategy chart. This is basically a low-edge comp hustle play. Anyway, I found myself on the 31st needing to put about $10,000 of playthrough through a machine, and only about 3 hours to do it. I ended up playing 8 hands of a hundred play machine at quarter denomination ($10 per round). I knew that at this level I was going to experience a really fast "drain" rate unless I hit something big, and I was girded for a big loss, but dammit, there was no time. This particular game was one that pays a bonus on quad aces (basically a half-royal flush payout). After some quick early losing, I managed to get four or five of those. (No royal flushes (haven't gotten any of those at any significant denomination)). End result of this seemingly outsize share of quads left me with a $1300 win, plus a little bit of cashback. It was all a very pleasant surprise, considering I would have been thrilled just to break even.

On other notes, just today, I came pretty close to failing completely at advantage play. I headed off to a local place. Found an empty table, prepared to sit down, and... no money. I had forgot to bring money. I figure I could hit the ATM and play with a bit less than usual since it was going to be a short session anyway. I request a withdrawal of $2000, and only $500 comes out of the machine, and I didn't even get a receipt. Wtf? So I have to call up my bank, and ask then to confirm the size of the most recent withdrawal. Turns out I found a machine where you can request withdrawals bigger than it will dispense, but at least my account was debited for the proper amount. I do a couple more transactions, then head to the tables and... they're all insanely full. I'm bummed, there's no good playing opportunity, and I don't even see an opportunity to slow play a table and hit a pit critter up for a food comp (and I'm really hungry). Then I have an epiphany and insert my player's card into a slot machine (which I never play at this place). Turns out I have many thousands of "points", I guess you can earn them from table play. I use some to grab a meal, and then drop by the player's club and ask what else I can do with points. Turns out that they could just give me $125 in cash for them. That sounded pretty excellent to me, and at least it made the trip somewhat worthwhile.

Anyway, bankroll-wise, it's currently at $40,250. This is over the shouldn't-be-important-but-is $40k mark, but it is still about $120 short of the all-time high set in mid-February. So, again, my money would have been better spent by just parking it in the bank. It is, however, worth noting that online bonus-whoring has had fairly little contribution to the BR during this time (about $1k). So most of the bankroll drawndown to $30k and rebound to $40k has been through plain ol' brick and mortar card counting.

 

[TheApprentice]

initial vs reinvested Bankroll

EasyRhino,
So...how much of the current >$40k came from that initial $500 Atm withdrawal? Was it all built upon reinvesting winnings, or did you continually add more of your non-playing cash to the playing BR as time went on ?

 

[EasyRhino]

EasyRhino,
So...how much of the current >$40k came from that initial $500 Atm withdrawal?

None. It helped that I was unusually lucky on my sessions when first starting, until I got the massive infusion from online moneys.

However, I additionally used personal funds (probably $2000 in total) to jumpstart my online bonus-hustling, but then subtracted those funds out, "paying myself first" before adding the online funds to the gambling bankroll.

And then there's now, of course, where the online stuff has pretty much dried up, and the unusually lucky part has pretty much dried up.

 

[bj bob]

Bankroll is over $40k again.

It's really nice to read your blow-by-blow detailed rendering of your casino shenanigans. That five word post had all of us flipping out. I seriously thought that you ended up either losing half of you BR and then, in one massive display of body hair, pressed the remaining 20K BR on one hand of BJ. Either that or catching a 25K scratch-off or something lame like that. Between reading too many of Zg's threads and the end of the X-Files series, the conspiracy cortex of my brain has been working on over-drive.
One of these days you should take the time to time-graph the growth of your BR. I think that would provide both a realisitic and educational picture of the real world ups and downs of a Blackjack bankroll.

 

[sagefr0g]

...
One of these days you should take the time to time-graph the growth of your BR. I think that would provide both a realisitic and educational picture of the real world ups and downs of a Blackjack bankroll.

lol he's got my spreadsheet he could do it with that. you been using that ER?

 

[EasyRhino]

Nope, been keeping my own spreadsheet which is really more of a transaction log than anything. No graphing being done. And that's only been since Jan 1.

