"The Color of Blackjack" improvements to KO

[boneuphtoner]

Another thumbs up!

Got my copy yesterday and read a good bit of it last night. I think the author has done a good job explaining the system down to what you need to know to get the money, although you still need the original KO book to really get the basics of maintaining a running count, etc. I agree with his conclusions after doing several back of the envelope calculations that you need not TC to use TKO. The best visual explanation (nice pics) of frontloading that I've seen in the texts I've owned.

Although after trying briefly for about an hour on CV, I'm not completely convinced that memorizing all of the different key counts is easier than true counting. Perhaps one could simplify it further and still obtain much of the gain by picking an early, middle, and late key count. I feel this way because if I'm still struggling with this discard tray estimation, what I consider my achilles heel as a counter, the only reason I'd ever personally go with an unbalanced system to begin with is to avoid dealing with the hassle of deck estimation.

Here is my question: If one could come up with compromise warm numbers (what Dravot calls the key count in KO terminology) based on early, middle, and late in the shoe, couldn't you capture nearly all of the advantage of TKO? Although I don't have a ton of confidence in my deck estimation abilities, I'm sure I can accurate judge early, middle, and late portions of a shoe.

 

[21klaatu]

You've got it!

Got my copy yesterday and read a good bit of it last night. I think the author has done a good job explaining the system down to what you need to know to get the money, although you still need the original KO book to really get the basics of maintaining a running count, etc. I agree with his conclusions after doing several back of the envelope calculations that you need not TC to use TKO. The best visual explanation (nice pics) of frontloading that I've seen in the texts I've owned.

Although after trying briefly for about an hour on CV, I'm not completely convinced that memorizing all of the different key counts is easier than true counting. Perhaps one could simplify it further and still obtain much of the gain by picking an early, middle, and late key count. I feel this way because if I'm still struggling with this discard tray estimation, what I consider my achilles heel as a counter, the only reason I'd ever personally go with an unbalanced system to begin with is to avoid dealing with the hassle of deck estimation.

Here is my question: If one could come up with compromise warm numbers (what Dravot calls the key count in KO terminology) based on early, middle, and late in the shoe, couldn't you capture nearly all of the advantage of TKO? Although I don't have a ton of confidence in my deck estimation abilities, I'm sure I can accurate judge early, middle, and late portions of a shoe.

That is the beauty of the methodology of the book. You don't need perfect deck estimation nor division. You've already got it. Know your early, middle and late portions of the shoe numbers and you gain so much extra power over KO.

 

[doglover]

Tko

TKO as outlined by The Color of Blackjack is a very powerful tool. I have used several systems in the past and have been using TKO for several years now with much success. Dravit's book makes learning and using this count system very easy for the novice. I only wish this book and it's charts was available to me during my learning process. Would have saved me much frustration.
I highly recommend the book.

 

[zengrifter]

TKO as outlined by The Color of Blackjack is a very powerful tool. I have used several systems in the past and have been using TKO for several years now with much success. Dravit's book makes learning and using this count system very easy for the novice. I only wish this book and it's charts was available to me during my learning process. Would have saved me much frustration.
I highly recommend the book.

The reviews are starting to make this place look like Amazon.com. zg

 

[KenSmith]

I agree. The ones from visitors with plenty of posts make sense, but those last two look pretty spammy to me. Noted.

 

[SD Padres]

I would expect that the two reviews probably came from the same IP address.

 

[Brett_Harris]

True counting adds a lot to UBZ11..

In response to Brock Windsor:

I know the 'Zen' family of counts works best for single or double deck, but I decided to see the effect of true counting UBZ11 in 6d compared to running, or true counted Zen and here are the results: S17, DOA, 80%pen, no RSA, no surrender, Wong at equivalent Zen TC of -2 (actually this equates to about 70% of rounds) using a 1-8 Optimal Spread with all indices generated by SBA.

ekb 582 506 515
N0 35578 31620 31708
SCORE $28.10 $31.63 $31.54
%Pl 70.00 73.44 74.23

So true counted UBZ11 outperforms Zen!

BRH.

 

[Buddah B]

I have been using hi-lo for the past 6 months, just read his book and while it is straight forward and simple, I was hoping to have some questions answered. I understand that the basic KO concept is to eliminate the TC but on his graphs why does the RC have to continuously go up in order for you to even make an minimum increase in your bet? For example, in a 6D, the key count must be +9 after 1D to make a 2 unit bet, but +18 after 4D. Shouldn't it be the other way around? That it has to be higher in the beginning and can be lower near the end of the shoe? TIA.

