Blackjack

[Dave Schwartz]

Lansdale,

In the mid-70s I played the APC, with a side-count of aces and 8s, then later added 5s and 6s. Frankly, I could do that in my sleep. In fact, sometimes I did. LOL

I had a great playing partner back then named Jim Smith. No joke. That was really his name. He was the greatest shuffle tracker I ever saw on a single or double deck.

Our claim to fame was that we charmed them. Everybody KNEW we counted. We just greased all the floormen so well with gifts that they let us play. Same for the dealers.

One time we were playing single deck at the Four Queens (7 seats; 4 players, counting us) for small stakes (greens) and Jim was really dialed in on the deck. As the dealer is finishing her shuffle, he says, "Oh, let me cut!" She pushes him the cards and he says, "Get ready for all 4 aces in the first hand!"

So, we fire up off the top, sure enough, 4 snappers show up. Unfortunately, one of them was the dealer's with the ace underneath.

He was just really impressive. I had no clue how to do that.

[bugboy]

if ya wanna learn more 'bout bj, this is one of the best places.....
stanford wongs bj.com
believe me I am not in any way involved with these people other than being a member of their green chip site. take a look at it. let me know what ya think about it.

[Valuist]

Lansdale-

Thanks for the response. I listen to Richard Munchkin on the podcast he does weekly with at Bob Dancer's site.

Wiffle-

Clean from VP.....but certainly not clean from betting sports.

[lansdale]

Originally Posted by bugboy

if ya wanna learn more 'bout bj, this is one of the best places.....
stanford wongs bj.com
believe me I am not in any way involved with these people other than being a member of their green chip site. take a look at it. let me know what ya think about it.

I don't want to seem to be promoting Wong's site, since I've mentioned him a few times in this thread, but this is the place to go to learn about BJ. One comment - although anyone can join the Green Chip page for a small monthly fee (I think $12, but it may have gone up - I don't check my bill), for newer players the Free page is probably a better place to go and ask questions - the are a number of very knowledgeable pro and serious amateurs who post there and will answer basic questions. Green Chip is also very good, but the level is much higher and there is often much less patience in dealing with basic issues.

[lansdale]

Originally Posted by Valuist

Lansdale-

Thanks for the response. I listen to Richard Munchkin on the podcast he does weekly with at Bob Dancer's site.

Wiffle-

Clean from VP.....but certainly not clean from betting sports.

Hi Valuist,

I haven't listened to Munchkin's show, but when it comes to BJ, he certainly knows his stuff.

I've noticed that there seems to be a general theme among new BJ aspirants of 'how can I get better'? The fact is, once you are playing correctly, making the correct plays and bets (and hopefully having someone monitor this), and being comfortable doing so in a casino, the most important step, as the Munchkin podcast suggests, is game selection.

Since, with the expansion of casino gambling, there's now a huge choice of BJ games available, the ability to quickly analyze game quality is key. Part of this may seem obvious - you want games with fewer decks, better cuts, better rules etc., but much is also surprisingly counterintuitive. Isn't the 2-deck game with the .5 cut better than the 6-deck game with a one-deck cut - probably not. To compare games, many years ago Don Schlesinger developed a tool called SCORE, to compare and evaluate blackjack games. For those familiar with the financial world, it's very similar to the Sharpe Ratio (in fact Don claims he was first with this!). If you have or obtain a copy of his book, it's filled with pages of SCORE charts, with appropriate bet ramps, for the vast majority of extant blackjack games. Combine this with 'real world' conditions - table crowding, dealer speed, casino tolerance etc., and you begin to have an idea how pro players operate.

Cheers,

lansdale

[wiffleball whizz]

You guys are sick human beings......great guys just sick cadets

[proximity]

i just play basic strategy for recreation, but i'm going to have to boycott all caesar's properties after i was busted at slowboat a.c. for wrongly collecting $10.

i break, put out my next $10, the dealer breaks, and mistakenly pays me on the break.

i'm sitting there with like $30 left when 10 min later the phone rings in the pit.

uhh?? slowboat, i'm going to lose that $30 and probably keep coming back to lose thousands more over the years. or at least i was.

hopefully borgata busts me on my next a.c. trip.