 

[EasyRhino]

Haven't counted any in the last two weeks, so this is a bankroll update only. My online gambling ewallet had gotten uncomfortably large, so I did a cashout of $4.5k. This puts the bankroll snapshot at $44.5k. It's worth noting that the last time I cashed out from the ewallet was last October.

I don't usually write about online play, but two weeks ago I hit a notable losing streak playing a series of "sticky" bonuses at a casino. The strategy was to deposit $100, get the (relatively small) bonus added, try to triple the buyin amount, and then play as little as possible with much smaller bets and then cashout. I was playing a blackjack game with a house edge of 0.18%. Aka23 did numbers and said this strategy results in losing the deposit nearly 75% of the time.

I lost twenty-two deposits in a row. And it's not like all the losses were quick, either, sometimes I'd tread water between my win and loss thresholds, and it took much longer... it was pretty painful. The ewallet took quite a pounding as well. One saving grace was that I had recently dropped my deposit size for these types of bonuses from $200 to $100, because I didn't see the need for all the risk.

After the 48 hours of hell, I went on a pretty good winning streak, including winning on some larger % bonuses (with correspondingly larger deposits) and even winning over $2k on, of all things, a slot machine bonus. So I guess it turned out pretty good.

 

[Automatic Monkey]

The magic number

Haven't counted any in the last two weeks, so this is a bankroll update only. My online gambling ewallet had gotten uncomfortably large, so I did a cashout of $4.5k. This puts the bankroll snapshot at $44.5k. It's worth noting that the last time I cashed out from the ewallet was last October.

I don't usually write about online play, but two weeks ago I hit a notable losing streak playing a series of "sticky" bonuses at a casino. The strategy was to deposit $100, get the (relatively small) bonus added, try to triple the buyin amount, and then play as little as possible with much smaller bets and then cashout. I was playing a blackjack game with a house edge of 0.18%. Aka23 did numbers and said this strategy results in losing the deposit nearly 75% of the time.

I lost twenty-two deposits in a row. And it's not like all the losses were quick, either, sometimes I'd tread water between my win and loss thresholds, and it took much longer... it was pretty painful. The ewallet took quite a pounding as well. One saving grace was that I had recently dropped my deposit size for these types of bonuses from $200 to $100, because I didn't see the need for all the risk.

After the 48 hours of hell, I went on a pretty good winning streak, including winning on some larger % bonuses (with correspondingly larger deposits) and even winning over $2k on, of all things, a slot machine bonus. So I guess it turned out pretty good.

When I did my online sticky play, I wrote an online blackjack simulator. It didn't actually play blackjack. But I would take CVData data for a game using BS and generate the likelihood of getting a win, loss, push, DD, natural, etc., all the things that can happen in a game of blackjack, and then did a Monkey Carlo simulation of what happens to your bankroll as you are playing blackjack.

For reasonable bankroll multipliers (3X is well within reasonable) a magic number kept on coming up: 20%. This number represented the best balance between maximizing EV, getting a WR in and being able to make a withdrawal at least occasionally. Losing 22 in a row, that can get old real quick.

 

[EasyRhino]

Wait, was the Monkey Carlo simulation saying the optimum deposit was 20% of bankroll, I assume continuously resized? And was this for a 100% deposit?

 

[Automatic Monkey]

Wait, was the Monkey Carlo simulation saying the optimum deposit was 20% of bankroll, I assume continuously resized? And was this for a 100% deposit?

It said the optimum bet was 20% of BR. I didn't do a resize but you could possibly optimize it further that way, although if you're only shooting for a 3X increase that's probably not necessary. Your buildup takes a bite out of your WR and that's important too.

Also I chose standard shoe BJ or SP21 to do this kind of work, not 0.18% SD, because the multiple splits and doubles provided some nice big jumps to help reach the target.

 

[EasyRhino]

Just an update because it's been nearly two months, and I got a PM asking me if I was dead.

I'm not dead, but blackjack play has been fairly catch-as-catch-can due to the usual contraints (work, travel, ennui, etc).

First, some non-blackjack thinkgs happened. Online play was more active than before, and I was able to cashout an additional $4.5k from my ewallet a while ago.