 

[KenSmith]

This is puzzling if you're coming from a Hi-Lo background or any balanced count. The key here is that the KO count, because it is unbalanced will always tend to go more and more positive as the shoe progresses. If you're thinking in terms of comparison to Hi-Lo, the count has to go up to indicate a normal flat count through the shoe.

What Dravot's concept does is allows you to "cheat" on the index where you can increase your bet, getting in more player-favorable bets early in the shoe, and ignoring some "false alarm" late shoe bet increases that are actually betting into bad decks.

To understand why the ramp is the direction it is, just remember that a neutral deck will have an ever-increasing count in KO.

 

[Deathclutch]

Do the techniques in this book carry over to other unbalanced counts? Such as KISS or UBZII users? Or is this strictly for KO? Do we know how this system compares to other level 1 or 2 unbalanced?

 

[KenSmith]

Do the techniques in this book carry over to other unbalanced counts? Such as KISS or UBZII users? Or is this strictly for KO? Do we know how this system compares to other level 1 or 2 unbalanced?

The concept should be applicable to any unbalanced count. CVData can do the necessary sims to measure the effectiveness.

 

[Deathclutch]

The concept should be applicable to any unbalanced count. CVData can do the necessary sims to measure the effectiveness.

Wow, fantastic! I suppose I need to go ahead and finally get the program soon.

 

[boneuphtoner]

Do the techniques in this book carry over to other unbalanced counts? Such as KISS or UBZII users? Or is this strictly for KO?

As Ken said, these techniques are absolutely applicable to the other unbalanced counts, but not in the same way. The KO system is much easier to true fudge as you simply adjust your key count depending on the deck depth. Since the pivot of UBZ and KISS coincide with a much lower lower true count than KO's pivot (+2 instead of +4), if you want maximum accuracy, you really should fudge both sides of the pivot, whereas you only need to fudge the lesser counts than the pivot with KO. The following is applicable to UBZ, but is also applicable to KISS III:

- For those counts below the UBZ pivot (which is 0), be more aggressive early, less aggressive late. If your averaged bet ramp would have you raising your bet at -5, you might adjust these a couple of integers down early, and a couple of integers higher later. This is similar to the KO fudging method. But you also have to fudge on the other side of the pivot, see next point:

- For those counts above the UBZ pivot, be less aggressive early and more aggressive late. A running count of +5 (5 above the pivot) is NOT much more advantageous than the pivot early in a shoe, but becomes very favorable late. According to my calculations, you would reach an average maximum bet around +6, but if you want to be accurate, you would only reach that maximum at around +10 or more if it was very early, and you would reach the same advantage around +4 if it was really late.

Fred Renzey covers this true fudging on the positive side of the pivot in his Blackjack Bluebook II, although he mostly talks about it in terms of adjusting indices.

 

[Buddah B]

Thanks for the response, Ken. Any idea on EV with this system compared to Hi-lo? Don't have a simulator yet.....

 

[Deathclutch]

Got my copy of the book today, very good ideas in it. I am now trying to figure out how I can apply this to other unbalanced counts.

 

[Buddah B]

Got one more question. Would you recommend only wonging out when it's in the "frigid" section? It seems to me that wouldn't be right because there is no progressive table for what is the "frigid" zone like there is for the "cold" zone. Also I would imagine you would not recommend wonging in the "cold" zone because you would be playing so few hands. So is there somewhere in between that you would recommend for wonging? TIA

 

[Buddah B]

Bump....Ken, can you possibly answer the above question?

 

[KenSmith]

Rather than me answering, I'll send an email to the author and hopefully he'll respond here.

 

[Buddah B]

Ok great. I would have done the same but he had an "it may take awhile for me to respond" disclaimer and I thought you may know. Hope we hear from him....

 

[Dravot21]

COB-wong outs

Got one more question. Would you recommend only wonging out when it's in the "frigid" section? It seems to me that wouldn't be right because there is no progressive table for what is the "frigid" zone like there is for the "cold" zone. Also I would imagine you would not recommend wonging in the "cold" zone because you would be playing so few hands. So is there somewhere in between that you would recommend for wonging? TIA

The charts demonstrate the player edge at any RC and penetration level. In the Frigid or Cold the house has the edge and it then comes down to the probability of the count making enough progress to enter the Warm. Wong out numbers are on page 40.
For example if you are in the Frigid at deck two there is no point in playing. The chance of the count getting to the Warm or Hot where you could make a few positive ev bets would not offset the time spent plodding through the Cold negative ev bets.