[Poindexter]

Good discussion here. Was wondering if card clumping is a real issue when counting cards into shoes. I remember reading about it a number of years ago. The idea was that the shuffles were not adequate enough to randomize the deck and the nature of the game caused small cards and big cards to clump together. The theory made a lot of sense to me and seemed to play out on the tables. Also it seems like clumping would make the game real hard to beat. Landale or anyone else, any thoughts on this subject. Also with regards to disguising bet size, I always felt that if rather than flat betting, if you played like most people do, increase your bet after a win, it is much easier to disguise your play. For instance You are betting $50 and hand then all of a sudden a good count and you go to $250 and the table is loaded with picture cards you just totally gave yourself away. But if you go from 50 to 100 after a win to 200 after another win and at that point you either stay at 200 or increase modestly after that, it is much easier to make subtle or not that subtle adjustments when playing in favorable or unfavorable situations without really looking suspicious. Also it lets you take advantage of the streaks of the game, as you are betting minimum when you go on your long losing streaks and you are betting much higher stakes when you go on your long winning streaks. Obviously you get destroyed when you cannot muster up a winning streak of 3 hands in a row, which of course will happen from time to time.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by Poindexter

Good discussion here. Was wondering if card clumping is a real issue when counting cards into shoes. I remember reading about it a number of years ago. The idea was that the shuffles were not adequate enough to randomize the deck and the nature of the game caused small cards and big cards to clump together. The theory made a lot of sense to me and seemed to play out on the tables. Also it seems like clumping would make the game real hard to beat. Landale or anyone else, any thoughts on this subject. Also with regards to disguising bet size, I always felt that if rather than flat betting, if you played like most people do, increase your bet after a win, it is much easier to disguise your play. For instance You are betting $50 and hand then all of a sudden a good count and you go to $250 and the table is loaded with picture cards you just totally gave yourself away. But if you go from 50 to 100 after a win to 200 after another win and at that point you either stay at 200 or increase modestly after that, it is much easier to make subtle or not that subtle adjustments when playing in favorable or unfavorable situations without really looking suspicious. Also it lets you take advantage of the streaks of the game, as you are betting minimum when you go on your long losing streaks and you are betting much higher stakes when you go on your long winning streaks. Obviously you get destroyed when you cannot muster up a winning streak of 3 hands in a row, which of course will happen from time to time.

The problem is that the emergence of the favorable count of a particular shoe will not necessarily lead to the type of winning streak which would allow the escalation of your bets to go unnoticed. What do you do when the count becomes favorable while you have lost a few hands in a row?

There is a misconception that the "counter's" edge is so great that ANY betting variation will lead to some sort of profit, as long as he bets more when the deck is "favorable". The reality is that the counter's edge is very slim...and there is very little room for any deviations from "perfect play" -- either in playing strategy or in the betting.

The counter drastically raises his bet even though he knows that he may attract attention, not because he wants to...but because he has to.

Your last couple of sentences concerning the theory of escalating your wagers while you win have been the subject of several books...and I have read them too. It is supposedly possible to overcome the disadvantage that the player faces in the game, by trying to take advantage of the "winning streaks" that are likely to occur while playing.

I, myself, am not impressed by the logic of this argument....

[myhorse1]

an incredible amount of information is available at this
site.

a great deal of it is free with no registration.


http://www.qfit.com/book/

[myhorse1]

from poindexter
Obviously you get destroyed when you cannot muster up a winning streak of 3 hands in a row, which of course will happen from time to time.

regarding streaks-- from somewhere on the previous on the site i mentioned i got this graphic.

streaks of three less than 10% of the time.


http://www.blackjackincolor.com/useless3.htm

[davew]

Originally Posted by wiffleball whizz

The best is when people take hits on wrong cards and people get mad....like that effects the player either way Hahahahaha

I can see why you are sure it can't be beat.