At one local casino where I am disinvited to play blackjack, I've been trying to carefully consider if a bunch of really tight video poker play would be worth it from an EV, time, and volatility standpoint. I sat down for a lengthy session of about $10,000 coin-in to measure the comps. during that session, I got my first royal flush. That was kind of cool. The fact that I got it from only holding a single ace was even cooler. And it was just quarter denomination on a multiplay machine, so I didn't even have to mess with W-2G form.

The bankroll also took a substantial non-gambling hit. I had a titanic car mechanic bill ($3k). And I decided it was a good occassion to tap the bankroll. Note: don't buy German cars.

This is all well and good, because the blackjack itself has been in a sucky patch. Of the six or so sessions I can think of (don't have the log available), five of them were significant losers, including a few $3k losses back to back. Nothing particularly remarkable about the losses, except for large bets in high counts turning out badly. Actually, one of the losing sessions featured big bets that were slightly advantageous, but minimum bets that were just absolutely miserable. I may have lose $1k with just $25 during that one, which was particularly dreary.

Oh, and at one place where I don't go often, the dealer, as soon as I raised my bet in the first positive count, kind of clammed up and got a lot less jovial. It seemed like she may have been counting along with the shoe. It certainly put a damper on my desire to hang around... and it's not often you get heat from dealers. No indication that she wanted to narc on me to management, but it was a little weird, nontheless.

Best estimate of current bankroll is about $38.5k. So I'm back under the $40k mark. But, in a spot of gallows optimism, the gambling bankroll is still larger than my 401k balance, thanks to the pummeling of the stock market.

Which brings me to my psychological observation. The carnage in the stock market has felt remarkably similar to the bankroll carnage caused by big losing streaks. It's the same situation: you're in what should be a long-term positive situation, but short term results are being caused by factors completely out of your control. And much like with the gambling bankroll, i shouldn't be stressed about it. I don't need retirement money for a long time (don't need the gambling BR ever), and the best practice in either case is to keep an eye on risk management, but otherwise stick with winning strategies. Regardless of all that, I hate losing, and watching my "real life bankroll" take a 20% hit in a matter of weeks is just as frustrating as a 100 unit loss!

 

[EasyRhino]

I'll try to make this quick: BR is back over $40k. About $43.5k if I'm doing my math right.

Had one short (1.5hr) local session where I won about $3k (60 units). Nothing special, just really lucky.

I also went on a short (36hr) trip to Shreveport/Bossier. I had last been to a riverboat casino there about 12 years ago, and I remember it being tiny, and a total dive. Things are substantially bigger and fancier now, and it gets a decent weekend draw from the region (TX and AR, mainly). Get a strange mix of patrons too, I was at one table with a cowboy, a gang banger, and an old asian lady. Also, In general, I'd say the place is less sweaty over money than Reno or Laughlin. (I mean, if even I don't get backed off, they gotta be pretty lax!). There's 5 stores, they're faily close together. None are really walking distance though except Eldorado and Samstown, but I did see a (free?) shuttle bus that was operating between the properties. It was pretty crowded over the weekend in the evening, but Sunday morning had thinner crowds.

The games in town seemed decent, but nothing was overwhelmingly awesome. The nice thing is that it's S17 everywhere (except for Horseshoe's H17 DD game). The bad thing is that it's mainly 6D shoe games, and the DD games (Boomtown, Horseshoe, Diamond Jacks) all restrict midshoe entry and midshoe spreading. Penetration was not systematically excellent anywhere, although it was systematically fair/poor at Eldorado. Didn't see any table mins less than $5, and at places without dedicated high roller rooms, the higher limit tables seemed to have $25 or $50 mins.

I wouldn't say it should be everyone's lifelong mission go to the region, but it's not a waste of time if you find yourself there.

Didn't get in a ton of play since I was hanging with family and doing some real work, maybe 8 hours total My first six or so sessions (some very short) were all wins, which was kind of charming, then I lost about $2k during one fairly unpleasant session (probably playing the best game of the weekend, too!) which reset the bankroll to the starting point. But I ended up with a few wins at the Harrahs property, I walked away a net winner up $2.5k, which I was very happy about.

