playing heads up with neg count

[Automatic Monkey]

You are right rukus, it would be more normal to walk after losing two hands. The Original question was "what do you do if you have played two hands, won them both, and the count has tanked to your departure point??

I also don't entirely agree with either yourself of monkey that you keep playing until you lose. Just because you won the last hand is no reason to play through negative counts. If the true count is minus 2, I dont want to play. Period. I wouldn't sit down and start playing with a true count of -2, so I'm not going to play even one more hand, regardless of the results of the last hand. Especially if I had won! why would I want to give that money back by playing in a negative expected value situation?

I do appreciate your replies and everyones thoughts though.

Look, it's a tradeoff. Cover isn't free. You have a choice between playing until you lose or push one minimum bet, or risking drawing attention to your Wonging. It costs about a quarter to play that negative hand, you just have to decide if the cover is worth a quarter. Depending on the circumstances, it may or may not be.

 

[kewljason]

Look, it's a tradeoff. Cover isn't free. You have a choice between playing until you lose or push one minimum bet, or risking drawing attention to your Wonging. It costs about a quarter to play that negative hand, you just have to decide if the cover is worth a quarter. Depending on the circumstances, it may or may not be.

yeah, I guess thats a good way to think about it.

 

[itrack]

If it was me, I would just play the next hand. You have only seen something like 8 cards total. You are most likely losing more EV by walking around to the next table/pit, than playing through 1 or 2 more hands at a minimum bet. Thats what minimum bets are for in my opinion. Now if you were only spreading something like a 1-4 or 1-6 or something really small on a 6D shoe, then I could see the big deal about playing in any negative count. This will also allow you to camp at a single table/casino for longer, also saving you EV.
If that doesn't cut it for you though, theres always one reasoning that I find works. Just tell them that theres no way you are gonna win X number of hands in a row at the same table. (this wont work for only 2 hands though im guessing lol)

 

[maverik]

despite having to play through negative hands if you play head to head in a 6 deck shoe, your estimated winning greatly improve for the day, more hands is more money. You also get the hot counts completely to yourself, and as itrack said, that is what a minimum bet is for. If your playing all you need to spread about 1-10 on a shoe like that and you will make profits for sure. It seems pretty dumb to walk away right away, obviously the count is going to be cold for a little while.

 

[Kasi]

My style of play is to play off the top off a shoe and wong out at negative counts of -1 or more...
example: Sit down at empty six deck table. Wait while dealer shuffles. Dealer burns 10, first hand my ten,ten beats the dealers ten, eight. (running count minus 4). Second hand my BJ beats dealers ten,ten.

Well you know I can't deal with how suspicious stuff may or may not look lol.

First you say, exiting at "-1 or more". Then you say you do not exit at RC=-4 at the second hand. If your sim is assuming you are "flooring" TC's, you would have left after that one round. If it's assuming you are truncating TC's, you would not leave.

Hopefully your indexes, if any, are also based on the same assumptions as your TC is.

This "playing from top of shoe and exiting at some point" is an area I don't much about.

That said, I don't know how Norm's stuff might deal with stuff like the "instantaneous cost" of finding another shoe (meaning another "off-thetop" shoe is immediately available in my mind) vs the cost of finding another "off-the-top" shoe and the cost of continuing to play at -counts in current shoe.. To me this only has a bearing on "hourly" win rate anyway.

Or whether it may even could assume, if you could sit out that second hand above for example, assume you'd still be allowed to re-enter the game because "back-counting" is allowed.

Frequencies of experiencing a minus RC, I'd guess, would have to change if one always exited at -1 and could never re-enter after that. Since, sometimes, otherwise, one might have a -1RC, and yet eventually recover to RC=0 or greater.

Not to mention how any of this may effect initial $unit or not depending on how long you may or may not choose to continue to play, if ever, at -1 or -2.

I've never cared that much about "hourly" stuff anyway. Although that is the best way to measure the value of your roll lol. I understand that. But, with my belts and suspenders, I'd just want to know "per round" stuff and keep track of rounds played anyway. Maybe kind of like The Wise One was saying.

I don't care if I'm "supposed" to play 27 rounds of every 100 seen. Maybe sometimes it's a full table, or a 1-other person table. Maybe I don't even "see" 100 rounds per hour. If I play 33 physical hands, I've played 33 rounds and I know what to expect from them and maybe it took me a half-hour or maybe 2 hours. My N0 is what it is, to me, expressed in physical rounds played, and that's all I care about.

Like, if, say, I could purely "back-count", only play hands at say +2TC or more, I wouldn't really care what my "hourly" win rate should be, assuming as it must some number of rounds "seen" per hour. All I'd care about is how many rounds I played and I wouldn't give a rat's ass of how many hours it took me - I'd measure results by physical rounds played, not by hours played.

Sorry I couldn't answer your basic question better.

