Norm Wattenberger: Effect of Color Dependent Tag Values

[Don Schlesinger]

> See if anyone is curious?

> unbalanced vs balanced counts

> I believe of issue in the debate is that someone
> cannot accurately estimate TC?

> OK
> How about a very strong unbalanced count and/or the
> most popular

That would be K-O.

> VS
> Halves with an inaccurate TC estimate, not sure what
> would be appropriate say half deck off?

> Any thoughts?

Kind of a trick question, because we don't do many sims purposely trying to be "off" with our estimates. But, I'd say the results would be rather close. K-O and Hi-Lo perform very similarly. As you can see from BJA3, in the SCORE section, Halves outperforms Hi-Lo and K-O by anywhere from 3 to 20 percent, depending on the decks, rules, spreads, etc. (see pp. 171-172). Play Halves incorrectly, and the lower end of this outperformance may disappear. But I doubt that the upper end would.

Don

[The Jack of Black Jack]

> That would be K-O.

> Kind of a trick question, because we don't do many
> sims purposely trying to be "off" with our
> estimates. But, I'd say the results would be rather
> close. K-O and Hi-Lo perform very similarly. As you
> can see from BJA3, in the SCORE section, Halves
> outperforms Hi-Lo and K-O by anywhere from 3 to 20
> percent, depending on the decks, rules, spreads, etc.
> (see pp. 171-172). Play Halves incorrectly, and the
> lower end of this outperformance may disappear. But I
> doubt that the upper end would.

> Don

It would appear there may be a learning opportunity here.

A study could be done comparing an unbalanced count with a balanced count with certain amounts of built in TC error.

Example:

Compare KO

to

Hi Low (I would prefer halves ) with certain levels of TC error- 1 deck, half, quarter, maybe down to 5 cards. Then you can teach a conclusion that if you are going to employ a balanced count you had better be accurate in your TC conversions to within blank deck level.

A follow up point - If for betting you underestimate your advantage causing you to underbet you lower your ror and lower your hourly wage. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

If for betting you overestitmate your advantage you increase your hourly wage but raise your ror, maybe to an unacceptable level. This could of course be disasterous.

Not that you dont know these things