in recent weeks i have had the chance to observe several counters in their play. I have actually only talked with one of these, but from their playing style it was obvious that they were counters (does it take one to know one? lol)
IMHO i did think these people made several mistakes and i thought i list them here as a tip for people looking to learn:
1. Sitting next to a counter and wonging in and wonging out for several consecutive shoes - this is extremely bad since your betting will most likely strongly correlate with the original counter's betting ramp - and is much more likley to draw heat. Secondly the original counter will get extremely pissed for eating through all the negative cards just so that you can start betting during positive counts. You should particularly avoid this if the original counter is (physically) bigger than you.
2. Dont overbet. bet within your bankroll or will quickly go bust. if you dont have a big bankroll then you cant bet big. tough but true.
3. You need to keep a log of your results - it's not enough just to keep a rough thought of how you are performing over days, weeks, months.
4. dont let negative variance impact your objectivity. if you continue betting high when the count has already gone down then you are simply chasing and gambling.
5. develop an understanding of your expected win rate, your standard deviation, your ROR - it appears that many people dont actually know a good game from a bad game, nor understand the impact of number of players at the table or number of hands played per hour.
6. if a group of you are going to count together then dont all count at the same table since you are significantly increasing your ROR. A few weeks ago i saw two buddies playing together for hours on end and they were getting wiped out because the dealer was running hot. it will be better for you to play at seperate tables or at different times.
7. dont break into another counter's game. that's just damn rude.
IMHO i did think these people made several mistakes and i thought i list them here as a tip for people looking to learn:
1. Sitting next to a counter and wonging in and wonging out for several consecutive shoes - this is extremely bad since your betting will most likely strongly correlate with the original counter's betting ramp - and is much more likley to draw heat. Secondly the original counter will get extremely pissed for eating through all the negative cards just so that you can start betting during positive counts. You should particularly avoid this if the original counter is (physically) bigger than you.
2. Dont overbet. bet within your bankroll or will quickly go bust. if you dont have a big bankroll then you cant bet big. tough but true.
3. You need to keep a log of your results - it's not enough just to keep a rough thought of how you are performing over days, weeks, months.
4. dont let negative variance impact your objectivity. if you continue betting high when the count has already gone down then you are simply chasing and gambling.
5. develop an understanding of your expected win rate, your standard deviation, your ROR - it appears that many people dont actually know a good game from a bad game, nor understand the impact of number of players at the table or number of hands played per hour.
6. if a group of you are going to count together then dont all count at the same table since you are significantly increasing your ROR. A few weeks ago i saw two buddies playing together for hours on end and they were getting wiped out because the dealer was running hot. it will be better for you to play at seperate tables or at different times.
7. dont break into another counter's game. that's just damn rude.
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