ZenKinG
Well-Known Member
These forums are littered with so much garbage of which ultimately never adds much profit to someone's game or in fact it actually hinders a player's performance; things such as costly cover plays, count debates, index plays, worrying about heat, playing into too many negatives for no reason with the excuse of more rounds per hour, etc. Yes, these things SHOULD be discussed and have their place, but at the end of the day, they add pennies instead of dollars and sometimes even actually hurt you when you simply could've avoided the nonsense. On the other hand here's something that needs much more attention on these forums and needs to be discussed much more often and that's the power of backcounting, but not ONLY backcounting, the COMBINATION of backcounting AND optimal departure.
Before I proceed, I need to thank Don for his stellar work on optimal departure along with everyone who contributed to the numbers that he mentioned in his book such as Grosjean and others. In my opinion it's one of the most under appreciated subjects in the game of blackjack and that's because of the amount of effect it will have on your results and probably whether you will succeed or not. If you further enhance optimal departure and combine it with backcounting, the results speak for themselves.
Just so everyone knows, backcounting actually outperforms everything, yes even a 75% DD game 'IF' there are a lot of tables to backcount in the casino. If you're in a place with 20 or more blackjack tables, backcounting will outperform a game even as good as a 75% DD game, yes I know hard to believe right? And when I say outperform, I mean literally every metric. The only metric that a good DD game can outperform on against backcounting with optimal departure would be the win rate if the player is getting a crazy amount of rounds per hour(200+) on a good DD game. Otherwise backcounting with optimal departure is the best way to extract money from the casino while preserving longevity and maximizing EV per store.
What people don't realize is that not ALL rounds are the same. Backcounting and optimally departing at -1 and observing pointless rounds that likely won't come back and make a difference in your win rate, is much different than rounds starting fro ma fresh shuffle at 0 that has a higher chance of going positive and having an affect on your win rate. That's why optimal departure is such a huge benefit to the player and if you combine it with backcounting, it's deadly. Also if you do it right, a 1-3 or 1-4 backcounting spread will immediately label you a non-threat. Most floormen and even shift managers are given a checklist to sweat you, of which one of the biggest is the size of your bet spread from minimum to maximum. No amount of cover plays will be the reason you will last at a certain store without getting the boot, it will be because you're moving your money with the count. Don't forget, 99% of the time, heat generates from the pit. Surveillance won't be watching you stand behind a table unless the pit tells them to skills check you. What people don't understand is that these pit bosses, even if they see you being suspicious standing behind a table, most don't actually understand the game and if you don't run into their stereotypical checklist given by their bosses, they will still think you need a huge spread to beat the game and wont call the shift manager, casino manager, or surveillance for further evaluation.
I haven't even been simming my correct backcounting EV this whole time, but the funny thing is it's actually probably still close to the regular sim with departure adjustment turned off, due to me not always being able to quickly find a shoe and being able to take advantage of the departure adjustment. It's good to know though that my EV is potentially higher and that I've just been running possibly even worse. I've always noticed that I was using optimal departure when backcounting, but never realized the N0 on CVCX from a backcounting sim is accounting for observing EVERY round of that shoe. If you optimally depart from the shoe as described in Blackjack Attack, you're boosting your win rate and cutting the N0 in half. Just take a look at these stats below.
The departure point for a shoe game depends on the penetration of the game but is usually around TC -1 and is a good number to go by for all levels of penetration whether it's an 8 deck game or a 6 deck game. If you are optimally departing, you MUST use the departure adjustment feature on CVCX. If it takes 6 rounds to find a new table, you input 6 and it skyrockets the win rate and cuts the N0 in HALF to about 8k on an average shoe game with surrender. If it takes 15 rounds to find a new table, you enter 15, which STILL puts the N0 at around 10k. Then keep in mind you're only actually PLAYING 25% of those rounds. So a N0 of 8k is actually ONLY 2k. Let that sink in. A 2k 'playing' N0 for backcounting. The best DD games are only 6-8k and youre playing ALL of those rounds and never observing any of them and that's only if you also wong out aggressively.
Not everyone can fully understand counting theory like me, but thats why im here. You never see this discussed in the forums, but it definitely needs more attention.
Before I proceed, I need to thank Don for his stellar work on optimal departure along with everyone who contributed to the numbers that he mentioned in his book such as Grosjean and others. In my opinion it's one of the most under appreciated subjects in the game of blackjack and that's because of the amount of effect it will have on your results and probably whether you will succeed or not. If you further enhance optimal departure and combine it with backcounting, the results speak for themselves.
Just so everyone knows, backcounting actually outperforms everything, yes even a 75% DD game 'IF' there are a lot of tables to backcount in the casino. If you're in a place with 20 or more blackjack tables, backcounting will outperform a game even as good as a 75% DD game, yes I know hard to believe right? And when I say outperform, I mean literally every metric. The only metric that a good DD game can outperform on against backcounting with optimal departure would be the win rate if the player is getting a crazy amount of rounds per hour(200+) on a good DD game. Otherwise backcounting with optimal departure is the best way to extract money from the casino while preserving longevity and maximizing EV per store.
What people don't realize is that not ALL rounds are the same. Backcounting and optimally departing at -1 and observing pointless rounds that likely won't come back and make a difference in your win rate, is much different than rounds starting fro ma fresh shuffle at 0 that has a higher chance of going positive and having an affect on your win rate. That's why optimal departure is such a huge benefit to the player and if you combine it with backcounting, it's deadly. Also if you do it right, a 1-3 or 1-4 backcounting spread will immediately label you a non-threat. Most floormen and even shift managers are given a checklist to sweat you, of which one of the biggest is the size of your bet spread from minimum to maximum. No amount of cover plays will be the reason you will last at a certain store without getting the boot, it will be because you're moving your money with the count. Don't forget, 99% of the time, heat generates from the pit. Surveillance won't be watching you stand behind a table unless the pit tells them to skills check you. What people don't understand is that these pit bosses, even if they see you being suspicious standing behind a table, most don't actually understand the game and if you don't run into their stereotypical checklist given by their bosses, they will still think you need a huge spread to beat the game and wont call the shift manager, casino manager, or surveillance for further evaluation.
I haven't even been simming my correct backcounting EV this whole time, but the funny thing is it's actually probably still close to the regular sim with departure adjustment turned off, due to me not always being able to quickly find a shoe and being able to take advantage of the departure adjustment. It's good to know though that my EV is potentially higher and that I've just been running possibly even worse. I've always noticed that I was using optimal departure when backcounting, but never realized the N0 on CVCX from a backcounting sim is accounting for observing EVERY round of that shoe. If you optimally depart from the shoe as described in Blackjack Attack, you're boosting your win rate and cutting the N0 in half. Just take a look at these stats below.
The departure point for a shoe game depends on the penetration of the game but is usually around TC -1 and is a good number to go by for all levels of penetration whether it's an 8 deck game or a 6 deck game. If you are optimally departing, you MUST use the departure adjustment feature on CVCX. If it takes 6 rounds to find a new table, you input 6 and it skyrockets the win rate and cuts the N0 in HALF to about 8k on an average shoe game with surrender. If it takes 15 rounds to find a new table, you enter 15, which STILL puts the N0 at around 10k. Then keep in mind you're only actually PLAYING 25% of those rounds. So a N0 of 8k is actually ONLY 2k. Let that sink in. A 2k 'playing' N0 for backcounting. The best DD games are only 6-8k and youre playing ALL of those rounds and never observing any of them and that's only if you also wong out aggressively.
Not everyone can fully understand counting theory like me, but thats why im here. You never see this discussed in the forums, but it definitely needs more attention.
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