[lansdale]

Originally Posted by Poindexter

Good discussion here. Was wondering if card clumping is a real issue when counting cards into shoes. I remember reading about it a number of years ago. The idea was that the shuffles were not adequate enough to randomize the deck and the nature of the game caused small cards and big cards to clump together. The theory made a lot of sense to me and seemed to play out on the tables. Also it seems like clumping would make the game real hard to beat. Landale or anyone else, any thoughts on this subject. Also with regards to disguising bet size, I always felt that if rather than flat betting, if you played like most people do, increase your bet after a win, it is much easier to disguise your play. For instance You are betting $50 and hand then all of a sudden a good count and you go to $250 and the table is loaded with picture cards you just totally gave yourself away. But if you go from 50 to 100 after a win to 200 after another win and at that point you either stay at 200 or increase modestly after that, it is much easier to make subtle or not that subtle adjustments when playing in favorable or unfavorable situations without really looking suspicious. Also it lets you take advantage of the streaks of the game, as you are betting minimum when you go on your long losing streaks and you are betting much higher stakes when you go on your long winning streaks. Obviously you get destroyed when you cannot muster up a winning streak of 3 hands in a row, which of course will happen from time to time.

From your post, you sound like you count, but you seem to have only a fuzzy idea of why blackjack is beatable or, in general, the math of gambling. Don't know what you heard about card clumping. If it was the TARGET nonsense from decades back, it was a huge and profitable scam. Ignore it. The issue of non-random shuffles was exhaustively researched three decades ago, but this is a good summary by Arnold Snyder of why it's a non-issue, from only two decades back.

"John Imming’s Real World Casino (RWC) software allows programmable, nonrandom, casino-style shuffles. The deck(s) begin in regulation new deck order, and the shuffle routines simulate actual riffles, strips, cuts and washes, as fine or as clumpy as you decide, even utilizing casino-style breaks into multiple shuffling segments if you so desire.

Here’s what I’ve found with the RWC software so far:

The biggest effect on the player’s expectation I could find comes from no shuffling whatsoever. Ironically, this is a player advantage, not a house advantage. I’ve tried Imming’s software with 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 deck games, with both lay & pay, and pick & pay, dealing styles, and the player advantage rises by .70%-.75% if playing one-on-one with the dealer, regardless of the number of decks in play or the pick up style. Somehow, the play of the hands puts the cards into an order that favors the player.

Both Stanford Wong and John Gwynn had independently discovered this years earlier. Wong, in fact, ran a computer analysis to determine in what way the play of the hands ordered the discards differently from random, and he discovered that in the discard pile high cards do tend to clump with high cards, and low cards with low cards. We don’t know why this favors the player, but it does.

As multiple players are added to the table, this no-shuffle player advantage diminishes. For some reason, the first base side of the table retains the advantage, but the third base side loses it and then some.

Once you start adding any type of shuffle at all to the game, the (dis)advantages diminish, until the real world shuffle results are indistinguishable from random-number-generated shuffle results. The biggest effect I could find in a simulated casino game, utilizing what I figured to be the sloppiest shuffle you might realistically expect to find, was a couple tenths of a percent more or less than the normal basic strategy expectation."

http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/...ck_systems.htm

As far as exploiting those clumps profitably, i.e. shuffle-tracking, I think the Munchkin piece above makes clear why this is now a non-starter, unless you're headed for Eastern Slovakia.

Parlaying rather than jumping your bet is a valid way to avoid attention, but if you're playing the shoe game, as most are, the true count changes so slowly that a bet jump of this kind would almost never be justified anyway. As I've said before in this thread, at these bet levels (yes, even 250) there's less attention being paid to your play than you think.

Re streaks, your play has no effect on them one way or other. You just have to play through them, and as every gambler knows, they can be brutal. You seem unaware of the Law of Independent Trials - the outcomes of successive bets (trials) are uncorrelated. What happened on your last bet has absolutely nothing to do with the next. When you refer to unfavorable situations, I assume you're talking about negative counts. If you're playing negative counts, you should stop. The life you save could be your bankroll's.

Cheers,

lansdale

[lansdale]

Originally Posted by myhorse1

an incredible amount of information is available at this
site.

a great deal of it is free with no registration.


http://www.qfit.com/book/

In fact, the best at what he does.

[lansdale]

Originally Posted by davew

I can see why you are sure it can't be beat.

WW may not understand why blackjack can be beaten, but his quote was right.