 

[matt21]

hi kewljason - hope things are well for you out in AC!
finally i can offer my 'wisdom' (LOL) after all the helpful posts you have given me!

i often play 6D heads-up but will only leave if TC goes to -4 or -5 - my spread is bigger than yours - i spread 1-24 rather than 1-12 so this makes up for more bets during negative counts. so my EV is still good if i play-all on 6D.
in fact i play heads-up/play-all most of the time and it is turning out to be a profitable approach (both theoretically and actual results!).

the thing is, playing heads up, with a big spread, is a good opportunity, and it's worth it because maybe on the next shoe you will hit a good positive count and will be able to play it all on your own. so i say, stay at the table, increase your spread.

Good luck to you!!!

Matt

 

[rukus]

Look, it's a tradeoff. Cover isn't free. You have a choice between playing until you lose or push one minimum bet, or risking drawing attention to your Wonging. It costs about a quarter to play that negative hand, you just have to decide if the cover is worth a quarter. Depending on the circumstances, it may or may not be.

+1, exactly what i was trying to say. if i feel the need for this type of cover i will do it until i lose two hands. if i dont feel the need for wonging cover i will be up from a table before the TC actually hits -1, ie probably -0.75, depending on count and cards played, etc.

didnt realize your original question stated the scenario of winning two hands, sorry about that. but my answer was more general in terms of what is possible to do if you are wonging, feel the need for cover, and are facing a negative count.

 

[kewljason]

I thank everyone for the responses and advise. I realize with a larger spread I could play more negative counts as my friend Matt does, or even play all, with the same results. However, I dont have the BR for a larger spread without reducing my unit size. (at least not at the low RoR I wish to play). Also, because I play the same small rotation of places multiple times per week, I want to use a smaller spread to hopefully stay under the radar. So I am sticking with my overall plan of attack which is reasonably small spread, don't play negative counts, move around alot. It has served me well.

However, on those rare occasions that I have the opportunity to play heads up with the dealer (and they are increasingly rare this time of year in AC with the summer crowds), I will be a bit more tolerant, as per my departure point. Perhaps waiting until TC of -1.5 or even -2.

I must say I am a bit surprised by the attitude "you've only seen 10 cards. Play a few more hands and see what happens". I can tell you that if I was walking through the casino and saw a game in the first round of play after a shuffle, and saw 8 high cards and 0 low cards on the felt, I would not choose to play the next round of that game! So the fact that I'm sitting rather that walking doesn't change anything for me. I don't want to play the next round of that game!! Not when there are numerous other tables within several feet. Unforetunately as Monkey pointed out, the need for a bit of cover may require an extra round or two.

In response to Kasi, on "not dealing with how suspicious things may or may not look". Unfortunately, If you want to continue to be welcome to play at the same locations over and over, you have to worry about cover and such, sometimes giving up profitable plays like spitting 10's ect. Also obviously, I meant "-1 or less". Forgot I was dealing with a negative number. I dont floor or round off. A running count of -4 with 6 decks remaining is a TC of -.67 not -1 (to me). If the index for doubling is +1 and I have a running count of +4 with 5 decks remaining.... I don't double. (TC is only +.8)

 

[maverik]

just dont play head to head than, a positive running count of 10 means nothing in the first few hands of a 6 or 8 deck shoe. get real man, if you want to play head to head you have to spread big, its just not for you i guess, sorry

 

[kewljason]

just dont play head to head than, a positive running count of 10 means nothing in the first few hands of a 6 or 8 deck shoe. get real man, if you want to play head to head you have to spread big, its just not for you i guess, sorry

we were talking about a NEGATIVE running count, not positive, but thanx for the advise, you may be right.

 

[Kasi]

.. Also obviously, I meant "-1 or less". Forgot I was dealing with a negative number. I dont floor or round off. A running count of -4 with 6 decks remaining is a TC of -.67 not -1 (to me). If the index for doubling is +1 and I have a running count of +4 with 5 decks remaining.... I don't double. (TC is only +.8)

I just meant I have never seen sims that deal with fractional TC's. All the ones I've seen give freq, adv, and variance by whole number TC's.

But one has already told the sim one's method for calculating a TC so it knows which bucket to put it in.

A -0.67 TC would be included in the TC=0 line if truncating as would a *0.67 TC.

A -0.67 TC would be included in the TC=-1 line if rounding, as would also a -1.4 TC.

A-0.67 TC would also be included in the -TC=-1 if flooring but a -1.4 TC would be included in the TC=-2 line.

I suppose one could develop and learn fractional indexes? Not sure how much gain there would be in doing that anyway. Ideally index departure points would also be calced on the same assumptions. I mean it could be it thinks you are rounding and that +0.8 is a +TC=1 and you would make the departure since the index number has been fully achieved.

Maybe, even heads up, and playing to a lower point, by changing spread, even spreading to multiple hands, maybe with more hands per hour, you could keep ROR the same as in your other styles of play after all.

Whatever, I'd probably want a whole bunch of separate heads-up sims to explore the various possibilities and use one that allowed you to leave or whatever as often as you felt comfortable with still balancing the "heat" factor.

And then there's the argument "whatever you've been doing most of the time up to now sounds like it's been working for a long time" so, what the heck, never play heads up, you say it doesn't present itself often anyway, and never have reason to worry about the heat.

Sacrifice a little whatever for a lifetime certainty of winning a little less forever.

You can't win if you can't play even though ROR is finally zero