When should you ask for your diploma?

[UK-21]

At what point does the education become complete, and from there onwards it's a case of keeping up to date with developments?

I've been learning to play BJ for around a year now, and am running out of things to look at to help me improve. Whilst I'm not conceited enough to think I, or anyone else for that matter, has done "everything" or knows it all, at what point does it become a case of just getting the hours in at the tables and using what you've learnt to identify the advantageous situations and playing accordingly?

Thoughts?


Mimosine advised someone very recently to build their learning around:

#1 Basic Strategy
#2 Counting speed and accuracy
#3 True count and deck estimation (if it applies to your system)
#4 Bet Ramping
#5 Insurance
#6 Index memorization

Once you can tick all of the above (hand on heart) what comes next? I've practiced tracking high card slugs through a shuffle. But in actual play I've only had one situation where it's been worthwhile to do this and the dealer made such a meal of shuffling the 6 decks the slug was broken up several times over.

Is it now a case of just get some in? (playing hours that is).

Newb99

 

[PrinceDragon]

This is a life long lesson,and it will never ends unless you quit on it.

P.D.

 

[UK-21]

Yeah. . . . but it's a bit like learning to ride a bike. You only have to do the hard bit once.

 

[PrinceDragon]

Yeah. . . . but it's a bit like learning to ride a bike. You only have to do the hard bit once.

Well...Let's try this.
Let say you are now a "21" master,you've done everything in order to beat this game and you are just "putting in the hours"
Are you sure about this?...
How about those BJ variants like SP21,SF21,BJ switch...ect,and those side bets like LL,High Tie Bonus,Royal match...ect...new games and side bets come out every now and them,and lots of them are beatable.

Can you beat them?Do you know how to beat them?

There are always something new and insteresting tomorrow...Life or Blackjack...

Just me 2 cents

P.D.

 

[Kasi]

At what point does the education become complete...

I don't know. Run a sim with the game and assumptions you think you might play most often. That's CVCX or CVDATA maybe.

Use CVBJ to play ~10,000 or more hands that way. The more the better. Doesn't cost you a dime even if you lose.

Compare actual to expected. CVBJ will tell you how often you made the right bet at the right counts. Use a free internet site if you want and keep track of things manually. Most won't keep of track of total hands played, etc in enough detail over time to make it worth your while. IMHO lol.

If you find you are mostly making the right bet at the right counts, maybe using indexes or not, whatever you told the sim to do, then you know you know you are doing the right stuff.

You are then ready to make the leap of faith, like in one of those Harrison Ford movies, that when you jump off the cliff, even though you can't see it, you will not fall to the bottom.

Look up a "Weekend Warrior"'s thread and do that as a possibility. That's the idea anyway.

To imagine any of that is possible without a sim, something to compare to, is insane and can't likely be done from books. Maybe it could but I would only play from software. Period. End of story. I'd no sooner could play a -EV BJ game on the internet without 100% knowing BS than I could count and bet a roll without knowing 100% what I'm doing and what to expect from it.

If you don't know that you know, then, you don't know lol.

I always knew when I didn't know and I always knew when I knowed lmao.

Spent alot of time knowing I didn't know so I knew to not play. When I knew I knew, I played

It's weird though. Even when I think I know I know, I still know I don't really know everything. But, at some point, I still make the leap of faith.

BJ on the internet was, relatively speaking, easy. Black and white. I always knew I knew. Real life is tougher. But maybe not by that much.

You'll know when you know.

And, don't ever forget, wherever you go, there you are.

 

[SD Padres]

I've been playing since 1984 and I'm still learning new things all the time. I don't think you ever become a master.

 

[jimmtech]

Thanks to Kasi for ROR help.

IMHO: If you don't know:

how rule changes affect your EV

how penetration affects your ROR

the importance of game selection

Money management and bankroll management

and

have the firm discipline to precisely follow your game plan

you might be like a cow asking for directions in the slaughterhouse!

For me, learning to live with losing has been the toughest lesson of all, and unless you are rock-solid in the above, you may have a tough go of things - (again not a reflection on you, but on me!)

 

[Brock Windsor]

Develop skills with a higher advantage. Shuffle tracking was a good start but there are a host of other techniqes discussed on this forum.
BW

 

[longwolf]

Develop skills with a higher advantage. Shuffle tracking was a good start but there are a host of other techniqes discussed on this forum.
BW

What other techniques are you looking at?

I can think of playing the warps, hole carding and reading the dealer.

 

[Kasi]

and
have the firm discipline to precisely follow your game plan
you might be like a cow asking for directions in the slaughterhouse!

For me, learning to live with losing has been the toughest lesson of all, and unless you are rock-solid in the above, you may have a tough go of things - (again not a reflection on you, but on me!)

Hey - thanks for saying thanks - not sure how much I helped lol.

But I like what you said lol.

The big point is, after you have a sim, you can ask it all the questions you want.

Sorry if you have been losing.

Another aspect of ROR and why more roll is better isn't just because your lifetime risk is lower. It's also becasue the chances of losing, say, half your roll are greatly diminished too. Like a 13% RoR may not sound that bad but a 50% chance of losing half your roll might not sound as good. There's alot of extra volatility of losing proportions of roll with higher risks. If your 13% is based on a $10 min you really can't re-size your min $unit after losing half your roll to re-establish your original risk by re-establishing the same number of units, from that point forward becasue maybe there is no $5 min table available.

If you have a sim, you can ask it all that "chances of winning 50% of my roll before losing 50% of it in so long", how much should I bring if I'm only gonna play 1000 rounds to have a risk I can deal with, etc stuff.

If you change something, anything that you have had to tell the sim in the first place to assume, rules, pen, indexes, cover, spreading to more than 1 hand, heads-up or full table, play-all or BCting, etc run another sim and see what changes. I'd try to always keep the risk where I wanted it to be, what I'm comfortable with, the sameish in all cases. Not that I do this stuff like you guys but I'd probably crap my pants with a 5% ROR lmao.

But, bottom line, if you play to some sim as best you can, at least you'll know your EV per round and SD per round and can go back to your room and tell it I won or lost so much in so many rounds. You'll know your risk from that point forward from that game becasue you now have either more or fewer units than you originally did.

If you record results over time according to what 10 different sims may have said because you played that many different scenarios, you can always combine it all together and get your overall variance from expected if you want.

No expected EV/rd, no SD/rd, no nothing.

If you ( I mean "one" not you lol) can't measure results after 1 shoe, you sure as heck can't do it a year later. In my apparently fantasy-island unrealistic world, if I couldn't do that, there would not be a doubt in my mind it would fall under the "I know I don't know so I won't play until I do" category

It's a deal-breaker. I could live with marginal counting ability, erratic use of indexes, almost anything, but not, ever, playing a hand without knowing what to expect from it.

Sometimes I think, some "ploppies" anyway, may have it all over you AP guys. At least they might know what to expect from every hand they play even if it's a minus number. At least they might know the number. Alot of them may even know their average bet size too after flat-betting 1000 hands lol. Maybe fewer might complete the Holy Trinity and know their SD lol. Almost all of them probably know their ROR if they play forever.

But, hey, 3 out of 4 ain't bad. After all, they are only "ploppies".

Are you as good as they are?

Do you know your average bet size?

Do you know your HE?

Do you know your ROR?

And, since you guys are AP guys, demand a little more from yourself than a "ploppy" demands, and know your SD too.

 

[shadroch]

If you have to ask for it, you haven't earned it.