What is the biggest losing streak you've had?

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shinyam

Well-Known Member
In absolute dollars, and what about your max bet?

For me, the losing streak lasted a month and I lost $15,000, with a $500 max bet.
 
I am currently still suffering through my worse losing period. Unfortunately, it has extended beyond the blackjack tables for me. :(

After a fantastic first half of the year, +2914 units. (72+k). I was within a stones throw of my total of 3157 units for all of 2010 and more than my 2009 total of 2860 units. As the page turned to the second half of the year, I dropped over 400 units (10k) on July 1, and another 922 units over the next 5 weeks, down 1322 units or 33K. :( Worse such period of my career. Softened a bit by the extraordinarily good first half of the year, which left my BR a little over inflated. Otherwise I would have had to consider resizing downward.

This brutal period came to a temporary halt when I found out about a medical condition requiring immediate surgery. (heart valve replacement...something someone in their late 20's should not be going through) So as I said, my bad run wasn't limited to the tables. :(

After a week in the hospital and 2 weeks in the rehab hospital, I am anxious to get back on the attack and turn the second half of the year around, but am going to have to bide my time for a few weeks longer, while I recover at home.

I will have more to say about this incident and how such an illness relates to a fulltime player's career and thoughts about it being one of those things that players don't consider when thinking of playing for a living, but I will save that for another time, so as not to hijack the OP's thread. So staying on topic, for me, short answer... down $33,000 over 5 weeks of playing time. :(
 
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Holy smokes. That's a huge hit. Luckily you had a good run before.

I'm sure you will do fine. The odds of something like that happening again are astronomically small (though I don't know what your max bet is).
 
shinyam said:
Holy smokes. That's a huge hit. Luckily you had a good run before.

I'm sure you will do fine. The odds of something like that happening again are astronomically small (though I don't know what your max bet is).
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Oh I am sorry. My max bet varies according to different games and more importantly individual casinos and how much I think they will tolerate from me. For the most part it is a single hand of $400, but I have a few locations that I jump above what I perceive as an important 'heat threshold of $500' and play $600 and on rare moster count occasions more. I also have been experimenting some with playing 2 hands of up to $400. This is something I have avoided doing for heat reasons all of my career. Wouldn't you know it that when I start experimenting with getting more money on the table during high counts, I hit a period such as this. I must be a decendant of the 'Murphy's" :laugh:
 
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kewljason said:
Wouldn't you know it that when I start experimenting with getting more money on the table during high counts, I hit a period such as this. I must decendants of the 'Murphy's" :laugh:
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After I bought simulation software - sure enough - hit a downswing on bigger ramping. Just have to ride it through. I would also add that buying sim software was the smartest thing I have done as an AP - earnings have grown dramatically.
 
Freightman said:
After I bought simulation software - sure enough - hit a downswing on bigger ramping. Just have to ride it through. I would also add that buying sim software was the smartest thing I have done as an AP - earnings have grown dramatically.
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Absolutely true, Freightman. Mine paid for itself 1000 times over, literally.
 
Holy smokes

Geeze KJ!!!!!!! Hope thing are getting better...I couldn't imagine...At least it was caught in a timely fashion? How the heck did you finf u had a malfunction?:-)

Mac
 
Hey KJ

Sorry to hear your health problem. Wish you a speedy recovery. Unfortunately we have to deal with whatever life throws at us.
 
KJ..Hope all is well with you.

To the OP..Similiar situation here, down about 175 units in the last 4 sessions.(17.5k) Max bet varies between 500-1000. It really sounds like so much more when you put cash value on it!! Its all part of the game though. Just make sure you are playing with absolute knowledge and it will come back...

Just wish my investor saw it that way:o
 
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KJ:

Glad to see you back and very sorry to hear of your misfortunes. I hope they took care of any other problems while they were in there replacing your heart valve. I hope you're up and biking around soon.
 
To hole carders and shuffle trackers

I have alway been interested in what kind of swing hole carders and shuffle trackers have experienced in comparison to straight counting, but I do not remember seeing this kind of information here. Anyone?
 
a sim shall lead them

A sim can give you your range of possible results.
At about .5 N0 is when SD & EV can be farthest apart.
It takes about 100 hours for the SD of 2 hands to compare to 1 hand. On any short run the 2 hand SD is rather high.
 
suicyco maniac said:
Those are both fairly small and common downturns at the $500 max level.
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Totally agree. I recall having multiple six figure losing streaks in less than a week. Granted I was playing mediocre shoe games and betting 7x500 but still. Not trying to rub it in, but the run KJ had where he at one point had won more in one shoe than he ever had as a drawdown was truly unreal and unlikely to continue.

Good luck with the surgery KJ. Did you have insurance? How much does the procedure cost?
 
psyduck said:
I have alway been interested in what kind of swing hole carders and shuffle trackers have experienced in comparison to straight counting, but I do not remember seeing this kind of information here. Anyone?
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Well, definitely not an expert ST'er or anything, so take what I say for what its worth (I more ST in addition to CC'ing) - but in a sense the short term variance is greater since I'm making bigger bets more often then I would straight up CC'ing. ST'ing ain't no license to print money either, the % advantages you get with it are similar to CC'ing. You can get sh*t as 13's and 14's while the dealer and everyone else get the 10's and Aces just like counting :sad:

I would imagine for HC'ing, a game with a 3% advantage has a lot of variance too (not totally uncommon to get around a 2-3% advantage with CC'ing at times, which is when your making your huge bets). Now a 10% advantage, that might be such a huge advantage that the variance is noticeably less?
 
psyduck said:
I have alway been interested in what kind of swing hole carders and shuffle trackers have experienced in comparison to straight counting, but I do not remember seeing this kind of information here. Anyone?
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From what I have read, a blackjack player and a HC player betting the same kelly fraction will experience the same swings, but the higher the edge the faster the swings happen. By this I mean they both have the same chance of doubling or halving their bankroll, which may be different than "swings."

I am currently on a 1 month 43k(half of my all time high) losing streak, mostly on high edge games. I just came back from a trip where I lost 7/7 HC sessions, most on a game better (I think) than 3CP. Makes me think (briefly) about going back to counting or just playing easy HC games like 3cp or blackjack (if I can find it.) At least then I would know my edge and have full confidence in my play. My plan is to have a pro evaluate my game, and then keep on truckin. Next time I reach an ATH I will probably scale down to quarter Kelly. Let me tell ya, betting half kelly at high edge situations is a wild ride. The winning side of it is amazing though. My best 2 months this year I went from 30k to 80k. I still had some big losses during that time, had to play through 2 CTRs.
 
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