- I got to play three hands at once during a positive count with other players at the table. Think that was the first time I've done that.
-Got to benefit from a couple of dealer mistakes. Including a mistotaled hand, a forgetting of H17/S17 rules, and also a hand where another player was only dealt one card, and I got the opportunity to back out of two losing hands (but keep my third, winning, hand)
-Found one dealer at one store giving much better pen than standard on DD, but she was a relief, so I had to figure out how to follow her from table to table.
- Had a session where I was betting more than everyone else in the pit, it was pretty dead, and I was frantically trying to keep the floor supervisor engaged in conversation to keep him distracted, while still counting. It was exhausting. At the end of the session, I looked at my watch to see how long it had been, and it was only one hour, but felt like four.

Oh, and an aside from online bonus whoring, I stumbled into a bevy of high-dollar, but high variance bonuses, and my ewallet (funds not totaled above) had an upward swing of about $7k, then immediately followed by a downward swing of $7k. So really, nothing to report?

 

[Ace Carolla]

Thanks for the long awaited updates! Much appreciated. I was wondering how you were doing over the summer.

 

[Finn Dog]

Well, the curiosity was killing me. I called up the MGM Grand, talked to someone in table games, and was told me that all their shoe games are 6 deck. This means two things:

1) At least I wasn't overbetting during my short wongs there.
2) I continue to be too stupid to live.

If anyone was wondering why I'm reluctant to use a counting system that requires deck estimation and true count conversion, this is it. By my God, I'm still boggling at how basic that error was. Guess I'll pick up 8 decks of cards next time I'm out.

(Incidentally, phone person indicates that MGM Grand has one doubledeck game, $100 min, which I didn't see on my old issue of CBJN).

ER, what are you using? KO?

Thanks,

FD

 

[EasyRhino]

ER, what are you using? KO?

Yep, still. In the "too stupid to live" incident at MGM Grand, thinking it was 8 decks instead of 6 caused me to use an overly pessimistic initial running count.

Incidentally, I'm on a month+ long hiatus from any casinos right now, between business trips and an apartment move, there's just not enough free time.

 

[jack.jackson]

Any new reports to report?

 

[takinfromindians97]

yessir

After a month or so of sporadic study and drill, I hit the casino with great anticipation of my awesome KO-coundint powers.

Found a $5 dollar table with a nice, slow dealer. Backcounted (shamelessly) through 1.9 6-deck shoes until the count finally got positive. Played one or two hands before the shoe was empty. Decided to stay in for the next shoe, and was able to more or less muddle through the count, with some difficulty.

Then a replacement dealer came in, and, well, it was pretty horrible. I didn't have a shot at keeping up. Even his announcing of everybody's hand was distracting me (ALL THOSE NUMBERS!!). Still won a little bit of money thanks to basic strategy and dumb luck.

I'm not sure if I have a point here.

For those who can actually pull this off, how long did the theory-into-
practice stage take you?

No worries buddy this happens to all of us in the begging. I cant speek for eveyone but it made me practice more and more when i couldnt keep up at the casino. Get a buddy to deal for you and go fast as he can, just keep drilling yourself. I have been playing for a while now and when im bored or have some spare time i flip through a deck of cards, and hit my flash cards too. The one thing that i do wanna say to you is you really should switch to a balanced count. I have used a level one and a level 2 unbalanced, and when i switched to a balanced the money i made was ten times what i did with the unbalanced. Its up to you but i used to love unbalanced and swore by it but its not the way to go.

 

[Bojack1]

No worries buddy this happens to all of us in the begging. I cant speek for eveyone but it made me practice more and more when i couldnt keep up at the casino. Get a buddy to deal for you and go fast as he can, just keep drilling yourself. I have been playing for a while now and when im bored or have some spare time i flip through a deck of cards, and hit my flash cards too. The one thing that i do wanna say to you is you really should switch to a balanced count. I have used a level one and a level 2 unbalanced, and when i switched to a balanced the money i made was ten times what i did with the unbalanced. Its up to you but i used to love unbalanced and swore by it but its not the way to go.

I'm sure your advice is well meaning, but you're answering a post thats almost 2 1/2 years old. Easyrhino has made the transition to accomplished counter as I see it nowadays. I am impressed at the progress you made rhino, not that you need accolades from anyone. I hope you get back out there playing soon. I have enjoyed watching your transformation over the last couple of years. There are few I believe make it past just a few months. You have been humbled as well as successful and if I am to believe your experiences as you write about them (which I do) you've got it pretty together. Nice job.